The monstrous preacher known as Samantha extended her arms and neatly folded her clothes. I felt like I was having a nightmare.
“Do you look like that because of the pills?”
“Half-correct,” she said, gleefully showing off the white pills. “These are called Ascending. It’s like a compressed version of Release’s ingredients, and therefore more powerful. It guides your soul to a higher form.”
“You people made it?”
“Humans are a sinful species, aren’t they?”
Some priest somewhere had tricked someone else into making more drugs, then. The scum.
“And why did you turn yourself into a monster in front of me?”
One of them had worked as a carrier for the guild for years, so the idea of a preacher secretly carrying on their own career wasn’t particularly shocking to me. What confused me was the decision to show me her true self. Keeping that a secret would give her an advantage over me. It would be much easier for her to assassinate me and Arwin. Why would she give that up?
“‘Those who seek faith, fear not confrontation and strife, but offer your soul instead. Present not a false self.’”
“Isn’t that…?”
“Chapter two, verse seventeen of the Holy Book, ‘On God’s Love and Trust.’”
“Would you mind not quoting scripture? It’ll rot my ears.”
In other words, it was a typical religious teaching that if one wanted to be trusted, one should not lie. And unbelievably, this woman was embodying that teaching.
“I thought this would be quicker and more convincing than a hundred words of persuasion,” she added, offering me a glass of wine. Even for free, I wasn’t in the mood to drink.
“So is this your last day running the place?”
The people of this town despised that bloated tick of a sun god. He was the one who had caused the stampede that ravaged their homes. If I spoke up about her, the whole town would mob her place.
“That depends on you, Giant-Eater Mardukas.”
In other words, if I talked, she would reveal my secrets, too.
“You didn’t kill Donald to keep him quiet, then?”
“Too many little gnats make things complicated.”
Donald had been looking into the possibility of sufferers in the ranks. If he’d reported it to the guild, they would have taken action.
“Now, about what I wanted to discuss…”
“If you’re asking me to join you, the answer is no.”
“I didn’t think you would,” said Samantha, delightedly clicking her pincers. “Even Levi failed to convince you. I don’t suppose I’m up to the challenge.”
“Then why did you bring me here?”
“You might not join me—but perhaps you’d be willing to fight on our side.”
“On your side?”
“It’s not just you and the Sun God who seek the Astral Crystal. There are others.”
“Like who?”
“Opus, the Earth Mother,” Samantha said scornfully. “The age of gods is behind us. The ability to work miracles is nothing like it once was. Soon faith will vanish and become a relic of the past. We have kept fighting to prevent that from happening.”
It just sounded like gang warfare to me. Talking about faith made it sound nice, but it was basically a turf war over resources.
“They are attempting to snatch the Astral Crystal and our long-hatched plans for it out from under our noses. We cannot keep up, because we have few preachers, and not enough sufferers, either. We need to expand our strength.”
“Why me?”
She had to know I’d killed her fellow preachers. Dez and Natalie were in this town, too.
“To a god, humans are indistinguishable from one another.”
That made sense. Just like how humans couldn’t tell individual bees and ants apart.
“But the Sun God has a personal and distinct interest in you. This is quite rare. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it happen before in over a century of serving him.”
“Then you should take my spot.”
“It would be heresy for the likes of me to attempt to change God’s mind,” she said, snorting indignantly. “The Earth Mother’s ministers are powerful. Randy was inadequate in the recent past, and I don’t think I could beat one on my own, either.”
“Are you guys the ones who’ve been causing trouble around here?”
If Samantha was telling the truth, a minister of the Earth Mother was in town already. That church had rabid inquisitors working for them, so their ministers couldn’t be great, either. It was bad enough dealing with the pit-stained sun god, but another god? Give me a break.
“That Randy fellow came after me just a little while ago.”
“He wasn’t too rough, was he? He’s not a bad guy, but he can be a bit of a hothead.”
“Well, not anymore. He’s a not-head now.”
“Oh.”
This seemed to be news to her. It brought her up short for a minute. Served her right.
“You beat him?”
“That’s right.”
I didn’t have to explain Natalie to her.
“Then I’d better give him a funeral. Not that there’s a body to bury.”
“Who was Randy anyway? A subordinate of yours?” I asked before she could start praying in her monstrous form. The last thing I wanted to hear was prayers for that shit-splattered sun god.
“My husband—nominally, at least,” she added pleasantly. “It’s more convenient to have a husband with you than to be alone. Easier to get into the town and start my own business.”
That tracked. A married woman didn’t have to answer as many prying questions.
“He was a good man—young but responsible. You might have been friends with him.”
“I’m not going to be friends with anyone who gets off on tormenting a fourteen-year-old girl.”
“…That’s a shame.”
She didn’t elaborate on what part of it was a shame.
“Back to the topic at hand, you’ve defeated three…no, four of our preachers. I was thinking that you might be capable of counteracting the Earth Mother’s influence.”
“They get weakened inside the dungeon, too, right?”
“They have their own sufferers. But they call them ‘martyrs.’”