He decided to ask the villagers what they meant about praying to Vida. As it turned out, back in the Saulon Domain, most worshipped Vida rather than Alda. Looking at the residents of the reclamation villages, while most were humans and there were no dark elves, there was a fair number of beastmen and giantlings. But in the Duke Heartner domain that welcomed them in, most of the nobles including the duke worshipped Alda and his dependent gods, meaning it was those temples that flourished. When setting up the pioneer villages, the soldiers had erected shrines to Alda, not to mention the priest who did the rounds belonged to the Alda faith. Worship of Vida wasn’t forbidden, but there was pressure not to put up shrines to Vida and the other gods like they had back home.
I don’t like to hear that. It weighed Vandal down a little, but he was most concerned about Princess Lebia and the other refugees from Talosheim, including Borkz’s daughter. If Alda held strong in this domain, it might have been difficult for them to carve out lives for themselves. I’m still concerned about these villages. I guess I’ll leave Lemures around them and bury some Stone Golems at strategic points. If I carve a holy Vida symbol into their chests, the villagers should hopefully see them as allies. He was sure everything would be fine.
“We finally caught up with you!”
Vandal turned to see Kasim, his party, and the priest all rushing over as he finished placing the horde of Lemures he had been making the past few days. For some reason, they had come all the way from the Seventh to find him here.
“I didn’t expect you to actually visit all of the villages!”
“Come back to the Seventh, will you? Everyone is worried!” Fester exclaimed.
“We set out for the Fifth the day after you flew off with Kain,” Kasim explained. They wanted to make sure their fellow refugees from the Saulon Domain and the one who had saved their lives were okay. Joined by the Alda priest, the four of them rushed to the Fifth. They found Kain and the other villagers there, planning to erect the shrine to Vida. “They told us how you flew off, so we’ve been chasing after you ever since! Really, what are you?! I can’t believe all the stuff you can do!”
“The villagers were worried you and Kain might have fallen out the sky, so we ended up going around every other village to find you,” Fester continued.
“And you’ve been working all sorts of miracles everywhere you go, by the sound of it! It sounds like we’ve been chasing a saint rather than a flying child! Right, Father?”
“Exactly right.” The priest of Divina Alda, mopping the sweat from his brow with a sleeve, had a strange look on his face. It felt more . . . human than his fake smile, at least. “Before, I suggested we might work together. But it seems more prudent to suggest that you give me instruction in your arts. How have you cured entire villages? Healed the scars from burns? Dug a well in mere moments? Some speak of receiving holy waters from your hands, freeing them from a multitude of ailments. Please, share your knowledge with us!”
Hearing all of this, Vandal was faced with exactly how impressive his deeds were, at least to these people. Turning the eyedrops from his claws into holy water was gilding the lily a little, but still.
Vandal also wasn’t sure how to respond. He couldn’t fob off a real priest with a line about a divine messenger, but then he also didn’t feel like telling the truth. He decided to share a partial truth.
“I’ve got a few unique skills, that’s all.”
“Unique skills?” the priest exclaimed. “So that’s it!”
In this world, there were unique skills, such as Vandal’s own God Smiter. These superpowers and special talents were incredibly rare. Around one in ten thousand people might have one.
The priest and Kasim were quick to accept that everything Vandal had done was thanks to these unique skills. “What kind of skills do you have?!” the priest asked, eyes agog, body leaning forward.
Vandal shook his head. “I’m planning on making my living as an adventurer. I can’t afford to share that information.”
“Please, don’t be like that! It will be between me, you, and God!”
“No, Father!” Kasim and the others stepped in. “Adventurers live and die by what they can do. It’s not polite to pry too much about skills.”
“That’s right! I’d like to know too, but Vandal has done so much for us. We can’t repay that by twisting his arm for personal information.”
As adventurers themselves, Kasim and his party understood that the information displayed on a person’s status showed both their strengths and weaknesses. It was one thing if someone decided to share that information themselves, quite another to force them to reveal it. It was akin to asking someone to expose their greatest weaknesses. Vandal had shared his plans to become an adventurer in the future, meaning the same thing applied to him.
“Yes, of course. My apologies.” The priest snapped out of it, thanks to Kasim, and backed down.
“No need. Your understanding is all I ask.”
“If you are capable of such feats, though, why limit yourself to just being an adventurer?” the priest asked. “Surely you could become a great man of the cloth yourself!”
Vandal wasn’t sure what to make of this suggestion. He couldn’t imagine that a backwater priest like this guy had connections that could help him.
“Maybe, but I’m still young. I want to expand my horizons as an adventurer and build up some experience before I decide to do something like that.” If he started serving a noble or merchant, it would make it harder for him to achieve his goal of acquiring his own noble rank. It would also make it hard to quit even if he no longer needed the position. Vandal wanted to avoid such complexities.
“I see. Expanding your horizons is important. You’ve got a good head on those shoulders, for one so young.”
“Yeah, he’s certainly thinking more about his future than Fester,” Kasim said.
“Hey! Why are you dragging me into this?!”
With that, they headed back to the Seventh Reclamation Village. There was a spring in Vandal’s step because he hadn’t told a single lie. Death attribute magic was, after all, also a skill.
Kanata Kaito, reborn into Ramda, took a moment to enjoy the sudden resurgence of his corporeal form and the sense of satisfaction it elicited. His limbs had felt worthless in that dream-like dead state, but now they surged with strength, while a vital heart beat healthily in his chest. He let out a whoop of joy as soon as he opened his eyes, quickly followed by a less jolly whoop.
“God damn it, I knew it! Naked!”
He quickly composed himself, however. He might not have desired it, but he had received military training. He knew how important it was to stay composed in unfamiliar territory.
Of course, a better man would have been composed from the start.
In any case, Kanata checked his surroundings. From the height of the sun, it looked to be just before noon. There was low scrub and grass growing around him. It looked like some sort of empty plain, with no dangerous living creatures—human or otherwise—anywhere to be seen.
“They call us ‘mankind’ here,” Kanata recalled from the brain download he had been subjected to. “And there are intelligent races other than humans. Seriously, this place is a freaking video game!”
With that, he looked himself over. He didn’t exactly have a mirror handy, so there he had to forgo a close inspection. Apart from the absence of the gaping chest wound, however, everything looked as tucked and toned as his body had been on Origin right before his death. Even his moles were where he left them.
And as he had previously shouted about so enthusiastically, he was also standing there with a body but nothing else.
When he looked around, however, he did spot something.
A scattering of white bones, and some scattered packs of belongings.
“I guess this is what His Holiness meant when he said he’d make it work.” It didn’t seem very hygienic, but Kanata also wasn’t planning on fashioning clothing from plants, grabbing a big stick, and trying to kill Vandal like some primitive.
He searched through the belongings. He found some old but serviceable clothing and one rusty knife. There were also some silver and copper coins. Their original owner had clearly been killed by a beast or some other mindless creature.
“Wow, this stuff chafes. They don’t have cotton here? Hopefully it’s not covered in germs. Anyway, time to start hunting down this Vandal character—”
“This message has been set up to play automatically once you arrive on Ramda,” Rodocolte’s voice suddenly rang out.
“Ack! What the hell?!” Kanata leapt in surprise, grabbing the knife and darting around, but there was no sign of the god. Then he grinned sheepishly when he realized the voice was coming from inside his own head. “Some kind of game tutorial, is it?”
“First, collect the clothing and some money to get you started from the corpse on the ground nearby—”
“Yep, done that.”
The message from Rodocolte sounded pre-recorded. It didn’t answer his questions and didn’t change what it said based on his actions.
“Next, you need to check your status. Just think about it and it will appear for you.”
“Status, huh.” He still didn’t like the feeling of having been turned into a video game character, but he did as he was told and opened his status.
——Name: Kanata Kaito
——Race: Mankind
——Age: 29
——Alias: None
——Job: None
——Level: 0
——Job History: None
——Status
Vitality: 650
Magical Power: 42000
Strength: 95
Agility: 157
Muscle: 204
Intellect: 270
——Passive Skills
[Resist Poison: Level 10] [Resist Death Attribute: Level 5] [Resist Fire Attribute: Level 4]
[Muscle Enhancement: Level 5] [Magical Power Enhancement: Level 5] [Spiritual Pollution: Level 5]
——Active Skills
[Fire Attribute Magic: Level 8] [Wind Attribute Magic: Level 4] [Magic Control: Level 5]
[Bow Proficiency: Level 5] [Dagger Proficiency: Level 5] [Thrown Projectile Proficiency: Level 5] [Brawling Proficiency: Level 5]
[Cooperation: Level 5] [Survival: Level 3] [Sneaking Steps: Level 4] [Horse Riding: Level 6]
[Lifesaving: Level 4] [Discretionary Active Skills: Level 5]
——Unique Skill
[Gungnir: Level 10] [Target Radar: Holder of Death Attribute MP Over One Hundred Million] [Blessing of the Reincarnation God]