The person responded to my barrage. “That’s a lot of questions. I’m not sure which to answer first, but I’ll start with the easiest one. I’m not a beastman.”
“You don’t look like normal folk to me either, though.”
“Well, yeah. That’s because I’m not any human species.”
“What are you trying to say?” I couldn’t understand what they meant.
But they just observed my expression with a mild smile and went on. “I understand your feelings, but that’s the only way I can describe it. If I were to make it simpler for you, then I suppose...I’m that.”
“That?” I repeated, aware of how foolish I sounded.
The person raised their arm, pointed a finger, and said, “That thing you tried to move earlier.”
I hurriedly glanced at that. The statue of something atop the altar.
It was an effigy of a sheep beastman.
“So basically, you’re the...deity or whatever that’s enshrined here?” I asked dubiously.
There were still villages and towns that clandestinely worshipped evil gods, to be sure. They weren’t unheard of, even in Oraculum where the Church of Astral kept a tight leash. But obviously, they were purged by Holy Maidens or the Order of Paladins as soon as they were discovered.
I wondered how the Urizen Federation dealt with these factions. I imagined they wouldn’t be anywhere nearly as severe as the Oraculum Kingdom about it. After all, there was no official state religion—especially not since the founding of the Federation. Though they no longer had to observe each state’s unique religion and value system, they couldn’t intervene much in religious affairs anymore. Of course, there wasn’t a total lack of oversight...but as a foreigner, I had trouble comprehending the finer nuances of this.
As I pondered this, the being with curly horns replied.
“I can’t give you a clear answer there. I was treated as a deity, at least. But am I really a deity? That’s harder to say.”
“So you aren’t one.”
“I don’t suppose I am. I think I’m closer to...a spirit,” they answered.
Spirits are beings of solidified energy representing earth, water, fire, or wind. So this one is something like that? I tilted my head. Actually, to be honest, I can’t even tell if they’re male or female. They look androgynous.
“People’s prayers are a force to be reckoned with. The people who used to live in this village prayed to this idol for many years, and I materialized as a result.”
“The power of prayer? So you’re like an artificial spirit?”
Artificial spirits were a product of magitech. There was a technological system that could artificially create spirits, which arose and expired naturally, through artificial concentration and manipulation of mana. This system could even generate types of spirits that would never form naturally. It couldn’t be done easily, since it required large stores of mana, lengthy rituals, and an awful lot of offerings. But a country as big as Oraculum could sufficiently pull it off once every few years.
Could such a tiny village manage something similar? Is that even possible? Then again, the magnitude of mana and rituals and offerings is just to speed up the process...
As I wondered this, the being spoke again.
“Well, I suppose it must be something like that. I came into existence a hundred years after this village was established, and I’ve been watching over it for a few hundred years since...so I think I’m pretty old. I’ve been able to live this long because I’m similar to a spirit.”
“But there’s nothing left in this village now. How is it that you’re still here?”
It was no secret that people’s prayers could materialize as real beings, interchangeably called spirits or demigods. But it was also a known fact that without a continuous supply of energy or prayers, these beings would expire in due time. And yet this one had continued to exist for decades without receiving power from anyone. This was bizarre.
The sheep-horned artificial spirit responded, “Well, it’s probably thanks to that effigy. I don’t know if you can tell just by looking, but there’s a large mana stone set in it. A girl who often used to speak to me a long time ago put it in there. My existence has felt remarkably stable ever since.”
“Is that so?” Hearing them mention this made me terribly curious to see for myself. Still, I demurred. I knew the kind of trusting relationship and trade-offs that they must have had with the residents of this village since long ago.
I didn’t know what kind of being they had been. But this village had most likely worshipped them as their deity made flesh. Since the being had a physical form and could touch me, they must have given the villagers actual divine protection. Of course I was hesitant to casually touch the effigy made to worship this spirit and the mana stone kept inside.
Any other adventurer might not have cared, but this was my first time encountering a technically divine being. Whatever god had bestowed the <Holy King> ability upon me still hadn’t shown up to explain anything, but I still held some weird respect for it. This might sound peculiar, but I often felt that there was meaning behind the things we mortals were granted. Thus, I believed that meeting this sheep-horned demigod also held some meaning.
“By the way, I’m asking this a little late, but who are you all? You don’t seem like residents of this village. They all passed away a long time ago,” the sheep-horned entity said.
I’d almost forgotten that neither of us had properly introduced ourselves yet.
“Oh, I’m Noah. Stuff happened, and now I’m the tenant of this town and the land around it. Strictly speaking, I’ve been granted the position of mayor as well.” It felt weird to call this completely vacant region a town, although we had plans to construct buildings and the like soon enough.
The horned entity reacted in surprise. “What? You really want to borrow this area? It’s been a ghost town for so long. You’re quite an eccentric human.”
“That’s rich, coming from someone who’s been hanging around this abandoned ghost town since forever.”
“I don’t have a say in that. I’d love to go somewhere else if I could, but it seems I can’t stray too far from this effigy. Besides, I barely have a fraction of my former power.”
This was new information. “Really?”
“Yes. It used to be that I could perform minor miracles with enough accumulated prayer power from the villagers. I could create a font of water or move boulders.”
“Wow, that’s really something.”
Those were useful abilities. Human magic could accomplish similar feats, but not easily. Water magic couldn’t create an entire spring from nothing. Although, you could probably manage to move boulders with earth magic...
It seems they can use a power that’s fundamentally different from mortal magic systems. I might be able to take advantage of this, I thought.
The horned entity sensed that I was being overly eager. “Are you thinking about exploiting me?” they asked with suspicion.
I could’ve masked my intentions and pretended otherwise, but that just didn’t feel like the right thing to do. So I spoke honestly.
“That’s a nasty way of putting it, but I was hoping that you’d cooperate with me, if possible. I—I mean we—are going to build a village here. I don’t know how big it’ll end up being, but if we’re doing all this work anyway, I want to make it as comfortable to live in as we can. If you’d lend us your power as a spirit, I think construction would go a lot smoother.”