Chapter 308: Judgment

In the realm of gods, where all who ruled over the races of the world resided, ever staring down at the acts of their people, an exceedingly rare event was being held. A meeting to discuss the fate of a single mortal.

It was rare that any moral would do anything worthy enough for a god to consider directly punishing them, rarer still for multiple gods to get involved in the matter, but all of them? Not even Olop had gotten such a gathering. It was unprecedented.

It was only after an already long, tiring discussion on the actions of the forbidden gods and just what they’d done that things even got to that point. None in attendance denied that those who’d done something so foolish needed to die. It was an inescapable fact. Their selfish choice may have cost them the world after all. The issue was the form the execution took, namely the fact that a mortal was allowed to carry it out

“It’s outrageous!” The god Eneth yelled, fire burning in his reptilian eyes. “Not only to allow a mortal to awaken sacrilege, but to come so close to getting to the third tier as well? We need to act before he can inflict any true harm to the world! The boy needs to be banished to the infinite hells immediately!”

“Eneth, you’re just sore because he taught your child a well-deserved lesson about picking fights. Of all the summoned on this world, Ben could be said to have the greatest accomplishments by far,” Anailia said in his favour. “Not only had he solved the issue of passive magics, he’s the only reason we were alerted to this issue in the first place. The fact that he was able to use this event to strengthen himself is a boon.”

“So long as he doesn’t intend to point his fangs at us. We only have this chance to act! If he achieves the third tier then he’ll ascend to godhood when he dies and we won’t have another opportunity, and we all know how appealing such a thing is to mortals. Who’s to say he won’t go attacking priests and burning churches to try and push it over the edge? Worse, what if he decides to attack one of us while we’re descended in our believers? If he manages to become a god of sacrilege then we might not be able to touch him as a god, instead having to live in fear of him exerting the property on us! Are all of you willing to accept that risk?”

Looking around, while only a few gods seemed to be explicitly on Eneth’s side, many were uncertain. The points brought up weren’t wrong, but to kill a mortal who hadn’t truly done anything wrong yet was unreasonable. They needed mortals, while a certain level of fear was expected due to the difference in the scale of their existence, none among them were evil gods. They prided themselves on trying to be fair at the very least.

The issue was that despite that, while there was only a small number in favour of banishing his soul, only a small number were speaking to his defense as well. They were in a stalemate. It all came down to who would sway the rest.

“It is nice to hear all opinions of course,” Began one of the undecided, a god whose defining property was choice. “But I believe we should listen to the one who knows him best on the matter. Myriad, since he is your apostle, what do you have to say for the boy?”

“Now hold on,” Eneth cut in. “That should be obvious enough already, what point is there in-“

“Ben is dangerous,” the cube said calmly, having been quiet till then thinking long and hard on what to say, bringing the rest of them to silence with his first words. The other gods around stared at him in surprise, with the ones who’d actually met Ben wondering just where he was going with it. “It’s no secret he doesn’t attach any special meaning to gods. In fact, I’d say he has a negative impression of all of us, at least until he gets to meet and talk with us that is. From there, his evaluation is on the level of how he would look at a person, not a power above him. Frankly, I don’t think anyone here has the right to blame him for that either. We ripped his soul from his old world for our own purposes without any consideration for what to do if an individual like him were to show up, the end result being the communal church deciding on its own to help him with no input from any of us to help create a better impression.”

“He has a second chance at life,” one scoffed. ” Considering that I’d say he has plenty.”

“He was dragged back to life and immediately told that the world was in peril from a race that had killed thousands of them, he has every right to not be grateful for such a thing,” Another counter.

“Regardless,” Myriad said, pulling attention back to himself. “That isn’t the only thing that makes Ben dangerous. In fact, there’s many. The more obvious we can draw from how easily he can kill demons is the fact that he doesn’t place any special value on life. It should have been obvious from the start for anyone watching really. Unlike many of the other summoned from cultures where killing isn’t commonplace, he had no issue with it from the beginning, even though he had no history of hunting like the ones that were able to quickly adapt to their new situation had. More important though is how he interacts with the system itself. I’ve checked his soul early on to be sure, but he doesn’t have any natural affinity for it. Despite that, in less than three years since he arrived on the world, he went from level zero and one skills to three awakened ones, with a few more already close. That isn’t even mentioning his talent for jobs. Aside from the fact that he seems to constantly push himself to his limits and enjoy every second of it, he’s excellent at figuring out ways to gain experience quickly. Can any of you guess how many he’s gone through since coming to this world?”

“What, maybe ten after what he pulled by killing those gods?”

“Try nineteen,” Myriad told them, getting a shocked silence as a result as the gods around him questioned if any mortal had ever completed so many in such a short span of time. There were always times when a certain individual figured out a way to finish a job unusually fast, but to devote the effort needed to do that was something else entirely. “Ben has a level of determination to rise to outrageous heights, and a level of indifference to the gods to make him a powerful enemy if he chooses to be, and all of this and more is why we absolutely cannot try to banish him to the infinite hells.”

“I’d say you made a pretty convincing case for it Myriad,” Eneth said as many neutral gods gave unsure nods. “If the boy is as dangerous as you say, then we’d be all the wiser to do it now before it’s too late.”

“Well, there’s two points you need to consider,” Myriad began to explain. “The first is that even if Ben doesn’t have a good opinion of most gods, he doesn’t dislike any to the point that he’d actively attack them. Despite everything I’ve said, Ben’s actions show his character, he’s not a bad person. Even you, who went so far as to name him your enemy in a title, are at most someone who happens to be related to an idiot in his mind. Second and more importantly though, I believe if you all try to do it then you will fail, and through the attempt you will finally register to him as people that mean him harm.”

“He hasn’t hit tier three yet, how could we fail?” The other god said with a laugh. “Unlike some, many of us have held onto a good number of believers over the years. Even if for whatever reason one of us couldn’t because of the strength we’ve lost, so long as we work together it will be child’s play.”

“Except for the change we’ve seen in how the system has started interacting with him as soon as he awakened the skill. When he did his thoughts went silent to us, and his head filled with notifications, asking if he would allow every god trying to see his thoughts access by name. Tell me, all of you who would decide the fate of my apostle, if you fail, if you try to rip his soul from his body and the system stops you while telling him the names of every god who participated, how do you think he will act?”

The confident mood of the gods in favour disappeared as some turned to the two other gods who had gained access to Ben’s mind.

“It’s true,” Helori told them with a nod. “And it shouldn’t be particularly surprising, we’ve seen the system interact with some skills on significantly deeper levels than others, and now that he’s at the ninth level of the second tier it would be shocking to me if we could do anything harmful to him.”

“We aren’t talking about some form of limited analysis here like so many other skills mortals get Helori, you’re describing a built-in defense against gods!”

“Potentially there could be attacks too,” She said with a shrug. “We have no clue what the limits are of this skill, and I’m personally not going to put myself on the line to find them out.”

The mood amongst those in favour of Ben’s banishment only grew worse, as even those opposed felt horrified, though leaving them confident that they were in the right as one muttered.

“How could the system allow a skill like that to exist?”

“Can you blame it?” Anailia asked dryly, getting no response as she did. “Anyway, this is nothing like the case of Olop, the fact that we have more gods here to discuss it than that last one is shameful. However this vote turns out, you will not find me working to punish the child, and if you all fail we can be clear on just whose side I’m taking.”

A round of agreements joined her as every god whose race possessed a passive magic spoke up. All of their people had been oppressed to an extent, trapped in their lands, limits to their travel in the world and looked at with fear where they went. It was thanks to Ben that changed and none of them would forget that, a fact that was clear to the other gods.

“You would divide us during such an important time?” Eneth spat.

“No, you would. You’re the one with the unruly child and the bruised pride trying to take it out on a mortal who slighted you Eneth, and I’ve already let you off lightly for what your child did to mine,” Anailia spoke, eyes flaring with her long thin teeth bared.

“She’s not your child, she’s just a believer. And a particularly dangerous one at that too.”

“Nobody but I gets to decide what my believers are to me, and I say they are my children, and if you have anything more to say about Thera then this discussion is going to become significantly less civil little god.”

The venom in her voice kept Eneth from talking back, and eventually he backed down, though not completely.

“We said we’d have a vote, so let’s bring it to a vote,” He said, not looking at Anailia and by extension avoiding the eyes of those on her side. “All in favour?”

Around them all, hands and hand equivalents went up, even if it was just a projection of mana, but it still amounted to no more than a tenth total, making Eneth clench his teeth as he called out the other.

“And all opposed?”

If the majority of them decided to stay neutral on the matter then it still could have potentially gone through, but it seemed that for as much trouble as Ben had caused, he’d managed to make some good impressions, combined with Myriad’s warning to the other gods. With the call came fifty percent of the other gods taking his side, leaving forty percent either neutral, undecided, or some level of indifferent as the meeting among them came to a close.

“…Very well. It seems we’ll have to wait for him to show what a threat he is before we act then. This meeting is over.”

With that, each god went back to their own tasks, with Anailia and Helori joining Myriad in his realm.

“Just had to get the last word in, didn’t he?” Helori tisked. “What an outrageous way for a god to act.”

“He’s just sore to find his church significantly poorer, as well as the fact that he’s lacking in faith at the moment. He was happy to bet plenty that Ben would die in the trial after all,” Anailia chuckled. “An excellent reason to avoid gambling.”

Myriad for his part had already crashed to the ground, drained from the encounter. “Thank you both. Really, I don’t know what I’d have done without the help.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Helori said as she began using him as a seat. “Your apostle is a bit obnoxious, but I’d be a failure as a goddess of magic and knowledge if I let a mind like that be banished for something so dumb.”

“And I’m looking forward to having him as a son-in-law one day,” Anailia laughed. “Such a pleasant concept, isn’t it?”

“I’m not sure you’d think so if you saw how much stress he constantly puts me through, but at the very least as long as he isn’t doing anything worse than he usually does things might be okay… Oh, who am I kidding, the moment that he does something to sway that forty percent against him he’s screwed.”

As much as Myriad cared for Ben and even genuinely thought he was a good person when it came down to it, he couldn’t help but think it would only be weeks before his apostle might do something to force him to re-evaluate that belief all over again.

He’s just lucky nobody brought up how he acted at Allfaith when he got out of the trial, probably only ‘cause it would point back to our failings that allowed him to be put in that situation in the first place. Oh Ben, please stop causing me so much stress!

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