Chapter 76: Side Story: What if? (Shrine Maiden)

Katie approached the remains of the fox-kin village. She'd been intending to search the place for loot; despite the devastation, something might have remained. Maybe in Ja'yakril's house, which had been outside the town walls, and hence hopefully protected. However, despite her intent, she found herself distracted.

The town was crying.

The temple, and the shrine it contained, had been obliterated, yet still the world cried out, weeping for the loss of the divine object that should have stood there. Katie changed direction, and headed towards the previous location of the temple, the pain of the world reflected in the tears of her own eyes.

The previous location of the temple was deserted. Not one crystal brick remained on top of another, and neither was the entrance to the catacombs visible, either buried under rubble or collapsed completely. Nevertheless, Katie didn't require the aid of her map to know where it should stand.

"Accept my offering of mana, and rebuild what was lost," whispered Katie, raising her hands in supplication.

A blue glow formed around her before spreading around the area. The rubble was gently pushed aside and the scorched rock beneath healed, leaving a clean circular area twenty metres across. The shifting rubble revealed the stairway down to the catacombs, still intact, but no blighted husks attempted to exit. A new statue formed in the centre, to which Katie bowed lightly before turning around.

Where she found herself staring straight into the face of a very angry fox-kin.

"Oh, please go away," she moaned. "I've long since had my fill of you."

"You murder more than three thousand people, and expect me to just 'go away'?"

"Not really. I hope it, but I know full well it's just wishful thinking."

The fox-kin raised his eyebrows in surprise as he took in Katie's reddened, glistening eyes.

"You were crying? So you do have some shred of remorse for what you did here?"

"Remorse? Not really. It's a pity that so many people died, but given the information I had at the time, I didn't have a better move available to make. Even with hindsight, I still haven't thought of anything else I could have done."

The surprise vanished as the fox-kin's earlier anger returned in full force. "You could have just come quietly!" he hissed.

Now it was Katie's turn to look angry.

"Oh, I'm so sorry for assuming the people kidnapping me—a task which involved poisoning me with sleeping gas, attaching a slave collar around my neck and locking magical bindings around my wrists and ankles—might not be acting with my best interests in mind. Particularly since they came from a species that had previously locked me in a basement while they tortured me! And let's not even mention the time when your guards tried to sell me as some sort of pet."

"And I'm sorry for thinking it fair that the person at the centre of what practically became a civil war should be required to give evidence!" the fox-kin snapped back. "We tried asking politely, but you would always run away without even letting us speak."

"As if I could trust any of you people asking me to willingly enter your town. Who knew what sort of trap I could be walking into? I offered to talk to one of your mages upstairs, and he not only flat out refused, but 'answered' by trying to use that knock-out gas on me!"

The fox-kin looked taken aback. "Who? None of the mages reported... Oh, Mo'neeka. He suffered fatal injuries at the claws of a natatio sideralis while responding to a reported sighting."

"Could be," answered Katie with a shrug. "He never gave his name. He was alive the last time I saw him, but there was a lot of blood in the corridor, so it wouldn't surprise me if he bled out. Anyway, you still haven't told me what you want. If you're here to enact some sort of revenge for your lost settlement, why are you spending so long talking? Just hurry up and attack already."

"I merely wanted to speak to you while I had the chance, and see for myself what sort of person you were. However much you claim to pity those you murdered, you obviously don't feel you've done anything wrong. You're right; it's time to end this farce. Now, sleep."

The human and the fox-kin stared at each other in silence for a few seconds.

"No?" suggested Katie, as the silence dragged on into awkwardness.

"How? The reports indicated your resistance skill was limited. It should only impact the duration of my spell, not its success."

Katie cocked her head as she stared at the fox-kin. "You're still lying, aren't you? You aren't here for justice or revenge. You're here specifically to prevent me completing my quest. Why? I could understand you wanting revenge, but what has my quest got to do with you?"

"And what makes you think that?"

"Because it wasn't my resistance skills that blocked your spell just now; it was a class skill. Divine mandate. It renders me immune to anyone who moves against me with the motivation of contesting the will of the Goddess."

"Immune? That's not... Sleep. Be still. Perish. Inferno."

Katie stepped out of the raging vortex of flame, burnt silk and scorched chitin falling off her.

"Now look what you did! It's going to take me hours to repair that. But I've had enough of this. I'm leaving," stated Katie flatly before she turned and walked towards the statue.

"Wait, I'll explain! Please, I beg you, just listen!"

"Had you asked before blasting me with your magic, I probably would have," muttered Katie, tapping the statue and jumping to the catacombs. "Now, what new skills can I buy with that class level? Anything to help dupliKatie?"

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Katie peered into space as she read off her list of skills, settling on one that wouldn't help rescue her zombie twin, but certainly would be handy for her quest. Sense divinity, a skill that would let her detect any divine objects, such as the holy sword, at a large range. The statue lit up like a beacon to her new sense, but nothing else appeared in range.

She jumped to the top floor's shrine and took a look around there instead.

Something other than the statue responded.

A divine object, in the shape of a sword, glowed brightly. It wasn't even far away.

"Don't tell me it was on the first floor all along!" exclaimed Katie out loud in her shock.

The only downside was where, exactly, it was. Right next to the humongous presence, bigger than the spider queen, giant centipede and every fox-kin she'd ever met, all rolled into one. The dragon, that had so effortlessly roasted anyone and everything that had ever dared set foot in its corridor.

"Why is the final boss on the first floor!" she complained, still talking to herself.

Still, there was nothing for it. Katie needed to confirm whether the detected item was the holy sword she sought. The shape certainly matched. And so, storing everything in her item box and leaving herself wearing only her nightie, resigning herself to an almost certain roasting, she once more walked towards the dragon.

"Hi," was as far as she got before the dragon torched her.

"Umm..." she hazarded, as her nightie gently fluttered in the warm breeze.

She looked behind her, where the corridor was glowing red, plinking as it cooled and re-solidified.

"You want to stop me getting the holy sword?" she guessed, divine mandate being the only reason she could think of for why she wasn't ash.

The dragon, having barely moved when she first walked into his lair, now gave Katie his full attention. The single, half-closed eye snapped fully open, the second swiftly following it.

"Be gone!" he roared. "You are not wanted here."

The dragon swung a mighty claw, which whistled as it cleaved the air at speeds too fast to see. It crashed into Katie, who unexpectedly was not completely bisected.

"Yeah, you're definitely trying to stop me from getting the sword," she said, her eyes narrowing. "First the fox-kin mage, and now you? What's going on?"

The dragon stepped backward and sat, positioning his vast bulk on top of the sword. "It would be stranger if we did agree to cooperate with this insanity of the Goddess," he replied. "Know that you grasping this sword will bring about the end of this world and everyone in it."

That gave Katie pause. She hadn't yet rescued her zombie twin, after all. "And what evidence do you have for that?" she asked.

"None that your tiny mind could comprehend. Now leave this place, and never come back."

"You expect me to take your word for it?" asked Katie, noting the irony of how her situation with the arch-mage was now reversed. He hadn't left when she'd told him to, either.

"Yes. After all, even if you are protected from my attacks, you can't..."

It was at that point, when Katie casually pushed him aside with one hand, that he realised that she could.

The dragon roared. Not a roar of panic or anger, but a call. The dragon spoke the Name of his brother. "Stop her!" he added.

Katie staggered, blood pouring from her ears and nose. Her eyes ruptured. She could still detect the holy sword, burning brightly to her newest sense, so she ran towards it even as the shadows rose up around the cavern. The air chilled around her, and her breathing became laboured. The darkness thickened, leaving her feeling as if she was wading through mud. Her mind was assailed by incomprehensible whispers. Even her esoteric senses screamed about presences all around her, so close that she could reach out and touch them, and yet thin, as if they were not quite there. She shut off the skills, concentrating only on sense divine.

She grasped the sword.

The world shattered.

Katie shivered in the darkness and the silence. Her esoteric senses were dead, no mana or presences around her. Even sense divine no longer picked up the sword she still held in her hand. If not for the feel of it, she would have no idea it was there.

No, it wasn't silence. The whispers were still there, growing in volume and driving needles into her mind. Likewise, she could perceive shadows all around her, reaching out, grasping at her. Katie screamed, thrashing around at the perceived threats, but her holy sword striking nothing.

Fighting to act with some measure of rationality, Katie considered her situation. She'd been hit with... something. An attack? It had destroyed her senses and left her hallucinating, barely able to keep hold of her sanity. She needed to clear it with a respawn. Taking the sword to her own throat, she sliced it open, never noticing the health bar she had grown so used to ignoring at the bottom of her vision was no longer there. Neither did item box respond when she tried to store the sword, managing to make the attempt despite the unexpectedly high amount of pain.

Katie fell to the floor, dead, never having heard the panicked shouts of the mage that had first summoned her, or the knights pounding against the barrier. Her grip on the sword lost, it fell off the dais and out of the barrier, permitting the mage to retrieve it, but her corpse remained ensconced within.

There were no more respawns. With the aid of the sword, the demon invasion was thwarted, but where once the holy sword lay on an altar, now a broken corpse lay on blood-stained carpet, its face frozen in a rictus of horror. The king ordered the room sealed off, with none understanding what had happened there.

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