The Wrong Kind of Immortality

Orestis sighed. He knew things had been going too well. And he should have expected something when Eleuthera appeared.

Actually, now that I think about it, the timelines do not match.

Gathering this many people within a week was impossible without the use of gateways. Which meant that they had been trickling into the village for weeks now. Which Eleuthera must have noticed.

So all of her random appearances over the past couple of weeks were camouflage—to make sure I was desensitised to her appearance. All so she could enjoy this exact moment.

Orestis gave Eleuthera an unamused glance. “Your schemes are levelling up.”

The goddess grinned and materialised a bag of popcorn in her hands. “I’m glad you appreciate my efforts.”

Eirene, who had also sent out a pulse of mana upon seeing him and Maxim do it, had realised that the Temple had sent people to surround the village.

“They’re waiting to see why everyone’s gathered,” she remarked, quickly assessing the situation. Then, turning to him, she asked, “How are we going to handle this?”

“Right,” Orestis said. “First things first: my stress levels are becoming unacceptable. Corrective action is required.”

He opened a small gate to his house in Orthessa. Naturally, he shielded it first; there was no reason to advertise its existence to the people surrounding the village.

I’m glad I warded the mansion properly. Otherwise they would have detected our arrival as well. Once again, paranoia continues to justify itself.

Once the gateway was established, he sent a soul impression through the aperture: come.

A moment later, Nuri popped out from the shadows in his hair and made herself at home. He reached up and scratched the little furball, evoking a purr.

Ah. I feel healed already.

Eirene gave him an amused glance.

“Second”—he turned to Eleuthera—”I recall someone saying she always informed her Chosen on important matters.”

Eleuthera raised a finger and replied sagely, “This isn’t important. This was inevitable.”

“Of course it is,” Orestis deadpanned.

“I assume step three involves me fixing the problem?” Maxim asked. He had a subtle shimmer over his left pupil—the tell-tale sign that he had a viewing fold placed over the eye.

It was a method that Maxim used on occasion—often in situations where he needed to keep an eye on more than one thing, in more than one place.

Using this method, he could keep track of his immediate surroundings with one eye while using the other to look elsewhere. In this case, he was most likely looking at the forces hidden around the village—marking their locations, analysing their actions and what they were planning.

“Yes,” Orestis answered. “This is my home. I do not want to advertise my abilities here.”

Not only would it get him noticed by the Temple—again—it would also put his parents at risk. That was unacceptable.

It was the same reason Eirene shouldn’t act either. While she could no longer be constrained, it would still be annoying to have the Temple poking their nose into her parents’ lives and businesses.

Maxim, though, was a different matter. If anyone checked, he would be identified as merely a foreign Chosen here to act on his own. And, there was very little the Temple could do to put pressure on a lone Chosen from a foreign country.

Best of all, he had no clear relation to Orestis or Eirene apart from proximity—which could be passed off as coincidence.

“How does it look?” Orestis asked Maxim.

“Three platoons placed around the village. Sixty paladins and three mages each. The mages are observing the square.”

Nine mages and a hundred and eighty paladins. Sounds about right to handle a few moderately trained soldiers.

“They also have disruptors,” Maxim added. “I’m guessing they want to see who is behind this. Then they’ll proceed with standard suppression tactics.”

Orestis scoffed. “That’s just the best-case scenario. I very much doubt the Temple is here without ulterior motives.”

Well, not like there’s anything to worry about. Even if they do try something, the idiot can handle it.

He looked towards the village square. It was crowded enough that it took him a moment before he spotted his mother. She was in the middle of a conversation with three other women.

“Anyway, let’s go find out how my mother managed to gather half the region here.”

The four of them made their way towards the square.

There was no reaction from the Temple side even when they joined the larger group—which was expected. From their perspective, Orestis and company would seem like just four more people coming for whatever rumour had spread through the countryside.

His mother saw him after a moment. “There you are!” she called, excusing herself before hurrying over to wrap her arms around him in a hug.

“Mother,” he said, gently patting her back as he returned the hug.

His mother pulled back and smiled at the rest of the group, greeting them—though she did blink at seeing Eleuthera with them. Of course, she recovered quickly enough and nodded respectfully towards the goddess.

Maxim returned the greeting. “Avra, always a pleasure to see you.”

Always!?

Orestis immediately shot the idiot a sharp glance. The annoying idiot merely looked back, the picture of innocence.

His mother did not pay any attention to them. Instead, she reached up and plucked Nuri from his head—and she accomplished the feat with surprising ease.

Orestis blinked as the little furball mewed once in protest, but did not react otherwise as she was pulled into his mother’s embrace.

Huh… Maybe I should recruit my mother every time I want Nuri off my head without fighting a miniature war.

He shook off the distracting thoughts and decided to get back on topic. Facing his mother, he asked, “Did you really have to recruit all of these people?”

His mother glanced around the packed square and smiled. “Oh, I wasn’t expecting it either. I only mentioned it to a few of the families who came asking after you. Somehow, the news spread farther than anyone expected.”

Maxim nodded. “Hope has a way of doing that.”

That word again, hope. He really didn’t have good memories associated with it. Last time his mother associated an event with the word, he ended up with temple officials on his tail.

At least I have the idiot to take the attention away from me this time.

“Right,” Orestis said. “No point in delaying the inevitable. They won’t move until someone steps up to play ringleader. So let’s give them one.”

“That’ll be my cue,” Maxim said cheerily. “If you’ll excuse me.”

“What are you talking about?” his mother asked, glancing between everyone. “Who won’t move?”

Eirene stepped forward to explain the situation to his mother while Maxim stepped onto the raised platform in the middle of the square. It immediately drew the attention of everyone present. And, no doubt, those watching from outside the village as well.

“I’m sure no one needs me to explain why we’re all here,” Maxim called, his voice loud enough to carry throughout the square. “Those who want to head to Nomyra for healing, step this way.”

Right afterwards, he opened a gate next to him.

The response from the Temple was immediate. Maxim’s actions, along with his earlier words, had apparently been enough for those watching.

There was a pulse—something so subtle that a regular person would never notice it—as the disruptors were activated. And then, the gate folded in on itself and was gone.

All around the square, everyone stared at the spot where the gate used to be. Some people were exchanging looks, confused, wondering if the spell had failed or if Maxim was pulling some kind of comedy routine.

None of them realised what had happened. And then, the Temple mages started opening their own gates around the square, unaffected by the disruptors because they had synchronised the frequencies.

From within, rows upon rows of paladins poured through them, shields already raised, sealing every exit from the square in moments. Within a minute, the square had transformed from a gathering into a trap.

Once the cordon was complete, a mage stepped forward and declared, “This gathering is both unsanctioned and unannounced. Furthermore, under the circumstances, it is a clear threat to public order. By the authority of the Temple, this gathering is ordered to be dissolved.”

His gaze moved over the crowd. “For everyone’s safety, no one is to leave until each and every one of you has been identified and cleared. The afflicted among you will be escorted back to the Sacred Recovery Grounds afterwards for proper care. Cooperate, and there will be no reason for any of this to turn unpleasant.”

“How official-sounding,” Orestis remarked as he moved to stand together with his mother, Eirene, and Eleuthera. “I almost believe he means well.”

It was obviously all excuses, arranged to give them a pretext to act. Although, the mage was right about one thing: it really was a minor miracle that none of the soldiers had gone berserk while they were here.

His mother turned to Eleuthera. “No one's going to get hurt, right?” she asked.

She did not look worried—likely because of the presence of a literal goddess next to her. Said goddess was also leisurely eating popcorn. Which naturally led to the whole situation feeling even less tense than it actually was.

“Of course,” Eleuthera replied. “You can’t tell from a glance, but I can honestly say this: Maxim is currently the strongest Chosen alive in this world.”

And he has me to thank for that. Partially.

Or maybe it is mostly; I would have pushed him just as hard in all the loops that I don’t remember.

While they had been talking, Maxim had stepped forward to try and negotiate with the Temple mage. The idiot, naturally, tried to be reasonable about it.

He had spoken easily and pleasantly, and suggested that the Temple simply let this one go. The people would disperse, or leave for Nomyra, and everyone could pretend the whole thing never happened.

As if that was ever going to work. Not only did the mage refuse, even the soldiers started expressing their opinions.

Maxim quickly tried to mediate and calm everyone down. He even offered the mage several increasingly generous ways to save face, each one shaped to sound like he was doing the Temple a favour rather than the other way around.

The mage, of course, wasn’t interested in favours. He was adamant in his position, repeating his demands without the slightest willingness to compromise.

It was going nowhere, obviously. It was never going to go anywhere. Orestis had known that before the idiot opened his mouth. Maxim had probably known that as well.

But he had to make the attempt for the record, I suppose. The idiot always had been the type to make things unnecessarily harder for himself.

In this case, all his attempts at negotiation did was to give everyone else time to get angry. The soldiers, who had already been upset with the Temple, only got further aggravated by the uncompromising and arrogant demands of the representative.

The soldiers hadn’t come all this way to be turned around at the last moment. As for the mage and the paladins, they didn’t much care for being shouted at by men who could barely hold a sword anymore.

Orestis could tell that these were elites among elites of the Temple. None of the mages were below fourth Circle—three were in fact at the fifth. And all of the paladins were at Stage II. The reason he knew was that all of them were flaring their aura or mana as a show of intimidation.

However, the soldiers outnumbered the Temple people by at least four to one, and that gave them a false sense of superiority.

The fools. Without adding Maxim into the equation, even ten of them together would barely be able to handle one of those paladins.

Eventually one of the afflicted soldiers—one whose hands were shaking even as he jabbed a finger at the line—yelled, “You did this to us! You made us sick! And now you stand there telling us we can’t even go get it fixed!? To the hells with you!”

That seemed to be the last straw for the representative. The mage’s expression hardened. “Since you won’t comply, you will be put down!”

“I would ask you to reconsider,” Maxim said, finally flaring a bit of his own divine power.

For the first time, the mage showed signs of hesitation. Even though Maxim was showing off only a small portion of his power, it was still quite overwhelming to the average person.

“It’s a bad proposition for us to fight,” Maxim said calmly. “You cannot defeat me. Just let us leave.”

There was a lull in the situation as the Temple forces hesitated. For a moment, Orestis thought that they would actually give up and leave. But then, a different mage opened a gate, and two men stepped through into the village.

The new arrivals wore robes that marked them both as high-ranking battle-priests. And when they drew on their divine power, it was as strong as, if not stronger than, what Maxim had displayed.

“We will hold him back,” the stronger battle-priest said. “No matter how powerful he is, he cannot use his full strength here.”

Orestis almost laughed. They had no idea.

But their words were enough for the Temple forces to regain their sense of confidence. The mage turned and gave the order to attack.

The paladins immediately drew their weapons and marched forward.