The Wrong Kind of Immortality

While the two goddesses went through the negotiations, Orestis opened a small gate in front of him to survey the area.

He first isolated the space around the gate, of course, since the Temple’s disruptors were still active. But as he had once explained to Eirene, bypassing disruptors was a simple exercise once you understood what they were actually doing.

Speaking of, Orestis noted with amusement that Eirene was eyeing his gate and constructing her own sigils, no doubt attempting to replicate the technique. He had a feeling she would do so—which was why he had constructed the sigils at a moderate speed.

Turning his gaze back to his own gate, he looked through it. The exit was high in the sky overhead, angled downwards to provide a clear view below.

Through the aerial view, Orestis assessed the damage he had caused with that first spell.

Not as bad as it could have been.

Thanks to Maxim’s shields, everything within the village—the buildings, the people, even the environment—had been protected from damage. Beyond the barrier, however, the terrain had experienced what could only be described as an involuntary restructuring.

The spatial fractures had already healed, but they had left huge gouges through the fields and roads where they had passed. The scars stretched across the countryside, cutting through farmland in some places. Fortunately, that was the extent of the damage. There were no casualties. No one was injured either.

The local farmers would probably disagree with his definition of fortunate. Which was fair enough. Fields had an unfortunate tendency to become less productive after being bisected by spatial fractures.

Even so, roads and farmland could be reconstructed. Funerals, in his experience, were considerably harder to undo.

Well, if someone had been outside the shields, the idiot would have used a different method of defence. He had always been thorough like that.

Orestis cast a few spells through the gate. He might as well fix the mess since he had been responsible for it.

His mother, who hadn’t left his side since the incident, looked through the gate as he worked. She watched with fascination as torn earth and stone flowed back to fill the gouges, while the scattered debris and dead foliage crumbled away into dust. Then, new trees rose from the bare soil, gaining years of growth in moments.

“Oh, that’s nice,” she commented. “You should help me grow a few trees in the garden. Not too much, though—just a few inches.”

Orestis smiled.

Trust my mother to see an application of temporal acceleration magic and think of using it to improve her garden’s aesthetics.

In the meantime, Maxim had gathered all of the Temple forces together and bound them. Mages were additionally bound with mana-suppressing enchantments on top of the physical ones.

The hero walked over and asked, “Do you want to take the disruptors?”

“No. The technology is outdated,” Orestis replied.

Outdated by our standards, that is. In this time period, they would still be regarded as the pinnacle of magical engineering.

Maxim nodded. “In that case, I’ll take them with me. I assume they cost a lot.”

Orestis smirked. “I’m sure they do. It’s an even probability whether they would want their equipment or their people back more.”

“Probably the people—if only because it takes longer to train them,” Maxim replied as he finally removed the shields from the surroundings.

Eirene, having opened a stable gate in front of her, asked, “You’re not planning to turn off the disruptors?”

“I’m not familiar with this model, so no idea how to.” Maxim shrugged. “They’ll run out of power eventually.”

“You can still keep practising,” Orestis said to Eirene, sending out a thread of divine power to introduce an additional wavelength into the disruption field.

Eirene’s gate destabilised and dispersed immediately. She blinked in confusion, wondering why her isolated spatial field would fail because of what he did.

She glanced at him questioningly. He merely smiled in return. It would not do for him to simply give her the answer; she would learn more if she puzzled out the reasons on her own.

Eirene narrowed her eyes at him before she began constructing sigils again. She had a determined smile on her face.

Maxim glanced her way and nodded. Probably also approving of her mentality.

A moment later, the two goddesses walked over.

“We have reached an agreement,” Lyse declared. “I will be keeping a record of how much Miera will owe you—which she will, even after this task is done.”

Of course she would. Somnax’s consciousness was wandering every conceivable corner of the world without pause, endlessly accumulating experiences no other being could. Each new experience would enrich his subconscious, lending ever greater depth and variety to his dreams. Every passing moment would make those dreams that much more valuable to her.

And since Lyse had taken it upon herself to keep the records, he would not need to go through the trouble of remembering the exact values himself.

“I appreciate it,” he replied, inclining his head.

Lyse returned the gesture, and was no doubt about to return to her domain. But then, Eleuthera hooked her arms around Lyse’s and said, “Wait, don’t leave yet. Since you’re here, you should stay and enjoy the sights for a while.”

Miera glanced briefly at them before turning to him. Then she said, “I will begin when your repairs are complete. How do you want it done?”

Orestis glanced over at the still-gawking crowd. The reverence they held for the gods had inevitably spilled over onto his group as well. It was only natural. By sheer association, everyone standing beside the gods had been elevated in their eyes.

Well, not like that will matter in a few minutes.

“Have them believe the Temple forces were defeated by Maxim alone. I don’t want anyone to remember my involvement—in anything. And they should not recall my mother using prayer magic either.”

He frowned slightly even as he said that last part. There was something there, but he was not in the mood to think about that—yet. Before anything else, he needed to make sure he would not lose control again.

So much for priding myself on staying calm under any circumstances.

“Your request is simple enough,” Miera replied. “From what I see in their memories, there’s very little to change.”

She then turned to Maxim, eyeing him thoughtfully. Since she had nothing better to do while waiting for him to finish the repairs, she decided to do the only thing that interested her: inspecting dreams.

The goddess gestured and drew out the hero’s dream residue to take a look.

She studied it for all of a second before dismissing it with a scoff. “Uninteresting.”

Naturally, the idiot took offence to that. “Wait, Goddess. How can my dreams be uninteresting? At the very least, they have to be more interesting than his.” He pointed at Orestis.

Orestis raised an eyebrow at the idiot.

Since when was this a competition?

Miera regarded Maxim through half-lidded eyes. After a couple of seconds, she declared in her usual, unhurried tone, “Your dreams are filled with carnality. They are repetitive. Meaningless.” She tilted her head. “Boring.”

“Oh my. At your age?” Orestis’s mother said, covering her mouth with a hand as she gave Maxim a look of genuine pity.

Orestis gave the idiot a look of undisguised contempt. Frankly, he was not surprised in the slightest.

Even Lyse was glaring at her Chosen.

Only Eirene didn’t bother to react, though that was less out of solidarity and more because she was still engrossed in her spellwork. That, and Orestis doubted she cared enough to form an opinion regardless.

Maxim looked from face to face. Receiving nothing but continued disappointment in return, he turned back to Miera. “You must have sampled a bad night. You should take another look.”

Miera didn’t even bother to pretend to entertain his foolishness. She merely turned her attention to the rest of the group and drew dream residue from everyone at once. That included Lyse, Eleuthera, Eirene, and his mother.

No one commented as the goddess examined each of the swirling plumes of mist. She appeared content to occupy herself with idle curiosity while she waited. As for why she wasn’t looking in on Somnax’s dreams, she likely wanted to enjoy it without interruption—which she would soon have, since she had a task to attend to.

Completely understandable.

Orestis quickly finished up the repairs with Maxim’s help and then informed the goddess.

Miera waved a hand. Instantly, all those who were conscious blanked out. Their expressions held confusion for a moment. Then, the next moment, they all started cheering for Maxim.

As expected of Miera; she completed the work in an instant.

The reason for the cheers became clear a moment later, as knowledge of what Miera had shown the crowd settled into the group’s minds.

Thoughtful of her to give us the full context.

It would make it more convenient for them to follow the script without mistakes.

Orestis also noticed that she had suppressed her aura and drawn a veil over herself and Lyse, hiding them from everyone except their group. Which made sense, since the presence of two goddesses would contradict the memories she had just implanted.

As for Eleuthera, Miera excluded her since no one would think to associate her with the divine. After all, who would ever think the bubbly woman walking around barefoot, lacking any sort of elegance or grace, was a goddess?

Miera turned to Orestis. “I will be watching your dreams.”

With that, she disappeared.

For a moment, Orestis considered shielding his dreams just to see her reaction—but then discarded the idea. Such petty actions would only cause unnecessary problems.

Maxim, for his part, stepped up to do what he had done countless times: accepting the adulation of the masses. He also opened a gate leading to Nomyra.

The afflicted began filing through. Some were accompanied by family members, while others carried the unconscious through the gate together.

Eirene moved to follow before pausing to glance back at Orestis. “You’re not coming?”

“No. I’ll take my mother home. After that, I have a task I need to attend to.” He didn’t explain further, and she didn’t ask.

Knowing Eirene, though, he doubted she needed the explanation anyway.

With a nod, she followed the others through the gate.