Chapter 26: Ch 26: Discovering a Body

"Selene, I am feeling weaker these days. I can feel the people’s faith in me is declining. Do you know what is happening?"

The local god of the village asked, and his Apostle wondered how she could break the news to him.

But since she was her god’s most faithful follower, she did not want to lie to him either.

"Lord Rain, our priests have made a mistake. Moreover, due to the appearance of a new goddess in the nearby village, people’s faith has started shifting. They say that she has shown people the miracle that they needed."

Selene did not want to praise the other deity while talking to her god. In her eyes, he was the only one for her.

But her god still deserved to know the truth.

"I see. So it’s because of a god? Then it cannot be helped. If I retaliate, then there is a chance I might lose what support I have left. But may I at least know the name of this new god?"

God Rain asked, and Selene felt her mouth itch as she said another god’s name.

"It’s Goddess Apophis."

Her god went quiet, but then he let out a sigh.

"I see. Since she’s a goddess we are going to be dealing with quite often, I would like to extend my goodwill to her. Please tell our priests to send her a gift to show our goodwill and to tell her that we do not want any fighting with her."

God Rain told her, and Selene felt disappointed that he was yielding. But she could not go against her god’s wishes either.

In the end, she nodded and bowed her head to show that she understood.

"I will do as you wish."

But as much as she wanted to make things perfect, she was just one person serving a god with not a lot of power. That made her own power limited as well.

Moreover, she did not even have any help because she did not trust the people around her at this time. So it made sense why things continued to slip out of her notice.

For now, she decided to gather a group of trusted priests who would take their offerings to the nearby village, but she did not realize that most priests in the temple were corrupt.

The offerings disappeared as soon as they exited the city, and the only witness was a local child who was killed.

"Oh no! What are we going to do? I-I did not mean to kill him. I just wanted to scare him..."

The priest who had blood on his hands panicked and yelled, but the other priest quickly calmed him down.

"Don’t worry too much! Our god has too many priests to notice what is happening. A little thing like this would go unnoticed since we arranged for that other scandal to break out."

The priests had planned this whole thing, so of course they had taken precautions. These words helped the priest let out a relieved sigh.

"I see. That helps me out a lot...anyway, we still need an excuse to give. This does not look like a wild animal did this..."

"I know. We can dump this body in the next village over and make it seem like one of them did it. That way, the blame will be on the other goddess."

"Alright, it’s decided! We shall dump this body in the water well."

And just like that, the poor child became a tool for the people to use.

...

Aiden was busy cleaning up Goddess Apophis’s temple and going over the construction stuff with the dwarfs when he felt a disturbance in the village.

His goddess had gained enough power and divinity to be able to sense her territory, and Aiden had also reaped the benefits of her power.

Since his goddess was asleep, he concentrated on the power he felt, and he immediately decided to head toward the village to check out what was happening.

The portal he had set up in Lumi’s temple helped him out a lot, and he arrived in the village.

"Sir Aiden, what are you doing here? Is Goddess Apophis not here with you?"

Lumi asked, and Aiden shook his head.

"I decided to let her sleep. I just needed to check on the village because I felt a disturbance. Has anyone come here with any complaints?"

He asked, and Lumi shook her head.

"Not that I know of. Ah, but I did hear that the priests from the other village came over just an hour ago. They were here to shop and didn’t do much before they left."

That left Aiden suspicious, but he doubted his instincts would have considered it an emergency and warned him that something was going on.

There had to be something else here.

"I will be heading out to check on the village. Come and get me if any news reaches you."

Aiden told her as he walked out and started walking around the village. A lot of people greeted him happily and even told him about the outsiders when he asked. But none of them could tell him if anything was wrong.

In the end, the hour Aiden spent in the village did not yield any news to him, and he decided that it was time to head back.

But the second he reached the temple, he heard a loud scream echoing through the village, and he quickly ran toward where that noise had come from.

He noticed that it was a villager, and he looked ghostly white while his bucket, which he had used to draw water, was tinted red.

Even the water that was spilled was red, indicating that it was not normal.

"What happened?"

Aiden asked, and the startled villager looked at him for protection and reassurance.

"I-I don’t know. I was trying to draw water when it turned red and I...I don’t know what happened."

The villager looked startled, and Aiden quickly stepped forward to look inside the well. He immediately noticed where the red in the water had come from.

"It seems like there is a dead body inside the well. Get other villagers here. We need to get that body out as soon as possible."

...

...

I’ll do 2 Chapters/day from sometime next week.