The silence over his statement extended so much that Arthur considered the case closed. While Sion held his terror silent, he couldn't even figure out how to object. The Inquisitor nodded and moved to the next subject.

  "As much as I would like to stay out of Saftian internal affairs, to simply travel across your Kingdom, I can't," Arthur said as he put down his glass with a thud. "Wherever I go, I will meet more people like Griss Vul. More people who are delusional enough to believe that they have the power to enslave others. More people who think they can demand anything from me. It will be a taxing and irritating endeavour at best, and a bloodbath in the worst case."

  "You said that it was a crime to enslave people in Arcadia." Sion slowly nodded.

  "But you have said that your Emperor enslaved a God!" Felix protested.

  "The restraints put on criminals in Arcadia are the same as the barbaric collars your country uses to enslave their people. It's easier to say it that way than explain pointless nuances." Arthur shrugged.

  "Oh..." Felix slightly nodded. "Then, what crimes would turn anyone to a slave in Arcadia? Because, some may say that this is the case here as well..."

  "Murder, rape, enslaving others, worshipping the Enemies, and similar crimes. In certain cases, the Emperor might sentence someone to that fate for other outrageous crimes. But you can't buy those slaves. They serve their sentences removed from the public as if they had been executed." Arthur explained, and when no one wanted to ask anything, continued. "I wanted to quietly find a way home. But it seems impossible."

  "It never was..." Sion agreed with a sigh. "I would have stopped you from leaving my city without a proper warning and without enough of my soldiers, so no other low-ranking noble would bother you. But I wanted you to stay..."

  "I can't stay, Sion," Arthur said, but his tone wasn't fully convincing. "I must find a way to contact my homeland. Everything I have done so far has only taken me further from that goal. My presence here, and things I have done, are well known by now."

  "If I may, Sir." The same Paladin from earlier interjected.

  "What's your name, soldier?" Arthur asked, feeling guilty that he hadn't inquired about it much earlier.

  "Ri'jan, Sir."

  "Go on, Ri'jan." Arthur nodded.

  "We questioned every single captured enemy and reviewed the reports from the Adventurers who were outside the city during the attack. You, basically, killed, captured them yourself, or forced all attackers to surrender, my Lord! Except for, admittedly, a handful of people in the entire city, no one even knows what really happened. We probed random people to see what their understanding of the situation was, and all of them had no idea. The most commonly repeated version was: 'It was chaos, then suddenly, the Baron's soldiers and the Cardinal's Paladins were everywhere'." Ri'jan said with a slightly worried voice. "I believe that you don't need to take any drastic measures for the time being. Because, in the end, our situation is what this is about, right? Like your Emperor implied... If you don't like the country you are in, just conquer it."

  Sion and Felix chuckled nervously, but their laughter died as they observed the grim and serious expression on Arthur's face. The Inquisitor took a deep breath and, after rubbing his eyelids, he looked seriously at the Paladin.

  "I, too, reacted with laughter when I first heard my Lord's message," Arthur said with an amused smirk that had very little in common with happiness. "But he would never order us to do anything he wouldn't have done himself."

  "What the hell are you talking about, Arthur?" Sion asked with a pale face.

  "When the other Heroes were summoned to Nilmerthis, they usually began their paths by raising their levels. They travelled, met new people, learned about cultures, and so on. Some became warriors, while others became renowned scholars and sages. Some, usually at the end of their lives, founded or conquered countries." Arthur continued quietly. "But not him. Not Theon Avalon. Basically, the first thing he did was to declare war upon the Kingdom of Cridia. He conquered it in half a year. A kingdom probably five times larger than Saftia. So, yes. The Emperor implied just that."

  "Are you even capable of doing that?" Sion asked with a faint voice.

  Arthur took a deep breath. "You're asking the wrong question, Sion. Because that's something even I don't know until I try. What you should ask, and most probably be afraid of the answer, is what would make me do it."

  Sion opened and then closed his mouth. As the reality started settling in with all nerve-wracking implications, he nervously glanced at Catherine. The Black Cat woman looked like a completely different person, but in the face of what Arthur had just said, the Baron trembled. The Inquisitor had personally killed, or forced to surrender, over six hundred out of one thousand enemy soldiers. His combat prowess was impressive. But his battle gear was simply terrifying, making him nigh-on untouchable. No one could even stop him, even for a moment, and he did it just for her. Sion wondered what would have happened if she had been hurt in any way, and the more he thought about it, the less he liked the possible outcomes.

  "Do you suggest, Paladin, that Lord Ives could single-handedly conquer Saftia?" Felix asked with surprise.

  "Single-handedly? No. But, my Lord... He is a Herald of the Pantheon. If he ordered us, we would follow." Ri'jan said quietly.

  "That's treason!"

  "We don't serve Saftia." The second Paladin conceded with the blank voice of a person who had lost all delusions.

  "But you would betray the Gods!" The Cardinal almost whispered, terrified.

  "I'm sorry, Sir." Ri'jan's voice was full of sorrow and compassion. "But our Gods no longer speak with us. They have abandoned their Paladins..."

  "By the Gods! You can't be serious, Ri'jan, Alek!" Felix looked at his most trusted soldiers with fear. "Sion?!"

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  "I truly have asked the wrong questions today..." The Baron rubbed his eyes with a sigh. "But your soldiers are right. A person like Arthur would have no problem inspiring the masses and leading them into battle. Hell, if he called, even I would aid him despite the odds. Because with someone like him, we could change the Kingdom... With a King like him, we could finally rebuild and survive the worsening weather."

  "The thing is, I don't want this." Arthur slowly shook his head. "I don't want to start a war that will consume untold lives. If I could, I would have done things differently. Perhaps I should have avoided the cities until I learned more about the people and the culture. However, I was tainted by the Arcadian way of thinking: everything will be fine, we will make it, we will be victorious. I was overly optimistic, and I have already paid the price for my carelessness. That being said, I wanted to hear what you are planning."

  "I wanted to re-establish the Temple as it should be. However, now, after I learnt that my highest ranking Paladins would follow foreign Gods rather than try to once more appease ours, I find it impossible..." The Cardinal said bitterly as he glared at the Paladins, who withstood his stern gaze.

  "We will still aid you, Cardinal Felix, because your goals are, at the very least, noble and benevolent. The Temple in your vision is a far better place than in the delusion of the reformists." Ri'jan said with a tiny nod and looked at Arthur. "But we had no loyalty to Saftia and barely any for the Gods that rejected us."

  Arthur simply nodded. The situation at hand was far more complicated than he had imagined. The entire country was breaking at the seams and it was impossible to tell just how many factions there were. He looked at Sion.

  "Frankly, I could repeat what Paladin Ri'jan said." Sion shrugged with an indifferent stare. "Saftia has been in decline for generations. The people suffer from shortages or the whims of some nobles. I know I'm noble as well, but the Kingdom's politics aren’t as straightforward as it seems they are in the Arcadian Empire. I won't lie: a lot of people are looking for change."

  Arthur closed his eyes as he leaned back in his chair.

  "My Lord used to say that nothing happens without a reason." Arthur sighed, but before he could add anything more, Felix groaned painfully.

  The Cardinal was holding his head and was in pain. Arthur immediately recognised what was happening and he knew that no one could help the man. At least, no one present. Felix's veins bulged out and his face was red while his guttural scream made Elene and Catherine flinch and lean back. As suddenly as he started screaming, the Cardinal stopped, but he was still holding his head and rubbing it.

  "Goddess Tréni and Goddess Raia gave me their warning. They also have questions for you, Lord Ives..." The Cardinal panted with a great effort.

  "Warning?" Arthur asked with a tired sigh.

  "War is coming to Saftia. The Gods of Saftia will be divided, even more than ever before. Thousands will perish..." The Cardinal started mumbling incoherently.

  "Is this all their warning?" The Inquisitor asked with an unimpressed tone. While the Paladins looked surprised at the Cardinal, who remained silent, Arthur sighed and added in a slightly mocking tone. "That's how war is, people will die no matter how powerful they are. Instead, I would like to ask them more important questions. Like... Why did your Goddesses allow such outrageous treatment of the women? Or how can I return home? Or..."

  A sudden pressure filled the room, but Arthur's new Title shielded him and Catherine. The others were forced to their knees.

  "You are either the most important, or the most insignificant, person for the future of Saftia, Arthur Ives of Arcadia." Felix's eyes glowed with a bright pink light, and his tone of voice changed to sound more like a woman.

  "It would be much easier for everyone if you simply chose to manifest, nameless Goddess," Arthur said with a flat tone.

  "I can't. I'm too weak..." She said begrudgingly through Felix. "My name is Tréni. My influence has dwindled, my power diminished... I'm a shadow of myself. I thought the Age of Gods was gone until I noticed you by pure chance... Felix Xanah is the last chance to restore the faith in me in Saftia. Raia is even weaker than I... She has nearly faded..."

  Arthur looked expectantly at the possessed Cardinal. "Oh, right... You expect me to be shocked. Have you considered that I simply don't care? I know exactly how the Gods rise and fall, so I'm pretty sure it was your own fault for being so weak. If you haven't considered it yet, your power comes from Faith, of people believing in you. The more people who believe in you, the more powerful you are. If you are weak, it means that people have lost all faith in you."

  "I... Didn't know that. We knew about faith, but we took it for granted." She said with fear and Felix sharply shook his head. "For telling me that, you have my thanks... Raia says thank you, as well. Anyway, as I said, you will either be the most important, or least important, person during the upcoming war-"

  "Do you think that I don't know that?" He sharply interrupted her. "If I decide to take part in it, I currently have enough means, not to mention personal power, to significantly tip the scales of balance. But if I decide to stay away and perhaps discover a way to use the ancient ruins to return home, I will be insignificant in the grand scale of things. So stop being cryptic and mysterious. I have interacted with enough Deities on the personal level so you don't impress me in the slightest."

  "But... I'm a Goddess..." She said in the shocked tone of someone who couldn't truly believe they had heard what their ears suggested they had.

  "So? I know seven Goddesses of which six are in my Pantheon. All of them can manifest at will and, while it's not rare to find them in their Grand Temple in Avalon, it's far easier to find Lady Hestia in her office in Triskelion, actually helping people. Or Lady Hera in her favourite coffee shop, where she listens to the people she chooses to chit-chat with at that particular time. In Arcadia, the Gods live among the people. Also, I know for a fact that most of their prophecies suck."

  "How dare you!"

  "I? No. Tell that to Zeus!" Arthur chuckled. "If I got a copper coin for every time he prophesied his victory in billiards against me and lost, I would have at least a silver. Maybe the fact that we usually drink has something to do with it. But... The future is not set in stone. It's ever shifting and changing. That's the wisdom of Lady Hestia repeated in one voice by all Deities of the Pantheon."

  "I hoped that you could save us..." She sighed, defeated. "And I refer to the people of Howthorns and our last faithful servant, Cardinal Felix..."

  "I never said I would let them all die." Arthur closed his eyes. When he opened them, he looked at Catherine, who smiled warmly, though she was slightly worried. Then he looked at Sion, who was simply lost. "You have become my friend, Sion. Someone I could trust in a foreign country. Tell me, how long do we have?"

  "Five years..." Tréni nearly whispered.

  "So anywhere between two to ten." He shrugged. "We still have time to decide what to do..."

  "Could you take her more seriously, Lord Ives?" Felix mumbled with his own voice. "I'm not sure if I want to experience her anxiety."

  "Well... That's sort of your problem." The Inquisitor chuckled dryly. "What I originally wanted to tell you today, is that I wanted to quietly withdraw from the affairs of this kingdom and focus on finding a way home. Instead, we have almost reached a point where we started developing plans to overthrow your king. I wanted to say that, soon, Baron Tamal would be taken out of the picture, and it would be great if you could take over his fief, Sion, since it would also increase my safe zones. I need a few more weeks, or even months, to determine how long it would take me to return to Arcadia. Then, out of fucking nowhere, these Paladins declare they would follow me if I ask. Then you, Sion, do basically the same, and a Goddess possesses her Cardinal to say that war is coming."

  He slowly switched his gaze between the uncertain faces and rubbed his temples. No one spoke, so he filled the silence with a groan.

  "I really suck at keeping a low profile..."

  Thank you all for reading.

  I wish you all a great day and as always I wait for your comments.

  A big thanks to and who edited the chapter!