“Okay, now that we got that part out of the way, at least, I didn’t come here just to make you listen to my sob story or anything like that, Allie. I’m sure you can already guess that much, no?” said Esperanza with a smirk on her face after they hugged for a while. Alissa responded with a sigh and slowly released her from the embrace, and looked at her with a more serious look on her face this time.
“Right, there’s that business about destroying the world and whatnot,” Alissa said as she shook her head and let out another wistful sigh, then settled back down in her chair across the table. “You said that you’re on the lookout for alternatives, but that you also saw many things that validated the claim of these… Old Gods, right? What sort of things did you see to make you so certain?”
“It’s thanks to one of my skills, honestly. I have several skills related to the soul, like how I knew where you were even from afar and behind walls thanks to [Soul Sense]. Another skill I have is [Soul Sight], and what that skill allows me to do… should be rather self-explanatory from the name, no?” explained Esperanza honestly. “Yours is a pretty one, if a bit on the too-bright side, by the way.”
“Thanks for the compliment, I guess,” said Alissa rather uncertainly at the revelation. That Esperanza had a class focused on the Soul aspect was not surprising. If anything, it fitted with the “template” she noticed between the way she, Ethan, and Joshua received their early classes. “What have you seen through that skill that convinced you that the Old Gods were telling the truth, though?”
Alissa’s class was balanced between the three main attributes of Body, Mind, and Soul, although she could choose to lean one way or another with her choice of stat allocations and later class choices. In contrast, Ethan’s focused heavily on the Body, with far less flexibility in his choices, while Joshua’s did the same, only with the mind.
Under that sort of template, their fourth member – which Esperanza was likely meant to be at first – would likely receive a class that focused on the Soul, which Esperanza ironically ended up focusing on, despite the lack of communication between them. It reminded Alissa a lot of the sort of typical starting parties in role-playing games.
“It’s not that I don’t believe you,” placated Alissa with a raised hand before Esperanza could reply. “It’s just that… I’ve seen so many questionable things since we were summoned here, and if even the so-called gods of this world could not be trusted… I hope you’ll understand that I find it difficult to simply believe in what other so-called gods say.”
“Oh, that’s perfectly understandable,” replied Esperanza with an understanding nod. “If I were in your situation I’d probably be just as paranoid as you are now. Can’t really argue against it too since I already told you that Oldies want my help in destroying this world, now can I?” she added with a chuckle. “That said, to answer your question, what I saw with my skill is that the souls of everything in this world are… for the lack of a better word… fraying at the edges. They’re like a knit sweater that has loose threads… once someone or something pulls on one of those threads, everything would unravel.”
“And the… old gods says that this is caused by what the new gods are doing with this world?” asked Alissa, somewhat skeptically.
“Indirectly,” came Esperanza’s answer. “Oldies do not believe that the current gods actually wanted this to happen, but their interference isn't helping matters and in fact only further exacerbates it. This world runs on a cycle of reincarnation, according to Oldies. Souls that spent their lives as a complex life, with thoughts and worries, would incarnate into simpler lives, to heal the stress such a life caused to the soul, and then return to a more complex life form later on.”
“What the new gods did ever since they came to power was to prevent that cycle from taking place properly. It probably doesn’t help that they practically… dismantled a good chunk of the old pantheon and built this system of theirs out of their guts either,” continued Esperanza. “As things stand, in perhaps a few more centuries the fraying would get so bad that the souls would just start disintegrating into the ether, and that… would be a true death for the soul involved.”
“Destroying the world doesn’t count as a true death?” asked Alissa once more, this time with more curiosity. “I would’ve thought that the end of the world would sort of be the definitive end and all that, you know.”
“The way Oldies put it… I’d say it’s more like… recycling. The old world would be broken down and used to give birth to the new world, the souls passing through to live life anew,” explained Esperanza with a shake of her head. “I cannot personally confirm or deny the reincarnation bits, since that’s supposedly one of the things not working properly at the moment, but I have personally checked the fraying, and can confirm that a soul that frayed… does indeed disappear completely. One of my skills allows me to store the souls of those that died in the vicinity, so I wouldn’t miss that.”
“Okay, I sort of get the gist of what you mean with that,” replied Alissa. You said that souls would incarnate into simpler lives to sort of relax, though, so I do need to ask. While I get that the souls that get constantly stressed by being people would degrade, what about those that keep reincarnating into… the animals and bugs and whatnot?”
“Those degrade as well, though rather than because they were too stressed, it’s because they were never stressed enough,” replied Esperanza. “You’re an athlete. You know that to maintain your fitness, you can’t afford to train too much or too little, right? The need to keep a healthy balance and all that? The same applies here, I assume.”
“When you put it that way… I guess it does make some kind of sense,” admitted Alissa after she heard the explanation. “Still feels a bit iffy that you’d need to destroy the whole world to fulfill the cycle, though, but then gain, we got summoned to a whole different world that has a game-like system that the new gods supposedly made out of the carcass of dead old gods… so it wouldn’t be out of place, all considered.”
“More like putting a patient on extensive life support out of their misery, Oldies said,” noted Esperanza. “The world itself is overdue for such a cycle, and it’s the new gods and their system that’s been forcibly maintaining it well past its expiration date, so to speak. It’s one reason why things like the souls unraveling even took place.”
“Question for you, though. Did you ever ask the old gods what will happen to them after such a cycle? Would they be the gods of the new world after it is born? You did say that they have plenty of motive to hate the new gods… so I’m just wondering if there might be more to that,” asked Alissa. “For that matter, have they made you do anything you don’t want to do so far?”
“No, they haven’t. If anything, Oldies seem almost insistent that I see things and decide what to do for myself, rather than simply follow their words. It’s one of the reasons I feel that they might be worth some trust, honestly,” was Esperanza’s reply. “And to answer your other questions, it did come up during one of our chats.”
“Oh? What did they say, then?”
“The gods that preside over the world would be consumed, their very existence the fuel that allows the cycle of reincarnation to apply to the world itself as a whole in the first place. When the new world forms, it would birth a new pantheon, infant deities who would watch over the world and continue the cycle accordingly,” said Esperanza. “At least, that was how they said their innate understanding goes. Also explains why the new gods would try to preserve this world as much as they could… they’re the gods of this world now, so if the cycle happens, they might well be the ones consumed by it instead.”
“Huh. They seem pretty nonchalant about their own death, and for that matter… so do you, rather disturbingly so, I must admit,” noted Alissa. “Are you sure that they’ve done nothing to you in particular?”
“Honestly, actually dying probably did most of it for me. That and Oldies themselves admitted that my soul might well be somewhat fragmented and incomplete since I was already dead at the time of the summoning, so that might also be a reason for change,” Esperanza replied honestly. “Also, the system seems inclined to label everyone associated with Oldies with negative sanity, so if you could see mine it would be well in the negatives, though otherwise the numbers and math seem to work normally.”
“Any… idea why that would be the case?” asked Alissa with obvious worry.
“Likely bias against them by the new gods. Everyone that still worships them is labeled with negative sanity, Allie, everyone. This includes young children and newborn babes,” said Esperanza rather vehemently. “My version of [Analysis] can see a lot more than most, and there is no way that you could convince me that young children are somehow born insane just because their parents worship a different set of gods.”
“Okay, okay, I get where you’re coming from,” said Alissa placatingly. She was at first rather suspicious with Esperanza’s admission of having negative sanity, but hearing that it was apparently also the case with young children and babies changed her mind rapidly. “Definitely lends some context to some of the things I’ve noticed myself, at least. In fact, I happened to have recently read some books that mentioned… people who worship the old gods, the last time the kingdom tried to purge them many generations ago.”
“I can say that their so-called purge, and whatever the demons called their equivalent, did not get everyone,” replied Esperanza with a rather bitter tone. “I even saw how the demons slaughtered most of a village just because they worship the old gods with my own eyes, a good while ago. It was part of what convinced me to try to be more proactive in doing things, honestly.”
“I hope you don’t mind if I refrain from telling you the location of such places, though,” she continued with a shake of her head. “No offense, but they’d probably evacuate in a hurry if they caught wind that a summoned [Hero] was headed their way, just to be safe. Millennia of seeing the summoned people as tools of the new gods kinda does that.”
“No, I get it, and it’s also why I have some of my own doubts that the locals who summoned us might not be completely truthful about things,” replied Alissa with a nod of her head. “Ethan harbored similar suspicions, though it’s harder to tell with Joshua. He’s been rather taciturn and mostly keeps to himself since we were summoned, and we only really interact while fighting together.”
“Doubts of your own, you say? And Ethan shares them?” Esperanza queried with obvious interest. “What can you tell me about them?”
“Quite a bit, honestly, though we might have to save it for another meeting. It’s almost time for the librarian to close up the library, and I need to leave before then. Think you can come to the library again, tomorrow?”
“I’m not sure, actually. I managed to get through the wards with my own methods today, but if they have someone competent watching the wards, the signs of my passage might be noticed, which would prevent me from being able to get here, at least not without causing some sort of ruckus. Think we can meet outside instead?”
“That would probably be less conspicuous. Maybe at some sort of eatery or the like? Would not be uncommon to share a table with a stranger in such a place.”
“Sure, then. Tomorrow around an hour after noon? I’ll wait at an eatery called the ‘Maiden’s Shanty’, it’s near the northern section of town, a bit on the east side.”
Avitue
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“Okay, now that we got that part out of the way, at least, I didn’t come here just to make you listen to my sob story or anything like that, Allie. I’m sure you can already guess that much, no?” said Esperanza with a smirk on her face after they hugged for a while. Alissa responded with a sigh and slowly released her from the embrace, and looked at her with a more serious look on her face this time.
“Right, there’s that business about destroying the world and whatnot,” Alissa said as she shook her head and let out another wistful sigh, then settled back down in her chair across the table. “You said that you’re on the lookout for alternatives, but that you also saw many things that validated the claim of these… Old Gods, right? What sort of things did you see to make you so certain?”
“It’s thanks to one of my skills, honestly. I have several skills related to the soul, like how I knew where you were even from afar and behind walls thanks to [Soul Sense]. Another skill I have is [Soul Sight], and what that skill allows me to do… should be rather self-explanatory from the name, no?” explained Esperanza honestly. “Yours is a pretty one, if a bit on the too-bright side, by the way.”
“Thanks for the compliment, I guess,” said Alissa rather uncertainly at the revelation. That Esperanza had a class focused on the Soul aspect was not surprising. If anything, it fitted with the “template” she noticed between the way she, Ethan, and Joshua received their early classes. “What have you seen through that skill that convinced you that the Old Gods were telling the truth, though?”
Alissa’s class was balanced between the three main attributes of Body, Mind, and Soul, although she could choose to lean one way or another with her choice of stat allocations and later class choices. In contrast, Ethan’s focused heavily on the Body, with far less flexibility in his choices, while Joshua’s did the same, only with the mind.
Under that sort of template, their fourth member – which Esperanza was likely meant to be at first – would likely receive a class that focused on the Soul, which Esperanza ironically ended up focusing on, despite the lack of communication between them. It reminded Alissa a lot of the sort of typical starting parties in role-playing games.
“It’s not that I don’t believe you,” placated Alissa with a raised hand before Esperanza could reply. “It’s just that… I’ve seen so many questionable things since we were summoned here, and if even the so-called gods of this world could not be trusted… I hope you’ll understand that I find it difficult to simply believe in what other so-called gods say.”
“Oh, that’s perfectly understandable,” replied Esperanza with an understanding nod. “If I were in your situation I’d probably be just as paranoid as you are now. Can’t really argue against it too since I already told you that Oldies want my help in destroying this world, now can I?” she added with a chuckle. “That said, to answer your question, what I saw with my skill is that the souls of everything in this world are… for the lack of a better word… fraying at the edges. They’re like a knit sweater that has loose threads… once someone or something pulls on one of those threads, everything would unravel.”
“And the… old gods says that this is caused by what the new gods are doing with this world?” asked Alissa, somewhat skeptically.
“Indirectly,” came Esperanza’s answer. “Oldies do not believe that the current gods actually wanted this to happen, but their interference isn't helping matters and in fact only further exacerbates it. This world runs on a cycle of reincarnation, according to Oldies. Souls that spent their lives as a complex life, with thoughts and worries, would incarnate into simpler lives, to heal the stress such a life caused to the soul, and then return to a more complex life form later on.”
“What the new gods did ever since they came to power was to prevent that cycle from taking place properly. It probably doesn’t help that they practically… dismantled a good chunk of the old pantheon and built this system of theirs out of their guts either,” continued Esperanza. “As things stand, in perhaps a few more centuries the fraying would get so bad that the souls would just start disintegrating into the ether, and that… would be a true death for the soul involved.”
“Destroying the world doesn’t count as a true death?” asked Alissa once more, this time with more curiosity. “I would’ve thought that the end of the world would sort of be the definitive end and all that, you know.”
“The way Oldies put it… I’d say it’s more like… recycling. The old world would be broken down and used to give birth to the new world, the souls passing through to live life anew,” explained Esperanza with a shake of her head. “I cannot personally confirm or deny the reincarnation bits, since that’s supposedly one of the things not working properly at the moment, but I have personally checked the fraying, and can confirm that a soul that frayed… does indeed disappear completely. One of my skills allows me to store the souls of those that died in the vicinity, so I wouldn’t miss that.”
“Okay, I sort of get the gist of what you mean with that,” replied Alissa. You said that souls would incarnate into simpler lives to sort of relax, though, so I do need to ask. While I get that the souls that get constantly stressed by being people would degrade, what about those that keep reincarnating into… the animals and bugs and whatnot?”
“Those degrade as well, though rather than because they were too stressed, it’s because they were never stressed enough,” replied Esperanza. “You’re an athlete. You know that to maintain your fitness, you can’t afford to train too much or too little, right? The need to keep a healthy balance and all that? The same applies here, I assume.”
“When you put it that way… I guess it does make some kind of sense,” admitted Alissa after she heard the explanation. “Still feels a bit iffy that you’d need to destroy the whole world to fulfill the cycle, though, but then gain, we got summoned to a whole different world that has a game-like system that the new gods supposedly made out of the carcass of dead old gods… so it wouldn’t be out of place, all considered.”
“More like putting a patient on extensive life support out of their misery, Oldies said,” noted Esperanza. “The world itself is overdue for such a cycle, and it’s the new gods and their system that’s been forcibly maintaining it well past its expiration date, so to speak. It’s one reason why things like the souls unraveling even took place.”
“Question for you, though. Did you ever ask the old gods what will happen to them after such a cycle? Would they be the gods of the new world after it is born? You did say that they have plenty of motive to hate the new gods… so I’m just wondering if there might be more to that,” asked Alissa. “For that matter, have they made you do anything you don’t want to do so far?”
“No, they haven’t. If anything, Oldies seem almost insistent that I see things and decide what to do for myself, rather than simply follow their words. It’s one of the reasons I feel that they might be worth some trust, honestly,” was Esperanza’s reply. “And to answer your other questions, it did come up during one of our chats.”
“Oh? What did they say, then?”
“The gods that preside over the world would be consumed, their very existence the fuel that allows the cycle of reincarnation to apply to the world itself as a whole in the first place. When the new world forms, it would birth a new pantheon, infant deities who would watch over the world and continue the cycle accordingly,” said Esperanza. “At least, that was how they said their innate understanding goes. Also explains why the new gods would try to preserve this world as much as they could… they’re the gods of this world now, so if the cycle happens, they might well be the ones consumed by it instead.”
“Huh. They seem pretty nonchalant about their own death, and for that matter… so do you, rather disturbingly so, I must admit,” noted Alissa. “Are you sure that they’ve done nothing to you in particular?”
“Honestly, actually dying probably did most of it for me. That and Oldies themselves admitted that my soul might well be somewhat fragmented and incomplete since I was already dead at the time of the summoning, so that might also be a reason for change,” Esperanza replied honestly. “Also, the system seems inclined to label everyone associated with Oldies with negative sanity, so if you could see mine it would be well in the negatives, though otherwise the numbers and math seem to work normally.”
“Any… idea why that would be the case?” asked Alissa with obvious worry.
“Likely bias against them by the new gods. Everyone that still worships them is labeled with negative sanity, Allie, everyone. This includes young children and newborn babes,” said Esperanza rather vehemently. “My version of [Analysis] can see a lot more than most, and there is no way that you could convince me that young children are somehow born insane just because their parents worship a different set of gods.”
“Okay, okay, I get where you’re coming from,” said Alissa placatingly. She was at first rather suspicious with Esperanza’s admission of having negative sanity, but hearing that it was apparently also the case with young children and babies changed her mind rapidly. “Definitely lends some context to some of the things I’ve noticed myself, at least. In fact, I happened to have recently read some books that mentioned… people who worship the old gods, the last time the kingdom tried to purge them many generations ago.”
“I can say that their so-called purge, and whatever the demons called their equivalent, did not get everyone,” replied Esperanza with a rather bitter tone. “I even saw how the demons slaughtered most of a village just because they worship the old gods with my own eyes, a good while ago. It was part of what convinced me to try to be more proactive in doing things, honestly.”
“I hope you don’t mind if I refrain from telling you the location of such places, though,” she continued with a shake of her head. “No offense, but they’d probably evacuate in a hurry if they caught wind that a summoned [Hero] was headed their way, just to be safe. Millennia of seeing the summoned people as tools of the new gods kinda does that.”
“No, I get it, and it’s also why I have some of my own doubts that the locals who summoned us might not be completely truthful about things,” replied Alissa with a nod of her head. “Ethan harbored similar suspicions, though it’s harder to tell with Joshua. He’s been rather taciturn and mostly keeps to himself since we were summoned, and we only really interact while fighting together.”
“Doubts of your own, you say? And Ethan shares them?” Esperanza queried with obvious interest. “What can you tell me about them?”
“Quite a bit, honestly, though we might have to save it for another meeting. It’s almost time for the librarian to close up the library, and I need to leave before then. Think you can come to the library again, tomorrow?”
“I’m not sure, actually. I managed to get through the wards with my own methods today, but if they have someone competent watching the wards, the signs of my passage might be noticed, which would prevent me from being able to get here, at least not without causing some sort of ruckus. Think we can meet outside instead?”
“That would probably be less conspicuous. Maybe at some sort of eatery or the like? Would not be uncommon to share a table with a stranger in such a place.”
“Sure, then. Tomorrow around an hour after noon? I’ll wait at an eatery called the ‘Maiden’s Shanty’, it’s near the northern section of town, a bit on the east side.”
Avitue
If you enjoy this story, please consider leaving a rating or review to help it gain more exposure, thank you! Or help support the author by leaving a tip!
Read ahead on my Patreon! For 5$ a month patrons will gain early access of a week's worth of chapters ahead (3 chapters), or for 10$ a month, gain early access to ALL the available Advance Chapters! (as of the moment of this writing: 25 Chapters ahead.)
Or you can subscribe to all my stories and get a discount on the price!
Join the Discord for silly stuff and chat with us!
