Knights Apocalyptica

[Live! Damn it!]

Erec’s body convulsed—he took a deep breath. His lungs stung from the reflexive effort; the world around felt surreal. As if he didn’t quite belong to it. Not to mention his head was an absolute mess, and his chest felt like it’d been caved in.

“Fuck…” Erec said with a numb tongue; it was like a piece of clay in his mouth.

[Don’t do a thing! Just sit there and stay alive this time—after this, we’re going to have a long hard talk about limitations. I’ve never met such a foolish employee. Honestly, you’re a fleshy creature; why do you get such dumb thoughts in your head?]

Erec bit his tongue, trying to talk back, then gave up. It was impossible to focus on anything going on around him properly; even though he made out movements, everything was a blur. Wherever they’d put him, nothing made much sense, and all of it had a dim, muted feel.

Without a battle to fight and, that knowing in his heart, it was time to be at ease, Erec let go.

There were times to rest. He’d fought the White Stag without regard to the cost and pulled through by some miracle. It was time to rest and recover.

But that image of the Goddess haunted him. It’d seemed real—but given his state, it may very well have been a hallucination.

Erec forced his mind away from it; what little sense he could make of what he’d seen and experienced was confused with the damage to his head.

Name: Erec of House Audentia

Health: 3%| Mana: 100% | Stamina: 7%

———————————————————————

Holy Virtues:

Strength: [Rank D] | [Tier 5]

Vigor: [Rank E] | [Tier 6]

Agility: [Rank E] | [Tier 4]

Perception: [Rank E] | [Tier 5]

Cognition: [Rank E] | [Tier 4]

Psyche: [Rank E] | [Tier 5]

Mysticism: [Rank F] | [Tier 1]

Faith:

———————————————————————

Divine Talents:

Fury

Erec’s eyes scanned the words, but they made no sense—his head swam as he stared at the Faith virtue.

Gone. A weird status replaced his previously pitiful rank of F tier 1. No matter how he looked at it, the change made no sense. He hadn’t heard of such a thing occurring before, and a cold shock of fear ran down his spine.

Was he forsaken?

He stared at the status for a long time, trying to divine a meaning from a thing that had no apparent connection or explanation. He couldn’t ask VAL about it since the machine would have no better clue of what it meant than himself, even if he managed to form the words correctly. Goddess knew this wasn’t a thing to ask the Church about.

Terrifying.

At some point, the scenery around him shifted. They’d tossed him in a steel wagon that was making its way across the desert. With the hunt ended, they’d be heading home. Surely.

Maybe there, he might understand what this meant and what it changed.

— -☢ - — - ☼ - — - ☢ - —

It took two weeks to walk again; all of his time was left in the care of priests, who kept giving him odd looks. After about a week, and thanks to VAL supplementing his healing, he could finally track conversations and talk with people—but none of his friends visited. No one did.

Not even Boldwick made an appearance. He was stuck with a load of priests tending to his recovery in a sterile temple room.

Combined with the worry about his missing Virtue, paranoia and wrongness colored his thoughts. Were they studying him? Trying to get a feel of what was wrong with him? Would they toss him out of the Kingdom if they discovered that his Faith virtue was gone? Blasphemy and issues the church found with people varied wildly, and it didn’t take much imagination to guess how they might react to that information.

Once he felt the ability to get to his feet again—Erec didn’t hesitate. He picked himself off the cot and made his way toward the exit.

Predictably, one of the priests headed him off.

“Back to your bed.” She commanded, a stern warning in her tone.

“I’m better now; I wanna get some fresh air,” Erec contested, puffing his chest up and making himself appear healthier than he was.

“That is an order.” She responded.

Erec considered his options. Then he got angry—that fire flared in him. How dare she give him a command? She wasn’t a Knight—she wasn’t associated with any Order and certainly not above him. What right did she have to tell him what to do? Until someone with that authority came and told him he had to stay, there was no reason to listen to what these priests said.

The hate sparked and flared, ready to ignite. She was asking him to challenge her and show her the Knight who slew more monsters than he’d likely ever seen in her cozy behind-the-wall existence.

Erec’s fist balled up.

She tensed, sensing that he was about to erupt to make good on his reputation of being a mad Knight. As well she should, daring to risk his wrath. Today was a day for her to learn a lesson.

Erec grit his teeth but then stopped. This wasn’t the way forward. This path had led to his death twice now. If he were to keep blindly pursuing the same strategy—then sooner or later, his luck would run out.

His fist unclenched, and he exhaled deeply.

The priest shifted, looking surprised at the sudden change on his face.

“Do you happen to know of a priest named Gregory?” Erec tried, catching the woman further off guard. The questions disarmed her as she looked left and right afterward.

“I do, a very kind man—the clergy is rather well acquainted with one another up here on the surface…” she trailed off, unsure of what he was driving at.

“If I can’t leave, could you do me a favor? Get Gregory here; I’d like to catch up. I won’t make any trouble if you do.” Erec met her eyes, taking in the woman’s silver irises. She gave him a slow nod, and they had an understanding. Without much else to go on, Erec returned to his bed.

Better to recover for longer. Particularly if this would end with him being tossed out of the Kingdom.

— -☢ - — - ☼ - — - ☢ - —

“They cannot see the flickers of your soul,” Gregory said hesitantly, setting a hand on Erec’s shoulder. “Neither can I—normally, it burns with the Goddess’ fire, making it visible to our eyes when we use our prayer to heal, yet yours isn’t present.”

“And so they’re holding me here because of that?” Erec asked, shaking his head. Gregory appeared to be doing well for himself, but that didn’t do much to change his current situation. The best Erec could manage was to suppress his anger and keep himself in check, but his nerves about everything weren’t making things better.

But Gregory confirmed his worst fear.

The church knew something was wrong with him now.

“Aye, if they could, they’d subject you to a more thorough examination. As it is, they’re getting push-back from your Order and the Kingdom itself. It seems the royal family wants to properly reward you for slaying the Stag.”

Erec glanced at the door—three priests were talking to one another and looking at him and Gregory.

Obviously, the man shouldn’t be telling him this much about the situation, but Gregory also covered for their gun use. Not all of the priests were lock-in-step with what the church wanted.

“So, what do you suggest?” Erec asked.

“My advice? Keep quiet. Be polite, but don’t give in to any of their requests. I’ll make some discreet confirmations to the people in your Order about your health. Right now, the church is using the excuse of you being injured to not allow you to walk free. We’ll shed some light on that and let nature take its course.”

“Thank you,” Erec nodded slowly. It’d been right to ask for Gregory. As long as he gave nothing away to these priests, then he’d walk free.

All he had to do was hide that his Faith virtue went terribly wrong.

“By the way, you should be prepared for things to move very quickly when you’re out—it might be like your life has been on pause. But things haven’t slowed in the Kingdom. I expect you to be summoned to the royal court almost immediately. Plenty of the nobility is curious about the initiate that slew a cataclysm-level threat, and the Royal family is eager to reward you for your service.”

“I—“ Yeah, that’d been one of the last things on his mind coming into this conversation. He wanted to see Bedwyr, talk to his friends, and see what Boldwick had to say to him.

Worrying about appearing in the highest court in the Kingdom to accept a reward wasn’t on his list of things to do. And so, he didn’t know what to think about it.

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

Gregory squeezed his shoulder and nodded. “You’ve done well, lad. Keep it together for a little while, and you’ll be out of here.”

With that, Gregory left. Just a couple of more days of keeping himself subdued. I can do that.

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