Capítulo 41: A meeting of Gods

"Seems like I'm still not too late to the party? How rude of you to forget to invite me! Hohohoho!"

"What are you doing here..."

Conjuring a chair from nothing, the masked god sat down before explaining himself, "Well, a little bird whispered in my ear that you guys were doing something fun!"

His words made Theia's eyes narrow, with irritation starting to grow inside of her. She truly hated having to deal with Loki, as the rules of the Gods didn't apply to him after he had somehow managed to trick the strands of fate to let him wander as he liked.

However, there was someone else in the room who hated him even more, "You shouldn't be here, you vile beast!"

Jack couldn't bear to see the face of the one he was sure had a part in one of his snowflakes getting stolen. He didn't know how or why, but he was sure that the god in front of him was in some way responsible. The burly, blue god had one day left his castle of ice to meet another neighboring god, making sure to lock his snowflakes in the vault. However, when he came back the next day, one of the three was gone without a trace. In his mind, Loki was the only god that could have pulled that off.

Turning his head to the blue god, everyone in the room could sense that he was currently wearing a very cheeky smile behind his mask, "Oh, you were here as well? I thought you were still out and about, trying to find your precious golden snowflake. How I wonder where it could be?"

*FWOSH!*

A powerful snowy wind started blowing in the room as Jack was unable to control himself, while at the same time standing up to make his way to the demon known as Loki.

"Stop!"

With just a single shout, the winds were quenched and disappeared, and Jack felt an intangible force pushing him back down in his seat. With her forehead creased in annoyance, Theia took control of the situation.

"I do not allow anyone to fight in my domain, you know this Jack. And you, god of mischief.."

Before she could finish her words, Loki put a palm in the air, stopping her, "I would appreciate it if you would be so kind as to use my original title, please."

She couldn't take it anymore, his aloof demeanor was just too much for her right now, as she was already stressed out about the ending of the mortal world and all. "What do you want, Loki? Just tell us and we will see what we can do about it."

"Are we seriously going to listen to him? I know that Jack is quite heated, but I think he is right. That man does not belong here."

Asclepius took his hands out of the pockets of the lab coat he always wore, and spoke words of disagreement to Theia. There was no way they could actually listen to the words of a god who had made their lives hell for thousands of years!

Pinching her nose, Theia explained her reasoning, "Haaa... We all know we can't just kick him out. Now that he has found this place, he will just be coming back anyway. He always finds a way, and you all should be well aware of that."

Once again, her words made sense in the heads of the gods, no one speaking up as they knew it would be untruthful. "Now, I'll ask you one more time, Loki, what do you want?" The casual god just shrugged his shoulders and got on with it, knowing that pissing them off too much would just make his ambitions harder to fulfill.

"I want James Jackson."

The room went silent as they just heard something preposterous. Throughout all of the millennia, Loki had never had an interest in a mortal or, at least, he had never 'wanted' one, meaning he was planning on designating an apostle.

All of them were bewildered, unable to comprehend why he wanted that shy mortal who was just hiding himself all day. Then again, none of them had actually bothered to look at him much, all except for one. "So you know... I figured you would be able to find out..."

Snapping his finger as he stood up, Loki made the chair he was sitting on disappear, "Maybe, maybe not. This isn't something to be discussed in front of other gods anyway. Or maybe it is, maybe I should talk about it right here, right now? I might be dissuaded if you can promise me that you let me have James."

A purple glow began emerging from the black sockets of the mask as Loki got excited, knowing he had already won by putting Theia into an impossible situation. Biting her lip, she truly didn't have a choice, "Fine! But know that I will be keeping an eye on him too! I won't just let you corrupt a human for the sake of entertainment!"

This was her bottom line, at least this way she could interfere if she thought that James was getting too caught up in the nature of the god of mischief. Still, Loki was pleased, happy even, as he knew something about the man she had brought that she did not.

"Alright, it's a deal, I won't corrupt him! Oh, and by the way, there is no way I will appoint him my apostle unless he himself starts walking the same path as me." ('And by my calculations, he is bound to create a situation where he falls in the near future by himself, after all, the threads of fate do not lie...')

"Bye, god of mischief, and please stay out of my sights for at least a millennia this time."

As his figure started to blur, signifying that he was about to exit her domain, he managed to leave some final words, "I don't think that will be so, Theia. After all, we are now watching the same mortal. Also, as I said before, I would really prefer it if you started using my old title again. Ciao!"

The gods were all in minor internal turmoil after what had just happened, with no one understanding why Theia had agreed to his proposal. Nonetheless, she was currently the ruling god as she had the most followers in the mortal realm, meaning they couldn't argue with her decision if she made a promise. A promise from a god was, after all, not like the promise of a mortal. Breaking it would have dire consequences, tearing off a part of her divine soul and destroying it.

****

[James's Pov]

"Fuck!"

Sebastian had managed to squeeze yet another win without using any Skills, making my already present frustration grow even more. At first, it looked like Adriana and Sebastian were pretty even in terms of combat power.

Adriana had made good use of her [Ice Lance] in order to get close to Sebastian, as she had the upper hand in ultra-short range against a spear. He, however, had in turn answered by using the spear more like a bō-staff, defending expertly by utilizing every part of his weapon, not just the sharp tip.

In the end, the elven princess had come out on the losing side, making her use [Armor of Ice] in order to gain some minor offensive power but a lot of defenses. This made her able to forcefully keep exchanging hits with the purple-haired man for a long time, but in the end, Sebastian managed to gain some distance when Adriana's stamina began to run out.

It was chilling to see just how coolly the spearman had acted, his body bloody and dirtied by the attacks from the rapier, but he still didn't use any Skills. In the end, he won the match as Adriana admitted her defeat when she ran out of mana and energy, knowing that even though she hadn't suffered a lot of injuries, she was unable to continue fighting.

So, I was angry. What kind of person would willingly suffer all that pain just to keep his secrets? If his secrets were that important, why not just run away as I did?

He was another person I couldn't fully understand, just like Arthur. No, he was someone I understood a lot less than Arthur, I truthfully didn't understand him at all, except that he was most likely a very prideful person.

Having searched for him on the internet, I had come across the Crawb family, a house of nobles that was almost at the end of their line, most likely about to fall to become commoners. In their prime, they were famous for their spearmanship and their proficiency in war. A talent that was no longer needed as Mensch was now united and they had allied with Aldon.

This would point to the fact that he should be feeling pressured to show off everything he could do, gaining as much attention as possible to find his place in a prestigious guild, but no. He chose not to do that. He chose to just barely win against Adriana in a very close manner instead of using everything he had.

Even Arthur had chosen to reveal his [Sword of Light] Manual, meaning he was now probably a target that the demons sought to obliterate. If even someone in that situation made the choice to fight with all he had, why wouldn't Sebastian?

"Sub-me, come out! I need to talk to myself!"

From my body, sub-me emerged, just as angry as we both were. "What was I saying?"

"You know what I was saying! Argh! Even though I am the best company I have, I can't help but get irritated at myself sometimes!"