GRP Chapter 38

Samthyeon stopped before a large door and turned to Mariaeks.

She understood the point of it precisely. He was asking her to help research divine tongue, as she had done when she interpreted the yak god's words.

She could not answer.

Samthyeon was under a significant misapprehension. She herself did not understand all divine voices. To Mariaeks—with her weak power—the voices of strong gods reached her exactly as they reached humans: as nothing but thunder and lightning. There was a difference in that she could read the emotional content within them. But only that. Understanding the powerful yak god's voice with that precision had been a special experience even for her. And now he was speaking of ancient divine tongue. She had never encountered anything of the sort. Her shelves held nothing but human books.

"The ancient gods born when the world was created were fragments of the Father god, who became the world's foundation, and they possessed fragments of his memories. Each god carved those memories into the natural world in their own way, and those carvings became the ruins and ancient languages of the present. The problem is that tens of thousands of gods each used a different form. There have been humans who could read ancient language, but at most, a handful of characters was the extent of it."

Unfamiliar things passed through her ears. The creation of the world. The primordial gods who had brought the world into being. The ruins of the ancient gods. World history heard from a human perspective was unfamiliar enough to be interesting—but interest was not what mattered now. What mattered was the weight of Samthyeon's request. She had no confidence she could do it.

"Over time, a character here and a character there accumulated until interpretations enough to fill an entire castle have been compiled—but even that is no more than a smear of blood from a bird's claw. Human knowledge alone is insufficient to discern the will of the gods, and so if a god of Heimdrykze were to offer assistance, it would be an unparalleled honor."

He gave her no time to respond. The moment he finished speaking, he turned the door handle he had been holding.

The door opened and light spilled in. Mariaeks looked into the space with unfocused eyes, her thoughts not yet gathered.

The communal study room was larger than expected. Inside a room roughly the size of four of Garthe's rooms combined, long desks and chairs were arranged in precise rows, packed tightly together. There were as many humans as there was furniture—priests in identical robes with identical pendants.

"The Great God of Creation, the Only Mother, has said: I am the one who blooms."

The priest standing on the raised dais spoke gravely.

"What does this passage make us feel? Ah, I like that enthusiasm. Sister, please go ahead."

A woman with sharp, intelligent eyes rose, cleared her throat, and raised her voice to carry across the quiet room.

"She has pizazz."

Mariaeks looked covertly at the priest on the dais on the answering sister's behalf. That seemed like it would earn a scolding, surely.

But once again her prediction was wrong. Since entering Fox's Den Fortress, expectations and predictions had become entirely useless things. The priest on the dais beamed.

"Correct! She totally has pizazz~"

"The Mother is the best~"

"And so we must inherit the Mother's pizazz and live magnificently~"

"You only live once! Short and glorious, brothers~"

The priests raised a listless waaah and applauded. They had the look of humans who had been pushed to their limits and simply let go.

Mariaeks also broadly understood the atmosphere. Nobody here was quite right in the head.

"Would you please wait here a moment, Lady Mariaeks."

Samthyeon walked along the aisle between the desks toward the dais.

"Ah. The High Priest has arrived."

The priests exhaled in collective lamentation. When Samthyeon stood at the dais, the discussion would apparently need to be somewhat more substantive than the news that the Mother had pizazz. Samthyeon ascended and looked at the assembled priests, opening with a voice full of fatigue.

"I'd like to proceed with today's study session in a different way."

"Is he finally going to throw us naked into Heimdrykze?"

Mariaeks heard the priest seated behind her whisper in terror. Samthyeon's reputation among the priests was evidently not very good.

"For the brothers who labor day and night for Thul'Mhoriae and Olgidphaenn, I have brought someone special. A great god of Heimdrykze who provided assistance during the recent yak god attack—Mariaeks."

The instant Samthyeon's gaze turned toward her, every priest's head swiveled to face her simultaneously. Not one blinked.

Mariaeks stopped breathing for a moment. Samthyeon's unruffled voice broke the frozen atmosphere.

"Please welcome her with applause."

Waaah! A thunderous cheer and applause erupted. One priest clasped both hands together, eyes glistening. Someone called out the phrase she had now grown familiar with: "A living Heimdrykze god—the first time." Another murmured something peculiar: "Is she the one the Anir of Olgidphaenn supposedly lives with tucked into his side?"

'Tucked into his side...' She had been tucked into his side, it was true. But the nuance seemed somewhat different from that.

"Lady Mariaeks, would you please come forward."

Samthyeon called her name directly. The fervent gazes and applause pouring over her drove her forward like a whip.

She wanted to turn around and run. Setting aside whether she could interpret ancient language at all, this was simply too much. Reluctantly, one step at a time, Mariaeks walked the same path Samthyeon had taken.

Standing on the raised dais where she could look down at the priests, the weight grew heavier still. No amount of suppressing her breath or presence would do any good here.

"First, please be seated here, Lady Mariaeks."

Where Samthyeon pointed was an enormous, ornate chair that had no business being in such a plain room. No sooner had Mariaeks settled uneasily into it than four large priests who had been standing guard around the chair each seized one leg and lifted the whole thing.

Her eye level shot up instantly.

They did not stop there. They set Mariaeks, chair and all, on top of the large wooden lectern. She was now sitting on the chair, atop the lectern, on the raised dais. It was so high that she could see nothing but the tops of people's heads.

Mariaeks was at a loss for words.

"We ought to have prepared a seat worthy of your noble dignity... But this was the best we could manage. My apologies. Is it comfortable?"

"It's uncomfortable."

Genuinely, truly uncomfortable. What on earth did humans think a noble god's dignity consisted of.

At her honest answer, the priests who had lifted the chair looked up at her with apologetic faces.

"Oh! Please lean comfortably against the back!"

"And cross your legs, comfortably!"

"Rest your arm comfortably on the armrest!"

"And prop your chin! Comfortably!"

Dazedly, Mariaeks did as they said. Leaned against the back. Crossed her legs. Draped her arm over the armrest. Propped her chin.

She had become thoroughly lordly in posture. She was still not comfortable. The discomfort was in her mind. And with what followed, that discomfort began steadily to deepen.

"Lady Mariaeks, would you look at the brother seated in the first row?"

An elderly man with sparse white hair sat with shining eyes.

"Our Brother Dolla has studied ancient language without a single day's rest from the age of five until now. And today, by your grace, he may come to understand the truth he has been searching for his entire life."

The old man trembled, tears falling.

"I have lived for this day... I could die without regret."

A weight of serious proportions began pressing down on Mariaeks's chest.

"Mariaeks. Can you see the sister seated in the third row there?"

Samthyeon indicated a neat woman far back who was smiling softly.

"Our Sister Pwiage, for the purposes of research, disguised herself and infiltrated a somewhat dangerous organization for five years. She is a remarkably devout person."

The composed woman smiled shyly and raised her little finger. It was roughly half the length of everyone else's.

"I cut it off myself as the price for leaving the organization," she said. "There was no particular gain to show for it, but I still have nine fingers remaining, so it's fine. I can infiltrate nine more times."