CH861

The scolding was long, everyone who’d healed him had their piece to say but the walk home was worse. At least among everyone else, he could enjoy the more positive reactions a bit among the more expected words about valuing his safety more and not putting himself at risk but going back through the empty streets of Stonewall was just himself and Thera, with his girlfriend’s silence feeling far louder than anything else and only made worse for his new mental structure, able to perceive a depth to the time that he never would have before.

“Um, Thera?”

“No.”

“Okay, but-”

“Nope. I’m not in the mood, I don’t want to hear it.”

“...Alright.”

Considering that he’d almost killed himself in front of her he understood why she was so mad but he didn’t know how to make it better other than giving her some space and delivering his most heartfelt apology in the morning, leaving him quiet until they’d made it home and putting out an offer so he could do exactly that.

“You want me sleeping on the couch tonight?”

“Try it and you’ll get to see just how much more unbelievably pissed I can get.”

“Got it.”

Wow, I am doing shockingly bad at this right now.

With no other options presenting themselves he followed her to their room, laying down beside her while she turned away from him with the only feeling coming being one of barely contained mana threatening to leak out as they both laid in silence, time passing by but neither getting any sleep as it went, leaving him to try just once more to smooth things out.

“I’m sorry.”

When she didn’t immediately respond he assumed he was being ignored, left to wonder just what to do from there before she finally spoke up, sounding tired and hurt.

“It doesn’t matter, I can’t even tell you to not do it again because I know you absolutely will if you think you have to. You just put yourself in danger and don’t think about if that’s going to affect the people who love you.”

“Thera, I-”

“Can you think about how I felt, having what was the first really nice, peaceful time with friends and family in ages only to feel your body twist and jerk as it started tearing itself apart? And yeah, in the past I’ve let it slide because I can see when you genuinely haven’t had a choice but you knew something was going to happen and you couldn’t even bother to warn me and you’re just going to keep doing the shit so you can try to get stronger so you can go off and get yourself killed and… It doesn’t matter. Unfortunately for me, I care about you so I’m just going to have to put up with every way you might go and kill yourself and I don’t know why I’m even bothering because you’re not going to stop but… Just go up and bother your god, Ben. I’ll be less mad in the morning.”

He didn’t though, hearing what he’d put her through without considering how it would affect her, he rolled over and took her in his arms, speaking gently as he did.

“You’re right, I’m going to keep doing things that might be dangerous-”

“If this is you trying to make up then you’re about to get your arm broken.”

“But I am sorry about the way I did it,” He went on. “I can’t just stop trying to grow but I should have given you some sort of warning about what I was going to do, even if I needed to be light on the details. I promise, if I ever think I ever need to do anything dangerous like that again I will make sure I tell you so it won’t be a surprise and I’ll find a way to make it as safe as I can.”

“...Yeah, you’re the worst,” She sighed as she rolled over, finally facing him. “Genuinely, the reassurance you should have been giving would be telling me you won’t do anything as insane as that again. You do understand that, right?”

“Yeah, but I’m not going to lie to you. But maybe that’s worth something and you could find it in your heart to forgive me?”

“Pfff, we can work on forgiveness in the morning. I’m still too angry to sleep so you’re spending the next few hours trying to make it up to me.”

“Yeah, I’ll do my best.”

---

“Huh, that’s interesting,” Ben muttered as he reached his god’s realm in the early hours of the morning, getting the three already there to jump as they rushed to his side.

“Ben, what the hell happened down there?” Myriad asked him. “I mean, I know what happened down there, you blocked us somehow, but-”

“Oh, so that really did keep everyone from seeing, huh? Neat, that means I almost have privacy again, minus the grey and all.”

“We couldn’t see or contact you since I couldn’t even find you despite knowing exactly where you should have been. What happened when you went back down there?”

“You didn’t miss much. Dealt with the consequences of how I got my awakenings and was just on the receiving end of the angriest sex of my life so I haven’t had a chance to really test any of my new skills beyond what was already obvious. Having said that, coming up here showed me one new thing.”

“Do I want to know?”

“I no longer need to be asleep to come up here,” He said, his body in the mortal realm still awake. “You know what that means.”

“...Ben, new official rule for the faith. You are not allowed to spend every hour of the day in my realm.”

“Ah, come on man, why not? Don’t you love me? Don’t you enjoy every second we spend together? Don’t you want your apostle, who has the most powerful mind on the planet I might add, to thrive by being able to live in two realms at once?”

“None of those nearly as much as I love occasionally having some peace. Come up if it’s an emergency but otherwise, keep it to nights like we currently do, we have a good thing going here for my mental health.”

“Ugh, boo but fine. In that case, I guess I’ll test something else while I’m up here.”

“If it’s related to your sacrilege, make sure you properly discuss it first.”

“It’s not so that means surprises are fine, right?”

“Ben-”

Too late, they saw both what he was trying as well as his success as another Ben appeared in the realm, followed by another and continuing on from there, stopping at twenty and all of them speaking in one voice.

“Huh, neat. Since I can maintain myself in the lower realm I can just keep sending more up. Wonder how I can make this come in handy?”

A question that made the rest of them wonder just how much of a headache all of his new power would prove to be once he had fully familiarized himself with it, leading Helori to ask one of her own.

“So is twenty instances of yourself your upper limit then?” She asked as she looked at them all, feeling a nightmare scenario where he’d want to spend time in that many realms form in her thoughts while he shook his heads.

“No, I can already tell I can do way more than this, I just figured I’d stop before it got too crowded up here, you know? This much hasn’t actually strained me at all so unless there’s going to be a sudden hard limit for some reason, I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to do at least a few hundred more.”

“...New rule,” Myriad told him again. “Unless there’s a genuine reason for it and you discuss it with me first, no existing multiple times at once in my realm. I really don’t need the headache.”

“Okay, a little rude,” He said as he forced the other nineteen to disappear. “Trying to keep me from reaching my full potential but I’ll let it slide for now, there’s a few other things to talk about now that everything’s calmed down a bit.”

“Such as?”

“Two things. First, what sorts of privileges can I get now that I’m a third tier? I’ve already been told there’s some, I want to know what I can get.”

“Alright, a reasonable thing to want to learn I suppose but bear in mind, anything you gain can be taken away should you abuse it.”

“Me? Abuse the power I’m given? Never. So what is it?”

“...Why must my future be so full of headaches?” Myriad wondered, tilting up to face the sky for a moment to collect himself before going on. “But as for what might matter most to you? Authority. Technically, you can be sent money for it but you don’t need any so that won’t be supported, especially since as a member of my church, I’m the one who’d be covering most of the costs-”

“And most of the money for your church comes from me anyway.”

“No need to drive that point home, I know. Anyway, you could also become a priority for supplies if there was anything you were looking to acquire but seeing just how much you can materialize, that doesn’t seem exceptionally pressing for you either. No, what matters is, so long as you have a good reason for it, you have almost immediate authority should you ever need to use it. If there’s an emergency you can go to any adventurer guild leader and mobilize their entire guild immediately and in many cases you could do the same with town guards or templars or even armies, though that last one would obviously be significantly more complicated, especially given the current state of things in the world. Still, if you wanted you could demand meetings with world leaders and put them in positions where they’d need to make time for you and while not obligated, I’m comfortable saying that if you were to reveal your status as a third-tier you could get plenty of people to follow your will as well, even just civilians going about their day. You’re officially going to be a god, Ben. I can’t stress just how much that means.”

All interesting and he supposed it could be useful but it was nothing he immediately cared about either. There were a few resources that he would appreciate having an easier time getting his hands on and authority could matter in the right situations but it was nothing he wanted to use it for in that instance. He was after opportunities to grow his skills and raise his power, he didn’t want to waste time acting like the kid with the biggest stick on the playground.

But it sounds like I could use it to get out of trouble if I really need to so it’s worth remembering.

“Okay, cool. If it ever comes up then I’ll look forward to seeing just how far the authority of a third tier can go. Now for the second thing. Before, you’d told me that gods can do things with their souls and that you’d tell me once I became a god myself. Well here I am, filled with curiosity and having not even remotely forgotten that promise so let’s hear it.”

A few looks went up among them but eventually Nare shrugged and shook his head. “It’s not like he won’t learn eventually and there’s no real harm in knowing.”

“Well, I suppose,” Myriad relented before directing his attention to Ben. “But don’t try to misuse this information, understood?”

“Crystal clear, so what can you use them for?”

“Among other things, the biggest thing a god can do with theirs is bless the mortals who worship them.”