GOD IS AN IDIOT

Chapter 4 – The Handler

The last drops of blessed water trickled off his skin. The sweat, soot and blood on the man's face repelled the fluid as soon as Nigun had sprinkled it. It had been the same for most of the 137 corpses spread between the stone houses and occasional storage building, but they had no time to properly prepare a funeral and grave for every dead villager. A short blessing ritual would have to make do.

"...let your body become ash and dirt once more, so you may enter Surshana's hall purified of earthly longings. Let the judgement be harsh, but fair, for that it is all a mortal could ask for. Let your soul find the eternal peace it was denied in life. Amen."

Nigun finished, satisfied with the last consecration and nodded to the Theocracy's soldiers who had slaughtered those men and women, old people and young children, everyone in their village. Its name used to be 'Carne', and it had been the 5th and last village they had massacred to bait one of the Re-Estize Kingdom's strongest warriors.

Although, in the end, it had not been by their hand, their target was now most likely dead. Therefore, there was no more need to continue massacring the Kingdom's citizens, and the soldiers in their blue tabards began throwing the dead into the houses.

Offering their pawn sacrifices this last respect had been not an option before, as the Theocracy's men were supposed to act in the guise of soldiers of the Baharuth Empire, Re-Estize's rival and enemy in a war of attrition the Kingdom had been slowly losing.

For the past seven years, the blue-clothed professional soldiers of Baharuth, the Empire's knights, would invade the Kingdom at the start of each harvest season to face the levy soldiers of the kingdom.

While every knight was a trained professional, the levies were basically peasants conscripted from their full fields and handed a weapon to die in their lords' name. Only a great numerical superiority could compensate the skill gap between the combatants and ensure a stalemate in the annual battles, but that was enough to ensure the long-term victory of Baharuth. The missing work forces during the harvest season left the corn and vegetables rotting on the fields, and drove the Kingdom closer to economic collapse with each passing year.

Using their uniforms to hide the Theocracy's involvement was most sensible, but it also meant they had to act like mercenaries. Paying the dead respect or refraining from pillaging would have raised unwanted attention.

Now their mission was fulfilled, the need to continue that charade of barbarism ceased, and they could begin their track back to Slane.

"Make sure you have all of your equipment and gear on you before you light up the village!" Nigun reminded the soldiers and Scripture. He knew from personal experience even small details could betray the true story. He himself had snuffed out demi-humans and monsters trying to cover their attacks as cases of banditry by observing the details several times.

Details like a cheap dagger with Baharuth's simplified banner on the pommel he had lodged into the chest of a dead woman, the few copper coins he had 'lost' outside the village, or the dead burly man they had clad in one of the blue uniforms and left under a wall they collapsed over him… and many more his team had thought of and prepared.

Even if the village burned completely down, there would be enough evidence left to point at Re-Estize's hated rival to the east, fuelling the conflict and diverting attention from the work of the Slane Theocracy.

One by one, the houses lit up behind them as the forces of the Theocracy moved out of village toward the eastern edge of the Great Forest of Tob. They would travel a few miles eastwards through the forest before turning south, hopefully dissuading any trackers from following them far enough to deduce their real destination.

It was a dangerous manoeuvre, as the forest was untamed and unclaimed by any of the three great nations – Re-estize, Baharuth and Slane –encircling it. No one knew how many people had fallen prey to its monstrous inhabitants, but it happened often enough the people in all three nations considered it a death sentence to walk alone into the heart of Tob.

Nigun was well aware of the risk, and had even suffered casualties under his command to the forest before, but by now he had gotten used to it. He might have felt excitement as they neared the trees, but no longer the dread he had felt the first time his then superior ordered him to move through it. He had learned to regard it as a calculated risk.

He also learned procrastination was a mortal enemy of duty, and moved ahead in the track till he found Detleev.

The old man had kept behaving oddly after the Strongoff incident. He had forgotten standard mission procedures when they started to prepare the village, could not remember the names of many of his comrades, and needed instruction in the use of standard equipment like the mask. He did not even recognize Hilje, a warrior priestess who had fought at his side for over 15 years, when she had thrown a friendly banter his way as had been their custom for as long as Nigun had known them.

He could no longer justify Detleev's place in the Scripture, and had to finally tell him the bad news. A firm grip on the shoulder let Detleev turn around and grin at Nigun's stern face.

"Captain?"

"Lieutenant, a word..." Nigun gestured with a small head shake to walk with him a few meters apart from the track.

"Is there a problem, Sir?" Detleev asked as he followed. Nigun had to think for a moment to find the right words. He had no intention of hurting his comrade's feelings, but doubted he possessed the rhetorical skills to avoid bruising Detleev's pride. He decided to not sugar-coat the issue and just come clean.

"There won't be. Detleev, this is not easy for me to say, so I will be blunt. Once we have reported back in Humanitas, I will discharge you from the Scripture."

Detleev fell back wide-eyed for a moment, while his captain kept his pace, before sprinting back to his side and asking, "You are cutting me lose, Captain? Why? I have served faithfully for almost two decades in the Scripture and done so, I believe, with skill and integrity. I may have gotten older, but I am sure my experience and knowledge outstrip the slight loss in physical prowess..."

"That's the point!" Nigun cut in before the veteran could talk himself into a self-justified conviction. "They do not. Not any more. Detleev, I have been keeping tabs on your performance for quite some time, and unfortunately you no longer meet the standards I require of a member of the Scripture."

The disappointment in Detleev's face was plain to see, and Nigun felt he owed him a more detailed explanation. "I am doing this now, because I consider you a friend."

"A friend does not fire a friend out of the blue!"

Detleev accused, and Nigun answered angrily in kind, "A friend doesn't watch his friend walk into his death!"

"That arrogance is so typical of you, boy!"

"Watch your tone, Lieutenant! Back down! That's an order!" Nigun reminded Detleev, shocked at the audacity of the officer who used to be exemplary in his service up to this point. He could hardly believe the change in character. Had he underestimated the decay? Did he really think too highly of his observational skills?

Clearly, Detleev must have thought so, as he ignored Nigun's warning and countered, "Why? What are you gonna do? Fire me?"

'Bind you in chains for insubordination? Kill you for abandoning your post and duty! Detleev, have you gone mad?' Nigun thought, but said, "Detleev, you are not thinking straight. Consider what you are provoking, what you will force me to do, if you do not change your attitude!"

Defying a superior officer in the field was a capital crime in the Slane Theocracy. Every member of the Scripture knew this, understood the underlying reason, and was aware of the punishment waiting for those breaking this rule. In the fight for mankind's survival, everyone had to hold back personal feelings and instincts for the greater good. All recruits were indoctrinated and educated about the necessity of following their superior's order, even if it meant certain death, or the strength found in their unity would break.

But the veteran before him appeared to have forgotten those lessons, and was just getting started, while the rest of the men began to watch the arguing officers. "Oh, I am thinking straight. I am thinking you are a fucking boot-licker concerned only about his career! Admit you are afraid the cardinals will pick me, when the question of the Scripture's leadership comes up again! You wouldn't hesitate one second to sacrifice the whole Scripture to save your own skin!"

"Because that is what our training and protocol taught us! Detleev-"

"Shut it, whelp!" Detleev cut him off.

Nigun could already hear and see the Scripture's members draw their weapons. He wanted to avoid spilling his own team's blood and quickly commanded them with a hand sign to hold off for now. "For the last time, Detleev, I order you to stand down!"

Nigun heard a sickening crunch before he registered the pain in his nose and blood running down his pharynx. Detleev loomed over him with a bloody fist, a ring of weapons and readied spells around his neck.

"[Cure Lesser Wounds]!"

Nigun heard Jedos chant, and the pain quickly stopped, but he did not thank him. His angry attention was reserved only for Detleev, who stared back just as furiously.

"Sir?" One of the Scripture members inquired. Nigun knew he, like the rest of them, was waiting for the command to kill. Detleev had become more than a severe liability; he had turned into a mad rebel. Simply telling his men to do it would have satisfied his immediate need, but Nigun knew it was the anger in him speaking. If he went for it, he would forever have the blood of a sick man on his hands without any gain for mankind.

Instead, he ordered with forcefully restrained emotion. "Take away his weapon and mask, also the potions."

Detleev did not flinch or hinder the men. He just kept glaring as Nigun rose from the ground.

"Deetlev Placius Bulmor,..." Nigun spoke low and slowly, "By my right as captain, I strip you of your command and exile you from the Scripture and the Slane Theocracy! Return and pay with the life I have just gifted you. Esuan, Michel!"

"Yes, Sir!" Both answered with a sharp salute and awaited Nigun's order:

"Fetch Detleev's other belongings from the cart, and hand him some water and rations at your own discretion. Then, see to it he leaves."

The captain hoped Detleev would get the wink he should behave if he hoped to survive the coming days. Reaching the next settlement without provisions could often be an effective death sentence all on its own, and the geezer should have been aware of at least that. For now, the pariah stayed calm as all, but Esuan and Miguel's weapons dropped. Detleev's icy stare, he pointed at him while he was led away, crawled down Nigun's spine like a glacier. Still, he willed down the inhibition to bid him farewell.

"Go, fool! Maybe one day the gods will see fit for you to understand the great mercy I have granted you today, my friend!"

Detleev simply snorted.

'Reek!' That terrible bowel-wrenching, bile-raising, eye-watering, lip curling reek! Such nauseating sweet perfume assaulting the pharynx, creeping down the throat while the body tried in vain to dry gag it out again.

The acid burned with the first cough, and already, a lump relentlessly crawled up. With a wet splat, he birthed the mass of vomit and moaned in suffering. He could not see anything; the world was pitch black, and he wallowed in a bed of steel, tatters and bloody flesh.

He cringed when he hit his head on something hard and landed face-first in another squishy and wet thing, burbling under the impact. And the stench just would not fade.

In what hell had he been reborn into? Had the gods found him wanting and sent him to a horrible pit?

'Or maybe a worldly pit?'

Another retch left his lips dripping, but Nigun started to find focus.

He was alive – that was something, he guessed; at least in the dark mess he had found himself in. A starting point to leave the maddening situation behind. He needed to accept the situation if he wanted to keep living.

Nigun vomited again. It would take some time.

'A little light could help.'

Of course, he might have been blind, but that could easily be changed. He could use the [Ball of Light] spell to banish the darkness. Nigun rose from the ground into a kneeling position and pointed with a raised hand into the night.

"[Ball of Light]."

Upon hearing and concentrating on the code word, he felt the spell trigger. In the nick of a second, a glimpse of divine formulas and shapes in unfathomable sequence filled his brain. They were the memories of the years he spent staring on the divine scriptures, and trying to interpret a grain of sand of the god's genius through meditation.

A small glowing sphere appeared and blinded for a moment with its fluorescent light. He wished it would have needed longer to work, as he stared dry-mouthed at the Sunlight Scripture. Those who still could looked back in frozen horror at their captain and their mutilated comrades. Everyone died by extreme violence judged by the squashed, ripped, dismembered or half-melted cadavers they had become.

The scream which threatened to escape the Captain's lips stayed unspoken as Nigun remembered.

He remembered how they had left his then-to second-in-command Detleev behind and followed the road east into the Great Forest of Tob. After a few miles, they turned south and made camp in a small clearing they used every few years to avoid attention from the residents of the forest. He awoke to the screams of alarm.

That was where the memory ended, and he instead found himself here, in a circular pit and on a bed made of his dead comrades and entrusted soldiers.

'Concentrate! Nigun, concentrate!'

Nigun ignored the mounting horror by looking up and focusing on his designated task: surviving. He could not stay here. Here, he would die, body and soul, so he had to get out of the pit. Thankfully, the edge wasn't far from the dead. Nigun allowed himself a last time to vomit – mostly slime – before he stalked just shy of trembling over the mass grave.

'Or maybe depository.'

Jedos' zero-armed body gave away as Nigun stepped on his shoulder to jump up the edge.

"Damn!" Nigun hissed as he failed and slid down the steep slope, but he didn't curse because his former scout fell over. He cursed at his realization he might be in the bowels of a demi-human camp who-knows-where in the Great Forest of Tob. If so, calling his chances of survival slim would have been most generous.

Nigun took another try on Vicodamus' broad-framed shoulders, and successfully hauled his breast over the edge. He pulled himself completely out of the pit before almost vomiting again. He was getting better.

'And now?'

'In a hostile environment: use a hostile tool.'

Nigun found his sword missing, just like his knives. Yet, as he searched and touched his body for any wounds, he found none to his astonishment. Instead, he discovered several blunt shapes beneath his robes. His arrogant captors must have thought him dead and left him for later to plunder. Like some of Slane's traditional sweet chocolate filled with small toys, inspired by a favoured dish of the gods. It was a customary gift to very young children in spring, and the Theocracy found it an effective first siphoning of the nation's blood pool of the weak and slow, ever since its introduction 520 years ago.

And now his captors, whoever they might have been, were about to choke on them. Thinking him dead, they truly had only robbed him of his obvious weapons, but not the gear under his uniform. He still had his potions, scrolls, intel items besides the mask – and most important of all, he still had the gift of the cardinals.

The 'Sealing Crystal' which held a wonder of the gods. As he had obediently knelt before the cardinals and received the order to kill Gazef Strongoff, they had entrusted him with the legendary item to ensure his success – this was a national treasure, because they valued his life too much to risk against Gazef. It was only right he would use it now to flee this hell.

He grinned in grim satisfaction at the fist-sized clear crystal he had pulled forth. Whoever the enemies were, they should be a substantial threat if they managed to almost destroy the Sunlight Scripture in one blow. They had to be dealt with… and he was here, in probably the very heart of their operation, poised to eradicate them in one blow with a weapon even the Demon Gods feared.

As the thrown crystal shattered, it birthed a white awe-inspiring giant. A fancy halo substituted as its head, while its metal-and-feather robes were held floating in the air by six pure wings. In its hands, it wielded a heavy sceptre.

Without a doubt, 'Dominion Authority', an angel of the highest order, would put any enemy in his place, those who dared to provoke the Theocracy.

As with all summons, he felt the telepathic link to the angel establishing, and its cool and clear intentions, hardly tainted by any emotion, swap over to him and lent him more strength to resist the terrible stench and think clearly despite his loss.

In turn, it received his wish for it to protect him and help in slaying the masters of this place. The angel acknowledged his command and led the way out by the only tunnel spreading from the pit. Like the room he had awoken in, its dimensions were huge, and even Dominion Authority could hover in it with minor inconvenience. It confirmed his fear it was not humans or human-like races who attacked them. Digging a tunnel is a lot of work; there would be no point in making an over-sized utilitarian one, so in turn, his enemies had to be large. The most obvious suspect who came to Nigun's mind was the so-called 'Giant of the East', the leader of a troll tribe in the forest the Theocracy had tolerated for now because of their stabilizing influence on the forest.

As long as they did not venture out, they could keep ruling there and acting however they wanted, which meant against the other demi-humans and monsters. But if they now were starting to organize and even managed to overwhelm the Sunlight-Scripture in one fell swoop, then this was dire news. Those trolls could turn into the seed of a new demi-human nation right in the middle of the three great human nations. And if it was not them, but a new foe altogether...

That could be even worse. An enemy of such power who could evade the Theocracy's scrutiny was a formidable foe. How many painful wounds could it inflict on Slane before bringing it low, and what other enemy would seize the moment?

'Continuing on unprotected would be unwise.'

Nigun cast the standard protections of the scripture: [Limited Resistance] and [Divine Shield], and also cast a [Blessing] on them, but for now he refrained from more spells to conserve his magical strength for when he knew more about his enemies.

After just a few steps into the tunnel, the stench of death gave way to a new, just slightly less revolting aroma, but the spells and presence of Dominion Authority steadied him enough to suppress a new wave of nausea. It closely reminded him of a pig's stall mixed with a lot of bad cheese and milk, and almost convinced him of his suspicion and baffled at how it could have come to be.

The angel and priest did not wander for long before Nigun could hear a hectic rustle and chaotic grunting behind the wall of light the summoning in front of him emitted. The next second, it rushed forward with breathtaking speed and clobbered the first enemy into burning chunks of meat in the great Hall it had revealed.

He was indeed facing trolls – 37 of them, by his first quick count, and even more ogres. Both were brutish creatures with low-hanging arms and muscle-coated bodies under their thick and warty skins. The smaller ogres, though this was relative –standing upright at just shy of three meters – had a thick carapace armour on their shoulder, while the larger trolls could heal from nearly any damage source except for acid and fire, and their long noses were among the best in the known world.

Unfortunately for them, those fine olfactory organs, which put any dog nose to shame, were now filled by the smell of their sibling's cooking flesh, as Dominion Authority's sceptre's swings crushed them not only easily with terrifying speed and stone splitting force, but also prevented the regeneration of the trolls with the fiery energy it was imbued with.

One. Two. Three.

'Movement behind.'

Four, including the sneaky ogre who had tried to flank him. They fell in just a single breath. The largest of the brutes, a troll with a tiger pelt for a loin cloth and large beast skull on its shoulder tried to reach for its iron club, but the angel was already upon it. Six hits from its armoured gauntlet hammered the troll's face into the roughly-hewn stone throne it had sat upon, until only a burned, crispy black stump remained of it. The troll quickly stopped twitching while Dominion Authority was already upon its next victim

Nigun, meanwhile, evaded another ogre who lunged at him. The beast angrily started scrambling up again, when a tap on its shoulder made it look confusedly to its side. It found nothing except for the tunnel leading to the pit and flickering shadows, telling the story of Dominion Authority stomping and burning its siblings to death. It looked to the other side, where his tribe died, and was hit by bursting glass and a foul-smelling liquid.

Two eye-blinks, thirteen very quick heart beats, and one very deep breath later, the ogres yellow-milky eyes turned bloodshot and foam began to drop from the corners of its mouth. It had needed so much air to shout its newly discovered rage as it charged at its siblings-turned-enemies. It tore down three other ogres and a confused troll, before the angel's wrath was upon them and committed them all to ash.

In only a few minutes, all the giant-kin were smouldering in charcoaled pieces. Nigun watched the devastation wrought by his nation's super weapon with a deep satisfaction. Not only had he brought down a sizeable threat to mankind, it could also allow for forces of the Theocracy to enter this hole and retrieve his comrades. If brought back to Slane, at least the relatively-intact bodies could be brought back to life. He was about to turn with some newfound hope towards the only other tunnel exit he had seen so far, when he felt a slight tremble in the ground.

He deduced another group had to be nearing, and sure enough, not even a minute later, another two dozen enemies – mostly ogres – came charging down the tunnel from somewhere above.

They had barely set two steps in the hall when Nigun shouted. "[Searing Light]!"

A tight beam of blinding light shot forth from the priest's hand, and the Third-Tier spell hit the leader of the charge right in the face. The troll's sensitive eyes, capable of seeing comfortably in even total darkness, were hit by light so intense it burned the flesh from its skull. The beast stopped at once in its tracks, before its comrades trampled and fell over it.

Nigun grinned wildly at the bellowing trolls and ogres as the light dimmed from his outstretched arm. He was not concerned the already-rising monsters would hurt him as he felt his guardian angel move. Dominion Authority came down upon them with [Hammer of the Gods] like the instrument of divinity it was.

A blinding flash of golden light later, the huge troll hall was silent again aside from the echoes of dripping flesh, entrails, and blood. While Dominion Authority had shielded Nigun with its body, most of the walls were now smeared with unrecognizable bits of meat and fluid, and they produced an altogether new stink. Nigun quickly ordered the angel to the lead the way up.

All the way, the stench stayed powerful enough Nigun could not tell whether it's changed compared to before or not, even if he tried. They found no more enemies, but a few more side tunnels branching off from the apparent main artery. Dominion Authority's ability [Detect Evil] could find no more signs life down their path, so Nigun stuck to following the way up.

The angel floated silently in front, and limited his vision to a small bubble within the silvery light it emitted. Nothing happened – no more screams, attacks, or surprises – only the tedious tap of his boots getting lost in the darkness beyond his small sphere of safety.

He had no real feeling for how long they had been wandering – a few minutes or a few hours would not have surprised him either – but finally the stink of demi-human and death became weaker.

'Almost there.'

Nigun felt a slight breeze, and commanded the summon to move faster. Dominion Authority accelerated just enough to stay ahead of its running master. He felt the end of his odyssey close, the air current becoming stronger. He thought he heard the sound of crickets and rustling leaves just beyond the silver light in front of him… then, Dominion Authority turned into a quickly-fading cloud of pale sparks, and Death stood between him and the star-shined forest.

Captain Nigun Grid Luin had always thought of himself as a man of iron resolve and unwavering duty, but how could the power of one man compare to the skeletal spectre towering over him? It had destroyed Dominion Authority, an angel of the highest order, in one casual act, and now, the two red pinpricks in its dark eye-holes were sizing him up.

Terrible thoughts filled his heads, as the creature steamed with pure darkness and came closer with leisurely steps, while Nigun's limbs locked up. He saw the bloodied faces of his fallen comrades and soldiers. He remembered the screams and curses of all the blissfully ignorant innocents he had killed in the name of the greater good. He smelled the blood on his hands he could never wash off, and listened to the terrible deep voice which spoke beyond his eyes' veil of tears.

"Hello, Nigun. I've been waiting for you."