Hiatus Gifting This Unfortunate Guy With Blessings

I surprised my teammates by suddenly 'teleporting' right in front of them but Aqua recovered immediately.

"Kazuki-san, please help me!"

Before I could even ask what was going on, Aqua bounced on me with tears in her eyes. Caught totally unaware I had no time to react and got stuck in a surprisingly tight grip of a snot-covered blue-haired archpriest.

"Hey, stop it! What is going on here?"

I asked while trying to pray Aqua off of me.

"She's done something stupid, like always!"

Kazuma vaguely answered and that thankfully caused Aqua to stop clinging onto me so she could protest.

"I didn't do anything wrong! They should be thanking me for my hard work!"

"See how thankful they are!"

"Give us back our jobs!" "You heretic!" "Hey look, she's trying to copy that crazy Goddess of Water!" "Geh, Axis Cultist!" "You lunatic!"

"So, what did you do exactly?"

"Kazuma kept making fun of me for having such a low level so I decided to show him his place! I went around the city's cemeteries and purified them all to level up. I even went out of my way to create temporary wards that would automatically get rid of all wandering souls for a short period of time!"

I had to pause for a slight moment. If I were to omit Wiz's case then it didn't sound like a bad thing in the slightest ...

And then everything clicked. For some reason, my brain didn't associate those angry, bald, monk-like crowd of men with any faith in particular…

"And these stupid Eris believers are saying I took their jobs!"

Yes… apparently, it was a crowd composed of Eris Church's clergy. I then very easily connected the dots by remembering what Wiz's had said and even Chris's own opinion about some of her believers.

They... were angry about the possible money they had lost.

"We demand satisfaction!"

The Shiny Head exclaimed to Shari-san's face. The young receptionist looked extremely lost on what to do but calmly answered nonetheless.

"Please take any complaints to the city council. There's no reason to-"

"We had an agreement with the guild! You weren't supposed to interfere with our work unless we asked for your assistance!"

Shari-san looked in Aqua's direction as if cursing her for the mess she has created but to my surprise, she looked even angrier when she spotted me. When she turned back to the Shiny Head she found out that he was just 10 centimeters away from her face. I couldn't blame her for instantly recoiling in panic.

"That wench interfered with a holy duty given to us by Eris-sama! We demand justice!"

"Hey!"

Aqua reacted to the insult coming her way but the guy didn't even pay attention to her. Even Kazuma stopped scowling at Aqua and looked irritated by the priests' words.

"Souls of the deceased will now forever wander without peace because that rookie adventurer did a half-assed job! Eris-sama has told me that in a vision!"

"I did a better job than all of you could do combined!"

"How dare you!" "Be silent you, heretic!" "Do you defy Eris-sama's words?!"

I couldn't believe what I was seeing and hearing. Wasn't Eris Church called normal compared to Axis Cult?! Those guys looked more like a bunch of crazed zealots rather than proper clergy.

And the way they spoke Eris' name pissed me off. Arguably I didn't know Chris/Eris for a long period of time myself but I very much doubted any of the things they were saying were anything Eris would approve of.

Just as I was preparing my lungs to shout I saw Kazuma straightening his back and he went to face the Shiny Head.

"You were clearly not doing your job properly! Aqua leveled up 6 times in just one night! That shows how much you 'care' for the souls of the deceased!"

Shiny Head clicked his tongue when someone dared to spoke up with him but he was already opening his mouth to retort some further bullshit.

Since Kazuma didn't know things Wiz had said he couldn't point out the most important thing. But I could.

"You all are angry just because you won't be able to extort money from the family of the deceased!"

Contrary to my expectations the Shiny Head didn't do as much but scoff at my argument.

"Nonsense! A mere mortal just can't comprehend Eris-sama's will. She's a goddess! And I am her apostle. She appeared in my vision just this week!"

There was a second of silence before a choir of cheers erupted from behind the Shiny Head while the row of adventurers making up a wall just sneered. Someone shouted:

"Eris-sama wouldn't talk with a baldie like you!" "That's right!" "Liar!"

As if waiting for a comment like that the Shiny Head opened his arms wide and triumphantly asked:

"You don't believe me? How about I show you definite proof."

Suddenly one of the 'Eris's priests' appeared from behind the Shiny Head with a box in hands. Inside of it, there was an ornate bell.

Half of the adventurers present gulped after seeing the device and the head priest didn't waste a second to hesitate and claimed once again:

"Eris-sama has revealed her will to me this very week. I am telling the truth."

Silence descended on the guild for a few seconds. After which nervous murmurs started.

"Is it fake?" "It must be!" "There's no way that is the truth!"

Those voices were quickly followed by sentences like:

"I think your bald head looks nice!" "I think Aqua is smart!" "I think you aren't just a bunch of greedy bastards!" "I think you smell nice!" "I respect you!"

*DING* *DING* *DING* *DING* *DING*

Head priest's brow twitched after hearing the bell ring 5 times but his smile was unwavering. Seeing his smug face irked me so I exclaimed:

"I had talked with Goddess Eris this week too. And even received a Blessing from her. Does that mean I can walk anywhere and expect everyone to dance on my palm of my hand? No."

To my satisfaction, the smile on Shiny Head's face disappeared and I continued.

"Will you tell us what Eris-sama's 'will' was? Because I think it pertained to a certain priest that got led astray by a s.u.c.c.u.b.u.s, not to an adventurer that did your damn job for you."

Everyone got silent and started staring alternatively at me and the Truth Bell. Since I said the truth it didn't ring no matter how long they waited.

"And lastly I also know that she never told you to overcharge for your priests' services. It's all your own greediness. So… get out."

Now all eyes shifted to the head priest. And oh boy… he had not expected his plan to backfire so horribly.

"W-w-w-w-we had an agreement-"

"As I said before - if you feel wronged, reach out to the city's council. Now as Kazuki-san has said, please remove yourself from the premises of the guild."

Shari-san's immediate response seemed to shaken Shiny Head's confidence even more. He noticed that he already lost all the control he had over the situation.

***

After that, the monk-like priests dispersed with their heads hung low due to adventurer's jeers.

"Why something like this always happens when Luna-san isn't around?"

I've heard Shari-san's comment when I was walking toward Kazuma and Aqua and finally understood why she was angry at me.

Because I was the one responsible for Luna-san's absence that day.

I suddenly got an urge to apologize but since I didn't know what to say I just kept walking.

Already prepared for it, I managed to dodge the blue-colored projectile that tried to grab at me again. It was good to know that Aqua could genuinely thank someone but I wished she could do in a more proper way that involved less physical contact.

"Okay, okay. You are welcome. I need to talk to you though, so calm down now, would you."

I tried calming Aqua down so I could speak with her about Wiz but Shari-san demanded to speak to Aqua first. They went to a private room so I couldn't hear what Shari-san said but, by Aqua quietly sobbing afterward, I could surmise that she got severely reprimanded.

Well, she broke the rule about fighting monsters without taking a specified quest so she totally deserved that.

Before Aqua rejoined us I did some small talk with Kazuma.

"Did you manage to rent that house you were talking about?"

"Yeah! It's heavenly compared to the stables. Much closer to the guild as well. I was thinking of having a house warming party tomorrow evening. Wanna come?"

I almost forgot such a thing existed like housewarming parties. I was a little bit skeptical about going but I ultimately agreed to come since I would probably know everyone there.

At that point, Aqua appeared by our table and my 'side quest' was nearing completion.

This whole ordeal felt like an annoying side quest with some weird speech-checks if I were to use my 'gamer logic'. That thought made me wonder if there will be future consequences for repelling that priest today… Hopefully not.

I wondered if I would be able to somehow help Chris with problems still residing in her church. But then I realized how big of a 'quest' that could be and decided to simply talk with Chris about that topic later.

"Look, look. I am level 9 now. Only 1 level away from you in just one night. Am I awesome or what?"

Aqua seemed recovered at that point and was flaunting her adventurer's card in front of my face. Due to the smugness of her smile I wanted to immediately retort with something about all the problems she has created with her leveling spree but stopped myself and went for a different approach.

"That is indeed impressive."

That made Aqua stop for a second before she restarted her haughty attitude.

"See, Kazuma? Kazuki knows the talent when he sees one!-"

"But it was also reckless, dangerous in many ways and caused a lot of problems for many people."

That stopped Aqua in her tracks and I had her attention but next sentence I directed at Kazuma.

"It was your fault as well as mine. You shouldn't have made fun of Aqua and I should have stopped you. Megumin and Darkness were right. We are a team. We should support each other and make sure that everyone is treated equally. Especially when this world has such a shitty leveling up design."

Aqua seemed that she was about to make fun of Kazuma so I quickly continued with a very stern voice that surprised her.

"One more thing Aqua… Did you meet a certain Lich on your EXP hunt by any chance?"

"Oh! Yes! I almost managed to nail that stinky-"

I stopped her right there and there with a very serious look but then I proceeded to calmly explain the circ.u.mstances of my undead friend. Of course, omitting the fact that she was a Demon King general since it seemed to be a secret that she wanted to keep.

"... So, I would really be thankful if you didn't cause any more problems for my friend Wiz. Okay?"

I saw Kazuma shedding a tear after hearing the story of the nicest undead in the world. I even heard him mumble something like 'How come an undead is more of a goddess than the actual one?' Together with him, I managed to get Aqua to promise to leave Wiz alone as long as she hasn't done anything bad. And surprisingly enough she agreed to apologize to Wiz due to Kazuma's insistence. But that would come at a later date.

This talk has proved to me that Aqua can be properly reasoned with. She was sometimes childish, selfish and more often than not didn't think things through but there was still hope.

And with that business of the way, I decided to take my leave because the evening was getting near.

And it meant that it was time for Chris to come back.

(A/N: Writing is hard.

I sometimes write something, thinking it would be a cool topic and then the next day I regret everything.

But since chapters go live daily I can't really go and re-do them in their entirety. I just hope I am not boring you to death.

I also hope you will excuse my inexperience and throw some Power Stones if you aren't doing so already. Once again I have no one else to blame but myself for killing my novel's flow with a two-months break but please help my novel come back to the previous activity.)