Returning to No Applause, Only More of the Same

Chapter 5, It Had Been 130 Years, After All

...That was a bit of a mouthful. An enemy of the people, huh? Not the first time hed be a fugitive, but Honestly speaking, that period of his too-long life had been one of the worst ones, and he couldnt imagine doing it all over again.

He just wanted peace and quiet. To meet his family and live again. He wondered how his little sister was doing. She was young, he remembered that. Now she must almost be an adult. Maybe shed even gotten married? As for his brother A hard worker. An adult by now. And his parents Have they gotten old? It was the duty of a child to care for their parent, and just leaving them alone for ten years He almost felt ashamed. Yes, he had much to do. And none of those things included making a mess. Not declaring war, not harming anybody Hed cooperate. I agree.

The officer gave a faint smile. Glad to hear it. Officer Adam, will you return to interrogate the other otherworlder? Details on what happened before he got here, who he is, what country he works for anything like that.

Yes, sir!

The officer turned back to Kreig. And as for you Tell me everything. What happened after you were summoned?

A simple question to begin with. For the first time in thirty years, Kreig spoke fluently. For the first time in a hundred years, he spoke English without restraint.

He was summoned a few days after his 17th birthday, alongside four of his classmates. At the mention of his former comrades, the interrogating officer perked up, seemingly both in mild apprehension and hope. Kreig quickly informed him that these people had died long since. The officer grumbled something about it being a great tragedy before asking for their names so that he could send out a report to the victims families. Kreig obliged, though he noted rather unhappily that the officer didnt seem to consider Kreigs loss of innocence to be a tragedy of any kind.

Then, the officer asked how they died. That took him back. Back to before he became a warrior, before he had taken a life and before he became a man.

Eh? Whats this? Kreig had been the third person summoned, but the others dropped in soon after. All rising from one of five marble caskets, finding themselves inside a pristine white church, filled to the brim with holy figures and peasants crying and weeping for the occasion. Where am I?... A man approached him, dressed in the most extravagant white robes Kreig had ever seen. The church smelled like black mould and burnt pine needles.

A black ball was forced into his mouth and a pair of strong hands clasped his lip shut. He tried to fight or resist, but in the end, all he could do was swallow. It tasted like some kind of mushroom hed never had before.

The people in the church all spoke a refined, complex English that Kreig barely understood, but with his classmates there, he felt less afraid that he should have. A priest welcomed them with open arms and a wide grin, telling them to forgive their lack of introduction. They had been summoned by the Holy Order of White Roots as their Bodies. Heroes. To fight for their cause. Fight for a God Kreig didnt know, didnt understand. What they had eaten before was a Messiahs Egg. All of them had been given one, and in a few weeks, they would awaken the aptitude to become oracles of God.

And there was nothing they could do about it.

They were isolated in a small, closed space, stripped of all their belongings and fed with only wheat and water. Somehow, it was enough. They didnt die. For six days and six nights, they grew closer, grew to slowly accept their new life. Kreig missed his family. Two of the others had reasons not to. Then, on the seventh day, a black mushroom sprouted from Kreigs left hand. Something - everything - told him to eat it. He did.

Awaken

His classmates soon awoke as well. They saw the system and the system saw them. The Order found out the second the last person sprouted and ate their mushroom and the doors were opened.

These kids, barely children, became soldiers. Fighters in a quest for Divine Truth.

He was a Paladin. Peter was a Priest. Jamie was a Cardinal. Rudy was a Monk. Charlie was a Churchrat. They worked together. Trained together. Learned together. Together, they came to accept their new lives. Together, they came to accept their new God. Oh, yes, they prayed. There was a skill for that. Prayer. Really, there was a skill for everything. It was like a game. Kreig learnt the sword and his Swordsmanship skill went up. Peter learnt to heal and buff his friends and his Heal skill went up. It continued.

There were so many heretics in the Kingdom of Alumni. So many people who called the Holy Order a cult. So many denied them. That wasnt important yet.

They were first sent out to defeat monsters and beasts and things that shouldnt live. A small army came with them. It was hard to take a life at first, but after fighting enough monsters, he got the hang of it. It was easy. Slash them with the sword, hide behind his kite shield. Defend his friends. Protect his God.

It was easy.

Until he had to kill humans.

The Order was greedy. No-, no, not greedy, it was Desperate to show others the Truth. The king wouldnt let them. He protected the heretics, exclaimed that the Holy Order was no longer to be accepted. But that didnt work. The Holy Order had many devoted advocates. And they had the Five Bodies. They were adults now. It had been twenty years at this point. Twenty years of defeating monsters, twenty years of evening prayer and twenty years of doing everything the Holy Order told him to.

He was 37. And when he took a life - a human life - his Faith skill hit the max. It became Devotion, giving him a sort of eternal youth. He no longer aged. At the moment he didnt understand that it was a curse.

The Holy War for the throne of Alumni took five years. Five years of slaughter, five years of putting his faith to the test.

In the end, the Holy Order usurped the throne. Their belief reigned true. Heretics and non-believers were executed, and with such a sudden increase in power, the White Pope declared that the Holy Order of White Roots would expand into the nearby kingdoms.

They met a swift and unfair beatdown. Five kingdoms allied together, all on the border of the Theocracy of Alumni, and in a mere five years, the theocracy was reduced to ashes. Three of the Five Bodies were killed in the five-year war. Peter was executed. Of all the Five Bodies, only one survived. Kreig was captured and kept in secrecy by the Empire, one of the major forces in defeating the theocracy. He was kept neither well nor fairly. The beginning of his capture was wrought by torture and isolation to force him to resign all his former belief.

His language, English, had been killed alongside the Holy Order of White Roots. Only he remained. Only he kept English alive, only he praised his God. He prayed. For seven years, he remained in captivity. For seven long years, he prayed and pretended as if his faith had left him when it remained as true as his language. They forced him to learn german. They forced him to kiss the foot of the Empires lords. They forced him to praise the emperor.

And after that was all done, he was accepted as a new man. After all, he was broken. There was little in him that remained of the boisterous, loud-mouthed warrior of before.

He became their loyal soldier. He became their loyal officer. He became their loyal captain of the royal guard.

Only in his heart did he bear resentment for their treatment of him. For the deaths of his comrades. For their sin of letting him live.

...But he didnt live badly. He made a living. He was able to live in his own house. He was able to gain comrades. And, after acting as a captain for long enough, the Empire allowed him the special privilege of forming a monster-combating party, which he gladly did. It reminded him of his old party, his old friends, but He was ready to put it behind him. Hed been in that world for 50 years. He could forgive, and if he was allowed to, he would gladly forget.

He formed a true loyalty. With his party, he grew stronger. He grew to like them, to consider them friends, and they seemed to feel the same about him. They fought in wars for the sake of the Empire. Killed for the sake of the Empire. The only time he spoke English was for his nightly prayer, and even then, it was only to keep his faith alive. Not for the sake of the Holy Order.

Things were good. He was comfortable.

That was, until the nearby kingdoms became aware of his existence.

It happened out of nowhere and he wasnt aware of it until his own soldiers tried to attack him. Tried to capture him. Tried to execute him. The Empire had turned on him the second public outcry from their allies forced them to. So, he ran. His party fought alongside him and ran with him. They were ready to die to keep him alive.

And they did. One by one, during a period of nine years, they were all killed. In the end, after 79 years in a world he no longer considered welcoming, he gave up. There was nothing for him to live for. Even his own God had abandoned him. He resigned to the gallows.

...But he was not killed.

Much like so many years ago, he was kept in captivity. Though, due to his strength, due to what the Empire considered to be a possible great threat, he was locked beneath everything. In a room that had once kept a Demonic Dragon, there, he remained in isolation. There was neither light nor torture. No humans either. Pure and simple isolation. Alone. In that darkness, the only thing that kept him even slightly sane was his prayer. He trained. He prayed, he chanted, he kept himself moving.

But it was twenty years. Enough to make any man break.

He had forgotten what the sky looked like. He had never been a creative or intelligent man. His mind could not conjure things to keep him busy, things to keep him sane.

In the end, what saved him was the skill Prayer reaching the maximum level and evolving into Shine of Divine Light. He escaped.

But he was nothing.

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