God of What? 15 (Patreon)

God of What?

Chapter 15

-VB-

“You what?” Yor asked his original and did it with clear incredulity.

“You know the homeless living in the slums, right? I was walking around trying to get recruits, and then I had this fucking genius idea. What if I got them to join my familia! There’s plenty of young ones, too, so most of them won’t figh back too hard against any … ahem … upgrades I might ‘suggest.’”

“That sounds incredibly exploitative.”

“I know! It’s the perfect solution to our current dilemma.”

“No, it is not,” Yor growled. “You’re going to push Hestia away from us if she ever finds out a tenth of the detail!”

The original paused and then grimaced. “Fuck, I forgot about her. Damn.” Then he paused. “Is this what having a wife is like?”

“Shut up and think of a better method. Like, I don’t know, actual incentives.”

He stared at Yor. “But isn’t getting strong already an incentive for the slum kids?” he asked in confusion. “People here don’t think like people back at our home, you know.”

Yor raised an eyebrow. “So you will just plunge right into becoming something ugly that our past self would be ashamed by?”

The original glared at him before losing the glare and shrugging. “Honestly, I’m not even thinking about anything heinous,” he replied and then smirked. “I guess even we aren’t thinking the same when we don’t use telepathy, huh?”

Yor blinked before narrowing his eyes. “So you weren’t going to experiment on homeless kids?”

“Oh, I definitely am!”

Yor frowned.

“But it’ll be more that I’ll have to understand their physiology first. For all I know, the people in this world need less Vitamin D!”

“Oh. You mean those kinds of tedious as shit experiments. You could’ve just called it observation.”

“Well, I’ll be doing it en masse as much as I could. Hell, they won’t even have to go into the dungeon until I’ve done some serious work on them,” he grinned. “But you know the people here. Some of them will definitely want to go, and when one comes back with fame and cash, the rest will follow.”

“Feeding into their greed?”

“No. Survival. I want to live up to my title and transform their lives,” he grinned. “And if I profit along the way, then that’s just a bonus.”

Yor thought about it. Was it wrong to pull orphans and street rats out of poverty? No. Was the method wrong? Not quite. There was no doubt that the original would use questionable methods as he had with Hestia.

But was that wrong?

What was seduction if not information gathering, leveraging

Was it he who had changed? He was of the original. What was the difference though that had him speak out against the original?

… Was it his experience as an adventurer? He knew what it was like being an adventurer. While he had an advantage that other adventurers didn’t, he still fought and bled like them. Was it this experience that made him understand and sympathize with them that the idea of taking advantage of them was abhorrent? Distasteful?

But the original saw and felt as he did. Their minds were one. To say that the original did not feel like them as he had was wrong because he and the original were … one. Right?

“Original.”

The original paused and gave him his full attention.

“Mind link, please.”

Almost instantly, it happened.

And then Yor understood.

As he submerged back into the original’s mind - his birthplace, really - and absorbed information available to the original, he slowly began to understand.

The original just sucked at talking.

Sorry, the original sucked at communicating so much that a piece of him misunderstood. The original ran into orphans and got shit-fuck sad staring at them and just wanted to make their lives better. Yeah, the original was going to do what the original did and do some shenanigans on the side, but that would be as Yor just thought it; it would be a side thing that no one would get if no one wanted it.

The original would just make it a very easy and readily accessible thing.

With some of his suspicion removed, he brought himself back out of the mind link.

And then gave the original a good bashing in the head.

“Ow!”

“Talk better,” Yor growled. “How the fuck did you make yourself a villain to yourself?”

“... but people do that all of the time?” he asked while clutching his head.

Yor rolled his eyes and picked up his gear. “I’m going to the dungeon. Don’t recruit shady kids, alright?”

“You’re my pinky, not my dad!”

“This pinky will stick itself up your ass if you don’t listen,” he scoffed at the original before he opened the door and left.

But even as he left, he couldn’t quite keep the original’s memories from resurfacing and his utter disgust at the conditions the original saw …

He wouldn’t be surprised if he came home today to find a bunch of unwashed runts filling up the house.