975. Becoming more Proactive (Patreon)

“This is really good!” Tored complimented, shoving ice cream in his gob.

“This is Puffles' most favorite Ice cream Shop,” Seth commented with a smile. It was one of the few places still worth visiting in Delta. A lot had changed since the blacksmith had arrived here with his party and many of the good things in Delta and moved to the cities along the Tree Route.

Still, Fin, Mina, and the bard did their best to show Tored around, visiting notable sights and restaurants. Who were they kidding, with Seth and Fin at their helm, it inevitably became a gourmet tour and an excuse to visit some of the best places for food, that still persisted in Delta.

Especially the old shopkeeper who was a dozen times better than Link when it came to ice cream and stubbornly refused to relocate no matter how much they offered him to come to one of the tree stations. There were quite a few people who didn't want to move, even during the time when Delta was at its worst. They respected that.

“As always, thank you for the patronage. Here's the twenty tubs of ice cream you asked me to prepare,” the old man had personally come to their table and put down a tray, with a pyramid of medium-sized ice cream tubs on it. Half of them were part of his deal with Puffles, the other half were meant as a surprise for him and Tatzel.

“Thank you, as always,” Seth thanked him and paid the man 5 gold.  A price of 25 silver per tub was quite high, but absolutely worth it for the old man's product. Seth was very sure he actually have an epic or unique chef class that allowed him to create incredible ice cream. It was the only thing Seth was able to use as a bargaining chip with Puffles.

“Errm, M-Mr. Smith?” a young man suddenly approached them when the five of them were finished and about to leave. Seth looked at him with furrowed brows, when he hazily remembered the young man.

“You are the caster who asked me whether I was strong in the dungeon,” Seth said inadvertently. He remembered, because it had been quite awkward when he approached him in the dungeon, but ultimately decided not to talk and ran away instead.

“Y-yes. My name is Grayson. I'm sorry if I am interrupting your private time but ...It's actually about that time. Do you have a moment?” he asked, looking at Seth and the four beside him. It seemed like it was very important to Grayson, considering how uncomfortable he seemed in this situation.

“...I guess, we were going to return home anyway. Fin, Mina, can you bring Tored and Vathon to Minas Mar? I will follow you afterward.” he asked the four of them to return first.

“Alright, we will see you later. Make sure to hurry, or we will show Master Tored around without you,” Mina threatened cheekily, before they quickly rushed off. With a wry smile, Seth sat down again, offering the young man one of the other seats.

“Thank you. I'm really sorry that I simply came to you like this, but-”

“I guess it's important, so hurry and explain,” the blacksmith interrupted him.

“Before I do, can I ask... are you perhaps the Tower Master of Minas Mar?”

“ Sure, I am. Now explain,” Seth motioned him to start his story.

“I-I see, then it might be possible. One of my friends was kidnapped a couple of months ago and forced to take part in some kind of ritual of the Church of Dark Mercy. She only managed to escape because the church exploded later on.

We managed to help her recover but recently,  when she finally got the chance to get a class she was forced to accept the class “Lamb of Gatris” and since then the priest of Gatris appeared more and more often around us and in the academy...”

“The church of Gatris again?” Seth asked, after listening to the story like he had a deja vu. It was almost exactly the same story as the girl Felice had told him in Little Sigma. Except for the different origins, the two girls experienced to the same story.

“I understand why you approached someone strong if they were stalking her, but that's not why you approached me today, right?” the bard asked perceptively. He was able to tell, that there was more to Grayson's behavior.

“Three days ago, she vanished. She left the academy to visit her family but never arrived at home. I'm sure the Church of Gatris kidnapped her, but nobody wants to move without evidence. And nobody wants to risk getting evidence. And even if we get evidence, I feel like nobody would want to offend a foreign church over the disappearance of a girl...” he slowly broke down in front of him, sobbing with tears. It seemed like that had fermented in him over the past three days, maybe longer...

“..Okay, but what am I supposed to do about that? Find her? Get evidence?” And the most important question, why exactly should I?”

“I-I heard that you once punished a guild of weasel people for the abuse and deception of people in Y-City. I thought... maybe...you could save her?”

How in the world did that one come out? He was sure he left all the credit to Mark Baker... However, Seth couldn't deny that these foreign forces playing around on Urth had always irked him. Whether it was religions trying to gain influence, merchants trying to influence the market, or people abusing their power to take advantage of their people.

Still, he already had quite a few headaches. Whether it was demons, Spatia, the cultivators, or the awakening of their own world. Did he want to add a church to this list? Pondering, he looked at the boy and went over the story again. These two girls he knew of were probably not the only ones. Maybe there were many of them and who knew what a bunch of fanatics intended to do to the “lambs” of their goddess.

“Would one more even make a difference?” he thought defiantly with a frown. After his drunk conversation with Mina and Fin, he had made up his mind to be more proactive again. Ending things early could stop many annoying problems before they could get annoying. Maybe this was one of those times. What were all his training and preparations worth, when he didn't step in at times like this?

“Can you tell me where the church of Gatris is? I will go and have a look.”

At his words, the young man looked up at him. His eyes were still teary, but now also filled with relief and hope. Hurried, he described the place to the blacksmith. After their last location was destroyed and most of their priests were killed in a conflict with unknown assailants, the Church of  Mercy, as they were officially called, had sent a new delegation and set up a place in a former mall.

Since he decided to do this, Seth decided not to return to Minas Mar for now. If the girl had been taken three days ago, she might not have much time left, or it might have already been too late. Not wanting to come too late, the blacksmith appeared in front of the mall-turned-church.

Well, he didn't actually appear, since he was wearing the helm of Hades. He was invisible and undetectable. The only sign of his arrival was the automatic door opening and closing for no obvious reason.  The inside was what one would expect from a former wall that was now inhabited by a bunch of crazy people. All walls were covered with banners of religious symbols and magic lamps that shed a weird surreal light that had replaced the original electric lights.

The central floor was redecorated to become a cultist mass hall with a shrine in the middle and rows of benches on every level surrounding it. Behind the altar in the middle, they raised a massive statue of a beautiful human woman, however the aura the statue gave off did not fit its appearance at all. Seth only felt a sticky and negative emotion when looking at it.

However, this was the worst he had seen here so far. Most shops had become rooms for believers or priests to stay in. However, as he walked around, he saw next to nobody, except the priest close to the entrance who were probably there to take care of believers coming in outside of mass times.

Seth felt this was important, because he found way too many rooms, compared to the number of people he could find in the expansive building. So, where were all those people that were supposed to live here?

More on accident, than otherwise, the bard managed to spot a pair of masked priests leaving the mall through the door to the maintenance tunnels. Those people were foreigners, what were they doing in the maintenance area of a modern construction?

Since there were so few people and their destination was weird, Seth decided to follow them. It wasn't like he had any other clues. Like this, he followed them into the maintenance tunnels of the old mall.