A/N: Oren is a mess...

  -x-X-x-

  By the time Sophia wakes up, Oren already has breakfast ready and on the table. It’s funny, for all that they’re living in a cave, it’s probably the best experience that he’s had since arriving in this world. Well, if one ignores the fact that his ‘roommate’ hates his guts and wants barely anything to do with him.

  But then, that’s more than fair all things considered. He did kill everyone she knew and loved. Frankly, even the fact that she was able to tolerate him was a miracle… no pun intended.

  It’s been a week since Raythe’s death and in that time, a lot has happened and not much at all has happened. For one, Oren has cleaned up the refuge and put everything back where it’s meant to go under Sophia’s careful supervision. He’s also taken care of the God of Lies and Duplicity’s remains and cleaned up the blood that Raythe left behind with his somewhat grisly demise.

  The butterknife made of Celestial Metal that Sophia stabbed through the back of Raythe’s neck has been scrubbed clean and put with the rest of the celestial silverware she’d brought down from the Heavens. Meanwhile, the Celestial Dagger has also been cleaned off and currently rests in a sheath at Sophia’s side.

  It makes sense that she wouldn’t want him to be armed in her presence after all he’s done, and truth be told, Oren is more than happy to not have a sword at the moment either. If he spends the rest of his life as Sophia’s manservant, never expected to commit violence again, he doesn’t think he would really mind that. No more killing, just spending his days making up for the mistakes of his past.

  … Unfortunately, he doesn’t think that’s going to happen. And not for ck of living conditions when it comes to Sophia’s refuge. With the pce no longer ransacked, the ethereal beauty and inhuman quality of the renovated cave truly starts to shine through. They don’t even have to leave the refuge’s protections for food or drink because there’s an ever-flowing cornucopia of any sort of fruits, vegetables, and nuts one could ask for, and a self-refilling jug that can contain any liquid one can imagine.

  Those are just two of the magical items that Sophia has outfitted her refuge with as well. The pce is chockful of divine magic and Oren could safely say he didn’t ever really want to leave. And yet… he knew it was coming eventually. And he wouldn’t fight it either.

  As Sophia comes down from the refuge’s only bed, she moves with grace over to the dining table, sitting down and picking at the meal he’s done his best to prepare for her. After a moment, she gestures to his own pte and only then does Oren sit and partake as well.

  Their retionship has certainly changed. Sophia doesn’t have it in her to torture or hurt him for what he’s done to her. She’s neither cruel nor capricious despite having every right to feel a certain way towards him. The most he’s gotten from her for the past week is a cold shoulder, one that Oren has borne silently and without compint.

  “It just… it just doesn’t make sense.”

  Apparently, that cold shoulder was coming to a close. Blinking, Oren looks up from his breakfast to see Sophia frowning most severely, staring off into the distance for a moment before looking back at him.

  “Why would the Gods of the Mortal Pnes summon you to sughter the Heavens, and then turn around and create the God Hunters to hunt down themselves? There’s no denying that Raythe was a god… only the Celestial Metal actually did anything to him. And his powers fit quite well with a so-called ‘God of Lies and Duplicity’.”

  Oren stays quiet, watching as Sophia works through her thoughts out loud.

  “I was always taught that most Gods of the Mortal Pnes were tied to physical pces though. Forests, Oceans, Volcanos… things like that. The entire reason they were on the Mortal Pne in the first pce was because their divinity was tied to the nd, not a concept. But that wasn’t true of Raythe, was it?”

  It might be a rhetorical question… but Oren takes a chance anyways, quietly answering.

  “No Goddess, it doesn’t seem so.”

  He holds his breath, but while Sophia scowls, she doesn’t scowl at him. Leaning back in her chair, the Minor Goddess crosses her arms over her chest and frowns even harder.

  “… We need more information. I know what I want. I want vengeance. I want everyone involved in your summoning and the death of my family to die by your hand.”

  Oren inclines his head wordlessly. Yes, while he might be happy staying here in this refuge forever, he knew Sophia would not stand for it. The Goddess of Wisdom and Equity was full of rage and hurt and anger. She was eager to find out exactly who and what had turned him into the weapon he’d become. Who had made him into the God Killer?

  Admittedly, part of Oren wondered what the answer to that question was as well. Their confrontation with Raythe had left him questioning everything. He’d always thought that it was his fellow humans who had managed to summon him under Law’s nose and train him for years before sending him off to do their bidding. Powerful humans with powerful magic to be sure… but just humans.

  Only now did Oren know the truth. Humans in this universe didn’t really have magic most of the time. Magic was purely the domain of the divine. There were some demigods who could maybe pass for humans and had pyed at being sorcerers here and there, but that was nothing. Not compared to the power needed to summon an Otherworlder and then ensnare him in an illusion that made him see the world as a hellish ndscape and gods and goddesses as monsters and demons anyways. That, Oren had found out, was something only a deity could pull off.

  Sophia takes a moment to take another bite of her breakfast, chewing slowly and swallowing before nodding decisively.

  “I’m back at full power at this point. We’ll leave tomorrow.”

  Oren hesitates, but in the end simply bows his head.

  “As you say, Goddess.”

  Of course, Sophia is quick to pick up on his hesitation.

  “Do you have a better idea? Speak.”

  Sighing, Oren shakes his head.

  “I do not have a better idea, no. I simply wondered what your pn was. But it is not my pce to know such things. All I need to know is what you decide I should know, as your servant.”

  There’s a long awkward pause after that. Oren just keeps his head down, his eyes on his meal. Until finally…

  “I need to find Gods of the Mortal Pnes and demand answers of them. One of them must know what’s going on or at leave have a clue to the divinity that appears to be behind the God Hunters. Except all of the Gods of the Mortal Pnes are dying or in hiding. I confess, I have no clue where to even begin hunting for such deities. So tell me… where would you start if it was your choice?”

  Oren blinks at the question, lifting his eyes to see Sophia with a constipated expression on her face. After a moment, he slowly nods.

  “I would start in Goldriver, Goddess.”

  Sophia furrows her brow at that.

  “Goldriver… that small town on the river South of here? They still exist?”

  “As of a few months ago, yes. But it’s not a town anymore, Goddess, it’s a full-blown city now. I passed through Goldriver on my way to the spot where you found me in the woods.”

  Goldriver wasn’t just a city, it was the region’s rgest city. As the name suggested, it sat upon a river that actually ran straight through the city itself. The city was built up around the river and was quite prosperous on account of the gold nuggets that had been found washed up on the shore of said river by early settlers.

  Of course, when Oren passed through Goldriver, the God Hunters were barely in their infancy. They didn’t have the hold over mortal minds that they seemed to have now. But by this point…

  “The God Hunters must have a presence in Goldriver, one that’s likely to be even bigger than the one in Oakvale. If they don’t, then it would still be a good pce for us to check for rumors of any gods or goddesses in the area.”

  Sophia, being a Goddess of Wisdom, is quick on the uptake. She doesn’t bother asking him why he wants to go find God Hunters when she’s looking for Gods. Her eyes narrow, but she’s already caught up to his thinking without him having to expin it.

  “But if they do, then we can use them to find the deities we seek. After all, what better way to hunt down our quarry than piggybacking off of the other hunters going after the same prey?”

  Oren nods wordlessly, waiting to see what she thinks of the idea. From the scowl that spreads across Sophia’s face, she probably wants to reject his idea purely out of spite. Given the fact that he’s her father’s killer, Oren doesn’t even bme her. But… in the end, the Minor Goddess is pragmatic. And she said herself she doesn’t have any better ideas.

  “Fine. It might actually work. We still leave tomorrow.”

  Oren bows his head in agreement.

  “Understood, Goddess.”

  The rest of the day is spent with them preparing for their departure. Oren is the one who handles most of the supply gathering. Unfortunately, they can’t bring the cornucopia OR the ever-filling jug with them.

  “The God Hunters are hunting divinities down somehow. If there is a rge enough group of them in Goldriver to be worth our while, they’ll have a way of tracking divine energy.”

  Sophia’s wisdom is unquestionable, even if it means they’ll be back to rations and whatever they can get from the nds once they’re on the road again. Of course, then the goddess comes out with a jewelry box in the evening and begins going through it. When she sees him gncing her way, she gets defensive and expins.

  “These are different. Specifically, this neckce will keep my own divine signature suppressed. So long as I wear it, I will appear completely mundane to both mortal and divine eyes. And anything on me will be under the same protection.”

  Oren just nods wordlessly, accepting her statements at face value. Even still, Sophia doesn’t load herself down with magical jewelry, he notes. The neckce goes under her shirt, disappearing between her cleavage and of the several rings she has in the box, she ends up only picking one. It goes onto the middle finger of her right hand and after staring at the rest for a moment the goddess winds up putting them all back in the box.

  He doesn’t bother asking what the ring does. If Sophia wanted to tell him, she would tell him. That she doesn’t simply means that it’s not his business to know.

  Finally, with everything prepared and dinner eaten, they separate to bed down for the night. Sophia to her bed and Oren to the floor near the entrance of the cave, just in case another god of the deceptive sort managed to sneak past all of her wards and protections. He wasn’t armed with the Celestial Metal he would need to fight them off, but if nothing else his strength and speed as an Otherworlder would allow him to both sound the arm and potentially capture them.

  Laying down with his pack behind his head to act as pillow, Oren stares up at the cave ceiling for a long moment, waiting for sleep to take him.

  … Admittedly, part of him does chafe at being in Sophia’s service. He’d always been an independent soul. Even back on Earth, Oren had put everything he had into breaking free of the stigma behind being an orphan. His pns had involved turning his raw determination into a stelr work ethic so he could rise to the top by being the cream of the crop.

  But Oren’s debt to Sophia is one that can never be paid. Patsy though he might have been, he’d still been the one who wielded the bde against her father and every god and goddess who had called the Heavens their home. They were dead because of him and there was no reversing that fact.

  Besides, it could be worse. Sophia would be well within her rights to humiliate him to her heart’s content if she wanted to. Even if she didn’t have the stomach for physical torture, there were a million different ways she could have punished him for his crimes. Petty things like making him take his meals on the floor instead of at the table with her.

  As far as he could tell though, she hadn’t even considered it. She hated him now and rightfully so, but even with all that hatred, the Minor Goddess was unfailingly kind and good hearted. Despite all of her talk of wanting revenge, she hadn’t even begun taking her vengeance out on him yet.

  Perhaps that could be chocked up to fear or even cold hard logic. On the one hand, he was the dangerous God Killer and the only thing that truly bound him to her service was his own word. He could kill her at any time. On the other hand, she needed his skills and his strength for her revenge against whoever Raythe was working with. The ones who summoned him in the first pce were to die at his hands. Poetic, in a way.

  Oren didn’t really get the impression that Sophia was afraid of him though. Nor was she quite that calcuting or conniving to use such cold logic to keep herself on his ‘good side’. In the end, she was just a good person who was hurting. Honestly, Oren was more worried that her kind-heartedness would only get her hurt even more if left unchecked.

  But that was where he came in. Maybe it wasn’t the original pn. Maybe it wasn’t what he initially intended to happen when they finally made it to her refuge. Things changed. From now on, Oren’s sole purpose was to protect Sophia no matter what form that protection needed to take. Even if it cost him his life.

  -x-X-x-

  A/N: This is fine. Totally healthy.

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