Chapter 123: One for the Team (2/2)
The reason being, that he was floating in both.
As befitting of her portfolio, Seng’s realm was an underwater bar beneath the waves. The decorations reminded Victor of a sunken ship, with fishes floating in and out of a hole in the ceiling. Jellyfishes provided light, while a mechanical octopus acted as the barman, serving sunny cocktails to the mermaid goddess. How the content avoided floating around remained a mystery.
As for Victor himself, he had no problem breathing or swimming. The water felt weightless and tasted like salted beer, while his fiery armor released some steam around him.
“This is unbecoming of your divine station, Seng!” Victor noticed a fiery man arguing with Seng, a marble king with a crown of flames and suns for eyes. While Seng was sitting near a map on the counter, the man remained standing. “Both cursing my chosen for a meager mistake, and threatening to sink a country!”
“M-meager?” the octopus mermaid complained, red with anger. She sounded completely drunk. “How would you react if a chosen of Deathjester ignored your divinity?!”
“I would ignore him, instead of lowering myself to that level of childishness.” The fire king looked ready to argue further, when he suddenly noticed the newcomers, glaring at the goddess of undeath. “Camilla.”
“Mithras.”
You have taken heavy [Lightning] damage.
Victor could feel the sheer tension between these two, especially as the goddess smiled hypocritically. “Still struggling with stamping out the Nightlands?”
“Still struggling to get your undeathstrial revolution off the ground?” the solar deity replied calmly, although Victor could taste the sheer hostility behind it. Bad breakup indeed.
“Victor, please leave us,” his patron goddess told the Vizier, her hand touching his shoulder like a hunting hawk's claws. “I hope you will defend your friend better than her patron deity.”
The Vizier wisely and silently left the two enemy deities behind to approach Seng. No sooner did he that they started arguing violently; their mermaid host raised a hand, the insults somehow muting into background noise.
“Hmm… hello?” Victor said upon sitting next to Seng.
“Victor!” she replied, clearly happy to see him. “My defender! You alone never doubted my divinity!”
Actually, the Vizier did doubt it, but unlike Kia, he had bothered to check before making a comment first. Not that he would mention this out loud. “Thank you for granting me an audience, Lady Seng.”
“How could I not? You and Vainqueur are among my favorite mortals! You ended slavery in the New World, crushed feudal governments left and right, and even finished the first world tour of Outremonde!”
Oh, this may go better than he expected! “If so, could you…”
“I know why you are here, Camilla told me,” Seng replied, trying to sound dignified. “Only someone capable of recognizing my greatness could prove caring enough to defend that sinner.”
I’m taking one for the team here Kia, Victor thought, unimpressed. I’m doing this for you.
“But I swore I would sink her country for her blasphemy!” The goddess showed him a map, pointing to an eastern country with her finger, “I am not a monster, so I won’t actually sink, sink it. Just unleash a little flood in the middle. Nobody will die!”
The Vizier frowned. “She’s not from there.”
Seng paused. “W-what do you mean?”
“You’re pointing at the Eversun Empire, and Kia is from Gardemagne,” Victor pointed out, putting his finger on the map. “That’s the wrong country.”
Seng said nothing. Instead, her hand reached for her cocktail, and she swallowed it the same way Vainqueur ate disobedient minions.
“Also, she is a reincarnated human from Earth,” Victor added, remembering his few discussions with the [Paladin]. “I believe she was born in Ethiopia before moving to the UK. So technically, if you want to sink her country of origin—”
“BWAHA!”
Victor took a step back, as Seng suddenly exploded into tears.
“I screwed up!” she cried in her own arms, face against the counter. “I screwed up again! First, they ban me from the table after that whiskey sea incident, and now this!”
“It’s… look it’s okay,” Victor tried to comfort her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Mistakes happen, even for gods.”
Charisma check…
Failed!
What?!
“Even mortals pity me!” Seng cried even louder, the barman octopus putting a beer bottle within arm’s reach of the goddess’. “I’m a goddess… a goddess! Why does nobody respect me?”
… she was a Vainqueur.
Outwardly regal and confident, but insecure inside; she didn’t want pity or sympathy. Thankfully, if Victor’s adventures in Outremonde had taught him anything, it was how to deal with this kind of majestic creature.
“I meant that such an action is perfectly understandable, Your Godliness. You operate on a level too high for mortals to understand.”
Flatter her to death!
“Y-your Godliness?” Seng raised her head at him, sounding both pleased and embarrassed.
“With a capital G,” Victor replied mirthfully. “Your fans can tell the difference.”
Charisma check successful! You flattered Seng’s ego!
“I mean, you oversee all the seas of Outremonde, millions, billions of creatures! How can you be expected to remember one mortal’s country of origin, when you decide the fate of the world?”
“Y-you’re just saying that to make me feel better,” she replied, unconvinced.
“But does that make it any less true?” Victor replied, knowing that she really wanted more praise, not less. “If I am reminding you of your exceptional successes, is this truly flattery? Or history?”
Charisma check successful! It wasn’t very hard!
“Are you a goddess, or are you not?” the Vizier kept tempting the fish with his lure.
“Yes, but… I don’t remember how I became one,” Seng admitted sheepishly. “I was drunk when I ascended.”
“Really?” Victor blinked, astonished. “That’s even more amazing.”
“R-really?” Seng looked at him in confusion. “How?
“Yeah, that means you weren’t even trying!” Victor said with sincerity. “In my case, I brought down Heaven while drunk on mushroom wine. I thought I had screwed up, and I did… but in retrospect, I’m also proud of myself.”
“What?!”
Somehow, Mithras’ shocked voice echoed through Seng’s background muting. The Vizier did his best to ignore it and focus on the mermaid.
“Yeah, I mean,” Victor gathered his breath. “Isn't it impressive that I accidentally succeeded, in one night and all on my own, where all of Happyland failed for eons? Imagine if I hadn’t been high. It would have been a slaughter!”
“Yes!” Seng pumped a fist. “I became a goddess without even meaning too!”
“And isn’t that impressive, when it took centuries of efforts from the others to do the same? Yes, they worked hard, but you, Your Godliness? It was all talent.”
Charisma check successful! You kissed Seng’s ass, and she loved it!
She loved it very much!
“You’re right,” Seng realized, her self-pity replaced with enthusiasm. “I’m a goddess, whether they like or not. I shouldn’t doubt myself.”
“Yes,” Victor agreed. “And that’s why I have come to petition Her Godliness, to please take mercy on one of her closet worshipers.”
The [Reaper] could feel burning eyes glaring at his back, but he ignored them in favor of the mission.
“Kia has been praying to you since the end of the Century War,” Victor argued. “When she took a bottle to drown her sorrow, you think she was looking for Mithras’ guidance? No. When she looked at the bottom of her glass, she was looking for yours, Your Godliness. Yours.”
“This is ridiculous!” Victor heard Mithras shout behind him, only for Camilla to drag him back into their quarrel. The Vizier vaguely heard her threaten to kill one thousand [Paladins] with vampiric syphilis, and not much afterward.
“I…” Now Seng looked positively embarrassed. “When you word it this way, that was very mean of me.”
“I’m sure she can take a quest to show how sorry she is,” Victor said softly.
“Maybe we can discuss it in the back?” Seng proposed. “I have a TV, and it’s almost time for the latest episode of Grandrake,Princess Hunter.”
The Vizier’s heart skipped a beat. “An actual TV?” He hadn't seen one since his reincarnation!
“Yes! I get all of Earth’s channels, and I can look at most of Outremonde too! Except for the areas which the other gods block.” She made an annoyed face. “Damn encrypted channels.”
“You know what?” Victor said as the barman gave him a cocktail while Camilla and Mithras still threatened each other with holy wars. “That will be a pleasure.”