4 Not So Pure (1/2)

Two days after the 'bloodbath' incident, the system finally showed up again.

[The God Path – Quest 2: ”Form an army of 50 undead monsters” has arrived]

[The quest has two rewards]

It wasn't the type of quest I had expected would come. I was prepared to deal with something harder than the first quest. However, the second quest ended up being pretty easy to accomplish. I just had to form an army of 50 undead monsters, right?

With Necromancy at my side, that was as easy as eating a pie. I already had complete control over 5 monsters, whom I had trained with for the past two days. I could use them to kill more monsters and then turn them into undead under my control.

But, because it was so easy to pull off, I started having doubts about it.

Was that all there was to the quest? I questioned myself. And even though the system didn't give me any reason to, I started thinking of a possible catch in this whole deal.

A possibility came to mind very soon.

What if, after completing this quest, I am given an incredibly hard quest that I am unable to fulfill because I didn't take this one seriously?

It was a definite possibility. And since it had come to mind, I had to make sure I don't screw up.

***************

The entire city was in chaos because of the incident in the forest. The name of the city was – no, not important. Because of what happened in a few days, the name of that city is irrelevant.

But back to the situation, there really wasn't a better word to describe it than 'chaotic'. The adventurers had been divided into two groups.

One was the group of cowards who became too afraid to go into the forests, or other monster infested areas for that matter, because of what happened to that party of 8 adventurers.

The other group was the group of idiots who were determined to go into the forest and kill monsters as much as they could to restore the faith people had lost in their abilities.

Because of this division, the adventurer's guild was in a state of crisis. And THAT benefitted the church.

The Royal Church, as they were called, was an organization that held as much power as the adventurer's guild did. Politically, neither of them had anything over the king. But, when it came to an ordinary city like the one I lived in, these two parties directly rivaled the mayor.

The reason adventurer's guild was given this much power was obvious – they were the goddamned adventurer's guild. They were the one thing keeping the monsters outside from rampaging through the city.

But the Royal Church – they were a mystery to me. The populous wasn't that religious to be honest. If you would compare the percentage of people who can be considered religious to the percentage on modern day Earth, I reckon there would hardly be any difference. In other words, while a lot of people believed in the gods the church preached about, they weren't very religious. So, it didn't make sense for the Royal Church to have that much power.

That was something I had been curious about - ever since I got my memories back and started thinking instead of wasting my life away. That day I got the opportunity to find out the answer.

”We will have to go to the church.” Himdere, my mother, told all us siblings. Hearing that, my eldest siblings, Hans, had an ugly expression on his face.

”Why do we have to go there?!” He asked our mother but without even waiting for an answer, he left.

”Hah!” Mother sighed and said, ”If he doesn't want to come, so be it. The rest of us will go.”

***************

The reason why Hans was so irritated became clear to me as soon as I entered the church. On all sides, there were humungous walls of white filled with paintings depicting legends. But they weren't just any legends; they were a selected group of legends having one thing in common – the defeat of the sword wielders.

Even the statue of the god was something that signified that very thing as the god Emoliv, who was the greatest of all the deities the church prayed to, was shown stepping on a demon's defeated corpse who had six hands and all hands held a different kind of sword.

I didn't know what problem the church had with sword wielders but I knew how to find out about it.

In a glass tube in front of the statue of Emoliv, the church kept a number of scrolls.

”What are those?” I had asked in a low voice to Helga. Because she was so cocky and hungry for praise, it was really easy getting any information out of her as I just had to butter her up a bit.

”It's common knowledge that these scrolls contain great secrets about the church, the religion and the gods. If you read one of those scrolls and you aren't a high-ranking member of the church, well, your life is forfeit. Not only is it considered a sin on par with murder but is also a crime punishable by the law.” She had told me.

Truth is, I already knew about the scrolls. I just wanted to confirm what I had heard was correct. Since Helga said it and my mother, who had listened in on it, didn't interrupt at all, I knew that everything she was saying was the truth.

And so, I just had to get my hands on one of those scrolls. And I decided I would do it that very night.