Chapter 162: Chopped Up God Meat

Vasil looked thoroughly confused now. “Which is?”

I grinned. “Path of the Self.”

Bogumir groaned. Kasia slapped her hand against her forehead.

Vasil just stared at me for a couple of seconds. Then he looked at the ground for a while. When he looked back up he shook his head. “Hecate.”

“Not funny?”

“Exhausting.”

I thought it was a pretty funny joke, and the look on Vasil’s face was totally worth it. Sometimes I forgot Silesians don’t have a sense of humor, but Vasil was always quick to remind me. Thankfully I did have a sense of humor, so I chuckled appreciatively at my clever misdirection.

I glanced around, nodding happily. Ola smiled politely, hand over her heart, hiding a small frown. Vitek probably would have thought it was funny. Unfortunately I didn’t see him around. Oh well.

I locked in Path of the Self and dusted off my hands, satisfied with my choice. I didn’t feel any different, which was fine. I looked at the System.

[Hecate, Gunwitch Level 25]

Path of the Self

Anticlimactic. Though I probably should have expected it. Nothing would change until I actually upgraded some skills, so now I really had to keep my eye out for things to upgrade them with. More hands, more weapons, more stuff.

I wondered if I should go looking for more inquisitors to fight, but pushed that idea aside. They would come to me naturally, since trouble seemed to find me no matter what I did, and I didn’t want to put Kasia in any extra danger. Or any of my new followers for that matter. Yes, power would come to me. If you chase something it pulls further away from you. You have to let it come to you. Desperation creates distance. At least, I think someone said that once.

My thoughts drifted back to Chernobog. Not because I desperately wanted to chase the power he could give me, but because the story didn’t seem to match what I’d heard before.

“Bogumir,” I said. “Do you believe Chernobog is real?”

“Of course Chernobog is real,” he scoffed. “Why wouldn’t he be real?”

“I thought you guys believed Stvora is the creator of everything.”

“He is.”

“So what about Chernobog? How can he be Stvora’s brother?”

“He is the destroyer of everything.”

“Right. And what about the other gods? All I keep hearing is Stvora is the only god, but now not only he suddenly has a brother, but he killed a bunch of other gods.”

Bogumir scowled, clearly annoyed. “Yes. Stvora is the only god. He created everything! We owe our lives to him. We owe this world to him. Before him there was nothing.”

“Except for his brother and a bunch of other gods,” I said, tilting my head.

“What are you not getting?” Bogumir crossed his arms. “They had to be destroyed so we could live. He did it to protect us. Stvora sacrificed everything for us.”

“Sacrificed a bunch of other gods, more like.”

“He shaped the world for us by removing and molding his own bones. He created us by cutting off his own flesh and forming it into his likeness. He brought life to us with his own blood. The rivers were formed from his tears, shed for the brother he so loved, shed for the ones he had to slay, shed for the sins we have and will commit. So you ask what he sacrificed? Everything.”

There were a lot of rivers around, so Stvora must be a very emotional person. Very unlike me, who had complete control of her emotions at all times. Maybe I could help him out with that if we ever met. But if I did would that mean the rivers would run dry? Maybe him being emotional was a good thing in this case. And did he really make Silesians out of his own flesh?

“Gross,” I said, wrinkling my nose. “So you’re telling me you’re made up of a bunch of chopped up god meat? And if Stvora made everything from his meat does that include pigs and beavers? Why would it even matter if they are fish then if everything is Stvora? You’re still eating him. Which is gross, by the way. Cannibalizing your creator is gross. I think it might be sacrilegious as well.”

Bogumir looked at me like he wanted to use his little hands to mold my face into something quieter. “You know nothing!”

“I don’t know a lot, sure.” I shrugged. “But at least I’m not gross or a cannibal. I think.” I lifted up my arm and sniffed my armpit. “Not gross.”

Bogumir blinked a couple of times. “What does that… you know what. I don’t care. You don’t get it and you probably never will. Everyone knows Graecians are uncultured savages who only care about killing each other. I wouldn’t expect you to understand something as simple as this.”

“Savages?” I scoffed. “Killing each other is not all we care about. We care about other things. It’s just…”

Was that how the rest of the world saw us? A bunch of bloodthirsty savages? Were they even wrong? We had philosophy, we had art, we had theater, we had a lot of gods instead of one and they weren’t killing each other, we had athletic competitions. We had a lot of things that didn’t involve killing each other, but still something about that struck me. While we had all of that we also had a lot of killing.

The city-states were constantly at war, always trying to expand and take from their neighbors. Even in Asteria life was cheap. In the whole country life was cheap. People craved power, because being powerful meant no one could touch you. The only thing that protected you was being powerful or having powerful friends. The weak got stepped on. The weak served. Captives from conquered places were held as slaves. The only way to prevent becoming a slave was to be so strong no one could capture you. You never knew when you would be invaded again.

Maybe it was similar to Silesia in some ways, with the big difference being that there was one powerful group who seemed to have conquered everything and was keeping everyone else under their boot. I suppose the country was more peaceful than Graecia, as long as you were okay with serving the Church of Stvora or the king. Would I make Silesia worse if I took them all out? They were evil, sure, but what would happen if they were gone? Would Silesia turn into something like Graecia?

It didn’t matter. The Church had to go. I’d deal with whatever would come after. And now I also had Banda Masvih to deal with. Every time I thought things were finally getting better, more problems popped up.

I rubbed the bridge of my nose. They would be back. I couldn’t leave Viswa without having dealt with them in some way. Maybe Bogumir was right and I should just pay them. But if I did that they would come back every month and would likely demand more and more as Viswa grew. There had to be a way to get them off my back without paying them.

I couldn’t leave my Order behind without having done something about this issue. I’d wait for Banda Masvih to return, deal with them somehow, and then go back to the cathedral. Now it was time to come up with a plan.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Right now, it doesn’t matter. We need to go back to the cathedral, but we can’t do that without dealing with our less than savory extortionist friends.”

“Just pay them and be done with it,” Bogumir said.

“I concur,” Vasil agreed.

I crossed my arms. “I don’t want to. Paying them should be the last resort. I’m sure there’s something they want. Some deal we can make so they will leave us alone. What if I scare them? Kill a bunch of them?”

“They will just send more,” Vasil said. “And they are less likely to spare innocents than the Church.”

And the Church already didn’t seem to care very much about that. So paying them was out. Shooting them in the face was out. Sort of. I still thought it could be a viable solution, since it had worked well for me so far.

Then I got an idea.

“What if I just talk to them?” I said, grinning.

“Yeah, Hecate,” Bogumir said. “Just talk to them. I’m sure that will go well. Like what you did back there? That went well.”

“Yeah, well. They started it. I was trying to talk. I was polite. Besides, I found something interesting while you guys were doing goddess knows what in the town hall. That runeword for my revolver wasn’t the only one.”

I crouched down in front of Vasil. “Please tell me you still have a Clover, Wave, Sol and Poison runestone inside of you.”

“Hmm,” Vasil said, squinting. “Let me see.”