Chapter 1287: Hello, I Solved Your Tree Problem
Chapter 1287: Hello, I Solved Your Tree Problem
The girls reacted to the fact that I gained another blessing like how I would have expected… They pretty much just said ’As expected of Aster’ and that was it…
Katsuki looked a little sad when I told them about the blessing’s effects and I wasn’t dumb enough to miss the signs.
So I specifically told her that I would still be relying on her as a guide through the forest and her tail started wagging happily again.
Of course I did the next most natural thing and went ahead to fluff her tail.
So cute~
We ended up staying the night at the camp itself since it was too dark to move everyone safely and decided to leave the next morning.
With the slavers all tied up and their camp looted clean, we brought the liberated Trasifs back to the city and turned them over to the guards there to deal with.
I then went back to the main shrine and sought an audience with the head priestess, once again using Minnera as my entry pass to avoid being stopped by the other priestesses.
We were guided by another priestess to the head priestess after we asked around and she recognised us immediately, once again leading us to that small alcove with Drebann’s statue before turning to me.
“I heard you caused quite a stir in the city yesterday…” She commented as soon as we got there, ignoring Minnera who had already gone straight to painting me in the corner of the room.
I’m guessing she was referring to the plant spirits thing where they flew around distracting everyone while I ran away.
I scratched my head, “In my defense… I was not expecting any of that to happen.”
She waved her hand in front of her, “Oh, please don’t get the wrong idea! I was not blaming you! I was just saying what I heard! How could I expect that a favourite of our Goddess would not cause a stir the moment others realise your status?”
Even though she says that… I still can’t help but feel a little responsible…
So I quickly changed the topic, “Ahem… Anyway… This is about the problem with the Tree of Life.”
For some reason, I saw the colour drain from her face like I had just told her that the tree was already dead or something which really confused me.
Before I could ask why she looked so aghast, she reached out and grabbed my shoulders in a panic.
“Are… Are you saying you can’t help? Is there already no hope for it? Are we… Are we also abandoned by Goddess Drebann?!”
I blinked at her for a good few seconds before shaking my head, “No? I’m here just to tell you that we already dealt with the problem.”
Now it was her turn to blink at me for a few seconds before she regained her mental faculties to be able to talk again.
“You… You dealt with it?”
“Yes.”
“But… You only knew about this yesterday?”
“Yes, we dealt with the problem last night. It was as I thought, a group of illegal slavers were the ones responsible and they were being led by a Comissar.”
She blinked again, “A… A group of illegal slavers… Were responsible for this?”
“Well… Technically yes.”
“What do you mean?”
“They were hired by a group of wealthy individuals interested in removing the protection that you Trasifs have in order to get more Trasif slaves. So those people are the real masterminds behind this incident.”
“Ah… I see… That actually makes more sense now.”
I tilted my head, “You’re not surprised that there is a Comissar leading the illegal slavers?”
“Not exactly… It wouldn’t be the first time that happened.”
“You seemed surprised that they were targeting the tree to begin with though?”
“Ah… I had assumed that they agreed to work with the illegal slavers to harm the tree while being an unrelated third party. But if they were the leader of the illegal slavers, then it would make sense for them to do what they were doing.”
Err… Ok? I’m not sure how this information changes things since it just means he’s already involved from the very beginning…
Unless she’s thinking that the god that this guy serves would have directed him to do this from the very beginning which wouldn’t make sense since I already confirmed that no gods were involved.
I chalked it up to just another detail about the common sense of this World where Comissars being illegal slavers were no big deal and ignored it.
“Anyway…” I continued, bringing the topic back on track. “It’s clear that the real masterminds are those wealthy individuals and the illegal slavers are just agents carrying out their will. So we’ll have to deal with them if we want to permanently solve this problem.”
She gave me a look of admiration, “And you managed to find all of this out within a single day?”
“I had help,” I told her vaguely.
“I see… As expected of someone who is favoured by Goddess Drebann. And what about those… Wealthy individuals?” She asked.
“They aren’t located here so we’ll have to travel to deal with them. You don’t need to worry, we intend to be very thorough about this.”
She let out a sigh of relief, “That’s reassuring to hear. It certainly leaves a bad taste to me if I were to just let you do all this for us and not receive anything in return…”
I shook my head, “You don’t have to, actually. I was actually tasked by Immana to deal with it and she would reward me if I’m able to solve it.”
“You… Also met Goddess Immana… I see… Umm… Did she perhaps… Threaten you into this?”
I can see that she definitely has some kind of bias against the goddess and I don’t blame her for it. If Immana really wanted to solve this misunderstanding, she could easily have done so.
So it’s not my place to explain all that to her and neither do I want to spend the effort to do so anyway.
I shook my head, “No, it was just a challenge you could say. If I fail, she just wouldn’t reward me, that’s all.”
“I see… Umm… Still, I would like to offer something in return for the things you have done and will be doing for us especially since this is related to our Goddess. Without your help, the Tree of Life might have been lost. Speaking of which… What were they trying to do to it?”
“The Comissar was trying to drain the divinity from the tree which also caused the plant spirits to fall into a coma, by the way.”
“I see… That means you also solved that problem that had plagued us for so long as well… But for a Comissar to be draining divinity away… It means that they had to store the divinity somewhere… Don’t tell me that Comissar was trying to break free from their binds and ascend as a Divine?!”
I blinked, “You can do that?”
“It’s theoretically possible… And there have been some Comissars who sought power to overthrow the Gods they serve as well…”
“And the gods just let this happen? No wait… Of course they did…”
They already basically told me they let the mortals do whatever they want… That’s why Ira is able to run around with that Off-Worlder group openly stating that they intend to overthrow the gods and take this World for themselves without any repercussions.
I guess to them, hearing a Comissar wanting to ascend to godhood to overthrow them is like hearing a small child saying that they will become independent when they grow up or something.
If they did manage to do that, good for them, if they didn’t, it wouldn’t matter anyway.
I wonder if there’s anything that would actually make the gods concerned for once?
The head priestess then bowed slightly, “Going back to your reward, I will need some time to prepare for it so could I ask if you would be returning here once you have dealt with the real masterminds behind this?”
I considered it for a moment, “I believe I will be? I intend to just continue my journey from here since I would be heading towards the Amrap’s part of the forest next.”
“I see… Then please return here once you are ready. I will wait for you, Apostle.”
Ah crap… So she did hear about this word being thrown around by the plant spirits and the Trasifs yesterday… I was still hoping that she would still refer to me as Drebann’s favourite or something because I already have that title anyway…
I still don’t see the ’apostle’ word popping under my titles so I guess this was a good thing.
Alright then, I guess it’s time to return back home for a little while~
Maybe I could even take this chance to see how everyone else is doing?
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