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***

"And that's the last time that I saw Zeph."

The bulky Holy Knight leaned forward on the desk, rubbing his temples and closing his eyes –like he had a headache. I watched him, giving him silence. Somehow, it didn't feel right talking right after he shared that story. Granted, it had been short. But it was the way that Zenom told it that kept me from speaking and asking my questions outright.

"I imagine you have questions." Zenom gave the go ahead, composing himself again.

"Your name," I decided to ask my questions in order, "Why was it not Zenom? And why was everyone named starting with the same character?"

"Once we are adopted by the church, we cast away all semblance of our old selves. We cast away our family name and for those who are Squires-in-waiting, they cast aside their original names as well. We go through this a second time, once we become fully fledged Holy Knights."

It sounded like brainwashing to me, but I didn't voice it, lest I offend the knight. It felt like he had shared a part of himself with me, something vulnerable. I wasn't sure what it was yet, but I treaded carefully nonetheless.

"I heard from Kyrian and Aurora that you saved a village when you were sixteen, that you became famous from it. Is this that story?"

"Yes." Zenom had a faraway look in his eyes, staring at the ceiling, looking at something only he could see. "The very same. Zeph left towards the Slaves. I was torn between following the doctrines of the church or going after my friend. In the end, I chose to do what I believed was right. To save my fellow Humans, the villagers whom I was sworn to protect."

"Your friend…"

"Zeph."

"You didn't find a corpse?"

I found it hard to believe that a sixteen-year-old could survive a Monster Wave by himself, especially when bogged down by people he had to protect.

Not only was he sixteen, he didn't have a single Core to his name. Granted, Slimes were Grade-10 monsters. But Grade-10 monsters are still the same as a Grizzly Bear or Alaskan Brown Bear back on earth. Fighting a wild beast who outspeeds you, outpowers you and just has a primal ferocity which cannot even be imagined by the regular person… not to mention it was an entire horde of them.

"Slimes." Zenom replied.

Right. Slime type monsters wouldn't leave a corpse. Not a lot anyways. And what was left could be anything –from a slave's to this Zeph guys'. Considering that DNA testing wasn't a thing in MSS, I doubt they could tell even if there had been some kind of remains.

"But I believe he's alive." The Holy Knight blurted out.

I raised an eyebrow at him.

"As an adventurer, you are skeptical. Understandable, especially considering your own specialty in Monster Habit, Combat Behavior and Ecology." Zenom rubbed his thumb and index finger together, pensive, "It is hard to explain. Zeph… once he got older, he started reading heresies. Blasphemous texts. Do not get me wrong, Slaveborn. The Church is not so closed-minded as to outright ban the worldly readings. To defend our faith, we must be well-read of the world outside as well."

"But everytime Zeph said something preposterous… it wasn't exactly against the Chruch." Zenom frowned, "No. No one could say that Zeph wasn't a believer of the Church of Light, Flame and Shield. I… If anything, he was a strong believer of the Church. That it had a duty to protect the weak, the downtrodden and those without the strength to protect themselves."

"I'm not sure where you're going with this."

"Zeph was loved by the Goddesses. Of that, I'm sure." Zenom shook his head. He let that statement hang in the air.

I'm an adventurer. I'm an earthling. But I'm also a skeptic.

I've bargained with the Beast Goddess, had therapy with the Warrior God. I've seen them in their flesh, had second-hand exposure to their divinity which according to MSS Lore, should have melted me on the spot.

Yet, it's hard to call me a believer.

Were these beings really all-powerful Gods?

Or just powerful mages or monsters with sentience?

Coming from Earth, the concept of God is a fuzzy one. There's the Jewish and Christian God, a Creator level God who created everything under the metaphysical heavens. He can do anything. Then there are all the Mythic Pantheon-level gods. Not the capital G, but lesser. They have desires, they're not holy and their own vices lead them to make mistakes sometimes.

I think coming to MSS only strengthened my belief that gods aren't as all they're puffed up to be. Something is only as great as the time you spend fantasizing about it. But once I saw Oung and Khan in the flesh, the mystery of it was gone. They just became big scary thing that I had to navigate around or try to avoid at all cost –like a tornado. And to be honest, that's exactly what they are. Super-powerful beings that are incovenient if I piss them off.

I mention this because the look on Zenom's face was so pure. When he said that the Goddess of Light, Flame and Shield had loved his friend, Zeph… the man believed there. There was childlike blind absolute belief on this grown man's face and it made me hesitate. Not just hesitate but it made me want to believe –that there was something warm out there. That there was justice in the world, that a god could love a human being so much with so much emotion that it inspired belief. That this god cared enough to pluck a random joe schmoe human out of a Monster Wave.

Stolen story; please report.

It went directly against what I went through. I fought tooth and nail to get where I have. I have the scars to prove it. Granted, I'm still on the fence about whether the gods aided me in a physical way or not but…

For a second, I believed that Zeph was alive.

That's how strong Zenom's faith was.

That's why his next words shocked me more.

"You remind me of him." He murmured.

Zenom Saintred does not murmur. He talks. He commands. He doesn't… do whatever it is he just did.

That fact alone spurred the burning curiosity within me, until it gave release to the question which had been there since the moment he started this story

"Why tell me this?" I asked.

That's what I didn't get. Why was Zenom, the Holy Knight, the Leader of this Expedition to Claw's Nest, telling me all this? This had no relation to what I wanted to talk to him about, or anything to do with our search for the Autarch's Key. I came here to talk about party placements, expedition routes and more –things that could prove advantageous to my party.

Instead, he shared about himself.

I hated it.

I hated the fact that he told me this.

I hated the fact that he humanified himself to me. That he had a childhood, that he'd been an orphan, that he had friendswhom he thought about and prayed for.

I wanted him to be the stoic Holy Knight, a heartless brainwashed agent of Turina and its Church. An Enemy to be killed.

Not…

Not this.

I shifted uncomfortably, wanting to leave.

"If I answer, will you answer me one thing, Slaveborn?"

"...Depends."

"A gamble. As alway." Zenom smiled, but his eyes weren't looking at me.

"...I'll try my best."

"You always do." Zenom slightly turned, facing diagonal from me. He sat like that for a while, leaving me alone to my thoughts and him to mull over his own.

The air felt tense. I think deep inside, I knew what was coming.

This was a pivotal moment.

This whole quest had been one big mess of confusion, every single party with hidden intentions –and those intentions had got us in a lot of mess. Delas and the recently realized inner-struggles within the Player's Guild. Borealis and the tension between the Great House of Vetilius, Turina's Royal Court and the Church. Arione and Clover, doing Oung's biddings. My party, trying our best to navigate this shitshow and then Zenom… trying to keep it all together.

…What did victory mean for Zenom?

"...I know that you and Arione are working together." Zenom said at last.

I can't say I didn't know this. Zenom isn't dumb. He's rigid, but smart. Observant. That's why he's one of the more dangerous people I know. In my mind, if I had a choice, I would have killed him or Delas first.

But it's another thing to know that he's aware. Another for him to confront me with it.

This wasn't just a pivotal moment.

Our conversation here would decide who fought against who at Claw's Nest. Who'd walk away with the [Autarch's Key].

…Which 'god' would emerge victorious… which god would be pleased…

And which god I'd be making my enemy.

There was no denying what he said though. I just nodded.

Zenom settled back, satisfied. "The fact that you admit this fact to me means that you trust me to a certain extent. That you're open to… options."

"Only as long as it doesn't incur further danger to my people." I replied quietly, to let him know I wouldn't budge on this.

"What I propose wouldn't put them in more danger than they are already in."

My heart began to beat faster.

Not out of fear.

But excitement.

New possibilities blooming before me.

Questlines opening up.

But there were things we needed to hammer out first.

"I cannot let Turina get [Autarch's Key]." I said.

There I said it. He knows what I want.

"Yes." Zenom replied, "But I also noticed that you never said you want it for yourself or you want to hand it over to Arione."

I hissed in agreement, a huge ball of frustration bursting open in a firework display of satisfaction. This whole expedition had been just cloaks and daggers, finally, finally a door was opening up to an ally. To an ally that was being open with me, not just trying to use me but trying to align their goals with mine and understand where I was coming from.

"The church cannot get it either."

"Yes, I realize." Zenom took a sharp intake of breath, then exhaled slowly. "There is an organization within the Church that you might trust. One of the three branches, the Shield Church."

"I'm listening."

"Cecilia belongs to that branch, while I belong to the Church of Flame. The Church of Shield had long since preached for a non-aggression pact with the other nations, including Zimmskar."

"I don't need a politics lesson, just get to the point." I was sick and tired of everything telling me lore. I needed things done.

"What I need from you is trust." Zenom said, "Trust that I will take the [Autarch's Key] and hand it over to the Church of Shield."

"To trust a branch of the human Church?" I scoffed. "Impossible."

"Not them." He said, his voice low and eyes looking at the floor. "Me. Personally."

That…

Trust Zenom?

Someone who was a dog of the church?

"I–"

"Before, you speak, you must listen to this." Zenom looked into my eyes, his own burning with blue ocean-fire, eerie like ghost-lights of sailors drowned in the ocean –the eyes of a man about to drown but who hadn't given up. "I know this is sudden. However, I am a Holy Knight. Sworn to defend the innocent. I… my whole life, I did what I thought the Church taught me was right."

He paused, hesitating.

I waited.

"...I…I'm…"

I kept waiting.

"I…"

"I'm…"

"I want to…"

He swallowed, trying to get the words out.

"What you did… what you showed me… what Zeph told me all those years ago when we were boys… I… something's wrong. Something's wrong with the way I do things. Something… you two… broke something in me. I…" He let out a growl, his face drawn tight with tension, "It's… This war… the people in it… It's… I…"

Zenom Saintred finally said, "I've done things. Many things." He closed his eyes. "By the light, many, many things."

I watched him, his face going from one emotion to another: regret to nostalgia, anger to sorrow.

"And… I imagine this too… will be one of many things." He opened them again, "I'm tired of standing on the sidelines while others make the choice for me. This is the biggest quest that's been ordained to me by the Church. I will do my best to serve it, by what I believe the Light, Flame and Shield wants me to do; not what old men with outdated ideas think will do."

"So you want me to work with to get the [Autarch's Key] to get it to the Church of Shield? Then what?"

"Then you come to Turina and we will face what comes after together."

I almost laughed.

We.

Me.

And Zenom Saintred.

Working together with a Holy Knight of the Church of Light, Flame and Shield –the poster boy of human supremacy and the driving force for conflict in this world.

"I'm taking a gamble." I said at last. But I've already made up my mind, I just wanted him to reassure me.

"If the Church of Shield misuses the the [Key] in any way, I will do my utmost to correct it. Even if it means turning my back upon the Church."

"...You do know what will happen if you turn your back on the Church?"

"I know better than most, Slaveborn."

Zenom… would be stripped of his Holy Powers.

He wouldn't be a Holy Knight anymore.

And as a Holy Knight, he didn't have Cores. Just abilities he'd already unlocked through the church questline.

There were ways to get stronger again but…

It's not just the strength.

It's turning your back on everything you once knew.

And that's how I knew that Zenom Saintred was being serious about this.

"I'll also be taking a gamble on you."

"And if I say no?" I asked.

"...Then I imagine that more lives will be lost than necessary." He said quietly.

Someone once told me this.

The first sign an empire is failing is when people begin to question its institutions the empire was built on. They have no god, because the emperor is god.

Zenom… had just realized the difference.

That he serves a god. Not an institution.

I don't like religious nuts.

But… I could get behind this.

So I did something I don't usually do.

I set aside the paranoia, the distrust and the seething disdain for Turina. I looked at Zenom as not a sword of the Empire, but as a human being who was confused and wanted to do something different for a change. Not on a baseless whim, but on something he's felt and seen and wanted to be a part of.

"...Let's do it."

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