The church was on the other side of town from the orphanage grounds, making the walk over there take quite a while. But surprisingly everyone remained well behaved on the way there. Conversations were held at normal levels of volume, which was the equivalent of hushed for children, and everybody stayed together in a single group.

  “Another one of your Skills?” asked Artyom. “There’s no way a group of kids this big would be so well behaved for this long otherwise.”

  “That’s right,” replied Sister Elery. “It’s called [Orderly March].”

  “Sounds like something a general would get for leading an army. Actually, that’s probably what it is if it’s called a ‘march’ instead of a walk.”

  “Perhaps so, I never considered that,” the priestess said with a shrug.

  It didn’t take much longer for everyone to reach their destination. The church building at the moment was almost deserted, save for the head priest, Lensa’s father, jotting down some quick scribbles on the sheet of paper in front of him.

  “Welcome, children!” he exclaimed as they all began to file into the building. “Please take your seats as we wait for everyone else to arrive.”

  The kids followed where his outstretched hand pointed towards and began to take their seats on a large collection of benches set up at the front of the room, just next to the podium. Just behind them were a series of long benches arranged into two rows that extended to just before the back door. Likely, the kids were seated at the front to make it easier for them to pay attention, and so they could get a better view without having taller adults in front of them.

  “Alright children, I’ll be helping out and be right back-” began Sister Elery before being interrupted by a loud groan.

  “But Siiisterrr!” shouted one of the kids, a girl maybe seven or eight years old, drawing out her title. “Waiting here is so boooring! Play a game with us or tell us a story!”

  The priestess bit her lip and looked to the back door for a moment before letting out a sigh. “Of course, of course, let’s do that.”

  What followed were half an hour of Sister Elery leading the orphans through a series of simple group games and basic stories similar to parables and fables from back on Earth with some kind of a moral lesson at the end.

  Even Artyom’s attention was rapt as he listened in, or in one case, even participated in a single round of the games.

  Time flew by, and the other townsfolk began to shuffle into the church and take their seats at the benches. Soon enough, the whole room was filled to the brim, and the newcomers were somehow louder and more talkative than the group of children.

  Artyom could see Tommy and the rest of the party standing towards the back. Lensa was trying, and failing, to hide her glare towards the hero while the others looked mildly disappointed for not having a seat. Likely Tommy delayed them to the point they got here only after all the seats were taken.

  But at least Neitra didn’t seem to mind all that much. She was the first of the group to spot Artyom and wave happily at him.

  He returned the gesture with a polite smile.

  “Thank you all for coming,” said the head priest with practiced confidence. Despite his previous appearance of frailty, his voice was strong and could easily be heard by everyone present, especially thanks to the acoustics of the room. “These past few days have been frightful to all of us, but keep strength!”

  The others, mostly talking amongst themselves or dozing off, immediately came to attention. It might have been a Skill on the priest’s part, but Artyom thought it just as likely they were metaphorically sucker punched by the sudden jump to such a serious subject.

  “The goddess watches over us. And I can say this with more than the confidence of a priest, for I have seen it in action. Everyone in town is here today, are they not? Not one injured, or worse, by the hands of the horde?”

  The audience began to look at each other, trying and failing to see if anyone they knew was missing.

  “That is because the hand of the goddess is mightier. It is the mightiest! We are safe because of them.”

  Everyone began to nod, and they let out a collective sigh. The tension in the room immediately began to ease, and even Artyom was feeling grateful that there hadn’t been any casualties in the attacks.

  “Hold on, if nobody was injured, then it’s likely the necromancer behind this purposefully didn’t let anyone get injured. This is a fantasy world goddess after all, lower-case ‘g’. That level orders priests around and empowers individuals to fulfil their will, they don’t just change fate or just make everything magically work out like capital ‘G’ back on Earth can be said to operate.”

  The priest continued his sermon, with the topic straying to other, more mundane subjects. Minor events that applied to smaller groups of townsfolk, along with morals or lessons that were only relevant to them. It wasn’t quite Artyom’s cup of tea, but he didn’t care all that much because his focus was on somebody else.

  In fact, that ‘somebody else’ got up to leave ten minutes into the lecture, and made their way through the back door without anyone else seeming to notice. Anyone else except Artyom.

  He slowly rose to his feet and followed at a distance, slowly and quietly enough not to bring any attention to himself from the audience, nor to alert his target.

  Artyom shut the door once he was through, and the sound of the sermon was muffled into a quiet whisper. He slowly made his way towards the entrance to the crypt and descended the staircase.

  The most surprising part of this basement was actually the lack of dead bodies. Sure, there were plenty of remains, but they were all stored neatly inside rows upon rows of urns. Each was hewn out of clay and painted a dark blue pigment. They sat on a series of shelves carved out of the Earth itself, their browns and grays creating a nice contrast while signifying the remains they supported were as cold and lifeless as them.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “That’s right,” whispered Artyom to himself. “We burned the victims’ bodies back in Freeacres. I figured it was just out of convenience, but I guess this society regularly practices cremation after all.”

  He continued forward, guided by torchlight of the wall scones that dotted a singular path through the branching twists and turns. He still felt a pit in his stomach, in anticipation of being inevitably caught or ambushed. If not from something as unlikely as the dead coming to life from their soulless ashes, then from the four ladies taking an opportunity to finally ambush and kill him while he was all alone.

  Well, almost alone. There was one other person down here, if Detect Life was telling the truth. The one who lit his way in the first place.

  Artyom followed the faintly colored blob down each staircase towards the bottom floor. Each level of the crypt was similar to the last, save for minor differences to the urns. The shapes began to slightly differ, and their glaze reflected more or less light. Perhaps due to different batches or different creators for each one? Who knew how old this place was, it could have held untold generations of townsfolk.

  Soon however, Artyom reached the bottom floor. He was certain of it because the person he was tailing finally came to a stop. He smiled to himself before replacing it with his signature frown, and began to walk faster in order to catch up.

  In little time, he made his way down the last of the corridors and reached his destination.

  “O-oh, Artyom!” exclaimed Sister Elery while pointing in front of her. “The goddess spoke to me during the sermon, telling me to come down here.”

  Artyom followed her outstretched hand to a pedestal and what looked like a bent piece of scrap metal sitting on top of it. It was made of the same material as the treasure guarded by the kobolds.

  “It seems she’s brought back her armor piece for the hero. We should head back up and tell him so he can continue his quest.”

  Artyom looked back up to the priestess and shook his head. “Cut the crap, I know you’re the one who stole it in the first place. And that you’re responsible for the undead attacks.”

  “W-what do you mean?” she asked. She tried to sound confused, but it was more akin to a child caught their hand in the cookie jar.

  “The pieces all fit together,” replied Artyom, not breaking eye contact. “With the warbands attacking so many defenseless villages, more and more orphans keep coming here. You can’t bear this level of heartbreak, and the only way it’ll stop is if someone does something about them. The nobles, who can levy soldiers to fight the war bands off, have their hands tied because of the war. None of them can spare troops to defend their own lands without starting a chain reaction that will weaken the kingdom’s main fighting force.”

  “But what does this have to do with me? Or the nobles for that matter?”

  “It has nothing to do with nobles, because you came to the conclusion that it’s not worth pursuing. Either because of their patriotism or realizing the consequences of losing the war would be even worse. But there’s another way you could keep the kids safe, another military asset to fight back the war bands. The Hero.”

  Sister Elery remained silent. Her eyes were wide like a lamb’s, but even in the dim torchlight Artyom could see a sharp edge in the way they looked at him.

  “He’s not bound to the front lines, and he’s incredibly mobile with such a small group and his quest taking him all over the kingdom. He’d be perfect for scaring off the war bands! But there’s only one problem: he’s just too busy with said quest. He knows nothing about the plight right at home and is more than happy to just focus on his seemingly never-ending scavenger hunt.”

  The priestess looked away for a moment, turning towards the ground before bringing her eyes back up to face Artyom.

  “But you couldn’t just abandon your duties and go find him, especially with how hard it is to find him. Trust me, I got lucky in my own search. However, opportunity struck when the armor piece appeared. You knew the hero would be coming for it soon, and you put your plan into action.”

  “These accusations are getting ridiculous, what could my so-called plan be?” asked Sister Elery.

  “Simple! First, you stole the armor piece so Tommy would be forced to stay here until he found it. Second, when he did get here, you brought him over to the orphanage to show him the suffering caused by the war bands. You might not have expected Rotte to have that outburst when he did, but I doubt you were all that disappointed in his behavior then. And third, you summoned the undead to make it look like the children were in danger so Tommy would feel more invested in protecting them, maybe even invested in protecting them beyond the town?”

  “You think I summoned the undead?” she asked with a scoff. “I thought I misheard you the first time, but you truly think that I, a priestess of the goddess, would do such a thing? No, could do such a thing?”

  “You said it yourself that the goddess gives you all sorts of powerful Skills to fit your needs. Incredibly high level utilities that don’t always fit into the priestess and child caretaker archetype. If you got [Orderly March], which is obviously an army Skill, why couldn’t you also get a magic-oriented Skill? Such as something to raise undead?”

  “I’m a priestess, not a spellcaster.”

  “Which also leads into why you made such a fuss when I told Rotte to work on fundamentals instead of overly relying on Skills. Your spellcasting abilities come solely from Skills, blessings of the goddess, and not your own abilities. It must’ve sounded like I was telling him that your gifts were a crutch.”

  She remained silent at that.

  “I think I hit the nail on the head there,” said Artyom with a smile. “So those are the means, motive, and opportunity. What else am I missing? ”

  “Do you consider that evidence of me raising the undead? That I have a lot of Skills and am protective of the goddess’ blessings? That’s ridiculous!”

  “Yeah, on its own it does sound pretty flimsy. So how about this? You got the Skill after the war band attacked Cape Horn all those years ago. Skills have a bad habit of coming to you only after you need them most. If you get it in response to a task you perform every day, it’s quite convenient. If it’s for a one-time tragedy, then it’s a little more annoying. I’m pretty sure you never got a chance to use the Skill until yesterday.”

  “That still isn’t-”

  “Oh right, there’s also the second undead attack centered around the orphanage. They were completely incapable of breaking down the front door; in fact they didn’t even try! You can’t exactly keep the facade of a dangerous attack if they do manage to get in. But when I used my aura to draw out the culprit, only two people showed up: you and Rotte.”

  Sister Elery’s eyes went wide at that.

  “So now you know what that strange sensation was that boosted your fighting spirit and drew you out. I’ll be honest, I thought Rotte was safe inside with all of you and the actual culprit was still outside, he wasn’t supposed to be put in harm’s way. But when one of the undead was about to attack him, it inexplicably stopped right before hitting him, giving Tommy enough time to save the kid. You care about the kids, of course you stopped your undead from hurting them.”

  Sister Elery looked at Artyom with eyes filled with melancholy. A sad smile began to form on her lips as she softly exhaled in a light chuckle. “It seems you’re more of a detective than I’d imagined. You might not be one of the chosen followers like that other girl, but you contribute to their team in a way nobody else does.”

  “I’ll take that as a confession,” said Artyom, shaking his head. “But I’m not the police, I’m not here to turn you in. I just want to ask you about the rune-”

  Before Artyom could finish his sentence, a skeletal arm rose out of the ground and attempted to grab his leg.

  He jumped a step back and collided with a soft and sickly surface.

  Artyom channeled his magic through his body and knocked the zombie’s head off with a perfectly delivered roundhouse kick.

  “You didn’t let me finish, I’m not turning you in!” shouted Artyom. “The orphans still need you and nobody was hurt in the attacks, I have nothing against you for this ‘Scooby Doo Villain’-inspired scheme!”

  She didn’t seem to hear him, or even ignored him, as magic began to flow through her own body and circles inscribed with runes began to appear all over the ground.

  “Dammit, I wasn’t hoping for a fight,” said Artyom with a deep frown. “But I’m happy to show you how practical knowledge can counter Skills.”