Grayson was lost in his own thoughts as he led the wagons back to the village. Something had happened to him. From context clues, being called an "avatar of justice" and having a voice hijack his body to speak to Fera, he'd been possessed or something by the goddess that Fera seemed to worship. Further, Fera seemed to think he was some kind of crusader, which didn't seem to have the same connotations as the equivalent back home.

  Grayson supposed that crusaders were some order of holy warriors that served the purposes of their god. If that was the case, he certainly wasn't one, considering he'd been in this world for a total of about twenty two hours and this was the first overtly religious person he'd met. Perhaps it specifically meant fighters who channeled the power of the god or goddess. He certainly hadn't meant to channel any kind of divine being, but it had evidently happened regardless.

  Further, the revelation of a specific goddess of justice implied gods or goddesses of various other concepts or virtues. Justice certainly wasn't a bad thing to become an avatar of in Grayson's mind, but it came with some philosophical questions he didn't think he was ready to answer. Was it justice or just revenge? Who's justice was it? How could a man arbitrate that justice? Grayson considered asking Fera, but decided not to risk offending her. Besides everything else those questions might bring, she'd been through enough.

  Grayson's thoughts stopped meandering and sank into the pit he'd been trying to avoid with philosophical conundrums. He'd killed one hundred men. He'd never killed anyone before and... and the flooding relief of calm suffused his mind once again.

  "For fuck's sake, how am I supposed to process my internal trauma if my neural network keeps forcibly calming me down?" Grayson muttered.

  "Did you say something?" asked Fera, walking beside him.

  "Nothing important." Grayson let his thoughts wander again, trying to circle back to his issues of the early morning without triggering some kind of mental break that would either immediately fix itself or worse, not get fixed.

  "You didn't say any prayers..." Fera said after another twenty minutes of silence. Grayson looked at her and saw a determined set to her jaw. She'd evidently been working up to saying that.

  "I suppose I didn't," Grayson responded, turning back to look ahead.

  "Shouldn't you?" Fera asked. "You're a crusader after all?"

  "I don't know..." Grayson trailed off. They walked in silence for another few minutes before Grayson looked at Fera. She was staring at him, a concerned look on her face.

  "Hey, uh... Do I... Do I look like a crusader?" Grayson asked sheepishly. His clothes were still faux denim, having forgotten to change them before he fell asleep the night before and being too busy to change them afterwards. Fera burst out laughing.

  "What does appearances have to do with it? You're definitely a crusader! You proved that much an hour ago!" Fera struggled to gasp the words out as she laughed. She took a deep breath and sighed. "What a stupid question."

  Grayson watched her outburst with a mixture of surprise and happiness. He laughed himself at her comment before putting his hand on her shoulder.

  "Fera," he began, "I honestly have absolutely no idea what a crusader is."

  Fera's head whipped round to look at him, staring into his face and looking for any hint of deception or mockery. When she failed to find it, she laughed so hard that she stumbled and ended up wobbling over to a tree to hold herself up. He waited with her to let her catch her breath, waving to the wagons to keep going. Slowly she got herself back under control and looked up at him, her eyes shining with tears from how hard she was laughing.

  "You seriously don't know?" she chuckled. She almost lost herself again but kept control with a few deep breaths. "You've been chosen by my Goddess, you idiot. You're an arbiter of Her will on Earth and you don't even realize it?" With that she was gone again. People in the passing wagons looked at her as she struggled to reign in her breathing. Grayson found he was having fun.

  "I really don't. I mean I figured out the divine conduit part, but shouldn't crusaders be like knights? You know, armed and armored as opposed to..." Grayson motioned to his faux denim jacket and pants. That set the recovering Fera off again.

  "Alright! I admit it! No! You don't look like any crusader I'd heard of. Not now anyway." Fera managed to squeeze out before taking another deep breath and leaning her back on the tree. She slowly went from chuckling to giggling before finally looking Grayson in the eyes again.

  "An hour ago though?" Fera spoke quietly. "I'd have traded any of them if it meant you would come save me again. I've seen crusaders a couple of times before, Grayson. At the cathedral, they would come in from time to time. Mostly they did sermons for the initiates. Some did combat training for aspiring crusaders. They all spoke about how the justice they do is righteous. How what we do is righteous."

  Fera took a deep breath before continuing, blushing faintly. "You didn't come here for Perimis. You didn't come here because punishing the wicked is righteousness. You came to save us purely because you couldn't bear to see innocents being treated poorly. I don't think you even understand how much that means to my Lady. You fought to protect the innocent from those who would harm them. You did to them what needed to be done solely for the reason that it needed doing."

  Grayson spoke quietly. "I just couldn't stand by and let it happen. Not again. Never again."

  Fera took his face in her hands. "And that's what my lady stands for. Justice does not stand by when the wicked harm the innocent. You saved us, Grayson. Thank you." She smiled at him. Again, it was pure and beautiful. It lasted just a moment before they realized they couldn't hear the wagons anymore.

  "Ah shit," said Fera. "We'd better catch up, but I'm definitely too tired to run. Hey, can you carry me?"

  Grayson laughed as he picked her up in a princess carry.

  "Alright, hold on."

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Fera put her arms around his neck, loosely holding on. It turned into a death grip when Grayson started running.

  Five hours later, the wagons reached the village, lead by a now thoroughly cheerful Grayson. Fera had ended up in one of the wagons taking a nap, deciding that she was too tired for his shit. Grayson decided that this was fair after princess carrying the woman at over forty km/h. The rest of the village had come out and were looking around at the damage when the wagons arrived. Someone near the village gates called out and someone else ran to get Tiber.

  Grayson led the wagons through the village to the communal building. Tiber came out as they arrived, running to greet Grayson with his eyes roving over the carts.

  "Is everyone here?" Grayson asked. He was a little nervous that he'd have to go running again. His neural network had started prompting him every now and again about needing to eat and drink. The wagons had some food and water in them, but he'd decided to stoically do without until they reached the village. That had been a really stupid idea. He should have just let everyone stop for a meal.

  Villagers came and started helping unload people and supplies from the wagons. The cages had been brought as well, one of the villagers who had been taken was a blacksmith and they had said that good steel was worth keeping. Tiber went through the crowd, checking off the returned slaves. He came back to Grayson with a smile and with a woman his own age in tow.

  The pair stayed close together as they approached. Tiber's hair was cut roughly at shoulder length and his green eyes shone as he escorted the woman. She was an inch shorter than Tiber at 6', thinner than TIber, but with still visible muscles on her arms. Her black hair reached the small of her back, though it had the telltale curves of being recently plaited. It framed her face well, her black hair and light pink skin setting off her brown eyes.

  "It certainly seems so. Thank you, Grayson. You've saved our village, and our people from a fate worse than death. More than that, you saved the love of my life. How can we ever repay you." Tiber bowed as he spoke. Grayson yawned.

  "I know that was meant as a rhetorical question, but I really need sleep, water, lunch, and a bath. If I can have those? I'll save your village any time." Tiber smiled and led Grayson through the crowd back to his house. There, he had his wife start making lunch while he drew the bath water for Grayson. Tiber placed a red stone in the tub which started glowing faintly. When the buckets of cold water hit it, they steamed.

  When the bath was full, the meal was set on a table beside it with a full pitcher of water, Tiber offered to clean his clothes, but Grayson declined. Tiber nodded and left Grayson alone. Grayson stripped and started by sponging himself all over, squeezing the sponge into a separate basin. He cleaned off the dirt and sweat from the night before, as well as a small amount of blood from where various attacks, splinters, and shrapnel had hit him, not to mention the self-inflicted cut to his arm when he rolled at the bandit leader.

  He looked at his white, lightly tanned skin, his swimmer's physique that favored litheness over bulk, and his soft but defined abs. He had always favored this look and style of fitness for it's endurance. He used the mirror in the bathing room to ensure his face and hair were clean, or at least clean enough. His face wasn't exactly thin, but he wasn't square jawed like a typical hero would appear. His chin was perfectly hairless, and his light brown hair was just long enough to sway in the wind as he ran.

  Finally he looked into his eyes. With the perception enhancements of his neural network, he could see the microscopic tracery of circuits in his eyes that made them seem even more blue by adding a subtle hint of green. He'd always liked this effect and had increased the enhancements to his vision just to pronounce it, a level of vanity that few had bothered with in his time. Something was off though. Deep in his pupil was a hint of silver, like a single star in a midnight sky. He'd never seen it before...

  Shaking his head, Grayson satisfied himself that he was clean and stepped into the bath, letting his body rest properly for the first time in over a day. With one hand, he reached out and touched his clothes, reconfiguring them into something more suitable for this environment. They became a soft but firm black leather overshirt, brown hide pants, with a comfortable undershirt. He deliberately made them all hydrophobic.

  Grayson felt all the stress of the last day melting away as he ate and drank in the bath. Over his body, he could feel his muscles relax as the nanomachines in his blood made minor repairs and brought larger nutrient stocks than normal. It felt like he was being gently electrified. He finished his meal and laid back in the tub. Twenty minutes later, he heard shouting from outside. He grinned as he recognized the voice.

  Fera was not to be denied, it seemed. Grayson had barely got his clothes on, but was still wet when Fera practically kicked the bathroom door down. She looked a little disappointed for a second but rallied and dragged him, still dripping, from the building. On the way she talked mercilessly about stiffness and unfairness, that he had gotten a lovely bath while she had woken up sore from the trip home. Further, she seemed slightly offended that he had left her on the wagon instead of accepting the hospitality of the church.

  The church itself seemed to be communal for the Gods, as various men and women in different colored priestly robes were walking around, taking various expensive items from crates and putting them where they belonged. There was the occasional argument as different priests and priestesses claimed this or that candelabra or moon stone belonged to a specific deity's church. Fera led Grayson through the middle of it past a large altar, with the design of a twelve sided shape with a symbol at each face. There was a small corridor with several doors to either side.

  Fera stopped at the door furthest from all the others and opened it, revealing a large but bare dining room with long benches, evidently designed to seat and feed up to fifty people. A teenage girl with robes similar to Fera's stood at the end of one of the tables where 3 meals sat. She had short blonde hair and green eyes, with a narrow face. Her ears had a hint of a point about them. Fera dragged Grayson over and he let himself be pushed onto the bench while Fera and her acolyte sat across from him.

  They ate in relative silence, mostly because Fera seemed too hungry to bother wasting time talking when she could be eating. When she wasn't paying attention, Grayson gave the acolyte commiserating looks. The young woman stifled her giggles, but if Fera noticed, she was too busy to care. Grayson happily ate his second meal in an hour, mostly because the entire first one had been devoured to provide immediate nutrients to his muscles. He had to admit, he also simply enjoyed the incredibly energetic woman's company.

  When the meal was finished, Fera told Grayson to chat with her acolyte, who turned out to be called Lyn. She then left the two to clean up the dishes from the meal and rushed off. Grayson got on well with Lyn, helping stack the plates from their meal and then drying the dishes for her and putting them where he was told. She was far more sedate than Fera's almost manic lifestyle and the two laughed about how Fera was always rushing around. They talked a little about what had happened the night before. Lyn had been with Fera in the cages, and had seen Grayson's glowing battle, though she hadn't known what it meant until Fera had returned to the wagon.

  A few minutes later, Fera was back wearing more casual attire. The woman was small, only 5'9" with a petite figure that normally appeared bulked out by her robes. Though she was small, she radiated energy and confidence, giving off the feeling like she was ready to kick the world's ass if it started acting up. He hair was a rich brown and she'd hurriedly tied it back in a ponytail that reached her shoulders, tied with a gold ribbon, leaving only neck-length bangs to cup her face. Her face itself was round, though anyone who saw her would know it had to be to fit her wide smile. The whole look was set off by her bright golden eyes that shone like the sun.

  Grayson's lack of poetic talents ended there as she came forwards and took him by the hand.

  "Come on, I need to show you the village!"

  Grayson found Fera's smile infectious as she dragged him out of the church, Lyn giving them a parting wave as they left.

  He could sleep later.