“It’s as if the battlefield is alive,” Claud gazed at the sea of energy, and then backed away. “Okay, so what now? To be honest, you’re quite capable of moving around on your own. I do not quite understand why you need us here.”

  “Just in case,” Lesser Half replied.

  “Don’t leave us hanging.” Lily looked at the black cube. “What, you think we can stop the Omen or something? What’s our role here?”

  “I don’t know either.”

  Claud didn’t know what to make of that, but before he could raise a complaint, Lesser Half added, “But from what I could divine, I am probably less likely to be in danger with you two around. I am not sure why, but that’s how it is.”

  “You do know that we have things to do too, right?” Claud asked. “And while you are a divinity, we are not your worshippers or anything…why not just forget about all this and live a mundane life with us instead?”

  “Tempting as that is, the world is falling apart on all fronts.” The black cube let out a sigh. “Maybe when we’re all safely in the new world, perhaps. But you are right. I do owe you a huge debt of gratitude. You two snuck into the Lostfon Palace and brought me out in what was presumably a very planned act. I don’t know how much time you used, and I also do not know what items you expended. But I owe you two a lot.”

  He sighed. “I already owed you a promise to intervene when needed, but the Red God just went and kicked the bucket…right, what vision did you see in your Second Tutorial anyway?”

  Claud ran through the story in his mind again, making sure to make it seem like he was recalling a memory, and then grimaced. “Well. It was…unprovoked, I think. I think we had something he wanted, and he didn’t even ask for it. Very rude.”

  “That’s so him,” Lesser Half muttered. “And then he killed you two to grab the item, right?”

  “What kind of atrocious behaviour does he exhibit on the fly for you to say that so confidently?” Lily asked.

  “Meep!”

  The meeplings popped up in her hair, their gazes — or whatever substituted for a gaze for these guys, anyway — aimed at Lesser Half. The black cube looked at the three meeplings thoughtfully, and then said, “Well, he’s the kind that just takes what he wants, really. There were quite a few disputes between him and his peers back then. For instance, whenever his current Holy Child or Blessed perished, he would look at the prospective candidates in the other Coloured Churches and then get someone to kidnap them.”

  “…what?”

  “Unbelievable, I know,” Lesser Half replied. “Of course, this at least means that the Red God’s new Holy Child would be a nice person, which was actually miles better than the candidates that he picked for himself…”

  “Welp.”

  “That’s a very succinct way of putting that, but yes,” Lesser Half replied. “He’s almost as bad as the Moons when it comes to being self-centred.”

  “Self-centred?” Claud asked.

  “Yeah.” Lesser Half turned, and Claud felt his gaze shift with it. For some reason, he could tell that the divinity was looking at the battlefield with heavy contemplation. What gossip about the Moons was he about to tell them?

  “…I’m not telling you two what happened, so put away that hopeful gaze,” Lesser Half muttered. “Anyway, let’s go back to the notion of rewards. What do you two want? I could help you recover from your hollowed-out state, for instance, although it seems that you’ve managed to gain so much immunity to it that you don’t really care about it now.”

  “No need for that, really.” Claud closed one eye. Besides, the Hollow God had told him that he needed to stay in this state for one year if he wanted to succeed in evolving his Absolute skill and increase his mana circuits at the same time.

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  “Very well. Hmm.”

  “What about very powerful defences?” Claud asked. “Something that would render us nearly impervious. Some supreme defensive equipment for the two of us.”

  “Defensive equipment?” Lesser Half pondered for a moment. “A set of divine armour, maybe? But do you really need one? Lily’s armour is quite…impressive. In fact, now that I’m looking at it properly, there are traces of divine power on it. Do you really need a second set?”

  Claud glanced at Lily, who was wearing the sword and armour he had retrieved from the Goddess of Hope’s corpse. “Um. It’s an incomplete set. And I didn’t take the breastplate, out of modesty.”

  “Modesty?” Lesser Half’s surprise was evident. “Take the breastplate? You came across a god’s corpse?”

  “Ancient battlefield,” Claud replied calmly. “Found it on a corpse wearing it. The sword in Lily’s hand was stabbed through the breastplate and the corpse, but I felt that they were both treasures of sorts.”

  “Hmm. Maybe someone else stole them and then died halfway while escaping from the ancient battlefield…which one did you go to anyway?” Lesser Half asked.

  “One in Nihal, I think,” Claud replied.

  “The Goddess of Hope died there, yes. Well, maybe this armour belonged to one of her familiar spirits.” Lesser Half shrugged. “It’s of quite good quality, though. Do you want something like it?”

  “Something better,” Claud replied. “Our lives are at stake, after all. Also, don’t you think that your current form is a bit too vulnerable? It is a small black cube, and I don’t think you have any combat power at all.”

  “Meep.” As if to illustrate his point, Crown hopped off Lily’s head and landed on the black cube. “Meep. Meep?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Illustrating my point, probably.” Claud looked at the little guy. “He’s wondering if you have hair or something. I mean, you are bigger than Crown, so he wanted to see if he could nestle in your…uh, head.”

  “How courageous…”

  Crown made a few sad meeps, and then turned to Claud, who held out a hand. With another hop, the velvety little guy jumped onto his palm, and then scuttled up to his head.

  “Well, it seems that you are very defenceless.” Claud shook his head. “Anyway, it’ll be nice if you get us some really good defences and things like that. More importantly, though, what do you need us to do? You’re not telling us anything of use.”

  “I need to stay here for a significant period of time,” Lesser Half began. “The battlefield is huge, but as long as I can grasp the flow of power, I can familiarise myself with the general trend of the entire battlefield by setting up an incredible spiritual structure. Once I succeed, any foreign energy signatures will be easily detected on my side, and I’ll be able to leave too. Your job here will be to mask my existence while I set up that structure in question.”

  “Mask your existence?”

  “Just constantly output mana at a level enough for me to blend in,” Lesser Half continued. “You should know that skills operate based on spiritual structures, yes? I will manipulate your mana to create a masking effect of sorts that will enable us to stay hidden.”

  Claud blinked. This whole thing sounded very much like Presence Concealment or Presence Nullification, just that it was something that Lesser Half would create himself.

  “Doesn’t that mean that you can generate any sort of skill?” Lily asked.

  “Yes, but not fully,” Lesser Half replied. “There is more to skills than just mana arranged in the right position. But that’s the extent of what I need you two to do. It’s too taxing for a single person to do, after all.”

  “So we can just laze around or something, then?” Claud thought for a moment. “Well, we really don’t have anything to do now, and we can learn many things from you, so it’s…fine, I suppose?”

  “Authority isn’t an issue when you’re close to the highest echelons of power,” Lesser Half acknowledged. “And besides, I think you two like listening to gossip more than the actual secrets of the world.”

  “Well, when we grow stronger, you can tell us more about these secrets, I guess.” Claud shrugged. “Gossip is nice. We can tell the others about them too, after all. Would make for a nice bout of entertainment.”

  “There is something to be said about how the affairs of my peers are used for dinnertime entertainment, though…”

  “Small price to pay, right?” Claud grinned. “We are, after all, hexa-folders. Normally, hiring us is a lot more expensive. Anyway, now that we are in agreement, we need to figure out our next move. We need to make a shelter of sorts, but one that won’t stand out and yet is sufficiently sturdy enough to take hits.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Lily asked.

  “Underground’s the place to be,” Claud replied. “We’ll start digging immediately. We’ll use some methods to hide our tracks first, and then carve out a solid bunker some ways underground. From there, we can expand and make a secret base!”

  “You’re quite excited about this,” Lesser Half noted.

  “Right in the money. It’s fun!”

  “It is?” Lesser Half asked.

  “In a way. As long as you keep an open mind, anyway…”

  [End of Book 14: Cosmic Contrivance]