Rigel strode through a few miles of knee-deep plains grass before feeling slight vibrations beneath his feet. He scoffed in spite of himself and proudly turned around with a confident smirk on his face. He was prepared to fight the upcoming squadron to the death.
Just as the squadron peeked over the small hill, Rigel hesitated and froze up. He yelled at himself in his head and loosened up, but not before the squadron circled around him. A single horseman left the ranks and approached Rigel.
"M'lord advises you to not be rash. You were not at fault for Alkaline's foolish decision."
Rigel merely gazed back deadpan, shrugged, and walked back towards the town.
The horsemen, seeing his decision, all galloped off into the distance over the hill from which they came.
"The big man clearly wants something from me. There's no way in hell that the governor would personally advise me, a commoner, to return. I fear if I don't return misfortune will follow closely," Rigel muttered to himself.
He sighed deeply and wandered back to the town, arriving a few hours later. By then, it was dark out and the brilliant full moon overhead radiated luminosity down, illuminating the town. Haphazardly navigating, Rigel eventually found his way back at the governor's manor.
Stumbling through the front door, as though he was tired, he drug himself to the dining hall which was light up by candlelight. Entering, he saw the full family eating a meal together with 2 servants standing off to the side.
"Welcome, Rigel. Won't you take a seat? You must be exhausted walking all that way in the direct heat of the sun," the person sat at the head of the table spoke passively and soothingly. He was the tall man Rigel passed as he walked out of the arena- the governor of Jagersbyt.
Rigel merely nodded reluctantly and sat down next to the governor and across from the 2 twins. The governor clapped, and the 2 servants left the room.
Rigel lifted his elbows up and placed them on the table before grinning morbidly at the governor.
"So, what in the wide world could you possibly want with me, Lord Jager?"
The governor calmly grinned in return and spoke softly, "What could you possibly mean, Untitled God?"
Rigel felt a deep chill slither down his spine and his heart skip a beat.
Brushing the shock off, he maintained a composed look on his face and replied, "What do you mean by "Untitled God", might I ask?"
"You are one of the 72 Esteemed Gods, but you are juvenile and unaccomplished. Ergo, you are still untitled, unlike all but one other god. A few nights ago, My Lord came to me in my dreams and warned me of a young, scrawny man with long black hair showing up around the southern border of The Great Plains. He would be invincible and wouldn't eat food or beverages. After seeing a man fitting that description during my monster hunt, I ordered my son Alkali to befriend him and covertly spectated the situation. And, indeed, you fit all the categories. So, young god, what in the world are you going to do about me returning you to the rest of your kind and receiving the biggest reward in my life?"
"Well," Rigel slowly said, "When I received word that you wanted me back here I knew you suspected something. So, I obediently returned to try and salvage the situation, lest I be hunted down for the rest of my life. Ergo- as you said- let's salvage the situation!"
Rigel pushed a burst of flames at the governor and dove at him over the table. The 3 Jagers all jumped to their feet and reared their own magics, aiming them at Rigel. Rigel ignored them and continued to push into the governor. He didn't have a sword, so he settled for using his new magic, "explosion magic". With a fist, he funneled all of the mana he could straight into the governor's face and blew him into the wall. The big man flew through the wall and into the room behind.
"Don't underestimate a god," Rigel laughed, just before receiving a barrage of magic from the twins. He glared back at them and scoffed, "You devious bastards had me tricked. I thought to myself, 'Well, maybe they're trustworthy,' but clearly not you devious bastards. I gotta admit, you're both good actors, but now I'll show you the price for playing with a god."
Both of the twins' faces turned ghastly and solemn. They both hesitantly put down their arms before Alkaline suddenly shouted, "Damn it! He's gonna kill us either way, we might as well struggle a bit!" She raised her sword and lunged at Rigel with a thrust. Rigel stepped into the blade and raised a fist with a malicious grin spread across his face. He punched her temple with explosion magic, flinging her into a wall, which creaked under the pressure but didn't give way. Alkaline slumped into a ball and stayed as still as a stone.
"You bastard!" Alkali screamed and with that, threw a fireball at Rigel. Rigel took it head on and walked over to Alkaline before picking her limp body from under her shoulders, holding her in front of him. The side of her head was starting to turn noticeably swollen and purple, with bits of blood and pus flowing down her neck.
"Do you, son of Lord Jager, dare assault this god any farther?" Rigel asked calmly.
Alkali suddenly glanced to Rigel's left momentarily. Rigel promptly swung Alkaline's body to his left and felt an impact travel through it to him. He looked over and saw a large icicle piercing through Alkaline's upper back, in between her shoulder blades.
"Hmm… Well, a dead body's useless," Rigel stated and threw Alkaline's body to the ground. He turned and faced the governor's ashen pale face that had red blotching radiating from around his eyes. "Have you realized the severity of your crimes?"
"You… killed her!" Alkali suddenly shouted and pounced at Rigel.
"You hypocrite. You are no better than a pig, not learning from your mistakes. The sole reason you could fight with me earlier was that I was avidly avoiding any damage to avoid suspicion, and now you claim that I killed your sister, and not you yourself for hinting to me what your father was attempting? Ridiculous. Come to terms with your grievances and failures and maybe I'll find some way to pity you and kill you painlessly," Rigel monologued while receiving vicious strikes from both father and son.
After a few exchanges, Rigel felt it was best to hurry up and move things along. "Fine, have it your way," he muttered, then proceeded to charge up an explosion spell before striking the ground, ending up in a 3 point stance, throwing both men back. The power reverberated throughout the house, seemingly echoing like a call into a ravine. The structure started creaking under the awesome power of explosion magic, and fractures started crawling about the walls like spiders laying their webs. With the overall stability of the house weakened, Rigel started spewing flames across the walls and ceiling, lighting the whole room ablaze.
The flames covered any exits that existed both prior to the fight and the ones made during the midst of it, trapping the rats in a cage. Neither father nor son dared attempt any magic in fear of causing a total collapse. Rigel simply watched over the 2 and kept them on their toes in order to keep them panicking, for he was sure if they were calm they would find a way out very easily.
"Goodbye Alkali, as much of a snake as you were, you weren't entirely to blame. The evil gods have corrupted your father who, in turn, has corrupted you. Sadly, piety for false idols is sin, and the guilty must be punished. Goodbye, Jagers," Rigel said in a slightly wistful tone. Just after finishing his sentence, he shook his head and once again smashed down onto the floor with all his power. The house couldn't take the pressure and collapsed into a flaming pile of rubble- primarily wood.
Rigel struggled and wiggled his way up to the surface of the flaming sea of wood and walked atop it into a crowd of bystanders, who moved quickly out of his way.
"Give me clothes," Rigel said with a hoarse voice, which surprised him.
Hurriedly, the crowd tossed him a set of clothes, which he put on before walking straight out of the town. Anyone who lived in the immediate city should have a certain amount of revenue, and Rigel's new clothes highlighted that fact brilliantly. They were made of some sort of soft cloth, but Rigel only half-heartedly took note of it.
He walked north for some time, before once again feeling the rumbling of hooves under his feet. Exhausted mentally, he sighed and tossed his head over his shoulder to gaze at the cavalry behind him.
"Gods shan't be taken lightly by thee mortals," he muttered slowly, and then sighed deeply. "Killing people is exhausting. I'm tired. I just want to sleep. I want my rest. I just... don't want to do this anymore."
The horsemen trotted at a reasonable pace and circled around Rigel, who was still seemingly harmless.
"You, demon god, what have you to say for your actions of denying our lord's benevolence?" The same man who requested of Rigel to return to the manor spoke in an extremely confronting tone.
"Oh, I'm a devil god now, am I? Listen, this victim here is no devil god. I am just the same as you fools, surviving how I can. Burning down the house of my assailant is my prerogative," Rigel replied softly.
"That is not what makes you a demon god. The unanimous declaration of the gods, deeming the Forgotten Gods as demons who hate humanity, is what makes you a demon god."
"...Their authority is worth less than cabbage. Those mere tyrants haven't the power to declare things about me yet," Rigel continued softly.
"Shut it, demon. The governor graced you with his mercy by not sicking the entire town on you, and you repaid him by killing him and his family and burned down his home. What say you?"
"Nothing," Rigel muttered. "I have nothing to say of that!" he then promptly shouted. "Maybe, he was saving you all from the terror which is I!"
Voices shouted and complained in protest to Rigel's words for a few seconds until the leader shouted, "Shut it! The chaos and desolatebeasts of The Great Plains will deliver just punishment to this demon. The gods are too good for him." After delivering the final word, the troop retreated back into the distance.
Rigel felt a faint stinging sensation around his nose and eyes, then noticed that his vision was blurring. He blinked a few times and wiped the teardrops off of his eyes.
"Why, oh why, do I cry, now of all times?" He muttered slowly, enunciating every syllable crisply. "Why in God's name, does crying make me feel pain? Of all things, crying does?"
"Ugh," he moaned and collapsed onto the ground, head in his arms. "What the fuck did I do to deserve this treatment? Alright, I'll admit, I was being a cunt, so STOP TREATING ME LIKE THE PLAGUE! Please, please- I'm so tired. I don't want this, I really don't. I'm like a child to you all! I didn't get to live my years; I'm practically still in my twenties, so stop being immature and let me live independently of you all!"
After an uncomfortable amount for time for an onlooker, Rigel rose up from the ground without a sense of self to be detected in his glassy eyes. The same eyes which once betrayed the image of raw sorrow and dejection to a mysterious apparition in the supposed afterlife now possessed qualities of a dead man's, to such an extent that the color of his irises seemed to rot into a dull gray color.
"The events starting from when I left the hole until now... those can all be forgotten. No, that's wrong. The events themselves should be forgotten, but what I've learned is invaluable: everyone is my enemy, the petty are out for me, the world is a different place."