'He wasn't there a second ago, was he?' wondered Iustus, whenever Ithelisemou was around, he felt certain of nothing.
"I wasn't" responded Theli, ignoring the stunned look on the hero's face for having read his mind and just spread his arms.
"You have borne witness to Patience's and Chastity in a fight, what do you have to say about that?" asked the dark-haired man as he pointed at Iustus.
"Huh, well, Patience fought quite, normally? And Chastity had weird habits but it didn't seem overly complex" responded Iustus scanning Theli's face to try and guess his thoughts.
As per usual, his eyes bore no emotion and remained static while his mouth was a straight as ever, the epitome of a neutral expression.
"Have you noticed anything happening these past few days?" Theli asked another question, making the hero believe he had messed up on his previous answer.
"No?"
"Mmh" was all the response he got from the tall man as he just stared down at him, as if he was some midly interesting turd on the side of the road.
"You will never defeat any sin by yourself this way" he dryly spoke before smiling mischeviously with his long and pointy teeth.
"You know, Iustus, we humans are the epitome of all the species, you have the greatest advantage one can have"
"And yet, you demonstrate an utter lack of our fundamentals, Malloy has more of it than you, you should be worried Iustus, the system has a habit of choosing the most unfit person for the job, none of those ever went very far, you've got luck going for you but it won't be enough, even in your specialty, you are lacking" Theli harsh words gave Iustus an actual headache as he started sweating profusely and feeling his muscles tense up.
"Iustus, Patience is obvious! He p-a-t-i-e-n-t-l-y waits for the right time to strike, it's crystal clear, bouffon!"
"Did you listen to what was going on in the dreamworld? It was apparent that the disparity in power was enormous, what can you guess from that? Did you not notice fluctuations in Chastity's power? Use what's inside your skull!"
"He recited verses and everytime he did, his power grew a bit, Chastity implies purity, his power his simply more efficient against impure beings in general, which is why the power difference between the two is so large, the former Lust didn't have the same ability in reverse and instead focused on other aspects, though that last part was a bit harder to guess, I suppose" he flashed a small smile at the end and Iustus suddenly felt more at ease.
"There is no need to be so afraid of me, I didn't even do anything! If just me speaking up a little gets you in this state, then how are you supposed to deal with the sheer presence of any of the sins? You got lucky with Corruption, Milakro was here to help you, even the weakest of the lesser sins could have outsmarted you otherwise"
"Also, regarding my second question, Ingratitude and Idolatry were both fauché, even if you didn't kill them or were around, you should have noticed something, everytime a sin is slayed, you should gain some power, if you didn't notice it, then you need to work on sensing stuff in general"
"I don't hear you asking any questions, are you just going to stay frozen here with your mouth agape like that for long? Some interaction would certainly spice things up" uttered Theli but the hero just stayed there.
"Welp, anyhow, hurry up and improve, you don't have unlimited time unless you decide to give up on slaying the sins" with these parting words Theli turned around and vanished.
__________________
"Hey, guess what blondie" said Ilmna with a proud expression.
"You finally increased your intelligence to the two digits? How about you guess what?" responded Milleral with a similar expression.
"Oh! You want to play too? Did you score a lamia or something snaky boy?" she grinned at him.
"Hey, I am not into snakes, you're the only deviant here! You and your club fetishism!" he threw back at her.
"Oi, we are just friends" she seriously responded as she held up her club in the tavern they were in, causing everyone to look over at them.
"Anyways, what was it that you wanted to say?" he just changed subjects before she attracted more attention to them.
"Heheh, I slayed a lesser sin, Ingratitude to be precise, are you going to show the due respect I deserve now?" she spoke smugly, holding out the club to him as if she wanted him to kiss it as a sign of respect.
"No way, I killed one too, Idolatry" he responded, Baffled by this.
"Wha-, now that's not fair, I didn't even know there was one called Idolatry, did you just invent this?"
"No, you must have seen the bright pillar of light, it was him dying" he simply responded, a bit sour that he couldn't just rub his success into her face and annoy her for once.
"Man, yours died in some flashy way? Mine just crumbled up like tower of wet cards!"she scratched the side of her head using the spike on the end of her goendendag in thought.
"Still, that means two lesser sins are down, that's pretty good, did yours throw up any information?" he asked as he rested his head in his hand.
"He said something about a god of control, he asked me to make sure he steps down of his throne or something like that" she responded, making Milleral focus.
"Mine spoke a control god as well, he said that he was the one that had cursed him" spoke the snake hero, Ilmna seemed midly interested.
Milleral suddenly stood up from his seat, threw the money for the meal that Ilmna had eaten in full and lead the way.
"Let's go Ilmna! We're going to get some intel of this control god!" he spoke determined as the heroine just paled up as she realised he was going to drag her into libraries and other boring places.