Chương 21: God? Says who?

Says who?

Says who? Joshua had already opened all of the fae gifts. It seemed that Oberon really did not understand human thought processes. Aside from the fae sweets and drinks, which he definitely intended to try, there were quite a few gifts that made him feel rather awkward. The first was a music box with a small space for figurines. Beside it was a note explaining that Joshua could capture mortals inside it, where they would sing for eternity, or for as long as Josh wanted them to.

He stared at the box for a long moment before very gently placing it on a high shelf behind glass. He had absolutely no intention of using it. The next gift was a beautiful circlet that would transform any mortal who wore it into a deer-taur, similar to a centaur but with the lower half of a deer. The circlet also came with a curse that forced its wearer to speak entirely in verse. Josh could only shake his head.

"Why am I not even suprised at this point…" fingers rubbing his forehead. The final particularly strange gift was a set of folded fairy wings. While someone wore them, they would become completely unnoticed by mortal eyes. Anyone looking directly at them would simply assume they were seeing a trick of the light. That one, at least, was useful. As for Big C.' s gift, it was a small stack of cards.

It wasn't the cards themselves that made Joshua uneasy, but rather the message attached to them: „Deer BFF, these are my winnings from betting on your survival. I consider them simply too small, but for a starting god, a few hundred thousand souls could be useful. Most of these souls are humans and, as far as I could tell, their bodies have been sealed as well. Maybe use them to populate your tiny new realm. PS. You could be a bit more assertive. Big C."

"Souls?" Joshua picked up one of the cards and carefully examined it with his divine sense. His eyes widened when he realized that there were almost a hundred thousand souls contained within the first card alone. All living beings… souls that had apparently been used as currency in a betting game between gods. The very idea made his a shiver run down his spine. He slowly put the card back onto the table, staring at the stack with an uncomfortable expression.

Then again, gods existed far above mortals, even if Joshua still didn't quite consider himself one of them. - - - - - - - - - - - As he was in the middle of his contemplation, a window suddenly popped up. A prayer had appeared, and it was from none other than Wren. Josh looked at the situation and immediately saw an army in the background. Wren had five fully decked-out men in fancy armor standing near him, all of them looking rather important. After checking the area, Josh found a suitable place to appear.

He even decided to make it look cool this time instead of simply popping into existence. The cloud-like form that had appeared when Gaix called him had worked wonders, so he wanted to experiment a little further. The air began to shimmer as a thin mist gathered in front of the group. It slowly turned metallic, swirling in place before taking the shape of a dragon.

The mist condensed around him until his entire body had formed, and then it simply evaporated, leaving Joshua standing over the small group in all his draconic glory. A few soldiers from the army were looking in their direction as well, and the expressions on their faces almost made Joshua chuckle. Still, he had to look proper.

"Why did you call me, Wren?" Josh asked in a deep baritone. The five men surrounding Wren all looked a little less sure of themselves at the sight of the dragon.

"Lord Steel! I have a problem here. This city has been conquered by kobolds, and I heard one of them shout your name. As in, they took this place over in your name, my mighty god." Wren bowed deeply.

"PIUR?!" Josh's serious expression broke in an instant.

"Did you order this city to be taken?" asked a human dressed in noble clothes. The man tried his best to sound important, but his voice was noticeably shaky.

"I did not… and I shall talk to these kobolds myself." Josh snorted. There was a collective release of held breaths as both Wren and the people behind him felt their shoulders relax, some of the tension finally leaving their bodies.

"Make way!" Joshua walked past them and through the army line, people scrambling out of his way as the massive dragon approached the city.

"PIUR!" His roar was powerful enough to rattle the windows of Ravenfell. - - - - - - - - - - - Piur, who was in the main tower, looked on in awe as his god approached the wall. His tiny clawed feet were already shaking beneath him, but when the dragon called out his name in a distinctly irritated tone, his heart almost stopped. His legs carried him forward almost on their own as he rushed with all his might toward the wall section.

"My god!" Piur cried as he slid to a stop on his knees.

"What has brought your anger?" His voice was half zealous ecstasy and half pure fear, while tears ran down his smiling cheeks. The little kobold's mind was struggling to comprehend what he was experiencing. It was something a human could probably never understand: overwhelming joy and absolute terror at the same time.

"What have I told you about not hurting the innocent?" Joshua asked with a frown.

"We... we d-did not hurt anyone without a crime," Piur stammered.

"I even ordered the soldiers to be bandaged after we took the city in your name."

"You... didn't?" Joshua asked, suddenly taken aback.

"Okay, then. Why take over this city in the first place?"

"It was ruled by a monster of a human. The same human who treated me like a slave and cursed me." Piur finally managed to look up, only for his entire body to shudder with joy again. His kobold mind was being bombarded with happy hormones simply from standing so close to his divine master.

"I believed you granted me this power so I could conquer this world in your name." Joshua placed his right claw against his forehead.

"I guess I wasn't really clear on that..." He was interrupted before he could finish. A massive roar thundered down from the sky.

"Joshua Steel! You fake god! I shall kill you!" A golden dragon descended from the clouds, almost twice Joshua's size, coming down with such speed that Joshua immediately realized he had no intention of stopping. Instead of dodging, his first reaction was to teleport every human still near the battlefield farther away acting just in time. The golden dragon slammed into him with enough force to tear a massive scar across the farmland, sending chunks of earth flying and turning a nearby farmhouse into splinters.

"JOSHUA!" Wren and Piur shouted at the same time. Several of the humans who had just been saved promptly lost whatever ability they had left to hold their bowels.

"I shall skin you alive for daring to call yourself a god, you little twerp of a silver dragon!" Ebraxius bellowed as his claws forced Joshua's face into the dirt.

"Only I, Ebraxius, can call myself a dragon god in this realm!" The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"That is not a very gentlemanly way to introduce yourself," Josh said, his voice slightly muffled by the dirt. Ebraxius pressed harder, anger in his eyes. Joshua's lips curled into a grin.

"You know what? I'm not even going to use my powers on you." His body suddenly began to grow. The golden dragon's eyes widened as the silver dragon beneath him expanded with astonishing speed. Joshua's body rapidly grew until he was almost equal in size to Ebraxius, his scales gleaming beneath the sunlight. A few things appeared on his body, things that definitely did not belong on a dragon. A headband had somehow appeared around his horns, and two red wristbands were wrapped around his forelegs.

Joshua rolled his shoulders and slowly climbed to his feet.

"You want to have a fight?" He cracked his knuckles, the sound echoing across the farmland like stone breaking apart.

"Then let's have a fight, fatso." What happened next was hard for anyone watching to accept. The silver-looking dragon did not fight like a normal dragon at all. While Ebraxius seemed confused and furious, ready to claw or bite at Joshua, his opponent rushed forward, grabbed him by the neck, and used his body weight to pull the golden dragon's head down. Ebraxius's own momentum carried him forward until Joshua slammed his head backward into the dirt.

"Get up!" Joshua shouted as he jumped back onto his feet, using his tail as a third anchor point.

"I will rip you apart!" Ebraxius roared as he rolled onto his stomach and bellowed white-hot flames at Joshua while charging forward at the same time. Joshua simply jumped over the golden dragon, grabbed his rear legs, and went into a forward roll. With the added momentum, he slammed the other dragon onto his back.

"Whoaaa!" Joshua clapped his claws together.

"Come on! This is fun." A golden tail swept Joshua's legs out from under him, sending him crashing into the ground and destroying another small hut in the process.

"Finally! I shall…" Ebraxius jumped over Joshua, aiming his claws directly at the dragon's heart scale, only for two draconic legs to suddenly meet his belly and push him over his target. The golden dragon tumbled across the ground once again.

"Don't even think you've got the upper hand." Joshua pushed himself back up before the golden dragon could recover. Wren, his party, the nobles, and the other adventurers could only watch. Most of them stood with their mouths hanging open as the silver dragon with the mismatched crown of horns was essentially playing with the terror of all dragons. Not a single attack had managed to properly land on him, nor had Joshua actually tried to kill Ebraxius.

It looked almost like a choreographed fight, if not for the fact that the golden dragon was practically foaming at the mouth.

"Should we get a bit further back?" Upella asked Wren in a shaky voice.

"Nah. My patron god knows what he is doing… I think." Wren chuckled despite himself. The entire scene was so absurd that anyone who had not witnessed it firsthand would have found it difficult, if not impossible, to believe it had actually happened. Piur and every kobold who could climb the walls were watching as well. Even the two copper dragons had climbed onto the tallest buildings, craning their necks to get a good look at the… fight? Was this even a fight?

Piur could not tell what was really happening, but he did not dare blink. Every time the golden dragon hit the ground, a massive cheer erupted from the kobolds and the two dragons perched on the rooftops. The fight lasted for almost twenty minutes, and Ebraxius felt every single one of them. His scales were barely harmed, but his entire body was beginning to ache from being repeatedly slammed into the ground.

The muscles in his neck had been pulled and strained so many times that he winced whenever he even tried to turn his head. This… fight did not make any sense. He had managed to claw at the silver dragon at least six times now, only for his impossibly hard claws to simply slide off Joshua's scales without leaving so much as a mark.

"What are you?" Ebraxius breathed from the ground.

"You… cannot be a dragon god. There isn't one… but your power. It's unreal."

"Well, your information might be a bit outdated." Joshua looked down at the golden dragon, who was now considerably less shiny and completely covered in dirt and dust.

"I just passed the trial of the Eternal Council and became a full-fledged god from a god-seed."

"You!" Ebraxius felt his heart skip a beat. Almost no one knew about the Eternal Council. Even those with powerful information networks rarely managed to learn anything about the mysterious organization, let alone hear about the god-seed trials.

"You really are a god?" he asked, swallowing hard. Suddenly, everything made sense. Joshua had been toying with him. He had been holding back. Ebraxius slowly rolled onto his belly and slammed his forehead into the dirt.

"Please forgive me. I… I planned to become a true god, just like you."

"I can tell." Joshua nodded.

"There is something of a divine spark in you. I noticed it while we were fighting." He paused, his expression becoming more serious.

"Still, a punishment is due." Ebraxius, despite all his pride and dignity, began shaking like a leaf in the wind. Then, from the city wall, hundreds of tiny voices erupted into a single chant.

"Punishment! Punishment! Punishment!" Piur was among the loudest.

"How does ten years sound as a pet for my daughter?" Joshua asked.

"A what?" Ebraxius looked up with visible confusion.

"Well, my daughter already has a pet, but I figured another one would suit the place. That way, neither of you would be bored all the time." Joshua shrugged.

"Ten years?" Ebraxius laughed.

"I accept it. If this is all you want, I could stand on one leg for ten years and not mind it." The golden dragon grinned. Josh let out a quiet chuckle and, with a simple movement of his arm, the golden dragon disappeared.

"Well, that takes care of that… Back to Piur." Joshua nodded and turned to the city. Piur, who had been in total ecstasy for the last twenty minutes, suddenly froze. A chill ran down his spine as his mind caught up with what had just happened.

"Oh…" As his god walked back toward the city wall, all the damage caused by their struggle began repairing itself, as though someone had simply pressed reverse on time. Fields filled back in, buildings that had been crushed returned to their original forms, and even the massive scar carved across the land gradually disappeared beneath fresh dirt and grass.

"So, you guys are really into following me, huh?" Joshua asked.

"Yes!" The answer came instantly, shouted by every kobold within hearing distance.

"Fine. I will create my own world, and I will need to fill it. You can be my first-ever settlers."Josh said with a grand tone.

"For now, give the city back and make a camp near that river while I work." He pointed toward the downstream section of the river that passed the city.

"I will try to smooth this out, since this is also partly my fault."

"None of this is your fault!" Piur jumped forward and slammed himself onto the floor of the wall.

"It was my mistake! Punish me too!"

"Your punishment will come later, once I know the full extent of what happened." Joshua nodded before walking back toward Wren.

"That was… a majestic fight." The same nobleman who had questioned him earlier spoke up, clearly trying to come up with a suitable compliment on the spot.

"Thanks." Joshua nodded with a smirk.

"The city will be back in the hands of the kingdom, but do not punish the kobolds or the two copper dragons. As far as I can tell, they only killed people who were cruel or evil." He turned toward Wren.

"Boy, send me their report as a sacrifice, and I shall do my best to set things right. Do not expect me to grant boons outright. I am a god, and I shall perform miracles only for my true followers… but I can tell when something has gotten out of hand." He nodded once before his body dissolved into mist and vanished. Everyone turned toward Wren who could only shrug.

"I have no idea what he meant." - - - - - - - - - - - - Most adventurers who had come in hopes of earning easy money were a little frustrated when it turned out that none of the kobolds would be hunted. Of course, none of them dared to voice their disappointment. They had all seen the literal god playing with the most feared dragon in their world, after all.

Ebraxius' infamy had been cemented in countless stories and songs, so when that same dragon had been reduced to little more than a plaything, no one with a right mind would even consider going against Joshua's words. No one had heard what punishment the Steel Dragon had chosen when he spoke quietly to the golden dragon, but judging by Ebraxius' reaction, whatever it was, it must have been rather light. Piur led all his kin out of the city in an orderly fashion, followed by the two copper dragons.

It was certainly an odd sight. As the nobles and adventurers entered the city, however, they were met with an even stranger one. The kobolds had not only done no damage, but the entire city looked brand new. The walls had been washed, the cobblestone streets polished, and the soot and dirt that had accumulated over decades had been scrubbed away. Even the windows gleamed in the sunlight.

It was almost as if the kobolds, after taking over the city, had been unable to simply sit around and had instead found ways to make the entire place shine, quite literally.

"It makes perfect sense," Wren admitted.

"Sense how?" Lord Isthal, the noble responsible for the retaking of the city, turned toward him.

"Well… dragons like shiny things. Kobolds literally worship them, and since they took this city in his name…" Wren pointed toward the fountain in the middle of the square, whose polished stone now practically sparkled in the sunlight.

"They turned this entire city into a gemstone for their god."

"Heh…" The lord chuckled.

"This might come out as a positive thing in the end. Well, if we don't count the seven dead, including the Viscount."

"I heard from my party that he was not exactly a well-liked figure, though." Wren barely finished before the look from the noble and several of the higher-ups made him shut his mouth.

"Some things are better left unsaid, kid. Learn that before they get you into deep waters. This is free advice." Lord Isthal gave him a sharp smirk before turning toward the street leading deeper into the city.

"Now, I really want to see how the manor looks."