The Insider System

Chapter 425: Time Skip Prelude

"The God of Light is ready for you now Tiff." Tiff hadn't expected the Temple Head to be the one who came to get her for the meeting, but when she really thought about it, she thought maybe the Temple Head planned to talk to her on the way to the meeting. "Okay."

After saying bye to Dawn and quickly changing her clothes, Tiff followed the Temple Head towards the Oracle while waiting for the Temple Head to say something to her. When they made it to the Oracle's room with nothing being said, she started to think she had been wrong, but as she was opening the door, the Temple Head finally stopped her to say. "I did my best on your next mission. I'm sorry if it seems like it's too much. The God of Light Seems to think you can handle more than the rest of the army on your own."

Tiff was a bit taken aback at first because this was the first time the Temple Head had ever said anything that came off as criticizing the God of Light's judgment, but she felt it was coming from a place of worry, so she decided to reassure the Temple Head. "I can't tell you how my first mission went directly, but he's probably right that I can handle it."

Right after saying it, Tiff could tell the temple head was taking her words seriously because the look on her face changed drastically before the Temple Head said. "In that case, forget what I said a moment ago."

Tiff knew the Temple Head was probably embarrassed that she had second-guessed the God of Light so openly, but Tiff felt it was coming from a place of caring for her safety, so not only was she not offended; she was a bit touched. Ever since she could remember, she'd felt the Temple Head was distant in some way, so her being worried about her was a nice turn of events that made her think they'd gotten closer in the past weeks.

"Don't worry, I think that kind of stuff all the time. I don't think anyone will hold it against you even if you're the head of the Temple." After Tiff said this, she gave the Temple Head a small smile before she turned to go through the door. Even if she would have liked to keep talking to the Temple Head for a few more minutes, she would be making the God of Light wait, and she was sure he didn't have enough time for that.

The first thing Tiff saw when she entered the room was that Greg was already waiting near the circle of light that surrounded the oracle at all times. "Were you waiting for me?" In the past, Tiff would have stayed silent in the Oracle's presence, but she'd realized that the Oracle was friendly and wouldn't mind her speaking to someone briefly.

"No, I was told I'll go right after you." Tiff was sure she could find a few reasons this might be the case if she tried, but knowing the God of Light would tell her once their conversation began, she just nodded to Greg and went to join the Oracle in the circle.

After taking the Oracle's hand, Tiff found herself in the white room and went for the door because she'd been told she didn't have to wait in here if she didn't want to. Stepping out into the hallway, Tiff headed for the first place she'd been brought here in the fake version of their world, the balcony with a view of the Light Domain.

She didn't spend a lot of time thinking about this place, but there was something to say about being able to look directly at the dream of a god that might never come to be. It was sad, but even if their world wasn't like this, it existed here and showed her exactly what they were fighting for.

"Sorry to keep you waiting again. The God of Earth wouldn't stop our meeting just because I needed to speak to a Demigod." After an unknown amount of time, Tiff heard a familiar voice and pulled her eyes from the city below. "It's okay."

The God of Light said sorry every time, but he had no way of making her his top priority, so she knew it would keep happening, and her best choice was to just accept that. "I was expecting you to wonder why I was speaking to the God of Earth."

It had been a while since the God of Light had read her mind so blatantly, but Tiff wasn't worried about it and said. "I just want my next mission and the reward for the last one." Over the last hour of training with Dawn, Tiff had built up a lot of motivation to get more divinity points for the other members of the 23 before it was too late, and she wasn't interested in any small talk.

"A normal person would have assumed my talking to the God of Earth was related to their mission but fine, let's get right into it. I'm going to send you out of the Light Domain because I think we'll be soon placed under quarantine, so the other gods don't think I'll start a war that will force them to kill me. While you're gone, your task will be to gather as many cores as you can so we can use them when the time comes and you're able to return to the Light Domain."

Tiff was expecting something like this after what the Temple Head said to her in the hallway, but it was still a bit more than she was ready for because of how long it sounded like she would be gone. "It will be a few months if I had to guess how long the other gods will lose interest in watching my ever move."

"Well, it doesn't change that this is what you need me to do. How long do I have before I need to leave?" with how unstable the situation was currently, Tiff knew that even hoping for a day was pushing it, but she just hoped she had enough time to tell Dawn that she would be gone for a long time and to not worry in person. "The observation of the Light Domain will probably start tomorrow after the god of Earth signs the deal with the Demon Lord, so I'll be giving you around eight hours to say goodbye and get ready."

Tiff couldn't help but think eight hours was more than enough after the expectations of getting a few minutes, but she knew most of it would probably be spent talking to the Temple Head and Greg in the office, so she didn't let her expectations of those eight hours get to extreme. "I'm not done talking to you yet, there's one more thing you need to hear before you leave."

"Oh, what is it?" Tiff had been thinking she was done here because of the way the God of Light had said the last thing. "There's a chance I'll be forced to play along and sign a deal with the Demon Lord as well, so I need to tell you about Greg since there's a chance you would be confused if you saw him and do something you shouldn't if no one told you what was going on. Greg has both an affinity for Holy and Unholy and he could be traded away if the details I'm hearing about the deals the Demon Lord's making are true."

After hearing the God of Light's words, it took her a few seconds to process what he had just told her and understand it. Having one of these affinities was already rare, so the fact Greg had both was almost unbelievable to her, and not only because people getting opposing affinities was one in a hundred.

She had known Greg for a really long time, and while there were times he creeped her out in a hard-to-explain way, she didn't think she had ever felt any Unholy magic coming from him at all. "We had it sealed to help keep it hidden."

Tiff didn't have anything to say anymore, so she just asked. "Are we done now?" Getting a nod from the God of Light, Tiff made a brief bow before she saw the world she was in fade away. Letting go of the Oracle's hand and standing up, Tiff took a glance at Greg before walking towards the door to get ready to leave the Temple.

...

Stepping off the elevator into Lucas' office, Lake watched as the journals they'd retrieved were added to the shelf with the others before saying. "I'm going to go change. When do you want to meet back up for this lesson on curses you said you'd give me?"

"Don't leave just yet. I have some new papers on my desk, and one might be about that fortress you told me about. Remember when we had some people go check it out?" Lake hadn't been thinking about anything like that with them just getting back, but he guessed he might as well stick around.

After Lucas took the time to read through the papers, he shook his head and said. "Nevermind. They're not back yet. Come back in three hours, and we'll have the lesson, and we'll talk a bit more about the expedition you proposed on the way back."

On the way up to his room, Lake couldn't help but wonder how Lucas would find the time for an expedition that would probably be a month-long at the least when he could barely find a few hours to do something other than work. "He'll find the time if it's good for the guild."