The solution Adrian had told their group was simple in theory. But in practice, no one wanted to bow their head in front of the goddess.
Even Keith, who was always ready to try the peaceful way of life, was not ready to become the goddess's slave just for the sake of bringing peace to this town.
"No way. I am not bowing my head in front of an egomaniac like a goddess. And for it to be the goddess of prosperity? I would rather see this town become a ghost town."
Clair denied the possibility of this favour. Her determined expression was somewhat mirrored by Keith.
He was sure that if he ordered the others to bow down to the goddess, they would. But his ego as the grandmaster would not allow him to issue that order. Keith was happy and terrified of his 'pretend' nature.
"Alright, so begging the goddess is out of the question for you people. Well, the only other thing you can do is to wait for the goddess to come around. Or kill her and end this curse."
Adrian said these words very calmly. But killing a goddess was one of the most difficult things one could do.
Even dealing with a goddess's familiar required a list of power. And those things were much weaker than a normal god.
"Killing a goddess? How are we supposed to do that? Human magic cannot hurt God and divine magic would change a person's nature. The one who will deal with the finishing blow to the goddess would be cursed forever."
Clair seemed to have a lot of knowledge about killing a goddess. It made Keith curious how she knew all this.
But there was no time for him to wonder about it. Especially when he had a goddess to take care of first, he would ask Clair how she knew all this later.
"Hmm, well, in any case. There is one way we can win against a goddess and that is to utilize the world's fate."
Adrian seemed to be having some ridiculous ideas about how to win against a goddess. Usually, Keith would have asked him to stop already. But there was something about this idea of his that seemed as if it could work.
"Utilize the world's fate? Your words do not make sense. As I thought, I should end your life before you say anything even more ridiculous."
Shinzou attacked Adrian openly. It was Adrian's luck that allowed him to remain safe even when he was being attacked.
But despite being attacked by Shinzou, Adrian showed no panicked expression.
The goddess of fate, Veera was panicking and she tried to attack Shinzou. But since he was wielding the divine sword, it hurt the goddess just as much. There was a small but bleeding cut on the goddess's arm.
"Veera, what are you doing? Are you alright? Are you hurt? Does it bleed for you?"
As soon as Veera had gotten hurt, Adrian had stopped playing around and taken her arm in his hand. There was concern in his eyes when he looked at Veera and rage when his eyes flashed toward the divine sword.
[I am alright. I was careless since I did not expect human weapons to hurt me.]
Veera had stopped bleeding by now. Her goddess body did not retain wounds for long. But a scar had remained on her thin white arm even after she had backed down.
Adrian noticed this scar and he was unhappy. But there was nothing he could do about this scar. He needed to make a good impression on the grandmaster's party so he could not even yell at Shinzou.
"Since Veera said that she is not that hurt by your actions, I will let them go this time. But next time, I will not be this lenient. Anyway, we need to help this town before we can air out the tension between us."
It had taken Adrian everything he had to say those words. But despite his forgiveness, Shinzou did not seem worried about his life. Instead of panicking, Shinzou held the sword out at ready and pointed it at Adrian.
"Kid, I do not trust you or believe you. I still think you are trying to deceive us or something. But since the grandmaster had not commented on you, I will refrain from making any decision."
Shinzou was serious and his aura was killer. There was a serious potential of the fight taking place here.
Keith noticed this happening and decided to put an end to it.
He had worked too hard to change the original storyline of the game. So, he did not want Shinzou to go ahead and challenge the protagonist of the game and then get killed.
"Shinzou, step down. I have heard everything this man just said and I have confirmed his words to be true."
Keith did not give a reason as to why he believed Adrian. Heck, he did not even speak about what he was going to do next.
But despite that, Keith's companions backed down and they decided to give Adrian a chance.
"I will not apologize for what happened here, but I will ask you to take a deep breath and put the past behind you. Living in the past will not serve you any benefit."
Keith was nervous when he said all that. He was not sure if Adrian would take his advice or not.
But Adrian seemed to be coming around. The man looked angry but that all melted away from his face slowly.
"Hmm, I agree with you. This town and the people here should be our priority. Everything else can wait for later."
"So, what are we going to do? Go after the goddess?"
Adrian asked with a calm expression. The earlier energy he had shown was nowhere to be seen on Adrian's face. He was also not paying any special attention to Keith now.
Adrian seemed more nervous and cautious of Shinzou than he was of Keith. It was a good and a bad thing at the same time.
"We will have to go after the goddess. We are still not sure when this curse will spread toward the guild alliance. There are a lot of idiots who will fall for this curse. So, we need to hurry with our attack."
Keith quickly decided on this happening. He did not want the guild alliance to fall to the gods.
Who knew what would happen to Keith and his intention of going back if that happened? Would he be stuck in this world forever?
"Good. Now, if you all are finished with your meagre talking, I can tell you how you can defeat a goddess. But you will need the mother's pearl for that."
Clair broke the awkward silence with her words.
At first, everyone looked excited to hear her speak. Mother's pearl was a special item and only the grandmaster had it.
But soon, both Shinzou and Amelia's faces turned worried. They remembered what happened to the mother's pearl and about Master Olivia's tournament.
"Well, looks like this operation will have to wait. We will only get possession of Mother's Pearl next week."
Amelia seemed confident in her winning. So, she also confidently proclaimed that she would get the pearl. But the timeline was still a problem for them.
"I don't think this town can wait a week. We will need to get that pearl now. Is it not in the main guild?"
Adrian asked Keith this question.
"Unfortunately, some bug decided to try and steal it from me. Looks like we will be retrieving it by force now."
Those words and ideas came easily to Keith this time. He did not know why, but the idea of breaking into Master Olivia's mansion and teaching her a lesson sounded appealing to Keith.
'Maybe it is because of the hidden tendencies in this body. I should not think about what is going on.'
Keith calmed down and everyone was ready to attack Master Olivia's mansion. They would need to retrieve the pearl within a day.
"How many people should we take with us? The less we take, the earlier infiltrating that mansion would be. But it can also cause our forces to weaken…"
"Don't worry Clair. I, alone, am more than enough. You all can accompany me to keep me company."
Shinzou sounded confident to go against Master Olivia and her whole sect. Keith was not surprised to hear Shinzou offer this.
Keith was sure that Shinzou would be able to pull this off as well since he had single handily destroyed Master Olivia's palace in the original work as well.
It was because she had betrayed the grandmaster and chosen to side with the protagonist.
It was weird how so many things have changed but this plot-line remained unchanged.
"I see. In that case, I will leave the infiltration of Master Olivia's base to you, Shinzou. But you will hurry up and not engage in useless fighting. Do you understand?"
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