Godless and Faithless:2 Ch 1

Glass mugs filled with devil’s water clattered together, filled by lovely, scantily clad women and girls with smiles of promise on their faces. The Coalition officers in the bar cheered, mugs raised in celebration of their victory at Ridgehill over the Inimi forces one month prior.

In the now crowded brothel, Axel sat with his own full mug of devil’s water, brooding over the events since he was summoned to this world. Almost from the beginning, he and his best friend Rayner had been embroiled in conflict, battling goblins, Inimi soldiers, bandits, and even dragons. All he wanted now was to slip into obscurity and keep a low profile. Too much attention brought the wrong kind of scrutiny. People would start asking dangerous questions about them. Questions they could not safely answer.

Questions about where they were from, who were they, and most importantly why the gods did not see fit to provide them with any form of blessings. For without the gods’ powers to bestow blessings, their worshipers are unable to use their mana for skills to aid them in life and combat. Axel would not tell them he and Rayner held the heretical titles: Godless and Faithless. It may spell their doom.

Now that he had his wished-for anonymity, he chaffed at the boredom of his otherworldly life. He spent most of his time idle when he was not training or manhandling the Coalition officers that now frequented the brothel.

A well-muscled blond teen with eyes of morning blue pulled out a chair beside Axel. Rayner had returned from his patrol with the town guard captain, Evans. “You’re back early,” Axel said. “Everything alright?”

Rayner’s eyes lingered on his mug before answering. “I’m fine. We all are. Monster hunting wasn’t the goal of the patrol. The refugees requested we search their former homes for any remaining valuables and for their dead to be buried.”

“Both of us have already been through their homes when we traveled with Tessa. The Inimi took everything they didn’t destroy outright.”

“I told Evans that but he wanted to make sure. We tried to avoid trouble when we searched so we may have missed something. Besides, there should have been plenty of bodies to bury.”

“What? Were there fewer than you expected? I could have told you that. Monsters or wild animals must have gotten to them.” Axel hadn’t seen a monster eat a corpse, but after all the ones he fought eyed him with hunger.

Rayner leaned toward him, and he spoke with his voice hushed. “We found no bodies, Axel. Not one. Evans even ordered us to dig up places the bodies could be buried including sites he knew for a fact to have been graveyards and still no bodies turned up.”

Axel put his devil’s water aside. “That’s … weird. Oh, and remember you don’t work for Evans. He can’t give you orders.”

“I don’t mind. I’m lucky he lets me on these missions.”

“He’s the lucky one. You and that hammer of yours probably do all the work.”

Axel leaned to the side to see the hammer that normally hung comfortably on Rayner’s waist was absent. “Your hammer broke again.” How much did Rayner use it to push it past its durability again? Dian Powin, the weapons shop owner, told them that their weapons, though average, should last them months with restrained use.

“I’ve been out a lot. I want to get used to combat.”

“I thought you would have had enough. We fought a dragon for god’s sake.”

At the mention of gods, he and Rayner paused their conversation to look around then toward the sky as if they would be smitten by a deity. Their titles prevented them from being blessed or cursed by the gods, leaving them protected from any ill intent from the higher beings, but they still worried.

A mature, sultry voice spoke from beside both of them. “You two are odd young men.”

“Madam Grace, good morning to you,” Rayner said. Axel nodded his own greeting, having already seen plenty of the woman today.

“I hope the ceiling will not collapse. Then again, maybe I do. It would mean my lovely girls are fucking until the roof collapses.”

Madam Grace, who was also a member of the town council, had bet on them and this town. Her idea was that when the conflict died down business would once again flourish in her brothel. She’d proved herself prescient. The soldiers of the three armies camped outside the town of Ridgehill frequented her brothel endlessly, keeping the whores busy from day to night. If it weren’t for the blessing of the brothel’s deity keeping the sounds of sex muffled, Axel would never get any sleep.

“I’m glad your fortunes have changed, Madam Grace. A rising tide does lift all boats,” Rayner said.

“So, it does, so it does,” Grace answered, taking a seat between.

Rayner was referring to their increases in pay as the brothel respectfully increased its earnings. While his job as bodyguard bored him, it provided him easy coin for handling drunk soldiers.

A girl showed up to fill his empty glass and he made no effort to resist peeking at the tops of her bare breasts as she bent. He turned his eyes away. Grace was trying to entice him to use the brothel’s other perks again. She’d sent the girl to fill his cup to get him in the mood to drain his balls. Axel disliked the manipulation but understood this was the way of the world and, honestly, what did he expect when he chose to live at a brothel?

Thanking the girl, he steered the conversation to its point. “Grace, something is wrong, isn’t it? You’ve been too busy to sit down with us like this recently, so what’s up?”

“I don’t like your slang,” she said. “But you are correct. Ridgehill is facing numerous problems.”

“Is another battle coming?” Rayner said. His eyes were worried but his body flexed, eager as his large muscles strained and fists clenched.

“Not that I heard of. After the whipping the combined forces of the Coalition, militia, and Alta armies gave the Inimi, I don’t expect them to bother us anytime soon.”

Finishing his mug quickly, Axel asked, “Then what?