Chapter 234: INTERLUDE. Suspicions

While the Master of Sin applied his uncommon for a denizen of Hell intelligence to the task of destroying as much of the gods' property in a single diversion as possible, somewhere else, God of Rogues grew uneasy.

No, uneasy wasn't the right word—he wasn't worried or anxious. He was irked a little, an emotional state that made him want to tap his leg and frown. Instead, he had to smooth his features into a polite smile and keep his feet flat on the ground.

His scheme of averting the gods' attention from himself by being the one to lead the investigation worked astoundingly well in the beginning, as expected. Everyone, of course, wanted to hear about every new development of the search for the disappeared god, but by the time God of Rogues finished asking all the standard questions to the possible witnesses, he already had a story and a plan on how to "uncover" it.

And what a story it was. Excitement, drama. Everyone could've been an accomplice in crime, if not the criminal, and this idea, after God of Rogues carefully dropped it in the gods' minds, bloomed beautifully there.

The basis was simple. There were no signs of struggle anywhere in Heaven. After the idea that God of Monks left and didn't return, without telling anything to anyone, on his own will, was thrown away because of its improbability, there was only one option left.

Someone, someone he knew and trusted, at least to an extent, made God of Monks leave Heaven—and fall into a trap, most probably. Since there was no sign of his soul in Heavenly Judgement, he was still alive, God of Rogues reasoned—but certainly incapacitated.

And who God of Monks would trust enough to leave without a message, in a hurry? Only other gods and angels.

Oh, God of Rogues enjoyed so much pushing at them all, checking their alibis and watching their outrage. Plenty of them, of course, didn't have it—why would they?—and he enjoyed their outrage at the notion, as well as the suspicious glances the gods threw at each other from the corners of their eyes.

Of course, there was still looking for God of Monks involved—but it was easy to check his signature in the three realms, and after it wasn't found, God of Rogues suggested he must've been hid by an antimagic field of some sort. These were known well enough, unlike the fact that he himself had one in possession.

The fake investigation continued. Too bad this state of things didn't last for a little longer…

Goddess of Wizards, unlike others, wasn't content with leaving God of Rogues the entire investigation—and now she was asking him questions about his own alibi.

He told her he was talking with his spies in the mortal realm, but they both knew how good of an alibi that was. The mortals knew how to lie, and would readily do so for him—if he didn't go further and redact their memories. In fact, even with his poor knowledge of magic, God of Rogues had plenty of time to do just that.

Instead of pointing the possibility out, Goddess of Wizards pinched her lips, looking at God of Rogues with the disdain she didn't even try to hide. "It's still true that anyone could've tricked God of Monks with some imagination. He can tell a truth from a lie well enough… but he has that belief, which turns out to be not as rational as we'd like, that we are all on the same side here. That we won't betray each other. Because this is simply the order of things."

"Yes, he is the most orderly of us… Even more than God of Paladins," God of Rogues nodded solemnly. Knowing God of Monks' fate, talking about him in present tense felt weird.

"Then, there's his opposite—you," Goddess of Wizards continued without a hitch. Her cold eyes burrowed into God of Rogues' skin, threatening to leave two neat holes in his face. "In his unfathomable wisdom, the First God created us, beings of order in the world of order, and made one of them a pathological liar and kleptomaniac. And now you are trying to tell me you are NOT stringing us all along?"

"Goddess, I thought you are good enough in demagogic to win your arguments without descending to arguments attacking the personality of the opponent," God of Rogues hissed, not overplaying his risen ire by much. "You don't have any proofs, even the least tangible ones, are you? We can suspect anything at this point. Until I," he pressed down on the last word, "find the culprit, there's no way of finding God of Monks without walking over every meter of the three realms on foot."

"Yes, I can suspect anything. But what should matter for you, God of Rogues, is not whether I can find a proof, but whether other gods agree with my suspicions. At the very least, they must agree NOW that you are too unreliable to keep leading the investigation. There's still a person left besides you that can do it." Goddess of Wizards smirked—a small, smug curve of lips that made the rest of her face look sharper, like a knife's edge. Clearly, she was that person—the investigation went far beyond the scope of Goddess of Rangers' knowledge, and the lone goddess herself would admit so.

God of Rogues cursed inwardly, but by the power of extensive training, kept his emotions in check. The sight of that smirk did bad things to him, bad things.

He was not an idiot. He could tell that she was provoking him on something stupid by that threat of taking away his position. It was not an empty threat, either.

Then again, they were in similar positions—except he, God of Rogues, was still the investigator. He didn't back down, didn't cover before the goddess's haughty stare. He met her smirk with her own and opened her mouth to respond with the argument that was the perfect counter to hers.