Chapter 63: Feast

In the crowd I immediately recognize the elderly couple who I had seen laying dead in the street earlier and the Nekote girl with whom I presume to be her parents.

“All hail the Goddess!” The entire crowd goes wild once again, making me shyly hide behind Sam.

“You could say your resurrection was quite the success.” My girlfriend softly smiles towards me. “So much so that they’ve somewhat started seeing you as a Goddess. I guess rightfully so.”

The Nekote girl I had protected runs over to me and gives me a big hug with tears in her eyes.

“Big sis, thank you for bringing my parents back to me.” Her tail is swishing back and forth.

I hesitantly pet her head. “I only did what I thought was right….”

The crowd’s cheers grow even louder until a heavy, authoritative voice rings out from behind them. “People! Calm down! Give our saviour some space!”

The crowd splits open and down the middle a man is walking with the rest of our party behind him.

“Hey sis, glad to see you’re awake.” My sister walks over to me and gives me a big hug, squeezing me a bit too hard.

“We thought you’d not wake up for quite a while.” Hilda walks over to us as well, together with Nikki.

“Was I out for that long?”

“Pretty much an entire day.” My sister explains.

“Mhmm.” Hilda nods. “You really overexerted yourself, but I can’t blame you for it. I don’t think anyone can.” She looks around at the crowd pressing in around us.

“Young lady, we are eternally grateful to you and your companions.” The man with the loud voice bows towards me.

I look at Hilda a bit confused.

“Ah, this man is the mayor of Parma.”

The man bows again. “It’s an honour to finally talk to you. I hope you had a nice rest.”

I shyly nod at him. “I slept p-pretty well, t-thanks.”

“Good to hear that.” The mayor laughs.

I look back at the rest of the party. “S-so what’s the plan now? Do we go on towards the port town.”

“About that…” Hilda starts but gets interrupted by Nikki.

“The villagers have decided to throw a feast for their newfound Goddess of war.”

“W-war!? Feast?”

My girlfriend squeezes my hand, leans over to me and whispers into my ear. “I heard they have really good fish and meat.”

“I-I guess we can stay for a b-bit…” I blush and pout at the same time. “But I’m still not sure about that war part…”

“The G… I mean saviour has decided to stay for the feast!” The mayor loudly announces, ignoring the second part of my comment, and again, the crowd starts cheering. 

Everyone starts preparing for the feast as our party gets guided back into the mayor's home.

Because apparently they really don’t want any of their saviours to help prepare for it.

“Goddess of war, huh…” I mumble to myself while sitting on the sofa in one of the guest rooms.

I feel a hand on my shoulder and see my sister has sat herself down next to me.

“It was really impressive what you did, sis. I’m not going to lie, I'm a bit envious though.”

“We all knew she was kind of a Goddess already, so…” My girlfriend is sitting on the other side of me. 

“And there’s something we learned about your skill as well.” Hilda sits down in a very comfy looking chair next to the fireplace.

“How so?” I ask her in return.

“Right, you probably didn’t notice because you passed out almost immediately.”

“You know how your armour was black at first, right?” My sister looks at me.

“Mhmm.” I nod.

“Well, when you started pouring in all that mana and willpower to revive everyone it changed.”

I tilt my head questioningly.

“You practically changed from a goth girl into a literal angel. White wings and the whole shabang.” Sam continues on.

“Really!?”

“Yeah, it was really beautiful. Your armour turned pure white with a goldish trim and your wings were so white and fluffy I wanted to pet them immediately. Well… I always want to pet you, but you know what I mean.”

“I-I think so…” I blush. “But what does that mean about my skill?”

“You remember how Veanya told us about how your skill enhances your emotions?”

“Mhmm.” I nod.

“That doesn’t only work for your negative emotions, but also your positive emotions.”

Hilda clarifies even further. “That means that when you were fueled with rage and the will for revenge your armour turned pitch black. But when you were driven to undo their madness and bring everyone back to life…”

“My armour turned white?”

My party nods.

“But what about my will to protect the little girl then?”

“Maybe your will for vengeance still took the lead, you only turned when there were no enemies left.” Hilda shrugged. “We can’t be one hundred percent sure of course, but at least it’s a bit more information we can go off.”

My sister pets my head. “Mhmm. How did it feel while you were in your Goddess mode?”

“I definitely felt a bit more in control but it was still really scary.”

“Scary how?” My girlfriend put her hand on my leg.

“Although I knew somewhat what I was doing, I felt absolutely no empathy towards the bandits. And even when talking to you when you arrived, I felt nothing at all.”

“I can see how that’s scary.” Nikki agrees. “But it might be your skill protecting yourself for now.”

“To protect you against trauma. It would be bad if you had a breakdown in a dangerous situation.”

“I guess that’s true…” I think back about all the gruesome ways I had slain the bandits in, but I can feel something inside of me resisting the mountain of emotions.

“And because you were crying in your angel mode, that protection might be a lot less.” Hilda concludes.

“This is very heavy shit. You know you can talk to me or the rest of your family if you want to talk about it, right?” My girlfriend squeezes my thigh.

“I know.” I give her a big hug. “Thanks.”

Our group rests in the room while we wait for the Mayor to come and get us for the feast.

I learn that while I was out Nikki, Hilda and my sister helped the village people repair their most important parts of infrastructure while Sam was in the room with me.

“I wish we could be of more help to them but none of us really have carpentry skills. Well, we don’t have them yet anyway.” Hilda and my sister found a chess board and are playing a game with each other.

“At least we managed to patch up their well and a bit of the perimeter fence.” My sister moves up with her bishop and takes Hilda’s knight.

“You did manage to fix their alarm bell too, though.” Nikki comments while watching their game.

“At least something I can do with my blacksmithing.” Hilda moves her queen and starts smirking. “Checkmate by the way.”

“What?! How?!” My sister frantically starts looking at the board, seeing at what she missed.

Hilda starts explaining her move when someone knocks on the door.

“Big sis! The feast is ready!” The little Nekote girl storms in and tackle hugs me the moment Nikki opens the door. 

“Haha, sorry for that. She really wanted to be the one to tell you.” The Mayor follows her into the room.

“No problem, it’s cute.” My girlfriend starts petting the girl who’s hanging on my waist.

“Very.” I join the petting of the catgirl.

“Come!” She takes mine and Sam’s hand and leads the both of us outside. With the rest of our party close behind.

When we come outside we see a lot of tables have been set up in the village center together with an enormous campfire. The little traces of combat that were still there a bit earlier, were completely gone.

The entire village was gathered in a big circle around these tables. Clearly waiting for us to sit down first.

“The center table is yours.” The Mayor says with the little girl guiding us there.

When we get seated the Mayor walks up to the big fire to do an announcement.

“Dear friends, today we are gathered here to honour the heroic deeds of our saviours. It’s thanks to them that our village managed to survive the great onslaught of the evildoers. And especially, it was the actions of our Goddess that made it possible for all of us to be here, united. So, from this day on, the 5th day of the month will be known as Amicia day, our beloved Goddess of War! Without further ado, please enjoy the feast!” The entire village gets in motion and fills the tables around us, with cooks coming in with delicious looking foods.

In the meantime I can hear my family giggling.

“Okay, I didn’t expect them to literally name a day after you.” My sister clearly has it the hardest to hold in her laughter.

“They might have gone a little bit overboard.” Hilda is smirking quite badly.

“Whatever makes them happy.” Nikki comments while taking a swig from a mug of ale.

I sigh while my girlfriend is petting my back. “Let’s just hope the news won’t spread that much.”

“Especially the war part?”

“Yes, exactly that....”

I can’t shake the feeling that that hope is pretty futile…

FieryKathy