Orion lurched back into existence with a sharp gasp, his spine arching as though the grave itself had spat him out in irritation.
Cold stone. Flickering gold. The familiar warmth of grace pooled beneath him like a sarcastic welcome mat.
"Those bastards, ganging up on me like that, I'll get back to them..." he said, irritation laced into his tone.
He lay there for a long moment, staring at the low ceiling of the dungeon, replaying his death in vivid, humiliating clarity.
Being poked to death from all sides with rusty swords was no way to go, especially if you were going to remember it when you came back.
"Fuck..." he cursed in irritation.
The way the skeletons had swarmed him. The way one had politely waited its turn before skewering him through the ribs with what might once have been a farming tool. The way he'd thought, for half a second, that he could still win.
"I hate undead," he muttered, sitting up.
Marika hovered nearby, arms folded, expression unreadable in that infuriatingly regal way of hers.
Orion scrubbed his face. "That fight was rigged. Completely unfair. Physical damage? Useless. Slashing? Useless. Crushing bones? What the fuck is a man supposed to do, pray for divine intervention whenever those bony bastards think about another sightseeing tour in the world of the living?"
He gestured wildly, frustration spilling out. "And as you said, we checked for a necromancer. Nothing. No chanting lunatic. No ominous hood. Just skeletons doing skeleton things."
Silence.
Then—
[And yet thou didst persist in hacking them apart, as though repetition might inspire enlightenment.]
"…Hey, hey, you expect me to just let them kill me with those rusty swords without resistance? Coming back to life didn't make dying any better, you know. Especially when they were trying to make another Iron Throne out of me."
[Thou couldst have simply returned unto the grace, my lord.]
"Ah... hmm."
"..."
"Why are you telling me just now? Either you tell me when I need it, or just don't say it, period. Geeze, woman. Now I feel like that death was for nothing." Orion stomped the ground, cursing himself and those skeletons alike.
He exhaled hard and leaned back on his hands. "So your options were: kill the summoner—which doesn't exist—or use holy purification. And unless you're about to tell me I've secretly been a secretly love child of a god with demi-human holy powers this whole time, I'm out of luck."
Marika stared at him.
Long. Slow. Dangerous.
[…I see.]
'How come that tone didn't feel like you do…' Orion deadpanned.
[Pray tell, my Tarnished, when thou didst walk beneath my grace, swear thyself to my order, and carry my will within thy very soul—what, precisely, didst thou believe I was for?]
Orion blinked, wondering when he did all that, but still answered.
"…Moral support?"
The air seemed to tighten.
[Thou standest as my chosen, bearer of the Golden Order's echo, and thou complainest of holy magic as though it were a foreign tongue?]
She pinched the bridge of her nose, a very mortal gesture for a goddess, feeling like it would be quite bad to go back hanging inside the Erdtree again at this rate.
[I was sealed, shattered, bound beyond reach—and yet even so, thou hast forgotten mine incantations.]
"..." Another long pause stretched out, making Orion start questioning whether reincarnation had made him stupid or something.
"On my defence..." he protested. "I never learned them."
"I was a dex player with a bit of magic here and there. Not much into faith." He shrugged.
Marika's eye twitched.
[Then hear me well, lest I truly lose patience.]
She drifted closer, golden light faintly flaring.
[Thou canst learn incantations from me. Holy rites. Purification. The very tools required to unmake such abominations.]
Orion's frustration faltered. "Wait—really?"
"You can teach me?" He was baffled, like how come she didn't bring that up before?
'No wait, she did, before I even knew I had a seal in my inventory, or an inventory to begin with... motherfu—' He mentally cursed himself.
[Of course.]
She sighed, feeling like she was dealing with a child, a very dumb child.
"…But—but th-then at least you should've told me, right?" he complained.
[Because thou didst not ask.]
"…I died," he said, as if that explained everything.
[A learning experience.]
He groaned and rolled onto his back. "Ahhhhh I hate this game, fuck this dungeon..."
"FINEEEEEE."
"Fine. Teach me. Whatever it takes."
Marika tilted her head.
[Ah. Not so swift.]
He squinted at her. "What's now?!"
A thin smile touched her lips. [Before thou mayest wield mine incantations, thou must place thy faith.]
Orion groaned. 'Ah great, this shit again...'
"Faith in what? I have faith that my fart smells better than ninety-nine percent of the old geezers I work under, and I still remained alone. Do you know some of those bastards had two wives, a few extra marital affairs on the side? Can you believe it?"
Marika genuinely thought her Tarnished was slowly losing it—a fate many of his kind suffered from constant dying and coming back.
However, his madness was peculiar, if anything.
After his fit was finally over, he sighed and calmed down, then once again looked at her, still expecting an answer to where to put the faith in.
Marika stared at him as though he had just asked where the sun went at night.
[In me.]
She said with a big huff.
"Ah...." Orion opened his mouth and just stared at her with a dumb look.
Orion sat up. "In you...."
Her composure cracked.
[WHO ELSE WOULDST THOU PLACE IT IN.]
The force of her voice rattled loose pebbles from the ceiling. [I am thy goddess. Thy order. Thy grace made manifest. And thou dost ponder alternatives?]
"Oh... is that possible... okay!" Orion nodded, still unsure how to do that. It's not like he had done it before. He had a fucking status window to allocate his stats in the game, and even then he didn't put any into faith.
She inhaled slowly. Exhaled.
[Very well.]
Her tone cooled, dangerous in its calm. [Kneel. Still thy mind. And for once, believe—not in convenience, nor survival—but in me.]
Orion swallowed, then nodded.
"…Okay."
"Danger's been my middle name recently. What else could go wrong."
Her eyes narrowed; the translation of his sarcasm wasn't accurate inside her mind, but she knew it was cheeky if she knew any better.
"So, what am I supposed to do after this?" he asked.
[Still thy thoughts, and place thy faith in me. Concentrate, my lord.]
She huffed.
'I heard that, but how?' Orion felt like crying. Did she really expect him to just know how to do that or something?
He closed his eyes and internally thought to himself.
"I... Orion Star Storm put my undying faith to my goddess, Marika the Eternal..." he said with both hands joined together like praying.
He half expected to be bathed in holy light the next second, but nothing happened.
"Did it work?" He half-opened one eye and asked.
[We shall soon know. Take forth the seal thou bearest, and pour thy magic into it.]
He nodded and took out the only seal he had on him, the Two-Finger Seal, coming standard with both Prophet and Confessor classes in the game.
It was like a magic staff used by magic users, but only for faith-based incantations for a faith user.
He poured his magic into it, and nothing seemed to happen. Unlike the magic staff he had in his inventory—which at least hummed when he poured magic into it even when he knew no spells—this seal had no reaction.
"What now?"
[It availed thee nought, for thou hast not truly placed thy faith in me. Faith is not born of words alone—thou must believe, in truth, ere it may take root.]
She shook her head as she said it.
'Easy for you to say. How can I so easily put my belief like that? Is converting religion that simple, since when?' he cursed.
From that point onward, Orion tried to place his faith in Marika.
He really did.
He sat cross-legged. He breathed deeply. He even attempted prayer, though it came out more like confused mumbling and apologetic glances.
At one point he switched to the national anthem, thinking it might work, but nothing.
Nothing happened.
No light. No warmth. No divine response—only Marika watching him with the expression of a goddess reconsidering every life choice that led her here.
The problem was simple and maddening: belief.
How was he supposed to put his belief in this sultry, useless goddess who he knew happened to commit mass genocide, wage war, and tear apart the entire Lands Between when she was in power?
How?
To place faith in someone, you had to truly believe in them as a god. And try as he might, Orion couldn't quite bridge that gap.
He sighed.
Then, in a moment of catastrophic honesty, his eyes drifted.
From her defeated face to slightly lower—to the upright mountain range of her divinity.
"Marika's tits..."
He couldn't even recall how many times he had heard this phrase in the Lands Between. He could say why only after witnessing them.
They were divine.
And that was when a light bulb—a very golden and very holy light bulb—lit up inside his head.
Orion's eyes narrowed.
'Perhaps... the object of faith needs a bit of changing...' he said in a suspicious tone.
'I'll be a scumbag if this works, but I'd rather die trying. Shoot for the stars, as some say.'
'A goddess's breasts are also godly, right?!'
"Goddess," he muttered, focusing hard. "I believe."
He shouted, raising one hand like in front of a strict teacher, ready to answer.
Marika blinked, uncertain. Did shouting alone prove anything? She really wished to know.
However, that was when something changed inside him.
Golden light surged around him, warm and steady. The seal in his hand pulsed, alive with holy power. Incantation energy bloomed, clean and radiant.
Marika froze.
Slowly, she turned toward him.
[How? How didst thou accomplish it, when but moments ago thou didst falter so utterly?]
She asked, eyes narrowed, half suspecting it wasn't her in whom he had placed his faith, but some other deity.
"Hahaha... don't underestimate culture, my dear goddess. I just had a revelation..."
"Just found the secret sauce to make it work..." he smiled.
xXx
A/N : My man is the Oppai Dragon Reincarnate. Hahaha...
Just a bit of fun here and there.
I really never have use faith in the game so not sure how effective it will be. Lets see.
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