In a farm field with a dirt track that cut through it, a tense standoff was happening. The tense standoff being Jack's dilemma. They can win this fight against Pastor Heron. But he needed to think about the future too like he did with the fate of Ingelton.
However in this case, Jeanne was his first connection in this new world; Palma Dextra. She protected him. So he'll give in to her.
"We won't kill anyone," he said.
Aria growled. Disbelief splashed across her crimson eyes. Yet she remained silent, a coiled spring waiting to see how this farce would play out.
His wife breathed a sigh of relief. She thanked him and prepared to cast the blinding spear.
The mob kept getting closer, Pastor Heron's sanctimonious smile was infuriating.
"Stand firm," the pastor bellowed to the townsfolk, brandishing his glowing dagger.
Jack was perched on Aria's shoulder; she was the one who was going to throw him.
"Aria, we'll cut off their limbs," he whispered.
A malicious grin spread across her face. His order was non-lethal, but would be deeply satisfying.
Then Jeanne threw her blinding-spear. A flash of divine light erupted in the field, bathing everything in an intense, pure whiteness. The mob of simple townsfolk and a pastor were stumbling back.
"Now," Jack said.
He took this chance and Aria hurled him.
His tentacle was turning into the silver moonlight dagger mid-air. He didn't aim for the eyes or the heart. He aimed for Pastor Heron's legs, slicing through the tendons behind his feet. A clean, disabling cut.
The pastor roared in pain, stumbling and falling as his legs buckled beneath him, the glowing dagger burying itself into the dirt.
The pastor's speed skill can't work if he can't walk. Jack had learned that from kendo; a sprained ankle meant losing.
Two of the townsfolk had regained their sight and they charged with pitchforks raised. Aria was a blur of motion. Her phasing skill made their thrusts pass through her harmlessly. They weren't her target, no, she wanted the pastor. Before the pastor could force himself up, Aria was upon him.
She didn't go for the kill. Her claws instead severed his dominant hand at the wrist in a shower of blood. The holy dagger fell from his numb fingers, sputtering out.
"Holy mother guide me," Pastor Heron said.
She took her sweet time severing every part of his limbs. Meanwhile Jack went after the pitchfork farmers. They were weak and he was a blue flash. He moved and made precise cuts on the joints in their shoulders like he was practicing kendo.
His knowledge of the human anatomy from school, and the teachings of his dad; combined with the unnatural fluidity of slime movement and the sharpness of moonlight, made him an unstoppable blade.
"Done," Aria said with a grin on her red lips.
Jack hopped towards Jeanne who had a conflicted look. Her fist still clenching and unclenching. Aria had went over to him after wiping the blood off her face with a villager's arm.
"See priestess we didn't kill anyone," Aria's tone was one of mocking triumph, a twisted echo of Jeanne's earlier plea.
Severed limbs were lying in the field, yet the bodies were breathing and their whimpers were echoing across the Blorana plains. Jeanne sighed. She was horrified by their act but also relieved.
She patted Jack's head.
"Thank you," she whispered to him. It was a strange mix of affection and self-disgust that made her face crumple for a brief second before she smoothed it back into the mask of a priestess on the run.
"Let's get going," she said.
Jeanne was the first to start walking and Aria followed after her with Jack on her shoulder. He took one last glance at his gruesome work. Back on Earth this scene would be all over the news, people would emphasize.
Yet his heart was still. A part of him thought he wasn't much different than his dad after all; both inflicted pain for their own goals.
He shook the thoughts away and mourned: the xp he lost by sparing them. So the trio continued on their journey to Vylara. Their next stop would be the border control. There wasn't any sign of the Slime Slayer or Inquisitor Lancel.
--- In the Cyros a couple of hours after Jack fought Pastor Heron.
In one of the many churches, a griffin was eating a bowl of glowing red snakes: fire snakes. The griffin's screeching was not of a regular bird but of a monstrous creature that shouldn't be in a church. Inquisitor Lancel sat on one of the many rows of benches.
"Pastor Heron, you serve the holy mother well."
Lancel said to a ghostly blue hologram of Heron. He had no legs and no arms. He was a head and torso. They were speaking through a holy artifact called the Mirror of Teresa. The saint who created the space runes.
The apparition nodded as much as he could. "She had a demon. A slime that possessed magical daggers and a ghost-vampire hybrid," Heron said, sweat dropping from his ethereal head, his voice trembling.
Closing the mirror, Lancel ended the conversation. He turned to a paladin with the rank of Justicar.
Justicar Caine, a man whose reputation for brutality was matched only by the sharpness of his blade and the unshakable certainty in his eyes.
"That slime, could it be a demon from beyond the seventh floor?" Caine asked. He ran a hand over the hilt of his zweihander, the pommel a pitch blackness that rivaled the void.
"A survivor?" Lancel scoffed. There wasn't any way they'd mess up.
"The Grand Inquisitors wouldn't have let anything survive, it'd be a betrayal to the holy mother, if they did."
Lancel's griffin finished its fiery snack and screeched, its voice echoing through the church, bouncing between rows, colorful windows depicted with murals and musicals instruments.
"Shall I assemble a crusade?" Caine stated.
His superior shook his head, "No need. I'll personally exterminate this vermin. Your mission remains the same."
The Justiciar bowed and left immediately; his work was time-consuming.
After he was gone, Lancel started to pet his griffin's beak, earning him a happy screech from the beast. He hopped on the griffin and they flew to Uryen Forest.
The wind howled as the beast beat its powerful wings. Lancel was scanning the blighted landscape. Another vortex had destroyed the forest's life, turning it into a scar on the world. He could see the perpetrator; someone he despised.
Landing next to the fiery red-headed woman, he said, "I believe you were told to visit me, Renin. Not to destroy an entire ecosystem."
The Slime Slayer was frowning.
"It should be here," she said.
Her system had never failed her. Her slime tracking skills and system were unmatched.
"This is why you and your kind are inferior. You rely too much on these systems," Lancel mocked, but not with malicious intent. More like an elder lecturing a younger one.
"Come I know where it's headed. The border."
A sigh escaped the red head.
"Vylara? That's just great," she rolled her eyes before hopping on to the back of the snow-white griffin