"And who told you that?" Zeth looked at the priest as if he was about to grab his neck again, but the priest forced a smile in return.
"It has been said by the Apostle of the all-supreme Goddess, Themis, and the people here have seen it with their own eyes." He gestured toward the crowd. Though no one said anything, their expressions agreed with the priest.
Shaking his head, Zeth walked through the crowd toward the dominion. Though the priest was not done speaking.
"It's been days since the poor villagers were trapped. Only God knows what happened to them. The village secretary's body was found outside yesterday."
Zeth halted. "When did you find his body, you say?"
"Yesterday, before Lord Milo stepped out of the dominion," the priest said with a proud smile.
He remembered the village secretary, the other person Milo had killed. But it still didn't make sense. If both of them died almost at the same time, how did the secretary's body appear a day before his?
'The dominion is playing with time.'
It all made sense now. The secretary died first and appeared outside the dominion first, then Milo stepped out of it, probably before Zeth died, and then Zeth himself. The dominion was stretching time by about twelve hours.
Busy with his thoughts, Zeth tried to calculate the exact relation between time inside and outside the dominion, while the priest, seeing him frozen in place, smiled again.
"The poor souls who have died by the hands of monsters... isn't it only fair that they at least get their place in Heaven? To keep your loved ones safe, all we ask is a small tribute. What's wrong with that?"
"Can't you shut up for a minute? I'm thinking!" Zeth barked. Then, after a pause, he continued, "You know what? Everything is wrong with what you said. First of all, I thought you were just looking for followers and were letting it slide, but it's worse than that. You scammers are looking to make some damn money out of people's emotions."
'Isn't that what I do, usually?'
Shaking the thought out of his head, Zeth turned to face the crowd. "Everyone, stop buying this bullshit. Your parents... family... whoever they are, they're all still alive. They're just stuck inside the dominion, and I can get them out. The body outside doesn't prove they're dead."
"Sir, it seems you are somehow confused." The priest interrupted. "The Goddess and we have been trying to help the villagers since the dominion appeared. If you think we are doing this for money, then..."
"Stop yapping unless you love losing your teeth."
A frown appeared on the priest's face, his tone no longer calm. "I have let your intrusion slide because you are an employee of a god, but you are overstepping your boundaries, sir."
"So you don't love your teeth?"
Zeth turned and walked up to the priest, but before he could reach him, a young villager stood in his way.
"That's enough! You have disrespected our savior enough!" the young villager yelled, his eyes brimming with tears. "Even if the priests are benevolent enough to let your intrusion slide, we will not!"
"He is right! We stand with the priest!" another villager yelled.
"Yeah! If you want to fight him, then fight me instead."
Zeth looked around as the crowd slowly closed in, chanting around him. Then he looked at the priest, standing before the vehicle, smiling mischievously.
"That's enough!" the priest calmly said. "Lord Zeth, you are an employee of a god. You know it very well. Innocent civilians have lost their lives. It is too much for their families to bear. The least we can do is offer peace to their souls."
"Why do we not set our differences aside and join together to help the villagers?" The priest extended his hand.
A moment of silence fell. Zeth looked at the outstretched hand, then at the priest, and then smiled. His smile turned into a chuckle... and then into laughter.
"You really had it prepared, didn't you?" The smile on Zeth's face shifted into a grimace. "If you want to use manipulation tactics, stick to villagers, not with me."
"I assure you, my intentions are..."
"Fuck your intentions. I couldn't care less." Zeth waved him off, then turned back toward the crowd instead, "You people are cowards, you know that?"
The young villager who had stepped in front of him earlier bristled. "What did you just say?"
"I said, you people are cowards. Are you deaf as well?" Zeth continued after a pause. "Honestly, thinking again, you people pretty much deserve to be scammed."
"Tsk. Oh, are we?" A villager chuckled. "It's easy to say when you've got to wear golden clothes and have a roof over your head. I know people like you. All of you, the ones who suck our blood so you can bathe in milk. Do you even know what it's like to live in the countryside, being ignored by the officials and the government? Struggling to make a living, and then even nature strikes you with a calamity."
"My father, my brother, died in that thing. I couldn't do anything to save them. I couldn't... even see them one last time... and there is one... just one chance a god offered to at least let them have peace after death, and you want to steal that as well?"
A subtle smile appeared on the priest's face.
Wiping the tears off his face, the villager said in a raspy voice, "You claim to be so wise. Do you even know how it feels to live a life like ours?"
"Nope. No idea." Zeth shrugged. "You see, I am not as incompetent as you all to whine about life and blame fate. I am what I am because I do what I do."
"What?" The villagers' eyes widened in shock. But Zeth continued with a smile.
"You are a healthy man, and yet poor, living in the countryside because you are too lazy to step into the market and fight for your own chunk. You are ignored because there is nothing special about you to make people pay attention to you. And you are desperate because you believe your father and brother are already dead, because it's easier to accept that they are dead than to accept your own incompetence... that you did nothing to save them."
"I also know people like you. People who blame others for their failures, people who are too afraid to face discomfort, hide behind the veil of circumstances. Actually, you know what? My bad. I tried knocking some sense into your brains."
Zeth slowly walked through the crowd as people stepped away from him. "You want to play fools? Do it. Prepare their funeral, and make it grand, because I will absolutely love it when I have cleared the dominion and rescued those villagers. I would love to see their reaction to how easily you abandoned them. And I will do it because I am not a failure like you all."
Zeth walked past the man, and standing next to the wall of the dominion, he turned back with his arms spread, a grin on his face.
"I am Zeth, the employee of Death. And I will rescue every single villager in the dominion, because that's my job. And that's what I will do."
With his words echoing through the air, his back touched the dominion wall, and black smoke engulfed him, taking him back into the dreadful world.