Arc 3: Deep Immersion

By the second day of our tour of Aon, we had toured much of the outer layer of the city which boasted exotic places such as the Garden of Life, whose plants were seemingly moving by themselves, giving the expression that everything in the garden was living, breathing, and thinking. However, we had to cut our tour short because, for some reason, the largest plant in the garden attempted to attack us.

We quickly escaped and let the guards handle the problem. I was sure it was trying to attack everyone in the vicinity and not just us. I mean, for what reason would a holy plant attack us?

The Great Holy City of Aon hosted many types of people ranging from humans to elves, from fairies to lycans, and from beggars to nobles. It was a truly cosmopolitan city. I wondered if all the cities in this world were like this. I like being optimistic, at the very least.

Throughout our tour, we learned many things about Aon, its religion, and its culture. From what I gathered from the priests and the horseman who guided us here, Aon was founded by a saint who killed a demon lord. However, there were no records of the city ever being built. The priests all claimed that the city was gifted to the saint by the Lords in the Heavens.

Speaking of all those gibberish terms, the people of Aon and all surrounding nations believed in the Path of Life. A religion that encompasses that a Goddess gave life and death and that the Demon Gods were envious and cast the curse of undeath upon everyone. Thus it is the duty of the knights that vowed fealty to her, named the Lords in the Heavens and their vassals, the mortal men, to fight the undead wherever and those who do not follow the Path were followers of the Demon Gods.

Pretty typical things. But they do say that as the Goddess guides the lost souls from life to death, the Demon Gods attempt to take them between the process, causing them to be lost. Sounds very superstitious, but that at least gave a sort of reason why the undead roam. It could also explain how I got my powers. I began to ponder whether I should convert to gain answers.

“Hey, Uno. Do you think I should convert to the Path?” I consulted Uno as my group and I once again toured Aon.

“Boss, has the holiness of the city fried whatever remained of your imaginary brain? An undead following a religion whose sole reason for existence is purging the undead?” Uno chastised me.

“Ah ha...yeah...I guess you’re right. Sorry, I was just wondering if it could give reasons why I’m like this…” I apologized.

“Don’t worry, Boss. We’re also sticking around to help you. Why do you think we’ve put up with you for the past thousand years? Some of the boys are even using this chance to go around the world to find answers themselves.” Uno patted my back. “Heck, even Rookie’s probably taking his PhD just for you, Boss!”

“You guys....” I was about to tear up but then the priest touring us around announced to us.

“Fellow pilgrims! We have at last arrived at the holiest site of the entire continent!” The monk rejoiced.

As mentioned by the guard who guided us to Aon, we went to the Great Cathedral to pay a visit. The cathedral was a large building, with its arched gate showing statues of angels trying to usher the pilgrims inside the cathedral. The place was packed with people. Pilgrims were trying to kiss the statues, the guards trying to stop them from doing so and merchants selling small statuettes so the pilgrims could kiss on those instead.

“This is the Great Cathedral of Aon! No undead has ever set foot on this place! It was said that even a Demon Lord was immediately destroyed just seeing the Cathedral!”

My group went ‘Ooooh!’ and ‘Aaaah!’ at the description the monk was giving. We started taking pictures of the place and my lieutenants were jotting down notes. I felt like we weren’t supposed to be here, but I couldn’t put my finger on the reason why. Even though Uno was wearing a thick black winged helmet, I could feel like he was facepalming hard inside. Why’s that? Weird fellow.

We got into the large halls with the walls lined with paintings and murals, each depicting a fierce battle with one thing or another. Under each mural was a coffin, displaying a body of a figurehead or a saint. Many pilgrims were frantically trying to get a touch of any coffin but were mostly repulsed by the vigilant guards.

Luckily for us, we could remember this memory by snapping a picture and enjoying the scenery for later! As I looked closer at the paintings, I could slowly feel myself immersed, that I was a hero striking down the forces of Dark and courageously holding back the demons under extremely unfair circumstances.

In my imagination, I was a manly muscled skeleton riding with long silky silver hair down the battlefield, the forces of Good cheering me on, screaming my name over and over again.

“Boss...Boss,” Uno shook me up back into reality. “Boss, you’re drooling.”

“Don’t be silly, Uno. I can’t drool! I’m an unde-…” Before I could finish Uno hit my mask with his gauntlet.

“Look over there, Boss. I smell trouble.” Uno pointed at a group of people.

The pilgrims were making way for them and the group of people were more armored than the guards of the city. At the head of them was a black-haired woman with silver armor. Her presence silenced the crowd and only her group’s boots made noise. Whispers were being made about, the crowd was in awe at the sight of a hero walking in the flesh.

I tapped the priest guiding us, “Sorry to be a bit uninformed, but could you tell me who is that?”

“You don’t know Lady Adrianna, Hero of the Path? Well, let me tell you...” The priest blabbered about her achievements and things I probably heard already. I questioned why she was in the building.

“She must be meeting with the Grand Cardinal, the holiest figure of the Path. Something really big must have happened,” The priest whispered to me.

Something really big? I turned to Uno to hear his output of the situation.

“Boss? You’re asking me? It could be because of us, you know?” Sarjay just shrugged. We continued to watch the group in silence until they eventually disappeared from sight.

The pilgrims went back to their businesses and life went back to normal. For some reason, I let out a deep breath. This day was just exhausting! From the touring, of course.

“You all must be tired, come. All pilgrims should at least experience the feeling of the waters of Aon.” The priest led us to a large section of the cathedral which would appear to be bathrooms.

The priest further boasted that the waters were even used to purify the unholy Three Liches which attacked Aon many decades ago. They gave us a private room as per tradition to enjoy the water.

“Why does this water feel familiar?” My chef commented as she inspected the water.

“Well, Boss. We shouldn-” I didn’t let Uno finish as I jumped into the waters. Steam started to come out and I felt a relaxing sensation as I let out a sigh. My other lieutenants joined in as they stripped their gear and enjoyed the hot spring. Uno gave up and joined us after seeing us enjoying ourselves.

“This place is just wonderful, I hope the rest of the world is just as wonderful.” I sighed. The rest of my companions nodded as they poured more hot water upon themselves.

“Yeah, it seemed to be an unexpectedly uneventful tour.” Uno scratched his metal skull.

“You’re just a worry wart,” One of my companions commented. I agreed and we all shared good laughs as we shared our photo gems to review our pictures.