He Who Fights with Monsters 10 (He Who Fights with Monsters, #10)

by Shirtaloon

“There is little I can tell you. Jason is under my care and I won’t break a confidence. And even if he weren’t, my first loyalty is to him, not to you.”

“You wondered why Dominion would appear before us all and allow Jason to talk to him like that. Perhaps showing us that he would was the point.”

The god of dominion—the god of deciding who gets to be king—showed up for a chat, and not for the first time. If anyone is fool enough to treat Asano like a silver-ranker, they’ll pay for it.”

Asano may have the etiquette of an explosive device, but he is not weak.”

“I worry about Jason. About my ability to help him. I’m meant to be the one with all the answers, but his experiences are beyond anything I’ve even heard of.”

“I’m worried that Jason Asano is a bad influence on you.” “A bad influence how?” “You presumed that a god would show up to speak with you.” “You did show up.” “Being right only makes it worse.”

“You always see enforcement as a last resort, Lord Healer. Your oath is soft because you want people to do the right thing out of choice, not obedience, but that’s not always the choice they make.

I am your priest, Lord Healer. I follow your belief in personal responsibility, but that means taking responsibility myself.”

“Listen to yourself. Hear the conviction. Do not doubt yourself or the guidance you give to those who need it. Not even with someone as unusual as Jason Asano.”

How do I lead him when I don’t know the way?” “Then don’t lead him. Walk beside him, with a kind word.”

she continued. “Again, he’s faced with the same pattern of people trying to use him with the belief that they can ignore any consequences because of his rank. I know the circumstances aren’t the same, but they are close enough that I have concerns.

“You would presume to know a god’s motives?” “I have no right to assert what they were, but I have every right to guess.” “Bad influence.”

“He looks at that power,” Shade said, “and asks if its behaviour is deserving of respect. Or, if it instead grabs people and leaves them dangling in the air to use as a scrying tool.”

Let go of my friend or I’ll start visiting your priests for purposes they aren’t going to approve of.”

“Mate, I was killing priests of Purity before it was cool. I know you’re a generally okay bloke, but being a god doesn’t give you a pass to be a turd. You let my guy go and I’ll let it slide. This time. I don’t know what point you’re trying to make with this little display of provocation, or who you’re trying to make it to, but let Shade go and sod off, or you and me have a problem.”

“Calm yourself, child, and look deeper. What Jason Asano demonstrated was balance. An odd balance, yes, but he lives a life where it must be so. He is stronger than he was before. Less likely to lose himself. You helped him find the place he is now, but the journey never ends. You know that. Have faith in yourself and your abilities as a healer.”

“He just threatened a god!” “And a year ago, he’d have been tearing through one of my churches by now. Do you consider threatening a god to be out of character for him?” “No,” Arabelle grudgingly acknowledged. “I suspect that it’s kind of his thing.”

“You’re always pulling out some nonsensical new soul power. It could have been spirit wind or something.” “Ghost farts. You think I’m making ghost farts.”

“The music’s playing, bro. Time to rock and roll.”

“Plans are great,” Rufus told him. “But sometimes there’s a giant explosion and you just have to go out and fight. Take it from a guy who failed as a team leader: it’s not always about having a clever plan. Sometimes it’s about getting out of your own way and trusting your amazing teammates to be amazing.”

Do you think Jason is just pretending to understand it?” “No,” Farrah said. “He’d do that to us, but he wouldn’t do it to Gordon.”

“Think of it like spiritual resistance training. I’ll be your spotter.” Taika’s expression turned thoughtful. “Like doing bench presses with your soul.” “Exactly,” Jason said. “Which leads me to one question: do you even lift, bro?”

When that knowledge is waiting, just out of reach, all you can do is take the step forward to grasp it. Nothing else matters.”

“Do you know what the Adventure Society executives said when I asked?” “The same thing they told me, I imagine.” “That while diamond-rankers don’t answer to the society, neither does the society answer to them.”

“Is it a good thing that the god-like power he has here doesn’t make him more imperious?” Neil asked. “Or is it a bad thing that he isn’t less imperious when he’s anywhere else?”

“A god gave you a gift?” “Don’t be envious. Gods and great astral beings don’t give you gifts, not really. They give you manipulation coated in a sweet candy shell. You take it, because they don’t muck about when handing out the goods, but get ready to drop neck-deep into the brown. Nothing is just a gift with them.”

“A suspicious man might look at something that he got from a god with a critical missing component and imagine it to be a clue as to what he might encounter in the near future.”

I like trusting people. It used to be that I would always trust them until they gave me a reason not to. The cost of making a mistake is too high for that now. There is so much riding on me that I can’t risk that kind of mistake just for the chance at making a new friend. I have to be careful these days.”

“Are you calling me simple?” “I’m definitely not calling you uncomplicated.”

“I don’t run around causing problems,” he said, his words clipped. “I run around solving them, and I’m getting pretty tired of people seeing it the wrong way around.”

“I hate people using their power to oppress me, yet I keep doing it to others at the drop of a hat. And you are right. The way I’ve conducted myself as an adventurer has understandably engendered certain impressions of me. I just wish that people would look past the way I do things to see the things I do.”

The fact that even gods and great astral beings are helpless to breach a resolute soul shows us that the power was there from the beginning. I’m not sure that a soul has any limitations.”

“I know that gods come to speak with you, even though you aren’t a priest. I know that you held a meeting with the Builder and the World-Phoenix and convinced the Builder to abandon his invasion early. I know that there were a lot of questions about the exact relationship between you and Hierophant Dawn.”

“They see the people I deal with, and instead of backing away, they covet that which is mine. Because of my rank.”

An iron fist, but one that was held open, shielding those underneath it. It was the aura of a benevolent tyrant,

“Why would you even tell me you can do that? Aren’t you afraid it will lead me to kill you the moment I get out of here?” “I hope you don’t. It wouldn’t be good for my diminishing ability to trust.”

“Craftspeople would. Unlike adventurers, they push their limits by pushing the boundaries of their professions instead of fighting monsters. Their sense of self-reflection often outstrips that of an adventurer because of their focus on their craft.

“Did I just become one of the powerful people that always seem to be hanging around you?” “I don’t think of them that way,” Jason said, “which is one of the reasons they choose to hang around.” “Then what do you think of them as?” “Friends.”

“I don’t trust religion, I don’t trust authority and I don’t trust anyone with more power than one person should have. Vast cosmic power falls quite thoroughly into that range.”

“How do you reconcile that with a lack of trust in yourself to use it responsibly?” “I try to be patient and thoughtful in my actions. To consider my motives in making them, to see if the reasoning behind my ideals has been warped by my pride and vanity. Mostly, though, it is the same answer I gave to your earlier question: friends. A friend will support you when you are doing well and things are easy. A good friend holds you to account, even when it’s hard.”

“I’ve faced that danger more than once in the last few years,” he said. “I’ve looked into the abyss and crossed line after line until I no longer recognise the man who was pulled into a magical world he didn’t understand. Every time, my friends were there to help me find myself. To stop me before I went so far, there was no coming back.”

“Mercy,” Marek said. “That is the anchor you have set for yourself. We have discussed this before.”

“The will as an element of the soul is not normally something essence users explore until gold rank.”

“There is no peak.” “Essence users can’t go beyond diamond rank.” “Not with that attitude.”

“Hey,” Jason said, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Who amongst us hasn’t defied authority or committed a bunch of crimes or rewritten city-sized chunks of reality in their own image?”

“I need to get that crystal back, now you mention it,” Farrah said. “A girl has needs. Do you know what it’s like trying to get some action in Rimaros? Some gold-ranker got the fever over me, but he’s about eighty and refuses to make a proper move until I’m at least half his age. No one else will go near me because they don’t want to offend him, though, but I’m not waiting quarter of a century for my next tumble. The equipment needs to be taken out and fired up from time to time or it’ll go rusty in the shed.”

“I know that you have less reason to trust than most,” he told her. “But we have to, even when it doesn’t work out the way we hoped. Because if we don’t, then what’s the point?

“They clearly haven’t been paying attention,” Belinda said. “We’re not exactly a compliant kind of team.” “No team is,” Humphrey said. “Not any of the good ones anyway. Adventurers have to be independent thinkers, able to take responsibility for their own choices.”

“It’s not about the society and it’s not about us. It’s about helping people. Protecting people.”

The way we fight back against that influence is by remaining independent. The way they’re meant to allow adventurers to be. If we had just capitulated, we would have been contributing to the problem.” “Look at you, fighting authority,” Belinda told Humphrey. “You’re turning into Jason.”