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Chapter 776 Dusk and Dawn

Jack smiled, "Want something from the bakery?"

"Don\'t go stealing anything." She growled, "But that one cake there looks nice."

"Got it, give me a minute." He stood and walked back inside.

"You better not steal it." She growled and he waved his hand. After several minutes he came out, "We\'re allowed back inside. Come on,"

"Allowed? You talked to him?" She stood.

"Yeah, I know my way around words. Rogues are usually meant to be the faces of adventuring parties alongside bards." He smiled as he approached and grabbed her hand. "Let\'s go inside. The cake is waiting,"

Lydia smiled, "I can really count on you."

"Not always, I\'m pretty useless most of the time." He smiled.

As the two sat down to eat the cakes, Lydia looked at the people flocking inside, "This place looks lively, it must be nice to live here."

One of the waiters there stopped and looked at her. "I won\'t say that. It was pretty rough around here until two days ago. We could barely sell anything."

The owner came walking in and looked at the waiter. "They need help in the kitchen, I\'ll keep the two guests company, go help them."

"What did happen?"

"Thugs, we were forced to pay a protection fee for the last several years. I do remember that being a thing since I was but a young little boy." He said, "We\'ll start losing money due to the extortion which made me raise the prices to remain in business. And when the thugs found that I increased my prices, they asked for a bigger fee, it was a downward spiral."

"The guards did nothing?"

"The guards caught thugs daily, but always kept showing back up. Some even say they had a secret escape tunnel in the guard\'s jail. Or even a rat that was letting them go, the bastard." He whispered.

"So what changed two days ago?" Lydia asked.

"Divine punishment. Puff!" He said, "All the thugs disappeared without a trace and several of their corpses were found dead in abandoned houses, and the warehouse they used as a base went into flames." He said with an enthusiastic voice, "No man could\'ve done that, it was a punishment from the gods, an angel must\'ve flown down from heaven and burned them to ash."

He took a deep breath, "We aren\'t extorted anymore and the prices started returning to a reasonable state. More people could afford food and clothes, and business was slowly coming back to life. The rush you just saw wasn\'t because my cake is good but instead because those people didn\'t have any cake in the past years."

Lydia\'s eyes slowly turned toward Jack. It\'s him, those thugs he wiped out before. They were the ones terrorizing the city.

"Amaterasu\'s church has been flooded by people bringing in offerings and coins to her altar. You must go check it out. It\'s the first time in decades that I saw that statue clean of bird droppings." The owner said with a smile.

"Jack…" Lydia stared at him.

Jack shoved a piece of cake into her mouth with a fork, "Eat for now, we\'ll check it later."

As the two left, Lydia stared at Jack. "Why didn\'t you say anything? There was no angel, only you."

"I don\'t care. I\'ve got enough money from killing those thugs. It\'s a nice bonus to have the city becoming safer, but it was never my goal." Jack replied with a yawn, "But, I\'m still salty about something."

"What is it?" Lydia asked.

"That goddess is stealing my money. I\'ll go take it back." He said, about to rush forward.

"Wait!" Lydia caught him, "Don\'t run, you can\'t steal offerings, you\'ll get struck with a divine punishment."

"Let me go… if that puny goddess of you couldn\'t even take down some thugs. She won\'t be able to strike me down; I have no intention of working for her as a hero for free." He kept trying to run away.

"I said don\'t! Doing good deeds doesn\'t require a reward." Lydia growled as she tried to stop him.

"It\'ll be acceptable if that was it. I can\'t even take my wife\'s virginity without her losing power, what shit is that? I\'ll go make sure her statue is a prime pigeon toilet." He grunted.

"Those aren\'t the words of a hero! Stop, you\'ll get killed by a lightning bolt."

"Nah, I\'ll do it!"

Several minutes later, the two were standing in Amaterasu\'s church. Lydia kept a close eye on Jack so he wouldn\'t do anything absurd.

A nun approached them. "I haven\'t seen your faces around, are you travelers, no, probably students from the university. Are you here to pray for our…"

Lydia showed her Amaterasu\'s emblem, "I am primarily a paladin of Amaterasu, but I\'m also a cleric of Jemima and Lath."

The nun gasped, taking a few steps back, "The holy trinity of sun, earth, and life. And a high paladin at that. Sorry for not recognizing you."

"I\'m not on an official business, I\'m only here to pray and leave an offering," Lydia said with a smile.

"Then you…" As the nun turned, the two of them could see Jack standing over the offering pedestal and glaring at the statue.

"What are you doing, JACK!" Lydia gasped with a cry, rushing at him.

Lydia reached Jack and grabbed him by the wrist, trying to pull him away. She couldn\'t he was as hard as a statue. "Jack…" She gasped, looking at his face to see his eyes taking the shape of an eclipsed sun.

[My little Lydia…I was talking with the hero, don\'t you see?] A voice came from above the statue, and Lydia slowly lifted her head, seeing a pale woman with long black hair, a sun-like right eye, and an eclipse-like left one staring at her, wigging her feet down the statue\'s head.

[No, he\'s your husband. You wouldn\'t want him talking to me alone.]

"You are…"Lydia gasped.

"Lydia!" Jack turned toward her, "You came here as well?"

[I let her in.] Amaterasu said. [I don\'t have much time here so I\'ll talk quickly. Even if I have a thing for making the overgod angry at me, this isn\'t the way to do it.] She giggled.

"I came to take the offerings; this knife of yours can\'t provide anything besides stinging a bit with holy magic." Jack growled.

"Jack… she\'s a goddess…" Lydia screamed silently at his ear.

[That\'s because you don\'t have enough mana. It\'s not within my hands.] She pointed at Jack with her toe. [But I can grant you an ability that you can use once a day. While carrying the Daraku\'s wakizashi on yourself, you can forbid any number of people within a hundred meters from the sun\'s grace.]

"What does that even mean?" He growled.

[They won\'t be able to use the sunlight as a medium of sight so they\'ll get blinded, and they start burning in the sunlight like vampires.]

Amaterasu smiled with her blood-red lips, turning toward Lydia, [And you… You\'ve already met my Archon, Asmodeus.]

"I did…Is she really your archon? The rulers of the hells?" Lydia gasped.

[She is indeed my Archon. The only one to ever fully master my divine magic. I\'m what you call a god with a duality, the bright sun, and the eclipsed sun. Dusk and down, and thus I can grant both holy magic and its opposite form.]

Lydia stared at her own hand and a purplish black spark flashed.

[Asmodeus is acting as a medium between me and you now. Feel free to use that power against your enemies, but make sure it\'s away from the church\'s eyes.]

"Hoi! Useless goddess, what\'s up with this ability? Once a day? Do you know how hard it\'ll be to get a use out of it?" Jack shouted at her, and Lydia couldn\'t be more scared.

[Again, that\'s a problem with you. You lack faith in me, I can\'t force my divine energy into a non-believer, and they\'ll burn and die.] She looked at him with a thinking face.

"Jack… calm down."

"You\'re a goddess so do a goddess thing and fix it!" Jack yelled at her.

[Fine, you two were talking about Kali earlier, so I probably should go with her example.] Amaterasu sighed, [You can use it more than once, but to achieve that, you\'ll have to recharge from a source that\'s rich with my divine magic.]

"Huh? Do you want me to come here and lick your statue each day to recharge that ability? It\'s no better than it not being rechargeable at all." He growled.

[You can do that…but I wasn\'t talking about my statue.] She pointed at Lydia with her toes. [You can recharge from her.]

"Wait! Me?!" Lydia gasped.

"Lydia…" Jack looked at Lydia, "Keep going…" he looked back at Amaterasu.

[Any physical contact will do. Just touch her and it\'ll be charged right up, but…It\'ll be better if you kiss her.]

"What are you saying!" Lydia was the one screaming now.

"And what benefit would that provide?" Jack asked with an interested face.

[Nothing, it\'ll be more fun for me to watch.]

Jack thought about it for a second and then turned toward Amaterasu. "On a more serious note…there was something I wanted to ask."

[What is it? My little hero?]

"Why does Lydia need to remain a virgin?" He asked.

"JACK!" Lydia cried at his side.

[Good question. She actually doesn\'t now. Ever since Asmodeus became a medium between us that requirement has dropped.]

"Then doesn\'t need to anymore!"

[No, she still needs to remain a virgin for now. I\'ll remove all of her powers if she loses hers.] Amaterasu stared at Jack.

"Why?"

[Cause you\'ll stop being a hero.]

"Wait! That doesn\'t make sense!" Jack growled.

[Next time, you\'ll talk with Asmodeus. Be careful, she isn\'t as gentle as I am…She hates women like Lydia, so be careful…

careful, careful…] Amaterasu disappeared into the godrays.