[In front of the Neptune’s Clinic!]
“Been a while sister,” Equi spoke as she looked at Castellina.
“It’s your sister?” Jasmine, who had no idea what was going on, asked with slight curiosity. Her eyes shifted between the two sisters a couple of times before she focused on the smiling Castellina in front of her.
Even though it was a calm atmosphere, the tinge of fury and sadness was apparent.
“Not blood related but we spent quite a time together. You can even say we have a special ‘bond’ between us that runs deeper than sisterhood,” Castellina spoke with an amused smile as she saw the armless Equi. Her eyes gouged the lack of power in Equi, which made her even more curious, prompting her to ask,
“How did you escape from there? No… given your condition I can somehow expect at least that much from you. But what I don’t understand is why?”
For someone who has lost everything and has fell behind the times, it was odd for her to get out of the prison knowing how hopeless her condition was.
“Who is she?” Hecate asked, as he too looked at Equi but didn’t find anything special in her. Her power levels were high but only in the terms of mortals. In front of Gods, she was nothing but an ant.
“Someone I know from a long time back,” Castellina chuckled before looking at the clinic and the condition of the people inside. They were being treated but only by conservative means, without any actual use of mana.
Equi just stood there, with her eyes narrowed at Castellina and the other Gods. She had already prepared her means of escape from this place last night so she needed not to worry about the Gods in front of her. Even though they were powerful, they can’t use even a percent of authority in Zarraf without probable cause.
Laws of Probability forbade them from doing so.
“It truly is peculiar… hey kid, what are you doing inside there?” Helios, who observed the store with interest spoke out, making Jasmine narrow her eyes at him.
“It’s a shop called Clinic. It’s where people who are injured come to take medicine and ailments,” she spoke with an innocent smile on her face.
“…”
Both Hecate and Castellina looked at Helios with an amused face, smiling with a hint of laughter in it.
“I already know that!” Hecate glared before continuing,” what I am asking is why are you not using any mana to heal? Surely you would be able to heal everyone much faster. Why do things this way?”
“What does it matter to you how they do things? Who are you to interrogate them?” Equi joined in as she saw Helios getting irritated by the kid. Jasmine didn’t seem to be stepping down either and given her position, it was kind of the right thing to do.
Though before the situation heats up, someone interfered…
“All right stop. We didn’t come here to fight. Helios back down, and you too,” Castellina spoke as she looked at Equi before turning to Jasmine,
“I apologize. We are actually people who have come from a very far away land and things like these don’t happen there. It’s just that we found it very peculiar so we decided to check it out. I hope we didn’t inconvenience you,” Castellina spoke with a polite expression, making Jasmine sigh as well.
Looking how the front party was not trying to do harm anyway, Jasmine took a look back at the name of the clinic before speaking,
“To be fair, we aren’t much different either.”
“?? What do you mean?” Hecate joined in, and even Equi who didn’t know anything, observed the kid with keen interest.
“You see that name over there? Neptune. That guy is more or less the owner of the clinic. He was the one who asked us not to use any mana. It was absurd but since it was his clinic and he was paying us, we didn’t ask much. He was also the person who taught us how to give first aid in various situations,” Jasmine narrated a couple of things making the 4 Gods widen their eyes at the girl.
Hecate had a peculiar expression as he saw the two special people inside the shop. He could already guess their identity and see what they were doing inside, but that baffled him even more.
“Do you know anything about it?” Castellina asked Equi but she shook her head speaking,
“Even if I knew, I won’t tell you for free. You know how I work, right?”
Castellina sighed before stretching a little and then speaking,” Lust! And the other guy, come out. Or else we will come in,” she spoke, calling out the Sin of Lust, Iris, and Harik, the Angel.
Inside the clinic…
Iris and Harik knew that they were found out, the only reason they didn’t escape was because of the level of entities they were dealing with. Running away was nearly impossible and fighting 3 of them at once… one couldn’t even joke about it.
Hearing Castellina’s words, Harik and Iris looked at each other wondering what they should do next.
“I swear on the name of the All Father that we won’t harm you until you do. We just want to know what is going on here,” Castellina’s next words, kind of shocked the duo though. They were still in doubt but the name on which she swore wasn’t any name that they could just take.
“What should we do?” Iris asked as an angel would be more familiar with the Gods than a Sin would be. Though Harik had never met any of the higher gods in his life… he only heard about them from travelers and soldiers whom he happened to meet once in a decade or so.
“Let’s go. It’s not like we have any other option,” Harik sighed as he resigned his fate for now. If need be he would fight with his life on the line, but until he is sure that he needs to fight, he will try to avoid it as much as possible.
Iris wanted to escape but given the absurdity of the situation a certain thought was floating in her mind.
‘What if this was a part of Neptune’s Plan?’
This certain thought made a thousand times more sense than what she had before. And just because of this, she decided that it was fine to go outside. Though the fact that she can’t do anything even if she wanted to, still remained in her head.
