Bro, I'm not an Undead!

(A/N: I won’t be changing how I address Skullius with ‘Festos’ yet. There will come a time…)

….

Shortly after navigating through the clean but crowded streets, following the word ‘temple’ every where he heard it, Skullius finally found the building he was looking for.

The structure was magnificent to say the least. From an aerial view, the building looked like a three leaf clover, rounded edges and all.

It was massive in size, painted in white with a large and captivating golden three point star at the face of its build.

Its entrance was elevated from the ground, with quite the long stretch of stairs that led into the building.

Around the structure was a free space devoid of commercial constructs for almost forty meters on every side as the space was occupied instead by pools, benches and three grand statues that lacked distinctive features except gender.

No detail to their faces was added as it was believed that no one had the right to give a definitive appearance to the three Deities, thus tall, rock outlines were made to simply represent the ones above Divinity.

A long line of people could be seen waiting for a turn to enter the temple, while a few others were leaving with either glad or depressed faces down the opposite side to those that stood with anticipation while looking ahead._.

Skullius looked at these people as he wondered what they wanted so badly that hundreds of them would stand in a long line that descended down the stone stairs. The line was just that long and the heat was so much that Skullius didn’t see how it was worth it to stand all day enduring it for anything.

He saw one of those that were coming from the building with a depressed face, muttering to himself as he stomped in rage.

“How can my Direction be so cruel?! Why can I not become a warrior like my father?! Me, a farmer?! Are those priests really convening with the Deities or just feeding us nonsense?!”

The Discount Human couldn’t help but catch on to one word the man said which he was familiar with.

Direction.

That reception lady had said the same thing.

What exactly was that?

Skullius had half a mind to wait in line but he knew that if he did, the countdown for [Flesh It Like You Mean It] would catch him while he was in the midst of the crowd and he would be fleshed.

So he might as well leave and search for information first.

He turned to walk away when a voice called to him.

“Hello, sir.”

The Discount Human turned to see a woman in a white robe with a three-pointed star, her dark hair flowing down the pristine piece of clothing in a beautiful contrast.

She wore a sweet smile as she looked at Skullius with kindness and a cute tilt of her head, no grimace being seen as she remained impartially sweet.

“Have you been enlightened to the beauty of the Deities, the influence of their Direction and the goodness of their… Eh?”

Skullius… had bolted away at full speed.

The Discount Human had seen the red flag and immediately decided to dip before it was too late!

One needed to learn from previous mistakes.

The dust he raised as he took off was vivid from where the kind young lady was standing, wondering what she had done wrong.

‘I won’t fall for it again! Damn goody goodies trying to get themselves killed!’ Skullius thought as he made a sharp turn.

He had a feeling that such a person was one of those that would willingly offer their help.

‘Flesh good people! I only hang out with socketholes now!’

The racing Discount Human only came to a stop when he truly felt safe, assimilating into the crowds as he followed after those who seemed to have a purposeful journey.

His aimless tour led him find some rather interesting discoveries about himself and the city.

First off, he heard some people speaking in a language he didn’t understand, the language being outside the scope of [Greater Communication]. It wasn’t something ground-breaking but it opened Skullius’ eyes to the limit of his skill which had reached level 7 from constant use.

The second was the various structures within the city that could accomplish one of his goals. For instance, the several blacksmith shops he had seen with gruff, thick-bearded men covered in soot and sweet, publicly pounding on hot metal as they forged different weapons.

Skullius didn’t need to be a genius to know that one of these was the solution to fixing the sword he wanted to fix so badly.

[Demion’s Dance].

He didn’t rush to that though, as he felt that he needed to be careful with such a powerful weapon and who he showed it to.

Socketholes were good and all, but they tended to want to screw someone over.

The last discovery he made was that there were services he couldn’t get publicly as when he was about to enter a certain part of the city, a certain man who fit the typical sockethole profile according to his evaluation on the human side, stopped him and asked what his business was in that area.

Skullius had happily answered that he wanted to buy information, his sincerity and coin earning him an escort to the large market of shady goods and services.

So many socketholes to choose from!

What looked like a normal residential area was actually littered with illegal activity hidden behind wooden doors.

Skullius’ escort had offered him a recommendation, leading him to a man who looked like he was running a generic food stall where roasted meat and fish were neatly placed on clay slates.

The man had short, dark hair and a stubble, downturned, brown eyes that focused on the fish he was frying being additions to the features on his face.

He wore nothing extraordinary as he looked like a typical hawker on the side of the uncrowded street, trying to earn as little as he could.

The only strange thing was that nobody stopped to even glance at his stall which almost made it seem out of place in this place.

‘Alright. Let’s finally get some answers,’ Skullius thought as he walked up to this man.

The world he resided was about to explode in his perception…