5 A quick chat (1)

When we returned, the other people just started to wake up. The corridors were full of half-asleep men. Some only wore their underwear.

'Is this really how it should look inside of a church? Well, then again, this is not like any church from earth, so it's hard to say.'

"Hey, Mike, what are you thinking about?" Leonard asked.

"I was just thinking, what exactly happened in the altar room? Will I also have to do something like this?" Mike asked.

"Ah, we usually don't really talk about things like that to new summons because it's hard for them to understand our way of thinking, but since you asked...

That woman, she was a follower of Sonas. She used to live in the woods with her family, but they were attacked by a 'grey lux'. They would probably all be dead if I hadn't saved them, so she was in my debt.

There are a few conditions to becoming a priest of Sonas, but one of them is finding somebody who is ready to sacrifice himself for you to become a priest. That's probably what you would consider marriage, just without the part of living together forever.

It's the greatest sacrifice you could bring your god, and it's what is necessary to get to the position of priest."

"So that's why there are only men here?" Mike asked.

"Yes, that is right, the only thing a woman in the church of Sonas can do is to sacrifice herself to Sonas so that he may become strong once more."

'Wait... is this a sexist good?'

"I'm... sorry," Mike said.

"You don't have to be, we both knew what would happen, and we had a good time while it lasted. But we have to concentrate on what is happening now. There is no reason to dwell in the past. Make the best out of every moment. That's what we preach here."

We silently walked side by side while other disciples swarmed into the corridor.

"Where are we going?" Mike asked.

"We are going to have breakfast. You can sit with the other summons, so we won't be with me for a short while." Leonard answered.

"Do I really have to? Right now it's okay since you are with me, but with my luck, I used to eat with my hands after almost dying once. The fork pierced my cheek, and I was sent to the hospital." Mike said.

"Hospital?" Leonard raised an eyebrow.

"Ah, sorry, I forgot since you seem to know so much about my world, it's a place where you go when you want to be treated if you have a wound or an illness," Mike said.

"Oh, so it's basically like the church for us? And yes, we know a lot about your world since almost all of our summons come from there. You will be eating with people from your world, so it should be fine, right? And you just increased your luck. I think it's a good time to test it out now." Leonard said.

"You might be right." Mike nodded.

When they entered the dining room, they split up. Leonard went to the table of priests that sat around the pope while Mike walked towards where the summons sat.

But before he had even come close to the table, somebody had already spotted him.

"Oh, that's the new summon. Come here!" a man with the tanned appearance of a bodybuilder waved at him from across the room. He looked to be the oldest summon.

'Hopefully, Leonard was right, and nothing bad will happen,' Mike thought.

He walked towards the older man consciously, but at least for now, nothing happened.

When he reached the table, the good looking man stood up to greet him.

"Ah, finally, a new one arrived. I thought I would be stuck with these idiots forever," he said. "I am Eron. Come sit next to me."

After they sat down, a young man came to bring them their food. It was thick meat, with potatoes and sauce.

"Don't worry, the meat is way better than you would expect from a church. It's like this with most things here since they worship Sonas, who represents joy and luck," a young asian looking man on Mike's left said.

Mike carefully picked up fork and knife and started slowly cutting the meat.

'So far, nothing has gone wrong, but that could change any second. I have to be careful,' Mike thought.

"Ah yes, weren't you the one with the negative luck stat? You don't have to worry about something dumb happening to you here. Our good luck will prevent anything from bad happening to you since it would inconvenience us as well," Eron said.

Mike looked up from his plate. "Wait, how do you know about that?"

Aron laughed. "Did you really think that you could keep something like that a secret here? I think your priest told someone. It was you James, right?"

"Yes!" a young man from the other side of the table shouted.

"Well, I guess you don't know how things work here. Don't worry, I will tell you. First things first: there are no secrets here. In this community, everybody wants the best for themselves, but only if it doesn't hurt Sonas or one of his subordinates, so you will definitely be save.

Then secondly, do you see the table on the left side?"

Mike nodded. On the left side, there were the disciples. In the middle were the priest and the pope, and he and the other summons sat on the right side of the room.

"The disciples there only exist to summon people from our world. Once they do, they become priest, which grants them some new abilities and better status, which also depends on their summons.

So as you can see, basically everything in here depends on us," Eron said proudly.

"And why is that?" Mike asked.

"It's because of the job 'summon of Sonas'. As you have already seen, you get an extra stat point per level. Also, we get skill points more often than ordinary people. So you were pretty lucky to get here," Eron said.

"But how can that be? I have negative luck. Why should I be lucky?"

"Well, I have not totally understood it myself, but they say that luck is situational. For example, the rabbits you killed today were almost physically unable to kill you, so there was no way for you to die to them even with bad luck. Also, it was good luck for Leonard to find the rabbits, which was possible even though he searched them for you.

Likewise, it was bad luck for your reincarnation room to have a breakdown, but good luck for Leonard to find you," Eron replied.

To be continued...