Ch. 13: The Defensive Country of Uriel

I had a bad habit of avoiding anything that annoyed me, and the Defensive Country of Uriel basically defined the word 'annoying.' The church had a branch in every city across the world.

In fact, having a church was what made a 'village' a 'city' to begin with, but Uriel was on a different level. The 'country' was basically just the city and surrounding area, but I'd never been within 200 miles of the place.

It was similar to how I'd stayed far away from the entire country of Amale, since they had been the ones who originally summoned and then tried to kill me, killing pretty much all of my classmates instead. Uriel was pretty close to them on my list of nuisances.

First off, Uriel was completely enclosed. The only way to typically get in was to be born inside the city. The entire city was basically its own separate genetic line, inbreeding for hundreds of centuries, probably ever since Wimp got old enough to suckle.

They boasted themselves 'Closest to God,' and the only ones that left the city became bigshots in churches across the globe. Emerging Nations had to pay a 'gratuity tax' to Uriel, or their neighbors would wipe them off the map as 'godless civilizations.' I always kinda figured that if Uriel saw my face, I'd be having problems with every country in the world, but it didn't really matter if I was making an enemy of Wimp anyways.

My skills technically allowed me to teleport anywhere that I had a clear picture of. I also had a spell called [Lingering Perception] that allowed me to see anything that I tagged with it permanently in real time.

[Lingering Perception] had horrible efficiency, but the more MP I pumped into it, the bigger the area it worked on was. As it stood, I could instantly view and teleport to anywhere in the world with the exception of Amale and Uriel, where I'd never toured.

I teleported as close as I could to Uriel and used my skills to cover the remaining distance as fast as I could. I ended up stopping in front of the massive Uriel gates as I pumped out my Lingering Perception with all of my MP. It instantly covered the entire capitol city, though there was now a fifty mile ring of blind spots that I'd have to fix after I found Wimp and blasted him until he took back my curse.

"You're kidding me, right?" I asked the guard the moment that my brain processed the information that my [Lingering Perception] gave me.

"Leave. Now."

"I want to talk." He looked at me for a moment.

"Grant Carr?"

"My name is Arc. Let me in or die." I said it totally casually, but I meant it. He glowered for a moment, but he backed off, yelling "Open the gates!"

"Don't bother." I plucked the iron grill of the gate and spatially detached it from its track and the chains holding it up, tossing it into my storage dimension.

Part of why I did it was to annoy Wimp, while another part of it was because I was not going to waste time and effort on dealing with the people of this city.

"I'll show myself around." I took my time, but I walked through the city in a straight line. Despite the fact that their city was literally being invaded by someone who just blinked their gates out of existence, everyone in the city was disgustingly ordinary. Nobody even glanced my way.

Children were playing in the streets, people were going to church, their jobs, and babies were being born in homes and hospitals across the city, even as I walked straight up to the gigantic cathedral in the center of the city with the full intention of 'dealing' with their god using any means necessary.

It made me sick.

"We cannot let you pass any further." Five women were waiting at the cathedral, guarding it from me. When I analyzed the girls, their jobs were listed as God's Arch Guards.

"I've already played your little game as much as I'm gonna. I want my curse reversed. Now."

"We are God's Children."

"We guard God's Cathedral."

"The unworthy are not welcome."

"All play God's game."

"We dance in God's palms."

One by one, they each said something stupid. The gist of it was "We're gonna play along with Wimp's will and die for no reason."

"You're really gonna make me even more annoyed? Just fix my curse and I'll go on ignoring your 'god' for the rest of existence." I put air quotes around the word 'god,' because I refused to acknowledge this idiot as a superior existence. The women all prepared for battle.

"You guys are all pretty strong, but you were put here cause you look like cute girls from T.V back on earth, right? Real arrogant, man." I used [Skill Combination] to incapacitate the girls, then I used my monstrous stats to jump through a wall near the top of the cathedral.

Unsurprisingly, I landed exactly where I wanted to. In a room with a lone old man.

"So he's in some sort of extra-dimensional space, huh? Really wanted to kill him in person, but I guess talking will have to do for now."

"Mr. Carr. God has informed me of your anger, and he understands. However, he cannot allow you to become a threat to his world."

"Done with that. Drop it all. Talk to me for real, now." I let the threat hang in the air for a moment.

"I refuse to allow you to run rampant across my world. It's MINE!" An old man throwing a tantrum like a little kid. Yup, this was definitely Wimp. Finally, dropping all the stupid stuff.

"You're not ALLOWING me to do anything. I can counter anything that your stupid skill can do, and that curse isn't gonna stop me from getting that skill one day, tearing into whatever dimension you're hiding in, and slaughtering you where you stand. Just drop the curse now, and I'll give you the time of day. I'm too selfish to destroy this world, you know."

"The people in this world are MINE! I get to decide which civilizations rise, and which fall. I decide who lives and who dies, and it's FUN!" the old man flapped his robes angrily like a child.

I kind of figured it'd be this way, but making Wimp, no… Kid, see reason would probably end up doing wonders for this world. I wanted this world to flourish eventually, so I'd tried.

"I'd rather work to better civilization. Or just stay out of it and do whatever I want. Using lives as your own playthings isn't gonna end well." Of course… No kid would just take that at face value. You needed experience to understand that.

That was likely the difference between Earth's god and Kid here. Earth's god didn't interfere, because he'd likely learned that to an extent, but this kid was way too immature to even bother trying.

Essentially, I was just some guy trying to take away his favorite toy. And…

"This is MY WORLD! And I DON'T WANT YOU IN IT!" I felt an itch at the back of my head as my [Omnipotence Resistance] automatically activated. Kid tried killing me on the spot, huh?

Unsurprisingly, channeling that type of skill through the old pope's body instantly killed him, but did nothing to me.

"Guess that's war." I didn't want war, but nobody should ever give a child an entire planet to rule, you know?

I didn't pretend to be some sort of genius who knew what the world needed, but this kid was definitely gonna have to go.