A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

"You know 'what'…" Enkai growled softly. "What the hell is going on here?!"

Leaning against the balustrade with one arm, Erik shrugged at him. His small smile showed minimal amounts of shame. "What can I say? It's an independent initiative by two of my girls."

Pushing himself off, he turned to caress Anne's hair with an affectionate look in his eyes. "I didn't expect it to work so well, but I guess I underestimated them."

Anne smiled, enjoying his touch. "It was mostly Nora, Master…" she purred, as her werelynx nature brought out the cat in her. "She's a very compelling speaker."

Enkai looked down at the small group of people below. With Nora having just finished her reading, they were getting up to mingle with each other. Soft laughter and joy rose from them, actually causing Enkai to scowl a little. "There's no way they actually believe you are some kind of divine entity, just because this Nora girl can put some fire in her voice."

He turned back to Erik with narrowed eyes. "What the hell did you do to them?!"

Fortunately, Erik had isolated the surrounding sound already, just so no one below could hear them.

Rather than Erik, it was Anne who responded. "Is it really so surprising they cling to this idea?" she asked calmly, her voice filled with a kind of fierce defiance she didn't show when talking to Erik. "When was the last time you talked to the citizens one on one? I've been among them for nearly a month now, helping Nora set this all up, and people are scared."

She looked up at Erik with a devoted smile. "Before the hunters arrived, your people believed their martial prowess would guide them through anything, but they almost wiped you out. Then, Master came, and he possessed a power that even these invaders couldn't match."

As she talked, Erik continued caressing her hair. With an amused grin, he listened, curious about her thoughts.

Anne looked at a frowning Enkai again, a prideful look in her eyes as she puffed out her chest. "Under his guidance, the kingdom was saved… but the faith Enkarians had in their martial prowess was shaken. Now, I ask you, is it really strange?"

Suddenly, another voice joined them. "Couldn't have said it better myself, Anne," Nora grinned as she walked in on them from another door. Her servant outfit hung tightly to her voluptuous body as blond hair cascaded down.

Just as with Anne, pride filled her very being. Yet, she instantly walked over to Erik, grabbed his free hand, and placed it on top of her head.

Chuckling, Erik started caressing Nora's hair as well. Although the latter didn't start to purr like Anne, she did breathe a little louder.

"You may not have noticed," Nora continued, haughtily, "but many of your people were looking for something new to fill the faith they lost."

She spread her arms, a fervent look in her blue eyes. "And why not fill that place with my master? Is he not powerful?! Did he not save this kingdom?!"

The fires of conviction filled her every word as they stabbed at Enkai. "Does he not embody the very martial prowess they just lost faith in?! Does he not have mysterious means no one's heard of before?! Is he not able to comfort us merely with his presence?! Am I not describing a God?!"

To his surprise, Enkai felt forced to take a step back in the face of her powerful belief. It actually felt like her words assaulted his willpower directly. Whatever this was, his third-ranked power didn't protect him against it, but he found it relatively easy to resist.

Yet, it left him bewildered and confused. "Y— You… you're taking advantage of their ignorance!" he stammered, the normally stern old man's visage wavering a little.

A wild, slightly crazy grin spread across Nora's lips. She pointed at Enkai. "You're describing religion, old man! Faith in divine beings means believing in something you don't understand, trusting your faith will be rewarded, and finding comfort in that trust!"

She lowered her hands and wrapped them around Erik's waist. "The difference with other religions is that my master is actually here to reward their faith!"

Her voice lowered a little to sound more reasonable as she shrugged. "Is that really so bad? Some people simply need faith in something to get through the days in a harsh world. Why not let them believe in a God who will answer at least some of their prayers?"

Erik blinked, Enkai staggered, and Anne looked at Nora proudly.

Truthfully, even Erik felt himself convinced by her words. 'Perhaps I should lean a little more into this…' he thought, strangely. 'When she puts it like that, this whole thing suddenly doesn't sound as bad…'

He'd been a little uncomfortable about this deification thing from the start, but Nora almost made it sound like he was doing the people a favour. Honestly, moral concerns were the main thing stopping him from being more in favour of this. He wasn't unfamiliar with opportunistic pragmatism, after all.

A voice ripped him from his thoughts as Elora giggled through their bond. "Hehehe, she's honestly even better than I thought."

Erik blinked again, his eyes widening. "Wait, that—"

"Hehe, yeah," Elora interrupted him with amusement. "People like her are rare, but I've actually read about them. She's a proselytiser. No one knows how or why, but some people are simply gifted with an extraordinary ability to both throw the entirety of their being behind a single thing, and convince others to do the same."

She shrugged mentally. "Why do you think I had her do all this? I wanted to test her, and it was a complete success! Just now, she even influenced you a little, bringing you one step closer to believing in your own divinity!"

Erik's eyebrows twitched, a shudder going through his spine. He looked at the woman by his side a little more warily than before. "Well, we need to do something about that!" he growled at Elora, a little annoyed by her flippancy.

"Oh, relax," Elora chuckled at the hint of fear she felt from him. "Her ability isn't actually that powerful—I was just exaggerating. You'd need an extraordinarily low willpower for her to make you believe you're a god. Yours is far too high for that."

Erik breathed a sigh of relief. He trusted Elora completely, so his wariness dropped significantly. Yet, even if he was aware of it now, he still couldn't help but be a little more open to this divinity thing.

Meanwhile, Enkai needed a moment to gather his thoughts. One speech was far from enough to convince him of anything, but he strangely couldn't deny some of the validity in her arguments. Thus, he became a little less wary of this whole thing.

Finally, he sighed and relaxed a little again. "Fine… whatever… we'll deal with his later," he muttered, palming his face. Ignoring Nora's victorious grin, he turned to Erik. "Can we deal with the situation downstairs now? I've already seen my son among your followers, and I want to know why so many of the young ones are tied up there…"

Having come to his own realisations and decisions, Erik smirked and nodded. "Sure, let's go."