“Urgh….” Sel groaned as he massaged his aching forehead, his body taking solace in the comfortable, smooth luxe feeling of freshly washed bedsheets and pillow covers, all complete with a tinge of perfume, albeit a bit foreign. However, he felt slightly restrained, with too many fluffy bolsters and pillows surrounding his large bed.

Since when was my bed this big?

That fact had him jolt awake instantly, sitting right up only to see a disturbing sight: an eerie floating butler suit that had no head, save for a tendril of smoke slowly dissipating into the air that did not trigger the fire alarm. The butler bowed to him cordially before offering him a tray filled with breakfast goodies.

Sel can’t remember the last time he had breakfast in his bed. Hey, the new adviser is pretty nice… but whose room is this? Is this still my house? He glanced around the walls, noticing the furnishings and cupboards had all been swapped out. He unable to recognize whose room it previously was – it certainly wasn’t his mother’s or sister's.

“I hope you don’t mind me taking this room. I’ve already had your aunt’s stuff packed outside into separate boxes. If you want me to take another room, let me know.” The butler suddenly spoke with a familiar voice – that of the adviser. It nearly caught Sel off-guard, but judging from the smoke, he half-expected the adviser to be nearby.

“Huh…. I didn’t know you were into hiding within costumes.” Sel muttered, inspecting the elaborately designed butler suit, trying to spot how the adviser had squeezed her body in.

“You seem a lot perkier than before, much better than your previous moping self. Finally ready to move forward?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Meet me in the living room, and we’ll talk next steps.”

“But you’re already here…?”

“It’s easier to demonstrate in a larger area.”

Sel nodded, leaving the room only to see that the entire house had been cleaned up like never before. The walls seemed to have be repainted, while creaky wooden floor tiles were replaced with glossy vinyl planks, overlaying the old floor. He can’t remember the last time the railing on the stairwell sparkled this much. Did it even sparkle at all before?

No trace of the police raid or his aunt’s drunkenness remained, save for her belongings all stashed away nicely into three sets of cardboard boxes. No glass shards, broken chips of wooden furniture, or coats of dust from long-term neglect remained.

It went even beyond a clean-up: it was a complete renovation of sorts. A brand new exquisite carpet dominated the landing of the stairs, making the living room seem opulent of sorts. Sel suddenly felt that his t-shirt and jeans were woefully underdressed for the occasion, especially with the formal butler suit following him from behind.

Wait a minute, what the fuck am I saying? This is my house!

The adviser was already waiting for him, though her outfit seemed to have devolved further from the t-shirts and jeans into a tank-top and shorts combo.

“Got the energy and motivation to ogle? Good. Stand here.” The adviser pointed to the center of the living room, Sel complying and trying to avoid his gaze. “I was just joking. Now, time for the real briefing. I assume Tiberius hasn’t explained shit to you about how anything works here.”

“Here? My house?”

“I meant in this nation. The Administration, etc. And as to what your role is : because I’m not going to be around forever. I got shit to do, and so do you. Lots of shit.”

“Like….?”

“Like fixing your temple?”

The realization suddenly hit Sel like a headlong car crash, his slightly joking and motivated mood dampened instantly. Shit, Angelina! The orphans in the temple! “How long was I gone?”

“Take a look at the renovations around this house, how long do you think you were gone?”

Sel’s heart began to panic. The scale of the renovations seemed to be close to a month or two months worth of work. You mean it’s been a month since-

“Relax, it’s only been two days since you failed the Daily Quests. Things go a lot faster when you got unlimited budget and unlimited coordinated hands.” The adviser motioned towards the floating butler suit who still stood at attention near the side. “Now, focus on this briefing, and then solve your problems later, got it?”

Sel nodded, prompting the adviser to release a copious amount of smoke once again just like in the first fight. He instantly got into a fighting posture, but instead of smoke figures appearing, the shape of the planet slowly morphed into view, a three-dimensional visualization out of smoke.

“So, you’ve listened to the sermons from the temple. You know that gods exist, mythical powers, fantasy yada yada yada. At least in the past.”

“You mean the myths and legends? Yeah, but those were a long time ago.”

The adviser smirked as she paced around the planetary sphere, poking with her fingers into landmasses, marking the smoke with a different bright colour to indicate hotspots. “What if I told you that ‘long time ago’ was only ten years ago?”

Ten years? “You mean the gods were… wait. You’re implying the gods were around recently, but now they aren’t? I thought they were still there, just not replying to us.”

“That’s the thing – gods have always replied to offerings, prayers and rituals. They might not respond in the way we want or the way we believe they would respond, but divine intervention has always been a thing. For example, the statues you have in the temples directly connect to their respective gods.”

“And….?”

The adviser groaned, slapping her palm onto her forehead. “Do I have to spell it out for you? If you can’t even put two and two together, I’m going to – “

“Okay, hold on, I think I got it. The gods are missing either by choice or forced.”

“Even worse. The current theory is that they’ve been killed.”

Sel stared at the adviser, before a small smile appeared on his face. “You’re joking right. Aren’t gods… you know, gods? Who can even kill them? Can they even kill themselves?”

“We don’t know. Maybe there was a war between the gods, or maybe there was a change in how the whole hierarchy works, anything. The fact is – the first Deity Interface User was recorded ten years ago in the Administration. We don’t have the data on the other nations out there, but we stick to what we know and work on it.” The adviser waved her hand, the planet changing to a layout overview of the Administration and the various cities under it.

Bright hotspots appeared in each city, in the shape of a human figure. “Since then, more and more users have been popping up with increasing frequency. At first, it was one every three years; now, it seems to be one every six months.”

“And I’m one of them?”

“Correct. As soon as the video of you holding the statue and allowing it to glow, we knew you had a high chance of being a user.”

Damn it, Angelina… Sel didn’t react externally as much, simply nodding.

“But the advent of users are not the only thing changing. Plenty of other supernatural occurrences are spreading all over the Administration, as if every mythical being has descended from whatever world they had been living on.”

“Mythical beings? You mean like werewolves and dragons?”

The adviser gave Sel a sidelong glare. “What the fuck are you talking about? Stop talking about non-existent shit. I’m talking about heavenly entities, cosmic forces, or maybe some amalgamation of the two.”

More smoke figures began to rise all over the Administration, though they hardly looked human. Sel saw one smoke representation of a four-armed spider with three necks, lashing around with its spiked tongues violently.

“Now, we don’t know what their purpose is. Some of them want to help, some of them to harm, others to conquer. Each and every ‘being’ that descended to us has their own motivations and ideology. However, in general, the Administration naturally takes a negative view on all of this.”

“Meaning…?”

“It’s an alien invasion. And it’s happening on an increasingly larger scale than ever. At some point we would be completely overwhelmed. To top it up on that, we got rogue users running around and doing whatever the hell they want.”

Sel averted his gaze, ignoring the side jab from the adviser. “And the Special Suppression Unit is supposed to stop that?”

“Correct. We’re trying to hunt for anomalies. Weird things happening, things that seem irrational. Humanity on a whole is pretty irrational, but if you suddenly had ten thousand humans running out into the forest to hug a tree without any prior obvious coordination, this is where the agents come in. That’s you.”

“Right….”

“When we recruit new users, we generally have them handle specific regions that they are familiar with. This way, it is easier for them to spot and suppress anything that stands out as an anomaly.”

“What would be considered an anomaly?”

“Anything that drastically breaks the semblance of normalcy in the city.”

“Normalcy is pretty subjective.”

“It is. We’re working on a more concise method of sorts, but for now, there is one singular common factor that can help us to identify all of them. Guess what it is?”

Sel thought for a moment. The way they found me was through social media. But it’s not a given every user or mythical being would use social media or appear on social media. “It’s the Faith, isn’t it?”

“Exactly. That’s the second way we locked onto you – Faith. However, that doesn’t mean you go around blasting everyone and everything that has even the slightest bit of faith energy in them. Humans generally have ambient faith energy being generated and leaked in their day-to-day life. What we’re looking for is abnormal amounts or amounts where they shouldn’t be.”

“How do I tell?”

“That’s where your Deity Interface comes in. Every user should be able to feel the Faith energy that’s ever-present all around them. You know that tingling sensation you get in your jaw and your gum?”

“Huh?” Sel looked at the adviser blankly, who returned the same look.

“Or that hair-raising goosebumps on the back of your neck…?”

“Uhh… not really.”

“Then how the hell do you know if you’re receiving Faith or not?!”

“I hear a voice announce it.”

“Everybody has that, idiot! Each and every user should have their own unique tick in how they sense Faith. Either by touch, smell, sense, sight, whatever!”

So she senses Faith by her jaw tingling? Sounds like coke to me. “I don’t think I ever had that experience yet.”

“Hmm….” The adviser tapped her chin, deep in thought, as the smoke visualization shifted to the city of Akama, its landmarks visible, including the temple. “Looks like we have a lot of work ahead of us. Moving on – your goal is simple.”

“Be the new Shaman of Akama?”

“Exactly. Either that or just get to a point where most of the town would have put their faith in you.”

Who would even put their faith in me after everything that has happened? “Sounds like you want me to be akin to a warlord if you want every agent to become a local religious leader. How many other users or agents are there, anyway?”

“That’s on a need-to-know basis, and you certainly don’t need to know that. What you can know is that you and I are the only two registered users in this whole city, no one else. So if anything funky crops up, it’s either a rogue user…”

“Or one of those mythical beings.”

“Right on. The end goal of being the new Shaman is to stabilize the city.”

“What happens when I’m done?”

“Huh?” The adviser was taken aback. “What do you mean when you’re done?”

“Like, when I’m done stabilizing the city.”

“Then you keep it that way for the remainder of your life. I, or more specifically, Tiberius, do not care HOW you stabilize the city, so long as you ensure it.”

“Akama seems pretty stable already.”

“Really?” The adviser let out a mirthless laugh. “After everything that has happened to you? If anything, I think there’s something out here, we just don’t know what.”

“Something…?”

“That’s on you and me to figure it out. But I’m only here to assist you for a while – with the increasing frequency of users appearing, it won’t be long until my next assignment.”

“Right….”

The smoke visualizations dissipated into nothingness, fading away, leaving Sel standing in the center of the living room awkwardly.

“Well then, get to it.” The adviser clapped her hands twice. “I’ll hold down the fort, no worries.”

“Get to…?”

“Your temple, you idiot. How are you going to be the new Shaman when your temple is still shot to shit!? GO!”

The flustered Sel quickly ran up the stairs to his room, which hadn’t changed much. Grabbing a jacket and a cap, he sprinted back down to the door, racing out into the streets towards the temple with abandon.

The grounds in front of the temple were still an absolute mess. Bloodstains and empty cartridges, along with his crashed car and bullet holes in the stone walls of the temple, all triggered Sel’s memory once more. It was here that he soon felt the weight of the new goal, the implications behind being the new Shaman.

It means Shaman Peris is not around anymore.

Sel quickly banished the thought from his head, knowing he couldn’t dwell on regret or despair any longer. Not when there were still people who counted on him. As he pushed open the main doors of the temple, the chaos of that firefight was as vivid as day, spoken through the stained and crumpled prayer mats.

Bits of powdered concrete were strewn on the floor next to the pillars, the tainted glass window shards coating the floor. The main hall of the temple still remained cold and uncaring, as if the gods were truly dead, unbothered by their house of worship trampled and desecrated like this.

The altar had been knocked over and ripped off its hinges while other totem poles and religious artifacts were missing, the center of attention laid bare. Fucking looters took everything!

Sel ran to the corridor that led towards the dormitory and offices in the back, hoping that someone was still around. The sight of his childhood being desolate and empty was already twisting his heart apart – everyone in the temple leaving would be even more of a blow to him.

He hurriedly paced down the corridor, checking each office to find nothing except stripped cables, strewn strands of paper and missing computers, everything of value torn away from its housing. Not even the wires in the walls were safe, strewn apart like meat from a bone.

The shaman’s office was also a complete wreck, the hardwood table completely missing, with none of the usual paraphernalia that Shaman Peris hoarded here. A cupboard was smashed apart, the cashbox of the temple laid conspicuously bare, its lock sawed apart.

Sel gingerly stepped through the debris, his feet crunching on each broken facet of his time here as he tried to find anything meaningful that he could salvage. Suddenly, he heard a shuffling of feet nearby, coming from the library door that did not seem damaged.

“Hello? Anyone? Angelina? Kait?” Sel called out, but nothing responded. He slowly moved over, opening the library door to reveal pristine bookcases, the library completely untouched. “Huh… guess the looters don’t read.”

As soon as he stepped through the door, his right foot found itself in a loop of rope, which was instantly pulled, causing Sel to crumple to the floor.

“Drag him!” He heard young voices shouting; his body dragged along the library floor as Sel scrambled to find purchase, digging his fingers deep into the tiles and holding on. Soon, he managed to cancel the pull force, straining as he fought against the rope.

“GET HIM!” Three hidden kids jumped out from between the bookcases, wielding bats and hammers, rushing at him.

“Hey, hey, stop! It’s me! Senior Sel!”

“Huh? Senior Sel is in prison! He’s lying! Beat him up!”

The three kids rained blows down on him, whacking him as hard as they could. The moment Sel lifted his arms to protect himself, the rope was tugged again, dragging him out towards another three kids, who immediately tossed a makeshift net made out of rope onto him, tying him up.

Sel squirmed as he was hit from every direction, though the strength of the kids was not as bad as expected. He tried to explain himself but only earned a blow to the head every time he tried to lift his head.

“This is for Shaman Peris, you criminal!” One of the young altar girls threw an entire vase at Sel, the porcelain shattering apart as it cracked on his shoulder.

“Kait, wait! That’s Shaman Peris’s most precious collection, stop!” Sel hurriedly called out before she could throw another vase.

“How would a criminal know that?”

“I’m not a criminal! I’m Senior Sel; I’m back to help!”

“Senior Angelina said anyone entering the temple apart from her is a criminal, so you, too, must be lying. She also said criminals always lie.”

“Look, Kait, I’ll give you a nice apple candy later if you get the – ow – other kids to stop, okay?”

The six of them stopped, looking at each other. “Maybe it really is Senior Sel.”

“Yeah, see? I know what each and every one of you likes!”

Instead of retreating, the six kids continued to beat Sel up even harder. “OW! WHY?”

“Because Senior Sel betrayed us! He got Shaman Peris killed!” Kait screamed, grabbing another of Shaman Peris’s precious vases and tossing it at Sel. “You’re a criminal now!”

Sel protected his head, curling up to a ball under the net as the kids beat him as much as they could until they, too, were far too tired, their arms lacking the strength to swing the bats and hammers any longer. Tears welled up in their eyes as they swapped to using their fists, weakly punching Sel.

“Why? Why did you do this? Why? Senior Sel was supposed to protect us!” Kait wailed, hitting Sel with her tiny fists non-stop in desperation and frustration.

“I…. I’m sorry… I…” Sel didn’t know how to console the kids, not when they were telling the truth.

“Are you really sorry?” A new voice wafted from behind Sel. “Are you prepared to repent for all the sins that you have committed? Do you truly wish to make up for all that has happened?”

“I am, Angelina. I…. What I did was wrong. What has happened to the temple was entirely my fault. But I’m willing to make it better, to make the future better. All I ask is for you to allow me back. But if what I’ve done was too much for all of you, then I will leave and not disturb the temple any longer.”

“You know, before Shaman Peris died, he told me that you would come back. And that we would welcome you with open arms no matter what you did. But honestly? After everything that has happened? I don’t think I’m ready to welcome you.”

Sel didn’t know what to say, but he soon felt the net being untied, allowing him to turn around and face Angelina, who had a messy, haggard look, the face of one who had suffered. “Leaving me behind alone to take care of all the kids? And then coming back, thinking that we would accept you back based on words alone?”

A tight slap rang out as Angelina smacked Sel across the face as hard as she could.

“Don’t be stupid. You’re going to work your ass off until you’ve rebuilt this temple to what it was before. Then maybe we’ll talk about acceptance.”