Chapter 84: Mistflower 29: Bellia is back

Bellia was still throwing a tantrum and it angered me.

“Hey midget! Aren’t you supposed to be the goddess of nature? Isn’t this mess something that you should fix?!”

“Who are you calling a midget?! Do I need to turn you into a tree?!” The midget goddess stormed at me, put her hands in her side and looked at me.

“So that’s what you do instead of fixing the jungle? Turn other people into trees?!”

Ardella walked over, brought her fist down on bellia’s head and dragged her away.

“Excuse her bad behavior. She is right Bellia, stop being a brat and help the rabbits. You can’t complain about the mythical beasts doing poor and at the same time letting them die when you can help.”

“But...”

Ardella flushed Bellia toward the corrupted vines and rubbed her forehead.

“Sorry about that, so dear water users, what can you tell me about that abomination?”

Muqu and I followed her gaze and had our eyes rest on the water spire.

“All we know is that the water purifies the corruption. We didn’t enter because we have a good idea what’s inside and we don’t want to deal with it.”

I formed water into the shape of the spire and had water surround it.

“The territory has some sort of puzzle or requirement to enter, mostly relating to water. Only water magic can be used in the territory but once in the spire, all elements are available.”

The water changed shape and depicted the first room of the spires.

“The first room is similar to the human game ‘memory’ find the matching texts to lit up the tiles, the door opens after all tiles are lit. As a deity, can you read this?”

Ardella got shown the notes I had made. She made short nods as she flipped through the pages. “I’m not familiar with them but I memorized them. What about the rest? And are all spires the same?”

“Well Muqu and I had been in a flaming spire and an illusionary spire and both were similar. Either the similarities were coincidence or the spires have the same layout. The rest of the spire involves fighting monsters. There are some element related puzzle floors, however.”

The water turned from the layout of the first floor into a large question mark.

“The final floor seems large. It could be outside or seems like it’s outside or in a different dimension. It ties into the element of the spire. We had a volcanic eruption in the flaming spire and some mind-bending experiences in the illusionary spire. I’m expecting underwater challenges and... we don’t want to deal with that.”

Ardella gave us a subtle smile and nod of affirmation.

“Very wise. The water users on this planet tend to get overconfident and have their lives terminate at the bottom of rivers, lakes, seas or oceans.”

Hundreds of bubbles erupted from her and turned into realistic clones after hitting trees or the ground. They floated around before spreading out.

“Bellia will help the rabbits with this corruption while I will address these abominable spires. I will use this water spire as a reference for the others. Thank you for your contributions.”

Ardella made another princess bow and turned into bubbles that moved toward the water spire.

The gods are doing something? That’s a welcome surprise.

Bellia was yelling at the rabbits but she was clearing out the thorny vines at a rapid rate. Seeds fell from her cape which sprouted and turned into clones which also spread out.

The area that had been destroyed by the corruption started to recover. It was as if those parts of the jungle had gone through a timelapse as the trees and shrubs grew at a rapid rate.

“The deities are helping! Aren’t you happy Azu?!”

I was happy but I didn’t feel too great about this.

“I don’t know... I either feel like they waited to the last moment to help or...it became this bad that they had to help. Ardella seems nice but nothing ever went well when deities interfered. At least on Kaledon. I’m talking out of personal experience but I also have Kaledonian history to back me up...”

Bellia seemed friendly with the rabbits but why didn’t she help earlier? Does she get summoned when rabbits die? But she didn’t appear when we were fighting the invasion. Where were they actually back then?

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Do they have a saviour complex? Wait to help when we would be the most grateful? It’s difficult to obtain objective information on the Sarian gods as most is biased as it had been written by their worshippers.

The most objective information would probably come from races like the rabbits who have some love-hate relationship with them, mostly hate.

The rabbits don’t seem all too happy to have Bellia around. They were however happy when she helped with the petrified jungle problem.

“But aren’t deities supposed to be special? I do have to admit that I thought there was just one of them but they split up in front of my eyes.”

“Yes but wouldn’t other races be more appreciative of them when they help out like that? Religion on Kaledon is widely practiced but the majority just acknowledges their existence but doesn’t necessarily worship them. Wouldn’t a helpful goddess get more followers?”

“But would they appreciate someone like that?!”

Muqu pointed at Bellia who was still yelling and being bossy. She wasn’t useless but I would hate to have someone that looked like a 12-year-old child talk to me like that. She just has that vibe that wants you to annoy her and the rabbits seemed to have the same sentiment as they ‘missed’ certain attacks and hit Bellia periodically, which had her yell at them more.

“I would say, they sure are fearless to just harass a goddess like that...”

“Something tells me that all tailed beasts are like that. The 3 young tailed beasts I had met before would probably do something similar...”

Agnis and Raishin had been known as pranksters and troublemakers in Boshi town. Raishin used to catch wild boars which would escape and run around in Boshi town and knock over the inhabitants. Agnis would lay ice traps and create small rain clouds that would follow certain people having only them experience rain. Gregory was the only one who seemed as if he wouldn’t cause too much issues although Agnis and Raishin often dragged him into their stunts.

Quite similar what was happening to Bellia as the rabbits used her as a ping pong ball by using their trampoline flowers and launching her around.

Bellia continued to warn them that behavior like that was the reason they were nearing extinction but I highly doubted that.

Muqu and I retreated to our lair and watched how the vines had almost been pushed back into the tree.

An exhausted rabbit paid us a visit to glean more information about this tree and the origin of the vines.

We offered him food, a drink and to rest but he declined all of it. He listened to the information, thanked us, and went back to work.

The vines had been pushed back into the base of the tree the next morning and the rabbits finally took a break.

They were all passed out in our lair and we tried to be as hospitable as possible but there was one individual that made it difficult.

“What did you do to the spirit residing in this tree?! I bet it was you! You witch! You can’t just kill the spirits!”

Bellia pointed at me and accused me of something ridiculous. I don’t argue with children so I just ignored her. Muqu tried to convince her that we didn’t do anything to the spirit but Bellia stayed belligerent and didn’t listen to anything Muqu said.

“Hey! Cow! Answer me!”

I pointed my folded fan at the nature goddess and set it ablaze.

“What did you call me?!”

“Heh, so you have ears! What did you do to the spirit of this tree?!”

“Didn’t Muqu tell you? The fairies ate it. Do I look like a spirit mage to you? Have some more respect for your elders.”

Bellia’s face got red and she stomped on the ground. “I’m not a child! I’m older than anyone here combined!”

“Then act like it.” I said as I unfolded my fan and hid my smirk.

“Aargh! Wait... why would the fairies eat the spirit?”

“Uhm, dear deity, that’s what my race does. They eat spirits.”

Bellia turned pale. “Why did nobody tell me this?! First I found out that Kaledon was enslaving lightning spirits and now this?! Aaagh! That’s it! I’m going to beat up that bitch Biian. Everything is her fault.”

Bellia grabbed her head and threw another tantrum before she suddenly stopped. “Oh no... the spirit foxes! I need to go!”

Bellia jumped out of the tree and turned into a pillar of vines that shot into the sky.

A strange energy flooded the jungle as many large Bellia’s appeared in the distance. The divine energy they gave off was thick and uncomfortable.

I had no idea what just happened. This conversation was everywhere. Why did the goddess of nature not know that fairies eat spirits? Bellia is the favorite deity of the elves and elves often have close links with spirits. I would have expected her to know by now.

The giant Bellia’s in the distance all seem to be combatting fairies and wiping them out swarm by swarm.

“Hey Muqu, how do you think the rabbits truly feel about the deities? They're doing a thankless job and their kin are getting slaughtered doing it. Then the deities come in only at the last moment to help.”

“Do we know they waited until the last moment though? But I can imagine that the rabbits might feel differently. I could understand that it would cause them to treat Bellia like they did. Harassing her might be the only way they could vent their frustration as going too far might get them killed...”

“I just don't have a high opinion on deities...they’re selfish and petty. They can do what they want as nothing can stop them...”

I got a flashback of that loser Zarrazax and Biian the petty bitch. Shouldn’t they have better things to do than to harass a single Misha? Then there's Bellia who looks and acts like a brat. She seems useful but that's all. Ardella is the only deity that seems okay but I don’t know her.

The water spire in the distance burst open and slowly turned into foam.

I looked at the darkening sky to make an estimate of how long it took for that deity to destroy the spire.

Almost half a day. That’s not very impressive... A Sarian deity takes as long to clear a spire as a Misha and a fairy...

“Azu! Look the water spire has been destroyed!”

Muqu pointed excitedly at the spire that had halfway turned into foam.

I just couldn’t muster the same excitement as her.

The only saving grace was that her body copies must be addressing the other spires spread over the jungle while Bellia’s doubles are dealing with fairies and the corruption.

The looming problems had finally been solved. Cockroach is gone...for now and the fairies are being taken care of. All I need to do is find someone to cure this mosquito bite and to go home.

“Shit, I should have asked one of those deities if they could help... Maybe one of the rabbits can help.”

The rabbits were still passed out and Muqu and I had a dinner and turned in for the night. It had been a mentally exhausting day.

The rabbits had woken up early in the morning and left. I woke up to a note where they expressed their gratitude, that they had dealt with the root of the cause and were heading back to the burrow...

I know that they’re busy but they could at least have stayed longer and took resting a bit more seriously...