"Hmm..." said Cornelius, reading through the letter. "I'm afraid the good knight requests the impossible..."

  "Impossible?" I asked, as he handed the letter back to me. I hadn't read it—it had been sealed with wax, like all his letters that were addressed to specific names—but now that I saw it open, it didn't say anything other than what we'd discussed. Just that I was in need of a new identity, and to please arrange it, for which payment would be provided at the next opportunity.

  "Don't blame Sir Galahad. He doesn't make a habit of lawbreaking, so he wouldn't have known. It's physically possible, of course. I could erase your previous identity and grant you a new one, marking you as a free citizen of this canton. But the attempt would be very unlikely to end in a way either of us would enjoy."

  "It wouldn't? Why not?" I asked, deciding not to leap to judgement and immediately start complaining, despite the disappointment. It wasn't as if I had any idea how this 'identity' stuff worked.

  "Do you know why the kingdom trusts the church to manage the records of its citizens?"

  "I haven't got a clue," I admitted. "I don't even know how it manages those records."

  "It's simple enough. When you request your Status, how does the great System know what to display? You are 'you'. A unique entity within the System. There are Skills that can attach custom information to that entity, in such ways that it can be retrieved later. That's all we do; attach to your Status a small tag that lists your important information. It's a trick lots of people use. It's the way the adventurers' guild records the ranks of its members, for example. But, of course, the people who want such information recorded tend to also want the recorded information to be accurate. I'm sure the adventurers' guild has procedures of their own, but any priest able to modify someone's identity is required to swear an oath to the gods not to misuse the ability. The gods take oaths seriously, especially those made by their priests. Altering your record would invoke divine retribution."

  Huh. That explained a few things, but also raised a few more questions. I could see the advantages—no-one ever had to carry around bits of paper that they might lose, for a start—but I could also guess at a few disadvantages.

  "Does it work on people who haven't yet unlocked?" I asked, starting with the most obvious.

  "Alas not, but a child who has yet to unlock isn't going to be travelling on their own, or working, so for most use cases, that restriction doesn't matter."

  "Then if lots of people use this method, what stops someone else from altering my identity? Could I visit an adventurers' guild and have them do it?"

  "Again, I'm afraid not. The method is fairly commonly used, but you can't alter information without a corresponding key. I possess a key that lets me alter your identity as a resident of this kingdom. Others would have their own key."

  "Hmm... So there's no way around it. That's going to make delivering the rest of Sir Galahad's missives rather difficult."

  "I'm sorry, but I simply cannot help. I wish it were otherwise. Perhaps you should beseech the gods themselves? If your cause is just, and sufficiently important, perhaps they will grant permission to act against my oath."

  "That's something I can do? Just... ask them?"

  "Why not? It's a far smaller boon than what you asked of them earlier, is it not?"

  "Yes, but that was... well..." I didn't want to say 'talking to myself' when speaking to a priest. He obviously took the gods seriously. He may not appreciate me openly admitting I didn't.

  Thankfully, he didn't seem too put out, simply smiling wryly. "Ascend the stairs and place your hands upon the altar if you wish to hear whatever the gods might have to say to you. But don't expect much; even a mission as important-seeming as yours is a minor thing across the long ages and many kingdoms of the world."

  Expecting much or not, I ascended the stairs to the altar. Given what he'd said about the way identities worked, I would never be free of my status of an illegal runaway if this didn't work. I'd have to leave the kingdom to avoid discovery, and even that assumed that different kingdoms used different 'keys', or maybe recorded identity in some completely different way.

  Apropos of nothing, I placed my hands upon the altar.

  "Why should we fix it when you broke it? Clean up your own damn mess."

  I removed my hands from the altar rather more quickly than I'd placed them.

  "Uh..." I said. Regardless of expectations, there had been a response. Yes, the response had been to my earlier prayer, and not anything to do with the particular request that I had, but it had very definitely been a response. I could swear my head was vibrating from the volume of it.

  Well, that was certainly going to change my opinion of the gods. Up until a few seconds ago, I'd thought of them much like I thought of the king. Most people accepted that he existed and had great power over the kingdom, but they'd never seen him, would never see him, and his existence didn't really play a role in their day-to-day lives. He was just an idea, not a person. I didn't even know his name.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  On the other hand, if the king did suddenly turn up, I'd expect him to be noble and regal, to talk in fancy speech, acting aloof and detached. Likewise, I'd expect the gods to be ineffable and distant. Instead, their response had been... well, human. It was as if the king had turned up at our shack door and invited us out for some stew. The picture just didn't fit.

  I spent a few more seconds stunned into silence by the pure incongruity.

  Bishop Cornelius coughed politely, attracting my attention. "So, might I assume they responded?" he asked, and his expression made it obvious that the fact surprised him. He hadn't been expecting a response.

  "Yes, they responded, but no, they didn't give you permission to break your oath," I answered.

  "Then what did they say?" he asked, obviously intrigued. I might even go so far as to say excited.

  "They said that I should..." I started, and then stopped as realisation dawned. They'd given me pretty damn good advice, actually, if I turned my head sideways and squinted a bit. Yes, the use of 'you' there was hopefully collective, and they blamed humanity for the general suckiness of the world rather than me personally, but if I did frame it as a response to my new question rather than to my general complaint about the state of the world, then it made perfect sense.

  Just because I'd met a few nice and helpful people, I'd suddenly started acting like I needed to rely on them for everything and couldn't do anything myself. Why did I need the priest to cheat when I quite likely had the keys to my new identity in my pocket the entire time? I could clean up my own mess.

  It seemed unlikely that the priests recorded a name. No-one had asked me for mine, back at the unlock ceremony, and besides, it was already in my Status. They hadn't even asked my village. My 'identity' was likely no more detailed than 'serf, Cargellen Canton'. In which case, all I needed was to stop being a serf.

  "What's the procedure for a serf buying citizenship?" I asked.

  "Oh? I'd assumed you'd been marked as a criminal or slave, but you're actually a serf? Unfortunately, I'm afraid it's quite expensive. Since Sir Galahad said he'd pay me later for my services, then I doubt he has given you sufficient funds."

  "How much is 'quite expensive'?"

  "An entire gold coin, I'm afraid."

  "Is that one of these?" I asked, taking out one of the gold-coloured coins I'd looted from the bandits.

  Cornelius stared. "How can you casually take one of those out of your pockets without even knowing what it is? Where did you get it?"

  "I found it in a bandit camp. The bandits self-evidently had no use for it any more, on account of being dead, so I 'rescued' it."

  "... There seems to be more to you than meets the eye, lad," said the bishop. "Very well. It seems that your visit will not prove fruitless after all. Raising a serf to citizen status requires the signature of the lord or an authorised deputy, but Sir Galahad is such a deputy and has stated his request that you be raised to the status of citizen quite clearly. The count has never formally de-authorised him, despite their recent differences, so that much is in order. I have to admit, this document doesn't follow the usual format and the subject isn't a serf of this canton, so procedure dictates that I run it past Count Harvent for confirmation. Alas, he seems rather permanently unavailable of late, so I shall simply have to make a decision myself, and I decree there's nothing untoward at all about this request."

  I peered suspiciously at Cornelius.

  "Just because I'm restricted by an oath doesn't mean I don't want to help," he said, the edges of a grin creeping onto the corners of his mouth. "I can bend the rules a little, especially for one to whom the gods speak. Now, hand me the gold and place a hand on that orb."

  "Uh... You can make me a free citizen of Cargellen, right? Rather than Harvent?" I asked. After all, the borders were closed to citizens of Harvent, and the plan was to openly walk through an official border crossing to get to the royal canton.

  "It's not 'can', but 'must'," answered the bishop. "I can understand why you wouldn't want to pretend you're from this hellhole, but the procedure for a serf buying their freedom doesn't change their home canton. There is a separate procedure for a citizen changing their home canton, but I can't stretch the rules far enough to carry that out, nor does it sound like you want to."

  "Indeed not," I agreed, handing Bishop Cornelius the coin and placing a hand on the orb. It glowed briefly, much as it had in the unlock ceremony.

  "All done," said the bishop. "You're now a free citizen of Cargellen."

  "That was actually rather anticlimactic," I said. "Not that I'm complaining. Thank you very much for the help."

  "It was my pleasure. But, if you're going to bring help for this town, I beseech you to do so soon. Things are quiet now, but it's the calm before the storm. People are tense. Desperate. The moment something happens—a missed food delivery, or another round of 'recruitment' by the count—the entire town is liable to explode."

  "I'll be as quick as I can," I promised. "And on a related note, are there any shops around here?"

  "You won't find food for sale, lad."

  "I wasn't thinking of food. I meant clothes that are a better fit for me, or skill crystals."

  "Hmm... I can certainly suggest multiple stores for clothing, and one for skill crystals, but right now they'll want payment in food, not in coin. I don't know how much you're carrying, but I doubt it's enough to share if you plan on travelling out of the canton."

  "Yeah... Sharing food right now would be tough," I agreed. I didn't have enough to get myself out of the canton as it was, and was expecting a day or two of needing to tighten my belt before I got out of this dying place and somewhere food was readily available for coin.

  A few days without food wouldn't be an issue with my growing Constitution, but a few days without food and jogging constantly as I crossed a considerable distance didn't sound wise.

  "The selection of skill crystals will be somewhat limited, too," continued Cornelius, putting a final nail into the coffin of that plan. "Admittedly, what you'd consider useful might not be the same as what people here find useful—you won't find a single [Farming] crystal in the canton, for example, despite the way nothing will grow properly here—but even so, the selection will be limited."

  "No combat skill crystals?" I asked.

  "Hah. You wouldn't have found them even back before the count went mad. Trade in combat Skills is heavily regulated, you know. Without an adventurers' guild, the only combat skill crystals in the canton were managed directly by the count."

  Yet another reason to sign up with the adventurers' guild once I got to the capital, then.

  "Okay, I'm out of questions. Thanks again for all the help."

  "You're welcome. I just hope the hope you've given me will bloom into actual salvation."

  The exchange over, I pulled open the temple doors.

  "Uh..." I commented, staring out, where people were roving around in groups of half a dozen, armed with clubs, ladles, pans, and anything else they could get their hands on that could be swung and had some weight behind it.

  "There he is!" yelled one of them, spotting me. "In the temple! That's the kid that burned our food!"

  How did they...? Ah, of course. It seemed I was going to greatly regret letting that bandit escape.