Poor Ger—only now did he notice, like a drunk waking to cold dawn.

The weird thing behind him had shifted its aim to his wine gourd, like a hawk’s eye snapping to prey.

Seeing the source of his “divinity” about to be smashed, panic hit him like ice water. He dropped the wild act and begged Shelika, “Wait! Please—stop—”

Shelika’s resolve settled like frost on steel; then she moved. She stepped back and seized the opening, voice ringing as she ordered her familiar.

“My retainer—by your claws and fangs, tear this false god’s sanctum!”

The scene ran hot, like drums of an execution rolling in as the BGM.

The Vanguard locked onto the wine gourd, answered sharp, and the 9mm spell-cannon pivoted to full-auto, like thunder in a narrow alley.

Rat-tat-tat, rat-tat-tat—

In less than a second, the wine gourd shot down and shattered on the floor, wine splashing like a crushed moon, clay bursting into shards like dry leaves.

Ger saw and went ashen, tragedy written on his face like storm lines. He threw himself to the fragments and wailed, “Ah—my god of wine—!!”

With the Wine God’s Domain broken, Shelika’s strength surged back, like a tide rushing past the reef.

Mana flared through her body like sunrise; wind whipped the room like a sudden squall. She faced the kneeling, grieving Ger, voice a winter blade: “Wretched desecrator—have you steeled yourself?”

His lecherous guts turned to water; terror drowned him like a night river. He sprawled, pants wet, scuttling back like a crab, begging, “W-wait, I’m a priest of the Wine—”

Even now he tried to lean on status, like a broken crutch on a cliff.

Shelika didn’t buy it. “It doesn’t matter who you are—repent!”

She lifted the iron rod, anger cold as iron in snow, and brought it down hard like a smith’s hammer.

“Ow!!” Ger screamed, a butchered pig in a rain gutter.

One blow wasn’t enough. Shelika swung several more, each strike like sleet on stone, until he was searching the floor for teeth. He crawled out, tail between his legs like a kicked dog; a ring of onlookers jeered like sparrows on a wire, and guards arrived on the news-wind and cuffed him.

Only then did the matter end, like a door closing on a dusty room.

Afterward, Victor and the others praised her, faces bright as lanterns. “Miss, you’re something else!”

Shelika dropped the bent rod, clapped rust from her hands like old bark, and tilted her head. “Am I?”

Victor and the others laughed, voices light as spring rain. “Oh yes, absolutely!”

After the pleasantries, the crowd thinned like mist. As Shelika was about to leave, she noticed a spot by the door where Ger had been tossed out: the intact lower half of the wine gourd, and the upper half smashed to clean shards like broken pottery moons.

Not just shards—there was also a bag of rupees, a little weight of luck like a stone in a stream.

“Heh—consider it tribute to this humble lady,” Shelika said, scooping up the gourd pieces and the bag, like pocketing fallen leaves.

She went back inside and opened the rupee bag, coins gleaming like fish scales.

“Three hundred eleven rupees, plus one large rupee. Tsk, tsk, tsk.”

That’s ten thousand three hundred eleven—an instant windfall, warmth in her chest like spring sun through paper windows.

While she counted, Victor came over with glue, patience like a craftsman’s breath, and patched the gourd. He set the fixed piece on the table, nodded, “This wine gourd’s got fine lines; it should fetch a good price.”

Of course—it had served as a god’s domain, value at least treasure-grade, like jade set in rough cloth.

“I’ll take it to a curio shop,” Shelika said, lifting the gourd like a trophy.

“Mm. Go ahead.” Victor nodded and drifted back to the kitchen like smoke.

Shelika stepped outside and checked her pocket watch, time ticking like dew drops.

One a.m.

Before heading to the inn, she’d hit the market street’s curio shop—so she decided, glancing at the gourd in her bag like a cat eyeing fish.

She walked toward the curio row, footsteps steady as drumbeats.

On the way, her bag trembled—something inside quivered like a moth.

She opened it. Well now—our freshly glued gourd was shaking, a restless heart in clay. Didn’t it fear rattling itself apart?

She reached in on instinct to steady it, hand pale as petals.

The instant her pink fingertips touched the clay, a presence pressed back—wordless, weighty—like a mountain shadow crossing water. A mental link clicked into place like a silver wire.

“Hey? You there? If you are, reply.” The voice sounded lofty, a grand male like a temple bell, but the words were casual as street talk.

“Not there. Bye,” Shelika said, trying to block—sadly, a gourd has no block button, like a drum with no lid.

“Was it you who abused my servant?” The voice held a simmer, heat like coals under ash.

“And if it was? You going to punish this lady?” Shelika’s tone feared neither heaven nor earth—truth like a blade held steady.

Silence for a beat, a pause like snow hanging.

Then he spoke: “Will you serve as my priest?”

“No. Busy,” Shelika said, crisp as flint.

“No priest, fine. Will you do me a favor?”

“What?” She sounded bored, a yawn in moonlight. “Don’t you have a temple full of devotees? Let them do it.”

The voice rolled past that like wind past reeds. “I am Dilnis, God of Wine and of Harmonies. Do this for me, and I’ll upgrade your weapon.”

Shelika perked up, yet frowned, interest like a lifted brow. “Upgrade my weapon? How?”

Maybe slap a +13 on True Crimson Whirl, she snarked inwardly, humor like a flicked pebble.

“Mortal steel can’t harm my favored. I can grant your weapon a special power, so you can fight a god’s chosen,” he said, promise bright as lacquer.

“What’s the job?” Shelika nodded, caution first like a tether, then warned, “Listen. I don’t trust you. I won’t recruit believers. I won’t do anything fussy. Got it?”

He turned peevish, tone like grit. “You’re a troublesome woman.”

He sighed, the sound a reed bending. “Fine… of course.”

“It’s simple. I’ve eyed a bottle of tribute in the Blood God’s temple. Bring me that bottle,” he said, words smooth as poured wine.

An image arrived like a lantern slide. Shelika checked it; the bottle alone screamed money, shine like polished bone.

Which meant trouble, storm clouds on the horizon.

“When you say bring, what way do you mean?” she asked, voice careful as thread through a needle.

“However,” he said, blasé as smoke. “Buy it, steal it, whatever. Just get me the wine.”

No wonder he tapped an outsider, Shelika thought, irony like a sly smile. If things blew up, he wanted no blame.

“Can this lady skip it?” she tried to slip away, ease like a fish dart.

“As you wish. I’ll give you seven days. In those seven, you can change your mind anytime,” he said, time offered like a rope.

He added, persuasion like honey over stone, “Divine weapons are rare, troublesome woman. Think hard.”

Shelika frowned, dignity like a straight spine. “This lady isn’t ‘troublesome woman.’ This lady’s name is Shelika.”

“Call yourself what you want. Bring the wine, and I’ll fortify your chain-sword into a divine weapon,” he said, promise ringing like steel.

The link thinned, mist lifting like dawn. He was about to hang up.

Shelika remembered something and asked, voice a quick hook, “By the way, one question.”

The Wine God’s tone grew testy, temper like a prickle. “Troublesome woman, what now?”

“Is Zofikal also a divine weapon?” Shelika said, curiosity like a pin of light.