Summoned a God by Mistake, Now He Won’t Go Back - Chapter 129

The speed at which she made decisions was both Guardian Zynie’s greatest strength and her most dangerous flaw. So fixated on closing matters quickly, she had cut deliberation down to almost nothing and dismissed it as wasted time.

For issues that genuinely called for swift action, this worked fine. But Zynie applied the same approach to matters that required gathering opinions and working through proper discussion.

Pretty fast, aren’t I? Even faster than Virelda? She wanted her competence to show through efficiency.

A Guardian was the final decision-maker and the one responsible for overseeing council meetings. But she was not a ruler. When the need arose, many decisions were put to a vote. That was simply how things had always been done.

But Zynie refused to call votes, dismissing them as a waste of time. Every decision was made on the spot, in whichever direction she personally believed was right.

“She hasn’t held a single vote since she started.”

“It’s not just votes, she’s barely holding any meetings anymore either.”

“Isn’t she just doing whatever she wants?”

Discontent had begun to simmer when the next problem arrived. A river ran through Aldehallow, and heavy rains often caused it to overflow. The season for flooding was approaching, which made repairs to the embankment urgent.

The question was where to begin.

Zynie gave the order without a second thought: start from the north side of the river. No meeting was called, no input was sought. She didn’t consider it a significant enough matter to warrant one.

She thought of it the way one might think about which hand to raise first, right or left. Hardly a decision worth agonizing over.

While the repairs were underway, heavy rain struck without warning. The southern bank gave way, and the disaster unfolded in an instant. The flooding caused severe damage throughout the city.

“They should have started from the south, that’s upstream. They’ve always done it from the south. Why was it done backwards this time?”

“The witches on the council must have decided at a meeting.”

“Wait, don’t you dare put this on the witches. There was no meeting!”

Everyone made it clear that Zynie had acted alone. The blame landed squarely on her shoulders.

“I–I can just fix it all with magic!”

Zynie grabbed her staff and headed outside. But no matter how hard she tried, even with her newfound ability to cast without bleeding mana, reversing this kind of damage so rapidly was beyond her.

She poured herself into the restoration effort all day, and managed to cover only a fraction of the affected areas. She had burned through so much magic that by the following morning, she couldn’t drag herself out of bed.

“My neighbor’s support beam is now sticking through my wall!”

To make matters worse, complaints flooded in that even her repairs hadn’t been done properly. At the same time, voices calling for Virelda’s return grew louder.

At first it had been quiet whispers in corners where Zynie wouldn’t hear. But the number of people speaking up kept growing, and the tone kept sharpening, until people were saying it openly to her face.

“You know that if Virelda formally challenges you to a duel, you’d have to hand back the title.”

“That position was never meant to be permanent.”

“Did you actually even duel Virelda in the first place?”

Zynie lay on her side in bed, wiping away tears. These were people who had never been so cutting when she was younger. Back then, they had forgiven her mistakes because she was just a child.

There was no such leniency now. Zynie had become an adult, and the world had turned cold without giving her any time to prepare for it.

“Everyone hates me now. No one has a kind word to say, and I feel completely alone…”

She sniffled, murmuring to Donovan. And it was true. Aside from him, there was genuinely no one around her. Not even Fay, who she had always leaned on without question.

Do you still think you’re in a position to say things like that to me? You don’t have that right anymore, Fay.

Some idiot had said something unbearably arrogant and driven her away.

“What was I thinking? Why did I say something so awful to Fay?”

Fay had clearly been genuinely hurt, she hadn’t shown her face since. What if this was it? What if they drifted apart for good and Zynie never got to see her again? She soaked her pillow with tears at the thought.

Donovan peered into her blotchy, red-nosed face and let out a sharp cry.

“Go to Fay myself and ask for help? No!”

She had decided when she left to be independent that she would break herself of the habit of running to Fay the moment things got hard. And besides, Fay had offered to help first, and Zynie had turned her down with such bravado. The embarrassment alone made it impossible.

I’m not someone who just cries, she told herself, pulling herself together. She didn’t last long.

Two days later, Zynie showed up at Fay’s door, crying her eyes out.

“Zynie? Are you crying?”

The moment she saw Fay’s face, the tears came even harder.

“Fay, I—I can’t—waaah!”

She was crying too hard to answer even the simple question of what had happened.

Fay stood there in bewildered silence for a moment before pulling herself together and ushering her inside. She sat her down on the sofa and came back with a warm cup of cocoa, exactly the way she used to make it when Zynie was small.

Whether she was drinking cocoa or her own tears was hard to say. Zynie cried for a long time after that.