The God of Chaos wasn’t an immortal. He was one of the old gods. The old gods were less of gods and more...spirits. They don’t gain power from doing what they do, so they are generally weaker than most immortals. They do the things they are titled for because they enjoy them. The God of Chaos’ hobby was quite self explanatory. Although he bothered people often, he was a decent guy. Nobody wanted to destroy him or anything. Even if he did mess things up fairly often.
He was a necessary evil. Wanting to kill him was like wanting to destroy the sun because it hurt your eyes a few times.
But like any other old god, they couldn’t directly affect the world. They would have to influence the world through people. Whether it be suggestions, or temporary possession, they find a way to do their jobs. If Kados wasn’t there, the Vice President would probably still try to take over, except he’d likely be a lot less successful.
And he wouldn’t have an alias.
His curiosity satisfied, Jaylin stopped thinking about it. Jaylin wasn’t the type to say no to a little chaos. Plus he didn’t have any emotional connection to this place. It was simply a means to waste time. Though, he didn’t mind doing the people here a favor or two if he felt it was deserving.
Amiya led him back to the main cavern where they walked across the pathways into the center of the black lake, beginning their tour of the place. He pointed at four different hallways. These were the living quarters for each cadre. The A-Cadre paid for some improvements out of their own wallet, and the other cadres followed their example to different extents. The B-Cadre were the only ones with the default rooms. The other 4 pathways led to several different things. The one they just came from was the canteen, and the one to the right of that was the sparring grounds. Next to that were the magic based facilities. Equipment used to make seals, documentations of different runes, and libraries filled with spells and curse tomes.
Jaylin picked up a curse tome, turning it over in his hands a few times.
Curses are the third form of magic. Then are very uncommon due to their unknown period of affect. Curses were divided into three different difficulties. The first was a Lifetime Curse, where the curse would take effect any time during the person’s lifetime, the second was a Hereditary Curse, wherein the curse could take effect any time, and could effect any descendants that carry the cursed party’s blood. The effects tend to be much more dangerous than a Lifetime Curse. The final, and rarest curse, is the Infection Curse.
The time it would take effect was unknown, but as soon as it began, the cursed party would feel the constant effects of the curse, and it would spread to the people around them. They would be left to live a life of loneliness and pain. The Infection Curse, unlike other curses, could not be repealed by the person who cast it once it took effect.
Personally, Jaylin didn’t see the usefulness in curses, because all of them had a fatal weakness. They could be destroyed by someone stronger.
He’d noticed, when it came to mortals,
There was always someone stronger.
The only person Jaylin knew who was strong enough to succeed in most of his curses, was his brother. Falaris, the God of Curses.
He, along with Jaylin and the God of Runes, was one of the three High gods. Even then, Jaylin and the God of Runes could break his curses.
But Jaylin wouldn’t break one of his curses without reason.
Falaris was his brother after all.
Exilis: CoUgH #3
While all natural born immortals viewed each other as relatives, they didn’t call each other siblings unless they had similar status.
In Jaylin’s case, the other two High gods were his ‘brothers’.
But not anymore. Falaris and Crasieus1God of Runes were dead.
The slate used to assign god titles to immortals was lost in the mortal realm somewhere, so Jaylin currently did not know who the two new High gods were. Though, he had a some good guesses.
Well, back to the library. Jaylin couldn’t say he wasn’t2Oof double negative surprised to see curse tomes in the library. Curse magic was the least popular type of magic. The fact that you could find them here showed the wide variety of people who’d worked here.
But at the end of the day, Jaylin was no curse magician. He got bored relatively quickly. Sliding the tome back in it’s shelf, he glanced over at the spell books, showing even less interest. Jaylin wasn’t an ordinary spell caster. Spells, to put it simply, are the specific instructions given to mana to make it take certain actions. As someone who didn’t need to be specific when doing magic, ordinary spell visualization and chanting wasn’t worth anything to him. This was part of the reason he was the God of Magic rather than the God of Spells. He didn’t use spells. He just told the mana what he wanted to do, and it would do it for him.
Amiya noticed Jaylin’s disinterest in the knowledge rich library and was feeling quite numb at this point.
What does this kid even do all day? He doesn’t really like anything...He just sits around and looks pretty.
If Amiya knew that Jaylin was just waiting to stalk some interesting people, he would probably be markedly more concerned for his own safety.
Amiya led Jaylin into the last of the eight pathways, the probationary lodgings.
“Once you get the I.D and the Striped Devils entrance card, you’ll be staying here until the current acceptance period ends.”
The probationary lodgings looked sort of like the B-Cadre quarters. Except the rooms were a bit bigger, there were four bunk beds instead of two, each room had a bathroom, and there were a lot more people. Trainee’s stood in the hallways, gasping as Amiya walked by.
“Woah, is that the fourth ranker?”
“Maybe he’s reserving recruits.”
“Quick! Quick! Put on something nice!”
“Ah! No I’m scared!”
Amiya ignored the people whispering about him as Jaylin went unnoticed once again. Although they tried to put on confident faces in front of their friends, in the end, the rookies were scared off by Amiya.
Inwardly, Amiya was healing his injured pride. Spending time with Jaylin made him seriously doubt how intimidating he was. After seeing the other rookies reactions, he could see he hasn’t lost it yet. Jaylin is just...weird.
His mood brightened, Amiya began to explain the Acceptance Period. “The acceptance period is essentially an easy way for talented rookies to get good position from the start. When you join at any other time, you start as a low level member, and if you’re lucky, you can get into a good cadre. The acceptance period consists of a series of monthly assessments and a few random assignments. If you do well, you get points.”
Seems entertaining enough.
Jaylin continued to follow Amiya, internally satisfied at his choice in choosing to join the criminal syndicate.
“The newbies with the best scores will have more opportunities to choose a cadre or receive a good position without having to climb to the top slowly. Since that Kados guy has been pulling in the majority of the newbies, most of them are nothing but weaklings who play around on the Intranet. Because of that, the cadres have to put extra effort into finding potential to keep themselves in power. Most of them brought their own people.”
“And those are the reserves?”
“Yup. All the rare talents in the weakling majority already have Cadres lined up. The B-Cadre desperately needs people. Ren has been actively scouting while doing tasks. Meanwhile that little boy toy is just sitting around and going to dinner parties, getting credit for Ren’s work.”
“So I’m a reserve for the B-Cadre.”
“...yeah, as long as you tell us what that magical presence is.”
Jaylin shrugged and blinked his clear eyes innocently.
Wow. taking advantage of your looks to scam children. You’ve stooped to a new low, Master.
Just because you’re ugly doesn’t mean you can come at me, Exilis.
Exilis choked. Jaylin’s rebuttal seemed different. He cleared his throat. At least I look like I’m legally allowed to drink.
No, you look like you should be kept in an armory-
Their conversation came to an end when Amiya shouted at him. “There it is again! Are you messing with me?! Just fucking tell me!”
Jaylin stopped walking. He turned and stared Amiya in the eye, like he was considering it.
Amiya suddenly felt a chill down his spine. But he didn’t give up. He was so close. Just a bit more and the kid would tell him. “I swear, I won't tell any outside-”
Jaylin shrugged. “I don’t know what it is.”
Amiya froze in place.
Really?
Jaylin seemed genuine.
“I don’t know what it is. But it’s probably really ugly.”
“...”
（￣□￣ ;）I am deeply offended.
Amiya was so baffled he didn’t even notice the magical presence appearing.
“So you do know what it is?...”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“...”
Eventually, Jaylin got bored of waiting for Amiya to awaken from his stupor, and he walked over the main lobby of the probationary lodgings by himself. It was a large room that all the dorm hallways led to. There wasn’t much besides some tables and chairs, yet it was the place that was most crowded within the lodgings.
Jaylin glanced up and the thin translucent leaderboard hovering in the middle of the room. He could take a guess at the reason everyone was here. The leaderboard itself was dark blue color with intricate gold borders around it. Jaylin, along with most of the other people in the room watched as it slowly scrolled through the top 30 scorers.
As it slowly reached the bottom, a variety of different reactions could be heard from all around the room. Some sighed in relief and even more of them looked distraught as they buried their heads in their arms.
Jaylin heard footsteps behind him as Amiya caught up to him. Someone like Amiya would usually draw a lot of attention when he went anywhere, but everyone was staring at the leaderboard and hadn’t noticed him. He walked over to Jaylin, feeling abandoned.
The kid just left him there...
Jaylin didn’t react to the blame within Amiya’s eyes in the slightest. He signaled towards the leaderboard, wordlessly telling Amiya to do his job as tour guide.
Amiya felt he was just mocked as he began explaining.
“The leaderboard lets everyone know who has the most points. Most of the higher ones are reserved, and even the rare few who aren’t already have their own plans. If you stay on the leaderboard, you get the choice to pick what kind of position you would take depending on how high up on the leaderboard they were. If you lose your spot, you lose the benefits. After people get in the leaderboard, they tend to slack off and lose their position after the next monthly assessment. The people here probably just finished some tasks and are hoping to slip into the leaderboard.”
“Oh.”
They both stared at the leaderboard. Amiya scratched his head, thinking that Jaylin was as hard to communicate with as before.
Jaylin didn’t pay attention to the leaderboard for very long. He was looking around at the people watching it.
Jaylin surprised Amiya by taking the initiative to speak. “Are there any of the top scorers here?”
“Hm? Ah, yes. The ones at the top know to keep working if they want to stay there.” Amiya gave a short answer for once as he pointed out a female with scarlet red-black hair. She had a sharp bob cut and long eyelashes to go along with her Phoenix eyes. She caught all kinds of stares standing with her hands on her hips in the form fitting red coat used for the monthly assessments as she looked up at the leaderboard, revealing her beautiful neck.
“Carmen Ushivisc. Third place on the leaderboard. Power, looks, background. She’s got a straight shot to success. She’s a reserve for the A-Cadre, fittingly. Her personality is a bit...well, that’s her private business.”
Amiya turned towards a young man with chestnut hair and black eyes. He gave off a serene feeling, but there was something off about it. He looked elegant and kind, but he seemed to have a twisted air about him as well. It would make you uncomfortable without realizing exactly why.
“That guy...He’s very unique. He’s not a reserve, and doesn’t have any documented background. A true underdog, if you will. All of the cadres have tried to reserve him but he didn’t reply to any of them. He does tasks every day to stay at the top. His name is Christopher. After using his entrance card once, he never took it out again, so people don’t know his last name. ”
Jaylin glanced down at the man clothing. It was the same as his, gray jeans and a black dress shirt. Though, the dress shirt seemed to fit better on him, the rolled up cuffs revealing his somewhat slender, yet toned, forearms.
The state they were in made up for up the seemingly perfect fit. The dress shirt was tattered and somewhat dirtied, the gray jeans torn at the knees and covered in soot.
Well he looks like he’s been up to some things.
Exilis would’ve responded, had it not been for Amiya standing right next to them.
“Those two are the only high scorers. The others are either busy, or slacking off.”
Jaylin nodded and stared at the two, two people with different appearances, identities, and even personalities, were both staring at the leaderboard solemnly.
Jaylin smiled softly.
Inside his empty blue eyes, a sliver of excitement was blooming slowly.
Exilis felt a chill pass by.
Here we go again...
Little Extra
Jaylin exhaled. “It seems that Janiss fellow picked my last name.
“Really?” Exilis responded, mostly disinterested.
“Mn.” Jaylin looked closer at the fine print on the general I.D “It says...Ahido.”
Exilis choked.
“What?”
“It’s...It’s the ancient language...”
“I’m aware.” Jaylin knew of the ancient language. He’d existed when it was still in use, but he never bothered to learn it.
“A-Ahido means...retarded...”
“...”
“pfft-!” Exilis started laughing hysterically.
Jaylin stared at the at the I.D for a long time, before sliding it into his pocket with a sigh.
“HAHAHA!-”
Meanwhile
Janiss was stirring his coffee when he suddenly heard a strange bubbling sound.
Huh?
‘BOOM!’
Coffee and ceramic shards flew everywhere.
!!! What the fuck?!
