"I'll miss you," Aono said as she hugged the last of her friends who had come to see her off. Jouu waved as she backed off. Of all her friends, Ghaan was one that hadn't came, though she had sent her regards.

It'd been three weeks, and Aono, Sardu, and Tamu had spent the first two weeks going about their normal routines to reduce suspicion before announcing they were going to become monster hunters. The final week was spent on preparing to leave.

By Aono's feet were the two slimes from her farm who had refused to stay safely on the farm. Even when Aono had done her best to communicate to them the dangers she'd be going into, those two had stuck by her side, sending her feelings of protectiveness toward her. So Aono had registered them as summons. As long as she lived, so would they, no matter how wounded they became in battle.

In the group that had came to see her off, Kamu gave a serious nod that Aono knew was meant to tell her that he would be taking good care of the farm. Aono believed it, too, he had been very diligent in noting everything she had told him in preparation for this, and by this point he knew just as much as her on running the farm. And despite his usual quiet mannerisms, he could speak at length when he needed to, so Aono wasn't that worried about the social aspects of the job. Okay, maybe slightly, but overall she had strong confidence in him.

Well, then. Aono turned to check on the two who would be departing with her. Sardu had been the first to finish her farewells, but Samu, in their androgynous form, was still saying goodbye to seemingly every single member of their enormous family. It took a short while, but they finally finished and, with a whisk of their travel skirt and their bushy tail, they ran to catch up with Aono and Sardu.

"We have to leave before even more of my uncles and aunts arrive with their kids!" Samu said in a mildly panicked voice.

With a laugh, Aono took her friend's hand and they ran, Sardu grabbing her hand as well.

Shifting the quite heavy pack on her back, which held a very important cargo along with various sundries and necessities, Sardu laughed heartily. "Verily! We flee the squirrel hordes!"

Samu said as they ran, "You joke, but they can be terrifying, especially the kids! They'll shake us down for candy! It's happened before! They have this trick where they pen you in so that you can't move without knocking them over and looking like a jerk! Why do you think I carry so much candy at all times?"

Aono blinked. Her friend's tone wasn't joking at all. "Wait, that's seriously why?"

"And here I was thinking of calling you the Candy Duchess," Sardu said.

"It's a precaution," Samu said.

In the end, they ran for a couple of hours before slowing down.

..oOo..

It was as the trio settled down for dinner that Sardu suddenly stiffened. "Someone approaches. From above. A flying fish."

Looking up, Aono saw a green carp descending, one of her eyes blazing brightly. The way it did when she was using one of her class abilities.

"Shit!" Samu said as Sardu tensed, her hand going to where she kept her weapons.

Then everything froze and shattered at the same time. It was as if for a moment the world held its breath. And Ghaan's eye was brighter than Aono had ever seen it, practically a blazing sun of impossible colors.

All ended. The light in Ghaan's eye faded to a smoldering ember. "That was my first ultimate ability," the fish announced.

Before Aono could get out more than a startled "Eh?" Ghaan continued on. "The ability to see the future, if in a fractured form."

"Huh?" Samu said as time began to catch up.

Ghaan flicked a flipper. "In every future in which I side with the Empire here, our town does well. Agony prospers under the guiding light of the Azure Empire. A set of safe, secure futures."

"Uh?" Sardu said as she struggled against the molasses of time.

"Agony's fate in the futures where I side with you over the Empire is far more uncertain. In none of them do the status quo return. In some of them the town is a graveyard, ruined by warfare. In some of them, the town gets used as a bargaining chip to the Azure Empire or one of its enemies. In some of them... Agony prospers, and things change for the better overall."

"Now, which do I choose? The dangerous, uncertain futures, which might cost everyone and everything I hold dear here? Or the safe, secure futures?"

"I tell you all this, so that you understand the stakes."

"And what I risk in making the choice I am about to make."

Aono blinked in surprise.

Ghaan spoke, and time became confusing.

"You will travel to the end of the world."                "Go south, not west."         "Hold true to your kindness, no matter the temptation."

"The ocean itself tests you."          "A shard of reality and unreality."              "Remember who loves you even when all else is forgotten."

                                                                                     "You will not return to the life you led before now."

The moments crashed upon each other, muddling the order of the proclamations, yet Aono could make out every sentence distinctly. Then time returned to normality.

"And now..." Ghaan, who had dipped very low, collapsed safely onto the ground. "I will rest. Take some time to recover myself. That is an exceptionally taxing ability even for an ultimate."

Before her eyes, Aono saw the familiar sight of what it looked like when Status Concealment ended, a change in Ghaan's status showing itself... in the level field.

Level 10. That was Ghaan's true level... no, that level just went up to 11. Blood dripped from Ghaan's eye. Hastily, Aono moved to apply healing slime to Ghaan who breathed more easily as the soothing energies went into her. "Thank you Aono. This ability is not the safest to use. Most of my levels have come from using it. So far I have been fortunate."

"Holy shit..." Samu said.

"I predicted the swarm, you know. Through a diversion of a frightened deer I diverted a hunter on the correct path to discover it. He discovered it later than I had intended, but in enough time to give a warning. Trying to affect the future is like aiming a marble at another marble that is constantly changing its position every time you perceive it. Just by perceiving it, the future shifts and it is difficult to land precisely on target. I cannot be certain that what I told you will hold true."

Samu tilted their head quizzically. "But why didn't you use your full strength against the swarm? You could've prevented many dea--" They paused, blinking as their expression turned thoughtful. "Wait, would've something bad happened if you had?"

Sardu crossed her arms. "There're many good reasons to conceal strength, Duchess."

"Was my full ability, particularly what I can see, to become known, others would seek me as tool or as a threat to be eradicated." Ghaan chuckled darkly. "None of the futures I saw in which I was revealed ended well for me. A particularly interesting one ended with me as a cooked fish on a stick. But I digress. I'll be helping the Azure Empire, for appearance's sake. Now, please let me pass out. I'll be fine, I've seen that I'll wake up again and return home."

With that, Ghaan sagged onto the ground, her eyes closing.

Sardu leaned forward worriedly. "Princess, will she be fine?"

Aono frowned as she sensed something in Ghaan's body. "More or less? But there's some accumulated damage in her body I can't seem to heal. From using that ability so many times, I think. She should be fine, but every time she uses that ability the risk of death gets higher. And there's soul damage, I can't do anything about that. I think it's healing, but..."

"Goddamnit, she's killing herself." Samu paced back and forth. "I get it's her choice, but isn't there anything we can do?"

"Make things so safe she won't need to predict the future anymore," Aono said, clenching her fist.

Sardu nodded. "Her choices are hers, but we can make it easier on her."

"Yeah..." Samu sighed. "I'd very much like to watch over her, but our next stop closes up at night, and she said she'd be fine."

With a backwards look at the sleeping fish, the trio set out toward Gods' Mistake and an uncertain future.

..oOo..

The Azure Empress sat on top of the Tower of Heavenly Enlightenment, a dizzyingly tall tower that had been erected to help better understand the sky and predict its changes. She swung her legs as she leaned back, careful not to touch the mana-powered instruments around her.

"What will the future bring?" she mused. "I can't even hope for an era of true peace in my lifetime. The Azure Empire's future is one of bloodshed for likely a long, long time. Some will surrender, but there will be many who will resist."

And yet whenever she felt her resolve falter, she could practically feel the supportive presences of her siblings, fellow demigods all of them, and of her father, AZURE. The only advantage those born of gods had was a little essence in their souls from the very moment of birth, but that could make a difference. Every extra edge was needed for her and her father's shared goal.

She had been carefully prepared and trained hard, and so had her siblings. They had taken on many daunting challenges. Some had died and some had given up and sought a different way to help the Empire. The Empress couldn't fault them. Some of the things she had faced to get to level 20 were truly terrifying, to the point where even now she still had the occasional nightmare.

But of them all, she had prevailed. She was just one step from her goal, the next stage after level 20. Then she would truly be in a position to help her father like none else.

The ranks of those, not just her siblings, but the soldiers, the builders braving the wild to build roads, and many, many more who had given their lives for the Azure Way were teeming. And yet none of those deceased had spoken of any regrets on their visits to the lands of the living. All had done it to improve the lot of every single being in the world.

Some of the people they were seeking to help would die as a result of the Empire's expansion. That was a tragedy, and yet the tragedy of the many dying from preventable causes, from horrors wrought by others, from neglect, from ignorance, and more... that outweighed the deaths caused by the Azure Empire's expansion. If they did not do something, and do it urgently, more would suffer and die from such causes.

Yet the Azure Empire could only expand at a glacial rate forced by the resistance of those in power for the sake of themselves, or who held mistaken apprehensions about what being part of the Azure Empire would entail. And in the end, the Azure Empire was the death of many conventional power structures. It was the death of wealth stockpiled and wielded as power over the starving masses. It was the death of inherited power given to those who were often fools or worse.

Those in power in most places had ample reason to fear the Azure Empire, for that power would be broken up and given to the people who had suffered from said power's excesses.

The Empress felt her resolve solidify. And she relaxed, letting herself fall. Faster and faster, she fell, until she could fall no faster. Yet she was relaxed, her face peaceful. A simple fall like this had no real hopes of threatening her. It was one of her simple joys, just enjoying the wind whipping past her.

She was smiling as she faceplanted into the ground. She would have to repair the hole she had just created, it was only the responsible thing to do, but for now it was just nice to lie there.

kajarainbow

And there we have it, the end of Book 1. I have no plans to take a break and will be continuing right onto Book 2, this just felt like an appropriate point to say "Okay, this is the end of part one, now for part two".