I, Alicia, first daughter of Scarlet, looked down while leaning on the stone railing while watching the festive fever below under the shade of my thick hood.

It was the tenth anniversary of mom's apotheosis.

It's been long and difficult, but the world was finally starting to really come together. A true peace was being built between the light and dark races, with the Hourai Commonwealth forming the centre of it all.

Two more cities were built around the other two entrances to the Hourai Dungeon that mom had found, along with a new road network to connect the four cities as well as the closest settlements on either side of the Abyssal Chasm.

People could flow freely between the nations now and trade had really taken off, further giving reasons to unite all sides.

Speaking of taking off, mom's Goddess' Realm had become the official sport for the entire world. While little adjustments were being made here and there, standardized specifications for the celestials and boards had been released and they were being made and played all over the world.

Not only did it grow popular enough that all but people from the most isolated settlements know about it, but it was played in virtually every major city in the world, as well as many of the smaller towns. Production wasn't keeping up at all with demand despite the specifications being spread around for anyone with the skills required make for free.

I was really surprised when I got to go on a tour of the dark lands, lead by Elder Elli and Elder Frigg. Goddess' Realm was being played everywhere we went! I was even challenged a few times, though Fate, Letty, and I managed to win each time. The three of us played at every opportunity we could, especially at night when it was boring with how almost everyone else had to sleep.

The fluffballs and greater spirits didn't, but we couldn't fly like mom, so it was hard to play with them for too long.

On the other hand, it was funny whenever Letty tried to explain things at some of the cities we visited. She would start with something she remembered from before she was reincarnated, but either things had changed so much that what she was talking about wasn't recognizable, or she realized that she couldn't actually remember much about it at all.

I really hoped that was because of that difficult sleep she was put under, not because she had grown so old that she had trouble remembering like some of the other old people. I hoped that didn't happen to us vampires, or things might get difficult once we were over a thousand years old.

But that was a worry for the future. For now, this was a day of excitement.

Because today, on the anniversary of the day when mom had left us and went to the divine realm, was a grand Goddess' Realm tournament! People came from all over the world to play the world's largest tournament at the four cities of the Hourai Commonwealth in celebration of the complete birth of the world's goddess!

It was certainly a bittersweet event for us though.

The day mom went away.

Despite how young I was at the time, the memories of that day were still as vivid to me as if it was just yesterday. How much Fate and I cried, how glum Letty looked, how split Claret was. We knew it was they only way for mom to live, but not knowing how long until she could come back, if ever. Fate and I were especially too young to accept such a cruel thing.

But eventually the world moved on.

People took the lessons mom had taught them, and did their best to teach them to others in her place, hoping that she was watching.

A goddess, that watched over the world as it changed.

And watched, as the massive Goddess' Realm table, or more like a field, had a giant match going. 64 vs 64, a pair of small armies of Celestials fighting on a miniaturized battlefield as part of a show of unification of the entire world in mom's name. An exhibition match broadcasted to every major city for countless people to enjoy and cheer as people, not enemies.

"I wonder if you're watching how beautiful this is mom, wherever you are."

It was truly a spectacular sight. So many people smiling, regardless of what their bodies looked like.

"Don't say that like I'm dead, Alicia."

"Mom!"

I turned around from the railing at the special observation box made for VIPs at this huge arena. There, sitting on one of the seats, was a woman wearing a white robe that almost completely concealed her body. But I could tell, that unchanging body shape that robe couldn't entirely conceal. Despite the change in clothes, it was the usual mom as always.

"You're back!"

"I am."

My smile faltered at the realization that there were two figures tightly clutching mom's body. At mom's left, was my little twin sister, Fate. Like usual, she was wearing a full body black robe with a starry sky motif sewn into it. The exact same style that mom used to wear before people started to call her a goddess, rather than the more complicated outfit she wore after. Proof of our long connection with mom.

Of course, I was also wearing the same thing. It was my favourite after all.

On mom's right, was Letty, though she was hugging mom's belly rather than her shoulders like Fate was. She was wearing a simpler black robe, though she had the widest selection of clothes between the all of us, as she enjoyed wearing the various things other people came up with.

"That's my spot Letty!"

I pushed my little sister to the side so I could get my rightful spot on mom's right. As the eldest sister, this spot was my birthright.

Though as mean as it sounded, I had simply pushed Letty to her usual spot on mom's lap while I got to enjoy mom's warmth from her upper body.

"Really, no matter how big you girls get, this part of you just never grows up."

"Mmmm. It's just how we show our love, mom."

"Mmmm!"

"Mmmm three!"

Really, those first few days were really tough for us as a family. A week after mom went to the divine realm, she had finally been able to come back after being judged by the some of the greatest gods there were. Back then though, due to the changes to mom's body, we couldn't touch her at all.

I remembered desperately trying to hug mom in whatever way I could while crying constantly. That went on for something like a month before we got used to the idea that we couldn't touch mom anymore. At least it was better than not being able to see her anymore, though that wasn't even true all the time.

Apparently, for a god to be seen by a mortal, even vampires or spirits who weren't exactly mortal compared to humans and such, it took them a lot of effort to manifest themselves, like casting some sort of complex spell. So, for mom who was a newly born god, it was hard for her to be seen for a long time at once.

Fate and I especially grew quite anxious when we couldn't see mom, even if we knew she was in the same room. Letty didn't suffer so badly, as long as she had someone to hug all the time.

Surprisingly, Claret adapted to the changes the best and grew quite independent. Maybe it had to do with mom's ascension, and that it meant she was immortal? Now that Claret was reassured that mom couldn't ever die, even if someone tried to kill her, maybe she didn't feel so burdened by the need to protect mom all the time?

Things had finally gotten much better when mom learned how to create a new body for herself and put a part of her soul into it. Apparently it was something the gods used to do in this world, but she refused to explain any further.

The details didn't matter to us though, as it meant that we could hug mom again! So we did whenever we could.

Mom said that we were probably traumatized quite badly by all the things we had gone through as a family around the time of her apotheosis, and this trauma was why Fate and I developed this need to feel mom's warmth whenever we could.

She used to complain about it all the time, but we knew she loved hugging us back, so this became our new status quo. None of us plan on making any changes with this arrangement.

"I know time isn't exactly an issue, but how long do you really intend on spoiling your daughters like this, Scarlet?"

"Hmmm...forever?"

Mmmm. That sounded like mom. And frankly, it was an answer I liked. Though in reality, mom probably wasn't serious and would want Fate and I to overcome our trauma at some point, that time wasn't now, and I was thankful for that on both ends.

Well, to be honest, it was less of a need, and more of a want. We all wanted this, to be close together when we could.

*Sigh*

Off to the back, with a fake body of her own, was a weird...owl person?

According to what mom had said, she was an elder goddess from another world. She was the one who convinced the top gods to let mom come back and administrate Terheim, meaning that we got to stay together as a family. But as a newly born god, mom needed a mentor to teach her the ways of the gods, and the top gods chose this Featiah person, goddess person, to be her teacher. And incidentally, Featiah didn't have any worlds she was in charge of at the time, so she was made in charge of Terheim so mom could stay here as her assistant.

Though she grumbled about it all the time, the way she elegantly drank her tea while watching the people of this world made me think she didn't actually hate her role.

I wondered what was up with that tea thing she always drank. Mom said it was something only gods got to drink, though she also said Featiah wouldn't let her have any since leaving the divine realm. I wondered what sort of blood it tasted like. If it was more like drake blood than orc blood, then I'd really like to have some someday.

Though I'd probably have to become a god to do so. But since that would mean that I would be able to be with mom more, and even touch her real body, that was my long term life goal. Not really a unique thing, as Fate wanted the same thing, no doubt.

"Well, mortal forever is quite different from divine forever. Just don't forget, once your workplace training is completed in 490 years, this won't be the only world you will be administrating. You will be expected to watch over all the worlds of section Z95 until your ten thousand year house arrest is complete."

(House arrest...)

Mom explained it as a punishment where you weren't allowed to leave your home. The basic principal seemed to be used here as well on occasion, if someone rich or important committed a crime, they could be confined within their own home as a more lenient version of being put into a dungeon cell, but for the gods to consider confining mom to dozens or more worlds to be the same sort of idea, I couldn't even imagine what those gods considered to be freedom of movement.

Though even Featiah said that it was quite a lenient punishment, more symbolic than actually restrictive. If even an elder god was saying that, then maybe the thoughts of gods weren't so incredibly alien as I thought.

"I don't see what's so interesting about watching mortals do proxy battles. I'm going to have a look around instead."

And with those words, the elder goddess hopped over to the railing and leaped right off before flapping her huge wings and quickly soared out of sight into the sky. Though mostly it was the damn sun's fault I couldn't see her.

I just wished that evil thing would stay away and leave us in night all the time, but for some reason the other races liked being under the sun, so it stopped any plans to kill it before they could materialize in my head.

Either way, apparently Featiah's big eyes were really good at seeing things far away, so even if she flew so high nobody else could see her, she could see us pretty well or something.

"Alicia, Fate? It's time to work."

After a few more minutes, mom called to us.

""Mmmmm...""

Both of us moaned. We wanted to keep hugging mom for longer, but we also knew that we didn't exactly have much of a choice in the matter.

"I'm not going anywhere. Do your job properly before coming back. I'll be here when you're done."

""Okay mom!""

A bad habit of ours, saying the same thing at the same time like that. Being the big sister, I should've been taking the lead better, but mom also seemed to like it when we did that, so it was hard to stop doing it.

The two of us let go of mom and lost her warm touch before we went to the railing and picked up the microphones on their little stands.

A quick glance was all it took to confirm the outcome of the exhibition match. Surprisingly, the dark team had won this time. Since the exhibition match featured only players from the respective representative countries, the light team generally had an advantage because the Hourai Commonwealth started trade with them first, allowing people from that side to start playing Goddess' Realm earlier.

The gap in skill had been closing over the years, but this was the first time the dark team had won, showing just how much people from that side enjoyed the game. And despite losing, it didn't look like the light team was particularly angry. Just frustrated that they lost and even more motivated to do better for next year.

I couldn't help but smile as I saw tangible proof of everyone's hard work bringing the world together. Work that mom had started all those years ago when she went through so much bringing the dark settlement together with the fairy settlement and creating the beginning of the Hourai Commonwealth.

Something that I saw first hand, but Fate only heard later on despite being my twin.

Fate and I spoke into the microphones, congratulating the winners and giving praise to the losers. We spoke about various things of note that we noticed during the match, even when we were hugging mom. We were some of the top players of Goddess' Realm, and we did have a job to do.

Too bad it was as announcers and analysts rather than players, but we were of the neutral Hourai Commonwealth, so we weren't allowed to participate in the tournament that was supposed to symbolize the unity of east and west. The issue was, who's side would we be playing for? There wasn't enough of us to make a proper third side, and that didn't even start with the political issues. This tournament was supposed to bring everyone closer, yet if a third party, even if they symbolized unity itself, won, it risked taking the wind out of the sails of both sides.

A risk we couldn't take this early on. Not until the light and dark nations were intertwined so much that they couldn't risk starting a new war for fear of what it would do to their societies and economies.

The plan was, by having both sides be strongly represented in all sorts of joint activities broadcast in as many countries as we could, in addition to making both sides dependant on goods traded from the other, that lingering hostilities would quickly settle down. If enough of this happened, then even if there were strong holdouts for war in isolated pockets on both sides, it would still be difficult for actual open conflicts to come about, even if there was an incident.

At the very least, that was what we were hoping. Mom was a little skeptical regarding the plan, even though it was the plan that she herself had proposed. But it wasn't like anyone else had any alternatives, so it was the one we went with.

Of course, Fate and I were too small to be involved in the beginning, but lately we've been taking active roles, organizing Goddess' Realm workshops and friendly matches for people from all the world's nations. Letty too helped out a lot, but for some reason she kept pushing Fate and me to the front, as if she didn't like attracting much attention.

Sure, it was a bit embarrassing when so many people looked at you. Mom didn't ever like it much either, but it was the price to pay for our dreams to come true.

Even Claret worked hard with all the fluffballs and greater spirits, trying to get them more involved in the world. It wasn't working that well, at least for the smaller fluffballs. But the greater spirits were working hard to do what they could.

The two of us continued speaking to our worldwide audience talking about the importance of this anniversary, like every anniversary. A fairy cameraman riding her floating camera as she made funny faces, making it really hard to keep our smiles from cracking.

Letty on the other hand, hid under the railing, holding up paper cards with notes on them, reminding Fate and I the topics we needed to touch.

Soon enough, the light on the camera turned red before the cameraman floated off to her next position as the tournament started in earnest.

"Mom?"

We hurried back to mom, only to notice that her head was slumped over with her hood fallen to cover her entire face. She didn't move, even to respond to us.

"Again?" I couldn't help but complain.

"Apparently it's really hard to control this body when her real one needs to do something."

"I know, but she said she'd be waiting for us."

Mom did this a lot, and while I understood why, it didn't make things feel any better.

"It's not like her soul fragment left this body."

"...I know that. And I know how hard mom works for everyone's sake, including ours."

It was just...so much less satisfying. Even though mom's proxy body was still soft and warm to hug, it just felt like an empty shell.

But I wouldn't let mom hear my complaints. Not only was she working hard to bring the whole world together so there wouldn't ever be another big war again, but she was working hard on fine tuning the system that governed the world as well. Not the least of which, was how vampires were normally born into the world.

Unlike the three of us, vampires normally just spontaneously came into being like how the little fluffballs did. But young vampires had the ability to grow strong quickly under the right circumstances, so it was important to find them early before they develop in weird or dangerous ways.

Mom had already found a year ago, but it was still a struggle to get him to live like a normal person, having found him three years after his birth. There was an entire group of us working together to watch over him and even now he was constantly under observation. At least he had stopped trying to bite everyone who tried to get close to him, but things were going to take a while until we could let him go around freely.

Suddenly, mom's body we were all hugging started moving and I felt a warm hand on my head.

"Sorry about that. Featiah wanted me to have a look at something."

I hated how anything Featiah said tended to take precedence over anything else, but at the same time, I understood how important it was. If mom didn't show that she was taking her training seriously, she might be taken away again or something. None of us wanted to risk that. I wasn't going to complain, nor my little sisters.

"It's okay. I'm just glad you're here."

"Yea! Me too!"

Fate and I tightened our hugs and rubbed our cheeks against mom's.

"Me three!"

In between us, Letty squirmed in even closer and buried her face in mom's chest.

That's right. We were all together, and thus we were all happy. Our family was whole, and we had a long and wonderful road ahead of us.

Our future sparkled like the stars at night.