“What is this...”

The scenes, like an old-school film roll, spun until the last frames before collapsing on its own, leaving nothing but a blank canvas.

I moved the finger of my new body towards it, but immediately had it retracted.

The burning sensation on my fingertip was searing as if it just came in contact with hot coal. It warned me not to proceed any further.

“You cannot alter the past, even as the Mother God. These are all events from hundreds of years ago.”

Rina munched on her cookies.

I spent the next few days exploring my new Inner Palace to find any valuable information, but all I found were akin to random synapses of the brain, chaotic and disordered.

The sky in my Inner Palace still only had one shining star. It was Rina’s.

The faith… 

Was dead.

I could feel something gnawing at my heart, scrolling through all these extracts of life from the previous goddess's followers.

So much grief.

So much pain.

So much anguish.

After losing the blessing of the previous goddess, the beastkins from Mimi tribes were repeatedly invaded by tribes of other species. 

The males were killed at first sight or captured for forced labor, often died not long after due to horrible working conditions, such as in mines or near volcanoes.

The females were enslaved and made into prostitutes for their beautiful and exotic features. The higher quality ones were bought by nobles, mostly from human kingdoms and became their personal servant. Oftentimes, they would be subjected to their master’s horrible tastes. The rate of mortality was not any lower than that of male beastkins.

There was no semblance of a unique species anymore. The leftover Mimi tribes were a free-for-all buffet for the beast tribes, the human traders and other species. They took from the tribes whatever and whenever they wanted, and beastkins's social status fell to that of livestock.

It was a living hell.

Still, the beastkins clung to their faith.

They expected their Goddess to come back and help them, to free them of all suffering.

She would then restore the Mimi tribes to their former peaceful, tranquil, one with nature lifestyle.

A life with worry and full of happiness.

They clung to that tiny thread of hope and lived on, enduring the most horrendous of conditions.

Still, their goddess had not returned.

One hundred years passed.

Then it was two hundred.

Time could mercilessly sand out anything, and the beastkin tribes were no exception.

Their goddess’s statues that they revered were now only broken pieces of rock.

The Elders of their faith were all killed long ago, and their priestesses had their minds broken and made into an expensive commodity.

The God of Beastkins’s faith, is now nothing but a line of text in the grand narrative of history.

It was a Dark Age for the beastkin species.

...

I opened my eyes and left the Inner Palace.

There was something blocking my view, so I proceeded to wipe it off.

It was tear.

I did not remember when I started crying, but dried streaks of tears lined up on my cheeks.

“Is this really Maldea?”

I stared at this world I created with my hands.

The mountains were still beautiful with their snow-peaks, and the nearby ocean still glittered like diamonds during dusk time. But they now seemed so distant, as if something else, or someone else was possessing them.

“Rather worrying about dead people, how about you worry for yourself? I cannot keep our protective shield up for long, so hurry up and earn some power points.”

Rina said in a lackadaisical manner.

“R...right.”

I materialized some cold water and washed my face with it. The freezing temperature calmed down my mind.

Rina's words are cold, but they're the truth.

I couldn’t alter the past of this world.

The best thing I can do, as their Mother, is to create a better future for its residents, starting from this pitiful race I inherited.

Let’s create a new Maldea.

This time, there would be no mistake.

I made a silent vow to myself.

The next few days were busy.

I moved back and forth between my universe and Earth to keep track of the game development. There was a change after the inheritance, so I decided to make a major adjustment to [Maldea Saga].

Of course, this would be from the player's side, there is no way I could change Maldea itself.

 It was only now that I appreciated the role of teasers.

They are supposed to be appetizers before the main dish that is the game came out, but restricting  [Maldea Saga]’s leaks in vague, background-ish trailers did wonder to my current situation. I could now insert new lore for [Maldea Saga] at the last minute without any complaints.

The official lore would be, [The Rise of the Beastkin]. 

The players will play as members of an oppressed race, originally slaves to other species, now determined to fight its way to the top of the hierarchy.

A rich storyline like that might please players who're interested in the lore side of games.

Octopus, or maybe I should now call, Universum still worked at its best performance to cover every professional aspect of [Maldea Saga], down to potential legal lawsuits, such as what to do when a player’s head exploded while using the VR pod.

Such a thing would not happen, but preparation is preparation.

The hype towards the game was still growing bigger than ever. Many unofficial fan clubs were already established, without even knowing what the game entailed. 

They seemed to be desperate.

Full-dive MMORPG had a massive appeal.

Still, the 500 tester slots were already handed out, so the best they could do was grumbling.

 [Maldea Saga] and the new full-dive VR technology also took over video streaming platforms like The Tube, with relevant videos swarming everyone’s recommendation list. Even for those uninterested in games or technology, it’s hard to not notice. Almost every major Tubers, including those from other industries, mentioned [Maldea Saga] in at least one of their videos.

I think the game was a marketing success.

However, I also noticed that many netizens and enthusiasts felt unfair at the lack of official information.

The announcement for [Maldea Saga] was nearly a month ago, yet they didn’t have any dedicated platform created by Universum to receive information about [Maldea Saga]. No social media, Tube channel or any other popular social tool. It’s an issue worth addressing.

However, that could be moved down on my priority list.

There is currently a bigger problem facing me and Rina.