F7 watched over Ren’s progress from inside of him, carefully observing and recording everything he thought, said, felt and did. When the Tatzelwurm¹Th snake-fox creature from Chapter 8. Looks like this. struck, and they felt him panic and freeze up, only being able to cower and wallow in his own cowerdice and feeling of uselessness, F7 also thought that Ren would expire then and there. They thought they would have to reincarnate him into a less hostile environment once more, but in the end death didn’t come.

Automatically and without warning the ‘once-in-a-thousand-chances-good-luck’ activated and Ren ended up being saved instead. F7 didn’t even have to lift a finger. While the forces and potential outcomes of luck could be calculated, even in F7’s advanced civilization luck was something so obscure that even after several hundreds of years of research it still baffled scientists. Thanks to the invention of quantum computers the luck of individuals could be quantified and with values added it could be changed somewhat, but the consequences of such changes couldn’t be predicted, as the variables of fate were simply endless. Headquarters have always encouraged all of their employees to carefully observe and record every remarkable occurrence of obvious luck, to understand this mysterious force of the universe better. Who wouldn’t want rule over fate after all…?

And so F7 diligently collected every piece of data.

In retrospect they carefully searched through Ren’s first two months of life. There was no obvious notification of the occurrence of the ‘once-in-a-hundred-chances-no-luck’, but going through everything with a fine toothed comb proved that there was a log of recording the effect activating at Ren’s birth in the background. There was no obvious notification which is why they didn’t notice it in the first place. According to the data, the effects of ‘no luck’ lasted for exactly two months, expiring on the very morning the Tatzelwurm showed up. F7 made sure to change the settings, so they could receive a notification of no luck, should it happen again.

The series of unfortunate events that followed surprised nobody, except maybe Ren’s mother. While to F7 and Ren the only surprise was that it didn’t happen sooner, based on her demeanor the demigod seemed to wonder if a god of misfortune cursed them.

The first time it happened was on the day they first entered the kitchen together. Soon after they started cooking a storm struck the forest. It was a cyclone with heavy rain, hail and winds so strong their entire home tree was groaning. F7 heard the demigod reassuring her child that everything was going to be fine, and the tree will protect them.

F7 felt the cold dread slithering up Ren’s spine at his mother’s declaration, certain that she just doomed the two of them. He desperately requested F7 to activate ‘no luck’ or ‘good luck’, but the manipulation of luck to this extend was outside of their capabilities. They could only notify Ren that it was impossible and merely offered to activate the unique skill ‘Walking disaster’ which would temporarily divert his bad luck to his surroundings, however. This only agitated Ren more. He didn’t know what the consequences for the world around him would be if he activated this skill in the middle of a storm as violent as this one.

Lightning struck and shook the tree. F7 switched to 3^rd person view and saw that one of the Maggria world tree's thick branches split neatly in two while on fire. The fire was soon put out by the falling rain which poured as if god spilled a large bucket of water from the sky. When he heard Ren’s startled exclamation, he switched back to 1^st person view to find that water that usually trickled was now gushing out of the spring on the wall. The basin unable to contain it all started to spill, then flood the kitchen.

Ren’s mother immediately used her magics to gather the excess water into floating spheres. Ren was sitting on the counter next to the stove. With the demigods attention to manage the situation at hand, she didn’t notice the stew starting to boil on the stove. Ren didn’t realize in time either that the scorching hot contents of the pot bubbled over it’s edge, spreading rapidly towards his body.

And boy, was it hot! The hot soup wasn’t even touching Ren’s foot (the one that used to be bum) for a second when he squealed a loud ‘Meep!’ in pain before he jumped of the counter like his ass was on fire (well, it was burning) right into the still open fridge. He fell on his injured leg and he cried again, then the hood of the chest fell closed shut with a ‘Thump’.

His mother stopped what she was doing immediately, with her concentration broke, she dropped the water balls, and rushed to help Ren. She picked him up, out of the fridge chest, murmured to him soothingly and reassured him that she would fix everything and that his ouchie won’t hurt much longer. The boiling soup has burned of Ren’s fur on his little leg and his bum, the skin an angry red covered in blisters and wounds.

The water in the meanwhile rushed downstairs and flooded the ground floor in less the a minute.

“Oh, dear...” Ren’s mother sighed, as she turned of the stove and headed down holding Ren. She opened the front door to let the water out which was already reaching up to her ankles, than she headed towards one of the rooms that had a closed door² Ren's mom didn't show him what was behind the two other doors on the ground floor, when he entered the tree house the first time..

There was a laboratory set up inside, with various herbs and ingredients on the shelves, both dried and preserved in vials and bottles. There was another stone slab with magic circles on it and equipment from a chemistry lab, as if a wondering modern scientist forgot to take his tools with him. The room also resembled a medical office as well, with an examination table in one corner and rolled up bandages on the shelves.

The demigod gathered some ingredients, leaves and roots of plants, strange powders and a dried up husk of a creature resembling an axolotl among them. Using the chemistry lab equipment she somehow turned them into a rather disgusting looking (and smelling) green paste, which she generously smeared on Ren’s burned leg and hindquarters.

The ointment stung like hell, still Ren gritted his teeth and did his best to remain calm and not to cry from the pain. He already almost caused the ruin of his new home, he didn’t want to bother his mother with his whining.

F7 thought there was something fundamentally wrong with this line of thought. After all, who else would one whine to, if not one’s own mother? Alas, they were merely an administrator of a system, dedicated to fattening up and harvesting souls, not being a nanny. To both their and Ren’s surprise a notification popped up.

[Achievement unlocked: Positivity in negativity

–  Due to bad luck, your house may have been flooded, but at least it didn’t burn down.                                                                        Well, there is always a next time! *wink, wink*

Rewards: Calm mind: Lv. 2 → Lv. 3, Pain resistance Lv. 1 → 2.]

They both stared at the notification window, and they both thought the same thing at the same time:

What does it mean ‘wink, wink’…?