Gwendal’s POV

I knew it! Something’s definitely abnormal about this group… and it isn’t Silva’s extraordinary power of clairvoyance, Marcel’s abilities, the fact that the three brothers are thunderbeasts, or maybe even my Sunfire elven princess riva— Okay, so there’s a lot abnormal about this group of friends than I thought when I first met them! I admit it! 

Why am I suddenly bringing this up? It’s because they’ve been acting in some subtle ways that have led me to believe that they’re hiding something major froommm me!!! I shall not let this stand.   

Especially after what happened when we visited Allan’s home, I greatly suspect that this group holds a bigger secret than Marcel being the Demon Lord’s 'future’ Wife. Yes, don’t correct me! Marcel’s the Demon Lord’s only ‘if’ they are married in the future. The others may believe that I have no chance at all, but I shall not be discouraged! Angels like Marcel are a rare and unpredictable existence. Nobody knows what the future holds, especially if it’s one with a Hero.  

Anyway, back to the original subject at hand… I feel like what happened at Allan’s; you know, when I learned that he also possessed prophetic might like Silva then went on to observe him call down knowledge at the behest of an otherworldly power through straining himself to immeasurable… maybe not immeasurable, but that’s not the point! I just know it had something to do with Marcel’s and their secret. Even the World’s Force, my most trusted assistant, won’t provide me with the answers I seek, as if the subject’s some kind of taboo, so I had to find out for myself.  

To discover this big secret, I began stalk—sorry… observing them. I began following them in secret over the course of several weeks, and interesting information, I got~!  

First, after some excessive scrutiny with the help of the World Force, I discovered that Marcel’s friends all carried the same tattoo somewhere on their bodies.   

“Sure, but that isn’t anything special! Most friends have some kind of token to commemorate their friendship. Maybe this is just one,” You might think.  

While I will admit that this assumption is true, this is clearly not the case because, when I asked the World’s Force to go investigate their meaning, they just disappeared!   

Yes, it sounds strange! After all, hearing that the World Forces, which move around uncontrollably and dictate over the power of this world, just up and disappeared, doesn’t sound like much cause for concern, but this disappearance had to do with Marcel and his friends again.  

To prove that I was right, I conducted a little experiment, with dumb Shalia as my test subject, though… her spirits were ‘visibly’ pissed that I decided to mess with their beloved.  

As I mentioned before, they all had the same tattoos. That’s also why I chose Shalia—because I had a better chance of touching hers compared to the others. It was plastered on her left shoulder, something one could easily get close to ‘by mistake’.  

What I’m trying to get at is that I purposefully initiated a mistake where I got really close to having the World Force quickly observe the little princess. The results: well… haha, the tattoo, um... ate the World Force, hahaha~!  

Yes, it sounds really strange, but it gobbled up the power I sent at it, leaving no trace behind. This action of absorbing energy that wasn’t directed at the princess until just moments earlier prompted the spirits to send murderous intent my way. Spirits rarely do that, but their message was pretty clear. ‘Mess with our girl again and you’ll be in for a world of hurt.’ Um, did I mention that spirits are the biggest arrogant and prideful jerks? Yeah, there’s nothing more annoying than something which is both talk and force.   

This experiment pretty much solidified the suspicions I held about the group hiding something from me, going in. This wasn’t the only thing off about them, however.  

The second thing I noticed, especially so, came when I 'observed’ Marcel’s interactions with the others. I noticed that, unlike how his bubbly, angel personality might suggest, he seemed incredibly reluctant to hug them, even during special occasions. Marcel never touched his friends on their back either, and they all just acknowledged it as a fact. It was strange!   

Yes, but this seems like nothing too at first glance. After all, some people just don’t do some stuff, but the fact that their back is right where the tattoos are, for most of them, except Spirit Elf Princess… I think not! This is no mere coincidence! My intuition told me that I was in the right here, so I pushed forward. I won’t let myself not know another of Marcel’s secrets when it’ll hopefully bring us closer together. I must know!  

Since I refuse to not know, when I woke up this morning, I decided that today to be the anniversary of the day I discovered their biggest secret.   

To make this day a success, I had to make Marcel do the one thing he seems to be avoiding: touching one of his friends, Shalia excluded, on the back. What happens when he touches it? I need to know!!! So, I got to it.  

For almost the entire day, I snuck around, trying to get Marcel to touch his friends on the back, but as expected… I failed with every attempt. The forced group hug that ended with Marcel’s hand on their waistline, the intentional pushing of Marcel into Evan that ended with Marcel making a jump and perfect landing, subtly manipulating the idiot thunderbeast brother again to fall with his back brushing Marcel’s hand that ended in Marcel’s perfect falling grab at the waistline again. He made it look as if they’d been dancing. All of it… it all failed! 

I finally knew that I’d gone too far when it all came down to a confrontation at the end.  

“Uh… what are you doing?” They ganged up on my child form like a bunch of hungry predators whose sustenance was the information of what I’d been doing. Uh-oh!  

  

Narrator’s POV

“Uh… what are you doing?” They asked Gwendal in child form indeed. Yes, the past few weeks of spying and sneaking around have all been leading to this very moment.  

Yeah, they noticed! Gwendal had, after all, been acting stranger than usual. Something hasn’t been right with him for weeks.  

They finally noticed that something was strange when he purposefully initiated scenarios that would lead to one of them being in slight danger. Leave that for dungeons and outside exploration, please, Gwendal!   

So, he’d been acting strangely for weeks and they finally confronted him about it. Under all that aura melding together, mostly Silva’s incredible pressure, and Allan’s might magic power, he caved in… crying.  

“Booo!!! It’s all your fault, sob…” Gwendal's crying left them bewildered. They were all speechless, seeing him cry like he suddenly was. Um, why did they feel like they were the ones who hurt him instead of the other way around? He was the one sneaking around and all.  

After all, seeing that he’d been acting strange all day and being the type to have fun, they actively decided to not do what he wanted of them, though, they didn’t know what his goal was exactly. Somehow, they just knew what it was about: Marcel, but, as they deprived him further and further of what he wanted to happen, Gwendal got more blatant in his attempts. Suddenly, they were the ones feeling like the bad guys. They made him cry.  

After leaving Gwendal to cry for a while, he suddenly posed a question amidst his sobs,  

“Say, guys…sob…are we...sob…friends?”  

“Yeah, pretty much! But you’ve been acting very strange.” Valeria responded.  

Silva nodded, “Yeah, been acting like a real piece of crap, haven’t you?” She viewed him intently. She already knew what was going on but sometimes, it’s good to pretend not to know stuff. Getting closer to the S-class every day, she’s getting sharper and sharper at picking up random information, even without inquiring about them.  

The rest agreed that Gwendal was being really creepy. They wished he’d just up and tell them what was going on, so he did.  

Being the cutest in his child form atop crying garnered him all the attention he wanted from them. He began speaking,  

“...Sob... I feel like you guys have been hiding something incredibly important from me, so I tried to find out what it is myself. I failed...sob...”  

“Huh? What secret? We have a lot of secrets!” Teddy Nigel spoke, clueless about what he was talking about. As far as secrets go, this group has enough of them to kill the average man.  

“I know! I know!! The secret that you’ve all been hiding from me!!!” At this point, Gwendal was yelling like the child he looked, “Why do you all have the same tattoo on your backs? Why won’t Marcel touch you guys there and why are you all, strangely, fine with that?! Why were you all just accepting the fact that your best friend is not hugging you back? Why...?!” He broke down, crying again. He really wanted things to go his way so bad, but they didn’t, and he felt so cheated. They began feeling sorry for him.  

“Huh, why do you want to know so badly?” Evan didn’t see the point of learning about that secret when it didn’t concern him at all. So nosy, ugh!  

“Because I feel left out~!!! I feel like this secret has something to do with why you’re so much closer compared to other friends. It’s probably a really good secret, because you’re closer than even some siblings are. I want to know... because not knowing makes me feel so alone. It’s like I can see you, but from a different dimension that establishes a boundary between you, genuine friends, and me, the person you met who just suddenly decided to tag along with you. I feel so alone~!”

He admitted to his friends, covering his face and feeling ashamed for reasons he was still unsure of as he continued to cry. Just why couldn’t he have met Marcel sooner; then he wouldn’t feel like the outsider of the group? He would have had more time to see Marcel; you know, get to really know him. Who knows? He might have maybe been able to climb into his bed already. He felt so cheated.  

Having listened to Gwendal spout out his feelings while purposefully playing upon his cuteness to earn their sympathy was a massive success. They felt really bad.  

He was right! Why did they have to meet him now instead of much earlier, indeed?  

  

***  

  

Speaking his feelings really paid off because it led to them ruminating on the matter of letting Gwendal know their secret; well, right after they kicked him out of the living room, of course! 

After some careful deliberation that took almost ten minutes, they called him back in with their final decision.  

Silva, as always, had to act like the old lady she was. She had Gwendal first promise to never reveal the secret he was going to hear to anyone, not even his parent, as in, Gwydion Sabregrant, his father and creator.   

Gwendal quickly agreed and Silva, together with Allan, peered into the future together to see if he’d break his promise. He didn’t, so it was all good. Now that everything was in place, they were ready to tell him.  

  

Before they told him the secret, they used Evan, as usual, as their scapegoat.  

“Ha... and it was a perfectly good shirt too...” He sighed dejectedly as he said goodbye to his shirt. You will be missed, shirt! Gwendal simply found his words to be strange. What shirt!  

For the intended effect, they continued on, letting Marcel touch Evan’s back. The result, as expected... was his shirt exploding off of him. Quite the reaction, it was!  

“You see… pretty dangerous! I can’t touch their backs because that always happens now. I don’t know why, but it does.” Marcel explained, a teeth-clenched smile on his face. Really, really sorry, shirt!  

Yes, this was the immediate reaction whenever Marcel touched their backs with clothes on, not that he’s tried it without the clothes to see what would happen, of course.  

“I see!” It was all Gwendal could say from seeing this explosive reaction. Although Evan’s shirt had exploded off him; he was perfectly fine.   

Gwendal didn’t recover for a while before he asked, “What... just happened?!” His mind completely blown away, not by the explosion, but by the fact that Marcel touching them brought about such an adverse reaction.  

  

Allan and Silva took the opportunity to explain the secret of the same insignia on their bodies and the reason why Marcel no longer touched any of their backs after he became a B-ranked existence...  

They explained it as it was; that whenever Marcel touched them in the immediate vicinity of the paired wings insignia since becoming a B-rank, their clothes in that area would be destroyed by an explosion. It’s almost like their body wants Marcel to touch them with nothing in the area of their insignia. Shalia experienced the same thing when Marcel touched her left shoulder, so he doesn’t do that anymore either. This is a big pain for the princess who appreciates any physical contact with Marcel to the extreme, but hey, being naked in public as the youngest Sunfire elven princess would be even more unacceptable and, probably, very disgraceful.  

  

“But why do you have it? Marcel, do you have it too?” He asked about the insignia after their explanation. Also, is there a way to get him one of that?  

Marcel shook his head, “No, I don’t! I have a different one on my left arm.” He showed Gwendal his vine tattoo.  

“Wait, that’s—” Gwendal, when looking at it, noticed something after a short while. The vine on Marcel’s arm—it resembled the green primary section of the paired wings insignia on the others, not only in color but…  

“Evan, Marcel, can I look closer at both your marks at the same time?” He asked.  

“Oh~ He’s already noticed!” Silva remarked.  

Yes, indeed, he had! When Marcel and Evan stood side-by-side to allow him to examine both the insignias at the same time, he noticed it more clearly. The primary section of the paired wings insignia was vine green in color and, when he studied it much closer, he noticed it.   

The primary section of the wings wasn’t just vine green. When one looked closely, one saw it for what it was. The truth was almost microscopic, unnoticeable, but, as someone who delves in rune magic, small details like these are nothing. What gave the wings their vine green color were actually micrometer-small vines that came together to give the greyed-out pair of wings that looked strangely dull and incomplete some vibrancy.   

Those vines; why did they look so much like Marcel’s vine tattoo?  

“They’re so similar!” He remarked.  

“We know!” The others remarked simultaneously. They’d all made the connection between Marcel’s vine tattoo and the pair of wings that appeared on their bodies when they became his ‘Chosens’.  

Silva spoke, “This vine tattoo somehow connects us to Marcel, sort of like the Demon Lord’s Chosens. They seem to give those who possess it enhanced abilities of sorts.”  

Of sorts? Surely, you jest! I won’t tell you what that insignia is for just yet, but I can tell you that it’s something incredible.  

“So, you’re telling me that you guys…”   

“Yes, are technically Marcel’s servants!” Allan answered Gwendal. From day one, he always believed that, and despite being best friends with Marcel now, he still thought the same. For some reason, a higher power had not only let them meet but allowed Marcel to bestow them a portion of his incredible power for an unknown purpose. Fate has a way of making bumping into someone at a party into a lifelong friendship/partial enslavement, I guess!  

  

Gwendal, after learning the truth, stayed silent for a few minutes before sighing in relief.  

“Whew, so it was just that!” He uttered. He felt so relieved. So, they weren’t both leaving him out and not telling him because they were trying to leave him out… it just was! He should have met Marcel much sooner and that could have been easily remedied. Ah, what a relief~!  

  

After his remark, the room got brighter again and Gwendal wasn’t upset anymore. They breathed peacefully again when he looked happy again. There’s nothing better than seeing a cute child get even cuter when they smiled as if they’d gobbled the sun to replace it.  

  

Basically, what happened next was Gwendal asking them how they became Marcel’s Chosens. When they told him, he asked Marcel in a comical manner if he’d be an angel and let him have his blood. He demanded it. Marcel was visibly distressed by this display of persistence.  

Marcel, remembering what happened last time his blood was involved in any occasion, had himself painfully reminded of the suffering he went through when he tried to refuse them, so this time, he was more ‘cooperative’, however you judge the meaning of that word by…  

  

Gwendal didn’t want to wait and so he drank it directly from Marcel like some kind of juice. He was utterly delighted. He’d always wanted some direct sign from the universe that he was meant to be by Marcel’s side, and this unbreakable bond forged through his love interest’s blood seemed like the most perfect, most obvious sign that he could receive. He was certainly delighted, all right! Ugh, obsessive types; they always take it too far!  

  

After receiving Marcel’s blood and thanking him for granting his wish, Gwendal, quite suddenly, fell to the ground, losing all strength in his body. It was working already! He entered a lifeless, inactive state for a few days. He showed no visible signs of life, with Silva’s confirmation being their only sure-fire way of knowing, reminding them that he was a magic artifact. His awakening was even more annoying.  

He woke up, having suffered no debilitating fever or a feeling like his entire body had been remolded in the fiery pits of hell. Lucky bastard!   

Like everyone, he had the experiences, except, with the addition of a 5 cm unnecessary hair extension, his hair became glossier and shinier. And let’s not even get started on his skin, because, um... he got paler, like ghost-pale! He became so transparent-like that one would have to wince to notice that he wasn’t actually a spiritual lifeform, more on that later. As for his insignia, it was edged into his right shoulder, parallel to Shalia’s own placement.   

As for abilities, tagging back to the subject of why he became so pale... well, he learned that his granted ability from this whole ‘becoming Marcel’s servant’ thing to be a special transracial ability like Kensuke’s should-have-been, vampire-only ability, [Blood Weapon Series], which allowed the Oni to store weapons in the ‘Blood Realm', a secret dimension accessed through his blood. 

Gwendal’s gift came in the form of body augmentation, a ‘physical’ trait that, according to Silva, belonged to the evasive Wispy Shadow, a demon race native to the Planet of Darkness, the race known to be rivals of the Darkness Spirits.   

Gwendal’s new body was a perfect complement to his existence as a witch/rune magic artifact, granting him the ability to become incorporeal by coating himself in a shadow-like cloak that rendered him almost virtually untouchable as he willed it. Adding that to the fact that he ascended to become a half-S-ranked existence, he can finally protect himself from anyone, except the regular ‘exceptions’; you know, Guardians, Progenitors, and so forth.  

As for how strong he is now, his power soared considerably compared to when the others first became Marcel’s Chosens. His magic power increased from the earlier A-class noteworthy 120 000 to an astonishing 350 000 magic units. He was just a little shy of Allan’s own capacity of 390 000 magic units.   

  

Yes, Marcel getting stronger naturally brought Gwendal, who became his servant at a much later time, more benefits on the go.  

“How do you feel?” Shalia asked, in regard to his apparent transformation.  

To that, he answered, “I feel... um, more complete? I don’t know how to describe it, but I feel like all of my respective parts have finally unified.” He remarked.  

When he said that, it didn’t really make much sense until later, the thing that his creator, the Runic Lord, had wanted to create, manifested. Thanks to Marcel, Gwendal could finally wield his very soul in the form of Vitalis’s given skill, the [Ruler of Runes], similar to Allan’s [Ruler of Spells].   

Unlike Allan’s [Ruler of Spells], the [Ruler of Runes] had no physical manifestation, seeing as it was Gwendal’s very soul. It wasn’t an embedded consciousness that granted the ability to make spells into spirit-like entities but, boy, did it fit the description of the phrase: ‘Words are powerful’. 

[Ruler of Runes], like [Ruler of Spells], was a special gift meant to promote runes to their ultimate forms. Rune magic normally used runes to use every force available, or World Force, as Gwendal called them, to change aspects of the world on a fundamental level. In normal cases, the runes are simply commands created to aid the user in altering chosen aspects. That’s why most people never learn that they’re capable of something more: being both the order and the aspect itself.  

[Ruler of Runes] allows Gwendal to tune into his magic artifact side, allowing him to use his soul to power his runes into pure power, making them represent the change he wants in the world. Unlike before when he needed to consult with World to make certain changes to aspects, this power hidden away within himself has been altered some more, allowing every word he utters to become his power. When he says ‘Stop’, then the world better stop for him like he commanded, though, such a time-interference command will surely cost him of all his soul power and drain his body of his life force in an instant. After all, his soul is his literal life. When it runs out of juice, then he, Gwendal, is dead as well. 

Sure, so it isn’t like Allan’s [Ruler of Spells], which creates fancy Spirit Phantoms, but when every word you say and rune you draw has the potential to make tomorrow change forever, it makes you wonder? Just what kind of being gives away such power as a gift?! 

Also, now that Gwendal has unlocked this power, he certainly will be getting into fights with Allan over which ‘Ruler’ is stronger: Spells or Runes? I’m not saying that any one of them will win, and whoa... Gwendal’s power-up—it should probably make his other friends jealous, right? 

The others weren’t really jealous though, because Gwendal was still on their level. After all, it’s not like he’s become a god or anything; just a little more world-bending, that’s all. 

Now Silva had a capacity of 200 000 magic units, Valeria 130 000, the Thunderbeast brothers at 110 000 respectively, Kensuke at 90 000. They really weren’t in any rush to become S-classes; hence it really didn’t bother them that Gwendal overtook them in one fell swoop. They were all A-rank, except Kensuke who needed just to increase his magic capacity by 10 000 more magic units.  

  

After the entire thing was over, Gwendal, as expected, made this all about becoming one with Marcel, which creeped out the others. The others pondered why, unlike them, both Gwendal and Shalia had their insignias on different parts of their body.   

Evan, the loudmouthed assassin, was the one to answer that question,  

“It’s easy! They’re both crazy about Marcel. Left shoulder and right shoulder; it should be fairly obvious why. Shalia and Gwendal do like their ‘Marcy’…” He winked at Shalia, the only person he knew who actually called Marcel by something as cute as Marcy.   

“Ooh…” They thought, shocked that they didn’t get it sooner. So, those in love with Marcel don’t have it on their backs?  

Um, wrong! That’s definitely not it. Again, this will all make sense in the future. For now, let’s just continue!  

  

So, now, it’s official! There’s the literal, ongoing mystery-to-be-solved: Marcel, indifferent Rock, Allan; the demigoddess who knows too way much; the exhibitionist, two-sided tiger princess with a possessive dad, the shameless Spirit-affined Sunfire elf princess who won’t stop making a pass at a gay guy, three lightning embodiment brothers: a fluffy bear, a confident knight, and a foul-mouthed death-seeker, Rock no. 2, and lastly, the newest ‘official’ member of this friend group: a thousand-faced, flamboyant, slightly narcissistic magic artifact of a poor bastard who fell for a cruel trap. Yeah, that about entirely sums this whole group up!   

And that, my friends, concludes this extremely long ‘meeting friends’ phase of the story. Now, we’re finally at the start of the next phase where mysteries shall be unveiled, many hearts shall be plucked like fruits off a tree, and lastly, the blooming of the gardens and the heavenly graces! Buckle up your seatbelts, ropes, or whatever, because this trip... is about to take a very bumpy turn! Just know that I, ahem, warned you, hehehe~