The rest of the Hellrunner were tasked to guard the city. The ones that are in the dominion or at least the rest were creating fortifications, using their printer factories to manufacture vehicles and arms that would protect it.

Helena left the defense of the dominion to the Knight Captains, while the rest of the forces are going to defend their home island from potential foreign threat.

The experiments that they were doing took the attention of the world. Headlines were full of speculation about what their movements meant.

The space warps and trembles. Helena backs off and spots the Madam, appearing through the gap of the tunnel, she slaps her coat, and calmly travels her gaze on Helena who was watching the news.

“It looks like the eyes of the world are on us.”

“Let them. The data about the dominion’s control sphere. How was it?”

She hands over the paper to her Mentor. Gia Silva, the Founder of the LORES Consortium and her Teacher.

Helena could remember her teacher back then. She was traveling the world at the age of thirty when she found her hiding near a crate.

She could still remember that look she gave her. The cold face turned warmth. For five years she was taught by her Teacher. From arithmetic, languages, and all the basics. She was a certified teacher, and with her credentials she was able to learn what she wanted. Of course, her interest was mostly in magic and theory.

It was around when she was twenty that Teacher founded the LORES Consortium. It was a company that was made to accommodate the companies that her Teacher bought throughout the years.

“Mo-, Master. I never really asked why you named the Consortium LORES.”

She looks up and blinks.

“I just liked the name. It can mean that it learns and also… you can say that it is also my light and torch. This Consortium is my only light to understand. What better way to remind myself than naming the one thing that would help me through this endeavor?”

She pauses.

“And I already told you that you can call me your mom. You little girl.”

“Don’t pout, mom.”

“My expressions died a long time ago.”

That was a big lie.

It might be very controlled, but Helena, out of everyone, knew that Mom just likes controlling her emotions. She couldn’t believe it, but there were times where her Teacher and her Mother would leak her emotions out.

It’s something that she rarely leaks out. Another side of her Mom that she had been keeping away. Her Mom’s not weak. She was the strongest woman she knew. A woman that relied on her own ability to become one of the most influential figures in the world.

Creating many innovations. Inventing so many complexities that it’s hard to believe that deep down, beneath that mask of professionalism and coldness. It was her way to survive in a world where weakness would be easily exploitable.

But beyond all the work and beyond the teachings. To her, she was a giant, a person who would uplift those who she taught. In those days where she found herself doubting. It was her Mom’s gentle and wise words that she found comfort in.

Even she has started to believe that even if the sky falls on them. She would remain, deep down, a kind person who wouldn’t stop her from moving forward.

The soft voice she taught her adopted sons and daughters. But one shouldn’t mistake her for soft. Their ‘Mom’ was soft, but the Madam that everyone knew her well was not so soft and naïve.

But as time passes she seems to have been more desperate. Her Mom wasn’t that foolish not to understand the implications of what she’s doing. They might be powerful and they have allies everywhere, but when the world’s looking at you.

You have to be smarter.

“You know that you’re not good at hiding that face of yours, bambini.”

“You’re the only one who can read me like a book, Mom.”

She switches to another page.

“I have my own reasons. Of course, I’m not that heartless to let all of you go down a path. But this is something that must be done.”

“Are we not enough?”

She didn’t reply.

Helena has been with her Mom to understand that it was a goal that started it all. A goal that she was unable to stop. To stop now would be a form of disrespect to those who have sacrificed themselves to further their goal.

Helena’ sometimes thinks that her Mom wanted to stop too. And that there have been days where her Mom was finding so many ways to delay their progress in the name of strengthening the foundations and making sure that none was harmed more than needed.

They were pursuing a goal. Not creating chaos and bloodshed without reason. Some might argue that they were immoral, but progress needed sacrifice and that was the case most of the time.

You cannot achieve something without fulfilling the requirements needed to achieve it. Although they are magicians, True Mages, even they cannot use Magic to fulfill everything so elegantly.

Life wasn’t so simple.

Answers aren’t easily available and as the ones leading the world to these answers, it was harder than it looks. The study, research, acquisition, and doing it better again and again was their cycle. Being long-lived had their perks and its downside was knowing that everything worth doing needed time to make.

“After this?”

“We do better and find a newer method. Always have been our thing, bambini.”

Helena cups her chin. There were words stuck in her throat. Words that she finds it hard to say to her Mom. She understood well enough that it was something she’d hesitate to say to her Mom.

She had spent at least fifty years trying to convince her Mom. And in those fifty years there was never a time that she’d stumbled on this path of hers.

“You are distracted today.”

“I’m hungry.”

“Just breathe in the air and fill your stomach with magic, child.”

“That is something I will never get used to. Besides, I miss your beef stew, mom.”

She studies Helena seriously. Then she places the papers down.

“Are the preparations done?”

“Who do you think raised yours truly, Mom?”

“You’ve become cheeky at your old age, my daughter.”

Helena’s face froze. She looks away grumbling before a genuine chuckle comes out of her Mom’s mouth.

“Come on, we might as well.”

“No kidding?”

Helena stands up. Gia opens a tunnel and crosses the tunnel. It was a magic that she developed. It may look like teleportation, but it was more of a tunnel that sends them flying in their direction. She got the idea from observing a wisp. The process was that through covering herself in this ball of light, she would slip through the same pathways that the Wisps travel and flung herself forward.

It was a technique that only Gia and her can do masterfully. It was advised not to do it openly and in a tight space, but they had been using the technique for over sixty years that messing up now would be embarrassing.

She stepped into a seemingly normal house. A house that only a few know. It was the second loneliest house in the world. Surrounded by towering walls that block access from it. It was a sanctuary that her Mom made a few years ago. There were only a few who were able to enter her sanctuary.

“I’ll change first, go get yourself something to drink”

She searched the fridge and found herself a drink. Mom walked down from the second floor, wearing her dress with a blue checked ribbon tied around her waist.

Mom searched her fridge, took the necessary materials, and started preparing the beef stew. Helena felt giddy. It had been too long since she tasted the beef stew. She could remember it clearly. How her Mom, in an effort to get close to her, charmed her with the same beef stew.

Helena leaned forward.

“Wish I could just take it easy.”

“Hmm?”

“I’m always working. Ah, I shouldn’t be so diligent.”

“You’re speaking as if it is my fault that you did well. It bothers me that you haven’t found yourself a good partner, my child.”

“Mom, we talked about this.”

“It’s fine. You don’t have to worry. We have the tech now. Even if you love a girl, your mother would gladly accept it.”

“I… don’t date because of that. And I know Mom would understand if that was the case. I just don’t think that it's something that I want to do. Not until you get your wish, Mom.”

“I disagree,” she said sternly. “Do not mistake my goal for your own. What I do is my own business and it shouldn’t hamper your own life. You need to pick your own happiness, my child.”

“I would love to, but that doesn’t seem to come to me.”

She was young and long-lived.

But she was older than anyone else.

Like Gia she was obsessed with the theories and uses that she has dedicated her entire life to assisting her Mother’s goal.

“Maybe I’m the type to never find love.”

“Doubt it.”

Gia said so surely. She stirred the beef stew.

“And so far it’s been too short. How about you, Mom? Did I have a potential Father once?”

“There was. But that was a long time ago.”

Her mother’s face softened to such a degree that it made Helena curious.

“Might be quite someone.”

“He… was a simple man. Fierce, and yet simple on the inside.”

“Loved him?”

“Did. But it never worked out in the end.”

“Oh, if it did?”

“Maybe I wouldn’t be chasing after an old dream.”

She saw a deep sorrow that Gia could barely contain. Nonetheless, Helena didn’t want to dig up old wounds.

“Things are going well with the project.”

“From the looks of it, but let’s not let our guard down. Korium is volatile. I don’t want anyone tampering it. It’ll be nothing more than a test.”

“The infusement’s taking time though.”

“When you work with tons of it. There’s bound to be interference. Korium can conduct magic and be used alongside technology, but the scale demands interference.”

“I worry about the effects.”

“Worrying about the effects will come later. If the scale of the tear goes beyond the projected value, we will shut it down.”

“That demon… Do you think it will help?”

“It’s always better to assume that it won’t. We have erased its mind, and brainwashed it into thinking to be one of us. However, if there’s a mishap, then that demon will regain some of its instincts.”

“A gate to another plane…”

“It is not so mythical. The Age of Myths and Heroes have described such gates. Unfortunately, we are dealing with infinity, and in a world lacking magic because of the millennium bug. It is a task that requires extraordinary effort.”

She stops stirring the beef stew for a moment.

“This would have been infinitely easier if the millennium bug didn’t come to this world. We supplement that energy that we lack with korium.”

“I’m surprised that you were able to discover it.”

“They have texts describing it. I found the first korium in the mantle beneath the mountains pompeii. It took the world twenty years to finally learn of it and now they dare to think that it’ll solely belong to the world. Although, I fear that we have angered a monopoly and sooner or later we have to think of compromise to deal with them.”

“Or we could acquire them.”

“That is one way to go. But a bloated Consortium will only drag us down. It’s better to have allies bound by a leash of wealth. Anyway, I’m sure that you haven’t come here to discuss business since you’re making your dear mother cook for you.”

“Love you, Mom.”

“Bring some of these to your brothers. And don’t you forget my containers.”

Helena raises a brow and chuckles. “I learned my lesson. I promise I won’t forget your pyrex container ever again.”

Helena preferred her silly Mom.

Maybe that’s why every kid that grew up knowing who she was wanted nothing more than let her dreams happen.

There is a fire in Gia Silva that burns intensely.

A fire that wouldn’t go out until she gets what she wants.