The cheerful and hopeful voices of the crowd filled the city’s main square, deafening clings of metal striking metal escaped from the blacksmiths’ workshops, and boisterous laughter could be heard from the bars.

Merchants were loudly hawking their wares, bards were spiritedly singing of legends of old, and the jolly shouts of frolicking children filled the usually empty corners on the streets.

Everyone is going about their day with a natural smile on their faces and a light skip to their footsteps.

Even the rare ones with a frown still have distinctly hopeful eyes.

It’s as if someone ripped out the picture of a fairytale city from a book and transformed it into reality.

A city filled with thousands of people with different ethnicities and cultures, yet all of them live together in peace and harmony.

What’s even more astounding is that this harmony isn’t a façade, this city truly doesn’t have any darkness hidden underneath.

It’s a city that’s too perfect to be real.

But it is in fact real, and no one can deny the blood, sweat, and tears the predecessors of its denizens shed in order for it to become the paradise it is today.

 

One of the bars’ double doors is pushed open and a young man seemingly in his late twenties walks out with a flushed face and a faint scent of alcohol wafting off of him.

Yet even with his unfocused eyes and erratic steps, his body moves towards his chosen destination without any detours or even bumping into other pedestrians.

A few minutes later, he arrives at the public natural zone.

To the right side is a forest filled with tens of different types of trees, including ones which don’t normally grow in such environments and ones filled with magic.

And to the left side lays a large lake with all kinds of exotic flowers and plants growing around it, even the mythical plants mentioned only in the legends sung by the bards could often be seen.

Of course, while they have the same effects as their mythological counterparts, they are merely creations of the denizens of this prosperous city.

The man’s eyes casually scan through the writing on the directional signs, then he resumes walking after picking one of the paths leading to the lake. 

The warm morning breeze blew through his short red hair and caressed his bronze tanned skin, causing him to sober up.

A tantalizing fragrance reached his nose, causing him to unconsciously slow down his pace and relaxedly close his shiny teal eyes as a soft smile made its way onto his face.

Numerous flowers decorated the sides of his path, with colors so bright and beautiful that any of those surface inhabitants would spend their entire wealth to buy one.

Leaving his body on autopilot, his mind drifts back to a rumor he heard back at the bar.

Apparently, those surface inhabitants somehow thought it a good idea to start a world-scale war, and against the True Dragon race nonetheless!

Not only him, but everyone who has heard of this rumor was dumbfounded and subconsciously denied it.

Everyone knows that the surface inhabitants were once citizens of Kratinz, but they were later exiled and had their memories deleted due to their problematic nature.

However, they weren’t cast away defenselessly and left to die. 

In fact, only memories of Kratinz were deleted, and they were even left with some basic weaponry and a few mythological records to make sure they don’t stray from the right path.

Records of the divine races in the universe were explicitly listed among those, including both Angels and True Dragons.

Yet those surface inhabitants dared to start a war against the dragons and caused a lot of troubles for the last Angel on this planet, Seraphim Sariel.

And that’s not even the end of it, those people had the audacity to extract the planet’s lifeforce and advertise it as an infinite energy source that could be extracted everywhere!

If it weren’t for Kratinziens being advocates of peace, they would’ve definitely exterminated those surface inhabitants long ago.

Those surface inhabitants basically took every single one of their beliefs and brazenly trampled on them!

The sound of water splashes brought the young man out of his thoughts.

Opening his eyes, he takes in the sight of the only fresh body of water the Kratinziens have.

Ever since they were forced to flee to this underwater city, they were confined to a small piece of land and surrounded by the ocean’s water from all directions.

They were forced to use MA energy to genetically alter their body organs so that they could breathe underwater and harmlessly sustain themselves with seawater.

Such enhancements are considered a grave sin, but the desperate circumstances at the time sadly left them with no other choice.

The young man can’t imagine how hard it was for predecessors to go through with this decision, but he, like everyone else, has nothing but the utmost respect for them.

Walking towards the lake-side pier, the young man’s now sharp eyes glance over the pier’s cafeteria’s seats.

A moment later, he locates his target for this trip– an elderly man sitting on the edge of the wooden pier with his legs dangling in the water and a fishing rod resting between his arms.

The young man’s face seems to brighten up a bit as he makes his way towards the elderly man.

“Why bother when you know you ain’t keeping what you catch, gramps.” Chuckling, the young man pulls a chair and sits behind the old man.

“Oh, it’s you, Heikan. Fishing is one of the rare activities I can still enjoy at my age, lad.”

“Fair enough. I’d imagine you have already dabbled in most hobbies out there with your age.”

Putting a hand in his pocket, Heikan takes out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

Pulling out two cigarettes, he offers the old man one of them along with the lighter.

“Ahh, thanks. It still feels funny when I’m offered one of those, haha.”

“Most of the old folks reject them. I heard they caused some diseases back at your time?” Heikan curiously asks with a raised eyebrow.

“They sure did. Even if it could easily be cured, who’d want to waste the time, effort, and money for no return?”

“I bet those surface inhabitants would.”

“While that’s true, you should feel nothing but pity for them though, lad. Imagine missing out on this paradise because your grandparents had a few bad character traits.”

Heikan pauses for a few seconds, taking a puff of his cigarette and thinking about the old man’s words.

Such unique perspectives formed due to long years of experience is the reason why he never gets bored of hanging out with the old man.

“It’s hard to sympathize with them when they’ve already touched almost all of our taboos, gramps.”

Try as he might, Heikan just couldn’t feel anything but disgust towards those surface dwellers.

“Not all of them are guilty, lad. It’s always the ones in charge who are responsible for the filth in any organization, don’t lose your mind because of anger.”

The old man pauses to take his breath before continuing.

“Pride, Wrath, Greed, Envy, Gluttony, Sloth, Lust, and their righteous counterparts are all part of our essence as humans. The difference between us and them is that we were forced to control them while they weren’t… yet.”

Heikan suddenly remembered that book he read countless times in the public library’s history section.

Its name was "The Chronicles of Kratinz' History".

 

Centuries ago, a group of Angels settled on this planet and the ancient humans worshiped them as gods.

Time passed. The number of those humans increased exponentially under the Angels’ protection and they made incredible advancements.

Everything seemed like it would stay this way, but nothing lasts forever.

As the number of humans increased and their technology advanced to the point where they discovered MA energy, some of them weren’t content with worshiping the Angels any more.

It’s not like the Angels were tyrannical beings or anything like that.

In fact, they mostly kept to themselves and selflessly helped humans when they encountered natural disasters and such.

Worship and respect them, then you get their protection. Eventually, even the unconscious will of the planet recognized them as its guardians.

They were the perfect gods any race could ask for.

However, human greed knows no bounds.

Soon, some of the people in power felt jealous about the Angels having more sway in the people’s heart than them, so they started spreading vicious rumors about them.

The darkness in the human heart is the easiest to manipulate, so they spoke about how Angels intentionally left many humans to die before they showed up to save them.

Others were about how Angels are monsters that enjoy humanity’s suffering and think of humans as their toys.

Their targets were the many relatives of the victims of previous disasters.

And since the Angels don’t interfere with humans unless it’s to protect them, those rumors went out of control and spread like wildfire.

Eventually, humanity which had been united as a whole for centuries under the Angels’ protection split up into two factions.

Wars were fought and blood was shed, and scientists stopped caring about life technology and turned to the research of weapons of mass destruction.

Humanity was collapsing from within, yet the Angels did nothing.

More rumors spread about them being indifferent to humanity even though rivers of blood were shed.

However, what they couldn’t understand was that Angels are fundamentally different from humans.

The Angels didn’t act because they couldn’t.

They are supposed to be the guardians of the planet, so how could they attack what they should be protecting?

So, they could do nothing but watch with confused eyes and aching hearts.

The war entered a stalemate that went on for years, and the number of casualties reached unimaginable numbers.

Even the ones who were responsible for this war in the first place were assassinated in their homes.

But the frequency of battles soon decreased as the people’s hearts became more and more tired.

Just when it seemed like the war would end, a few extremists from the non-believer side hijacked a base filled with newly developed MA weapons and launched all of them on the other side’s capital.

What they didn’t know was that the energy released from this explosion attracted a certain battle hungry being’s attention, causing her to descended on the planet and start a massacre.

Of course, the guardians of the planet didn’t idly stand by.

They all rose up to resist her, but they were no match against her godly might.

Even though it was a many against one battle, it lasted for a long time and more Angels perished every day.

Tens of millions of humans were killed by their stray shots. Humanity was powerless to resist the might of the gods they had previously looked down upon.

Soon, the Angels realized that they were no match for this foe and, pained by wails of the dead, they decided to sacrifice themselves in order for the remaining humans to survive.

Utilizing one of their rituals, half of the Angels offered most of their powers to one of their own, bumping her up to the level of a higher god and left her to guard humanity.

The other half injected their powers into a gift they got from humans in the past, transforming it into The Living Rose.

A special flower created with Angelic purification powers, its purpose is to absorb all kinds of energy and transform it into MA energy.

Then, all the Angels who have lost their power sacrificed their lives to drag down the invader while the last Angel, Seraphim Sariel, covered the remaining humans’ escape.

Kratinz was their destination, a marine studies scientific base hidden in the ocean.

Humans, who were the leaders of the world, lost everything and had to flee like mice and live in hiding.

And that’s how this paradise called Kratinz came to be.

Though it should be noted that The Living Rose wasn’t actually a rose.

In fact, it was a water lily, but the Angels made a mistake in translation and called it a rose and the humans kept the name as a sign of respect for the gods who sacrificed their lives for them.

 

Taking the last puff from his cigarette, Haiken admiringly looks at the old man peacefully fishing by the lake.

His name is Juires Orkenz, a retired Kratinzien spy who spent over a hundred and fifty years on the surface.

That’s over half of an average Kratinzien’s lifespan, considering how their bodies are enhanced to the point where they could theoretically survive for three hundred years.

Just as he was about to reply to the old man’s words, he spotted an anxious middle-aged man in a military outfit running towards Orkenz.

Haiken's body tensed in case he needed to protect the old man, but Orkenz signaled him to stop with solemn eyes.

“That doesn’t seem good.” Orkenz’s voice came out with a grave tone.

“What’s wrong, gramps? I consider you my grandfather, so just tell me what you need and I’ll do it.”

“There’s probably nothing you can do about this.”

Heikan wanted to argue that he could help, but Orkenz stopped him with a shush and continued with his words.

“Retired military officers are often called upon when direly needed, but back then, I used my military merits to ask for the highest-tier pardon.”

Clenching his fists, Orkens took a deep breath, and let out a sigh as grave news came from his mouth.

“The highest-tier pardon means that I cannot be called in any case unless there’s an absolute threat to Kratinz’s existence.”

And sure enough, the word’s that came out of the middle-aged man’s mouth confirmed what Orkenz had just said.

“Sir Orkenz, the council has called upon you. Kratinz has entered the black alert state as of ten minutes ago.”

Haiken and even Orkenz’s eyes widened, the situation was far worse than they imagined.

If a red alert means a threat to Kratinz’s existence, then a black alert means a threat to the continuity of the human race itself.

“It seems that things are far more serious than I thought, lad. Go back home and pack the necessities, we might have to abandon Kratinz.”

“... Fine. May The Living Rose save us all.” Although Haiken was unwilling, he still saluted and started making his way back home.

He knew there was nothing he could do to help in this situation.

“And may the wings of the gods embrace the lost.” Orkenz replies as he nods to the middle-aged officer.

But before they could make it off the wooden pier, a harsh distinctive siren rang through the entirety of Kratinz, and seawater started flooding the city from above.

The expression on the pedestrians’ faces changed into abject horror, but there was no mass panic or stampedes.

Everyone filed in towards the city square in neat straight lines, including Haiken, Orkenz, and the middle-aged officer.

A dignified atmosphere settled over Kratinz as its citizens arrived at the square with nothing but the sound of water rushing behind them.

Soon, the council members also arrived on the scene, and their speaker ascended the steps to the podium.

Without using any devices, his loud voice loudly echoed through the square.

“Goddess Sariel has successfully repelled the True Dragons, but those fiends stole most of the planet’s MA energy reserve before leaving. 
Now the planet has only one year before it collapses. The impact of MA energy shortage has already started showing in a lot of places on the planet. 
Sadly, Kratinz is one of the affected areas, and we have been cut off from the rest of the world.
We have sent out submarines to test the changes and clear an evacuation route, but everyone we sent was forcibly transformed into pure MA energy and absorbed by the planet. 
We have made many other attempts, but we came to the conclusion that it is currently impossible for us to escape from Kratinz.”

The speaker paused and took a sip of water to moisten his throat before continuing.

“The Living Rose absorbs, circulates, and eventually transforms all energy in a specific radius into MA energy.
MA energy is both absorbed and released during this process and in fact, it is in fact our main source of energy.
Unfortunately, there is no longer any of it left for The Living Rose to absorb. This caused the barrier to lose its energy supply and fail as you can see.
We see no way out and we do not want to deceive you. Kratinz and all of us will most likely perish in less than a year. 
We will do our best to prevent this or let you survive, but we have gathered you all in case we are required to pay back our gods and perform the Ultimate Gratitude Ceremony.”

As he concludes his speech, he looks upwards and makes a distinctive salute with his right hand while clicking his left leg on the ground.

“Sacrifice for Kratinz. The Living Rose will save us all!”

Haiken, Orkenz, and everyone else follow behind with the salute, as their loud voices echo through Kratinz.

““““““SACRIFICE FOR KRATINZ. THE LIVING ROSE WILL SAVE US ALL!”””””