God helps! Or not...

Most of the people present seemed to believe what I said and their crazed eyes returned to normal. They no longer gave me those crazed looks and looked at me like they would at a normal person, though their respect was still present. I even sensed a bit of fear and awe mixed into their emotions so I believed my speech was a success.

The only problem was that the ground started shaking as Sylvanus started moving towards the surface, so many of them became a little confused right away.

"What's happening?" a man shouted.

"My God and Goddess, look, the ground started cracking beneath you!" another cried out, pointing at the tiles under Lien and me. Both of us were standing in the air with the help of gravity magic so it didn’t matter to us.

While it was nice of him to warn us, even though it was obvious, I couldn’t help but get annoyed after hearing the way he called me.

“I’m not your God and she isn’t your Goddess. My name is Seth and hers is Lien, get it right. Also, instead of pointing fingers, you should hurry up and leave this building while you can. Haven’t I told you that a powerful monster has been resting under the church? Now it’s about to come to the surface,” I replied. I believed that the less I helped, the more likely it was that they would sober up and forget about all this bullshit religion.

"Can't you save us? Please help!" he shouted, seeing the cracks under me expanding to the whole building. As Sylvanus was getting closer to the surface, the earthquake became stronger with each passing second.

Since the church wasn't enhanced with magic, it couldn't withstand all that shaking anymore and large pieces of the ceiling started falling off one after the other. With the help of telekinesis, I held up the pieces that would have fallen on people but the other pieces blocked the main exit.

“Our Gods are helping us, let’s leave quickly!” as if he didn’t even hear what I said, he shouted as he ran towards the exit and started cleaning it up. He seemed to be very persistent. I didn’t want to be too forceful with my mind magic since I didn’t want them to start hating us or call us evil either. As a result, those who believed strongly weren’t affected too much.

“When words fail to get the point clear, you can use your fists,” Lien remarked before she appeared in front of the guy and grabbed the neck of his shirt. I was a little surprised to see her run out of patience so quickly. Well, it wasn’t like I was the only one annoyed by all this.

Raising the guy into the air, she threw him back a few meters and walked up to him as she said, “Listen here because I’m not going to say it twice. I’m not your goddess and I’m not your mother either. Do I feel like a god to you?” she asked as she forcibly grabbed his wrist and made him grab her arm.

“Doesn’t it feel like a normal human’s skin and flesh? So tell me, how should you refer to me from now on?” Her magic power completely released, it was pressing down on him like a mountain and since they were physically connected, she could kill him just by pouring a tiny bit of her mana into his body.

Finding it hard to speak from the pressure and his fear, he stuttered her name, “L-Li-Lien. You are Lien!”

“Yes, that’s me, and if any of you call me your god again, I can make you unable to talk ever again,” she replied, pushing his hand away and walking back to my side. Without saying anything else, she used gravity magic to crush all the stones and compress the whole building into a fist-sized ball in her hand, carefully controlling it to avoid people from being pulled into it.

Stopping on the edge of the giant hole that was right below me, she threw the ball towards Sylvanus who was about to reach the surface and then released her control on the ball, letting it explode. If she let go of it on the surface, the exploding fragments would have filled everyone present with fist-sized holes.

Covering the hole with gravity magic, I stopped the splinters from coming out and watched happily as Sylvanus’ doppelganger was destroyed in the blink of an eye. The splinters were the least destructive effect of that spell. The real threat was the exploding air that could blow anything into pieces and that thing happened to be Sylvanus’ body in this case.

It would have been nice if things could have gone that smoothly but this wasn’t a normal doppelganger either. It was an actual clone with its own thoughts which became clear to me after I saw its body recovering from the few pieces that remained. Pushing back my gravity magic with its own, it crawled out of the hole like a worm and stopped in front of us.

This clone didn’t look like the usual vine dragons. It looked like our evolved bodies right after we ate the apple, reaching a height of two meters, covered in scales and muscles from head to toe.

“That wasn’t a nice way to greet me, you know?” it asked, staring at Lien with its creepy face that had no eyes and mouth. It used wind magic to talk which could be used to make any voice it wanted. Despite its creepy looks, it chose to use my voice and I believed I had a rather soft and deep voice, so it didn’t really match it.

Probably thinking the same, she said, “Could you stop using my husband’s voice? It’s annoying.”

“Fine,” it replied, this time using her voice.

“You aren’t funny,” I remarked.

“I’m not here to be fun,” this time it replied using a hoarse voice. Although I was itching to attack, I wanted to ask a few questions so while I returned my body to the way it was after I ate the apple, I asked, “How come you decided to show yourself after all these years?”

“It’s because your stupid resistance is starting to be more and more annoying and I had to make an effort to be able to talk with you. You see, I’d be really happy if you stopped ruining my plans with your soul-blocking formations, ignorantly. You can have your own little community up in the sky and you can also use it to kill all these random human organizations so I don’t get why you want to interfere with other things,” it replied.

“Why do you make yourself sound like a good guy who’s doing some great service to humanity? Aren’t you trying to enslave humans?” I asked, hoping that I would find out more about this monster, human, or whatever it was.

“I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to. They’re stupid worms who are killing each other for even the smallest of things. They are greedy with no self-control and lack any regard for their own environment. They would rather destroy this planet and go to another one than to change the way they lived and give up on something. They’re enslaving each other even without me doing anything and they rape, murder, and betray one another.”

“I know that you are a human as well but your way of thinking is considerably different so I didn’t kill you when you were weaker. There are many people like you on this planet but they are still considered rare in this crowd of idiots. Now that you have heard my reasons, please, go ahead and tell me just one good reason why I shouldn’t continue what I started many years ago. And for your information, I don’t plan to kill humanity or use them for anything,” it said, giving me one surprise after another.

The worst was that if what it said was true and it really didn’t want to kill humans, I couldn’t think of a good reason to stop it. People weren’t waging wars with each other all because of its ‘enslavement’ and their conflicts were limited to smaller groups for the most part. It just made things more peaceful.

Placing my hand on my chin, I replied, “I can’t give you a single reason right now other than the fact that I can’t trust your words. You have destroyed a whole city just a month ago and killed millions so on what basis should I believe you?”

“That wasn’t my doing, you fool. I want to enslave humans with my soul force so that they would unite after thousands of years and work together instead of murdering each other. I could also get rid of a few of their bad habits through my control. Why would I destroy them if it was you who took over the enslavement? Your ‘Leviathan’ is doing just fine so I sort of trust you,” it replied, making quote marks with its fingers as it spoke.

Checking my soul and my brain, I knew I wasn’t affected by mind magic. Probably concerned by the same thing, Lien asked through Link, “Am I mind controlled? I find its words reasonable…”

“No, it’s not just you, and this clone is definitely weaker than me so that shouldn’t be possible either,” I replied.

“But I didn’t enslave Baghdad. I just made a soul-blocking barrier around it,” I said aloud, waiting to hear its reaction.

“Yeah, that’s also one of the reasons I used these people to make you come here. I can’t find you that easily and your silly people kill my doppelgangers so quickly that I never had time to leave them a message…” it said, sounding a little grumpy.

“I’ve been wanting to talk with you about why I’m doing this so that you would stop destroying my doppelgangers. It’s a lot of work to make them regrow and there are fewer and fewer of them after your group started fighting against me. Sadly, I must tell you that you were misled by your classmate, Leo. You know, that blonde-haired silent guy in your class in the school you attended. You also beat him up in an alleyway two years ago, not long after you had your first… experience,” it said. I could totally imagine it staring at Lien after that.

“If that’s really the case, why did you wait for so long to do this? Why didn’t you tell me about this when I was weaker? And haven’t you told me that you wanted to destroy humanity?” I couldn’t help but bombard it with questions, not believing that I was starting to believe in its words.

“Although I’m connected with my clones, I can’t possibly watch over all of them at the same time, I’m not omnipotent either. This means that when my clones are attacked, they will retaliate but I won’t be able to control them until my consciousness connects to that clone.“

“Considering that you and your people usually attacked my doppelgangers and then destroyed them within seconds, I’ve never had a chance to talk to you again. In case you remember, the first and last time we talked was when you first killed one of my doppelgangers. So tell me, how was I supposed to contact you? You couldn’t find me for all these years and I couldn’t find you either. It’s simple as that. In the end, I was forced to make a religion for you so that you would show up.”

“As for killing humanity, you are right, that was my original plan. I wasn’t born a human. I’m just a small rat that escaped from an experiment more than two hundred years ago and gained immense power and knowledge over the years. My powers are partly thanks to my commandment. When I was younger I hated your race for what they have done to me in those cages but over the years, I’ve realised that it was a blessing for me, even if that wasn’t their intention.”

“I still wanted to kill humankind but after seeing you and many others who were different, I came to understand that just like animals fought and were different, humans weren’t the same either. There are good and bad ones both among humans and animals, so I didn’t find it a good solution to use the power I gained thanks to humanity to destroy them,” it replied.

“I see,” I muttered, getting more and more lost on what to do. Everything it said was true. I never gave a chance for it to talk and I wouldn’t be able to connect to my clones instantly either if I had many of them. It spoke facts which made things harder to accept. The more I thought about its words and actions, the more I realised that it never took action against humanity. It just helped us.

Considering that monsters didn’t want new apex predators and always ganged up on those that could become one, it was quite unreasonable that they didn’t go all out to destroy human settlements. That also had to do with Sylvanus’ soul force else our race could have perished long before I was born, leaving only god incarnations and strong magicians.

“I know you came all prepared to fight me but I must let you down today because I’m not your enemy. It’s probably a lot to take in so suddenly so how about I give you a way to contact me and we continue this later? If you want to make sure that I’m not lying, go ahead and activate some of your soul-blocking formations and see what’s going to happen. I bet that your stupid race will start waging wars within a few weeks without my soul force restricting them.”

Sighing loudly, I rubbed my temples as I thought about its words. I always wondered why it didn’t kill me when I was weaker. The first time I killed one of its doppelgangers, it could have easily come to me personally and get rid of me and I wouldn’t have stood a chance. It made no sense that it was just ‘resting’ or waiting for some miraculous evolution. With my current knowledge, I could tell that any kind of evolution could be finished in at most a week, and the stronger you are, the less time you need.

Although it was far away from me, its clone’s power alone was comparable to Lien’s magic power so the clone that was standing in front of me could have easily killed me two years ago. Seeing that I was struggling with my thoughts, Lien voiced her thoughts, “Honey, I think that we should listen to this creature, even if it sounds like a bad decision.”

“To be honest, it doesn’t sound like a bad decision and the kind of ‘enslavement’ that it is doing right now is pretty much harmless,” I replied.

“Hmm, how about this? I’m not a human so I shouldn’t be responsible for your race. The only reason I’m helping your race is that your stupid infighting would destroy the planet sooner or later, and I don’t want to leave this place. That being the case, I could hand over all the responsibility to you and you could fill the planet with your soul force the way I did. You’re much stronger than me when I started doing this seventy-eight years ago, so you could achieve the current state in about ten years with your strength.”

“If you were the one enslaving humans, you could surely trust yourself and know what you were doing with your power and I also wouldn’t have to bother with all this,” it said, surprising me once again.

“Aren’t you afraid that I would lead them to kill you?” I asked.

“Look, I like this planet and don’t want to leave but if you did that, I’d just look for another planet and bring a few interesting humans and animals with me so that I wouldn’t be bored. I have nothing to fear since you can’t find me. In fact, neither of us could find the other if we were trying to hide,” it replied.

“Can I be honest?” Lien asked through Link.

“Go ahead,” I said with a nod. 

“I think that you should take over such responsibilities since you wouldn’t have to do much once you created enough clones. I will also help you with it. Although it doesn’t want to kill humans now, maybe it would change its mind in the future if something tragic happened and then we would have no way to stop it. On the other hand, we could also make sure that it wasn’t just bluffing to make us stop destroying its doppelgangers,” she said.

Agreeing with what she said, I replied to Sylvanus’ offer, “I’m willing to take things over if you really mean it but I want you to remove your clones and those mana trees.”

“You still don’t trust me, do you? But fine, I won’t need them anyway. It’s going to take a few months since there are millions of them but I’ll start removing them from today onwards. I believe your Leviathan is in a space that you created and I also have my own space so I’ll return to it after this. I must warn you, though, as my soul force will start thinning, its effects will disappear and humans may start fighting each other again.”

“You’ll have to work quickly if you don’t want them to wage wars again,” it said, shaking its head. Raising a finger, it added, “By the way, you keep referring to me as ‘it’ which has been bugging me for a while. I was born a male rat, though I’m a genderless dragon now so you should refer to me as ‘he’ or by my name, Sylvanus. I’m the protector of the forests and wildlife, which includes both animals and humans. From my point of view, every living creature is an animal that should be protected, even if it’s from themselves.”

“That’s quite nice of you,” I said, returning to my normal human body. I was quite sure that there would be no fighting today. Furrowing my brows, I asked, “I have one more question. Do you think Baghdad was Leo’s doing? I’ve sensed him spying on me in the past and I know that he has some sneaky commandment but… would he really do something like that?” I asked.

“I’m not sure but the more of my clones you destroy, the more infighting there will be among humans. Was he the one who told you about my clones and told you to destroy them? It may be a good thing for that Leo guy so it’s possible that he wanted to frame me,” Sylvanus replied, shrugging its shoulders.

“Do you know how to use your soul force to unite people or should I teach it to you? I mean, I’m not sure how you keep Leviathan together since all I know is based on the rumors I hear from humans.”

“If I don’t have to do more than to release my soul force and make people ‘bathe’ in it continuously for many days then I know what to do,” I said with a nod.

“That’s all there is to it. I’ve also made most people forget and ignore the idea of mind magic so only god incarnations learned it, at most. You should do the same if you don’t want them to end up enslaving each other. Also, you have destroyed most of my clones around the largest cities so you should start at those places if you don’t want them to start a war,” it said, even going as far as to warn me of some of the pitfalls.

“Thanks, I’ll take your advice,” I replied with a smile, inwardly crying because of my stupidity. I was helping the wrong side for over two years, even though I wanted to be careful not to be used by others. In the end, that bastard Leo still used me for his own plans which I had yet to understand.

I could only wonder whether Leo was an enemy or just believed in something else. If I asked other people, there would surely be many of them saying that using my soul force to restrain others was a bad thing. I would basically tame humans and remove some of their bad desires and qualities with this method, essentially changing who they were. Maybe it was an evil thing to do and maybe nobody should be allowed to rule over the other like that.

Regardless, I knew myself better than anyone and I could be sure that I wouldn’t use my power to change other people’s personalities to match what I liked. I had Leviathan where I could live with like-minded people, there was no need to change anyone. I just wanted to remove our desire to kill and murder each other.

If we could focus on more important things in our lives than our pettiness, maybe we could reach greater heights as a whole.

Coming to that conclusion, I came to accept what I wanted and decided to go through with it, even if it went against what others wanted. If one day somebody found out about it and called me evil for doing it, then so be it. I was willing to be the devil if it was possible to make people live more peacefully.

It wasn’t like they would start loving each other and such bullshit. Even if my plan succeeded, there would be plenty of conflicts between humans, some even ending up in murder. I would have to change human personality at its roots to remove such instinctual desires and I didn’t want to do that.

“Since you don’t trust me yet, I imagine you wouldn’t want to take back a stone that I was tracking so I’ll set up a formation in the underground tunnels that I made beneath us. You can set up your own tracking spell there to sense if something or someone appears in the formation. Once I go there, you will know and we can talk again. I’ll do the same so you will be able to contact me by appearing in that formation,” he said, seeing that I raised my head and looked at him with a determined look.

“That sounds good. Let's go then,” I said, jumping into the hole he made on the way up. The bottom of the tunnel was about five thousand meters underground, right above an oasis of life. There was a beautiful glowing blue lake that was filled with mana and the ceiling was filled with similarly glowing mana stones. There were many fluorescent flowers and small plants around the lake, making the place look even more beautiful.

“Waaa~ what a nice place! We should make something like this in Leviathan!” Lien clapped as she looked around with her mouth and eyes opened wide. “Is this your doing?” she asked, turning towards Sylvanus.

“No. This planet is beautiful by itself. You see, the mana density is many times greater as you get closer and closer to the core of the planet, so caverns like these exist only at this level of depth. There are even greater ones if you go deeper, though be careful because they give homes to monsters you have never seen before. They are much stronger than the ones on the surface,” he replied.

“Well… I knew about those. I’m also quite strong, you know? I just wanted to know if this was your doing or if it was natural,” she chuckled, clarifying herself.

“Oh, no. It isn’t my doing, it’s a natural cavern. You can have it for yourself if you like it,” he shrugged his shoulders. Once we laid down the formation as planned, he teleported out of the cavern while I went back to the surface with Lien and covered the hole with earth magic.

Since the church was destroyed, many onlookers arrived while I was chatting with Sylvanus and saw both our monster-like forms and how easily I covered the hole that reached thousands of meters underground and had a diameter of ten meters. Some were staring at us in fear while others seemed to be either curious or awed. 

“Do you think this religion thing is resolved?” I asked as Lien hugged my arm and opened a portal back to Leviathan.

“I don’t think so. Not every citizen was present so it’s possible that we will have to return in the future. Hopefully, those that witnessed what I did today will spread the word and others will stop believing,” she replied as she let go of my arm and slowly rose into the air.

“Where are you going?” I raised my brows.

Without saying anything, she used wind magic to carry her voice to everyone that was nearby, “Greetings, everyone. I’m sorry for disturbing your peaceful days but we had to take care of some important matters. One of those was related to the religion that some people made in our name without our consent. They were daring enough to use Leviathan’s name as well, so you shouldn’t be surprised by the result.”

“Please refrain from using our names in the future and don’t start another religion because it’s going to end up the same way. We’re also just people, and you should remember that. I bid you goodbye,” she waved her hand and teleported both of us back to Leviathan, also closing the portal she opened in advance.

“I guess they won’t dare to make a religion for us after your warning, and maybe wouldn’t even want to,” I laughed, tilting my head to the side.

“I hope so,” she said with a nod. “Let’s go and fetch the kids from our parents. I’m already missing them.”

“Nope, you’ll go alone. I’ll go and start planting my clones around the largest cities. Stay at home while I’m away, I don’t want you to-”

“I know, just go already,” she waved her hand, shaking her head. “Hurry and come back as soon as you can.”

“Alright, see you later,” I kissed her on the lips and then left to do my things. About half an hour later, I was about to return home when I sensed that somebody appeared in the formation that we laid below Washington.

I believed that going home a few minutes later wouldn’t hurt so I teleported straight to the formation, only to see Sylvanus appearing a moment after me. That split of a second was more than enough for me to realise, it wasn’t Sylvanus who called me here. The moment both of us appeared in the formation, it lit up in bright red light and exploded.

The place turned so bright that I couldn’t see anything and the red light shot right to the surface, destroying everything in its path. Thanks to Lien’s commandment, I was constantly surrounded by a very powerful defensive spell so it didn’t do anything to me.

“What happened? Why did my shield break?” Lien cried out in my mind, sensing that her spell broke.

“It’s alright, calm down,” I replied, trying to soothe her. As the blinding light finally disappeared, I couldn’t find Sylvanus anywhere. I noticed him only when a finger in the corner of the cavern started flailing around and slowly turned back into its monster-like shape.

“That wasn’t your doing, was it?” he asked as he stood up from the ground once his legs were regrown.

“I wouldn’t resort to using sneak attacks on you if I wanted to kill you, and I could also kill your clone without stuff like this,” I replied, shaking my head.

“I think that someone doesn’t want us to unite and I suppose that person is your old classmate,” he said, looking around carefully to see if there were any more traps.

“It seems like that was the only one. Do you know anything about that guy called Leo? Why would he want us dead? He’s never killed a single one of my doppelgangers, I just know a little about him from my spies.”

I massaged my temples as I tried to remember what exactly happened two years ago and what he told me. After mining my memories out of the back of my head, I was quite sure that he told me he was fighting against Sylvanus and destroyed many of his doppelgangers. Considering that the person in question has just proved that he was lying, I understood that I had to question everything I ‘knew’ about Leo.

He lied to me and made me fight against Sylvanus and now that I’ve found out the truth, he wanted to get rid of both of us. Well, to be more exact, he probably just wanted to warn us to stop what we were doing but whether it was meeting or spreading our soul force, I didn’t know. He surely knew that we wouldn’t die from a simple trap, not to mention that Sylvanus would have lost a clone at most.

While the trap was a powerful spell, it wouldn’t have damaged me too seriously even if I didn’t have Lien’s protective spell on me. This was the first time that something would have hurt me and her commandment proved to be really useful. In fact, her barrier didn’t break after taking on a single spell, just like she expected. I could probably take on the same attack another three or four times before it would break.

Whatever, she doesn’t have to know that. Now I have a reason to regenerate it, I mused in my mind, thinking of my wife.

“Could you come here with your real body? I’m not a clone either,” I said.

“You aren’t going to attack me, are you?” Sylvanus asked, placing his hand on his chin.

“I think that I can trust you, so no,” I shook my head.

Nodding, his clone disappeared and a moment later a two meters tall and five meters long dragon appeared in front of me. His body was covered in black scales and he had nothing but mana-cells in his body. I could regenerate so quickly from any injury because each of my mana-cell stored the exact state of my body. Although my brain could be destroyed, the spell that was inscribed onto all of my cells would always fire when I got wounded, so I could regenerate from any kind of wound.

The downside was that the continuous destruction of my body could become dangerous since the mana-cells wouldn’t be able to recreate the regenerating spell and save the state of my intact body. That was how regeneration magic worked, though the effect was millions of times slower and weaker among common people.

Since Sylvanus didn’t have that kind of problem, I knew I would need to be much stronger than him if I wanted to get rid of him, otherwise, our battle could take days or even months before one of us fell. Luckily, he didn’t seem to be my enemy and after checking him with Soul Language, I could finally feel at ease.

I could find out many things about a person with the help of Soul Language so I spent a lot of time researching it more in-depth during the last two years. His soul was covered in multiple marks that were usually present only on the souls of kind and just people.

Sensing his aura and his magic power, I could feel that he was a tiny bit stronger than me but I believed I had more knowledge about magic than him. It was true that soul-related magic was a bit of a gray area for me but it didn’t mean that I was any weaker than him. Considering how little the difference felt, I knew a few nights would be enough for me to catch up to him, even less if I couldn’t restrain myself in the daytime. It was just that things were starting to get trickier since my children were growing like mushrooms.

After talking about what to do next, both of us gave the other one a piece of rock that could be used to notify each other. I also formally apologised to him now that I met him in person, for blindly attacking him without any actual proof of his wrongdoings. It was also true that two years ago, I would have fought against him if I found out what he was doing but now… I even sided with him.

Humans just couldn't fucking stop killing themselves so this was for the best. Saying my goodbyes, I returned home.

--- Rose's POV ---

"Chloe! Zoe! It's time to go see Master!" I shouted, shaking my head as I looked at Lea in front of me. She seemed to be equally tired of waiting. We visited our Master every day for learning materials but the twin sisters were always late and wasted our time when we wanted to go over.

"A moment, please!" one of them shouted back. Their voices were so similar, I never knew which of them were talking if I couldn't see them.

“I bet they are changing clothes again,” Lea remarked, brushing her shoulder-length blonde hair behind her ear. Her face was so pretty and she looked so cute that way, I was kind of envious of her sometimes. Well, I was only twelve years old while she was fourteen so I could only hope that I would grow more beautiful in the future. She also started maturing in those areas while I looked like a child.

There weren’t many children in Leviathan so I kind of wanted to grow up sooner. I wanted to be taken seriously and take part in the sparring battles against the residents. Even though I was already stronger than most of the newcomers, my master said that I wasn’t allowed to take part in those battles.

Regardless, I was one of the apostles of Leviathan’s ‘queen’, as some referred to her, so I knew I had it good. My master was very strong and enjoyed the full protection of Seth. I’ve been hearing tales from the residents about how Leviathan was getting more and more famous in the outside world, and I was on track to become one of its most powerful members in the future. I just had to work hard and follow my master’s instructions.

I couldn’t understand why that boy named Tony left when Master made such a great offer. I understood that we wouldn’t be able to say no to her in the future but they were kind enough to save us and were helping people around the world so I knew they weren’t bad people. A year ago I was struggling to survive and could only hope that I wouldn’t become the toy of some ugly old man or the food of a monster. Now I could imagine my future and plan ahead since I wasn’t surrounded by the fear of the unknown and uncertainty.

The only price I had to pay for that was that I wouldn’t be able to say no to my kind Master and would have to protect her children once they grew up and decided to go out. Then again, they were their children so I was sure they would grow up to be even more powerful than me, no matter how hard I worked. At the same time, I didn’t think there would be people who would be stupid enough to attack my Master’s children. That would be like asking for death.

“What are you talking about? It was my win!” Theo came out of the kitchen, Corey next to him. The ground floor was for the boys while the two upper floors were for us, girls. To be honest, most of the time I met them only in the morning when we had breakfast and when we went over to our Master for training.

Luckily, they didn’t bother us and didn’t come to the upper floors unless they had something to do with us. They were quite nice, despite being boys.

Ignoring their bantering, Lea asked, “How is your training going with mana compression?”

Looking into her beautiful green eyes, I replied, “I think that I’m doing well. My mana density has reached sixty-two mmol last night so I’ve become a B ranked magician!” I was quite proud of myself for reaching that level so quickly. It felt so great when I worked hard and I could see its results, and my rate of progression was comparable to the top members of Leviathan.

My only problem was that I was lacking battle experience but my master refused to let us fight for some reason.

“Oh? Hahaha, I can’t wait to meet Master. You’ll be surprised,” Lea laughed, hearing my answer.

“What? Is there something I don’t know about?” I asked with a frown. She clearly knew something I didn’t.

“It’s a secret, Master will tell you,” she chortled, placing her finger in front of her lips.

“No fair!” I stomped on the ground, seeing that she wouldn’t tell me.

“You’re so cute when you are pouting,” she laughed, hugging me and burying my face in her growing bosom.

“You cow,” I grumbled, feeling even more envious.

“Yours will surely grow as well,” she laughed, letting go of me. Glancing to the side, I noticed Theo and Corey staring at Lea with their stupid, seemingly mesmerized faces.

“A fly will fly into your mouth,” I remarked, making them wake up from their bamboozled state.

Both of them had brown hair and blue eyes but while Theo was tall and thin, Corey was more ‘compact’. He had an average height for his age but he kind of looked massive. He surely worked out a lot in his room.

They were also fourteen years old but Lea was a few months older than them.

“I was just thinking about something,” Corey replied, turning away.

Yeah, I bet…

Getting closer to us, Theo stopped next to Lea and asked, “Are you free to-”

“We’re ready!” Chloe finally came down the stairs, her long black hair flying in the air as she floated straight to the door with wind magic, followed by Zoe. They were only one year older than me and they also started maturing. It was hard to be the youngest in the group… I was the weakest and the smallest, but I worked the hardest!

Glancing at Theo who was interrupted and turned mute all of a sudden, I kind of felt sorry for him. It surely sucked that he was interrupted right after gathering his courage to ask out Lea. I didn’t want to be some annoying little kid so I didn’t put my nose where it didn’t belong. 

Hoping that things wouldn’t become awkward, I couldn’t help but remark for the hundredth time, “Seriously, why do you two always dress up so nice when we go to visit Master? It’s not like you’re going to some fashion show.”

“Because we become dirty when we’re training,” Zoe replied, raising her finger.

“What kind of training are you doing that makes you dirty?” I asked.

“If I heard it right, you’ve reached the B rank, so you will find out soon enough,” she replied, poking my nose. Chloe and Zoe were the strongest in our group since they had a lot of battle experience. They grew up fighting for their lives in the wild so it was understandable.

Excited to find out what was all this secrecy about, I was the first to leave the house and made my way to my Master’s house.

“Hello girls, hello boys!” uncle Bernard greeted us as I walked past him in large strides. He was a man in his forties who lived nearby and was responsible for food distribution. Things like food, water, and electricity were completely free here. In fact, you could live freely in Leviathan and you had to pay with contribution points for the extra things.

Contribution points were best spent on spells, enchanted magic weapons, and stuff like that. Others were working hard to get those while my Master provided the six of us with everything, which was one more reason that made me believe that becoming her apostle was the best decision.

“Hello,” I smiled at him and continued on my way in a hurry.

“Woah, why the big rush? Did something good happen?” he asked the others, seeing that I left them in the dust. After Lea whispered something into his ear, he started laughing and then looked after me with a smile.

They were all evil! Nobody told me what was going on!

Soon after they ran after me and by the time I reached my master’s door, they were right behind me. Placing my hand on the door, I was about to knock a few times but Seth opened it and I almost ended up knocking on his crotch. It would have surely hurt him since I wanted to use quite a lot of force in my impatience… it was good that I was looking ahead!

He was like a giant compared to me since I was only a hundred and thirty-two centimeters tall while he reached a height of two meters.

“Hello girls, guys, come in,” he smiled at us as he stepped to the side to let us in. He kind of felt like a step-father sometimes. Since all six of us were orphans with no sight of future in the past, the sense of stability my Master and him provided always put me at ease. I knew I could trust them.

Patting my head as I walked past him, he said, “I see you’ve progressed. Have the others told you what would happen now?”

Looking up at him in wonder, I couldn’t help but beg, “Please, tell me already! Everyone is keeping silent!”

“Hahaha, it’s nothing much. You can start sparring against Lien from now on to gain some battle experience,” he laughed.

“What?! Finally!” I jumped up in my happiness when I heard the first part of the sentence but when I heard the part that I would be sparring against my master, I quickly dropped to the ground and turned around to see the other’s reaction. They were either looking sideways, the ground, or the ceiling, but neither of them looked me in the eyes! That was definitely an unfair battle with no hope of winning.

Could it be that they’re being beaten up? Is that why Chloe and Zoe are always dirty? I bit my lower lip as I thought about it.

Finally meeting Lea’s eyes, I could see her twitching a few times. Thinking back, I realised that they became a little haughty after they became stronger than many adults. But that didn’t last long because once they reached the B rank, for some reason all of them calmed down and started behaving the way they used to. I was also starting to feel really proud of myself these days…

“Hello,” my master came out of their bedroom and smiled at us. Glancing at me, her eyes lit up for a moment, probably because she scanned me and saw my progress.

“My, it seems like it’s time to train the youngest one as well,” she remarked. Turning around, she made her way towards the back door as she told us to follow her. Their backdoor led to a giant park which was another separate space in Leviathan. The mana was so dense in that park that multiple pools of mana formed in some places and all the plants had evolved into seemingly indestructible ones.

The trees were easily three to five hundred meters tall and their trunks were so thick that not even twenty adults could wrap it around. I couldn’t wait for the day when I became strong enough to build a place like this. After living in Leviathan for a while, it has become my dream to create my own space, just for myself. As far as I knew, Seth allowed others to do so as long as their space didn’t consume too much mana.

I didn’t care about the outside world. It was a nice planet and all that but it gave me nothing but suffering while the people here were much nicer in comparison. Leviathan also had many beautiful places and I haven’t even seen all of them. Yesterday Master said that she wanted to make a new kind of cavern system so new places were being built continuously. Seth also said in the past that if we ever started running out of space, he would expand the land even further. There was literally no reason for me to seek the world outside of Leviathan.

This was my home and I hoped I would never have to leave it. It had everything I’ve ever desired and I just had to work diligently to be able to stay here. I believed it was a small price to pay for so many benefits, though it wasn’t like I disliked hard work. It was a lot of fun to feel yourself growing stronger.

“Lien, what should I cook while you are out?” Seth opened the door after us and asked.

Turning around, my master made a thoughtful face and turned to look at me with a smile. “Since this day is going to be hard for Rose, how about you make what she wants? They could eat with us today.”

A hard day? I guess I better ask for something filling in that case… I thought, a little surprised by the sudden turn of events. Seeing Seth staring at me, waiting for my answer, I quickly made up my mind and replied, “That Brasoi or what… the thing you made last time. Could you make that again? It was very delicious.”

“Hahaha, okay,” he laughed as he closed the door with a smile, leaving us alone with our master.

“Mas- Lien, what’s going to happen to me now?” I quickly corrected myself, seeing her eyes opening wide. She told me to call her Lien many times already but I still continued referring to her as ‘Master’, most of the time.

Sighing loudly, she asked, “Why do you all want to call me Master so much?”

Looking at the others for confirmation and seeing them nodding, I decided to answer her question, “To be honest, it’s because it makes us feel closer. I… no, we all know that you aren’t our mother and you’re never going to be. I also don’t need you to become my mother but for me, for us, you feel like a mother figure.”

“Anyone can call you Lien in Leviathan but only we can call you Master, and in my mind, that word kind of makes us feel closer to each other. For me, it’s something like the word ‘stepmother’. That’s why I prefer calling you Master over Lien but I understand that it makes you feel uncomfortable so I’ll stop,” I explained to her honestly.

“Aww~ why didn’t you tell me sooner? If that’s why you like calling me Master, I don’t mind it. I thought my control over you was getting too strong and that was why you felt the need to call me Master. I was a little worried about it these past few days but if that’s the case, it makes me happy,” she said with a smile as she came over and pulled me into her warm embrace.

She was so warm and soft everywhere, her hug felt incredibly good. I kind of didn’t want her to let go of me.

“Originally, I wanted to keep some distance between the future guards of my children for multiple reasons but since we keep meeting every day, I’ve grown fond of you lot. You also feel like daughters and sons to me and I’m glad to hear that you feel that way about me. Still, you shouldn’t forget that there isn’t much difference in age between us so considering me your mother would be quite silly.”

“It’s not! You may be young but that’s how we feel!” Lea took my side right away. Since the six of us lived together, we knew each other very well and we’ve talked about this before. Well, the boys didn’t say it openly but it was quite obvious from their expression that they felt the same way. My master was an incredibly beautiful woman but I had never seen Theo and Corey lusting after her or even looking at her that way.

“Hmm, what about big sister then?” she asked with a smile, ruffling my hair.

“Sister… sis…” I muttered to myself, staring forward blankly. While I loved the idea, I respected her too much and it felt kind of out of place when I thought about calling her that way.

“I find it a bit weird so could I keep calling you Master?” I asked.

“Haah- do as you please,” she shrugged her shoulders helplessly. Maybe it was purely because I’ve got used to calling her Master for the last two months but calling her Sister felt wrong. Shortly after the others agreed with me and decided to keep calling her Master, probably feeling the same way about it.

Placing her hands on my shoulders, she said, “Anyway, now that we’re done with all the side talk, it’s time for us to talk. You’ve been pestering me with battle experience for weeks now and I’ve always refused it. It was a good thing that you came to realise your own weakness and that you wanted to fix it and now that you’ve reached the B rank, I have some good news for you. From now on, your training will include some real battles as well, and your opponent is going to be me.”

“So it’s as Seth told me!” I cried out.

“He told you?” her eyes twitched, hearing my sentence.

“Seeeeth~” she called his name.

“What’s up?” he appeared next to her right away and looked down at me, seeing me standing between them.

“I wanted to surprise her. Everyone kept quiet about it for weeks and now you simply tell her when I’m not even there?” she asked, grabbing his nose playfully.

“I’m sorry but she looked so pitiful as she was begging me to tell her, I couldn’t help it,” he replied, somehow creating a screen in front of my master and showing her a record of my ‘begging’.

“...”

Why does he have that? How?! I cried out in my mind while my master looked back and forth between me and the continuously replaying record.

“Fine, you’ve at least recorded it so you’re forgiven,” my master replied.

Am I actually cute? I couldn’t help but ponder, seeing everyone smiling at me. They were all so weird!

“I thought so. Anyway, have fun~” Seth replied as he kissed her on the face and then disappeared.

Clearing her throat, Master continued where she left off, “Let’s get back to your training. I’m going to limit my strength to your level and I’ll use only spells that you know but I will do so at their mastered state and in the combination I see fit.”

With her battle experience and great control, I was expecting utter defeat which would also explain why the others couldn’t act cocky and arrogant anymore. If she was doing the same to the others and they have never won before then it meant we were doing a terrible job at utilising our own powers.

While the others had to practice their mana control in gravity zones that was continuously shifting and changing, I had to spar against my master. After losing for the tenth time in a row, my clothes tattered, my body was dirty from being hit by earth magic, it was finally time to eat and I could take a break. Seeing the possibilities I didn’t know of before and the way she combined spells or used them for completely different purposes than I expected, I felt like I didn’t know anything.

“Can I take a bath first?” I asked once I entered their house.

“You can but I could also clean you with magic,” my master replied, placing her hands on my shoulders from behind. For some reason, I couldn’t help but flinch.

“That would be great,” I replied and in the next moment I felt a refreshing wave rush through my whole body. It was as if all my sore muscles would have been massaged and I was born anew. When I made my way towards the kitchen, I noticed that the air was no longer brushing against me where my clothes were torn so I looked down, only to see them being fixed.

“Thank you,” I said as I looked at Seth.

“It’s the least I can do,” he waved his hand and continued setting the table. Once we all settled down, I was the first to get my portion and started devouring my food. At least, Seth’s cooking was as delicious as ever and I could enjoy it as I was weeping.

Maybe noticing my downcast eyes and my mood, Lea patted my back before she started eating and said, “Don’t worry, we know what it feels like. But it will get better!”

“Why did you sound so fake?” I couldn’t help but ask what I thought.

Forcing a smile on her face, she said, “I can fight a few seconds longer already.”

“I see, so you are measuring your success in mere seconds,” I muttered in a low voice. That explained why they weren’t too excited.

“You don’t have to feel bad because of it. My mind is many times quicker than yours so even if I restrict my usage of magic to the same level, I can think thousands of steps ahead of you and have much more options to choose from,” my master stopped eating for a moment to cheer us up.

What she said was true but I was still beaten up so badly and with ease that I couldn’t help but feel bad. Clenching my fists, I made up my mind to become a formidable opponent for her one day, and then thrust my fork into the fries with enthusiasm.

My focus on my food was broken in the next time when Seth walked into the kitchen, carrying his children in his arms. Felice and Reiner were so cute and they really took after their parents.

Felice’s blonde hair was continuously growing longer and longer while Reiner’s brown hair was always kept in shape by his parents. Both of them were sitting in their father’s arms with their fingers in their mouth, staring at us with their cute green eyes.

“Can I hold them?” I blurted out my thoughts without thinking.

“Of course, but let them eat first,” Seth replied with a smile, much to my surprise. I kind of thought that he wouldn’t want to trust his children to me as I was now but maybe I was overthinking it.

Using a bit of magic, he mixed some of the food he made and turned it into mashed food. Placing both Felice and Reiner in their own chairs, he started feeding Felice while my master fed Reiner who was placed next to her.

“Well, look at that. They seem to like it,” Seth remarked, seeing that both of them ate his mashed cooking without a problem.

“Strange, most babies have to be breastfed for almost a year…” my master muttered, giving another spoon of food to Reiner.

“Yeah but they still drink your milk so I guess we have more options than most parents,” Seth replied, caressing Felice’s hair as she continued chewing on her food. She was so cute!

“Dad! More?” Felice asked once she was done with her tiny portion.

“Haha, okay, you can eat more,” Seth replied and prepared another serving for her. Once they were done feeding their babies, I was allowed to hold one of them at a time. The others similarly wanted to try it so we ended up playing with the babies for about half an hour before going back home to reflect on what we have learned.

After getting a little closer to Felice and Reiner, I felt that it was a good thing that I had to protect them. Still, I knew I was too weak to do that in my current state so I started meditating as soon as I got home.

I wanted to be someone they could rely on in the future, and the others probably felt the same way about it.

 

(AN: The next chapter will contain more info about who is enemy and who isn't and why, so this isn't the end of the story and all enmity... just saying.)