Chapter 206: Chapter 196 – Aftercare

A large man stood with his arms crossed over a slim man sitting behind his desk. The large man's chiselled features were even more intimidating than normal due to the fierce scowl he had on. On the other hand, the slim man didn't look nearly as tall as he normally was, slouched down in his seat.

"You had one last chance. You said it would work. In what way is this working?"

The large man's gravely voice pierced the other's, yet the smaller man did nothing to respond for a few long seconds.

"It didn't. I said it, alright? It didn't work, even a little!"

Slamming down his hands on the desk, the crystal orb jumped a little in its stand, but otherwise stayed still.

"You've run out of pawns, and chances. This time I'll do it."

"Fine. We can't afford to let this progress any further. For us, everything is at stake."

"I'll make sure it'll be done. Consequences be damned."

The shorter man dropped his head into his hands.

He knew what method his partner in crime was about to use, but no matter how much he hated it, he couldn't offer a useful alternative. Not after failing so many times.

The biggest problem that filled his mind, was that even if this worked, they'd leave a trail they would never fully be able to cover. Even if everything worked perfectly, they could still lose everything they were desperately trying to protect.

"Even with this, we might still be screwed."

"Might is better than almost certainly."

The thin man nodded as the larger one adjusted is toga before leaving the office.

 

It's been a few weeks since that last battle.

Though I called it a battle, it was pretty much a one-sided slaughter. No losses on our side, and total losses when it came to the monsters. Though thankfully their side didn't lose anything beyond the dungeon captured monsters, I did confiscate all the tools used to control them.

The first few days since the battle was nothing but negotiations, as well as showing those wannabe crusaders a bit of our nation.

I couldn't help but feel their reactions were way over the top, but maybe that was just me having never really integrated into what was normal in this world. I've pretty much been a tourist any time I've been around civilization until the Hourai Commonwealth was created, and for us, this sort of mingling of the races was the norm.

While it wasn't like races didn't mingle elsewhere, but the sheer level of it seemed to be staggering to our visitors. Especially between the light and dark races, though that was a bit of a given, even to me.

The way their hands shook as they received tea brewed by a dokkalfar was amusing to say the least, though if they couldn't accommodate this much, at least when they were here in our nation, there wouldn't be a whole lot of hope for actual peace anytime in the near future.

In the end, we were able to discuss out a simple ceasefire agreement, to be signed at a later date once the representatives were able to take the writ back to their governments for approval. Of course, the agreement was only between the light nations and the Hourai Commonwealth. We had no authority regarding the dark lands, though if this could be signed, I was hoping that we could start making contact with the various groups over there and get something worked out as well.

But for the meantime, a ceasefire agreement was a great step forward for the Hourai Commonwealth. Not only did it guarantee our nation's safety to a nice degree, but once it was signed, it would even legitimize our nation to half the world!

No longer would we have to stay hidden, but we could start trading for real.

As a side note, it did make me happy that this would mean that Edgeworth Village would further grow prosperous, becoming the boarder town that merchants would have to go through to trade with us.

Though, in the end a few of the former army stayed behind.

Most of those people stayed as a form of temporary delegation, both to further learn about us, and for us to learn about them. Though, since the fairies made up the majority of the population of the southern city, including their elders, there wasn't a whole lot for us to learn from them.

We pretty much just took it as akin to a gesture towards the peace we were aiming for.

That said, we were careful about what sorts of things they were allowed to see. Especially the dungeon was entirely off limits, even though it turned out they knew about its existence. Sadly, when they realized that the dungeon was considered my personal property legally speaking, all it did was further cement this idea that I really was their new god.

It turned out that the dungeon was considered a holy site. I've already heard that the Hourai Mountain was talked in such a way, but I hadn't realized that the dungeon was considered the most important part of the mountain, religiously speaking.

In the end, it seemed that getting rid of this godly title was going to be nearly impossible for the time being. Hopefully I would be able to outlive it if that was the case. Being a vampire, I would easily be able to live for centuries, maybe even some millennia if I was lucky.

I had no idea what it would be like to live that long. None of the greater spirits were anywhere near that old.

Though speaking of the greater spirits, they finally stopped hiding from me.

It turned out, for quite a while they were looking for an opportunity to confront me. After all those years interacting with the fluffballs, feeding them and playing with them, the greater spirits grew jealous that Claret was the only one of the greater spirits that openly interacted with me.

What they wanted the most was a reason to start a relationship with me.

Personally, I couldn't help but feel that they had far too much pride, which was weird, considering just how the fluffballs acted. But maybe it was a sign of their age, or related to how they were able to grow into greater spirits.

The exact details didn't matter, but it seemed like the events at the end of the great battle ended up breaking the damn that held them back.

It was one thing for Claret to come to my rescue, though technically I wasn't in any real danger, it was another for so many of the fluffballs to come as well. Or rather, how quickly they came to my rescue to be exact.

It turned out he greater spirits were actually close by, and were planning on coming to my rescue when they saw Claret zoom in. Only to have a veritable army of fluffballs shoot past them, leaving no space for them to get involved. To prove themselves worthy of my trust, or something. According to what Claret heard from the fluffballs, at least.

Frankly speaking, I already trusted them. I could tell from what little I saw of them, the fluffballs trusted them, and Claret didn't have any ill will towards them either. It was more than enough for me.

But after everything that happened, they ended up coming to me during the victory celebration.

Rather, to be exact, I ordered Claret to bring them to me after hearing the story.

I thanked them for their work, and personally rewarded each of them with the same special mana treat that I reserved for Claret. The fact that my ever faithful familiar was drooling the entire time didn't go unnoticed, but I ignored her. She already got one and had eaten it already.

The little fluffballs danced around in celebration and I joined them, flying together doing aerial acrobatics with one group after the next, all the while scattering around mana treats for them all night long. So many treats, that I had to refill my MP pool up six times.

That night, the most special thing that happened was when I flew in formation, doing acrobatic manoeuvres, together with all the greater spirits!

For the first time in my life, I was performing an air show together with an entire squadron my own size!

Every time, it was with those who were far smaller than myself, limiting what we could do together. It wasn't like it wasn't fun, both with the fluffballs and the fairies, but it just felt better to do it with those your own size. We didn't have to make compromises due to the difference in size.

Ever since then, I've been getting hanging around with the greater spirits as if to make up for lost time.

(No, who am I kidding. That's exactly what's going on.)

I didn't really mind though. The one who did mind was Claret, who'd chase after the other greater spirits in an attempt to hog my attention. Though to be honest, the only ones who could successfully do that were my adorable daughters.

Even this day, we were all together, slowly walking through the city. Alicia and Fate holding my hands while Letty hugged me from behind, settling for an awkward and uncomfortable looking walk rather than letting go.

Really, it was almost a perfect day.

"You know, seeing just what you've managed to accomplish here, I can't see you as anything but a goddess."

Almost.

"Mmhmm. Even the food. These butter tarts are delicious."

(...)

"No matter how much I don't want to admit it, but the spirits here really love a vampire..."

*Sigh*

When all those people left, it wasn't just the temporary delegation that stayed. But those three former companions of the hero, or in other words, the survivors of those assassins that came to kill me all those years ago.

Officially speaking, they were here as punishment, for me to do whatever I wanted as an apology for sending them to attack me back then.

Personally, their purpose was probably as hostages and a form of appeasement. It was clear that those guys really didn't want to get into another war with us, and hence it was so easy to get the ceasefire treaty written up so easily. Especially since we didn't impose any particularly detrimental demands. At least for the countries involved. The church on the other hand was a different story, due to their views of the dark races, but my very existence. squashed any resistance from their side.

It really gave me mixed feelings about it all.

But in the end, I was stuck with these three former hero companions.

All the other leaders dumped the responsibility entirely on me, citing that I was the only one significantly effected by the previous incident and none of the others having any remaining grievances regarding these three.

Personally, I had a feeling that they just thought it was too much of a bother to deal with and I was a convenient scapegoat.

Or rather, I was completely convinced that was what really happened.

"If you don't mind me asking, but are those three with you all vampires?"

"Yea, of course. They're my daughters."

I eyed the dwarf from the corner of my eyes. While none of these three had shown any intent on doing any harm, there was no way I could trust any of them. But I was responsible for them, and my cute daughters asked to go on a walk with me, so I had no choice.

Even I had to admit I was neglecting them quite a bit lately due to being so busy. It made me feel quite bad when they started to beg to spend some time together, and I did have to admit, I was going to continue being busy for a while, so there was no use in promising that I'll make up for it in the future.

Even at night I've been busy lately. Frankly speaking, the changes that Letty had made to vampires was actually quite haphazard. In fact, it was quite amazing that she didn't break our race considering that she had to learn the entire concept of programming just to make the changes she did.

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Though, thankfully the changes were simple, just changing a few modifiers here and there to enable fertility.

Looking deeper, from the best I could tell, vampires were actually a race based on elves, who in turn were based on humans. Whoever originally coded for vampires probably just coded humans first, then made all sorts of modifiers to create the other races. It explained why a lot of surface level details were so similar between the intelligent races.

In fact, the spirits were likely based on vampires, furthering this chain. Though of course, it was the appearances that were most changed between vampires and spirits, with a lot of stuff underneath that was the ones to stay the same.

So, while a lot of the code to allow vampires to create progeny existed, they were simply disabled. However, because the code had originally been optimized for elves, that meant that the code didn't accommodate for vampire specific details.

I was quite frustrated at how difficult my pregnancy was, having to deal with every possible symptom dialed up to twenty or something. It turned out, it was my body and the system conflicting with each other.

Looking back, it was a miracle that Alicia and Fate were able to be successfully born and grow bigger without any complications, though the births themselves were also difficult.

But as things stood, I couldn't allow the code to continue existing in its current state. So I was taking time at night to work on fixing that, while dealing with the fallout of the battle during the day.

Of course Alicia, Fate and even Letty would grow dissatisfied with how much I was neglecting them. So, while I couldn't just suspend the work I was putting into fixing the vampire code, as I was worried some weird conflict could appear within Alicia and Fate at any moment, particularly the second they enter puberty, I was at least able to shift most of my responsibilities during the day to others.

That was, aside from watching over these three former hero companions.

Letting them be around my daughters put me on edge, but I couldn't deny their request to hang out with me. Neither was I able to simply offload these three onto one of the other leaders, and I lacked combat capable subordinates to escort them, so I was stuck doing it myself.

"It's impressive to see so many vampires in one place. Did they spawn here, or did you find them somewhere else?"

"They're my DAUGHTERS! I gave BIRTH to them!"

I didn't think I've ever felt so offended in my life. I knew where he was coming from, but that still didn't change how I felt about it.

"What?! You...you really must be a goddess then. Everything I've heard said that vampires only spawn where mana grows to a high enough concentration. Never that one was capable of giving birth to one."

"Well, that might've been true in the past, but not since Letty here found out how to change things. By the way, she's the same Saint Scarlet that people talk about, not me. I merely found her soul after someone captured her and gave her a new body."

"You...you're really overturning all the common sense of this world, you know that, my goddess?"

"Quit it with that goddess stuff, seriously. And yea, I guess. But I wasn't responsible for all of it, nor would all these changes would've not happened if I wasn't around."

I was pretty sure, given the opportunity, that something similar to this Hourai Commonwealth would come to exist some day. Of all the things people credit me for, I thought that this was the singular most important thing I had accomplished.

Well, maybe aside from my daughters. Their cuteness knows no bounds.

"Mommy's amazing! She even made Goddess' Realm!"

"Yea! Nobody's better than Mommy!"

"Yes, I see. It seems like your mommy really is that amazing."

The dwarf gives my twins a smile, though I did make sure that he couldn't get too close to them.

On the other hand, Letty buried her face into my back and tightened her grip around my waist.

"Here, lemme carry you, Letty."

I formed up my shadow underneath my youngest, picking her up and adjusting her position so she was hugging me from in front. Letty buried her face in my chest as I fully enveloped her body with my shadow like one of those baby carriers. Except that the one being carried was a bit taller than me.

Normally I wouldn't spoil Letty to such a degree, but she was probably remembering about how she had died and got her soul captured all those centuries ago.

I knew it was unwarranted resentment, but I couldn't' help but hate these three even more.

While I wouldn't do anything that would constitute a real punishment as long as they didn't try anything, that didn't improve how I felt about them at all.

The fact that all three of them agreed to accept any punishment I decided to dole out to them, even including torture and an execution, it really killed any motivation to actually do anything with them.

Even if I couldn't ever forgive them, I couldn't bring myself to dole out any real punishment. Being forced to confront the reality that so much of what they were taught was wrong was a pretty decent punishment already.

Maybe most people wouldn't see it as being nearly enough of a punishment, but I lacked the motivation to do anything beyond that. I'd rather shove this problem back onto the countries they came from and wash my hands of it.

"Amazing doesn't even start to describe things. For so many spirits to love a vampire so much..."

"Really? All I can see is a haze of mana, like there's a huge concentration of it around this place, but that's it."

"You're lucky that's all you can see. The spirits here hate us. I've never seen them hate anything so strongly."

"Hmm...is that so?"

What that elf said was true. There was a cloud of fluffballs following us around, not to mention all the greater spirits hanging around as well. A few of them literally hanging, off of me that was. Claret kept trying to pull them off, but every time she succeeded, another took its place, leading to a never ending cycle.

I've personally given up doing anything, and while it was a little difficult to see anything, they weren't really getting in the way. As long as they got off of me when I needed them to, I let them indulge themselves.

But that said, both the greater spirits and the fluffballs were glaring at the trio quite fiercely. And they did that pretty much ever since the day of the battle and hadn't let up. I was only glad that they didn't actually attack any of them. I didn't want any of them to dirty their hands like that.

But even still, under this constant barrage of anger and hate, while the elf woman's eyes were no longer bloodshot, the bags under them were incredibly deep. I suspected she's been barely able to sleep since coming to the city.

Not like I could understand what that was like. I had trouble even remembering what it was like to be able to sleep in the first place. It really reminded me just how long it's been since I reincarnated.

Though, she did still have those weirdly fat fluffballs surrounding her like a group of bodyguards. In fact, that was probably exactly what they were doing. They spent the first day doing what kinda looked like arguing with the other fluffballs, but in the end they just gave up and forcibly made sure none of the others got too close to her.

No matter how many times I saw it, I was still impressed at their loyalty. Maybe I really was wrong about how the elves treated the fluffballs. Either that, or she was an exception that deserved quite a bit of praise for how she treated her familiars.

That said, that didn't change her actions towards me, so there was no point in me trying to defend her or change the spirits' minds.

On the other hand, that human woman, she had originally come all skin and bones, with some nasty dark circles under her eyes. But unlike her elvish companion, this woman had made an 180 in the opposite way. The dark circles were gone and she was starting to properly fill out.

Though, with how many butter tarts she was eating, I couldn't help but think that it wouldn't be long until her belly became even bigger than when I was carrying Alicia and Fate.

But if such a thing happened, it wasn't my problem, so I wasn't going to say anything.

In terms of that dwarf, unlike the other two, at least he was a little helpful. At the end of all that stuff after that battle, I used my scythe to break up that damn cold iron sword into small pieces. Even sinking it into a little ditch first, doing it was quite scary. The thought that pieces of it could fly off in any direction almost made me shiver with nervousness as I slammed my adamantium scythe through the thing.

But thankfully, the material was more pliable than brittle and my weapon was able to cut rather than shatter the terrible thing. And afterwards, this dwarf collected the remains for me and helped me bury it.

Though, even though I called it helping, all he did was drop it into the hole I made. It took me quite a lot of time to dig the hole, and subsequently it took a good thirty seconds of falling until I heard the broken pieces of that damn weapon hit the bottom.

After filling it back in, the spot was marked with a splatter of dragon blood so that some day I could find a more permanent solution.

Though in reality it was more getting around to getting rid of that weapon rather than finding an answer. The dungeon can already handle that, but I wanted to secure the weapon immediately, hence the hole.

"Anyways, going back a bit. You said before that you guys were originally sent to kill me because of some divine message?"

"That's right. Though we understand now that there must have been some sort of mistake somewhere." The dwarf bowed his head as he answered, the other two nodded as well. "Whether that was merely because we misidentified you as the Demon Lord in question, or if there was an issue with the message itself, or something in between, we don't yet know."

"Hmm...well, I'm pretty sure it's the former if anything."

"O, our deepest apologies then!"

All three of them fell to their knees and their expressions tightened.

"Get up. I hate it when people kneel to me."

"But...!"

"I said get up. I'm pretty sure the message was designed specifically so you'd make this mistake anyways."

"It...it as deliberate?!"

"Yea. You could say there are some...disagreements in the heavens."

While I didn't like implying that I was really a god, technically I wasn't lying. From all the evidence I had, everything stemmed from my initial reincarnation, and some god wanted me dead because of it.

I've already repelled two, arguably three attempts on my life by that god or gods as far as I knew. It was probably time to start preparing for another attempt, though I wasn't quite sure yet what I could do.

"I...I suppose that's possible. The church's teachings didn't talk about multiple gods but..."

"Well, I'm sure they only talk about the creator god or something right? You can just think of it like there's the creator god that's the most important to this world, then other gods that can take over to watch over the world in their place, as well as lesser gods that might be tasked to do specific things."

"An entire hierarchy of gods is it?"

"Well, I'm not in a position to say much about it though."

I couldn't help but wonder just how deep of a hole I was digging for myself with all of this, on multiple fronts at that.

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