Chapter 175: A growing garden

Year 192

With the battle against the demon king behind us, I moved Lumoof back to the North. The first order of the day was to find Ken again. 

Where did he go? 

And we couldn’t find him. So, we made sure to keep all my artificial minds on the lookout. It’s possible they sailed to the other continents, and if so, there’s no point looking for them here in the North.

Around this time, we received a letter from Meela. Another meeting with her, and Alexis. 

-

We met again in that same hotel, this time, only Lumoof and Edna. There really was no need to bring anyone else. 

“Patriarch Lumoof, we meet again. This is Alexis, my partner and co-leader of the Rosewoods.” Meela nodded, and this was when I saw Alexis again after so long. She was a tall, slender woman, her face was that of a human, with the exception of the beetle-like iris, and two little feelers on her forehead. She had humanlike fingers, but the tips were like little claws with tiny hooks. 

Alexis nodded, and Edna too gave a knowing nod. Lumoof made a guess on her class. 

[Assassin]

Meela noticed the way Alexis and Edna looked at each other, and immediately explained. “I believe we’ve met under less than pleasant situations. But let’s put that behind us and look forward.” Alexis was still tense and she sat down. Edna could single-handedly defeat everyone in this room, and everyone knew it. 

Lumoof smiled and sat on the chair. “Indeed, I was also told by one former hero that you two tried to attack her.”

Meela nodded knowingly. “It was clear that she’s a former hero after that event, our lack of intel from the central continent made us blind. It’s very unfortunate that our meeting devolved in that manner.” 

Lumoof took a cup of tea and sipped. He wasn’t worried whether it was poisoned. “Oh, she was equally surprised to learn that the two of you were former heroes of another generation. It seems to us that the number of former heroes in the world only keeps growing.”

Meela laughed. “I suddenly feel a lot less special.”

Lumoof only nodded. “So, let’s start. I would like to preface our discussion with Aeon’s view. As he promised many years ago, he has no intention of meddling, and wishes to respect that both of you have separate lives.”

Alexis immediately leaned in. “Define meddling. Is he not meddling, when the two of you are here?” Meela merely sighed at the response. 

Lumoof was calm and he expected the question. “It’s important to look at context and the overall picture. Aeon’s ultimate goal is to break this world from the cycle. To do so, he has to occasionally step in to ‘save’ the heroes, especially if they are cursed, in order to minimise the destruction from the demon king. Though, as we could see from Alvin’s case, he didn’t do that well against the previous demon king. Nevertheless, after our incident in the North, Aeon decided that he needed to move in the North, as it seemed that these islands are home to quite a bit of the anti-hero factions, if only to maintain the balance.”

“Sounds like an excuse to expand his power.”

Lumoof nodded. “Oh, we make no excuses there. Aeon in its pursuit of power, will have to expand to everywhere in this world.”

Alexis immediately turned to face Meela. The room already had anti-magic shielding. 

“The world will run out of time.” Lumoof said before Alexis can continue. “Aiva told us that the god’s powers fade.” Well, we only heard from Aiva, we don’t know whether the other gods are actually ‘fading’ or not. “In a century or two, Aiva will no longer support the summons, and the world may end up without heroes to face the corruption of the demons.”

“Wait. What?” Alexis looked at Meela. Meela didn’t respond to the statement.

“Aeon is aware of your past disagreements with his methods.” Rich, and hypocritical now that Alexis is an assassin that killed many others. But she’s a smart girl, and I like to believe her intellect could be useful. “But let’s work together, at least, to overcome this challenge. Past enmities can be managed.” 

Alexis sat down. “You’re not lying.”

“We met Aiva herself.” I wasn’t sure whether to refer to Aiva as male or female. Honestly it could go either way, though the church of Aiva tends to refer to Aiva as a goddess, even though that isn’t exactly in their scripture. “Her presence was real.”

“Can you tell us why Aeon has all the hero fragments?” Alexis sat. 

Lumoof mentally pinged me, and I agreed. “It was something he kept from everyone until recently, but he is what they call... collateral damage. An accidental tag-along during the hero summons. The fragments were awarded to all those who tagged along.”

There was silence, as Alexis and Meela both processed it.

It was a long silence.

“You’re telling me now, that he understood all our references all this time? And he never said a word?” Alexis had a look that was mostly anger.

“Yes. Infuriating as it may be, it was Aeon’s decision in the early days.” 

“This is ridiculous.” Alexis looked at Meela. She stood and slammed the table. “You believe this shit?”

“I must say I do.” Meela looked back. “It makes a lot of sense, taking account of his paranoia with his knowledge of our world, he is quite like some of the more paranoid heroes.” I didn’t feel I was paranoid. I thought I was reasonable in protecting myself. 

“Why?” Alexis stood. 

I took over Lumoof, as Lumoof’s eyes glowed. I spoke through him. 

“Because a tree cannot move. If the entire world knew of my origins, would they turn on me? Maybe yes, maybe not. But I did not take chances, not with what little power I had then. I am unlike the rest of you, who can afford to run, to hide, to alter how they appear with magic, or with the right spells, to move to another world. If we made a wrong move, I am a sitting duck. I have been on the receiving end of so many hexbombs, that I no longer bother to count them. The truth costs me a lot more. I am willing to admit the truth, because now, I can afford to. The world is not a pleasant place. You’ve seen how assassins tried to kill heroes even with the overwhelming power of heroes. What could a tree, an immobile tree, do?”

Meela sighed. Alexis was silent. 

“Meela and Alexis, we meet again after so long, and I would have preferred we met under more auspicious and pleasant circumstances. But the reality is this, we have just a few centuries left to chart our path, and prepare for the moments when our crutches are off.”

They were listening, even if they felt intimidated.

“It may seem long, but it’s only 15 to 20 demon kings. That may not be enough to level enough of us, such that we can survive subsequent demon kings without the support of heroes consistently. Not just one demon king, but for the rest of this world’s existence. Without divine support.”

Meela nodded. “I understand, and so, what’s the plan?”

Alexis turned. “Meela.” 

“Aeon is right. If the summoning of the heroes will stop, this world is truly fucked. Like it or not, we can’t ever reach that level. We certainly don’t have the right skills or items to even stand up to any regular hero, what more the demon king.” Meela defended me. “We’ve worked at this for a century, and you’re still only level 90, and I’m barely above level 100. If Aeon is able to even graze the level of the gods, then we need to work with him.” 

I said frankly. “Honestly, I am willing to let the two of you continue as is. There really is no need for both of you to make massive adjustments to the new lives you have built over the last century. But I hoped to rely on both of you for intelligence, for support should it be needed, and mainly, to put things bluntly, don’t get in the way. What I want at the moment, is an intelligence sharing agreement, and a non-interference with our actions here in the North, or wherever you may operate. I can dictate that by force, if I need to, but that’s an unnecessary waste of manpower.”

With the Valthorns, I could field far more power than they have. There was no need to have them enter combat, or enter into a formal alliance. They just had to stay out of the way, and if they don’t, I’ll have to force them to.

Meela turned. “I can agree to that.” 

Alexis stood and looked at her partner, there was a hint of displeasure in her statement. “We should discuss this.”

“Non-interference should be a clear yes, Alexis. This doesn’t change anything significantly, not with the proverbial [Soul Contract] on our souls. Intelligence is also an acceptable trade, we have an interest in keeping the world safe and supporting the heroes in their mission. We can do more working with Aeon, than against him.”

Alexis wanted to respond, and then she sat back down. She didn’t look too happy, but she seemed to accept it.

“You mentioned there were others like us? Like Miss Kei?” Meela asked. The point that I haven’t quite decided on, was whether I should expose them to Kei, Stella, or any of the other future heroes who may come under my umbrella. 

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“Yes. How about you, have you seen any of your own?”

“...Yes. We have two under our care at the moment. But tell me, what’s their role in this? How do they fit in?”

Two? Hmmm. I’m beginning to suspect accidents are more common than I thought. I decided I could share some information. “They’re mostly helping me where they can, and how they could apply their own knowledge to improve things. One of them worked on portals. Another is helping with crystalline bombs which we will deploy against the demon kings.”

“Ah, I’ve heard of the bombs.” Meela said. “Fascinating stuff. Alexis even got her hands on a few undetonated ones. Now that we know Aeon was from Earth, it really explained some of these unusual combat strategies.”

Alexis asked. “How does Aeon plan to end the cycle? We’ve heard the goal, but does he have a plan in mind?” 

Lumoof shrugged. “This is partly why we are here. We don’t have a firm plan, we are attempting quite a few things, but if we had more minds, with different viewpoints, we could have more leads. Some of the ideas are quite outrageous.”

Alexis stared at Meela. “So all that rhetoric of a grand goal, and Aeon doesn’t have a plan.”

Meela smiled back. “Well, don’t all great plans begin with a vision?”

“Maybe it’s a vision that will lead us to hell.”

“Are we not in some kind of hell-world already?” Meela responded. 

The two of them seemed to be pretty tense with each other. Maybe they’ve been together for too long. It’s hard to imagine a friendship that’s a century-long would still be cordial. Lumoof and Edna just watched. 

No point jumping into their fire.

What I found strange was that they did not respond to the ‘portals’. Did they hear it, or were they also working on something similar? Strange. 

-

Stella finally completed her examination of the demon king’s core. It’s a dud. Again.

“The core received star mana damage, and it’s clearly messed up whatever that was in there. Sorry, Aeon. Not good enough.” 

I felt like stomping my feet. We worked so hard and it wasn’t enough! Of course, Edna expected it. “It’s not like we did most of the damage.”

“Your domain skill really delivered though.” I praised Edna then. “We just need to work on damage.” We both needed to work on damage. Even my fragments didn’t seem to make much of a difference against the demon king. It’s likely that the fragments are only effective for non-demon kings. This, of course, suggested that demon kings are not ‘demons’, but in their own class entirely. 

We also examined the mana I drained from the core to prevent that last minute meltdown. It’s a lot of void mana and demonic mana mixed in, and the trees and potatoes that I used to hold these manas were corroding rather quickly, and I needed to constantly ‘heal’ the potatoes so that these void mana didn’t leak out and blow the whole place up.

But the mana type nor the ratio didn’t tell us much other than what we already know. The demon king contained void mana within itself, and most of this was about to blow. Luckily, this time, I was able to absorb significantly higher quantities of mana to avoid any catastrophic blowup. In the first place, it was already weakened and had already consumed a bit of its void and demonic mana. 

Oh well. Maybe the third time we’ll get it.

-

Our spies were helpful, but they were not able to extract Neira's secret god-communion methods. More correctly, they were not even sure it existed. 

Among the mid-tier leadership team, they were not aware of any means of seeking out their god. They have the understanding that they will be contacted by their god, not the other way round. 

This, of course, made me wonder, why do their followers even pray, then? If their prayers do not actually go to their respective gods, then what is it for? Yet, despite the prayers never reaching the god, those who pray somehow receive blessings? How does that work?

I attempted to make sense of this whole ‘prayer thing. 

As I understood it, Lilies once said a domain is a higher-order access to the system. But looking at what I’ve seen so far, it’s probably not just that. At this point, I theorise that a domain holder essentially ‘creates’ a spot for itself in the system. This was why Lilies felt my presence spread throughout the system. 

If so, when prayers are given, I believe these prayers are then recorded by the system, and there’s a ‘code’ or a ‘programme’ in the system itself, created either indirectly or directly by a person’s ascension to the higher levels of domains, that then absorbs these prayers and then responds to them. 

In other words, the system functioned as an automated ‘god’ system on behalf of the gods. The god may have set criterias for the system, or the system itself interpreted a set of criterias from the god’s behavior that formed the basis of how it responded to prayers.

I mean, that has to be how it worked, because I’m not linked or giving powers to those who have [aeonic] classes, and yet they clearly derive some power that is modelled after mine. The system did that, not me. 

I did not assess these believers whether they were worthy or not, it was the system who did it. The system, as the only ‘impartial’ operator in the world, made that judgement call. 

Thus, it’s likely that even if Aiva drifted out of range of her normal, direct powers, the benefits from an Aivan blessing or class would continue. 

No, thinking about it, would it be a good idea to link the world to where the gods are, if they are friendly? Such that they can use their powers more directly here. 

Certainly that would be good for the world, in the sense that Aiva can then protect this world directly, but not good for me, since they probably would not tolerate me being so close to them. A portal worked both ways. 

-

The four heroes came to the Central Continent again, this time on their own accord. They’ve finished the clean up of the demons in the West.

I didn’t like that they wanted to come, of course, but they were heroes, and they could just teleport to our continent if they wanted to. So, rather than resist and fail, since there’s four of them, I decided to just allow them entry. 

“I want snacks. All types of them.” Prabu told the attendants at the port. The attendants hurried to retrieve snacks from the warehouse. 

A Valthorn quickly reached out to me. “As the heroes are not invited on an official visit, should we charge them the cost of their lodgings and food?” This was a diplomatic headache, of course. Previously they came at Kei’s invitation, and so I agreed to waive the cost of whatever they consumed. I decided to call on my council for their input.

“I think we should absorb it, for now.” One of the Lords advised. “Most kingdoms absorb the cost of hero visits. After all, they never really stay for long. Most end up starting their own kingdoms.”

“I think we should be more concerned if one of these heroes wanted to start their own kingdom here.” Another Lord responded. “But until then, most kingdoms put on their best face forward.”

“What if the heroes start to mate with any of the younger princes or princesses around the Central Continent? That could cause some of the kingdoms to stray from influence.” 

“And is that likely?” I asked.

“It’s possible. Many kingdoms historically attempted, with some successes,  to absorb heroes into their royal families as a way of enhancing the unique status of the royal family. Granted this has not happened yet in the recent Aeonic era, but it was a common thing, historically. Some heroes end up usurping the throne via marriage.”

Fuck.

A hero as one of the Kings? There’s no way I could keep them in line if that happened. 

Prabu munched on a plate of snacks. “I love snacks so much I’m going to stay in the Central Continent.”

Fuck.

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