______________________________________________
The Goddess of Love's Modified Basement (Underground Dungeon)
______________________________________________
The soft sunshine radiated in through the window, warming up my sleeping face as I groggily woke up to the cries of the birds cheerfully chirping outside. A moment passed before I slowly got up and stretched my arms out. The slight pain from my morning stretch resonated through my tired body, and after rubbing my eyes, I inadvertently let out a loud yawn before once again confirming my surroundings. But the familiar sight of the bleak stone walls surrounding my room, the cold metal bars to my right, and the small barred window that let the sunlight outside blast into my face like it was hitting me with a solar flare made me absolutely certain.
Yep, I'm still in prison.
I squinted a bit to stop the blinding sunlight from getting in my eyes and let out a defeated sigh as I looked down at my black and white striped inmate outfit for a moment before my sweaty and listless body slumped back down onto the simple wooden bed I was sleeping in.
"I know I'm not in much of a position to complain, but prison cells are way too hot during summer!"
Well, nothing I can do about the heat now. I looked over to the wall where the small clock that's been part of my oh so cozy home here since what seems like forever told me that it was about 10 AM.
Hmm, 10 AM. That means it should be about time for my friend to show up. Coincidentally, she's also my jailer, but let's just keep that to ourselves here. Ah. I just heard some footsteps coming down the stairs, which means she should be showing up any second now.
"Hey, Ky, you awake yet?"
What greeted me after the familiar voice was the sound of another yawn and the sight of a cute girl walking down the stairs. She looked like she was around her late teens with long messy hair that had a light brown color to it and eyes that gleamed a deep amber. Her outfit consisted of a pair of pink pajamas with white frills and she was hugging a small, purple pillow while rubbing her eyes drowsily.
Oh, actually, before I forget, I should probably introduce ourselves! The young girl over there who always oversleeps, lazes about shamelessly all in her pajamas all the time, and pushes off all of her responsibilities to her assistant every day is the current Goddess of Love, Eliza Strateous. And the depressed guy sitting in his prison cell while being slowly baked to death from the intense heat because he can't cast any magic to cool himself off or even use an air conditioner because his application for one was rejected on multiple occasions due to 'budget constraints,' is me, the current God of Death and prison inmate extraordinaire, Kyle, or just Ky for short.
And if you're wondering why I didn't tell you my last name, well… it's a long story involving a lot of murder, burning souls as fuel, and creating things that go directly against this world's natural laws, so I kind of don't want to get into it right now. All you need to know is that, for now, I don't have a last name.
"Well, I'm awake now." (Kyle)
I let out another sigh and fluffed my pillow up a little before getting out of bed.
"Great. Then for breakfast today I want my favorite, pancakes." (Eliza)
Eliza walked over, unlocked the entrance to the prison cell, then took out a metal collar with a chain attached to it and clamped it around my neck. After backing up and taking another look at my current disheveled appearance, she held onto the other end of the chain and let out a light laugh.
"Alright. Onwards, Ky! To the kitchen!" (Eliza)
"I know I've said this a million times already, but can't we go back to the other method we were using before? Just some rope tied around my waist was working fine before, why did we have to upgrade?" (Kyle)
"Yeah, the rope worked fine, but this is way more fun for me." (Eliza)
Welp, so much for being my friend. This is just cruel and unusual punishment at this point. I'm seriously about to cry here.
Eliza showed me a toothy grin as I let out another sigh, and we walked up the stairs together while she followed behind me smiling and humming a tune. The kitchen was just around the corner of the entrance to the basement and we walked in with gusto before we were greeted by another woman dressed in a white blouse and black pants. She had pointed ears that signified her elven heritage and her platinum blonde hair was tied into a ponytail while a pair of glasses that gave her a mature, intellectual look covered her emerald green eyes. But despite how sophisticated her glasses made her look, the angry smile on her face right now was making her seem more scary than elegant.
"Good morning, Ky."
Eliza tried to hide behind me as the woman greeted me, but the jingling of the chain attached to my metal collar gave her away.
"And exactly where have you been, Lady Eliza?"
Eliza slowly edged out from behind me and gave Olivia a nervous smile as I whispered to her.
"O-Oi, Olivia's really angry this time. What did you do?" (Kyle)
"Ugh, looks like she found out about me skipping the blessing ceremony earlier this morning. I was sure that letting the high priest take care of everything would cover it up, but I guess not..." (Eliza)
Well, as you may have guessed it by now, Olivia is the name of our Goddess of Love's one and only assistant. They've been childhood friends since Eliza was still a mortal and hadn't ascended to a lesser goddess yet. But honestly, I truly pity Olivia. She's always taken the role of Eliza's 'big sister,' so even after hundreds of years, she's still been stuck cleaning up after her messes.
Ah, speaking of which, I should probably explain the whole thing about being gods too. You see, this world, Aias, is a world of swords and magic that looks like it came straight out of a JRPG. Aias was created by the Goddess of Creation, Gaia, who also took on the role of the world will, but shortly after creating this world, she fell into a deep slumber, so before she fell asleep, she used her power as the world will to create four True Gods that were absolutely loyal to her, held no free will, and would only operate to ensure the world's natural systems didn't fall apart, along with countless divine sparks.
These divine sparks were Gaia's gift to her children, a manifestation of her divine will, and also the key to becoming a god. Anyone who had a high enough mastery over one of the countless natural laws that governed this world and was also lucky enough to obtain a divine spark, either through sheer dumb luck by finding one coincidentally or through incredible strength by killing another god's true body and stealing their divine spark, could use it to ignite their own godfire and ascend into a god. These new gods were basically there to help Gaia and the four True Gods ensure that everything was working smoothly since beings that lacked free will like the four True gods would never be able to handle mortal affairs. However, the power of a world will is nothing to laugh at, and using a divine spark to ascend into godhood comes with some unintended consequences. When you ignite your own godfire, it replaces your soul, so if your godfire ever goes out, that's it, you're gone for good. There's no reincarnation after that since your soul itself is gone. And not only that, but when you ascend into a god, your physical body gets recreated using the natural laws, so as a result, your true body unconsciously bends the natural laws wherever it goes. But the soul part isn't really much of a problem as long as you stay out of trouble because you do live forever as a god, the real issue is the bending of the natural laws by a god's true body. Since the main dimensional plane of Aias wouldn't be able to handle that kind of abuse, the new gods decided to gather faith from their believers and use that power to create divine domains, personal dimensional planes where they reside.
So with the gods unable to personally interfere in the main plane, the solution they found was to create avatars that had limited power and send them down to the main plane instead of their main bodies, but creating avatars takes a lot of energy, and so naturally, the new gods started fighting over believers. Though, most of their fights over believers were done through their heroic spirits, followers of a god who are granted a portion of their god's power and eternal life in exchange for being at that god's service. Well, all this fighting eventually resulted in the current ranking system that the gods adopted once everything settled down. The world will, Gaia, and the four True Gods who received energy straight from Gaia, and were virtually invincible, were at the top, while right under them were the High Gods, who generally had enough believers and energy to create avatars, hire tons of heroic spirits, and maintain enormous divine domains, and finally under the High Gods were the Lesser Gods, newer gods that didn't have enough believers to create avatars or hire a lot of heroic spirits and usually had small divine domains.
Anyway, that's enough about the gods' ranking system for now. All you need to know is that Eliza, who's a relatively new goddess, was lucky enough to find a divine spark a while back and ascend into a lesser goddess. Unfortunately, she's naturally lazy, so after spending almost all of her power making her best friend, Olivia, her only heroic spirit and creating a small divine domain, she basically did nothing all day and Olivia's constant efforts were what kept Eliza barely afloat. Nowadays she just sits in this small wooden house in the middle of her tiny divine domain while always just avoiding total debt. I mean, I know I'm not in the best of situations myself, but it's kind of sad really.
Wait, what? You want to know what rank of god I am. Well, let me tell you. You're probably thinking that the God of Death sounds pretty important or high ranking, and you would be right. I, Kyle, the God of Death am a bonafide True God in charge of the cycle of reincarnation for all living souls in the world of Aias!... And, technically, eliminating any threats to Gaia, but considering my current circumstances, that part of my responsibilities has basically been relegated to the high gods. Now, if you're wondering why it is that I still have free will if I'm a True God, or what I'm doing here locked up in the basement of a lesser goddess... once again, it's a long story.
Well, to start with why I still have free will, truth is, I'm not even originally from the world of Aias. Long story short, a long time ago I was summoned from Earth along with my best friend, Kazuki, by the Church of Light, which, of course, worshipped the God of Light, a current High God. Unfortunately, I was kind of an unwanted extra, since their original intention was to only summon Kazuki as the hero from another world to fight the demon lord running rampant at the time. And so, Kazuki was the only one blessed with the ability to use mana by the God of Light. In the beginning, I tried my best to keep up with him despite being manaless, but eventually... our circumstances changed and we subsequently set foot on separate paths. He went off to fight the demon lord while I was left behind because I was manaless, but due to a lot of murder and some, uh, methods I am currently legally obligated not to disclose, I gained the 'ability' to use mana, and got really, really strong. Like strong enough to kill a few gods. Also, due to reasons I'm personally not willing to disclose, I kind of had to become the God of Death to do something, and so after a long and arduous journey, I ended up using some more methods that I am, once again, legally obliged not to disclose, to kill the former True God of Death and steal his divine spark to light my own godfire. But when I finally got the divine spark, since I wasn't a creation of Gaia, I didn't receive any power from her even as a genuine True God, and right after my ascension, I had my mana and godfire sealed by Kazuki when he and the rest of the gods banded together to stop me.
So after I got caught, the rest of the True Gods had to decide what to do with me since they couldn't just kill me or they would risk throwing the whole reincarnation system out of whack. So they made me swear an oath that I would never teach another person any of the methods I used to kill one of the True Gods, since the world will had never accounted for the fact that one of the seemingly invincible True Gods connected to her would actually die, and subsequently, there was no system set up for a replacement in case it happened. Naturally, the gods decided that someone would have to keep me under surveillance too, but nobody wanted to take me since they would also have to take responsibility for me in case I did anything while I was under their watch and after what I did, nobody trusted that I would stay docile. Now, I won't go into detail about how I almost cried when nobody said they wanted me, but eventually Eliza, who had just ascended into a goddess about a month ago at the time, made a bold decision to take up the role of my jailer, a decision which may or may not have been slightly 'influenced' by the promised yearly reward of some money and faith energy from the other High Gods for watching me, and that coincidentally is the only thing keeping her divine domain barely out of debt nowadays. And so, I became somewhat of an abused butler... err… helpful housemate around Eliza's place and the position of the True God of Death was basically left empty along with the reincarnation system being set to autopilot.
Ah, well that's enough of that. Too much exposition makes my brain hurt and I'd rather see just how Eliza gets out of this situation again.
Eliza turned to Olivia with her nervous smile on her face.
"L-Look Olivia, how about we just discuss this later? I heard Ky's making your favorite for breakfast today." (Eliza)
Olivia's anger seemed to simmer down slightly when she heard I was making her favorite for breakfast today, and the glint in her eyes grew a little softer as she looked towards me for confirmation.
"Really? We're having omelettes today?" (Olivia)
"Well, actually Eliza said she wanted panca- Urk!" (Kyle)
Eliza pulled on the metal collar firmly clamped around my throat before cutting me off.
"Yeah! We're having omelettes today! Right, Ky?" (Eliza)
I saw Eliza shed a single tear as she watched her pancake filled dreams wistfully fly off while Olivia sat down at the simple wooden dining table and crossed her arms in anticipation.
"Hmph! Well, I'll let you off the hook this time I guess." (Olivia)
Hey! Olivia! You always say you'll let her off the hook this time, but during my entire time here I've never seen you once ever punish her! This is exactly why she's so lazy!
Ugh... Well, at least it looks like today's normal like usual. Just another lazy summer day with nothing happening, but, you know, sometimes days like these aren't so bad.
"Alright, alright. Today's breakfast will be omelettes." (Kyle)
I sighed before grabbing my personal apron from the hanger nearby.
Now. I may not look it, but I can assure you I'm an accomplished chef. Food is one of the most important things in life, one of the three basic human necessities, and as a single bachelor for over a millennium, I've had to learn personally how important it is to be able to cook. The art of cooking is one that relies on experience, knowledge, and most importantly, heart. I've been cooking food for far longer than any mortal chef out there, so there's no problem with my experience and knowledge, but without a doubt, heart is my greatest strength! In fact, I'm already getting fired up just hearing the growls of the stomachs behind me!
"Ah. Looks like Ky's getting passionate again. Guess today's omelettes will be even better than usual." (Olivia)
Olivia sat at the table behind me with even greater anticipation as Eliza deflated onto the table with a sigh while listlessly staring out the window at the beautiful blue sky outside.
They say your cooking skill grows exponentially along with your time being single. And if being single for 30 years means you become a wizard then, although I can't use mana anymore, I have ascended beyond even the greatest of arch-wizards. In fact, my chef level can't even be read with a scouter anymore! It is one of my few prides left in this world that the only ones out there better at cooking than me, are the God of Cooking himself and maybe a few of his heroic spirit subordinates that I've acknowledged as fellow chefs.
So, do you hear it my old friend? The cries of everyone behind us to win, their screams that they believe in us! I've already donned my sacred armor (apron)! All that's left is to fight!
This spatula will be the spatula that pierces the heavens! Come! Excalibur! Together we will conquer the real battlefield!
It's time… to head off to the kitchen!