As Alma stood there, in that crushing hug that was a show of love by her family, she really couldn't tell how she should feel about this and the only thing on her mind was everything that'd happened around that part of her new life.
She never thought much when her mother turned out to not be human. She was still a gentle and caring woman with plenty of children who were raised much the same way, nevermind that she was strong enough to survive in the wild with two small children after four of her offsprings and everyone she knew died.
Though i'd feared Elladan would get traumatized and catatonic forever, i am mostly happy that he simply started doing light physical training and some healing training for taking care of both himself and others, specifically me most of the times, though it seems he mostly does it to try and figure out why I am a 'genius'.
Lily is quiet and tacicurn, but she's just as gentle as mother and has taken to pampering me whenever she is not learning in class, so it's actually hard to remember her body is that of a doll if you don't see her practice talking with her mouth.
But Aki... It somehow got harder to call him a person as his appearance became more common. Sure, he acts like an annoying spoiled brat that needs attention to live, but he is quite attentive and has a soothing presence. When he got back home I even though that he seemed in a hurry because he'd been weakned by something and was going to prepare for a journey that would actually have him go away for a while, which made me worried for some reason, so I appraised him to see what was the problem and...
"You have finally done it. Congratulations on becoming an actual God." I commented mentally with every bit of coldness my expressionless baby face would suggest.
"Thank you, but it's mostly a title really, I can barely do miracle looking things with the new power." He said with fake modesty oozing around putting her back in the cart her helper was pushing. I'd not been able to get to know yet, but I think her name was Carla? "How's your day been? Did you break your nany yet?" I hit him.
"There has been no problem yet your majesty." Roboticaly reported the woman.
"Great then. You were my personal choice, so remember to not mind other people too much. I'll be snatching the little ball of anger and philosophy though, so you may leave if you want." He said with a nod and leaned in to kiss my cheek. Too clingy. I'm a proper twenty two years old woman inside, you know?
"Affirmative." Said the former slave, who just stood there and kept her gaze fixed on us.
"Any affinity you want to train dear? I'm sure i could establish a semi perfect link of mana transfer and help you train if it is as i'm right now." He offered while moving the wheeled basked that could actually be propelled by mana around the castle garden.
"Not really. I'm not as hiper as you or brother, i also like doing nothing for the sake of looking at the horizon some times." She coldly responded.
"Hey, i just don't like doing nothing alone. And without something to ocupy my hands." He complained while rolling his eyes before proceding to spend the next couple of hours proving her wrong and at max murmuring a song or five in his anxiety to do something. "Ok, two or three drama episodes is the maximun lenght of time my relaxation can be spent on doing the same thing, so i'm going to visit that sword grandmaster on the old capital today. It shouldn't be too hard to convince him with my level of expertise on annoying people. Then i come back in time to catch your mon and sister at the school's last bell so we can all have a night picnic." As he said so, Alma suddenly felt great pity for the man in question.
*****
"I can literraly read your status, there's no way that skill hasn't advanced at least twice! It even has the prefix true on it." Aki exclaimed while avoiding the flying oil that kept going after him. How the man could cook so well with it while making such strange movements was a mistery even to him though.
"That's one silver." The old man with a full mustache and some beard on the sides said to the man buying four skewers. He seemed to almost be unable to not eat his friend's portions if the amount of drool he spewed was any indication. "I'm done for the day, come back tommorow." Said the old man to the giant line waiting, which made the people displeased, but the only looks of blood lust and anger were directed to the now running man with four skewers.
"Can we talk now or do you want help with carrying your cooking suplies?" Aki asked, simply getting signaled to the utensils, which he quickly made dissapear into his inventory. The man briefly looked at it, but didn't show any reaction before going back to his home at a slow pace, as if he was actually only as fast as a normal sixty years old man.
Aki only talked again when he was going to ask where to put the utensils, but the man simply gestured for him to hand them over. Which he did, before quickly phassing through the door that was going to smack him. This got him a twitching brown.
"Can you teach me now?" He asked, not actually expecting the answer to be yes as much as to make the man consider him an even bigger irritation.
"You are invading private property, get out or i will make you." He said emotionlessly.
"I bought both the land and the complex before coming, so i can actually enter for a surprise inspection almost any time. Here's the deed." He showed the man a piece of document on his right hand, but it was quickly turned to shreds, and he quickly got another copy on his left hand, with the same result, so he made a telekinetic thread hold the man's shoulder and another hold yet another copy of the document behind him. "I also copied it a thousand times and had two copies distributed to each home." He explained, getting another eyebrown twicth.
"You wanna be trained in swordsmanship so badly?" The old man practically growled.
"I really want to make a mixed martial arts, and i can evolve all the other skills myself, so yeah, i need a swordsmanship teacher." He nodded.
"Pay up them, i want a million gold." He said in a cold tone again.
"Here's an enchanted mithril-damascus steel alloy sword worth a million gold pieces." Aki readily nodded and dropped the thing on the man's extended hand. This made the man tremble in contained rage.
"Who the fuck are you kid?" He asked, not liking being toyed with one bit.
"The new king." He shruged. "Can we begin our lessons tommorow afternoon, i have to get my wife and daughter at school." Aki was impressed with himself, being able to almost peferctly time this.
"You don't think i can run away?" The old man sounded every bit convinced he should never teach this maniac even though he wouldn't be that bad of a disciple.
"I will eventually conquer the world, so even if you hide in the planet nucleus, you will have to deal with me someday, and it's not like i'm going to learn the sword law in a day or month, so it doesn't really make a diferrence when we start, i just really came to introduce myself and my intentions today."
"What makes you think my answer will change?" He asked in much the same tone as before.
"The only people with truly short patience are the very young and the very old, and considering how you look you consider yourself old enough. I was already an anoying teen when i dind't have magic, so considering i will only get stronger..." He rolled the sentence, leaving the meaning obvious in the air.
The old sword master sighed in resignation. This boy practically aced the whole personality requisites, didn't offend him gravely, didn't treaten him, had obvious power and potential, and the only thing he could complaing about was that his pride was even bigger than his own. He'd be much better than just 'a good disciple'.
"Come after lunch. I won't wait too long for you." The old man said, resigned to not beat his head against this wall anymore. Aki smiled warmly and left with a nod, taking the remains of the destroyed documents with him.
*****
"And that's when you throw away your shirt inside your dimentional ring. Try to be as natural as possible while taking a towel out to clean the light sweat." Aki explained while using the ruler to point to the very hastly done drawing on the black board and Eladan made a note on his small notepad.
"Aki, what are you teaching my son right now?" Asked Anna.
"Anna! Love of my life and reason for me to wake up, have i professed how your universe emcopassing beauty makes me keep myself alive today?" He quickly intoned while spreading his arms. The boy behind him was embarased and triyed to hide his notes, but Aki quickly shoved him foward a bit.
"Yes you did, what are you two doing?" She asked again with the same expression and tone.
"Well, i heard something interesting and just couldn't help but use some some tricks to impart a bit of wisdom into my foster-son." He inocently said.
"It looked like you were trying to teach him how to seduce a woman." She questioned.
"Nothing of the sort." He shook his head. "I'm merely preparing the boy so he doesn't suffer like me. Remenber when i talked about my first crush? How that gorila with a bowl cut shoved me against a metal gate to threaten me or how embarassingly i acted towards that E-girl-wanabe in my class because i thought it was fun to follow her around? I just want to make sure our son doesn't comit simirlarly shamefull mistakes since he is starting to have new company." Or translating his bullshit to gather the attention and shame:
"You're interested in the new girl in your class?" The mother concudled, making the boy flush a deep crimsom and nod shily. "That's great Elladan!" She smiled and hugged him.
"Anna! Try not to embarass the boy yet, they're just kids, we've got years to make him fell inapropriate about us!" Aki mock chidded, the nine years old boy suddenly not felling so confident about any chance he'd ever have about a romantic life in this incarnation. "In all seriousness though, and i was going to say this at the end of the lesson anyway, but you should try talking to her, be friends, no relationship works if you can't have an ally in the person you like to spend time with, so think of that before any of the bullshit about being manly or impressing her, got it?" He said while getting the boy's attention and holding his sholder. "And don't curse like me." He repeated with much the same tone as the mesage before, getting a nod from his wife.
Next day though...
"And so it is extra important I observe every moment and detail. I may like children, but I am not innocent enough to believe in their parents." Aki explained to the goddesses sitting in front of him. Both the women from before were sitten in front of him, but there was yet another beauty around, this time a tomboyish redhead clearly versed in combat.
They were neither projecting themselves in his counciouness nor had they descended to the mortal plane though. Instead, it was Aki that had stepped into a middle realm that could better support their existences.
While dangerous in its own ways, they'd be hard pressed to kill him without letting the battle reach the mortal plane, turning the notion of assassination redundant.
"This still sounds extra suspicious from my point of view, but your tricks won't work on..."
"I am black." Aki rolled his eyes at the woman and interrupted her with a statement that didn't really make much sense to anyone but the goddess of truth, who had identified him as not lying even though both his physical body and representation were barely rosy. "Another example would be me saying '42 is the meaning of life'. It isn't a lie to tell a truth you don't necessarily understand. And more than half my life was spent on finding new ways to say my words in different ways so people could understand." He explained to her, not much taking his eyes off the rip on space that showed his son trying to get to know the transfer student from the desert country.
The olive skinned dog-kin looked and acted like a princess, so Aki was mentally praising and chiding Elladan for his tastes.
"Now, I think we all agree that we came here to make a deal, right? No need for pleasantries first." He shrugged and looked around, getting nods. "So I would like to begin with something I think everyone can agree, the angel on the Empire."
"You have already provoked it, but it has not broken it's pact with us. Even if it has always been a thorn on our side, we cannot do anything about it." Said the goddess of truth.
"We both know that's a technicality, we can always find a roundabout way. Besides, it is not what I ask. I want to propose a 'ceasefire', so you can direct your efforts towards changing the people's beliefs after I massacre the thing in live broadcast." He quickly answered while making quotation marks about his concurrent recruiting of heroes thrown at him.
"Live broadcast? How?" Asked the still unnamed goddess in disbelief, her colleagues keeping a stoic front.
"Magic drones." He spoke, making all three women confused. "Basically a lot of small flying golems made exactly to detect and transmit images towards a center of information that will then broadcast the best image showing the fight to a series of a screens all over the empire, which I have already began spreading by the use of spies and sleeping agents, so preparations from your side would be most appreciated." He explained, opening another tear in space, this one showed a man working several seemingly mechanical parts together in a black cart. By the side, stood what could only be described as plasma or smart TV screens. "So, will you help this depraved usurper that definetly has plans for after this?" He asked with a smile and the most sarcarm he could put in his voice.