Artemis decided to ignore Alexander and the concerns about her not reincarnating for a moment to have a chance to read the diary she went to collect. Truthfully, it was filled with a lot of nonsense she didn't care about. Entries about old human friends and the man she had fallen in love with. "If you open your heart up to people, prepare to get it ripped out and handed back to you. That was your own foolish mistake," she scolded her past life.
At first, Artemis found the entries about the humans she met to be useless but as she read the interactions she had in the past, she felt sad all of a sudden. The memories weren't clear but the emotions she felt had not disappeared. Sometimes she just needed to be reminded of the relationship she had with humans in the past. Not all of them were bad, which she knew, but she had been so angry by being all alone that she painted them all out to be.
She wondered what it would be like to live in a time like this surrounded by everyone. Turning a page she read the contents, " The farmer's wife was able to heal from her sickness after he came to receive a blessing from me. He returned the next day with two of his beloved cows to repay me for it. I told him I didn't need anything in return but he disagreed. It took me a whole day to make him change his mind. This would irritate me," Artemis muttered, not finding this to be as sentimental as he should be. "He returned the next day with fresh baked goods."
"Must be nice to have someone bring you food you don't even eat. More good stories. When does all the bad stuff start to happen? Didn't you think it would be good to write that down too? What is this? Thomas has not been coming to see me these days. I have told him I will not bring back someone from the dead all because I know the devil. Maybe it was wrong for me to fall in love with a human. Duh!" Artemia exclaimed, feeling the need to go back in time and slap herself.
How could falling in love with a human be a good idea? Artemis wouldn't want to fall for a God either. They'll all hurt you at the end of the day. She could predict already that when she didn't do the things this man wanted he found no use for trusting a God.
"Where have I heard the name Thomes before?" It rang a bell from something which happened recently but she wasn't sure. It was a waste of time trying to figure out where right now though.
"Finally something good," she said, going through the other pages. "These days the king has been spewing nonsense about Gods being a threat to humans. The king has sent out a request that all the Gods around the kingdom should attend a meeting at the palace. I didn't go but I was told he wanted us to bow to him. So this is where it all started," Artemis realized.
She wasn't aware the king had requested the Gods to actually bow to him. She only knew he wanted them to listen to his commands because he was king. How could a mere human ask a God to bow to him?
She continued to read, "The king visited me wanting to make an example by having me be the first one to bow to him. I rejected the order and sent him back without the horses he came on. Maybe I have been too nice and they have forgotten I am not someone to just bow because they have requested. Not too long after, I received word from a God living nearby that they were unable to return home and the elders were no longer answering us."
"Things became silent for a while until the attacks happened. The king tried killing Gods but was unable to because we were not so easy to defeat. The king killed many of his own people trying to get at us. He pulled young and old men from their homes to fight for him. When the king realized he was fighting a losing battle as he had not killed any of the Gods, he started to target his people who were still visiting the temples to receive blessings. The king believed no one should be respected the same as him. He was the king who stood above everyone."
As Artemis read, Alexander secretly listened to the parts of history not mentioned in any of the books in the palace. What happened long ago in the past was told differently in their books. It was said that the Gods approached the king ordering him to bow to them and when he didn't, the Gods threatened to unleash their wrath on the people of the kingdom. Two different interpretations of what happened were being told.
"Some humans warned me of the king's plans to invade my temple. I assured them that it would be okay and made it harder for the king's men to come close to my temple. This is the last entry," Artemis said, flipping through blank pages. What happened after this must have been when the guards made it to her temple again and she killed all of them. She was hoping to find information about the forest but there wasn't any. Still, she was satisfied with what she found.