It has been little over a month since the Empire, humanity's Largest nation, fell. The Emperor had no more power. High Ranking nobles were dead or missing. The big organizations that were in the empire had lost its many employers and some even lost their leaders.
The chaos started and ended in 3 days. Hardly anybody knew what had happened. The Prince and his army were slaughtered, then the Emperor's castle was invaded and finally the whole castle went missing.
Hearing the Report from her subordinate, the Pope was left speechless… as she felt like it was all her fault, a voice called her and then one girl entered the office of the pope.
The one to enter was the official Saint of the church. She entered the office wearing a nuns outfit. Even though the dress was very plain and heavily covered her, the way she handled herself and that beautiful face pure from any malice in the world was enough to make her look like a princess from a fairy tale.
"Your Holiness! How did this happen? do you know?" Her voice which usually showed calm and composure was restless.
"Janes…. You heard of it too…?" The pope asked the Saint who was called Janes Hope.
"Who wouldn't? The Empire is the biggest country within humanity and it suddenly fell in 3 days?"
"Ha ha… yeah by now people are writing legends about it."
"Your holiness, why are you laughing?… I heard that 100 thousand soldiers were dead in a one night attack. Nobody knows who did it, not only that, everyone of those soldiers were painfully kept alive until they died. The Emperor's castle is also gone. I heard lots of people went missing, many died, and companies fell. How can all this happen? that nation can never stand up again...."
Janes looked like she couldn't find the heads and the tails of the matter. As if an unknown calamity had gone over the empire, smashing its thousand years of history and image in mere days. If anything, it was a godly display of strength. but even if a god did this, Janes felt extreme displeasure from the act of violence that claimed so many life's be it bad humans of good, the number of lives that were lost was a cruel thing.
"Well Dear…. I think it was my fault…." hearing the pope sigh and give such a shocking answer….
The pope again remembered her pleading scene to Rekka, she had pretty much thrown out her pride and all, as she had simply bowed down to the boy. But… the boy did not take it in good light, Rejecting the pope, he had left her and her domain without a second to spare.
"What?...." On the other hand, Janes looked at the pope with confusion. what did the pope do that she wanted to take the blame for this incident?
"Yes, Dear, you didn't come when Rekka Wolford was baptized did you…? so you must never have met him…" Janes thought why bring out another topic? but she still complied and talked one about it.
"Yes, I had heard he was so loved by god that the light remained the whole time he touched the orb… I felt like I wasn't worthy to meet a man like that…'' since because of her many people suffer every year…. She had such a train of thought… she herself didn't know just how sacred she was. she was weak but strong, she was stiff with rules but easy with forgiveness, even an enemy that tormented her so much, she still lamented over their destruction. but Janes did not know how pure she was, she stopped looking at herself since quite a while back.
As many years had been like that, Janes had developed a complex where she felt making herself more and more unworthy of being called a saint. As such, in her eyes, she could hardly stand in front of a man who manifested a god's power for the longest time in history. It was even enough that even the surrounding people got some gifts from it. even she herself or the pop or the saint Melinda ever made such an phenomenon.
"Well he was a fine young man. Even though people revered him to the point they would have gladly died in his name… he didn't even bat an eye while relinquishing that… honour. I offered him this whole city, all the people, everything.... but he still didn't budge, he did not want such power he said." the Pope said, remembering Rekka's speech.
"Wow, only a man like him can be loved by god to such a degree." Janes hoped to meet that man very eagerly.. A man loved by god just like her. Still she held herself back. She had no grace left to meet him.
Such a high opinion, there probably was nobody in the world to harbor Rekka with such high regards. and she still hadn't met him even once.
"Well… moving on. seeing everyone relying on him, I too followed suit and told him our worries.." Hearing this Janes got surprised but not giving her time to ponder the Pope started talking again.
"After hearing my story and your pain, he said nothing. I wanted to beg him to help us, I wanted to grab his feet and hang onto him for the last time, but before I could.. He stopped me in my tracks… he never said he wouldn't help us and also didn't say he would… after the day when he relinquished his honour from the church…. He went back to Treastein… I thought that was the end…. But then here weeks later…. I hear that, that same Empire is now gone…as if it was wiped off of history itself… the oldest country in humanity." finishing her story she looked at Janes.
"So he did all that, killed so many people… only hearing your and my sufferings?" at first it took a while to realize just what pope meant, the humanity lost a whole country.... but at the center there was one man....? the cause of all that? and the reason he moved to make all that happen was herself!
Janes looked like she was so angry her head could pop out. High regards? A man who can be called a walking miracle? Such thoughts didn't even feel like a dream to her as the Pope told her about Rekka's deeds...
As the saint, she hated war, fighting and anything that was related to sin. Thus the reason she herself wanted to suffer and not make the others suffer at all. That was her principle.
"Yes, after his thorough job, the empire and it's corruption is gone. He not only killed the country's power, he also got the criminal organizations. I even heard he saved innocent refugees too… He only left the emperor alive and took her daughter as a trophy for his work…." The pope read through the proceedings. This report was extra detailed. It was written by none other than Melinda herself.
it was still unknown if Melinda had orchestrated all this to happen or not, Melinda did take her grandson here... and just as she imagined, he made a big spectacle then perhaps, Melinda already knew that the pope would do this, finally Rekka would then move... the pope can't think if that is how Melinda thought or not
The Pope had received the letter some time ago but after reading through it, she could hardly believe… well until the news dropped at her doorstep that is. Now she realized that Melinda had no reason to exaggerate… her Grandson… was a natural disaster. Did he really need the holy protection the pope wanted to give him?
Hell no, now she truly realized that the one summoning such holy presence… wasn't one that needed their protection.. Not one bit. he might be the prosecutor here and the judge of all the criminals...
"He even took a girl like a treasure! How can that man be loved by god????!!" Janes forgetting everyone of her former praises to that man now looked at him like he was the enemy of humanity and a total jerk… her beautiful soft face turned into a rather pouty one, the cute dimple on her cheeks made her look so cute that the pope couldn't help but smile. her daughter was so beautiful...
"Janes… the society is just as cruel as it is kind… you should see the good that has been done." Hearing the pope, Janes looked even more riled up… emotions long lost… were finally forming… and the one that was receiving it wasn't even here.
The Pope felt godly power at work as only the mention of the individual had been able to make this change happen.
"Still your Holiness… if he was that strong, he should have threatened those people and made them obey him not outright do mass murder." That's right, taking a life was something that could only be done after proper judgement. It was the ultimate price for a sin.
"That's how, you think, my child. Now you will take these offerings and give him our thanks for what he did on our behalf. No matter how he did, he still saved our precious city, not to mention before he left, he gave god's advice to us.... at least for this, we can gift him something."
"But why should we give him our thanks? He is a barbarian who murders people!" Janes spoke barely keeping her anger from lashing out, seeing her daughter act like this after many long years, the Pope showed a calm smile. Her heart was light after many long years.
A man who was worthy to be the Hero's grandchild was here now. Someone who was unpredictable, he was kind, ruthless, smart and nice at the same time.. The pope felt an odd feeling of relaxation. As if her shoulders that had been shivering from the cold were covered by a nice and warm blanket. Was this what it felt to be safe? The pope asked herself but never got the answer.
"Now, even if it was cruel. it was all his own decisions, he did it all alone so if there is sin in his deeds, then it will only affect himself, we don't have any right to give our judgements to him since we are not getting any of his sins. If I could, I would already get you married to such a great man… really, he did it in such a way that as thanks, I can't even give my daughter to him…" as the pope sang praises of Rekka, the Saint felt like her Mother was caught in a devil's spell. she barely stopped her face from becoming pale at the sight of the pope singing that mans praises, at this rate, if the pope was 30 years younger, she might just have thrown herself at Rekka while being madly in love!
That was just how pure and kind the saint was. And as per her mother's order, she started to go towards Rekka to give him his offerings grudgingly at that.
....
It had been over a month since I came back from the Empire. It is practically gone now. I was back to my degenerate life. And was enjoying myself some nice tea while sitting on the terrace.
Although after I came back from the empire I did a lot of training seasons making mass dimension, it was to polish the fighting style that developed while fighting the dragon.
To large sized enemies like that, my air flash step barrage was very effective. As I practiced for over 3 to 4 months in a one month amount of time using the mass dimension, I was at last able to feel that I had completed my own style of hand to hand combat. It was similar to boxing, but as modified for my body and this world the same, it had actually mutated into something different.
Also, I remodeled my mansion and now it is a 10 story building complex. Why such a drastic increase, you tell me? It was because of the new residents that I got from the soldier encampments.
Acadia, who told me she could employ them after training them, requested me to get a place for them so I made it.
"Honey I should make my wordings clearer from now on… I told you to look for lodging but you made the mansion into a castle…."
"It's not a castle.. It is a building complex." I said as I denied it, the castle in the empire was huge compared to my measly 10 story building... I soo wanna make something like that!
"Say, do you want to work for me? I will pay you greatly even with my money and body…. I could sell these houses for a fortune!"
"Cadia.. You remember right? I bought you property, assets, body, soul and all…" I called her Cadia because it was on her request. She said to call her something so we can feel closer. No matter how full of spirit and composed she was, once I had called her Cadia, she had oddly become more docile… girls are really cute aren't they?
"Oh! damn. I should have tried to buy you instead." Cadia said, hanging on me from behind. Her chest was pressing up against my back but she had no care about it at all, among the girls, she had this addiction to skin ship, when ever she could, she got in touch with me, I understood that it was special to her, so I never rejected her when she came close, even if the sometimes she disregards even onlookers, anyway, that was just how it had to be then. Well, the mansion was a private place, no one should be spying, so I guess it was fine.
After spending some more time, Cadia as time maintained as ever, left right at the fixed time. She always left right at this time in the morning. I wonder if spending time with me was also in her schedule or not.
As she went to work, Leila came by. She was not at work today.
"Leila, good morning."
"Good morning!" she showed a cherry smile fresh in the morning.
"Leila, you look in a good mood today." she sat beside me and huddled closer, after coming back from the empire she was getting a lot more lovey-dovey.
Maybe not having any more secrets between us was doing more magic than I thought. Other than that, Leila and I who had a first fight after the empire incident were clearly closer after that fight too.
Our fight was about me bringing the tail of a dragon and cooking to eat it. I should mention that the dragon was still alive.
As she had called me a lunatic over my antic of eating anything I wanted without thinking about ethics or even common sense, it seemed that Leila was really bothered by it.
Well… since she had talked bad about food… I got hot headed too… later we fought for a week until…. Yeah… something happened. Let's not say that when you make up with your girl you need to do something that is harder than even going to war… let's talk about it another time alright?
"I am free the whole day and Alice and Systy are gone too. I can have you to myself all day!"
Alice and Systy who had not completed their training in those 3 years were going around fighting monsters to get experiences to improve their unfinished training. they stopped me from participating any more saying if I was there they would stop growing stronger.
They now felt complex since I had already overwhelmed a dragon. It can't be helped, their frustration should help them. Anyway watching them grind their teeth at learning that I had made the Empire endeavour myself… well.. The two of them were riled up for not taking them. Sigh… I know Alice… but even Systy was kinda getting violent these days.
Now as both were running around, In a way it could also be said that the girls were giving me and Leila time to get our relationship to the next level. After that, I presume the girls would move much faster. It was very amusing to see Leila being pressured from the other girls so she could take that step though.
"Please don't forget about me…" Iliya, who came to the terrace to have morning tea, sat opposite us.
"Ooh! Sorry sorry, Iliya I got a bit too excited." Leila said, making a bit of space between us. at first I thought Iliya would actually leave my place and find her own way, but she proposed saying that if I let her live here, anytime some problem from the empire came up, she would actively help me, she was the princess of that place after all, just having her around meant I was politically stronger. although everyone of the girls said to just make our relationship official when Iliya looked at me as if I was a sex crazed monster.... well, I think she liked me.... but we need time to process.
"You know Leila, after first meeting you, I thought you were the main one here but now I can see that you are the same as me and the others." Iliya said that because she thought that I was putty in Leila's hands.. But our relationship was kind of different. Sometimes, Leila held the reins and sometimes me… of course Iliya who was putty in my hand in the empire also put her self in the lower category then gain, I thought I already told her I wouldn't do those stuff anymore.
"Hey, Leila is fine the way she is… I wouldn't want to not spoil her…." making Iliya not ponder over what I said in a protest, I liked our current hierarchy.
"Right, then I will stay just like this." Leila grabbed onto me again and smiled delightfully. she really enjoyed her holidays huh?
"Haah….. You guys, don't you feel shy?"
""I am used to people looking."" as our reply overlapped we chuckled. Since Leila was a genius, she was used to being observed by others, So was I used to being watched by the maids…
"Here Iliya, I brought you what you wanted." Leila gave something to her.
"Ooh! I will go right now!"
"Where to?" I asked.
"My dream is at last near me, even though I had to sacrifice my body to a wolf, I am near my goal at last!"
"For clearance, I didn't violate you one bit… heck we haven't even kissed."
"The things you made me do in the empire was more than enough. No guy out there would have married me.."
"Fine, fine you win." Iliya was just her usual self.
"Heh heh heh now, I will be going fishing!" That was her dream and goal in life.. It was a small dream but living in the empire she didn't have many wishes but to be able to be safe…
But it looked like somehow she got interested in fishing. A slow and peaceful time by the river or pond, fishing was a really down to earth venture.
Not giving any time to ask her where? she blasted away at full speed. It looks like she can run fast using magic. Iliya was a cute one, in the years before us, I was sure her antics would sooth my weary heart when hard times came.
.....
finally becoming alone....
"Leila… I am still sleepy, you know?" Although Alice and Systy have been going all around the country doing something or the other, they are strong enough to handle themselves and Ridge still was in her vacation mode. For spirits, time perception was a lot more lax than you can imagine.
She could actually go on a vacation for a month at a time, even 6 months if the longest were to think of. I didn't stop her though, I am sure Ridge had many places to visit, she was locked up from the world for who knows how many years after all.
So this was the best place to move forward with Leila. We had gone on many dates and through my guild work, we even got to spend quite a bit of time, so when she was home like this, I tended to get a bit handsy with her. I had to say, she was way too busy at her age.
"Yeah, we have been sleeping less since the empire was in chaos.." even though I had cleared out the big time criminals, the country was still filled with crooks. Many came out in hope for new territory.
Me and other guild members were dealing with those crooks causing unrest everyday. Since I could move all around the country at my will, it was the perfect job for me. But still, covering 2 whole countries was hard work, and since Leila was managing the information for me, She was in the same boat.
"Well, will you really sleep after getting in bed?" Leila asked me, looking a bit shy..
"Well… that can be hard with you there." I said scratching my head.
"It is as if I am not even here anymore." It was Mila. After coming from the Empire, she made herself stay near me at all cost. After a lot of competition, it looked like she still came second. Of Course the first place winner was Mai. but Mai gave Mila a boon and said she can stay near me half the day.
"You have to get used to this, Master can forget about everything when he is with Mistress Leila." And Mai who came at the right time to comment on me.
Still ignoring all that, me and Leila moved to my room and slept as our reward for all the hard work.
There was a lot more intimacy than sleeping but it was a bonus! we slept talked about our plans, then ate something and again became a bit handsy, As I was feeling that this could be my lucky day since Leila looked like she could let me go a bit further.
"Leila… what are you thinking? you aren't stopping me at all today…" not hearing any no from her I approached. it seems at times like these, you don't talk and just go ahead, Leila whos eyes didn't betray my thoughts, came even closer. I know we stayed in our room so when ever the mood was right, we will go ahead, but we really went ahead as soon as we felt it was right.
We were already prepared because of all the flirting, so I only needed a minute to get our relationship to the next level. When I heard that,
Knock knock….
I felt like a major case of blue balls was going to happen. Hearing the knock, Leila showed a mischievous smile.
"It's your bad day darling…" no don't say that.... the thoughts didn't have time to surface, we had already broken out of the lovely mood.
"I wish we could have a night alone…"
"Seeing the numbers, I doubt you could have that." Leila pondered as Mai finally entered.
"Mai can't I ignore the emergency?"
"Sorry Master, as much as I want you to continue your step towards a life of a philander. She is an important individual." Mai Came in the room saying such words… who even calls a virgin a philander.
"You could phrase it differently, you know?"
"Come on now get up.." Leila said.. Since I was on top of her she couldn't get up. After kissing her one last time a bit more forcefully than usual, I got up. Whoever this guest was, I am gonna get this meeting finished and take my first step towards adulthood.
"Don't go anywhere! I'm getting back right away!" Leila blushed as she nodded saying she would be on the bed all day.
As I got up and fixed my clothes, Mai and I went towards the meeting room.. The VIP room was prepared, the guest might just be a big shot. Anyway, as I left Leila… man… I hate it… Leila felt like she was really ready...
"She is the official saint of the church, she came to meet you, it looks like she is in a hurry, that was why I asked for you to meet her master."
"A saint should be patient. Her first impression feels kinda dull really." if she waited just around 5... no 10... no 20 minutes... that would be all....
As I said that to Mai, I went to meet the saint that was also hurting alongside the pope. Well.. as her thanks, I should ask for her to leave early so I can get back to Leila.