A/N: By the way, I updated the last chapter. Please read it if you haven't already.
.~.~.~.
"Congratulations!" Lucia said joyously as she received Velzard and I, giving a big hug to the former.
She was already 8 months into her pregnancy and it was really showing it too. Her round belly looked like it was ready to pop. I couldn't help but notice that her clothes were very loose-fitting blouse and a comfortable-looking long skirt to hide her legs. After hugging Velzard for a few moments, she also came and gave me a small hug as well, greeting us like we were family.
"Good job, Master Alaster! I'm so happy you both were able to overcome this difficult stage in your relationship." She cheered.
I scratched the back of my neck for a moment. "Thanks. It's all because I have a truly wonderful wife of my own." I somewhat meekly admitted before turning to Velda Nava, standing in the corner of the doorway and watching our interaction with a smile.
I gave him a respectful bow but he waved me off. "Don't be like that Alaster. Come in, come in! We have so much to discuss."
I nodded and helped Velzard; herself about 3 months pregnant, up the steps and into the house. I really didn't need to. Spiritual lifeforms like ourselves didn't have nearly as much physical strain on our bodies from things like childbirth as regular humans did, but I couldn't help it. I may be ok with having a child, but that didn't mean my worry would just vanish. Velzard was already a bit weaker now than she was before. Not by much, she could still kick around someone like Veldora all day long, but it was enough that She'd struggle to defeat Velgrynd.
As we walked down the halls and made small talk, I double-checked the rooms and barriers, ensuring nothing was wrong with them, just in case. Thankfully it wasn't, but I knew the attack that killed Veldanava in canon would come shortly after Milim's birth, though I didn't know how much that would change due to my presence. Hopefully, it would never come, but I wasn't going to let down my guard just because I didn't want something bad to happen, doesn't mean it wouldn't.
Nothing seemed amiss to me when I checked, and even [Solomon], who fully analyzed everything, gave the defenses a satisfactory score, so I let it go for now and rejoined the conversation.
"So, did you figure out if it's a boy or girl yet?" Lucia asked.
"No, it's definitely a girl. Maybe next time I'll have a boy though." Velzard said, which caused me to nearly trip over myself when I heard it.
Velda, Lucia, and Velzard all laughed at my antics. "Haha! Serves you right for not paying attention to us and looking all serious!" Velda laughed.
"Oy! Did you three plan this!" I yelled back, slightly embarrassed by being caught so completely off-guard.
"It's payback for making Sister Velzard sad," Lucia said, scolding me.
"Yes, yes. I'm sorry." I gave up and gave them the answer they were looking for.
"Well, don't be too upset now. It's not your fault you're so worried... Anyway, not that I'm not happy to see you, but what's up? Did you want to talk to me about something?" Velda asked.
"A few things actually." I paused as we entered the main hall.
Several beautiful maids lined the room, standing at complete attention, ready to wait on us hand and foot, as it were. Perks of being a pregnant princess and married to a god, I suppose. I pulled out the chair at the table for Velzard to sit in and pushed her in slightly when she sat down before seating myself next to her.
"You know, Alaster, I'm not made of glass. I can still sit down by myself." She said, not really putting any force behind her complaints.
"Just allow me to pamper you for a while," I cooed back, giving her a quick peck on the cheek.
"Oh my, dear they're fighting again!" Lucia said, elbowing her husband.
"I can see that. Hopefully, they can make up before it's too late." He said, giving a stout nod.
Velzard and I looked at one another before we both rolled our eyes at their antics. Velzard was actually quite shameless when it came to flirting with me in front of others, mostly because she just tuned out the rest of the world while with me, but on the flip side, she was quite the blush bomb when I teased her, though she was slowly building up a resistance to it.
After waiting for the couple to settle down, we started to eat our meal. It was a full 5-courses and extremely posh, but I didn't mind it too much, and neither did Velzard, it was delicious. We made small talk throughout the evening on a variety of topics. Lucia complained that Velda was staring at other girls, especially the elven maids, a bit too much for her liking. Lucia even admitted to us, much to his horror, that she'd use magic to transform her ears into elf ears during sexy time, which really got him hot and heavy. I was rolling on the ground laughing at this while Velzard was giving him a look I'd only seen people give in anime or manga that said 'Pervert, Go Die!'
Eventually, he came up with the excuse that it was just his draconic heritage of being greedy that forced him to do it, but no one bought it. Especially since he had turned himself into a human now and didn't have a drop of draconic blood in him anymore. We eventually dropped the subject when we got our fill of teasing revenge, but the fact that Milim might have been conceived during elf cosplay sex will be with me forever.
Velda was still faithful and that was all that mattered in the end.
When we finished up the main course, the conversation began to get back to the more serious topics that I'd come here for. "So, what's up?" Velda asked me directly.
I sighed, putting down my utensils, and looked him dead in the eyes. "I want you to stay with us until after both our children are born. It'll be easy to protect you, Lucia, and Velzard all at the same time if you were nearby. Lilith isn't doing much right now besides being my secretary, though I can pester Ramiris into doing it for the duration. Lilith is quite strong, so she can be the primary guard." I proposed.
Velda closed his eyes and thought for a moment, waving his hands and dismissing all of the maids in the room. Lucia also had a complicated look on her face. Once everyone else was gone, Velda opened his eyes and gave me his response.
"You are worried about the war, right?" He asked.
I nodded my head. "Rudra might be playing a game with Guy to take over the world, but it's putting increased pressure on your security. Everyone will want some kind of leverage on him, and his sister and her child are pretty good targets for that. Besides that, didn't you have to dismiss the other Primordial Daemons to guard the Demon World Gates? Couldn't you have one of them help you out instead?" I asked.
"No. More and more rogue daemons are coming through the otherworld gates and without powerful guards, they will continue to cause havoc and chaos in this world and other worlds nearby. It has become such a problem there that I even had to send Feldway, Zalario, and Cornu to the Heavenly Star Palace to monitor all the other worlds in reality and to keep the peace." He commented.
"I see. What happened to Obera?" I asked.
"I sent her on a mission to another world close to this one. She is currently inspecting the space-time barrier between worlds and the cycle of reincarnation and souls from that world to this one. Did you hear of the Kingdom of Namrium's latest achievement?" He asked.
"The accidental summoning of a person from another world with tremendous power right?" I asked.
"That's correct. It wasn't exactly a system I created when making the world. Instead, it seems that humans found a way to tap into the system I used to summon angels from one physical world to another. They somehow twisted the system and were using it to summon otherworlders." Velda explained.
I sat back in my chair and looked up at the ceiling, thinking for a while. "Then the reason why they'd be so strong is..."
"As you probably expected, since the bodies automatically created by the spell I used were supposed to house the cores of Powerful Angels when the souls of the humans are summoned, their bodies are reconstructed to house more magicules. The long and short of it is that they are suddenly granted an enormous amount of magical power, equivalent to that of a 'superior' Majin." Velda explained.
"And if they have any intense desires during the summoning process..." I began, finally understanding how the summoning process actually worked in canon.
"They'd be granted Unique Skills, huh?" Velzard finished Velda's statement.
Velda nodded. "I don't think I need to tell you how much of an issue this is. Unique Skills are too powerful for the average person with dubious morals to possess. Namrium's entire royal family was slaughtered and the Queen and her daughters were taken as trophies by the first otherworlder they summoned when he lead a coup with his fellow otherworlders." Velda explained.
I frowned when I heard that. "I'll deal with it as soon as we are done here," I said but was stopped by Velda, who rose his hand and shook his head to stop me.
"It's fine. I've already had Rudra send Velgrynd. The knowledge has not spread yet but the kingdom is already in Rudra's hands and the announcement of annexation will be very soon." Velda commented.
I closed my eyes and used [Clairvoyance] to check to see if he was right, and he was. My ability to see and know everything that happens in the world is one of my most broken skills, but it doesn't exactly help me too much if I don't actually use it to look for things outside of my immediate concerns. I made a note to self that I needed to check up on royal families, powerful organizations, and other influential people more often to avoid situations like this in the future.
"I see. However, it seems like the majin who created the ritual escaped and sold the information to various other countries." I said with a frown. "It also seems like the countries that bought it are experimenting with adding a curse seal to keep their 'weapons' under control in the future," I commented with a slightly disgusted look on my face.
Lucia frowned at that. "I'll have brother put a stop to it!" She declared.
I shook my head at her comment. "It's no use. He may have capable people working for him like Graneet and that upstart Damrada, but even he would struggle with containing this information now that it's been spread so far." I said, trying to reject her without sounding too harsh.
Lucia puffed up her cheeks at my denial and pouted, not liking me saying their was something her bother couldn't do. Velda awkwardly laughed for a moment before poking Lucia's swollen cheeks, teasing her for being a bro-con.
I smiled at this and so did Velzard who leaned up against me at the sight. It was clear this conversation was over and we all just wanted to flirt. Thankfully, Lucia suddenly came to an epiphany of sorts to keep the conversation going.
"Oh! Since we are both having girls, it's only right that they grow up like they were siblings! Maybe you could relocate the HQ of the Adventurer's Guild to Nasca and we could stay there rather than so far away!" Lucia said, as though she had the best idea of her life.
"That defeats the purpose of protecting you guys, doesn't it?" I said exasperatedly.
Velda chuckled. "It's fine, it's fine. Lucia just misses shopping in the royal Capital with her friends is all." He said.
"Well let's not do that until after Milim is born and this guy decides to stop being so weak," I said, pointing to Velda.
Velda smiled. "Alright, alright, Alaster. You win! We'll take our security more seriously and after Milim is born I'll create a vessel to inhabit and regain my strength." he said.
I gave a satisfied nod before looking over to Velzard who had fallen asleep leaning against me. I smiled softly and brush away some hair from her face before giving her a small kiss on the forehead. Even when she was sleeping, she still smiled softly at that, which I found adorable.
I turned back to Velda. "I'm going to take her home now. Even a True Dragon can fall into a food coma apparently." I said, wrapping my arms around her.
Lucia smiled. "Take care and be sure to visit. If I can't go out of the house to shop with you being so paranoid, then you're going to be the one to escort me and hubby here when we go shopping for clothes after the baby's born!"
I smiled and gave them a curt nod. "Will do," I said, disappearing with Velzard via teleportation.
...
(Velda POV)
"And just like that, they're gone," Lucia commented slightly sadly.
"There's nothing we can do about it. You know why I took him under my wing to complete his training just before we decided to have a child together, right?" I asked her.
"Yes yes. Your premonition..." Lucia said bitterly.
"The World System is already affecting him subtly, heightening his paranoia about something bad that's yet to come," I commented.
"How is the progress going?" She asked, rubbing her belly.
"Not as smoothly as I'd liked. I thought I'd be able to retain control over the System better than this if I reduced the World System's control interface down to the level of a Unique Skill, but [Administrator] is too hard to use and my calculation capacity is much more limited now in a physical body rather than a spiritual one. I didn't think human beings were so limited in terms of calculations. I'd really love to have [Raphael] back." I sighed.
"Do you want it back? I don't mind reducing it back into [Great Sage] for a while." Lucia asked, slightly worried.
I shook my head at her comment. "It's alright. I wouldn't be able to support it anyways. It's just... I didn't think so many glitches would occur without my presence as a True Dragon being its driving force. The bugs are popping up faster than I can fix them. I think I've found a solution, but you definitely aren't going to like it." I said, a mixture of disappointment and fear in my voice.
Lucia looked at me with cold eyes. She only ever does this whenever I do something REALLY crazy like that time I rearranged the constellations with Ramiris the first time I got drunk as a human. "What is it darling? Don't tell me it's something crazy again."
I laughed awkwardly. "I may need to die once and live as a soul for a while like I was before I created the universe to fix the glitches in the system," I admitted.
"And how long would that take?" Lucia asked me.
"Long enough, its only a few years, but I'm a dragon, so that doesn't seem as bad to me as it will to you. I'll also need to create another artificial True Dragon to take my place as an anchor keeping the world together. I was thinking of giving it to our daughter as a pet and to satisfy Alaster's paranoia," I said.
Lucia stomped her foot in protest. "I don't want to go years without you! Not only that but our daughter deserves to grow up with her father!" She protested, but deep down, knew I was right.
I put my hands on her shoulders. "I know hun, but this is something I NEED to do. Our daughter deserves to live in a world that doesn't collapse in on itself in a few years due to my negligence. I thought creating the other True Dragons to act as anchors holding the forces of nature would suffice, but it turns out I was needed more than all of them..." I gave a deep and tired sigh. I didn't want to get into a fight with the woman I loved over this. I already felt like the worst piece of scum without her rubbing it in my face.
"Do you remember what I said when you first confessed to me?" I asked, pained at the lack of support my wife gave me and the fact that I knew I'd be away from them for so long.
"Y-you said you could never be with another person like that, especially a human, no matter how much you loved them or how lonely it made you feel." She said, tears in her eyes. "You said you loved me back. More than the sun and the sky, and that you loved me more than anything in creation."
I nodded, tears welling up in my eyes "And I told you that I'd have to leave one day. I told you that I promised you we'd be together forever when I got back, right?"
"Yes..." Lucia said, tightening her hug around my body, almost afraid to let go.
"That time is coming sooner than we predicted is all. I promise you on my life. I will make sure to return to you. And that when I do, I'll be there for our daughter, no matter what happens or how long it takes." I said with conviction in my heart.
Lucia nodded her head while still buried in my chest to show that she'd heard me, and knowing her, she'd use whatever means necessary to hunt me down and beat me to a pulp if I broke that promise. I continued stroking the back of her head as we both wept for a while.
...
(World System POV)