'Aurora...?' I see a statue, it looks exactly like Aurora, the statue is on a beautiful obsidian mold, it is so well made that it seems real, even having colors, her beautiful purple hair along with her pale skin creates a wonderful combination with the dark purple dress.
'It seems so real... wait... why do the demon lords have a statue of Aurora? I had never seen the garden before...' although the faith in the Goddess of Eternity is great in this world, people don't know the real appearance of Aurora.
They know she exists, but they have never seen her, but here in this garden, there is a statue of Aurora.
'I had already seen an image... but how do the 7 know what she looks like?' I am captivated by the statue, it is beautiful, easily the most beautiful work of art I have ever seen.
"..." Valac looks at me strangely.
"Is there a problem?" I ask him.
"...No, little sister... I just forgot this was here..." he says, looking at the statue.
'They don't hate Aurora? In fact, they never really talked much about Aurora... do they know something about her?'
I walk up to the statue to read what is written on the obsidian plaque.
"The World is balanced by Eternity, and Eternity exists only for Aurora" I read what is written and I am confused.
'What does that mean?... perhaps it refers to Aurora's immortality?' the only thing this phrase reminds me of is immortality.
'But I'm also immortal... this phrase is so confusing'
"Big brother, what does this phrase mean... big brother?" I look at Valac to ask a question, but he seems confused with me.
"I-Is there a problem..."
'Did I do something wrong?' I'm doubtful about his reaction, since I saw this statue, he's been acting strange.
"...Little sister... how do you know how to read ancient language?" Valac asks with genuine doubt.
"..."
'Ancient language? It seems normal to me...' I look at the plaque again, but I can only read it normally, I don't know why, even though what is written seems to be in another language.
"I don't know?" I answer honestly, I've never seen anything like this before, I just know how to read it for some reason.
'Maybe it's something Aurora gave me?'
"What is ancient language?" I ask to get some explanation.
"...They are writings made with [Runes] usually they are used to record magic in an object so all you need to do to use the object's magic is put your own magic... but [Runes] are an ancient language and no current race knows how to read them... only 9 people in this castle can read the [Runes]"
'So I can use magic... if I learn to use Runes?'
"I-I didn't know that..."
'Will he do something to me because I can read this?'
"...Don't worry, little sister, it's not something bad... it's just... a bit surprising..." he says.
"This... person in the statue... do you know her?"
"...Yes... Who doesn't know Aurora, the Goddess of Eternity..." his answer was evasive, and he has a strange look at the statue, I can't identify what he feels when he looks at Aurora.
"...That's not what I meant..."
"...Let's go eat something? Follow me, there's a tree here with a beautiful view" he ignores what I said and moves on.
'He's hiding something... he knows Aurora, and he doesn't seem to have any animosity towards her since he keeps a statue of her in the garden' I want to know more, so I follow him, we stop at a table under a tree, the garden is strange, it seems to never end when you look at the horizon.
He serves me a cup of tea while talking about how his garden has all kinds of plants from the world, and how he uses magic to simulate the original living environment of them.
"Big brother..."
'I want to know more, I need information...'
"Tell me, little sister, did something catch your attention?" He speaks with an excited smile.
"...The World is balanced by Eternity... what does that mean?" I don't understand how the balance of this world depends on Eternity, to me Eternity would be some kind of time measure, so how does that balance this world?
Valac's expression falters, it loses that cheerful smile, it becomes rather indifferent.
"...It doesn't matter much, little sister... when something works, there's no need to question it, don't you think?" he speaks without his usual joy.
"But still, how does it work? I don't understand, how is Eternity linked to this world" his expression darkens more, my curiosity makes me not notice.
"..."
"Isn't Eternity like a time measure? How does that help the world?" Valac seems uncomfortable with my questions, but I, lost in my curiosity, don't notice.
"And how does Eternity exist only for Aurora? Is it linked to her immortality? Or is it something more abstract? Why do you have a statue of her? Have you met Aurora in person?" his expression gets colder and colder, but I continue my questions, my curiosity about Aurora overcoming my reason.
I notice how the plants are strange, they tremble slightly as some of them wither, but I continue my questions.
"Is Aurora really important to this world?" in my memories of this world, what I know about Aurora through Religion is only that she exists, that the power of this world depends on her, but the people in the castle and Ayla's family never taught Ayla anything about Aurora.
"You're quite curious, little sister, but too much curiosity is bad..." he speaks, trying to divert me from the questions.
"Is Aurora really important? I don't see how she could be..." The tree we're under starts turning to dust, all the plants are dying, I see a slight flow of magic coming from Valac's body, he seems annoyed.
I've never seen him angry, he's always excited or happy, He got angry with my doubt about Aurora's importance in this world.
"..."
"..."
"..."
I remain silent, fearing to say anything else and make him angrier. Aetheris on my shoulder is growling at Valac, but I notice he's also trembling with fear. I don't feel pressured by the released magic, but it still makes me uncomfortable.
"Little sister, never question this again, Aurora is important, and this is not something you should doubt" he says, containing his anger, but his voice is cold and indifferent, his expression is clearly irritated.
"Little sisters who don't know when to stop must be punished... yes, a punishment" he gets up and takes Aetheris off my shoulder at a speed I can't keep up with.
"W-Wait, don't do anything to Aetheris, he didn't do anything wrong" I speak desperately. I never imagined my curiosity would lead to this situation, I just wanted to know a little more.
"I won't do anything to him... he'll just watch along with me" I have doubts about what he meant by "Watch" he soon teleports with Aetheris, leaving me alone with a note on the table.
I pick up the note and read it.
"In 1 minute I will teleport you to somewhere in the forest, be careful with the plants, some of them might end up liking you, since you're so curious, maybe you'll discover something interesting? Hahaha I hope you have fun"
"Yes?... that's..." I can only imagine how many monstrous plants won't be in the forest.
"I-Is he going to kill me?" Even though I'm immortal, I haven't gotten used to the fact, so my first deduction is that he wants to kill me, if he heard what I said, he would laugh at me.
'R-Ridiculous...' the punishments the demon lords give are usually sexual punishments, but sometimes they give punishments that really aim to hurt Ayla both physically and mentally.
However, Valac is the demon of Lust, I never imagined he would give me a punishment to hurt me, he's always so cheerful, I never thought he would get angry with my questions.
'No matter how cool he seems to be, he's still a monster who does whatever he wants...' I ignored the most obvious thing, no matter how cool Valac seems, he's still a demon lord who will do whatever he wants to me whenever he wants.
'I only know healing magic... how will I escape the forest... will I be able to escape? How can I not be caught by some monster?' at this moment, I can only think of how stupid I was with my curiosity, if I had stopped when I saw he didn't want to answer, I would be fine now.
'He wants to hurt me just because I implied that Aurora isn't important...' this reaction was the thing I understood the least, the demon lords have no one who can compete with them in power, the only one who can really fight them is Aurora, so I thought they wouldn't like her.
'Why did Valac react this way? What does Aurora mean to him?'
"Kyaa" suddenly I'm floating in a completely new area.
"Ouch" whatever was making me float disappears and I fall to the ground from the height of a chair.
'W-Where am I...' the forest in front of me is extremely dense, there are a variety of plants that I have never seen in my life, but the forest has a gloomy atmosphere.
'I can't stay here... I have to get out of this forest quickly... if I get out... will he take me out of the garden? How can I escape if I don't even know the direction?' this place doesn't help me have a good sense of direction, since the garden is part of the castle, it's obviously a separate space, I can even see the sun from here, even though we're inside the castle, which should be impossible.
'I'll follow the sun...' I decide to follow the sun, so I'll at least have a natural compass to follow.
'Please Aurora, if you're hearing this prayer, please let me be able to escape without being caught by anything' I've never been a very religious person, but now that I know a God really exists, I ask that Aurora at least let me stay safe for now.
I start walking, the plants here are so strange, some have beautiful colors while others seem disturbing, the place could be described as chaotic, and almost as if the plants were fighting each other to dominate the area.
'Valac is watching... will he help me if I'm really in danger... would I be better off if he just abused me?' I start to wonder, I don't know what would be worse, being raped by Valac or being caught by some monster plant.
The two are very divergent things, when I'm raped, it's almost as if I lose my identity, as if each time I'm raped, my past self dies little by little.
But being caught by a monster is painful, I'm afraid of the pain, these cruel monsters don't care at all about mutilating my body, and the worst part is that I'll be forced to continue suffering without being able to die.
Although it may seem that if my body loses its head, I'll pass out, that's not quite how it works, even if my body is shredded, I'll still be forced to remain conscious, I've never fully understood how my fainting works.
Maybe my fainting happens when I suffer a mental shock higher than I can handle, or maybe I faint when my regeneration doesn't keep up with the mental damage and needs time.
Or maybe my loss of consciousness is gradual, so I start to faint slowly. There's no way for me to know until now, I've only fainted a few times and that's not enough to know, especially since most of the time I faint, it's due to magical influence.
Even when Leviathan raped me and I fainted, it was mainly caused by the magical release from his body, so I'm much more susceptible to fainting because of magic than because of pain.
Given that I didn't faint after the librarian raped me, since he's nowhere near the magic of the 7 demon lords.
'DAMN... why am I already thinking about how to faint if I get caught... I must do everything to not get caught' I walk slowly and carefully, hoping that Aurora will bless me with at least a little bit of luck.