Chapter 1 – BIrth
“Hello there, what’s your name?” A lone blonde young girl dressed in a frilly dress asks a boy a few years younger.
“A-ah, m-my name? P-Paris. I-if you w-would give me the honour, what is your n-name, milady?” the boy nervously questions, causing a small giggle from the girl.
“Eve, but you may address me as your highness.” She looks down with a tilted head to look down on the boy.
“Ah! I-I ap-apologize y-y-your highness, I didn’t know ro-royalty would be here.” Paris shakenly apologizes and kneels.
A small giggle erupts into a hysterical laughter, as Eve falls to the ground, gathering dust all over her.
“Y-your highness?” Paris confusedly questions.
“S-stop, you’re killing me!” Eve laughs harder in response.
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“How was class?” Paris calmly asks the now grown Eve, both casually sitting down on a grassy hill.
“Stupid, redundant, the usual.” Eve huffs while replying, immediately alerting Paris as to what the lesson subject was.
“Just think of it as double checking, you can rely on your… what was it again? Instinct calculating?”
“Instinctive Processing! And it has yet to fail me!”
“Whatever.”
“Speaking of, when are you going to start joining me to them?”
“Uhm, about that… I won’t.” Paris nervously replied, noticing Eve’s entire body stopping still, as if all energy in her body left.
“What?”
“Army, I’m going to join the army.”
“Are you insane?!” Eve smacks his head, catching him off guard.
“N-no.” Paris shyly denies, making Eve smile for a moment but snapping back into confronting him.
“Then why?”
Nervously clearing his throat to try and gain back his confidence, he responds.
“You know how your father is, he won’t accept me as I am. I need to earn his respect if I ever want him to accept us.”
“So, you thought getting yourself killed against some Ma-...Devils is the better option?!”
“I won’t die! When I get back, I’ll be a war hero…”
Eve glares at him, quelling his growing enthusiasm, this works for a short period before it comes back tenfold as his face beams a smile and he begins explaining his entire plan, sure that Eve will agree with him.
Despite the plan being horrible, she had known him long enough to know once he was truly set on something, he would either succeed, or die trying.
‘I guess that’s something we have in common.’ She smiles.
“Fine! But you must visit often AND get me souvenirs!”
“… Eve… I will be fighting in a war.”
“And?”
“Understood.”
“Good, while you’re busy with that, I might as well elevate the family business while you’re away. You’ll start seeing branches of the Haith Family’s business all around the nation!” She menacingly chuckles, rubbing her hands together.
“Double check your calculations then.”
“No.”
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“Honey, I’m going out for a bit.”
“Oh? Where are we going?”
“Sorry dear, but just myself, I’m going to go improve ‘Instinctive Processing’.”
“O-oh, okay dear, love you.” He responds, A bitter expression consumes Paris, but he pushes it down and smiles as brightly as he could.
‘Isn’t it something she was born with? How will she improve it beyond what it can already do?’ Paris internally questions but shakes his head, ‘Trust her. She isn’t her father.’
“Love you too! See you in a few hours.” She waves enthusiastically.
Waving lightly, he goes back to sculpting a small wooden figurine.
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“Master! I’m here!” Eve calls out as she walks through the forest, though is stopped by a pebble bumping her on the head and a voice echoing.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“This way you idiot.”
Eve, rubbing her head, responding annoyed, “How was I supposed to know?! You keep the house obscured and intentionally lead people away from it with those stupid runes.”
“You would know how to not get effected by them if you focused even slightly on your studies instead of your boytoy.” A black-haired woman in her late 30s responded, pissing off Eve further.
“He’s, my, husband! Not. boytoy!” Pouting in frustration but deciding to let it go, not that arguing with her would change anything.
Sitting down on a nearby chair, watching her master carving out pathways on a few different pieces of metal, using a metal engraving tool with a sharp point illuminating a blue light, carving through each piece with fluidity and ease.
“Are you just going to sit there? Put yourself to some use or leave already.” Her master reprimands, catching her off guard having fallen into a trance.
“Masteeerrrr, could you help your dear, dear disciple with something?” Ignoring both of her master’s suggestions, she decides to get to the point.
“No.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“You don’t even know what I need help with!”
“Last time you asked, you forced me into feeding your honey addiction, before that you asked if I could make a calculator for you despite that clearly requiring Mana which would paint a target on both our backs, not to mention your ‘Husband’ for associating with a ‘Demon’” Her master denied with a snark.
“This is different though! I’m trying to improve my Instinctive Processing, you said you would help me in the past!”
Her master finally stopped her work, pausing to process whether she heard correctly.
“You’re finally going to improve it?”
“Yes, I feel it would be useful, especially if I can somehow pass it onto someone else.”
“Like whom? Me?” Her master asks with a raised eyebrow that could barely be seen behind her long black hair.
“…Well…” Eve kicks her feet, “I was thinking… My child.”
“Oh… Understandable, though maybe consider making it transferable first, not to mention how long before you start trying to have a child.”
“I would say about 8 months or so until then.”
“Might as well ge… What?”
“I’m pregnant master, no, Cynthia, I’m pregnant.” Eve showed a beaming smile as she looked at her closest friend.
“You… YOUR ONLY TELLING ME THIS NOW?! Gods! I need to start working on a present for the kid! But what? Something to help learn languages? Argh! 8 Months…”
“Master, to get back on topic.”
“Ah yes, first off congratulations, I’m… Honestly incredibly happy for you, despite my frustrations.”
Murmuring a quiet thanks as Eve blushes and gets a big grin stretch across her face.
“Well, might as well get started, we need to improve the IP, not only make it transferable. Nothing but the best, understood?!”
“Yes!” Eve beams, knowing there was no one more trustworthy.
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“Uh Master…What is that?” Eve asks as she stares at a engraving tool similar to the one Cynthia uses.
“Eve, IP was something you were born with, not some device you made or bloodline trait. Considering your father doesn’t seem to use it either, then it means it isn’t tied to your bloodline but for you to be born with it then it must be your soul. If you want to transfer it to someone else, you need to know how it works and how to replicate it. Considering that I’m not exactly a Priest or Soul Mage, I can’t see your soul, it is something you must do.”
“Thanks for filling me in and all… But that doesn’t answer the question.”
Furrowing her brow, Cynthia takes a sigh and explains, “Carve your soul and I will carve mine, then compare them.”
“But we don’t have a baseline on souls, they may be entirely different!”
“While you aren’t wrong, we have to start somewhere, so stop complaining.”
Grumbling away she begins meditating and follows a little tether connected to her body, sending her consciousness into the vast void between her body and soul.
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“Master, we’ve made templates and the rough circuits, patterns and increased the efficiency on the soul energy, but we don’t have any tool to carve them out into a soul…” Eve mentioned confused.
“First, those improvements are all theoretical, we haven’t tested them so don’t jump to conclusions, not to mention we can’t really test them out without outing ourselves as ‘demons’ can we? Second, I’ve been busting my ass and calling in favours for this exact problem, I’m not an idiot unlike someone.” Cynthia huffs putting her hands on her hips.
“Well what do we do about the testing?”
“…As much as I hate unnecessary risk, I want to you to consider whether or not you want to risk your child’s life in an attempt to gift them IP, I can perhaps make an artificial soul in an artifact and try to graft a artifact version onto it as tests but in the end, if we want to transfer it to the kid, it’s a risk.” Cynthia stares Eve in the eyes.
“I trust you Master!” Eve replies with uncontained confidence spilling from her eyes, blinding Cynthia in pure astonishment at the lack of thought.
“You’re lucky.” Is all Cynthia says as she begins working.
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“Master, I think something is weird with my kid.” A 5 month in pregnant Eve mentions with a bit of worry.
“Don’t be so damn dramatic and vague, just say the issue.” Cynthia glares at Eve though the hint of hidden concern doesn’t escape Eve’s gaze.
“Well comparing their soul to mine when I was younger, they are producing way more soul energy, comparable to how much I am producing as an adult. But that doesn’t make sense, when I was a kid I produced a lot less, which was the reason behind why I was always out of energy. I didn’t have enough soul energy being spread across all aspects of my soul and so I was lacking in some areas.”
“Stop trying to justify how unfit you were, you ate sweets all the time and never exercised. Not to mention you haven’t really changed in that aspect…”
“So I’m confused as to why they are producing so much soul energy? I mean, mine increased as time progressed but they haven’t even been born yet.”
“Wait.” Cynthia pauses for a moment after what Eve was saying sunk in. “You can see the kid’s soul?”
“Yeah?”
“YOU IDIOT! WE COULD HAVE MADE TESTS AND DESIGNS USING THE KID’S SOUL AS A TEMPLATE!”
“Ehe.” Eve says trying to be cute to diminish her master’s anger.
“SO MUCH TIME COULD HAVE BEEN SAVED YOU DUMBASS!”
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“-and Push! Keep on pushing Eve!” The midwife helping Eve says.
Paris, having overheard this as he paces outside the room back and forth for what felt like hours, before finally.
*Creak
The door opened up as the midwife came out telling the good news, “It’s a healthy boy! Feel free to go in, I will go get some water for the Madam.”
Nodding his head enthusiastically he walks in and sees the pale Eve on the bed breathing heavily, but holding her baby.
“Are you alright honey?” Paris asks in concern as he notices her becoming paler by the second.
However, Eve doesn’t respond.
He asks again, no response.
Again, no response.
A trail of blood trickles out of her mouth as Eve bites hard on her tongue, forcing herself to stay conscious, feeling a terrible dread, she reaches down and begins chanting with her hand on the baby’s body.
Paris, seeing this begins to shake, not in worry, but in fear.
He had fought in the war with the demons and devils, but his wife… the person he loved the most and had new since they were children, was one too? What was she doing to their child?
*Slap * *Slap*
He slaps both hands into his face twice to get rid of those thoughts, he had known and loved her for decades, he wasn’t going to let these secrets ruin their relationship.
All he could do in this situation, was trust her and wait.
Finally, the light dimmed down and Eve came back into view.
Paris hears his wife mutter out while gazing at him and her child with loving eyes.
“Sorry. Love you.”
And her eyes lose their light as the midwife enters back into the room, seeing Paris sobbing and the baby crying, she looks over at Eve.
There lying down, a young adult woman lovingly smiling at the baby in her arms, refusing to let go even in death.
The Midwife’s body begins to change as she collapses to her knees and tears run down her face, Cynthia had lost her greatest friend, and only disciple.