Aperio ran her hand over her stomach, smoothing out some nonexistent wrinkles in her dress. She was the All-Mother, so dealing with the empire on Geshwen and the [Ancestral Guard] while planning to travel to Earth shouldn't have been much to deal with, but Aperio still felt overwhelmed by it all. And then there is Ferio…

She had been trying to make some form of amends with her daughter, but the fact that she had still not let her know she was ready told Aperio that the excursion to Geshwen had probably broken more than it had fixed. After a moment longer, the All-Mother let out a breath she had not taken, letting the muscles she had unconsciously tightened relax again.

The two mortals in the courtyard did not speak, both simply looking up at her. "What?" Aperio asked, a previously unknown annoyance at their looks causing her to drop her usual formality. "Am I not allowed to feel uncomfortable?" Anxious, even.

Aperio kept the last bit to herself. Sharing that clearly how she felt about anything was reserved for Caethya and maybe — one day — her daughter. The continued thoughts of Ferio caused Aperio to hesitate for a moment before she decided to reach out again. Her daughter's silence felt worse than she had ever thought it would; worse even than the first time Ferio had done so.

"I didn't really think you could be uncomfortable," Adam said, the pitch of his voice rising at the end of his statement. "With who — and what — you are."

Aperio shrugged. "Just because I made all of this"— she gestured vaguely at their surroundings —"does not mean I am somehow devoid of emotion. I am a person like anyone else."

Natio mumbled something that Aperio only partly understood. It would seem the fallen God was not quite of the opinion that she was a person like anyone else. He could think that if he wanted to, but the All-Mother gave him a slight glare nonetheless. Though being normal was not meant for her, she would at least try to appear as such.

Adam just shook his head and started walking towards one of the benches that lined the walls to Aperio's right. After a few steps, he stopped and looked at the All-Mother, seemingly asking for permission to continue.

"You do not need to ask every time you want to do something," she said, taking a few steps of her own into the courtyard proper and turning to face Adam before she closed her eyes, spreading her wings briefly to their full length then folding them behind her back. Once she was done, she opened her eyes again and let her gaze settle on Adam. "Now, what can you tell me about Earth?"

Adam shrugged. "We don't have magic, like I said before. There are numerous countries — too many to count really — and even more people. Before I disappeared, there were a bit more than seven and a half billion Humans on Earth."

The All-Mother blinked at the number had given her and tilted her head. "That seems a little… excessive. Verenier only has about two billion sapient beings on it."

"It's also bigger."

"Earth is?" Aperio asked as she focused on her aura a little more just to make sure her gut feeling about Verenier's population had been correct. It was.

"No," Adam corrected. "Verenier is. At least as far as I can tell from looking at maps. It also relies on the fact that the System can somehow translate the measurements used here to ones I understand." He paused for a moment during which his eyes wandered back and forth between the floor and the All-Mother. "I had no reason to doubt the conversions yet as the [Translation] skill I got has worked awfully well since I got here."

"That is something I would like to look at," Aperio said, a step bringing her directly in front of Adam. "If you allow it, of course."

"Could I stop you?"

"No, but I would not look if you did not want me to." She tilted her head slightly to the side. "That should be common decency."

Aperio still felt conflicted about the whole thing. On the one hand, she liked that she could do what she wished and nobody would be able to stop her. On the other hand, doing something like that would go against the very core of her ideals. My tenants, she mused. Forcing her will on others was something she would not do unless she had to.

"Most people would do what they wished if they had your power," Natio said, his voice quiet enough that Aperio was not sure if Adam had heard him.

She whirled around, taking a step away from Adam to ensure she did not accidentally hit him with her wings. "Like yourself, perhaps?"

The fallen God tried to take a step back as Aperio's unblinking gaze did not leave him, but failed as the wall behind him did not move. As he could not retreat from the unmoving form of the All-Mother, Natio instead tried to make himself as small as possible.

"Awfully quiet now, are we?" Aperio asked before she shook her head. "I do not know why anyone here is willing to give him another chance." She took a breath, the smell of Ebenlowe not entirely pleasant to her nose, and turned to face Adam again. "No matter. If you do not want me to look at your skills, I will not."

Adam scratched the side of his neck and shrugged. "You can if you want to. Do I need to do anything?"

"No," Aperio replied, a tendril of her mana flowing into Adam's body and towards his Soul. "You could tell me if Earth is inhabited by as many wretched people as Verenier seems to be."

The Human paused at her words. He simply looked at Aperio as if he had trouble understanding her, and for a moment the All-Mother thought that through her act of looking at Adam's skills she had somehow broken them.

"Why do you say the people here are… wretched?" Adam asked, the confusion in his voice evident. "I might not have met many people yet, but the ones I have have all been nice. A lot nicer than most I knew on Earth."

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"Do the people of Earth consider slavery to be a moral thing?" Aperio asked, taking a single step towards Adam and looking down at him. "Are they willing to sacrifice their own family to achieve their goals? The people here do that and more." And they all seem to think that they can stand in my way…

Where that idea came from was probably not something Aperio would ever understand, but it was a fact she had to live with. The people of Verenier — for one reason or another — did not want to accept the truth that whatever rules she made would be the ones they had to follow. She still held a slim hope that they might one day learn that enslaving your fellow mortals was not the right thing to do, but that feeling dimmed with every passing day.

"Some do," Adam replied as he tried and failed to distance himself from the Goddess that loomed over him. "But most people just want to live their life and not bother anyone. The same as the people here."

Aperio shook her head and took a step back, devoting more of her attention to deciphering the seemingly endless bundle of runes that made up Adam's [Translation] skill. "Almost every mortal I have dealt with so far has been barely worth the magic that animates their Soul." She held up a hand to postpone any possible answer. "Of course, there are exceptions, but in general it seems that mortals are not what they are supposed to be."

The All-Mother's words hung in the air, neither Adam nor Natio even daring to move. Aperio simply let out another breath she had never taken and let her shoulders and wings slump. "I doubt this is a discussion you are prepared for, or even wish to have, so I suggest we move on to a different topic. You said Earth does not have magic; that has to be wrong. There is no life without mana."

Every Soul needed a little bit of mana to work. It was the proverbial seed that allowed them to grow into a mortal able to decide their own fate. The gift from her old self that let them shape her creation to their will. If Earth had no mana, there would be no life on it.

"We don't have magic," Adam replied. "There are no people flying around, and no one throws lightning around like I can now."

He hesitated, looking Aperio up and down which caused the All-Mother to look at herself as well in an effort to see if something was wrong. She could not find anything and set her gaze back on Adam, tilting her head slightly.

"Well," he said, and scratched the side of his neck again, "you'd probably break anything we have on Earth by gripping it a bit too hard."

Aperio tilted her head to the other side, a particularly knotted bundle of runes in Adam's skill having piqued her interest. "That is always the case." She motioned at the surroundings with one of her wings. "All of this would break if used even a tiny fraction of my power. Even my own daughter — a literal Goddess — is not strong enough to withstand anything but a miniscule amount of my strength."

The renewed thought of Ferio caused Aperio to reach out yet again, this time actually getting an affirmative answer. A small smile spread across her face, and a thought twisted reality apart to bring her daughter into the courtyard with them.

Upon witnessing the entrance of the Goddess of Life and Light, Adam opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water. Aperio simply waved him off. "She knows where you are from," she said. "Perhaps she might even accompany us to Earth."

"You're going to bring more worlds into the fold?" Ferio asked with a raised brow. "I would have guessed you would want those worlds to stay untouched by the divine for as long as possible."

"I wish to see how the mortals fare on a world that has not been influenced by the divine act. From what Adam has told me thus far, my hopes are not high." Luckily for anyone that was not Caethya or herself, Aperio had shelved the idea of restarting yet again. For now. She could not bring herself to end countless lives as long as there was a chance to have them change their ways. Perhaps it was futile and she would have to start over in the end anyway, but time was of no consequence to her or her love, so why not try?

"I doubt it's as bad as you fear," her daughter replied with a small shrug. "You'll always find people that do not care for anyone but themselves, but by and large, the mortals are not evil. Not inherently, at least."

"Perhaps I simply attract the worst of them."

"More like you seek them out because they go against your ideals," Ferio rebutted. "In any case, when are we leaving?"

"Once Moria has taken care of her business with the [Ancestral Guard] and I actually figure out where Earth is and how this [Translation] skill works." She twisted the mental image of the rune clusters around once more, trying to understand why it would need to read the user's Soul to work with the foreign language. "I will not go to a world and not speak their language."

"Ah, well." Adam coughed. "We have quite a few languages. Hundreds, probably thousands."

"Even more reason to figure out how I can make this skill work for myself."

She knew that System assisted skills worked for her — her use of [Reality Check] after she had returned proved that — but Aperio also knew that System assisted and System granted skills were different. One simply caused the System to bend ambient mana to a pre-formed pattern, while the other was magic that the System gave to a mortal based on their achievements, somehow linking it to their Soul. Well, the skill references the Soul. Aperio furrowed her brows as a thought crossed her mind. Could there be a duplicate Soul somehow? That was something she would have to look into at one point or another, as for now understanding the [Translation] skill took priority.

"Couldn't you just read a few books on the language and use that?"

Aperio looked at her daughter and shook her head. "Perhaps, but it does not feel like that would work." The book on the Human's language she had borrowed from Caethya ages ago appeared in her hand. Her finger slid over the fore edge of the book, prompting the pages to turn before her in quick succession. Her eyes scanned each page in turn, while her aura scoured the book in its entirety. "I still have no idea how any of these words sound. Those squiggles that are supposed to help with that mean nothing to me."

"Did you just read — and understand — everything in that book?" Adam asked, seemingly not quite believing his own words.

"Yes?" Aperio replied with a slight tilt of her head. "It does not really help me, however. I understood what was written there and could tell you what was on each page, but I still do not know how to use this knowledge." She cocked her head to the other side. "If that even makes sense to you."

"It doesn't really, but I think I got the gist of it," Adam replied. He remained quiet for a moment before he sighed. "I don't really know what else I can tell you about Earth. The people aren't much different, we just don't use magic and find other ways to make do."

"But would you be willing to accompany us when the time comes?"

No matter Adam's answer, she would still go, but having an actual guide would be good. Wandering around a world none of them knew anything about was bound to create trouble, especially if their very existence went against what everyone on that world knew to be true.

"I don't know," he replied. "Like I said before, I don't know what happened while I was gone, but you can be sure that my parents put out a missing persons report and that the poli—guard," he corrected himself, "would be looking for me."

Aperio lifted her hand, a pale blue flickering to life in her palm. "Do you really think they could take you against your will?"

"No," Adam replied with a shake of his head. "And that's what scares me."