I watched Larve being chased by one of the kids. She let out screams of joy while avoiding him. Gökbörü was also beside her running and changing directions with her to avoid their chaser. A large smile was stuck on her face and seeing her like, I couldn’t help but smile.

I was worried if that “snake” projecting itself through her would have long-lasting effects but thankfully she behaved normally. At first, she was very clingy, partly due to her blaming herself for me getting injured after that fight with the orcs. Another reason was… Just like every kid she was shy when she come across people she wasn’t familiar with. But now that we have been traveling with beastkin for several weeks she wasn’t shy.

Normal. Very normal.

I was glad about it. The fact that she could live a happy life if we can keep her away from her horrible part filled my heart with joy.

“You know that’s impossible, right?”

That stupid voice in the back of my mind stuck its poisonous tongue out again.

“She is a shard of a Calamity. We don’t even know if she will stay as this innocent girl forever. She could very well be a threat to us in the future.”

I sighed.

“Then I just have to raise her well. I am not a character from a stupid myth.”

It felt stupid every time I read about a myth like that.

Oh, you have an immensely powerful baby with the potential to overthrow you? Why don’t you adopt and took good care of her so she has no reason to overthrow you?

Oh, you are prophesied to be killed by X? Stop giving him reasons to kill you!

This can easily be solved by good parenting and common sense.

“Oh, so you are a good parent now? You couldn’t even protect your own sister!”

…

“That was more than 40 years ago. In another life. In another world.”

I ignored the voice accusing me of forgetting my past and focused on the kids. There was a surprising number of kids traveling with us. Not all of them were from the slave camp I helped but we rescued beastkin as we traveled along.

When buying cattle, my grandfather would usually buy pregnant or newly given birth cattle along with their baby. It was cheaper that way. While that explained why there were kids it also made me feel disgusted. I hope that not every human civilization is like this.

If they are I might need to bring them to “compliance.”

According to what Lily told me it was possible for both of us to make permanent changes to this world’s culture and laws.

On second thought, it was better for Lily to not do that.

Anyways. Lily came to this world early and his God was also more generous than me so I learned a lot of stuff from him. One of the things I learned was our Gods belonged to a pantheon called the Archons of Antion. I think Stars was a simpler and better name. This pantheon was worshipped by many human countries but the biggest country among them was the country I was currently trying to run away from. It was called Valoria.

Valoria was a country similar to Middle Ages Europan Kingdoms. It was ruled by three dominant forces: the Royal family, the Church of Antion, and the nobles. According to what I could discern from Lily’s nonstop talking the power balance between these forces changed regularly. That also explained the coldness between Blanche and Agatha. They originally belonged to different factions.

But now let’s focus on the church. Not every Star was equal in the people’s eyes. Anshar, King Of the Gods was the highest-ranked Star.

Guess who comes next?

Dum dum!

Aliera, Goddes of War. You know, my mostly useless Goddess. She could at least help me by letting me use her name to order people around. I could possibly take over the church and push more humanitarian laws using my God-given right.

I probably would get assassinated if they tried to do that but it would be interesting to try.

My train of thought was interrupted by one of the kids falling to the ground and starting to cry. I sighed. Right now I was just a babysitter that didn’t know all the tricks and crooks of this world. I watched one of the mothers come forward and pick the kid up with weary eyes.

I didn’t move from the shadows. Thanks to Shadow Melt, they couldn’t detect me even with Beaskin’s better senses. I was glad that was the case. I was a human just like their enslavers. Hell, to some of them, I was their guard. That’s why I avoided being seen by them. I didn’t want those poor souls to remember the torment they went through.

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Of course, Lily was the opposite of me. He talked and even flirted with most of them. Fucking extroverts.

I actually had no plans of looking after the kids. I just wanted to make sure Larve was fine and got along with the kids but one of the kids nearly drowned and another one nearly got bit by a venomous snake while I was watching them. I understood we were moving through a forest in a fantasy world but that was too much!

Of course, some mothers watched over the kids but they were tired. They were just freed from hard working conditions and malnourishment and now they had to travel in a forest to reach safety. It wasn’t uncommon for them to doze off or just watch kids from afar while sitting down.

That’s why I have been watching over the kids for around a week now.

(Active Skill Mana Manipulation is a basic skill that allows the user to control and shape their mana. By channeling their mana through their body or a weapon, the user can enhance all aspects of their body, mind, and equipment.)

I closed my eyes, feeling this newly found energy travel in my body. It was hard to move despite being easy to feel once found thanks to the large amount of it.

Lily being here longer than me already knew how to manipulate his mana. So I had him teach me how to do it. I had to ask Ama and Morrigan for some tips but I managed to learn it.

According to both of them, I was rather quick to learn but it was probably normal since I had two skills related to mana.

I opened my eyes, feeling slowly fading. Since it was just E rank, I had to put all of my attention to it to use it.

I summoned a dagger to my hand using Armory of the Fallen. I threw it into the air before catching it and dismissing it.

(Mana:24)

Armor Collapsing Claw, Mana Erupt, Armory of the Fallen, and now Mana Manipulation. All of them used mana. With the 20 percent boost with my Spark…

(Mana:28.8)

Considering 10 of them came from my contract with Gökbörü growth rate of my mana was slightly worried. Other skills except mana and charisma could be trained by exercising my body but for mana, I had to learn new ways.

And for charisma… I don’t really give a shit about it.

My hands went on my accessories. Ring of Frost only had 6 uses left after my fight against Blanche. I haven’t had the chance to use Wolf King’s Fang. It had 50 uses and even could be used 5 times in a row. Despite its 50 uses, I was hesitant to use it. It not only gave passive stats but also had another option.

(Absorbed Weapons:6\10)

Hmm. Wait a minute. I tried to absorb Ring of Frost with Armory of the Fallen. Shadows wrapped around it but soon backed away.

(Skill rank is insufficient.)

My eyes widened. So I can absorb accessories too? That would give me unlimited use of both of them! Even though I couldn’t do it now I could just keep them at at least 1 durability until I can absorb them!

Nice.

I raised my head and saw one of the beastkin talking to Larve. I knew her. She was a mage. Her figure was quite recognizable since she was quite smol and wore a hood all the time. Larve pointed in my direction and Gökbörü started to run towards me.

She must have asked for me. Even though others couldn’t detect me, Larve and Gökbörü always knew the direction I was at. Gökbörü knew it by our Synchronization skill but I wasn’t sure about Larve. It came in handy when people wanted to know where I was.

Gökbörü ran, sometimes stopping to check if the mage was still following him. He stopped just in front of me and barked. Mage didn’t look very sure as she looked around.

“Umm, Human Poyraz? Morrigan was looking for you!”

She called out to the left of me. It was funny. I took a step forward.

“I am here.”

“Auw!”

She jumped a step back with surprise while making a funny noise. Her hood came off and I saw her petite face and her ears. They looked oversized when you compared them to other beastkin’s ears. Maybe that’s why she wore a hood all the time. I smiled. Or maybe she was a fan of Morrigan? She also wore a hood most of the time.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It is okay.”

She put her hood back while avoiding eye contact.

“Nocturna, was it?”

She nodded.

“Yes.”

She replied with a soft voice.

“Is there a problem?”

She walked and I followed her.

“Our scouts returned. They encountered some problems.”

Hmm. Problems. It was safe to assume it was some kind of monster or human problem. If it was something related to logistics, I don’t think Morrigan would call for me. It also wouldn’t be the first as I eliminated monsters ahead of us before. The road if you could call it a road to Whifur went through forests and didn’t have any cities on it.

It was normal as they wanted to keep their city as hidden and hard to reach as possible to humans. However, it was hard to keep an entire city hidden. If it was fully hidden Morrigan wouldn’t have given me her letter.

Anyways. That caused the road we traveled to be filled with monsters and bandits. They attacking our already weakened civilians would be disastrous. So we had to send scouts ahead to make sure the road ahead was safe.

“Bark.”

I looked back and saw Gökbörü tailing behind us.

“What, your short legs can’t keep up with me?”

I picked him up from the ground and put him on top of my head. When I was about to move again, I noticed Nocturna looking down.

“My legs… aren’t that short.”

She sounded very offended.

…

“Oh, I was talking to this guy!”

She turned back to me and saw me pointing to Gökbörü. I saw her eyes widen and her face reddens like a tomato. She turned around quickly and started to walk. Very fast. I followed her but her walking turned into running. I ran beside her effortlessly. Even though beastkin had better physical capabilities compared to humans, she was still a mage.

She noticed me running beside her and let out a weird noise. She stepped on her own robes and started to fall. I caught her instantly.

Her breathing was labored.

“Even if this problem is very big, haste makes waste. We can’t have you fall and hurt yourself don’t we?”

I smiled and helped her regain her balance. I let her go.

“Thank you.”

She replied shyly. Her face was redder than before, something I thought was impossible.

“Still got it.”

I thought to myself. We walked slowly before reaching where Morrigan was. It was easy to see where she was since all those capable of fighting surrounded her.

Seriously? All of us? What kind of “problem” we are facing? Even the biggest group of monsters we encountered was solved by 5 people.

This is slightly worrying.