-Chapter 3- New Friends?

While Ione was talking with Zeki, Esere tried to find the source of that utterly evil soul. She thought that evil soul belongs to Marcus It was just her assumption, so it was a pure coincidence that Zeki/Marcus was really here.

Esere found the owner of that soul. It was Caelius. She didn’t know that the owner of this body was Kyle so she thought it was Marcus. She found Cealius lying in his bed, on which 3 people could have fit. The room was spacious and decorated extravagantly. This was really uncommon for a temple. The people living in such establishments are said to live without much luxury. This gave Esere more reason to punish this individual in a way. He is living such a good live even though he has such an evil soul and no good intentions.

Esere invaded his dream. All she could see was white. Some red could be seen from time to time. It got more the further she entered this “dream”. She then found the boy she saw sleeping in this big room. All was red and the boy was sitting there humming with a twisted kind of smile. Esere felt a chill down her spine.

As soon as the boy saw her the colours changed into a pure white, as if the red never existed. The boy looked like he just snapped into consciousness. “W-Who are you?! This is a dream right? “, he really seemed to just have returned to consciousness.

“Hoo? You already forgot me? You got some nerves you impudent little brat! I am the goddess, Esere! “, Eseres face was looking like that of a demon. It seemed like flames were burning behind her which made this scene look quite hellish.

“E-Eh…. Ahhhhh! Demon!! Evil Goooood!! “, there was nothing left from the boy, who made Esere feel uncomfortable. All she could see was a pathetic, little worm.

“Ohhh? So you didn’t learn from last time, huh? Who the fuck is an EVIL GOD OR A DEMON?! “, it made her snap. Such a worm with nothing but bad intentions dared to call her evil god again? She wouldn’t let him off that easily this time. She could go all out since this was not the real world. She made giant pillars of fire appear before the boy, finally cornering him.

“P-please! I-I didn’t mean it! I-I meant wonderful benevolent goddess with a y-youthful body! The- the boy na-named Zeki! Hi-his soul is much better to take! Sp-spare meeee! “, this kind of cowardice never passed though Marcus’ mind, but Esere wouldn’t know since she had the worst thoughts about Marcus.

“Ha! Now you resort to something like this! Hahahaha…! You know what? I wanted to delete your memory, because I caused this mistake, but now I think about it, you don’t deserve a new start. You can keep that filthy memory of yours. Now, how shall I punish you? Ah! How about this. I can’t really punish you too much so I will have to use curses. You seem like a person who cares too much about reputation, so it will hurt the most when you lose that façade, won’t it? So if you don’t do something that will make this world better, your true nature will be revealed! If you think about not doing this, then the curse will activate, too! “, Esere, other than Ione, was capable of cursing a person, but she couldn’t just cause harm to a single individual just because she felt like it. If she cursed someone it had to have the condition of the curse not activating when helping the world improve. Esere didn’t like it, but that’s the best she could do. The exception of these rules were real evil gods, but Esere, as much as some people think she is, isn’t an evil god.

She was about to leave it at that when she remembered something. “Oh, I nearly forgot. If you call me EVIL GOD one more time… ”, she took a step back from that boy, who still was scared and nearly changed the dry condition of his pants into wet. She lifted her leg, turned and kicked the boys head with a speed an untrained eye can’t see anymore, which send the boy flying like a soccer ball. “…. I won’t hesitate to do worse in your dreams! “, with this she finally disappeared.

That night was the first time Cealius ever peed into his bed.

Still here? You’re quite persistent, huh? Well then, I shall start then.

After that encounter with that stupid goddess, I lamented on what to do. If that goddess is just bluffing I could just escape and live a peaceful life, but if the curse is real I would live though a much worse kind of hell. Like I was now I couldn’t really do anything anyway. That goddess said she gave me some power, but I was too out of it to hear what it was. I did know I was able to read different kinds of languages. This was completely useless at that time, too. Giving me knowledge about the history would have been better and more interesting.

After my attempt to sneak outside Lilika took extra care that I wouldn’t leave. She still didn’t lock the door to the room though. I planned to go investigate the temple later. Something that changed too was the treatment of the kids towards Caelius. It seemed that he got scolded in front of other kids because he ruined a really expensive thing with his “holy water”. Every kid surrounding him started laughing and called him names. I heard “Pisshead” somewhere. I didn’t enjoy it at all. Nope, not a bit. The laughing wasn’t because of him. Windows are a great invention. This worlds’ version of a TV.

This entertainment always began at after noon. The rest of the day I read the books, Lilika had in her possession. One book was about language and geography. These ones were useless. The only ones which seemed interesting were history and mythology. I started reading the mythology book first. I will spare you from the annoying and boring details. Basically it said there were a lot of gods. Big surprise, I know. The god with the most followers is a god called Alastos. He was a god of creation and was described as the mightiest of the gods. Next there was a goddess called Helena. She is responsible for night and day. Most of the time she is described as a sun goddess. She has a huge belief, too. Then there was Ione. She is something like an idol. She’s supposed to be kind, feminine, well-mannered and the ideal woman. A lass would describe her better and a really shitty goddess. Who manages to cause that much trouble, don’t you agree? Well, that boss of hers seemed kind of incompetent for not noticing all this mess, too.

The last major god mentioned in that book was Eser. If I had to guess that was the evil goddess that through me down from whatever cloud we were standing on. The gender got confused though. That amused me a bit. “He” was described as a punishing god. “He” was able to curse people to some extent. Yep sounded like something you would call an evil god.

There were some more gods and evil gods described in that book, but most of them were just minor gods. There are gods for everything in this world, like in the past of my past world.

The history book was a bit more complicated. I did like history back in school, but this book read like an over the top fantasy novel. Ah~ telling you about this now seems to information dump like, so I will mention it when it’s actually important.

The rest of the books were out of my reach. They seemed to cover healing magic and self-defence. These were the books I was most interested in. There was no other choice but to wait until I was tall enough or sneak out of the room and visit the library. I decided for the latter.

I wandered around a bit and found an eating hall, the main temple where the priestesses spend the morning in. Then there were the rooms of the other kids, which lived here. Some rooms with cleaning supplies in them and some more rooms. After a while of wandering around I found the library. It was really gigantic. This looked like the library I visited a lot, but bigger. There were group tables scattered everywhere and single tables placed next to each other facing the walls. The bookshelves were so tall, the books began to appear like a colourful mess. How they got a book from the highest shelves without any help seemed nearly impossible. There weren’t any ladders, too. The only thing that would make sense, at least in this world, was magic.

At the entrance was a large wooden desk. Behind it sat a priestess with long light blue hair. Her hair was tied up in braids. The person herself was sleeping soundly and it should have been for a longer time, because there was a drool lake forming on that desk. I wondered, if it will turn into a waterfall, when I would leave. Her glasses were on her head instead of the hat things all the priestess were wearing. I ignored her for the most part. I first wanted to look around myself. I wasn’t sure either if she would have helped me.

There were millions of shelves and I didn’t see any kind of system behind the arrangement of the books or shelves. It didn’t take long until I was completely lost. Hurray for my crappy sense for direction. Instead of a world map that godess should have uploaded the layout of this temple and especially this maze like library!

I didn’t have any other choice but to just walk forward. I would reach at least something, probably, if I kept moving. This is what I thought. All I found was the next batch of group tables. The only different thing was, there was a person! Like a person reaching an oasis after a long time wandering around in the desert, I sprinted to the person. It was a girl. To be exact it was shy girl from the day before. She had light brown hair, her fringe covered her eyes and part of her nose. The rest of the hair looked like a mess. The person who cut her hair must have wanted to harass her. There wasn’t only discrimination based on hair colour, like it seemed. I wasn’t sure if I should be happy to see something familiar or be sad because I saw something so familiar.

“HEY! DO YOU KNOW THE WAY OUT?! “, I shouted without intending to. The girl flinched, slowly looked up from her book and then looked at me. It seemed like she froze in shock. She didn’t move an inch. “E-ehm aren’t you one of the girls from yesterday? Eh, could you maybe tell me the way out? “, no response. I moved a bit closer and put my face close to hers. “Hey. “, this got a reaction out of her.

“Kyaaaa! “, she screamed out of surprise and nearly fell from her chair. I wasn’t that scary. At least I thought so. Was I scary? Well, it doesn’t matter now. I tried holding the chair and hindering it from falling.

“I- I’m s-s-s-sorry! “, she tugged on her dress, which was completely white like nearly all the clothes found in this temple. The only exception was my robe. It was now brown at some spots. It looked like dried blood. It was really helping my image.

She was quite fast on her feet. That girl hid faster behind her chair than me blinking one time. “Ehm. You don’t have to say sorry in such a situation. “, I tried to play it save. She was the only person up until now, who could help me out in this situation. If I wouldn’t return before Lilika, she would probably lock the door for good.

“I-I-I’m sowwwyyy. “, at this point I realized this would be a huge pain in the ass, but I couldn’t afford to wander around in this hellish library any longer. ”Ehm. Don’t cry I’m not mad and I won’t hurt you so could you tell me your name first. I can’t just call you “You” all the time. “, I just tried to get something else but sorry out of her mouth. She stayed silent though. I don’t know exactly why, but she was insanely scared of me.

With nothing to do, but to wait for an opportunity to start some small talk I looked around me. I was at a group table which seemed like a new one. It was so clean it was irritating. The chair Shy girl was sitting on was padded with red pillows and on the table in front of it lay an open book. I got closer to the table to take the book from it. “A-ah do-do-don’t look at that. I ju-just found it! “, this book seemed to be something important to her. She took a step out of her hiding spot, but didn’t dare to come any closer. Maybe she thought I would just leave the book where it was, if she told me it’s not interesting. Like hell I would listen to some little girl. Hey, I’m not the mean one here. I did still hold a grudge from yesterday, but my main reason was curiosity. It was some kind of novel. Some of the words in there seemed a bit too complicated for a little girl such as her and the theme was a bit unappropriated. It was a collection of short stories with the objective to show certain fetishes. Why would a little girl read that?! Is that what little girls are reading these days? I thought, that I maybe could start a conversation.

“This book is pretty hard to read for someone so young! You must be some kind of genius! “, I talked like I would to someone younger than me, though now we are the same age. I hoped she wouldn’t mind.

“I-I can’t read it b-but it has some pretty symbols in it. I-I-I wanted to copy them and show them………………………………… Y-you can read it? “, seemed like I was not seen as weird. Maybe? I felt a bit relieved and answered her with no thought. “Yeah I guess, so where is the exit? “, with that one answer her attitude changed. “TEACH ME! “, she appeared before me staring me right into the eyes as fast as she hid behind the chair.

“E-eh? Can’t you, ehm, ask someone else? Like, ehm, your friends? “, I didn’t want to be a teacher. This would steal my learning time. Cealius would probably find out and start his operation “making Zekis life as miserable as possible”. “I-I can’t ask them…. They would say I would be useless and clumsy again and… you don’t feel scary anymore. So, what does this mean! “, maybe this situation wasn’t that bad. If I could get her on my side maybe it wouldn’t be hard to solve the black hair discrimination among the kids. The kids are the future of the world, right? And it kind of seemed I didn’t have much of a choice here. I bet she would have come every day into my room and attracted more attention.

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I finally looked at the word this girl showed me. I nearly chocked on my spit. “Are-are you sure you want to know this word? “, I put on a smile to hide my unease. “Yes! “, I knew this would end up as something bad. I couldn’t see her eyes, but I bet they were sparkling. “It means… ehem…. Masturbation. “, I looked to the side. I felt bad telling a little girl about this stuff. Well she probably doesn’t know what that is anyway. “What’s that….? “, she tilted her head to the side. “It’s something … you will learn about later… don’t ask anyone about that, okay, or else I won’t I won’t teach you! “, why did I even answer to that and I even indirectly tell her I would teach her. “A-anyway what was your name again? “, I looked into her eyes again. It made her flinch a bit and flee to her spot behind the chair. “…..Alycia. I-I look forward t-to your lessons! “, Achievement unlocked: Successful introduction! I nearly forgot about my initial goal. “Ehm, Alycia, could you maybe show me out of here? “, I hoped it wasn’t too late. “W-what?! You’re go-going already? But I have a whole list of symbols I wanna know a-a-about. “, I dreaded the day I had to translate her list. “I-I will show you the way out, b-but you have to come here again tomorrow! “, she had her small fists in front of her chest. “Okay, I will come over tomorrow again. Ehm but how can I-“, “You ask big sister Adella. She can bring you to me every d-day. Ehm… could you not tell anyone about this…. The other big sisters will get angry a-and Shelia, too….. “, aaaand more names to remember. Adella was the origin of the droll lake, the future droll water fall. Shelia was either a priestess or that violent girl from yesterday. “Well, not that I could tell it to anyone, but okay I swear on my name I won’t tell it anyone. “, I put my right hand on my chest and I rose my left hand next to my head.

For some reason this made Alycia smile a little.

We walked for a minute straight forward and reached the exit. I felt the power in my legs disappear. I could have avoided all this. I could have just walked a straight line and avoided all this trouble…. Was some god making me do all this? If there was a god controlling my life, great job thus far, idiot. “S-see you tomorrow T-t-t-teacher. “, for some reason it was hard for her to say something like that. I didn’t care at that time. My mind drifted somewhere else. I didn’t even notice how I found my way back to Lilikas room. She wasn’t there yet, which was a good thing.

I layed down in the bed and looked at the ceiling with a blank look. I couldn’t decide if it was a good or bad thing. I fell asleep some minutes after this.

The next day I lamented over the decision of meeting Alycia or just hide from her somewhere in the library and continue my search for the books I wanted. It was no use. I couldn’t make her just wait there, but it was troublesome. I wonder, if that is what people meant with a devil and an angel fighting inside you.

No matter what I would decide I would have to go to the library, so I started my walk to the library already. I didn’t finish this internal fight even when I reached the entrance of the library. “Ah! I was waiting for you. You sure make a lady wait I never saw Alycia invite someone into this library! “, I was greeted by a smiling light blue haired elf. She wore a pair of glasses and long braids. It was Adella. “Droll lake lady. “….. Seemed like my thoughts slipped to my mouth once again. “Hooooh? From whom did you learn this name? “, she was smiling, but I had the feeling a wrong word would get me killed in this situation. “E-ehm, t-the high priestess was complaining loud! A-about that lazy droll lake lady! “, this sounded so fake, but who cares. “That stupid boob woman. Hah! That idiotic woman doesn’t even know the difference between benevolence and discrimination. “, she looked at me more intently now. She pushed her glasses up with her pointing finger. “You should have it hard here too with that hair and these idiotic women. “, she put a hand onto my head and started to pet me. I don’t like that at all… even if I am a kid now I still am an adult at mind. I wanted to glare at her, but she started to speak before I could show any reaction. “Don’t worry! As long as you are here you won’t be harassed! Everyone that will do it, will be beat up and thrown out of here! You know what? It wasn’t proven that this message “All dark haired people are sinners.” Was really from goddess Ione? It could have been some heart-broken girl shouting from the top of her lung from a mountain! Anyway I will bring you to Alycia~. “, I couldn’t say anything to that. Why couldn’t all people be like that? Well, it’s said, that people will bond with common enemy. That could be why the ruling fraction doesn’t do anything against this or they are religious fools, who would believe anything told to them, if that person is some high ranking priest. The latter sounded more like this world.

“Here we are~ Alycia I brought your friend. Oh yeah, how do you like the symbols in this book? They are pretty, right? “, so it was Adella who gave Alycia the book. “…..t-they are pretty! But… I don’t know what the words mean… what’s masturbation. “, I was saved, now it was Adella’s responsibility. “Eh? Who told you that meant that? “, she looked a bit nervous. Served her right. I looked at her with a guilt inducing expression on my face. “Eh…ehm I heard someone say it and p-point on the symbol! “, she was worse at lying then me. Who in this temple would read some perverted stories? “Ah, I see. “, and that woman was too gullible! “I will explain it to you when you grew a little bigger. At more than one place kufufufu. “, a female pervert. This was her new name in my head.

After that female pervert left I was alone again with Alycia. “Okay let’s start! “, she looked a bit too excited. You could literally see a yellow aura bursting out of her. “O-okay. “, I had a smile on my lips, but was afraid wat kind of words she would throw at me now. “I wanna be abe t-to write my…. na-name! “, it was no weird symbol translation, but a normal thing. “Well, you can write it in different ways. Let’s see. “, I scribbled some symbols with could represent her name. I had three choices. I decided for the easiest one. “This one should be it. It means sweet. “, I didn’t want to compliment her. The other variations were something along those lines, too. Her parents had a weird taste in names.

She didn’t even consider me complimenting her, but well she was still a little girl. She looked at the symbol with amazement. “H-how do you write it? “, it was good that I could amaze her with little effort. I probably wouldn’t have been able to put more effort into this than an hour maybe. “Like this. First you draw a snake line, then you put a line though it two little legs at the under part of the snake line and at the end a little circle at the beginning of the snake line. “, I explained it in the best way I could. Like Lilika tried to explain it to me. “Oooh! I-I will practice it every day! “, I think these were my first proper conversations with someone other than Lilika. Maybe it was a good thing.

These lessons continued like this for one year now. Alycia learned many new words. Most of them were words out of the erotic books that female pervert, Adella, read. Gladly most of the words were save and something commonly said. Not only Alycia learned something. I got to read the books I was coming here for, too. At first Adella was reluctant, but as soon as I mentioned my desire to learn she gave in.

She gave me the introduction books for sword play and magic. I started with the magic book. It taught the elements fire, wind, earth and water, but not only that. It taught basic healing magic and the use of pure mana, too. The first thing I read was, that everyone was able to use the elemental magic spells, but for healing magic or dark magic and other attributed magic an affinity is necessary. There seemed to be devices, which could determine your affinity. I wondered, if there ever existed a demon with a light attribute. I set the special magic types aside, because I didn’t have any means to determine them. Apparently the first thing one has to do to learn magic is to feel the mana and make it move around in you and outside of you. The next step is giving the mana an attribute though a spell and visualizing. Another thing pointed out by the author was, that the more mana you can move the mightier your magic will be. If you can move it for a short time you are more suited for attack magic. If you can control it really long but not as much then you are more suited for defensive magic. There were more factors to determine what would fit a person best, but for that I had to practice that mana moving thing so I would read about it in detail later.

The elements had a description, too. What each element was good for what etc. Fire was good as attack magic itself and would inflict pain over time, if it was a low ranking spell or it could turn a person to ashes. As “Buff” it would boost your physical attack power. Wind causes cutting damage and can’t be perceived by just using eyesight. It was mostly used by assassins and such. As a “Buff” it would make you faster. Earth was a more defensive element. You could inflict blunt damage and piercing damage but it could be used best as a defensive wall. As “buff” it would boost your defence. Water had some healing properties. It wasn’t as effective as light magic but it could cure some wounds and negative effects. As attack magic it is best used to suffocate your opponent. As “Buff” it boost your regenerative ability slightly.

Out of these elements the most interesting one was wind magic. I did see the merit in earth and water magic, too. Fire sounded more like a type of magic used for a group of enemies.

The swords play book was about body exercises for half of the book. I thought I shouldn’t strain a 4 year old body, too much so I decided to do the basic 10 sit-ups, 10 squads, 10 pushups + some stretching exercises. This should do for beginners…. Though I am not even sure if I could pull that off.

One day Alycia suddenly said: “Hey Ze-zeki, do yo-you look forward to the lessons ne-next year? “, I didn’t have any idea what she was talking about. “What? Lessons? Which lessons? “, I don’t know if I looked as confused as I was, but Alycia didn’t ask why I didn’t know about it. “A-all children, who turned five will get lessons in history and math and language and magic and-and later sword fighting. That sounds scary… “, Alycia tried to write the symbols for the things she said. “WHAT? “, I am not completely sure why I was so shocked. Probably, because I will be in a class with cruel little children controlled by Cealius. A nightmare. It sounds ridicules though if you think about it. Kyle with an army of maybe 30 five-year-olds. I still wanted to avoid it.

As usual, I left Alycia at the entrance of the library, said bye to Adella and walked to Lilikas room. I did my training. I couldn’t do ten of all of them, so I reduced it to five and was going up by one every day.

Shortly after I finished this training Lilika came back. Earlier than usual. She had a big smile on her face. Her next action was hugging me as hard as she could. I nearly died again. I liked the Lilika merry-go-round better than this new killing method. “You know what Zeki? I managed to persuade the high priestess to allow you to go to the lessons. Hehehe, are you happy? “, what coincident again. Why did that stupid god have so much fun making me do troublesome stuff? “Yes. I am really happy, Lili! “, Lilikas happy face was more important though right now.

Let’s talk about school next time. See you sometime later.

[19:11:11] masshii: Hey! I decided to make a small character list, cause the characters are increasing and increasing ~

Marcus/ Zeki = MC

Kyle/Caelius = a two faced asshole. Hated by Marcus

High priestess = takes care of Kyle. Head of the branch temple of Ione. Gets called idiotic boob woman.

Lilika = Caretaker of Marcus. Priestess of the lowest rank. Gets harassed because she has darker stands of hair

Alycia = A shy girl, who Marcus taught how to write some things. She doesn’t care about Marcus’ hair

Anymore.

Adella = Perverted, gullible librarian. She doesn’t believe the belief of dark hair = sinner

I’ll make a more detailed character list later when I start to forget characters hahaha…

Like always if you find grammatical or spelling mistakes please tell me in the comments. If you have suggestions for the story write them in the comments, too. Of course you can just write a comment if you liked the story, always motivates me ~

Thanks for reading! (and sorry for the a bit later chapter ^^”)