Not wanting to interject into the NPCs' rather heated and important discussion, Mikael looked around the hall for something else to do to divert his attention. Luckily for him, Raiju was nearby and she was currently writing everything she knew about the [Return Scrolls] and [Return Crystals] onto a book that Maria had given her earlier. There seemed to be a lot of information that she needed to pass on, so even though it had been nearly 2 hours since she had started writing the book, she still wasn’t finished.

Unbeknownst to Raiju, who was quite focused on making sure that she was writing everything she knew onto the books and double checking them to make sure that they were accurate and she hadn’t left anything out, Mikael had appeared behind her and was looking over her shoulder, trying to see what she was writing.

Mikael was able to read a bit of what she wrote before he tapped her on the shoulder and asked, “I thought you were only writing things about the [Return Scrolls] and [Return Crystals]?”

“Huh?!”

Raiju immediately turned around and looked up to see her Master’s brother standing behind her with his arms crossed over his chest. There was a thoughtful look on his face and Raiju glanced towards the [Basic Knowledge of the Divine Realm] book that she was currently writing at the moment.

‘Ah! He definitely saw!’

Truthfully, the information about the [Return Scrolls] and [Return Crystals] had already been finished and she had made sure that there was nothing wrong with the information and was currently writing all of her knowledge regarding the Divine Realm onto another book.

Raiju wanted to take the extra mile to help her master and she thought that all of her knowledge regarding the Divine Realm would definitely help with her master’s plans for the future. She did this so that she could gain Maria’s favor, so she needed to be extra careful with what she was writing. If she made a mistake and gave Maria faulty information, it could cause her Master quite a bit of trouble and Raiju didn’t even want to think about the consequences that she’d have to face if she failed her.

Maria’s power and control was already pretty frightening, even by Raiju’s standards, and this was all while she was still only a mortal–Maria was only a divine vessel and not a full-fledged demigod or god yet, thus she was still a mortal. If Maria achieved her ascension and class advanced into a goddess, or at least a demigoddess, then she would become even more powerful and frightening than she already was right now.

Raiju’s powers were still partially sealed due to her master-servant pact with Maria, but with her level and stats being way above her master's level, she was quite confident in her ability to fight against her master. The pact was the only reason why Raiju never openly showed that she was actually against being Maria’s subordinate and she thought that by providing additional help and information for her master, Maria might decide to annul the pact sometime in the future and grant her freedom, something she always longed for.

It was true that Raiju had sworn her loyalty to Maria and formed a master-servant pact with her, but that was only because she had been forced to do it, since Maria threatened to end her while she was still pretty weak back then. She reluctantly agreed to form the pact as a temporary means of survival and had been secretly plotting to break the pact once she had regained her full power.

The seal that she had been trapped in for who knows how many millennia had greatly weakened her, resulting in most of her powers being unusable until she made a complete recovery. Since Raiju was stuck between a rock and a hard place at the time, she decided to just play along with Maria and agreed to her master-servant contract, but the facade would only last until she was fully healed.

Once she regained her powers, Raiju planned to quickly break the pact, even at the cost of the pact’s backlash, and escape from Maria’s control. She was a powerful lightning spirit that was on the same level as demigods, so there was no way she would willingly submit herself to the whims of a mortal like Maria.

Raiju’s grand plans of escape, however, had to be completely scrapped after she learned that Maria had become a Divine Vessel a few months ago. It was only a matter of time before she obtained godhood and once she did, Raiju wasn’t confident in being able to run away from a goddess like Maria.

If she remained as a mortal, then Raiju was confident that she could break free from Maria’s control after she regained her powers in a few years, but Maria’s progression was way too fast for her plans to work now. She needed a few years to regain her powers, but Maria likely only needed a year or less to become a goddess–by Raiju’s estimates. So, with that prediction, Raiju decided to try and curry favor with Maria in hopes of getting into her good graces, so that in the future, when she asked Maria for her freedom, she might be granted it due to her contributions.

So if she tried any funny business, Raiju had no doubt in her mind that her Master would immediately end her on the spot without mercy or hesitation. Being Maria’s subordinate and staying alive was definitely much better than dying.

Raiju thought that perhaps being Maria’s subordinate wouldn’t even be that bad of a thing, because she had seen Maria’s potential. A mortal ascending to godhood, that was something only a few people could achieve and those kinds of gods tend to grow into high-ranking gods in the future, since they always improved very rapidly as compared to many other gods.

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If she was able to become a loyal underling from such a figure, she’d definitely be able to get her revenge against the god and goddess that trapped her in that statue as well as ascend to newer heights, but of course, freedom was still the main priority in her mind. She had been oppressed and trapped by the gods for so long and wanted nothing more than to be free again.

The thought of freedom while she was trapped in her seal was the only thing that had kept her going all this time, so there was no way she would abandon it. Right now, submitting to Maria might be the best road for her, so until she saw a better path, she was going to fully commit to this.

With that in mind, Raiju faithfully wrote everything she knew about the [Divine Realm] in one book after she had finished writing about her knowledge of the [Return Scrolls] and [Return Crystals]. She didn’t want to remain as a lowly grunt within Maria’s forces. She wanted to rise higher than that and at least become one of her master’s closest subordinates, like Ash and Alexa.

Actually, it was better to describe those two as something beyond just Maria’s subordinates. They were more like people whom Maria saw as her family. Raiju wanted to become like one of them all for her own ambition and safety. She was aware that despite always going around and following Maria wherever she went, she knew that she hadn’t truly become a part of Maria’s inner circle of people that were trusted and viewed as family.

Well, Raiju knew that she was at least better than most people since she could still follow Maria around, but at best, her master only viewed her as a very powerful and somewhat reliable subordinate, nothing else. There was no sense of trust between them, so their relationship really was only that of a master and her servant.

Raiju didn’t want things to remain just like that. She wanted to be someone that Maria could trust so that she could hold a higher and more important position later in the future once her master fully grew and established herself. The only people who were in the circle of trust that Raiju was referring to were Ash, Alexa, Lilah, Maria’s 3 friends–Amanda, Emily, and Lizzy–and finally, her two brothers, Gerald and Mikael.

In order to gain her favor, Raiju needed to provide something extremely important to Maria and what was more important than knowledge? Knowledge was definitely something Maria needed and if Raiju could showcase her loyalty to Maria by giving her the information she required, she reckoned that her position in her master’s heart would definitely rise by a level or two.

Mikael didn’t know what Raiju was up to, but seeing that the second book she was writing contained information about the Divine Realm, he was naturally intrigued by it. After all, it was a territory that sounded extremely important and could likely be another scenario within the game that could prove to be rather important in the future once it was unlocked.

A few of the things he managed to glimpse earlier while Raiju was writing seemed to be very important information and he wondered if it was alright for him to have read something so sensitive. He didn’t mean to interrupt her or anything, but he wanted to know why she was writing the second book and why it contained so much information about the Divine Realm.

Raiju saw this as an opportunity, as this young man was her Master’s older brother. If she could somehow gain his favor, it might prove to be helpful for her in the future.

“This…this is something that will definitely help my Master in the future! Knowledge is always helpful and since she’ll soon dabble in the matters of the Divine Realm, won’t she need to know a few things so that she’ll know how to proceed?”

“Ah, I see. How thoughtful of you! I’m glad to know that my sister has such a reliable person by her side,” Mikael replied with a smile.

“Y-Yes! I’m glad that I could be of service to my Master!”

The way Raiju talked was stiff and, unlike her usual self, Mikael took notice of this and thought that she was probably just nervous or something as this was the first time they had ever talked to each other.

“If it’s alright with you, may I take a look at the book about the [Return Scrolls] and [Return Crystals]? Mikael asked. “I’m going to be part of the team that’ll be creating the new manufacturing technique for those two items, so I need to understand how they work.”

“Here you go, Sir Duke,” Raiju replied as she handed him the book.

Mikael smiled at her and received the book before sitting down next to her and reading it. His attention was focused fully on the book, so he didn’t hear the other people’s discussion in the hall. Lucky for him that he didn’t because Mikael would be acting like Gerald, who was currently covering his face with one hand because of how weird the conversation at the NPC’s end was proceeding.

Even Maria felt that things were taking a bit of a strange turn, so she quickly halted the meeting and ordered a recess before they’d reconvene again later to finish things up. Talking about religion–especially her own religion–was something Maria found a little weird.

“Alright, let’s pause things here for a moment and take a break. We’ll continue the meeting after everyone’s calmed down a little!” Maria exclaimed before she walked out of the hall.