Scarlet

The old man’s story is more surprising than I would’ve expected. Yet also simpler.

As it turns out, he is not the age that everyone on Earth knows him to be. Which is obvious by now.

He is two thousand five hundred and two years old. Older than Gramps in fact. By a rather large margin.

The man was originally the king of a nation, but after he was genetically experimented on by an opposing nation, he become something slightly different from a normal human. Which was apparently when he first started to figure out how to use his magic. Something no one else at that time had managed to do.

People began to fear him after that. Even after he broke free from their nation and returned to his own, his people did not welcome him.

They feared him. They feared what he became.

Feared his magic that he had just begun using.

So they ostracized him. Locked him in one of his own dungeons for years, thinking he would waste away and that they could just forget about him.

But since he had actually reached Class I at that point, he didn’t waste away. He aged at a slower pace than the people who had locked him up.

And people started to forget about him, giving him the chance to break free once he was able to use his magic enough to do so.

After that, he left his nation, not being able to bring himself to kill his own people for revenge just because of what their elders did to him. Not having been corrupted yet at that point.

He hid his magic from others but still continued to practice it. And during that time, he also hunted down wild animals to feed himself so as to avoid going to cities.

At some point while doing that, he managed to learn how to absorb their life force. All on his own and with no help.

Proving that, regardless of his fanaticism and insanity, he really is a genius.

Then the fae started showing up in mass instead of on the small scale they’d been doing up till then.

And he quickly became a popular person to the fae.

But he wouldn’t work with any of them.

Until Titania came around and asked him for help creating a System to share the powers he had with others. And to raise the protector of the universe.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

Aka, me. Apparently.

The two of them spent centuries working together on it, with Titania basically acting as his contracted fae while also using her own magic. Both of them guiding each other and plotting out every last thing in the System, along with the things related to me.

Then, finally, the completion of the System. Which was done entirely by Isaac without Titania’s participation, since she had to sacrifice her real body to get the Dragon Core that powers the System.

And her clones were weak at that point. Too weak to do anything or survive long.

So she had to rest.

But throughout all of the years they spent working on it, Isaac wasn’t always able to avoid people. And as his magic grew stronger, and he ascended through Classes, altering his appearance a bit, he grew to be feared and hated more. Especially when someone from the nation he used to be the king of recognized him and spread word of his lack of aging to the people.

Which led to him being hunted down like an animal across the planet while he was finishing the System.

Meanwhile, at some point during all of this, the demons were created. Isaac isn’t sure when that happened since he was too busy to notice, but when he met his first demon, he realized they were no different from humans the moment they were freed. Except that they despised humans to the core.

Over the years, he began to grow insane. Focusing on nothing but creating a perfect creature that was neither human nor demon. And finishing his project with Titania.

But before he activated the System, he had Titania’s son send him over to the planet where the Fractures would soon open up after he finished the System. And he decided to try again on Earth.

Except, things turned out exactly the same here, even if he had a family here unlike there.

A family he didn’t give a shit about.

So he returned to Tartarus and finally managed to activate the System, feeling completely apathetic to any of the people who were initialized into it.

He apparently even felt overjoyed by the first people to enter the System, since they were also feared by those who hadn’t entered it. But that joy turned to further his hatred as the people grew used to the System users. People who grew more and more numerous by the day.

Then he just watched as the worlds burned with war. As millions of people on both sides, demons and humans, died by the masses. And as everything went to hell.

He just watched. Enjoying all of it without even the slightest bit of pity.

All as he waited for me to be born.

I can’t help but feel utterly disgusted by the man who is still looking at me with that same look in his eyes as before. That one filled with a false and twisted grandfatherly affection mixed with fanaticism.

“So my sweet granddaughter,” he says while reaching forwards, something he would never have called me before I ascended to Class VI. “Please work with me and learn how to control your magic. Please forget your humanity and demon instincts. Leave it all behind.”

The disgust I feel grows by the second, and I can see the others feel the same around me. Gramps’s fingers are even twitching as he no doubt holds himself back from killing the man in front of me.

Because whether or not he’s a disgusting and insane fanatic or not, I do still need assistance with gaining control over my magic.

So I’ll have to put up with him for now.

But I move away from his hand anyways, because I’d rather not let him touch me.

“Please teach me to control my magic,” I tell him, gritting my teeth a little in the process as his face lights up with a smile.

This is going to be unpleasant.

Just have to remember that I can toss him to Gramps after I’m done.

I take in a deep breath before letting it out.

He can do whatever he wants with him then.