《Reincarnation Of The God Of Darkness》


 1 Prologue

    It was sometime after my death. Floating in the darkness I realized why things had gone the way they did.


    Seven times I had been wronged.


    First ¨C it was my parents. They used me as a punching bag for their frustration on each other. I was their best son but they cast me aside for my brothers and sisters because they were all capable of making more money than me.


    Second ¨C it was my siblings. They used my generosity and kindness and made me do things they didn''t have any interest in doing but had to. But when the time came that I needed help with something, they turned their backs.


    Third ¨C it was my schoolmates. They used me for all sorts of things. Help with homework, being the sacrificial lamp for their pranks and many more instances of me being helpful to them had occurred over the years. When I even tried to ask for help though, they would run away or make fun of me and advertently deny me.


    Fourth ¨C it was my teachers. Even as I did everything I was told to, and I was told to do more than anyone else in the school, they never stopped trying to find reason to screw me over. And in the end, they succeeded and I ended up becoming a high-school dropout.


    Fifth ¨C it was my colleagues at work. Just like my schoolmates, they used for me every single thing and turned their backs on me when I needed help. For those reasons, I kept having to find new job every two months and was forced to live with minimal expenses.


    Sixth ¨C it was my crushes. They acted like they were interested in me just to make a joke out of me later by humiliating me in the worst ways possible.


    And seventh ¨C it was me. I convinced myself that I could live with everything that happened. I kept deceiving myself with that stupid notion. So, in the end, when my fragile delusions finally became too heavy a burden to carry, I slit my throat.


    And so, when I had died and was floating in that darkness, I started thinking ¨C why was it that my life was so fucked up?


    Far, far away, I could see a light. That was the light that all souls end up in after their death and before an Angel or Demon comes to take them to Heaven or Hell respectively. I saw countless souls pass by there. It was truly such a magnificent light.


    But I was there. Far, far away from that light ¨C I was there floating in the darkness. Why, you ask? Well, the answer to that was what I had come to realize in the countless hours I had spent floating there.


    All of the people who had screwed my life, they weren''t really bad people; they were just scared shitless of me. By even coming near me, they felt an urge to run away. That was how terrified they were of me. But because I had been such a nice guy, they ended up turning that fear into a fragile superiority complex. The ones who couldn''t that always kept their distance from me.


    Why were they so scared of me though? That''s obvious, isn''t it? I was the God ¡­ of Darkness.


    I embody darkness. Fear, anger, hate, contempt, jealousy, lust, sloth, arrogance ¨C all these dark emotions were my bread and butter. I was stupid to not have realized this when I was alive. But, I realize this then, after dying.


    And so, I decided I wouldn''t let that be the end. After all, can dying truly be the end of a God? I don''t think so.


    The God of Darkness I was. Negativity gave me power. And I decided that I would use this power ¨C this power that I would get in abundance to become the strongest, the richest, the most feared, the most supreme God in all things.


    I had lived a life of being stepped on. In order to make up for it, I needed to live a life of stepping on.


    If God of Darkness was what I was, then my journey would be the darkest, vilest and edgiest rise to the power anyone would have ever seen.


    And so my story began as I used all the power left dormant inside me to do the one thing that needed to be done ¨C reincarnation.

 2 The God Path

    After being reincarnated, maybe it''s just how this happens or maybe it was because I had used all my powers in trying to make sure I reincarnate in a world I can use to my advantage, I had forgotten about being a god.


    It wasn''t until my fifth birthday that I finally remembered who I was and what my goal was.


    I had ended up being reincarnated in a world somewhat similar to the Medieval Ages of Earth.


    My family was - unique, if nothing else.


    My father was an overly-ambitious and unskilled warrior who had gone to fight in a war when I was 2 years old and never returned. My mother was a literary genius and one of the most beloved novelists in the country. We were four siblings and she had raised us all by herselves after our father died.


    As for the said siblings, there were two older siblings and one younger one. The eldest - my big brother named Hans - was 5 years older than me. Therefore, when I regained my memories, he was 10. His swordsmanship was already considered one of the best among his peers and his looks were bound to be great if he took care of his body like he had. In other words, he was well on his way to become what my father always wanted to be.


    After him was my elder sister - Helga - who was 3 years older than me. She was probably the cockiest girl to ever have existed. No, maybe that''s an exaggeration. But she was definitely pretty cocky. The reason for that was the entire world always praising her for her literary skills. Yes, she was an 8 years old kid but she was studying materials that only 10-11 years old did. She was that good. Some even considered her the second Himdere (my mother).


    Then, there was me - Vilome. I was the only one in the family who''s name didn''t start with a ''h''. The reason, as I had heard my mother saying, was that I exuded an aura different than everybody else.


    We''ll get back to me later though. First, or last I guess, there was my little sister - Hena. She was just 2 years old and hardly able to do much. She was born right around the time my father had to leave for the war he never came back from.


    Up until that point, I had lived in peace as a stupid little kid would. But, that was about to change. I was going to change it.


    Since all my memories had returned, I was ready to start manipulating the world as I saw fit.


    I had made plans in my head for how I''ll use my brother''s reputation to become the lion among those my ages and how I''ll learn all the literature that my mother could teach me as that would obviously help. I had all my future mapped out, from how many years I would spend learning things to when I''d start actually implementing those lessons to more.


    However, it all changed one night.


    That night - I had a dream.


    I saw in that dream my previous life. Not all of it. Only the worst of it. I remembered that one time when my father beat all us siblings and our mom brainlessly because of how frustrated he was. That was probably what began all the madness in my family, as my mother called her relatives and told her about him. Soon, they came and started arguing with my father.


    As a result, my father became even more frustrated and started beating us all everyday, including our mom. Soon, my mother''s family started asking for a divorce. My father had no family left alive so my mother''s family easily overwhelmed him and the divorce happened. Mother was given the custody of all of us, save one. She let me stay with my father. And so, from there on out, I became the only punching bag he could use.


    Every time me and my father would visit my mother and other siblings, I could practically feel their disgust at both of us. The only thing that hurt more than that was the fact that their disgust was directed more at me than it was at my father. I know now that it was because my aura, the aura of the God of Darkness, oozed negativity. But back then, I could only bawl my eyes out in silence when alone.


    Things didn''t just end with the divorce though.


    Despite having split up, the two parts of our broken family lived in the same area and so all us siblings ended up going to the same schools. Things got worse there as my siblings started to outright deny having any relations with me and I became the target of bullying by other kids at school.


    There is much more that happened but by the time I reached the point where my mother said in front of the principal that she doesn''t know who I am - I woke up.


    It wasn''t that I was terrified of those memories that I woke up but that I was ''interrupted'' by something. I didn''t know what it was but there was something that had disturbed my sleep and broken that horrible dream. I looked around and saw my brother sleeping peacefully as if he didn''t feel a thing. To me though, it had felt like an earthquake had come inside my head.


    And then suddenly,


    [System Unlocked]


    I saw that message, imprinted on something like a game window, right in front of my eyes.


    [System Initializing ...]


    I sat there gawking at it cautiously. It didn''t really give a dangerous vibe. In fact, it felt like it was part of my body. But still, I couldn''t help but be wary of anyone and anything ever since I regained my memories.


    [System Initialized]


    [System Activating ...]


    The window was originally blue but it turned silver with that message and then, finally,


    [System Activated]


    [You are now logged into the system]


    [Would you like to open the system menu?]


    Beneath that question was a green-colored ''yes'' marker and a red-colored ''no'' marker. Looking at it reminded me of every time I had the luxury of using a PC in my previous life. I wasn''t about to get sentimental though as I focused on the window in front of me.


    As soon as I decided to select ''yes'', it got selected. I realized from that that I was dealing with a technology better than touchscreen. Either that, or I was hallucinating.


    [System menu opening]


    [System menu opened]


    With that appeared a very game-like stats menu that made me look at it with dead eyes for a whole two minutes.


    [Name: Vilome]


    [Race: God]


    [Age: Irrelevant]


    [Specialization: Dark Arts]


    [Realm: Base]


    [Progress Towards Next Realm: None]


    [Quests Completed: None]


    [Authorities Acquired: None]


    [Weapons Mastered: None]


    Seeing that, I had no idea what I should be more intrigued by. First of all, despite being like a fantasy world, this world didn''t have magic. It had various arts however. As an obvious example, Sword Arts - the thing that my father dreamed of and my brother did specialize in.


    There was also Language Arts, which my mother did and my elder sister was well on her way of specializing in.


    There were many others like Projectile Arts (mostly archery but not completely), Spear Arts, Healing Arts (basically doctory), etc etc. However, I had never heard of anything like Dark Arts. Not gonna lie, I loved the name but I had no idea what it meant.


    Then there was the fact that the system called my age ''irrelevant''. Quite a peculiar thing, if I do say so myself.


    Then there were ''Realms'', ''Quests'', ''Authorities'' and ''Weapons''. All of these were terms I knew the meaning of on a general basis but had no idea what they really meant there.


    As I was busy contemplating about it, the system asked me,


    [Which path would you like to take?]


    It gave me three options, shown in three different rows.


    [Necromancer Path]


    [The easiest and shortest path to mastery of Dark Arts. It will yield immediate results as a God would be lowering himself to becoming a necromaner but it will result in you becoming one of the strongest among the mortals of the world very soon]


    I was not very eager to take that path. So, I continued to the next one.


    [Grim Reaper Path]


    [Harder than Necromaner Path. You will become able to yield your immortal abilities but also will take days in acquiring the amount of power you could acquire within seconds in the Necromancer Path. At the end of this path, you could become one of the strongest among the immortals of the universe]


    That was somewhat impressive. There was no way I was going for the Necromancer Path after reading the description for the Grim Reaper Path. However, the third one was the real deal.


    [The God Path]


    [Hardest and Longest Path. It will take you years to learn something you can learn in a day in Necromaner path and in a month in Grim Reaper Path. It allows you to acquire the full extent of your powers. At the end of this path (which is unlikely to be reached before spending at least two centuries on it), you might become the strongest being in the universe]


    I wasn''t blind, or dumb. I could see how The God Path was an unideal choice. I mean, did I make all those plans of taking over everything just so I could follow a goddamned system for 2 centuries and then aquire the level of power I desired? No, I wanted the power as soon as possible. I wanted retribution for all my pain as soon as possible.


    I was not going to wait. Therefore, choosing the third path was not the way to go.


    However, an idea came to mind. An idea that made me smirk. An idea that would make you smirk. And idea that made me choose The God Path.

 3 A Scheming Child

    The first of three paths I was presented with the option to choose was The Necromancer Path. This was to say that Necromancy was a part of Dark Arts, which I specialized in. And so, regardless of whichever path I chose, I was obviously going to learn the abilities of Necromancy. And that was my ticket to OP status.


    How?


    Well, here''s how.


    The next day, at breakfast, a quest menu appeared in front of me. It seemed like no one except me could see the menu as neither my mom nor my siblings reacted in any way to it.


    That was something to be relieved about but more importantly, the quest that had appeared stated:-


    [The God Path - Quest 1: "Kill 10 dark wolfs in a day" has arrived]


    [This quest has two rewards]


    I almost choked when I read that. I mean, yes, I knew it was going to be hard but not that hard.


    Adult dark wolves were as big as bears and had black skin and fur. Sometimes, dark wolves with brown fur were found but they were rare. And these creatures were famous (or infamous) for three things - extremely sharp senses, extreme thirst for violence, and the strength in their body (which could make an African Lion feel shy).


    To put it into better perspective, a single dark wolf generally needed three decent swordsman to take it out. And there I was - a 5 years old kid with barely any experience in fighting.


    How was I supposed to defeat 10 of them?


    It looked like it''ll be impossible, didn''t it? But, it wasn''t. It was, in fact, quite easy.


    I just needed to somehow acquire 2 gold coins.


    In order to acquire them, I went to a merchant I knew and made a deal with him.


    "Give me 2 gold coins today and I''ll return you 3 tomorrow." I told him so.


    "Yeah, whatever, kid!"


    He, obviously, dismissed it as childish blabber at first but then I kept nagging him for a while and he understood that I was serious about it. Therefore, he gave me 2 gold coins and said that he would ask my mother to repay them if I don''t.


    I figured that''s how it would go from the start so I wasn''t surprised.


    The next thing I did was go to the adventurer''s guild and ask them to post a quest to kill 2 dark wolves, with the reward being those 2 gold coins. At first, they also thought it was childish blabber but convincing them was easier as I could make up a story like ''my elder brother is ill so he asked me to come here and post the quest''. Also, when they saw that the gold coins I was carrying were real, they thought it must have been given to me by that sick elder brother of mine and so they accepted the quest thinking my made-up story to be true.


    Pretty soon after that, a party of adventurers came and took the quest. For any party of new adventurers, a quest like that would have been a great opportunity as, despite being quite strong, when overwhelmed with great numbers, a dark wolf can fall pretty easily. If you had 7-8 decently capable people in your party, killing a dark wolf would be a breeze. Also these wolfs, especially the ones found near the city I lived in, didn''t like being in packs so when you find one, it would probably be alone and there will be very little chance of a second one emerging from somewhere.


    Henceforth, that party was quite happy taking that quest of mine. As soon as they left the adventurer''s guild though, I started following them. I followed them for two hours straight before they finally decided to head out.


    It took another half an hour to finally find a dark wolf. I had followed them very stealthily so they didn''t know they were being followed. But, the dark wolves, as they have great senses, could sense me pretty easily.


    Fortunately for me, the numbers and hostility emanating from the adventurers, who immediately threw their bags and got ready to fight, kept its attention and so I wasn''t harmed. I wasn''t about to return the favor though. I stepped out of hiding and threw a rock at the wolf.


    To those 8 idiots, it might have looked like a scared child trying to hurt the thing he is scared of. The purpose, however, was to make the adventurers all nervous at the ''sudden'' appearance of this little child and make protecting that little child their first priority.


    They did just as I predicted and covered me with a defensive formation. That gave me the chance to get to the bags they had thrown away to make fighting easier. I quickly salvaged through it.


    There were a set number of things that adventurers were asked to carry at all times. One of them was a potion to repel monsters, and one was a potion to attract them. I was after the one that would attract them. Actually, I was after both of them but the attracting potion needed first.


    As soon as I found it, I sprayed it all over the place. In fact, I threw the whole bottle with precise aim right under the wolf''s feet so it breaks and the whole potion spills, which obviously increased the effect it had.


    One or two of the adventurers noticed what I did but as the monsters started rapidly approaching the place we were in, they had to focus on them.


    That gave me the chance to spill more of that. Then, I took a few bottles of the repelling potions and ran away. When some monsters tried to chase me, I drowned myself in repelling potions and so they stopped chasing me and started hurrying towards where the attracting smell was coming from.


    That place soon became a bloodbath. I couldn''t stick around to see the whole mess but from what I later heard, monsters after monsters came there and overwhelmed the adventurers. Those 8 died, obviously. But, it didn''t stop there. The potion continued its work for a long time, attracting hordes of monsters to that spot. That led to the monsters killing each other. It kept escalating to the point that the guild had to issue an emergency quest to all adventurers to team up and stop it.


    All in all, it took two days for the whole situation to calm down. However, my purpose was fulfilled that day itself. In that bloodbath that had happened, more than 10 dark wolves had been killed. And since I was responsible for that incident, the system recognized that as me killing those monsters. Henceforth, the quest was completed.


    [The God Path - Quest 1: "Kill 10 dark wolfs in a day" has been completed]


    [Your quest rewards have arrived]


    There were two rewards. And both were very helpful.


    [Quest Reward No. 1: 10 gold coins]


    That reward allowed me to pay the 3 gold coins I had to give to that merchant. It also allowed me to use the same strategy again as I still had left 7 gold coins.


    [Quest Reward No. 2: Ability "Necromancy (Rank D)"]


    That was the first Dark Art ability I had learned. And it opened the door to becoming a master at quickly rising to top of it.


    As soon as I gained that ability, I ran back to ''the sight of the bloodbath''. As it was still the very day that it all had started, things were pretty messy and I couldn''t risk going back much deeper. Good for me that I didn''t need to go deeper anyway. All I needed was to find the corpse of a monster.


    I had checked the ability''s description and it went like this ¨C


    [Necromancy (Rank D)]


    [One of the basic Dark Art abilities. It allows one to control the souls of the undead. These souls can only be controlled if they are extracted from the corpse before the connection between the soul and the body is completely severed.]


    As someone who had experienced first-hand what dying was like, I needed no clearance on the subject of souls and the time it took to be severed from the body. I knew I still had time. I knew I could extract the souls of those monsters and make them my puppets.


    And fortunately for me, after going in a little deeper into the forest, I started encountering a few corpses. Those were probably the monsters that had gotten hurt, tried to run away, but ended up dying because of their injuries being too severe.


    A very irritating extra line in the description of Necromancy was ¨C


    [At the abilities'' current rank, you can only control the souls of low-tier monsters]


    I guess it''s something you''d expect to be the case. But, did that make it any less irritating? It did not.


    Anyway, since I couldn''t get the souls of stronger monsters, there was no point in trying to go deeper into the forests. I extracted the souls from the corpses I had found and returned.


    All in all, I had been able to extract five souls.


    Two of them were of goblins.


    Two of them were of a bird called Wysks, which are basically dwarfed Wyverns.


    One of them was of a dark fox.


    Easily, the dark fox was the best. I mean, it was no dark wolf but it was far superior to the goblins and Wysks.


    [Progress Made Towards Next Stage: 1%]


    That was the message the system showed me as I went to sleep that night. For the next two days, the city was in chaos over that incident in the forests around the city.


    In those two days, the system didn''t show up. And so, I decided to spend my time trying practicing Necromancy, hoping to get a little better at it.


    From that point on, I had decided that I would make those undead pawns of mine, who were bound to increase in quantity and quality over time, to do my dirty work ¨C so I could speed through this incredibly hard path.


    Yes, making them help me was the idea that had made me choose The God Path.

 4 Not So Pure

    Two days after the ''bloodbath'' incident, the system finally showed up again.


    [The God Path ¨C Quest 2: "Form an army of 50 undead monsters" has arrived]


    [The quest has two rewards]


    It wasn''t the type of quest I had expected would come. I was prepared to deal with something harder than the first quest. However, the second quest ended up being pretty easy to accomplish. I just had to form an army of 50 undead monsters, right?


    With Necromancy at my side, that was as easy as eating a pie. I already had complete control over 5 monsters, whom I had trained with for the past two days. I could use them to kill more monsters and then turn them into undead under my control.


    But, because it was so easy to pull off, I started having doubts about it.


    Was that all there was to the quest? I questioned myself. And even though the system didn''t give me any reason to, I started thinking of a possible catch in this whole deal.


    A possibility came to mind very soon.


    What if, after completing this quest, I am given an incredibly hard quest that I am unable to fulfill because I didn''t take this one seriously?


    It was a definite possibility. And since it had come to mind, I had to make sure I don''t screw up.


    ***************


    The entire city was in chaos because of the incident in the forest. The name of the city was ¨C no, not important. Because of what happened in a few days, the name of that city is irrelevant.


    But back to the situation, there really wasn''t a better word to describe it than ''chaotic''. The adventurers had been divided into two groups.


    One was the group of cowards who became too afraid to go into the forests, or other monster infested areas for that matter, because of what happened to that party of 8 adventurers.


    The other group was the group of idiots who were determined to go into the forest and kill monsters as much as they could to restore the faith people had lost in their abilities.


    Because of this division, the adventurer''s guild was in a state of crisis. And THAT benefitted the church.


    The Royal Church, as they were called, was an organization that held as much power as the adventurer''s guild did. Politically, neither of them had anything over the king. But, when it came to an ordinary city like the one I lived in, these two parties directly rivaled the mayor.


    The reason adventurer''s guild was given this much power was obvious ¨C they were the goddamned adventurer''s guild. They were the one thing keeping the monsters outside from rampaging through the city.


    But the Royal Church ¨C they were a mystery to me. The populous wasn''t that religious to be honest. If you would compare the percentage of people who can be considered religious to the percentage on modern day Earth, I reckon there would hardly be any difference. In other words, while a lot of people believed in the gods the church preached about, they weren''t very religious. So, it didn''t make sense for the Royal Church to have that much power.


    That was something I had been curious about - ever since I got my memories back and started thinking instead of wasting my life away. That day I got the opportunity to find out the answer.


    "We will have to go to the church." Himdere, my mother, told all us siblings. Hearing that, my eldest siblings, Hans, had an ugly expression on his face.


    "Why do we have to go there?!" He asked our mother but without even waiting for an answer, he left.


    "Hah!" Mother sighed and said, "If he doesn''t want to come, so be it. The rest of us will go."


    ***************


    The reason why Hans was so irritated became clear to me as soon as I entered the church. On all sides, there were humungous walls of white filled with paintings depicting legends. But they weren''t just any legends; they were a selected group of legends having one thing in common ¨C the defeat of the sword wielders.


    Even the statue of the god was something that signified that very thing as the god Emoliv, who was the greatest of all the deities the church prayed to, was shown stepping on a demon''s defeated corpse who had six hands and all hands held a different kind of sword.


    I didn''t know what problem the church had with sword wielders but I knew how to find out about it.


    In a glass tube in front of the statue of Emoliv, the church kept a number of scrolls.


    "What are those?" I had asked in a low voice to Helga. Because she was so cocky and hungry for praise, it was really easy getting any information out of her as I just had to butter her up a bit.


    "It''s common knowledge that these scrolls contain great secrets about the church, the religion and the gods. If you read one of those scrolls and you aren''t a high-ranking member of the church, well, your life is forfeit. Not only is it considered a sin on par with murder but is also a crime punishable by the law." She had told me.


    Truth is, I already knew about the scrolls. I just wanted to confirm what I had heard was correct. Since Helga said it and my mother, who had listened in on it, didn''t interrupt at all, I knew that everything she was saying was the truth.


    And so, I just had to get my hands on one of those scrolls. And I decided I would do it that very night.


    ***************


    In the pale of the moonlight, a blonde nun was praying to the god Emoliv. She was sitting on her knees, and even prostrating herself from time-to-time.


    "Oh, my lord Emoliv, heed my prayers!" She cried out. "Please give your love to me! Please give me the holy power that I deserve! I have served you for all my life; do I not even deserve such a petty reward?"


    Her ivory complexion had glamour equivalent to the moonlight. Her sapphire-like eyes shone and her pink lips shaking with lust painted the picture of a demonic angel. Her rather mediocre stature assimilated well with the surroundings as well.


    It would have been a bizarre sight if anyone saw it. But, she didn''t worry as no one would.


    The church''s doors were closed at night and doesn''t matter who it was, they wouldn''t dare risk angering all the religious populous of the world by opening them. As for the other nuns and priests, none of them were allowed to live inside the church. Only she ¨C the high priestess ¨C could live inside the church. And so, she was alone and had the freedom to do whatever she wanted.


    "Oh, my lord Emoliv, you have to choose me. You have to reward my devotion to you. You have to." As if imagining Emoliv ravaging her body, she moaned.


    For years, this lustful woman had acted like an oh-so-pure nun in front of the world while secretly praying to Emoliv to impregnate her.


    It was considered a custom that the god Emoliv impregnates a nun of the Royal Church and she gives birth to a hero, a hero who could save the world.


    This happened every single time when the world was in any danger, be it by an incredibly powerful demon lord or a natural disaster or something else. The hero would be born, possessing the skills needed to get rid of the problems.


    Because of how valuable these heroes were, the nuns who gave birth to them, who had been chosen by god Emoliv himself, were treated as queens, or maybe even better than queens.


    This woman wanted that for herself.


    She was a greedy, lustful and beautiful woman with a perverted mind. In other words, she was the complete opposite of what an ideal nun should be like. And yet, her acting skills were good enough for her to be considered an ideal nun by the church.


    "Ah! My lord Emoliv, if you do not choose me, I will lose faith and make sure others do so too." Overcome by lust, she crawled towards his statue as she said, "I am a high-priestess with a lot of influence, you see. I can change the minds of many. You wouldn''t want that to happen now, would ¨C who''s there?"


    Her voice turned stern and she immediately seated herself upright as she looked in the direction she had just sensed a presence from.


    She stood up, adjusted her dress, wiped off her face and asked again, "Who''s there? Who dares come in-"


    The answer to her questions came in front of her, making her freeze. It was a dark fox. But, it was different than a usual dark fox. Generally, dark foxes just look like black foxes. But, this one was exuding a vile aura, an aura of death.


    "Don''t tell me it''s-"


    She couldn''t complete the sentence. The very thought of an undead being inside the church terrified her. The dark fox looked at her cautiously for a while and then ran away. She noticed that there was something in its mouth.


    She quickly started to look around to see what it could be and then found the answer when she looked back at a particular glass tube.


    ***************


    The undead dark fox of mine was more useful than I initially gave it credit for.


    I had sent it to the church with this command. "Sneak into the church, make sure you are not spotted, get the scrolls and bring them back to me. You can take as much time as you need to but make sure no one sees you."


    These were simple commands for a human but for a monster, they were complex. No ordinary monster could pull it off. But, a dark fox was basically fox 2.0. It had the cunning of the foxes found on earth and some more.


    It followed my instructions to the letter, and bought the scrolls without letting anyone see it.


    ¡­ Hah!


    I only wish I could really say that.


    But as soon as the dark fox entered through the windows in my room (which was on the ground floor), I felt an alarm going off in my head.


    I quickly jumped away from the window and realized that if I had been even a second late, I might have died, again.


    The whole wall that stood between my room and the house''s lawn was blown to bits.


    "You!" A blonde nun with beautiful features but an ugly aura entered through that large hole and said, "You dare to steal the scrolls from the church! It is time for you to die!"

 5 Does A God Care?

    At first glance, I didn''t recognize her but as soon as she opened her mouth, I remembered that woman was a high priestess of the Royal Church. For simple cities like the one I lived in, a high priest or priestess was the highest position a member of the Royal Church could have.


    And so,


    Hell! The most powerful member of the church that was present in the city was there to get me! I cursed that fox in my mind as I realized that.


    "Do you have any last words before you die, child?" She asked, rather irritated but trying to look calm.


    "I do, actually." I said, with a smirk.


    "I, the high priestess Valerie, will allow you to go on." With that, she urged me to continue on while rolling her eyes to show her unwillingness to hear anything I would say. But I knew as soon as I spoke, she would open her ears wide.


    "Emoliv is the god of light. That bastard would never choose a slut like you to be the mother of his child."


    Even if she could fool the whole world, she couldn''t fool a god.


    I could sense her dark desires even back in the church when she had almost completely concealed them. And at that moment, on that night, she wasn''t even trying to conceal them to the best of her abilities.


    "Tsk!" She clicked her tongue. What else could she do?


    "Emoliv would rather choose a retard than someone like you. That''s just the type of god he is."


    Since I had seen through her facade, she stopped acting completely and started making a disgusting face as she looked at me.


    "Whoever you are, you are certainly perceptive." She said, with an ugly smile, "Doesn''t matter what you say though. If Emoliv doesn''t choose me,"


    "You''ll lead a revolt against him? You''ll use all the influence and knowledge you have acquired over the years to turn his believers against him?" I mocked her, and it was quite easy to do in fact.


    "You think a god cares about what you humans think of them?" I questioned. The answer, that she might have even realized sometime in her life but had not wanted to face was - he/she doesn''t.


    "A god fulfills his duties. It doesn''t matter to a god whether you love them or hate them. They don''t care. Not at all."


    It was a fact. I was one of the only few gods who actually gave a damn about people, enough to give them a second of thought to their lives before dismissing the thought.


    "..."


    She was taken aback. The uncomfortable look on her face was only proof that she too knew deep down that she never had any chance of scoring with Emoliv, but she deluded herself into thinking she did.


    If this was a fluffy, little romance story, then this woman, after Emoliv had chosen the actual heroine of the story, would have probably gone on to become the jealous bitch who everyone hates.


    But, this wasn''t a fully, little romance story. It was on the opposite end of spectrum to that, in fact.


    "Tsk! Whatever the case maybe, I have to fulfil my duties by killing you."


    "Ha ha ha haha hahaha" I laughed and with time, my laughs grew louder.


    Of course, she didn''t like it.


    "What the hell are you laughing for, runt?" She asked in a tone that was completely unfitting for a high priestess.


    "You know that following the church will lead to nothing but your dream getting shattered when Emoliv doesn''t choose you, yet to continue on this path?! How foolish can you be?"


    Looking at that idiot reminded me of a particular human back on Earth who knew that he was being taken advantage of and toyed with but didn''t retort. Yeah, it reminded me of myself.


    That is why I decided to give her a way out rather than turning her into my first undead human soldier.


    "You still have a shot at reaching your dreams of power." I told her so. "If you join me, you can get everything you ever dreamed of and more."


    She felt silent, looking at me with awkward disgust.


    I guess, to her, it just looked like some child with a big mouth yapping on about things he didn''t even fully comprehend.


    Too bad she didn''t realize that she was actually talking to a 30-year-old god with a grudge against the entire universe.


    "Hah!" She sighed. "I am done talking to you. You are a peculiar specimen, I''ll give you that; but it''s time to di- ACK!"


    She fell on the floor sideways as an undead goblin hit her, from behind, right in the knee with a stone axe.


    Ancient though they may be, those weapons packed a lot of punch when wielded by someone who could handle them. And my two undead goblin soldiers did qualify as ''someone who could handle them''.


    "Y-you!" Her eyes had filled with equal parts rage and equals parts pain as her hand desperately reached for her bleeding knee. I wasn''t so mericful though that I would let that be the end of it.


    "AAAH!" She cried out again as the same gobling hit her again, in the same spot, and then the second goblin used his stone axe to break the bones in the hand reaching out for the knee.


    "You had your chance!" I said to her as she was writhing in pain. "Even though you made such a mess and DARED to look down upon me, I still gave you a chance. But, you were two pickleheaded to grab it!"


    I ordered the goblins to keep stone-axing her but use less force to make sure she doesn''t die.


    ***************


    My brother Hans, the idiot who was well on his way to growing a hero complex, entered my room and saw me sitting in a corner, looking all messy. I even started to shed fake tears. On the other end though, there were two goblins breaking a nun''s bones.


    Immediately, he decided to go and save the nun. The goblins backed away, as I had ordered them to do so when he charged at them. They ran as fast as they could - outside.


    The idiot was about to give them a chase and as I couldn''t have my soldiers lessened in number over some stupidity like this so I started sobbing harder, making him turn his attention to me.


    He looked back and forth between the sobbing me and the goblins running away and ended up choosing to console me.


    After that, it didn''t take very long for my mother, Helga and our neighbours to come there. They were all terrified of what they saw, obviously.


    But seeing the situation, nobody asked me any questions. As for that greedy, thirsty priestess, it was obvious that she needed medical help much more than an interrogation.


    ***************


    ''Two goblins, equipped with stone axes, broke into a house yesterday. They attacked the 5-year-old boy that they came accross but the high priestess of the Royal Church, who arrived in time, fought bravely for the boy. While she was able to save the boy from any harm, unfortunately, she was beaten down and is in critical condition right now.''


    This was the interpretation of that night''s incident, formed by taking my testimony only, as the only other person involved was beaten up so bad that she wasn''t in the condition to talk.


    By the time the sun to heat up the next day, this news had spread throughout the city and coupled with the bloodbath incident in the forest a few days prior to it, rumors about some conspiracry involving monsters started to spread around.


    I know. It was a stupid rumor. But, when you get down to it, rumors all always stupid. Yet, people believe them. Why? Because they know somewhere in their heart that stupid things do happen.


    But enough of that. The important part were the scrolls. Because of that priestess, I had to postpone my plan of reading them and had to find someplace to safely hide them.


    I knew that soon enough, people would have realized that the scrolls were gone and the uproar would get worse. So, I made the dark fox spirit take the scrolls and bury them somewhere in the forest.


    Or at least, that was what I was about to do.


    For the first time since I regained my memories and began my scheming, something happened that completely threw me off.


    It was the noon of that day, right when the clock in the adventurer''s guild hit the twelve marker and gave a ''tan'' sound, the whole city heard a sound that was like a tremor had come.


    That sound was accompanied by some distant shouts and the sight of the walls of the city hall collapsing. Something was happening. Something BIG was happening.


    And the entire city collectively held its breath as they waited in shock, awe and stupidity to find out what.


    I, thankfully, found out before anyone else could.


    [Danger Alert!]


    [A deadly monster has appeared neaby!]


    [Calculating your chances of defeating the monster ...]


    [Calculated!]


    [Your chance of defeating the monster are: 0%]

 6 Chapter 6

    The most convenient thing about the system was probably the fact that all I needed to do was to think of something happening and if the system could, it would make that something happen.


    Back then, I had no chance of beating that monster, the system clearly stated that. I immediately thought of opening my status menu, and it appeared right in front of my eyes as I did.


    [Name: Vilome]


    [Race: God]


    [Age: Irrelevant]


    [Specialization: Dark Arts]


    [Realm: Base]


    [Progress Towards Next Realm: 1.2%]


    [Quests Completed: 1]


    [Authorities Acquired: None]


    [Weapons Mastered: None]


    Not much had changed from when I first saw it. It seemed like my training Necromancy for two days had increased the "Progress Towards Next Realm" from 1% to 1.2%. But, aside from that, pretty much everything was the same.


    Looking at it made me realize that my progress so far wasn''t much to be proud of, and I still had a long ways to go. I was reminded when looking at that very unimpressive status menu - I really needed to get High Priestess Valerie''s help if I could.


    ***************


    All bandaged up, lying in a bed, constantly being healed by the temple''s priests and priestesses, Valerie felt many emotions twirling inside her, many negative emotions, that is.


    She was barely able to make a sound. She was barely able to move a single finger. The result of those two things combined was that whatever she needed, she had to keep to herself. There was no way to tell anyone if she needed/wanted anything at all, be it as simple as water.


    In that pitiable state, Valerie felt like dying would be better than living.


    It was humiliating enough that a couple of goblins overpowered her. It was even more humiliating that a mere child looked down upon her. And it was furthmore humiliating that she needed to rely on others for every single thing at that moment.


    So, obviously, she felt like death would be less cruel than living like that.


    However, just when she was busy wishing for death, she felt a tremor. The nuns around her felt it too and quickly came towards her.


    "Priestess Valerie, please don''t be troubled." A nun said to her. "I''m sure it''ll be over soon."


    ''I''m sure''? Do better than that, you numbskull! She cried out in her mind, not making a sound in reality.


    That brat! How dare he-


    Her cursing was interupted by the sound of people panicking. She turned her gaze to the nuns beside her, who immediately understood the meaning of it and went to check out what''s going on.


    ''At least I can move my eyes'', was the only soothing thought in her head as of that moment.


    "Huh? What are you doing here, child? Are you lost?" A nun''s questioning voice came from somewhere in the distance, making Valerie''s attention turned to it.


    Every time she heared ''child'', she was reminded of the painstaking humiliation of the previous night.


    Well, it''s probably not him she is talking to. She reasoned with herself to calm down. And as soon as she calmed a little,


    "Priestess Valerie, Vilome wants to see you." Her temperature rises again.


    The one person she didn''t wanted to see was standing there, smirking beneath the facade of innocence and admiration.


    "He says that he is the boy you saved yesterday. He wants to thank you for it."


    Bitch! Would you stop talking!? She cursed the nun who couldn''t see the obvious lies in that boy''s words.


    "Um?" He looked at the nun with a slight blush. The nun understood and left the room, leaving the two alone.


    She probably thought just what Vilome intended for her to think, "I feel embarrased about thanking her in front of other so could you leave?" or something like that.


    "So," He said, as he condescendingly smirked at the priestess, "I see that your hate towards me has grown tremoundously. Good, good!"


    She tried, and failed to even click her tongue, which irritated her even more as Vilome continued.


    "That said though, there''s a more pressing matter to address to." He said. "It seems a terrifyingly dangerous monster has arrived in this city."


    Those words grabbed her attention.


    "With the adventurer''s guild as it is, I doubt they would be able to handle it. And with you out of comission, the Royal Church wouldn''t fare much better either."


    Despite an obvious abundance of flaws, Valerie was a high priestess and a very good one at her job. So, despite her hate towards Vilome, she knew that she should listen to him at that moment.


    "The best bet would be to evacuate. In fact, an evacuation order should already have been issued. But, the monster attacked the mayoral office before anything so it''s highly likely the mayor''s dead or hidden somewhere and can''t issue the order."


    That, without a doubt, seemed like a troublesome situation.


    "As things stand now, many lives will be lost. There''s nothing one can do about that. However, if you make at least a good portion of the city evacuate before everything goes to hell, you might have a chance of getting a promotion for dealing with such a high-stake situation with calmness even while injured so badly."


    While there was obvious sarcasm in his tone, she could tell that his suggestions made sense. Provided, there actually was a monster like that in the city.


    "Priestess Valerie! Priestess Valerie!" A young nun came rushing in. "There''s a really powerful monster ravaging through the city."


    Well, that confirmed it.


    "You fool!" The nun from before came in, angry, and pulled the young nun''s ears. "Don''t disturb Priestess Valerie when she is in such a state."


    She looked at Valerie as she said with as best a smile as she could manage. "We will deal with it, Priestess Valerie. You need not worry!"


    "B-but, the monster is really-"


    "Shut up!" She dragged the young nun, who had tears in her eyes by that point, out of the room.


    When they left, Vilome looked at Valerie with a questioning gaze. She deliberately slowly blinked - to say a ''yes''.


    "Smart decision, slut!"


    Her eyebrows twitched but she ignored it. She was more focused on asking him something else. He understood it pretty well just from her face.


    "You want to know why I am helping you?" He guessed it right, and knowing that he did, he continued to answer, "It''s because I think you I can make use of you."


    ***************


    I truly could make use of her. If I didn''t think so, I wouldn''t have told my goblins to hold back the previous night. I would have told them to go through with killing her. But, as vile and delusional that priestess was, she was also pretty cunning. And I could definitely make use of that.


    "Are you sure, Priestess Valerie?"


    Back to the church though, I had called the nuns saying that Valerie wanted to say something. Obviously, they couldn''t understand the language of a woman who can neither speak nor make hand signs so I told them in her place, "She wants you all to evacuate as many people as you can and leave the city."


    All Valerie had to do was blink to showcase her agreement. Seeing that, the priests became quiet nervous.


    "Is is because of that monster, Priestess?" Asked a priest.


    She blinked, saying ''yes''. And so, the people present there grew even more tensed. We didn''t have time for them to gather themselves together though. Thankfully, a nun who was second-in-command to Valerie only gave a small but loud speech,


    "Stop sulking, people! If this a test of our resolve and faith by the god, we will pass it!"


    She said that and clapped her hands. The priests and priestesses all bowed to her and immediately started on the mission Valerie had just given them.


    Then, that nun came to us and said to Valerie, "I will personally take you to safety so don''t worry!"


    She turned to me as she said, "You bring your family and come with us as well. I will make sure to keep you all out of harm''s way."


    I nodded and rank back to my house. With that, we were ready to evacuate. But, but ...


    ***************


    The streets were covered in crimson.


    Flesh and gore had painted the city anew.


    Cries were the music of the city.


    Corpses were it''s scenery.


    As soon as I stepped out of the church, I realized I had underestimated the threat that would be that monster. Within such a short amount of time, it had destroyed over half the city.


    It was truly something terrifying. And the worst part was - I didn''t even know what it was.


    I had only come to know through the system''s help that a monster had come to the city. I had the ran to the church.


    Therefore, in all this time, I had not gotten the opportunity to see what the thing even looked like.


    BOOM!


    But, as that sound rang out and a building close to my house was blown to bits, I had finally gotten the chance to see it.


    With a body of a big, toned-up man, black wings stretching out from it''s back and covering the entirety of the road, that red-skinned monster with four yellow eyes, all glaring at me, stood there with a stern expression as he said,


    "You - are the one!"


    I had no idea what the hell it meant. But, I knew one thing. I knew that it had ridiculous amounts of killing intent towards me. And that was enough information for me to know what to do - run.


    But, was running away from such a monstrosity even possible?

 6 The Evacuation Plan

    The most convenient thing about the system was probably the fact that all I needed to do was to think of something happening and if the system could, it would make that something happen.


    Back then, I had no chance of beating that monster, the system clearly stated that. I immediately thought of opening my status menu, and it appeared right in front of my eyes as I did.


    [Name: Vilome]


    [Race: God]


    [Age: Irrelevant]


    [Specialization: Dark Arts]


    [Realm: Base]


    [Progress Towards Next Realm: 1.2%]


    [Quests Completed: 1]


    [Authorities Acquired: None]


    [Weapons Mastered: None]


    Not much had changed from when I first saw it. It seemed like my training Necromancy for two days had increased the "Progress Towards Next Realm" from 1% to 1.2%. But, aside from that, pretty much everything was the same.


    Looking at it made me realize that my progress so far wasn''t much to be proud of, and I still had a long ways to go. I was reminded when looking at that very unimpressive status menu - I really needed to get High Priestess Valerie''s help if I could.


    ***************


    All bandaged up, lying in a bed, constantly being healed by the temple''s priests and priestesses, Valerie felt many emotions twirling inside her, many negative emotions, that is.


    She was barely able to make a sound. She was barely able to move a single finger. The result of those two things combined was that whatever she needed, she had to keep to herself. There was no way to tell anyone if she needed/wanted anything at all, be it as simple as water.


    In that pitiable state, Valerie felt like dying would be better than living.


    It was humiliating enough that a couple of goblins overpowered her. It was even more humiliating that a mere child looked down upon her. And it was furthmore humiliating that she needed to rely on others for every single thing at that moment.


    So, obviously, she felt like death would be less cruel than living like that.


    However, just when she was busy wishing for death, she felt a tremor. The nuns around her felt it too and quickly came towards her.


    "Priestess Valerie, please don''t be troubled." A nun said to her. "I''m sure it''ll be over soon."


    ''I''m sure''? Do better than that, you numbskull! She cried out in her mind, not making a sound in reality.


    That brat! How dare he-


    Her cursing was interupted by the sound of people panicking. She turned her gaze to the nuns beside her, who immediately understood the meaning of it and went to check out what''s going on.


    ''At least I can move my eyes'', was the only soothing thought in her head as of that moment.


    "Huh? What are you doing here, child? Are you lost?" A nun''s questioning voice came from somewhere in the distance, making Valerie''s attention turned to it.


    Every time she heared ''child'', she was reminded of the painstaking humiliation of the previous night.


    Well, it''s probably not him she is talking to. She reasoned with herself to calm down. And as soon as she calmed a little,


    "Priestess Valerie, Vilome wants to see you." Her temperature rises again.


    The one person she didn''t wanted to see was standing there, smirking beneath the facade of innocence and admiration.


    "He says that he is the boy you saved yesterday. He wants to thank you for it."


    Bitch! Would you stop talking!? She cursed the nun who couldn''t see the obvious lies in that boy''s words.


    "Um?" He looked at the nun with a slight blush. The nun understood and left the room, leaving the two alone.


    She probably thought just what Vilome intended for her to think, "I feel embarrased about thanking her in front of other so could you leave?" or something like that.


    "So," He said, as he condescendingly smirked at the priestess, "I see that your hate towards me has grown tremoundously. Good, good!"


    She tried, and failed to even click her tongue, which irritated her even more as Vilome continued.


    "That said though, there''s a more pressing matter to address to." He said. "It seems a terrifyingly dangerous monster has arrived in this city."


    Those words grabbed her attention.


    "With the adventurer''s guild as it is, I doubt they would be able to handle it. And with you out of comission, the Royal Church wouldn''t fare much better either."


    Despite an obvious abundance of flaws, Valerie was a high priestess and a very good one at her job. So, despite her hate towards Vilome, she knew that she should listen to him at that moment.


    "The best bet would be to evacuate. In fact, an evacuation order should already have been issued. But, the monster attacked the mayoral office before anything so it''s highly likely the mayor''s dead or hidden somewhere and can''t issue the order."


    That, without a doubt, seemed like a troublesome situation.


    "As things stand now, many lives will be lost. There''s nothing one can do about that. However, if you make at least a good portion of the city evacuate before everything goes to hell, you might have a chance of getting a promotion for dealing with such a high-stake situation with calmness even while injured so badly."


    While there was obvious sarcasm in his tone, she could tell that his suggestions made sense. Provided, there actually was a monster like that in the city.


    "Priestess Valerie! Priestess Valerie!" A young nun came rushing in. "There''s a really powerful monster ravaging through the city."


    Well, that confirmed it.


    "You fool!" The nun from before came in, angry, and pulled the young nun''s ears. "Don''t disturb Priestess Valerie when she is in such a state."


    She looked at Valerie as she said with as best a smile as she could manage. "We will deal with it, Priestess Valerie. You need not worry!"


    "B-but, the monster is really-"


    "Shut up!" She dragged the young nun, who had tears in her eyes by that point, out of the room.


    When they left, Vilome looked at Valerie with a questioning gaze. She deliberately slowly blinked - to say a ''yes''.


    "Smart decision, slut!"


    Her eyebrows twitched but she ignored it. She was more focused on asking him something else. He understood it pretty well just from her face.


    "You want to know why I am helping you?" He guessed it right, and knowing that he did, he continued to answer, "It''s because I think you I can make use of you."


    ***************


    I truly could make use of her. If I didn''t think so, I wouldn''t have told my goblins to hold back the previous night. I would have told them to go through with killing her. But, as vile and delusional that priestess was, she was also pretty cunning. And I could definitely make use of that.


    "Are you sure, Priestess Valerie?"


    Back to the church though, I had called the nuns saying that Valerie wanted to say something. Obviously, they couldn''t understand the language of a woman who can neither speak nor make hand signs so I told them in her place, "She wants you all to evacuate as many people as you can and leave the city."


    All Valerie had to do was blink to showcase her agreement. Seeing that, the priests became quiet nervous.


    "Is is because of that monster, Priestess?" Asked a priest.


    She blinked, saying ''yes''. And so, the people present there grew even more tensed. We didn''t have time for them to gather themselves together though. Thankfully, a nun who was second-in-command to Valerie only gave a small but loud speech,


    "Stop sulking, people! If this a test of our resolve and faith by the god, we will pass it!"


    She said that and clapped her hands. The priests and priestesses all bowed to her and immediately started on the mission Valerie had just given them.


    Then, that nun came to us and said to Valerie, "I will personally take you to safety so don''t worry!"


    She turned to me as she said, "You bring your family and come with us as well. I will make sure to keep you all out of harm''s way."


    I nodded and rank back to my house. With that, we were ready to evacuate. But, but ...


    ***************


    The streets were covered in crimson.


    Flesh and gore had painted the city anew.


    Cries were the music of the city.


    Corpses were it''s scenery.


    As soon as I stepped out of the church, I realized I had underestimated the threat that would be that monster. Within such a short amount of time, it had destroyed over half the city.


    It was truly something terrifying. And the worst part was - I didn''t even know what it was.


    I had only come to know through the system''s help that a monster had come to the city. I had the ran to the church.


    Therefore, in all this time, I had not gotten the opportunity to see what the thing even looked like.


    BOOM!


    But, as that sound rang out and a building close to my house was blown to bits, I had finally gotten the chance to see it.


    With a body of a big, toned-up man, black wings stretching out from it''s back and covering the entirety of the road, that red-skinned monster with four yellow eyes, all glaring at me, stood there with a stern expression as he said,


    "You - are the one!"


    I had no idea what the hell it meant. But, I knew one thing. I knew that it had ridiculous amounts of killing intent towards me. And that was enough information for me to know what to do - run.


    But, was running away from such a monstrosity even possible?

 7 Rakshasa Gahan

    [A dangerous monster has been detected nearby!]


    [Analysing the monster ...]


    As the system showed up with all that, I kept running as fast as I could, paying only the minimal amount of attention to the system.


    [Analysed!]


    [The monster has been identified as: Rakshasa Gahan, the destroyer of Zywar]


    I couldn''t help but curse as I read that name. As far as I knew, Zywar was considered a monster, even among gods. Only the most nihilistic of people ever prayed to him.


    [Would you like to see the monster''s stats?]


    If a person had asked that question, I would have put an iron rod up their ass shouting, "Obviously!" But since it was a system, all I could do was say ''yes''.


    [Name: Gahan]


    [Race: Rakshasa]


    Rakshasas, a special kind of demons, were perhaps the strongest mortal threat in the world. Anything stronger than a Rakshasa would be an immortal. That''s what I had heard.


    [Age: 150 years]


    For a Rakshasa, or Demons in general, a 150-year-old would have been considered new adult in that world, and a teen back on Earth. Basically, he would mentally be the equivalent of a 15-year-old human.


    [Specialization: Demon Arts]


    [Realm: Golden]


    [Your chances of winning: 0%]


    Yeah, I was screwed. A Rakshasa who had reached Golden Realm in Demon Arts could easily have laughed off all my attacks. The strongest attacks that my undead minions could deal wouldn''t even hurt him as much as a mosquito bite would to a human.


    Furthermore, running away was useless as well. As he made clear in the next second, my speed was not even a-hundredth of his.


    "Shit!" I cursed as I saw him standing right in front of me, ready to swing his hand down at me to kill me.


    "Die!" He said.


    "You first!" I said.


    A hail came down on his back, probably doing nothing more than stinging a little, but giving me enough of a chance to get away from his attack. And get away I did, as the ground I was standing on broke apart by the hand he had swung down.


    I took a glance at the priets and priestess of the church who had saved me. It wasn''t a coincidence though. Keeping in mind the possibility that running away might not work out, I had specifically ran back into the church so all the priests and priestess could see us and save me if at all possible. The strategy had worked out, but what next?


    More than any of my schemes, my life was important. That much was obvious.


    So, the top priority was me getting out of there alive. I could sacrific anyone I have to for that.


    If, at all possible though, taking Valerie was something I wanted to do. Just looking at her delusions had filled me with an infinite number of ideas as to how I could use her in my quest for power.


    And if, somehow, there was a way to get more people out of there, I could take my little sister, Hena. She was a child who I could mold to blindly follow me and so her usefulness was also pretty high.


    Other than that, I didn''t really think anybody would be useful.


    However, as I was busy thinking of how I could take what few people are possible to take and run away, a surprising voice came from the room a particular High Priestess was in,


    "Decree of Light!"


    The nun who was second-in-command to Valerie shouted so as blinding light appeared above our heads. Instinctively, I jumped away, but the Rakshasa was too distracted to do the same.


    In the next moment, a large part of the church had become cinders.


    That move, Decree of Light, was a move that very few could use and once used, the user would become so fatigued that they''d immediately fall unconscious. It was rumored that once a person fell unconscious because of using it, it would take months for them to regain consciousness.


    Proportionate to these drawbacks though, the attack was an immensely powerful. If anyone who was not a believer of Emolive, the god of Light, came in contact with it, they would be burn to death ASAP.


    In case it isn''t clear, I am mentioning the reason why I had to jump away. If I hadn''t, even I couldn''t have avoided dying.


    Thankfully, it destroyed Gahan.


    "GRRRR!!!"


    Or did it?


    "GGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!"


    The priests fell to the ground with unsurmountable shock as they saw the most powerful attack in their arsenal do little damage to Gahan.


    While Gahan''s body was burned and he was bleeding, it seemed like he still had more than half the strength as before (which was enough to handle all of us).


    I, immediately, ran to the room Valerie was in. Gahan noticed that but didn''t respond right away. It was clearly to say that he didn''t think there was any possibility I could get away from him, so he''d let me run around as much as possible.


    That, I happily say, was his mistake.


    As I entered Valeire''s room, I immediately said, "No change of plans! But you better be grateful for this!"


    Her eyes showed clear confusion as she looked at me. Since time was of essence though, I didn''t explain anything but summoned the two undead Wysks and Goblins I had. They appeared out of the shadows and looked at me, ready to be given commanded.


    I turned their attention to Valerie by my pointing my finger and saying, "You goblins, put her on a chair and throw it out of the place through the window. Then, jump out the window and take her to the outskirts of the city."


    Being as foolish as they were, I had to give them instructions like I was instructing a baby. However, once I gave them those instructions, they immediately got to work, manhandling Valerie like she was a large sack of potatoes.


    She cried "AH!" and "OH!" and whatnot in pain but I didn''t have time for that. I turned back to the Rakshasa Gahan, who was still outside the room, casually destroying the priests left and right and said to the Wysks, "Go and distract him for as long as possible!"


    They too, immediately, got to work. Before any of them were so far that they couldn''t hear me though, I said one thing, "Your lives doen''t matter, just do the job right!"


    ***************


    As those Wysks started distracting Gahan, I too jumped out of the window. I could see the goblins taking the chair Valerie was put on and running as fast as they could.


    Then, turning the other way, I ran as I summoned the undead dark fox. I told it immediately, "Go to my house and get the scrolls you stole last night and run away."


    Since I could sense these minions of mine and vice-versa, just one of them escaping away from Gahan was enough was we could reunite later without a problem.


    Since that was done, I kept running, running and running.


    Gahan''s target was me so it was stupid to even think of the possibility of being able to escape by just running away. So, I wasn''t as much running away as I was running towards - the mayoral office.


    It was the place Gahan had first attacked. So, it was nothing more than a pile of rubble, all in all.


    But, it was still useful for many reasons.


    ***************


    For a while, the God Zywar had been troubled. Gahan had no idea as to why but he knew something major had to be wrong for him to get troubled.


    Since it was neither his duty nor his place to ask, he had tried to ignore it as much as he could. But, at the end, he had been unable to not ask why.


    Contrary to his expecations and past experiences though, Zywar had not become angry or disgusted. He had merely answered with a melancholic expression, "The god of darkness, whom all us gods had to try so hard to kill, has returned. While I don''t understand how it is possible, but the fact is - he has returned and seeks to destroy us all."


    Hearing so, Gahan''s blood boiled.


    How could some puny god he had never even heard of come and give trouble to the great Zywar?


    It was utterly ridiculous.


    And on top of that, that god dared to think that he could destroy other gods, especially Zywar?


    Unforgivable!


    He had to be shown his place. He had to be shown that he had nothing over Zywar.


    And to do that, Gahan decided to go and kill him, force him to reincarnate using his divine powers into some rotten world and suffer for all eternity there.


    After he had found the god in question, he had been a little surprised to see how weak that god was.


    ''God Zywar was worrying over nothing.'' He had thought to himself.


    But since he had determined to do so, he decided that he would still kill that god.


    And so, having killed all the priests and priestesses in the church, he ran straight towards the mayoral office, as there was where he could sense that god to be.


    As soon as he arrived though, he saw something he couldn''t believe.


    "What the!"


    He looked at the many monsters standing there as if they wanted to fight him. Usually, monsters would run with their tail between their legs as soon as they sensed him approaching. Yet, these monsters, which included goblins, dark foxes, dark wolves, Wysks, imps and so on, were all standing there looking at him with hostility and clear intention to fight.


    And then, out of the stairs to the basement, his target came out and said with a smirk, "The second quest was really giving me a dilemna. I might have wasted a lot more time completing it, normally. So, I thank you for having sped up my progress!"

 8 The Rank-Up That Turned The Tables!

    I wasn''t planning that many steps ahead when I had ran to the mayoral office.


    All I had in mind was going to the underground prison of the mayoral office, finding the corpses of the numerous monsters that are kept there for various reasons (like government-funded research or experiments), and turn them into my undead minions.


    For the sake of the research and/or experiments, those corpses were preserved as much as possible. Hence, even if I couldn''t get as good results as I would get from a fresh corpse, I would still be able to turn them into my undead soldiers.


    I had planned to use most of those soldiers to distract Gahan, and run away to the forest with some of them.


    Then, I would have used them to kill more monsters, turning them into undead and sending them as distraction and repeating these steps many times over as I ran away.


    However, things changed when I turned a hobgoblin into my soldier.


    The hobgoblin wasn''t the reason though, the reason was that it was my 50th undead minion. Hence, the second quest had been completed.


    Being wrapped up in getting away from Gahan, the quest had slipped my mind for a while, but when that happened, the system showed these messages:-


    [The God Path - Quest 2: "Form an army of 50 undead monsters" has been completed]


    [Your quest rewards have arrived]


    The first of the two rewards was the same as the last time - 10 gold coins. But, it was the second one that changed everything.


    [Quest Reward No. 2: Ability "Necromancy (Rank D)" has been modified to ability "Necromancy (Rank C)"]


    After just a second''s delay, another message appeared.


    [Ability "Necromancy" has been ranked up!]


    [Now, you are able to turn humans into undead.]


    I smirked when I saw it as the system was basically telling me that not only could I escape alive, and take Valerie, but I could also take Hena with me. Hence, all my schemes would not go to waste.


    Immediately, I told two of my dark wolves to go and grab Hena, especially telling them to not be too rough with her so I don''t find a corpse of a 2-year-old when I see her the next time, and told them to go to the person with the strongest aura of light (which was Valerie).


    With all that done, I had easily discarded my previous plan and decided to bring my whole army out to battle Gahan head-on.


    Not that I thought they stood a chance or anything but with the one benefit I had been given from the rank up of Necromancy, all they needed to do was buy me a couple of seconds.


    When, while ascending the stairs back to the surface, I caught the silhoutte of Gahan, I couldn''t help but chuckle.


    "What the!" He exclaimed, seeing the little army of monsters in front of him, ready to fight him.


    I said with a smirk as I stepped back on the surface, "The second quest was really giving me a dilemna. I might have wasted a lot more time completing it, normally. So, I thank you for having sped up my progress!"


    Taking my words as mockery (which they partly were), Gahan yelled, "You think these could stop me?!"


    Instead of answering, I turned to my monsters, signaling them to start attacking.


    A six-and-a-half feet tall hobgoblin threw a boulder half its size at Gahan while all the dark wolves present surrounded and growled at him, creating blind spots for imps to hide in and start using whatever projectiles they had.


    Gahan easily crushed the boulder with his bare hands but because of the many rocks, arrows and sticks being thrown at him and making his body itch, he was still unable to keep his eyes on me as I ran away on a dark wolf - to increase my army.


    ***************


    A had run to the west side of the city. Then, I had run to the east. Then, the south. The north is where the mayoral office was so that was, in a way, already covered. So, when I reached south, I had ended up covering the whole city.


    It had taken me about twenty minutes, all in all. It would probably would have taken a lot more if I hadn''t been riding on a dark wolf.


    Anyway, when I reached the south part of the city and saw the exit to the city, from which all the alive residents were being evacuated from, I noticed my family. They were frantic as hell.


    My mother was bugging the officers repeatedly, Hans was trying to stop her, and Helga was try to stop him from stopping her. Seeing as how neither I nor Hena was there, it wasn''t a challenge to figure out what she was bugging them about.


    I wanted to get in closer and listen in without being noticed so I could confirm if those dark wolves had taken Hena or not but I couldn''t, as I heard Gahan''s roar not very far away.


    "Finally done with the dummies, eh?"


    Everywhere I had gone, I had turned a few people or monsters into undead and sent them after Gahan. They had constantly held Gahan back from catching up to me. As it was only a matter of time though, Gahan killed all of them and caught up to me.


    "I-Is that the monster who attacked the city!?" A panicked idiot shouted from near the exit to the city. That led to everyone present, no matter what condition they were in, turning their heads to look at the monster and starting to panic.


    The guards tried their best to calm them down but they were lacking their leaders, who had been killed in the attack at mayoral office. And so, they couldn''t stop the people from going crazy with fear.


    It''d be a boring hassle to describe how they all ran away from there looking like they were statues portraying fear. And anyway, it''s not like I cared much to look at their faces.


    The face I cared about was the red, ugly, four-eyed face of a Rakshasa who was running towards me with clear intent to kill.


    ''Now!'' I gave this command within my mind to all my undead soldiers throughout the city.


    As said before, I had turned into undead and sent after Gahan - some people. The rest, the majority of the dead-turned-undead, I had made them follow me as quietly as possible. And in that moment, I had told them all to come out - and come out they had.


    The few people who were still near the gate and were looking Gahan''s way noticed all the adventurers, priests, priestesses and guards who had been killed standing there with a dark presence surrounding them and looking directly at Gahan with intent to kill.


    "HAD ENOUGH OF THIS!!!" Gahan too was frustrated after being stalled by the same strategy so many times. He looked ready to charge right through them and at me, enduring anything my minions throw at him.


    As if that wasn''t predictable!


    I gave all my minions one command, ''Pray to God Zywar to stop this monster!''


    They all immediately got down on their knees and started praying. Even as angry as Gahan was, he was left surprised by seeing that.


    But it was the obvious thing to do.


    The only other option would have been to do what was I doing all this time - leave all of them to stall him while I run away. But, how long was that strategy going to last? In the furious state Gahan was in, I doubt it would have worked even one more time.


    So, the only thing I could do - was make these former humans pray to the god this monster served.


    For better or for worse, Zywar had not sent Gahan to kill me. If that had been the case, he would have sent more like Gahan to make sure I was immediately dealt with.


    It wasn''t concrete proof but it was a pretty safe bet, still, to think that Gahan was acting on his own.


    So, praying to his master was the best way to stop him.


    And - it worked.


    When those hundreds of humans got to their knees and started praying to him, even the laziest of gods would check out what was going on.


    And, just according to my plan, after he did see what was going on, Zywar immediately commanded Gahan to return.


    The monster made a grumpy expression, looking like he was trying to justify himself but was told to shut up and do as is told. And so, Gahan backed away, looked at me with scorn one last time, and started running in the other direction.


    Seeing that, I took a sigh of relief. But, just in the next moment,


    ''That was well played, Vilome.'' I heard Zywar''s deeply enigmatic voice in my head. ''I have to applaude you for that.''


    ''No need, Zywar.'' Talking to him felt like I had DID, as I was talking to someone in my head.


    But, in any case,


    ''Well, since we have got this opportunity to talk, I should probably tell you - this isn''t going to be the last time someone tries to kill you. Every single god in the entire universe hates you after all.''


    ''While I don''t know why that is, I do know that Gods would only come after me if I tread in their domain. As long as I keep my interference minimal, they don''t have any right to try to kill me.'' I reasoned.


    ''Perhaps, but morons like Gahan are in every God''s army, not just mine.''


    ''Ha! Well, we''ll see what happens then.''


    ''Yes, we will.''


    And then, as if a call had been cut, I felt my mind getting a bit lighter, as the telepathic connection to Zywar had left my mind.


    "Hah!" I took a long sigh, getting off the dark wolf I was riding, and stretching my arms and legs.


    When my gaze fell at a broken clock which probably belonged to one of the houses near that place, I realized that only a little more than half a day had passed. The whole thing with Gahan had made it feel like an entire day''s, no, an entire''s week work.


    I was tired. Really tired.


    But, as the city had been destroyed, and many of my plans were half-way completed, I couldn''t afford to rest.


    I got back at the dark wolf, told all my new human undeads to disappear once again, and rode out of the city, far away from the road to make sure guards and my family and others don''t see me.


    While I can''t bring myself to like Gahan in any way, I had to admit that his attack had helped me.


    How?


    Well, folks, stay tuned!

 9 Rakshasa Yahan

    There were two things that myseriously felt like a part of me even though they weren''t.


    First - was the system. Looking at the system was like I was thinking about some idea in my head. It felt completely naturally a part of me.


    Second - were my undead minions. They felt like my shadows. And as we know, the shadow is something that doesn''t leave you, ever.


    So, even if they weren''t around me, I could still easily track them down and reunite with them.


    I did so with the dark fox. As it climbed on the dark wolf I was riding, the fox gave me the scrolls I had tasked it to steal and run.


    Thankfully, it had been able to take all of them and keep them unharmed. They were bound to come in very handy later on.


    I didn''t stop to read them back then though. As soon as I got those scrolls and the fox back with me, I started heading towards the place I could sense the goblins and dark wolves that I had to reunite with to be in.


    ***************


    It was one humiliation after another. Valerie just could not understand how those things could be happening to her.


    First - she was caught prostrating and lustfully threatening Emoliv (or his statue at least) and that too by a dark fox.


    Second - a 5-year-old had made a mockery of her ambitions.


    Third - she had been beaten down by a couple of stupid goblins.


    Fourth - she was saved by that child, using those very goblins.


    Fifth - she was manhandled by those goblins like she was a sack of potatoes.


    Sixth - there was no sixth yet. But she knew that if she stayed anywhere near that boy, the sixth, seventh, and the seventeenth won''t be very far away.


    So, while the entire city was busy panicking, the High Priestess was busy thinking of a way to get away from that child as soon as possible.


    Asking to be transferred to another city''s church was the obvious thing.


    ''Yes, that''s what I should do.'' She thought to herself.


    At that moment, she was on a wooden chair, right in the middle of a forest. But, she was still safe as all the monsters seemed to have run far away after sensing the demonic monster who had attacked the city.


    So, as ironic as it might have been, the forest that had the terrifying bloodbath incident happen just a few days prior - was the safest place for one to be in.


    When that boy, Vilome, had told these goblins to take her to the outskirts of the city, he must have known that this would be the case.


    ''As much as I hate him, I have to give him some credit. That child is smart, too smart for his age actually.'' She thought to herself. ''And not only smart either, he can control these undead monsters like he''s their god or something.''


    As a High Priestess, she was obviously very knowledgable about the various arts, even the ones that had become history. So, she could tell that what that boy was using was the long-forgotten art of Necromancy, a part of Dark Arts.


    That is why, on some level, Valerie couldn''t help but be intrigued by him.


    After all, the God of Darkness had been killed a long time ago. And so, all the Dark Arts that existed should have become unusable. That''s how it always is.


    Arts only exist because of a God represents and holds dominion over them. Even if that God dies, that Art dies with them.


    So, how come could he be using Dark Arts? Did that mean the God of Darkness had returned? She questioned herself.


    But her thoughts were interrupted by the crying of a child.


    A couple of dark wolves with the same undead aura as the goblins had brought that 2-year-old child there. Since the time they had brought her, they had laid her out on the ground and sat around as if they are the parents/guardians of her.


    While initially alarmed by the arrival of those dark wolves, Valerie had soon realized that the undead aura meant they too were Vilome''s minions.


    She had left to wonder though who that child was?


    Then, she heard a loud roar somewhere in the distance. It was most definitely the monster who had attacked the city.


    She had not gotten a good look at it but she knew it was powerful. After all, the priests and priestesses of the Church were pretty much useless against him. Even ''Decree of Light'' had failed in accomplishing the task of defeating that monster. Though, it might have been a different matter if she was the one using that move instead of her second-in-command. But still,


    ''How can Vilome possibly hope to defeat that monster?'' She wondered to herself.


    No matter how smart a person is, there is a point where brute strength outmatches everything. Was that not the point he had reached against that monster?


    "What a bizzare sight!"


    ''I know, right?''


    ...


    ''Wait!'' It had taken her a moment to realize it. ''Whose voice was that?''


    It had come from her behind and she wasn''t in any position to turn her neck to that extent, so she could only wonder who that voice belonged to.


    "Oh? Why do I sense your anxiety rising?" The voice asked. It was an oddly cheerful, high-pitched voice but it sounded like the owner of that voice was a boy.


    The reason?


    "Cheer up, my dear! Anxiety does not suit such a beauty as yourself!" The reason was the amount of lust that she could sense, coming from behind, coming from him.


    ''W-who the heck is that guy!?''


    Being in the state she was, anyone except maybe that 2-year-old child in front of her was stronger than her. She couldn''t help but feel anxious.


    "Ah, I guess you must be wondering who I am. Where are my manners?" He said and a sound of someone tapping themselves on their head came. "I am Rakshasa Yahan, the assassin of Zywar."


    Her blood froze.


    Zywar, because he was the God of Demons, had many powerful Demons serving him. However, even among them, there were two Rakshasas who were the most infamous.


    Gahan, the destroyer of Zywar, was a Rakshasa with incredible strength. He was foolish, but very powerful.


    On the other hand, his twin brother Yahan, the assassin of Zywar, was a conniving little asshole whose skills in assassination were unmatched. However, what he was really infamous for was his overly-possessive nature over anything he took a liking towards.


    And many a times, the ''things'' that he took a liking towards happened to be women. Beautiful women, in fact.


    Yes, he was infamous for being a lustful degenerate with major ego problems. And since he was standing behind her, she couldn''t help but tremble in fright.


    "My brother went on a rampage in the town nearby. Or is it a city? Well, doesn''t matter." He continued on as if he was talking to himself. "I came to see what he was doing. And, my-oh-my, through the blessings of my god Zywar, I found you."


    Valerie looked at the undead goblins as well as dark wolves but they had no intention of doing anything.


    She knew that these creatures are really stupid and so if Vilome didn''t instruct them to do something, they wouldn''t do it. And she clearly remembered, Vilome hadn''t instructed them to protect her from any potential rapists, had he?


    "Well, I don''t care about what Gahan is up to now. I only care about you." He said, starting to walk towards her. "What do you say, beauty? Be my wife!"


    To the best of her ability, she tried to get away. And - she couldn''t even budge the chair an inch.


    Yahan casually stepped in front of her and asked, "Oh, what is it? Are you so heated after hearing my voice that you can''t help but dance like that?"


    ''I''d kill you, you fucking asshole.'' She shouted, insider her mind. The only sound that could escape from her mouth was the ''I'' part at the beginning.


    Yahan pretended to not notice, or not care, as he continued,


    "Well then, since you are so much in heat, I think we should get to it already, shouldn''t we?"


    He had a thin, human-like appearance, with an ugly face and a tall build. Though, to be honest, his tall build was mostly because of his long arms and legs.


    As he stood there in front of her, she could clearly notice a bulge below his waist.


    It terrified her ten times more, as if she only then realized that she really going to be raped.


    Yahan''s long, skinny arms reached out for her breasts, and she closed her eyes, praying to Emoliv to save her. But then,


    "Bitch!" A rock flew right in her face, making her, along with the chair, fall down to the ground.


    ''What the!'' She turned her gaze back to where it had come from and saw Vilome, sitting on an undead dark wolf.


    "Don''t you dare pray to Emoliv when I am around! It''s toxic to me!" He yelled at her with a disgusted expression.


    "And who might you be?" Yahan asked, frustrated enough to be repeatedly clicking his tongue.


    "I am the guy your brother ran away from, and you better do as well!" He said, without hesitation. "Refuse, and Zywar would be here in a moment to take you home himself."


    "What!" Yahan looked at him with confusion, confusion over many things.


    The fact that a child was talking like that, all condescening. The fact that he was threatening him by taking Zywar''s name so casually. The fact that he was taking Zywar''s name without any respect at all.


    Yahan didn''t knew whether he should be more frustrated or more surprised.


    And, fortunately and unfortunately for him, he didn''t have to choose, as he was given something more important to focus his brain on.


    ''I don''t think there''s any point in giving him a way out, Vilome.'' The voice of the God Zywar could be heard in the heads of Yahan, Valerie as well as Vilome.


    "G-god Yahan?!"


    ''Yes Yahan, and you should return to my palace right now! We have to talk!''


    Hearing that threatening voice, Yahan''s shoulders jumped up and he immediately ran away, cursing Vilome and shouting promises at Valerie saying they will make love some other time.


    When he was gone, Valerie sighed in relief.


    "Good to see that all my plans worked out!" Vilome said.


    He noticed Valerie''s curious gaze on him. He could easily guess what she wanted to ask.


    "You want to know who exactly I am, don''t you?"


    She blinked - saying ''yes'', as the goblins picker her and the chair back up on Vilome''s command.


    "Now this is going to make you think of yourself as an idiot for not noticing it, which I would love to see. So, my name - Vilome - spell it backwards."


    With no idea as to what that would accomplish, she did as he told. And then -


    V-I-L-O-M-E


    Backwards, it would be E-M-O-L-I-V.


    As she realized that, the dots connected, but the conclusion was too hard to believe.


    ''This is just a coincidence, isn''t it? It couldn''t actually be true, could it?''


    The conclusion it had lef to was that the boy in front of her, just like his name, was the exact opposite of Emoliv.


    And well, who is the exact opposite of the God of Light?


    "It seems like you figured it out but are trying to deny it. So let me spell it out for you once and for all - I am the God of Darkness, Vilome."


    Himdere had said that the reason that Vilome was the only one in the family whose name didn''t start with an ''h'' was because of his aura.


    Damn right it was!


    It was his aura that induced into her brain the name that genuinely belonged to him, the name that belonged to the forgotten God of Darkness.


    "Well, that''s strange. Maybe things have been too rough for her lately."


    Vilome nodded to his own suggestion as soon as he voiced it.


    To be fair though, it had been a pretty rough time for her.


    Aside from the humilations she had already went through, she had also just been two steps away from being raped and was saved by a rock thrown at her.


    Then, it had been revealed to her that the kid she was hating all this time was the God of Darkness himself.


    Seeing all that, while it isn''t something that would have happened to Vilome, he could understand why the woman would lose consciousness.


    "Hah!" He casually sighed.


    ***************


    [Name: Vilome]


    [Race: God]


    [Age: Irrelevant]


    [Specialization: Dark Arts]


    [Realm: Base]


    [Progress Towards Next Realm: 2.5%]


    [Quests Completed: 2]


    [Authorities Acquired: None]


    [Weapons Mastered: None]


    There was progress. On both parts - power and planning.


    After all, my plan had succeeded.


    Valerie and Hena.


    One weapon and one with an amazing potential to become a weapon.


    They had both become my possessions.


    I was able to get away from Gahan. And I was able to acquire the scrolls.


    Also, the quest that was giving me a dilemna had been completed, also teaching me an important lesson of ''not overthinking stuff''.


    And since I had been ''labelled'' as missing during that incident, I also had a perfect opportunity to get away from my family. I knew that living in a peaceful family like that would have limited my potential. I couldn''t let that happen. So, I was planning on getting away from them somehow.


    I had no idea the opportunity would present itself to me.


    But it had. And I wasn''t about to let it go to waste.


    What Zywar had said about all the gods hating me - I was convinced about that even before and so after he said it, there was no possible way to deny it.


    Hence, one thing was sure - things were about to get more interesting.

 10 Follower!

    Putting various undead wolves, foxes and such type of creatures to work alongside my undead human minions made it pretty easy to carry the unconscious Valerie and Hena as we set off to the nearest town.


    When I say nearest town though, I don''t mean a human town.


    Going to a place filled with humans would have been asking for rumors to be spread about. And while rumors can be beneficial under certain cirumcustances, back then, it would have been a straight-up disaster.


    There was also the possibility that my mother and the two older siblings would end up at the same city and reunite with me. It would have been hard to get away from them if that happened, and I didn''t want it to come to killing them, not that soon anyway.


    Hence, I had decided to go to the nearest inhuman town.


    Inhumans were the hybrid between humans and monsters. Elves, Dyrads, Dwarfs, and all kinds of beastmen were all inhumans.


    The relationship between humans, inhumans and monsters was very complicated.


    Some hated each other. Some liked each other.


    There was truly no better way to explain it than that the relationship was complicated.


    However, it didn''t matter to me what they thought of each other. I had an army big enough to overtake control of a town. If the need had presented itself, I could have easily done that.


    So, I rode to a town with no name, populated mostly with dwarves, and about half an hour away from that city on a wolf''s back.


    The town was only a quarter the size of what the city I had lived in was but it was obviously enough for us.


    As soon as the town entered my line of sight, I made all my undead army disappear and ran to the inhumans, asking for help.


    I made-up a story about being attacked by a dark wolf and told them that my guardian and my little sister were in bad shape. They immediately came to help, taking Valerie and Hena to the doctors.


    When that stupid farce had worked so easily on them, I had caught just a glimpse of the pleasure Valerie would have been experiencing all those years that she had spent deceiving all around her, making them think that she was an oh-so-pure High Priestess with no dark intentions whatsoever.


    ***************


    A week passed.


    We spent that whole week in the town.


    I carefully expanded on my made-up story (adding a mission to find our mother and a long lost father into it) to make it more tragic and the dwarves all easily bought it.


    Regardless of how they felt about humans in general, since they were sentient species driven by emotions, just like humans, they couldn''t turn us away after hearing that kind of story.


    And so, for a whole week, Hena was taken care of by the chief of the town and his wife, and Valerie was healed by those who knew Healing Arts. I had lived with the town chief as well.


    It was then, a week later, that I had made a request to be allowed to see Valerie.


    She was yet to regain consciousness by that point so the healers were reluctant but couldn''t refuse when I used a ''puppy-dog'' face and eyes.


    Ah! The benefits of being little! How I miss them now!


    "Hey bitch! Wake up already, will you?" I said, after making sure that I was left alone with Valerie.


    "If you don''t wake up, don''t blame me for what may happen next." I threatened her, just for the sake of the little possibility that she was actually awake and was just acting. I couldn''t underestimate her acting skills after all.


    By that point, all her visible wounds had been healed. If there were still any wounds that were left to be healed, they would have been internal. Hence, lying unconscious on a bed there, that rotten woman was radiating with beauty and allure.


    In my past life, I would have probably ended up having a crush on her because of that allure.


    But, in this life, the first thoughts that came to mind when witnessing that allure firsthand was how I could user her to seduce powerful men and use that to my advantage.


    "That''s it!"


    I decided, right then and there, that I would turn her into my first follower.


    "Now wake up, bitch!" I said and summoned a dark fox, telling it to bite her on the shoulders, and the neck.


    No effect!


    I told it to bite her again, and again, and again, and then bite at her other shoulder, and the other side of the neck, and again there, and finally,


    "aahh-"


    She got up, crying out, not understanding what was going on. Thankfully, I was quick in ordering the dark fox to shut her up, which it did pretty easily by pressing the one part of her throat that would drown out all sound from her voice.


    "Don''t shout, you bitch! If you do, your ''doctors'' would come here and we will lose the opportunity to discuss things." I casually explained.


    She looked at me for a moment, as if she didn''t even remember who I was. And then, within a single second, as if all her memories came rushing back, she jumped back in the bed.


    "W-w-wha-what-"


    "Calm down!" I used as loud a voice as I could muster without letting anyone outside the room we were in hear us.


    "If you wanna hear comforting things like ''you''re safe now'', well, you are."


    She looked back-and-forth from me and her body, realizing that all her visible wounds had been healed, and also that I was probably responsible for it.


    What followed was a moment of silence that she used to get herself together, after which she asked, "So, how did we get here?"


    I told her the parts of the story she didn''t know, from who that monster was to everything that happened after she fell unconscious, and she just calmly breathed a sigh of relief.


    "I see. So, in the end, I am completely indebted to you, eh?" She frowned as she said that.


    I knew well what that frown meant.


    "To think, a High Priestess of Emoliv''s church could be so much indebted to his archnemesis!?"


    "I don''t know about being his archnemesis but he does piss me off!" I said. "In any case, I have an offer for you."


    She turned her head and looked at me, for the first time not showing disgust or hate, but only curiousness.


    "Become my first follower!"


    Her eyes widened for just a second before returning to normal.


    "I offered you this before but since you didn''t know I am the God of Darkness, I can excuse you for thinking that the offer didn''t mean anything. Now, however, you do!"


    She looked down in silence, contemplating. I decided to give her a little while to do so but then she suddenly said,


    "So basically, you are asking me to do whatever you tell me to in exchange for, when your body is that of an adult, giving me your child?"


    "Yeah, kinda."


    She chuckled, not like her usual condescending scoff though, she just chuckled, "You do realize why I want the child of Emoliv, don''t you?"


    "Because having his child will give you wealth and power? I know. And your reason for asking me that question would probably be that having my child wouldn''t give you those things. I also know that."


    "Then, why should I accept your offer?"


    "Because, those things are just how it is right now."


    "Hm?"


    I smirked as I told her, "I plan to take over this nation, then this world, then this universe. I plan to strike down all gods, and take my revenge against all the those who wronged me in my past life."


    Her eyes widening with surprise, she kept her attention on my words.


    "Hence, it is only a matter of time before Emoliv''s children stopped being treated as divine champions and my rule begins. And well, when that happens, even without having my child, my first follower would obviously become a very important figure."


    In fact, it was obvious that the position of power and authority, and wealth, that I was offering her far surpassed what she would get from having Emoliv''s child. Hence, she chuckled.


    Those chuckles, surprisingly, gave the aura of a young woman who didn''t have dark intentions behind her words.


    I think, at that point, whether it was because she had realized that I was the God of Darkness or it was because I had saved her life, she had forgotten all the negative emotions she had towards me.


    "You are a fool!" She said.


    My eyebrows twitched and I clicked my tongue as I exclaimed, "What!?"


    "Don''t get angry!" She said, still chuckling a bit. "I am just saying that you asking me to be your follower is foolish."


    She turned her whole body to me, and proceeded to bow.


    "I should be the one begging you to allow me to be your follower!"


    "Huh?"


    "All my life, everything I had dreamt - I had to keep it hidden inside, because there was no god who would condone those things. But ... but that darkness is what you thrive on. That darkness that plagues my being is what you are the god of. Meeting you is like a dream come true. So, I should be the one begging you to make me your follower!"


    I realized - I really was a fool.


    "Well then, start begging!" I said, laughing mockingly.


    "Ex-cuse me?"


    "You should be begging, right? So beg! After all, I might still be considering changing my mind about this whole deal."


    Hearing that, she immediately jumped off the bed, got to her knees and bowed down, touching the ground from her forehead as she said, "Please allow me to be your first follower, God Vilome! I will do any-and-everything that you tell me to!"


    I couldn''t help but smirk as I put my feet on her head and said, "Fine!"


    And then, the system window appeared.


    [The God Path - Quest 3: "Obtain your first follower" has been completed]

 11 The Scene From The Cupboard

    15 was a very significant age in the world. Reaching this age meant the coming of age ceremony for a person, i.e., this was the age that marked a person''s transition into adulthood.


    By the time a person reached this age, they were expected to be good enough at whatever Arts they specialized in that they can spend their entire life independently even if they don''t learn anything past that point.


    In the system''s language, this was the age a person should transcend from Base Realm to Advanced Realm.


    And for a naturally gifted person like Jill Jake who had been able to do that pretty easily, what awaited him was a life of success and fame, no matter whether he decided to pursue more mastery in his Arts or he pursued to make a career out of what he had learned.


    This boy, who had just turned 15 a couple of months ago, was as naturally gifted as they come.


    He was born to a prestigious family, with his mother being a reknowned adventurer and his father being a reknowned painter, and they had definitely passed on their genes to him. He specialized in Spear Arts, which his mother''s area of expertise was, but he was also very talented in painting.


    In his childhood, he had often been praised as one of the kingdom''s child prodigies among the adventurer friends of his mother and when he had been 11, he had won an inter-school region-wide painting championship and hence, had caught the eyes of many.


    He was also supposedly quite good looking. He had got the good parts of his father and mother both.


    Thus, one can say he had everything in his life.


    And yet, if a guy were to tell him that to his face, he''d knock that guy''s teeth out.


    ''Everything? Don''t make me laugh!'' He would say. ''I don''t have her!''


    She was a blue-haired, ivory-skinned aspiring adventurer of his age, named Yasmine.


    To Jill, she was the most beautiful woman in the world, and getting a chance to touch her perfect D-Cups was his lifelong dream.


    And yet, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn''t ever get her attention for more than a second when HE was around.


    Vilome - the boy who Yasmine was in love with - was the only thing standing between Jill and Yasmine''s ''perfect'' romance together.


    Even that day, when Yasmine''s coming of age ceremony had been held, right after two months of his ceremony nonetheless, all she had been focused on the entire time was Vilome.


    It''s like everything in the world was second to Vilome for her.


    He hated that. Of course he did.


    And so, he decided to destroy Vilome''s life.


    He decided to sneak into his house and steal the badge that signified Vilome as an adult in the world.


    Since Yasmine''s coming of age ceremony was going on and she wouldn''t have let him go, he had plenty of time to execute his plan.


    Once his badge was stolen, all he had to do was spread rumors about it and Vilome''s image would have come crashing down.


    Surely, then, Yasmine would realize how much of a loser he was.


    ''It''s perfect! My plan is perfect!'' He grinned to himself as he thought that while entering Vilome''s house.


    It was around 1 o''clock.


    He knew that the house was going to be empty as the three members of the house were all going to be busy, one with school, one with Yasmine''s ceremony, and one with her duties in the church.


    But still, he couldn''t help but he careful as he silently walked into the house.


    It was a rather fine house, not too big but big enough for three people to live comfortably.


    Since Jill''s house was much bigger though, he found the size of that house to be something to be laughed at.


    ''In a house like this, just long would it take for me to find your stupid, little badge?'' He grinned to himself and started searching.


    But just then, the main door started to open.


    He tensed up, quickly running to the closest room he could find. He heard the footsteps of someone coming in, and decided to hide in a large, wooden drawer-type thing that Vilome used to refer to as a ''cupboard'' or sometimes ''almirah''.


    Whatever it was, it was big enough for him to hide in.


    ''Goddamnit! Who would have come home now!?'' He wondered on the question, and soon got the answer.


    A blonde, beautiful priestess, who looked to be in her thirties came in the room with a tired expression.


    "Man, those priests are so boring!" She said in a complaining voice and threw herself on the bed.


    According to what Jill knew, this woman was named Valerie and had been the legal guardian of both Vilome and his sister, Hena, up until Vilome had become an adult two months prior. She was also a priestess in the Royal Church.


    ''Why is she here?! She should be at the church!'' He curses her for spoiling his plans by her untimely arrival.


    Completely unaware of all that, Valerine got up to a sitting position and took a long sigh.


    "Guess I''ll cheer myself up!" She then said to herself.


    And in the next moment, all the cursing inside Jill''s head froze by the sight in front of his eyes.


    Valerie took her nun outfit of, revealing her naked body.


    She had a great figure despite her age, with her B-Cups and her moderate ass being symmetrical with her average arms and legs, and also the curves.


    If one were to go by her sizes, she wouldn''t be that impressive in any way. However, on her pretty face and smooth, pale skin, every part of her body looked hot enough to make Jill''s excalibur start ''powering up''.


    "Ah! That''s better!" Valerie said, touching her breats with her hands and slowly massaging them, making pleased sounds.


    Looking at it from the hole in the cupboard, Jill was frozen in his place.


    "AH! Ah!" Valerie breathed heavily as she looked lost in her own world.


    "If only ... if only you''d do it to me, Vilome!" She said in a half-complaining voice.


    "I mean, you are an adult now. So why, ah, why haven''t you put your sword in my sheath already?" Her breathing only grew heavier as she moved her fingers to her vagina. And as his gaze followed her fingers, Jill got a good look at that pink, lustful and wet pussy of hers.


    ''What the hell! Is what I think is happening really happening?!'' He cursed. ''Vilome, that lucky bastard! He has already gotten her, so why can''t he leave Yasmine for-''


    "AH!"


    His thoughts were interrupted by a loud moan, made by a priestess who had inserted the middle finger of her right hand in her vagina while pulling it open with her left one.


    "AH! That feels so good!" She said, and continued to start slowly stroking her pussy.


    "You have no idea - ah - the things you have been - ah - missing because - ah - you have been a child - ah - physically, that is." A grin formed on her face at the end of the sentence that was cut of many a times by her moaning.


    ''How is this woman a priestess?! She talks like such a horny slut!'' Jill wondered, not complained though, as he was enjoying the scene.


    "Ah! Vilome! This is good! But I know - ah - you''d be better!"


    She said as she fingers continued to stroke her pussy, increasing in speed a little overtime.


    "Ah! Vilome! You - ah - have to - ah - fuck me!"


    Just using the term ''fuck'' was forbidden for priestesses like her. Jill was more than just shocked at the fact that she had used it in such a way, althought that shock was just a continuation at everything that woman had done.


    PLOP!


    With that sound, his pants dropped because of his little buddy becoming too aroused and hard.


    ''Shit!'' He thought to himself, thinking that sound would alarm her that someone is inside the cupboard.


    But when he looked back outside through the hole, he just saw a honry woman masturbating to the thoughts of the one guy he hates.


    She hadn''t noticed a single thing. That was something to be relieved about, but it was also making him more and more jealous as Vilome had such a woman lusting for him so much.


    "Ah! Vilome, fuck me! AH!" Valerie was crying out, multiple times. Her fingers were ramming through her vagina and the wetness of her fluids had covered her whole genital area.


    No matter how hard he tried, he couldn''t help but want to masturbate to her. Doing his best to supress his desires so as to not let her find out through the noise he''d end up making, he kept looking through the whole.


    Valerie''s body was convulsing with excitement as she kept ramming her fingers in and out of her pussy, crying, "VILOME! I CAN''T LIVE WITHOUT YOU! FUCK ME, MY GOD! FUCK ME!"


    He was about to avert his eyes when she suddenly cried out, "AHH!!! I''M CUMMING!"


    His eyes got glued back on to the whole. The woman kept screaming like a psycho as she rammed into her vagina, and finally, took out her fingers and chunks of white, milkly fluid came out of her vagina.


    "FUCK ME, VILOME!" She screamed at the same time that she took out her fingers.


    For the next few moments, Valerie stayed on the bed, breathing lustfully and dreaming about having sex with a particular God and Jill stayed in the cupboard, trying to stay quiet, not letting the million things in his head leak out of his mouth.


    Then, they both heard the main door to the house opening and someone coming in.


    Hearing that, Valerie quickly got up and started putting dress back on with a panicky expression.


    The person who had come to the house tried to enter the room but the door didn''t open.


    Valerie quickly asked as she noticed that, "V-Vilome?"


    "Who else would it be?" He said, seeming annoyed from his tone. "Now why are you in my room?"


    "Oh, well, just wait a minute!" She said, panicking more than before. "I was - I was just cleaning things."


    As she put enough clothes on to be considered ''dressed'', she opened up the room.


    "Shouldn''t you be in the church?" He asked, suspiciously.


    "W-well, it won''t cause any problems, don''t worry!" She said, nervously.


    Then, Jill noticed a 5''7 tall, handsome and well-built man walking into the room with eyes full of boredom and annoyance.


    "S-so, how was the ceremony?"


    "Are you genuinely asking that or do you just want me to kick you in the face?" He asked with little-to-no emotion.


    "I-I guess it wasn''t very fun."


    "Hah!" Vilome sighed, but then noticed something.


    "Valerie, why is my bed all messed up?" He asked.


    Valerie immediately jumped with a frightened expression and answered, "Well, I was in the middle of cleaning it up, you see?"


    "Oh? And what is that ''thing'' on the bed?" He pointed at the milky fluid that had stained the bedsheets.


    Valerie, with a face full of fear, tried to give a smile and an excuse as she got away, coming to the direction of the cupboard.


    "You slut!" Vilome yelled, and in turn, Valerie jumped away, colliding with the cupboard, making it''s door open and the man inside fall out.


    Valerie ended up falling over him and landing on the cupboard with her stomach hitting the rough edges of the furniture.


    "Oh, that is so not something I want to experience after masturbation." She complained, as she got back up, holding her stomach, and only then noticing an different face.


    Vilome looked at that face with darkened expressions.


    "N-no, listen, Vilome, I can explan, alright-"


    Blood splattered all over the place, making half of Valerie''s clothes drenched in it.


    "Ew!" She remarked, and then noticed an ID.


    "Vilome, this guy was a pretty talented lancer. You sure you made the right call by killing him?" She asked.


    "All his talent would have been no use to me because of how much he hates me. But now, since he''d dead, I can turn him into my undead and make use of his skills." He said with a cold voice. "So yes, slut, I made the right call!"


    Valerie smiled awkwardly on hearing her say ''slut'' with annoyance.


    "Now, as your punishment," he said as he pointed to the corpse of the dead Jill Jake, "clean all of that up!"

 12 End Of The Boring Days

    For 10 years past making Valerie my first follower, I had been preparing.


    Everything I had been doing - one could summarize it all as preparing.


    One of things I had been doing, as part of my preparations, was trying to understand the system, to best of my abilities. After all, in some ways, the system controlled my life.


    Without the system, I would have had no way to advance in Dark Arts, since the Arts had perished. There was obviously a chance that knowledge about them would have been present in some corner of the world but considering how long it could have taken to find it, provided it was present in the first place, it would have been a major inconvenience.


    So, I had tried my damned hardest trying to study the system.


    I had come to realize that the system never gave me any quests that had a time-limit on it.


    And, these were the only four kinds of quests that I had been given by the system by that point:-


    [Kill X number of Monsters]


    [Kill X number of Inhumans]


    [Make/form X undead soldiers]


    [Earn X Amount Of Gold]


    As boring as it may seem, these were the only type of quests I had been given. I had completed all of them, of course; but the rewards weren''t much to be proud of either.


    Every single quest had granted me some gold, and something else.


    Most of the times, this ''something else'' had been a little boost. Sometimes my physical strength had been increased, sometimes my speed had been increased, sometimes it had been my charisma.


    When I looked at the system showing me those messages,


    [Quest Reward No. 2: Slight Strength Increase]


    [Quest Reward No. 2: Slight Speed Increase]


    [Quest Reward No. 2: Slight Charisma Increase]


    What can I say? It truly felt jarring to look at them. It felt too much like a game.


    But, in any case, out of all the quests given to me that far, none had offered more or less than two rewards.


    Another REALLY annoying thing about it all was the time-interval between these quests.


    For the first 5 quests, the time-interval had been 2 days. They had been there for as long as I didn''t complete them, but after completing one, it took 2 days for the next quest to appear.


    For the next 5 quests, the time-interval increased to 2 weeks.


    Then, for the next 10, it increased to 2 months. And then, for the next 4, it increased to 2 years.


    So, all in all, I had completed 24 quests in those 10 years.


    But then, a surprise had come, a surprise that went against all these observations.


    [The God Path - Quest 25: "Kill a human" has arrived]


    As soon as I had completed my 24th quest, that had appeared on the system''s screen.


    [This quest has one reward]


    [This quest needs to be completed in the next 8 hours]


    Unlike every quest before it, the 25th quest asked me to kill a human for the first time, appeared as soon as I finished the quest prior to it, offered only one reward and also had a time-limit.


    As one would expect, I was intrigued.


    And that''s what was going on in my mind when I had come back to my house that day.


    As soon as I came back, I entered my room, or tried to. The door was locked. I then heard from inside the room, the voice of a particular woman.


    "V-Vilome?!"


    It was Valerie. I wondered what she could be doing in my room. Knowing that woman, I didn''t have very high expectations.


    "Who else would it be? Now why are you in my room?"


    "Oh, well, just wait a minute!" Instead of answering the question, she said so and soon came and opened the door.


    "Shouldn''t you be in the church?" I asked, suspicious that she might have snuck out. She had done that a few times in those years.


    Although she had always been able to come up with some believable excuses, it was still something that could attract unprecedented attention from the Royal Church.


    "W-well, it won''t cause any problems, so don''t worry!"


    That''s what she had always told me. And surprisingly, that was true. It had never caused us any trouble.


    "S-so, how was the ceremony?!" She asked, looking pretty nervous and trying to change the subject.


    Though, if that was the best subject change she could bring up, I was disappointed.


    "Are you genuinely asking that or do you just want me to kick you in the face?" I asked with a deadpan look.


    "I-I guess it wasn''t very fun then, huh?"


    ''Fun'' was the exact word I''d define it with, in an upside-down world that is. I mean, my coming of age ceremony was pretty boring in the first place. But still, Yasmine''s ceremony easily topped the rankings of my ''most boring events I have ever witnessed'' list.


    I then realized that her subject change might not have been that bad considering how it had drowned me in thought for a moment, albeit those thoughts being filled with negativity.


    "Hah!" I sighed. But then my eyes fell on ... something peculiar.


    "Valerie, why is my bed all messed up?" I asked.


    She immediately jumped with a frightened expression and answered, "Well, I was in the middle of cleaning it up, you see?"


    "Oh? And what is that ''thing'' on the bed?" I asked as I pointed at it - the ''peculiar something'' that had caught my eye.


    Valerie, with a face full of fear, tried to give a smile and an excuse as she got away, running to the direction of the cupboard.


    "You slut!" I yelled with irritation, but then saw Valerie colliding with the cupboard in her rush to get away.


    She ended up making the cupboard fall over and fell over the fallen cupboard herself. Though, far more attention-grabbing than that was a boy, who had fallen out of the cupboard.


    "Ouch! That is so NOT something I want to experience after fingering myself." She complained, also admitting her deeds.


    But I was too focused on that boy to really listen.


    I remembered that boy. He was somewhat talented and popular and had his coming of age ceremony on the same day as me.


    My face darkened as I saw the opportunity before me.


    "N-no, listen, Vilome, I can explan, alright-"


    I killed him. It was pretty easy.


    All I had to do was bring out one of my sword-weilding minions and tell him to kill him. It didn''t even take a second to do that and then make him disappear, thanks to all the training I had been doing in Necromancy those past 10 years.


    "Ew!" Valerie remarked, and asked while looking at his ID, "Vilome, this guy was a pretty talented lancer. You sure you made the right call by killing him?"


    "All his talent would have been of no use to me because of how much he hates me. But now, since he''s dead, I can turn him into my undead minion and make use of his skills."


    I knew that he hated me because the darkness in his aura was easy to decipher. It was the darkness formed by the emotion of jealousy and it was pretty intense. Not that he was ever a threat but he was pretty noticable because of his envy towards me.


    "So yes, slut, I made the right call!" I said, some of my annoyance at her returning as the sight of my bed entered my eyes when glancing back a little.


    "Now, as your punishment," I said as I pointed to the corpse of the dead Jill Jake, "clean all of that up!"


    Her shoulders drooped as she said, "As you wish, my god!"


    And then, I was finally able to turn my attention to the screen that had popped up a while back.


    [The God Path - Quest 25: "Kill a human" has been completed]


    [Your quest reward has arrived]


    As I read it, as per usual, the next window appeared. But then ... but then, as I looked at the window, I couldn''t help but smirk.


    [Quest Reward: Ascension - From "Base Realm" To "Advanced Realm"]


    I was 15. In that world, that meant that I was an adult. My coming of age ceremony was over so I had also legally been registered as an adult.


    Generally, this was the age where students of any Art ascended to the Advanced Realm. So, my progress was nothing to be much proud of.


    That is what it would look like on the surface level.


    To me, who had been preparing for that very thing for 10 years, that was a moment of pure bliss. It was so, because I knew that the time for all my preparations was gone, and the action was about to begin.


    "Ha! Ha! Haha! Hahahahaha!!!" I couldn''t help but laugh.


    Valerie looked at me curiously and asked, "Something the matter, Vilome?"


    "Yes, something IS the matter!" I said, with a big, evil grin throughout my face. "It''s time to start my conquest!"


    I said. And hearing that, her face lit up as well.


    How could it not? We had been planning for this for so long, and it was finally about to happen.


    The system showed me my status menu, with one additional thing at the bottom.


    [Name: Vilome]


    [Race: God]


    [Age: Irrelevant]


    [Specialization: Dark Arts]


    [Realm: Base (Ascension Possible)]


    [Progress Towards Next Realm: 100%]


    [Quests Completed: 25]


    [Authorities Acquired: Authority Of God]


    [Weapons Mastered: 2]


    [Ascension to next realm is possible. Would you liked to ascend right now?]


    I looked at that menu, smirked and even though I didn''t need to, I answered the system''s question with a confident voice.


    "Yes!"

 13 The God With Secrets

    The God of Demons, Zywar, was one of the most feared deities in the universe. He was considered a monster even among gods.


    That all said and done though, he was far from the strongest.


    "Oh my!" Zywar said as his eyes fell on his visitor. "When Yahan told me that a visitor had come, I never expected it to be you of all people!"


    "Well, what can I say?"


    His visitor, a slim, tall, white-haired man with an angelic face and a melodious tone, said with calmness.


    "People never really expect me to visit them!"


    Zywar furrowed his brows and smiled awkwardly as he said, "Y-yeah, you do have a reputation of surprise visiting people, God Emoliv."


    The man who had come to visit Zywar was the God of Light himself - Emoliv.


    "Well," Emoliv glanced at Zywar with suspicious eyes. "since we both know though that I only visit anyone when I have some business with them, I don''t think there''s any need for any more formalities."


    Zywar kept smiling awkwardly as he walked over to Emoliv.


    They were standing in a barren and mostly isolated land, a land filled with Demons that Zywar resided in.


    "I suppose." He said. "If you want to get down to business, that''s fine with me."


    "Good!" remarked Emoliv as he turned his gaze over to the vast deserts he could see in the distance and the pits of lava present throughout the ground before the desert started.


    "I''m hearing some disturbing rumors from a particular not-very-significant planet in some part of the universe under your control." Emoliv said, his eyes filled with suspicion and his sharp gaze piercing right through Zywar.


    "Oh, is that so?" Zywar asked with a smile, acting nonchalant, "I am sorry to hear that rumors from some planet in my domain have troubled you, God Emoliv! I am sure you''re worrying over nothin-"


    "You aren''t even going to ask what rumor I am talking about?" With his gaze growing even sharper, Emoliv questioned.


    Zywar could feel his anxiety taking over his thoughts as he asked, "Oh, well, what would it be?"


    "..." Staying silent for a moment, Emoliv just looked at him, suspecting his every move.


    And then,


    "Well?" Zywar pressed for an answer, so,


    "I am hearing rumors that Vilome is back."


    For just a brief moment, Zywar''s anxiety went through the roof, before he calmed himself to the best of his abilities.


    "Well now," he chuckled as he continued, "that''s certainly quite the rumor, isn''t it?"


    ...


    A moment passed in silence. Zywar tried his best to conceal his anxiety while Emoliv took his gaze off the God of Demons and sighed.


    "Yes," Emoliv said, "That IS quite the rumor, isn''t it?"


    Zywar saw the God of Light disappearing right in front of his eyes and then appearing right behind him. He felt a sharp object at his neck and a tight grab at his left hand as the icy cold voice of Emoliv came from behind.


    "I can''t sense deceit like Vilome can but I can sense sincerity, and I don''t sense any in your words."


    "Eh!" Zywar tried his best to compose himself, but couldn''t help but feel threatened under the pressure emanating from the God of Light.


    "So, God of Demons, mind explaining to me what''s going on?" Emoliv asked, his voice terrifyingly cold.


    "Well, Emoliv, what IS that thing you have on my neck? A needle?" Zywar asked, smiling cautiously, "Are you threating to kill me with a needle or something?!"


    "Ha!" Hearing so, Emoliv scoffed and asked, "Want to test to see if it works or not?"


    "N-no!" Zywar replied immediately when Emoliv''s cold and unrelenting voice asked that question.


    It''s true that Zywar was a monster among the Gods, but, he wouldn''t dare think himself to be capable of overpowering Emoliv himself.


    And so,


    "That planet you are talking about, it''s time runs the same as Earth." Zywar said. "So anyway, 10 years ago according to that planet''s time, I sensed something."


    "Something?"


    "Well, it was an indescribable sense of danger." Zywar said, no longer trying to put up a fake smile. "I felt it coming from that planet."


    "So, what did you do?"


    "I investigated it, of course, and I got a clue that pointed to the possibility of the God of Darkness, Vilome, having returned. I think I blurted that possibility out to one of my subordinates when I was too caught up thinking about it and well, that subordinate kinda went on a rampage."


    "By that description, it''s looking like that subordinate of yours was Rakshasa Gahan?"


    "Yes, he is the only one stupid enough to do that, isn''t he?" Zywar replied, and continued. "In any case, he tracked down the aura of the God of Darkness and attacked him, destroying the city he was living in, in the process. By the time I came to find out about it, much destruction had been caused, and I found a 5-year-old boy''s aura feeding off that destruction and chaos."


    "Tsk!" Emoliv clicked his tongue. "Are you telling me that 5-year-old was Vilome?"


    "Supposedly, yes." Zywar replied.


    Emoliv let go of his arm and put the needle away from his neck.


    Moving away, Zywar asked,


    "So well, now that you know about his return, what are you going to do?"


    Emoliv looked at Zywar with a mix of disgust and pity.


    "First, I am planning to help you get your just desserts for hiding this information from me for all this time."


    "Ha!" Zywar scoffed, and asked with a grin. "I already know there will be consequences for me. My question was - what are you gonna do about him?"


    "..." Emoliv didn''t answer, but fell in thought.


    Zywar looked at that sight and sighed.


    "You, and so many other Gods, banded together to kill Vilome. And you did end up killing him. Yet, he returned. Isn''t he quite something?"


    Even though he said that with a smile, it disappeared from his gaze as he saw Emoliv''s icy cold glare.


    "Did he ''just returned''? Just like that?" Emoliv questioned. "Or is someone else responsible for this?"


    "Well, if someone is, it isn''t me." Zywar said, and looked at Emoliv as he asked, "Detecting a lack of sincerity now?"


    It was the truth, and so Emoliv did find sincerity in that answer, but seeing that just made him more annoyed.


    "Tsk!" Emoliv clicked his tongue as he said. "I will be sending my faithful followers to investigate him. I expect you and your merry band of Demons to not interfere."


    Zywar grinned and said while bowing to Emoliv, "As you wish, God of Light!"


    While still suspicious, Emoliv decided to leave after seeing that. And as soon as he thought about doing it, he disappeared.


    Zywar sat on the ground and stretched his limbs. Feeling relieved, he started to complain, "Man, that guy is annoying! Always with that no-bullshit attitude, he is no fun at all!"


    From the corner of his eyes, Zywar could see many Demons staring at him with worried looks.


    "Ha!" He scoffed upon seeing that.


    "I have to say though; it''s because he is like that, because he is so boring and annoying to watch, that his opposite, Mr. Edgy God Of Darkness, is just SO fun to watch!"


    "U-um, God Zywar," Rakshasa Yahan came and asked, "is everything alright?"


    With a smirk, the God replied, "Oh yeah, everything is fine. In fact, things are just getting better!"


    He thought to himself as he pondered on what Emoliv said before leaving, ''He is going to send his faithful followers to investigate, isn''t he? What a joke! Does he think that something I haven''t been able to figure out in the last 10 years, his oh-so-faithful followers would be able to figure out?''


    "Is everything really alright?" Yahan asked. "I am asking because your twisted grin says otherwise."


    "Well," Zywar said, "God Emoliv will be doing something to punish me for not telling him about Vilome''s existence. So, I am pretty sure that I am going to go through hell pretty soon."


    He stood up and stretched his back as he said, "Which is why, before any of that happens, I want to have a relaxing, fun time - to prepare myself for it of course!"


    "Ah!" Yahan''s face grew a sly smile as he said, "I understand, God Zywar. I''ll make sure to send some devilishly charming beauties in your chambers at night."


    Zywar smirked.


    "Good! I knew you''d be quick on the uptake."


    ***************


    As Emoliv returned to his domain, he felt even more agitated than before.


    He knew Zywar was hiding something. He knew it because Zywar was just that type of God, the type that always has a few secrets.


    "If Vilome really is back, then," Emoliv voiced his thoughts out loud, "even if he, hopefully, hasn''t regained the memories of his previous life as a God, he may still have regained the emotions of hatred towards the rest of the Gods. He may still be planning to kill us all. What is that idiot Zywar thinking, messing with a God like that?"


    Even though it irritated him to his core, he couldn''t help it.


    He knew, that no matter what he did, stopping Zywar''s twisted schemes was only possible by killing him, and killing another god would be too bad for the balance of the universe.


    Emoliv was, at that point, completely lost as to what he should do.

 14 Sister Of Darkness

    The flame of a candle grew bigger. It soon started to take a particular shape, the shape of a ball.


    And within the next few seconds, it became a fireball and rose up from the candle. The flames had become independent of the candle they had been formed on.


    The ball of fire hung in the air for a while before slowly moving towards the window of the room.


    It moved in a straight line, as if it was following a digital pattern. And in that straight line, it flew out of the room and then disappeared.


    As that happened, the sounds of clapping echoed throughout the room, throughout the classroom.


    "Well done, Hena! You have almost perfected the basics of The Elemental Arts Of Flame. The God Of Fire, Inferno, will be pleased by you!" The teacher said, applauding the girl who was responsible for that whole fireball thing.


    "Your words honor me, sir!" She said as she bowed to him, withholding inside her the disgust she felt towards him and everyone around him.


    As the sister of Vilome, she was one of the few people in the world who knew about the Dark Arts.


    Most people thought they were history, but she knew that they were not. She knew it, and she had practiced it. And because of that, she knew very well how something like The Elemental Arts Of Flame, or Flame Arts for short, were no match for them.


    After all, even among Gods, there was a loose hierarchy. And Elemental Gods like Inferno held no candle to Gods like Emoliv or Vilome in that hierarchy.


    But, even so, her brother had said that they needed to blend in and wait for the opportunity while he makes his preparations, so that''s what she had to do. And one part of blending in was to learn things that people of her age do.


    So, she had chosen to learn Elemental Arts.


    "Hena!" A male voice called out to her. "Can I see you for a bit?"


    She knew who that voice belonged to without even looking. It belonged to a reknowned painter of her nation, who was also a painting teacher at her school.


    She had never taken up the course of painting herself but some of her acquaintances had and so she had come to talk to that man a few times.


    ''What could he be calling me for though?'' She wondered as she went out of the class.


    Out there in the wide and comfy hallways, that man looked at her and asked, "Hena, have you ever met my son?"


    "Uh, well, I haven''t, Mr. Jake." She tried to act as innocent as possible as she lied.


    In truth, Hena had met his son a number of times. After all, he was in the same class as Vilome and also had his coming of age ceremony the same day. She had met him a few times, and seen him snooping around many other times.


    "I see." Tim Jake, the painting teacher, said. "Well, he was in the same class as your brother."


    "Oh, is that so?" She gave her best ''slightly surprised'' expression.


    "Anyway, that boy has been acting strange these past few days. He always seems worried and anxious about something."


    ''So what does it have to do with me!?'' She questioned, only in her head.


    "And now, he has gone off somewhere without telling anyone. No matter what I do, we aren''t able to reach him."


    "..."


    "Since Vilome and him are acquaintances and all, I was hoping you could ask him to help me find him."


    ''So you are trying to get an older brother to give into her little sister''s requests and gain his help in searching for that pathetic loser of a son of yours?'' She would have laughed if she didn''t care about the facade. ''Well, I can''t blame you for wanting my brother''s help. He HAS always shown results whenever he tried to do this kind of thing. But if you really want his help, you''ll have to do better than that!''


    "So?"


    Calming her thoughts, Hena made an awkward smile as she said, "I will relay your request to my brother when I get home."


    "Thank you!" Tim said with a grateful and relieved face.


    ***************


    Even though she had promised, Hena didn''t even care enough to remember it for more than 20 minutes. However, during her return trip from the school in the evening, she came across a particular woman.


    She was a blue-haired, ivory-skinned aspiring adventurer of her brother''s age, named Yasmine. She was genuinely cute but also dumb-looking with her big, bright, light blue eyes and her hair was usually left free-style.


    ''What is she doing here?'' Hena had questioned with annoyance.


    Yasmine was in the same school uniform she was wearing, which had a light brown coat on top of a classic white-shirt-and-red-skirt combo.


    "Hena! There you are!" As Yasmine saw her, she quickly ran towards Hena with a bright expression.


    "Ms. Yasmine, what are you doing here?" Hena asked as politely as she could.


    "Well, I wanted to talk to you about something."


    Hena didn''t reply, giving Yasmine the reigns to continue.


    "There''s a classmate of mine and your brother named Jill Jake. I am kinda worried about him."


    ''Her too?'' Hena wondered, but from Yasmine''s next words, she realized that her case was completely different than the worry that Tim Jake had for him.


    "I am worried he would try to do something stupid to Vilome."


    "And why''s that?"


    Hena knew why Jill may try something foolish. If anything, Yasmine had been dense enough to not realize it for such a long time.


    "I think ... he likes me." But, thankfully or not, the blue-haired girl had finally realized. "And ... because I like Vilome, he might be jealous of Vilome and try something."


    This was the first time that Yasmine had deliberately admitted her liking towards Vilome in front of someone else. Everytime before this, it had only happened as an accidental slip-up.


    Hence, Yasmine was blushing hard enough for her ears to start turning red.


    "Well," Hena said as she saw that, "I''m sure it''ll be fine."


    "Y-yeah, since it''s Vilome, he''d probably be fine." Yasmine said while fidgetting. "But please tell him to stay alert!"


    "I''ll do that." Hena said with a smile.


    For Yasmine, her love towards Vilome was something she thought was a secret from Vilome.


    However, that man had realized how she felt before even she realized it herself. And like that, he had also realized how some people were jealous of him because of that. The one who topped the list of those jealous losers was in fact Jill Jake.


    There was no need to caution the guy who had cautioned her to look out for him.


    Hena knew, that if the situation came down to it, Vilome could easily take care of him.


    ***************


    "Now that''s unfair!" The little sister pouted as she saw the dead body that a particular blonde priestess was disposing of.


    "What''re you on about?" The elder brother asked.


    "You told ME to not kill him because investigations into his murder could pose problems if it started to lead back to me but then you go ahead and kill him yourself! That''s so unfair!"


    How could her brother, her beloved brother, steal her chance to satiate her bloodlust!


    "That is so cruel!" She complained while making a teary-eyed face.


    "If you had killed him, it would have been murder."


    "And it''s not murder now?"


    "This man broke into my house and tried to attack me. I only killed him in self-defence." Vilome said with a calm expression.


    "That''s a load of bullcrap!"


    "Perhaps, but that''s a load of bullcrap that no one would be able to prove to be bullcrap."


    "..." She kept pouting even as she heard his excuse. Vilome didn''t spare her more than a glance as he returned to looking at nothingness while seeming like he was reading something.


    Because of him having had told her about something called the system, she could understand that he would be doing something with the system then but since she couldn''t see the so-called system, it only annoyed her.


    So, she turned to Valerie.


    "Valerie!"


    The priestess looked her way when she heard her name being called. "Yes?"


    "What do YOU think?"


    "Uh? About what?"


    "About the fact that brother killed that asshole himself even though he didn''t need to. Don''t you think he should have let me do it?" She asked so like a child asking one of her parents to scold the other for teasing her.


    "My, my! What can I say?" Valerie said, nervously. "You weren''t home back then so capturing him and waiting for you to return would have been ... well ..."


    "I see." With an angry expression, the 13-year-old Hena said. "So you think I am wrong too!"


    "Now, now, Hena! Calm down!"


    "Brother?"


    "What?"


    "Can I beat up Valerie to take out some stress?"


    Valerie jumped in surprise with a teary-eyed expression.


    Even as saw that, Vilome said with a deadpan expression, "If it''ll make you less annoying to talk to, go right ahead!"


    Hearing that, Hena cracked her knuckles with a malicious grin as she looked at Valerie.


    "No, Hena, don''t! Remember who raised you all these years! Remeber who took care of you when your brother wasn''t around! Actually, I was the one taking care of you even when he was around!"


    "Yeah, so what?" Hena asked in an icy tone.


    "W-well ..." Valerie was terrified, not of the minute possibility that a brat filled with bloodlust could possibly defeat her but because she wasn''t allowed to fight back against that brat.


    "Hena," But all of a sudden, Vilome put a stop to the beatdown by asking, "I have a mission for you."


    Hearing so, Hena forgot all about beating Valerie up and her eyes lit up as she asked, "Do you need me to kill someone?!"


    "No, not really."


    All the excitement built in her died down as she heard that and pouted, "Then I am not gonna do it, no matter what you do!"


    "Oh, is that so?" Vilome asked, looking directly into her eyes with an icy glare, akin to that of God Emoliv''s from his legends, that caused her whole corporis to shake with fear. No, fear might be too small of a word. It was terror that she was experiencing at that moment.


    "W-w-well, I mean, if you tell me to do it, it''s not like I would possibly refuse. I was just ... just ..."


    "I don''t care." Vilome said. "The mission is to arrange a meeting between me and your painting teacher, who I am pretty sure is the father of that corpse."


    Pointing at Jill''s corpse, Vilome said so.


    "V-very well, that''s won''t be hard." Hena said. "I mean, he does want to meet with you himself, though his intentions are for you to help him search for his ''missing'' son."


    "Huh? Well, that''s certainly helpful." Vilome remarked. "In that case, since this is too easy, in addition to this mission, you''re also tasked to ask Yasmine to come meet me at a particular place at midnight."


    "I see. What is that place?"


    "Your school building, the same place that you are to call your painting teacher at."


    "Huh? Are you planning to meet with both of them today?"


    "Yes, today midnight." Vilome said with a grin. "Now get to work!"

 15 Midnight Fooling Classes

    Some time before midnight, I snuck into Hena''s school campus.


    The school grounds were as big as a couple of mansions from present-day Earth would be. For a medieval age school, it was certainly quite a big and prestigious place.


    That was to be expected though. It was considered one of the most acclaimed institutions in the region. The teachers teaching here were all either extremely able teachers or master of a field related to what they taught. As an obvious example, Tim Jake, one of the most reknowned painters in the region was a teacher of painting here.


    And he was also the first to arrive of the two people I had called there.


    In fact, he had arrived before I had. As such, when I entered the school building, I came across him.


    "Ah, Vilome! You are here."


    "Of course I am." I said. "I am surprised that you are here though."


    "Huh? Didn''t you call me here? That''s what your sister told me." He asked with a confused face.


    "Yes, I did call you, Mr. Jake. However, it''s midnight and coming to the school grounds at this hour is against the rules, isn''t it?"


    I mean, this was basically a break-in.


    "Yes, perhaps. But, nothing matters to me more than the safety of my son." He said, his guilt about breaking the school rules clearly showing on his face.


    "Well, about that." I said as I pointed to an empty classroom nearby. "There''s someone else I have called. We should wait until that person arrives."


    "Yeah, that''s fine but couldn''t we exchange some theories-"


    "Be patient, sir! You have already come this far, what''s a few more minutes?" I said and without waiting for an answer, turned to the classroom.


    "I ... guess." He followed after me, noticing a round device in my hand but ignoring it.


    To him, who didn''t know that his son was already dead, every minute would have seemed far too precious.


    I mean, he could have been thinking of the possibilities of Jill being in danger at that very moment and so, having to wait was certainly not something he was very happy to do.


    However, you don''t become a famous artist without being able to be patient, and while some exceptions always exist, Tim Jake was not one of those exceptions.


    For the next five minutes, which I am sure would have felt like five hours to him, he waited patiently, not speaking a single word.


    Then, the door to the classroom slid open and a girl entered it.


    "There you are!" She said with sparkling eyes while looking at me, almost ignoring Tim. "You should have told me you were going to be in this classroom. I had to snoop around to find you."


    "It''s not like I came here with the intentions to be in this particular room. It just happened to be closest to where I entered the building from."


    I said and got up from the table I was sitting on.


    I had arranged those tables and chairs such that we have a big enough free space in the middle of the classroom where we could arrange three seats all at 120-degrees to each other.


    And so, doing that, the three of us sat down on those three chairs.


    "So," in order to take charge of the conversation, I spoke before anyone else could. "we are here to discuss about the sudden disappearance of Jill Jake."


    Hearing that, Tim''s expression became extremely focused but Yasmine''s shoulders drooped.


    "He has disappeared?" She asked.


    "Yes, and it happened today." I said.


    "Y-yeah, I saw him heading to your ceremony this morning." Tim said looking at Yasmine, "But after that, I haven''t seen him and all of his friends and everyone else who knows him seems to have no idea about his whereabouts either."


    "Oh!" Yasmine said, only half-interested.


    "So Yasmine, did you see him at your ceremony?" I asked.


    "Yes, I did." And all of a sudden, she answered with complete enthusiasm.


    Man, this girl really was infatutated with me!


    "When was the last time you saw him?" I questioned.


    "Well," pondering over it for a while, Yasmine said, "I think it was right before the ceremony started. I saw him among all of my classmates who had come to attend my coming of age ceremony. But, after that moment, even though most of those classmates were there, I don''t remember spotting him even once."


    "Is that really the truth?" I ask with an accusing glare.


    "Huh? Of course that is the truth. Why would I lie?" She was giving me a confused smile, exactly what I needed.


    "I have a theory." I said. "And it leads me to believe that you killed him."


    Both of their eyes widened with shock while Tim also got up from his chair and looked at Yasmine with furious eyes.


    "Is that true!?" He asked, looking almost ready to murder her.


    "It''s not, but even if I had killed him, it would have been a good deed."


    Veins popped out of his forehead and he yelled, "You bitch!"


    Yasmine got up from her chair as well and took a fighting stance. However,


    "Yasmine, did you really kill him?" I asked her, and she quickly turned to me, denying the accusation.


    "Well, if you didn''t kill him," I asked, "then whose corpse was your maid disposing of earlier?"


    "Huh? What?! She was disposing of someone''s corpse?" She looked only a tiny bit surprised on hearing that as she replied with, "Well, I don''t know, it could have been Jill."


    "What!?" Tim''s fury was rising with every word she said.


    "I mean, I didn''t kill him. But maybe he broke into my house with some evil intentions and my maid killed him when she found out and caught him. Yeah, that would make sense." She said nonchalantly.


    "Ha!" I smirked. "Well, that is how my theory went."


    When I said that, Tim''s anger stopped being directed at only person in the room.


    "You think my son would do that? He isn''t like th-"


    "And yet, the evidence seems to be pointing to him being like that." I interrupted and said so with a smirk.


    "What evidence?!"


    "Well, this." I said as I showed them a small, spherical object with metal on the base and glass covering on the top.


    "Isn''t that one of those devices that record sound?" Tim asked, suspiciously.


    "Yes, it is." I said.


    On Earth, devices that record and reproduce sound were created in the 19th century, i.e., much time after Medieval Era. However, on that planet where everything from battle to artistry to craftsmanship was done by learning some kind of Art, some technological developments had happened before others because of the varying degrees of faith people had for their respective Gods.


    One of those developments was that little device that was only a prototype for the real thing but it was still effective enough to be used in my little plan there.


    "Keep your ears open!" I advised as I tapped a small button on the side and the the glass started shining a little with the recorded sounds being played.


    "What happened?! Whose dead body is that!?" In those recordings, my surprised voice asked so.


    "Of a classmate of yours named Jill Jake." The voice that very much resembled that of Yasmine''s maid was heard.


    "You ... what ... Jill ... what happened?!" I asked, in the recording of course.


    "He had broken into milady''s house with the intention of stealing her undergarments." The maid said, disgustedly. "When I found him, I obviously had to take action!"


    "M-maybe, but you didn''t need to kill him!"


    "The situation we ended up, if I hadn''t killed him, he would have killed me." She said.


    "I ... see."


    "Well, boy. I wouldn''t want to hurt you in any way so you better be quiet about this all." The maid threatened me.


    "W-well, you shouldn''t have told me in the first place." I said, nervously.


    "Ha! Maybe that''s true. I may have been too nervous to really think about what I should have-"


    I stopped the recording.


    The expression of Tim''s face had already become that of someone who had lost all meaning in life. The expression on Yasmine''s face was a mix of disgust and anger though.


    "Come with me!" I then said.


    ***************


    I took them to the backyard of the school building and showed a sight of a single burial outside the school premises from there.


    "That is the place Yasmine''s maid buried him."


    As soon as I said that, Tim ran to that place, jumping over the ledges and started digging it up.


    "I can''t believe that pervert wanted to steal my panties!" Yasmine said with disgust. "He deserved what was coming to him."


    Well, seeing those reactions, I had to compliment Valerie on her voice acting skills. Seriously, if she was living back on Earth, she could have easily become an award-winning actress as well as voice-actress.


    It was also quite thoughtful of her to bury Jill in the most conspicious way possible, clearly potraying it as if Yasmine''s maid was trying to give a message.


    "Y-you!" Tim, who had dug out the shallow grave and found the rotting corpse of his son, looked back at the two of us with clear rage.


    "What! That asshole totally deserved it!" Yasmine said nonchalantly. "I mean, this wasn''t the first time he tried to do something annoying. While he never did anything particularly perverted before, he had always been trying to cause problems for Vilome, you know?"


    She rambled on, unaware that the man she was saying it to was picking up a long piece of wood with pointy edges and preparing to charge at her.


    "You bitch! YOU are the one DESERVES TO DIE!" He yelled and charged.


    Yasmine noticed that and stepped back but was a little late and got hit in the stomach with the edges of the branch.


    "You ASSHOLE!" She shouted. "You think you can overpower a Martial Artist like me with petty sticks!?"


    As she said that, she adopted a fighting stance while her face was filled with clear killing intent.


    I took my distance and relaxed a bit as I waited for the show to continue.


    If this was a movie, I may have heard Jill, whose dream girl and father were trying to kill each other, curse me from hell with things like, "You''re a villain!"


    Well, even if that had been the case, I would have probably replied with, "I''ll take that as a compliement."

 16 Vent ...

    Honestly I wanted to vent a little to clear my head so I can write.


    I have met either the rudest person on this platform or have fallen victim to a troll.


    Basically, there''s a user I had a ''conversation'' with these past few days. This is how it went.


    User: "Your MC is stupid. He didn''t know he''d get Necromancy power by choosing God Path. The novel is flawed."


    Me: "Well, the three paths are like the option of ''studying till middle school'', ''studying till high school'' and ''studying till college''. So, he knew that by choosing the third path, he will get the knowledge and skills of the first path."


    User: "No, your example does not make sense. The MC couldn''t have known that. You are talking shit. Your novel is flawed."


    Me: "Another user by the name x said the same thing and since I have replied to him already, you should take a look at my reply to his."


    User: "No, I don''t care. You are just ignoring my point. Your concept is good but you don''t know how to write."


    Me: "Okay, okay, calm down! Please state all your points once again. I''ll do my best to reply."


    User: "*sigh* I am starting to think you are doing this on purpose. But well, my point is that Necro path is useless and nobody would ever pick Necro Path instead of God Path. To prove that I''m wrong, just tell me why anyone would choose Necro Path over God Path."


    (notice that this ''point'' of his was never mentioned before this reply)


    Me: "I''m not doing this on purpose. Okay, here goes. Necro Path allows a person to reach the level of power they would reach in 100 years on God Path in merely 20 years. Since most humans wouldn''t even survive 100 years, God Path is unidealistic for them and so Necro Path would make sense."


    User: "No, that''s my whole point. You have ignored my point every single time. I am not gonna reply anymore because you keep ignoring me. You have a good concept but you need practice."


    ...


    Honestly, what can I say at this point? Is this guy trying to rip off the annoying and stupid anime character troupe or what?


    But seriously, I am always willing to answer questions, but ask them with respect. I don''t mind the stupidity of ''you''re ignoring me'' x7 as much as I hate rudeness of ''you don''t know how to write, your novel is stupid'' kinda lines.


    *sigh*


    Now that I have vented a little, I might be able to stop myself from introducing a character with similar name to this user''s username and killing him off in the worst ways possible.


    Okay, that''s a joke. I was never planning to do that.


    But anyway, the actual chapter will come on the usual time - 19:00 GMT

 16 Wretched Memories I

    After leaving the small village of the inhumans all those years ago, we had travelled to a number of cities and towns. With Valerie''s award-deserving potrayal of a pure-hearted High Priestess from the Royal Church, it wasn''t too hard to make up stories that would prevent people from suspecting us.


    So, using that to our advantage, we had been travelling for a good total of 2 years. It was then, finally, that we had arrived to the city we lived in for those 8 years.


    And the reason I decided that we should stay in that city was simple - it was the education hub of the region.


    It was filled to the brim with talented people who, of course, were quite useful.


    Also, openly practicing Dark Arts would have caused problems. However, in order to disguise ourselves as ''able members of society'', we needed to have a good grasp at some Art. So if it was inevitable that we, I and Hena, had to learn some Art in addition to Dark Arts, why not learn it from the best?


    That, at least, was the thought in my mind when I had walked into the school grounds.


    But there, the first thing I saw was-


    "Trash! How dare you!" -a girl of my age beating up another.


    "I''m sorry, Yasmine! Please forgive me!" The girl being beat up grovelled, but,


    "Yasmine? You dare address me without any honorifics?!"


    It all only lead to her getting more beat up.


    It was strange though. Even though I had no reason to care, I felt disgusted by that girl named Yasmine.


    She was nobility, had good looks and people flocked around her. For whatever reason, that irked me so much.


    Normally, I would have just ignored all of it. But, as long as I tried to ignore it, the uneasy feeling in my chest kept growing.


    And so, one day, when I saw Yasmine was making her ''friends'' beat up one of the other kids in the school, I decided to do something.


    That incident was happening outside school premises and during a short 4-day break the school was on. And it was happening when I was 8 years old, i. e., an year had passed since coming to that city.


    "What are you doing?" I asked as I approached the lot of them.


    They all looked at me with annoyed and threatening faces.


    "Can''t you see what we are doing? Are you blind or something?" Yasmine mocked me.


    "What has that boy done?" I asked, ignoring her mocking, which agitated her quite a bit as she clicked her tongue while answering.


    "This ''boy'' caught us doing something that''s, well, against the school regulations, and man, he just couldn''t keep his mouth shut about it."


    Before I knew it, my face had twisted with disgust and I had said, "What a joke!"


    They all looked at me, cracking their knuckles, looking about ready to beat me up. And then,


    "AAH!"


    -all of them went silent with surprise and confusion.


    "AAAHH!!!"


    "..."


    "AAHH!!! AAAHHH!!! AAAH!!!"


    They watched me repeatedly kick the boy they all were already beating. None of them understood why I had done that. And so, they all just gawked at that sight for a good one minute.


    "W-what the hell!" And finally their silence was broken when I stopped kicking and Yasmine asked, "W-what''s ... what''re you ..."


    "Your bullying wasn''t nearly impactful enough to teach anyone a lesson." I said. "You guys are too soft. You are only wannabe delinquients."


    I walked away after saying that.


    When the school break ended and we all saw each other again, their little ''gang'' asked me to come meet them at the same spot that incident had happened.


    I complied.


    And so, we came face-to-face again.


    "You sure were acting like a hotshot back then. Wanna show us what you got?" A person I deemed unimportant enough to not remember his name challenged me while looking like an annoying idiot.


    "Yeah, then we will be able to tell who is the real wannabee here." Yasmine mocked me with that.


    I sighed and said, "I won''t hold back."


    They took it as a mockery to their strength, which it partially was, and charged at me all at once. There were about 13 of them who charged while only Yasmine, the leader of that wild pack, remained behind with her arms crossed and a smirk on her face.


    I knew this was gonna happen when they had asked me to meet them there, and so I had come prepared - to wipe that smirk off her face.


    "What!?" "What the hell!?" "What''s going on!?" "AAH!!!"


    A wide range of reactions came from them as arrows rained down.


    None of those arrows hit me. They were all precisely aimed at that lot of idiots. And they were also all coated with poison.


    It was a slow-acting poison so they didn''t die on the spot or anything but, the pain that was caused was incredible.


    And like that, within just a moment, all the 13 charging at me started crying out in pain.


    "Good job!" I said, turning my head to the particular boy hiding a little distance away.


    He was an archer who was great at his Art, but more importantly, he was the boy who those idiots were picking on the last time, the boy that I had beaten up far worse than they had.


    "W-why is he helping you!?" Yasmine looked shocked as she too noticed him and asked me that.


    "He isn''t helping me. I am helping him - exact his revenge."


    "But then he should be going after you too!"


    "He should be, but he won''t be. After all, he wouldn''t want anything to happen to his little brother now, would he?"


    "W-what!?"


    "You still don''t get it." I sighed, started walking towards her, and recited the events of 5 days prior to that, "After beating him up that day, I visited him in the hospital and showed him somethings that terrified him."


    Those somethings were my undead human minions.


    Displaying an example of their power by making a spear-weilding undead quickly dance his spear around, I had told him that I would give him an opportunity for revenge, but nothing should happen to me, or no one would never see his little brother ever again.


    If, one of his arrows had still hit me after that, I would have commended his guts - and then told one of my undead to end his life.


    "Y-you threatened his family?!" She was shocked.


    It seemed that level of evil was above what she was capable of.


    "Well, I did." I casually said and, having closed up the distance between us, grabbed her head by her hairs.


    "Ouch! Let go!" She cried out, but no one came to help.


    I bashed her head on the ground. I saw what became of her pretty face after one bashing and wasn''t very impressed with the results, so I did it again, and again, and again.


    I bashed her head countless times. She tried her best to break free of my grasp at the start but my undead restrained her and she couldn''t do anything but experience what bullying was like, but not from the end she was usually looking at it.


    Still, even though I had every intention of killing her, I wasn''t going to deal the final blow.


    That archer-boy had approached us, and when he had, I let go of her head and told him, "All yours!"


    Then, with her arms and legs still being restrained, Yasmine saw the boy her group was beating up some days ago walk up to her and put a foot above her head, pressing her face on the ground.


    That was when the irking feeling in my chest subsided and I finally realized why I was feeling like that.


    I had been the victim to bullying in my previous life. I had been bullied not just as a kid, not just as a teenager, but as an adult too.


    Seeing a bully, I couldn''t help but want to show them their place.


    So, seeing Yasmine get her head smacked by the boy she was bullying was like getting a small sip from the cup named revenge that I so badly wanted to drink from.


    Since Yasmine was nobility, when her parents saw her broken face, they were bound to cause trouble. That is why, I didn''t see any point in letting her live. I mean, if trouble was gonna come either way, why hold back at all?


    But, the boy backed down before finishing her off.


    That idiot requested me to let her go. I didn''t want to comply but I had to, because call it bad timing or bad luck, Yasmine''s maids and butlers were looking for her and were about to reach that place.


    Seeing that, I took that boy and escaped from there.


    I knew back then that trouble was going to come both our ways pretty soon and had told him to look out for himself that night as I went back and started preparing myself.


    The next day though, a piece of news spread throughout the city.


    ''8-year-old boy killed. The victim was a student of Projectile Arts and seems to have been killed from one of his practice weapons.''


    The news suprisingly calmed me down, as if a burden was off my shoulders, and I then allowed myself to ponder on a question that I had kept in the back of my mind till then.


    ''Why were the maids and butlers looking for Yasmine in the first place? The time was still not that late that it would be considered abnormal for Yasmine to not be at her house. So, was someone else behind this?''


    And that, finally, led the boy named Jill Jake entering my life.