Chapter 337: Little Lessons
Arthur kept his focus on Esna, having already told Nicole to handle Layla earlier.
Though the boy could use his ’Race Command’ on her, he chose not to as he wanted her to give him an answer she truly felt was right, and not a forced one.
As for the godslayer girl, she only narrowed her eyes at him in silence for a few seconds, before finally opening her mouth to speak.
"You were the one who said our race was born out of the necessity to cull the numbers of gods who take actions that are considered ’harmful’ ’by’ and ’to’ the majority of the Cosmos.
Those are our targets.
But not all of the members of the god race fit that bill, as such, it is possible to create temporary alliances with those who are ’neutral’ or on the ’opposite’ side of that spectrum when necessary."
Pointing to the Benevolent gods of Gade around them, she continued.
"These ones stood up to protect their world and its inhabitants from the clutches of their Malevolent counterparts.
So, you can do well to let them go now."
Arthur silently stared at her; his left blue eye glowing lightly as he asked after a few moments.
|¬So, you believe Alliances are possible? ¬|
"Yes."
Hearing her reply, Arthur nodded to himself before deactivating his progenitor authority and freeing the Benevolents of Gade from its tormenting effects.
A wave of divinity then spread out from his body, washing over them and erasing their pain, as well as healing the wounded ones.
"Indeed, Alliances are possible."
He deactivated his Faux true voice as well, clenching his fist and condensing time law essence into an orb on his palm.
Looking through it, he saw visions of ’himself’ speaking with someone, the contents of their conversation unintelligible.
’What ’Script’ was he supposed to follow in the first place?’
"So, mind telling what all that was about?"
Layla who had been freed by Nicole walked up to Arthur and asked with a slight glare in her eyes, a question that Esna and Edward also wanted to know the answer to.
"Nothing too serious. I just wanted to make sure ’I’ hadn’t gotten to her yet."
’Knowing myself, there’s a chance ’I’ might go after her. Esna is an Elder Breed after all, albeit un-awakened.’
"...What?"
"Don’t worry about it, you would not understand even if I tried to explain."
Arthur waved Layla off but before the girl could say anything else, he turned his gaze to the side and spoke words that caught her attention.
"I think Layla calls you ’Number One’ right? You can show yourself now."
"Huh? One’s here? Where?"
Right after Layla asked with shock, the familiar black-clothed servant suddenly materialized behind her and placed his hand on her shoulder as he answered.
"Over here, Young Miss."
His sudden appearance left her momentarily startled, eliciting a light surprised scream from her that had Arthur bursting into laughter much to her displeasure.
"Congratulations, Young Miss."
"Huh? What for?"
"For achieving a glimpse of ’Creation’."
The man spoke while gesturing to her eyes, bringing her back to the fact that they had indeed undergone a not-so-subtle change recently.
"Is it gonna change back to normal?"
"I doubt. It looks to be the same as my left eye. The energy of the law has completely melded into it."
Arthur chipped in to reply as he ’looked’ at the watered-down law essence that was now permeating through Layla’s eyes, one that was definitely going to change to the true Law energy when she became a Legendary Realm existence.
"Oh..."
"Why do you seem sad? It looks cool."
"Unlike you, I’m not exactly used to the feeling of having my body parts get modified so suddenly."
"Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?"
As the two teenagers began bantering like always, Number One glanced around, spotting Edward and Esna who were dealing with the aftermath of the battle and handling the Benevolents, as well as Nicole and Undine who were having a little conversation with some of the water spirits who wanted to contract with her.
"Congratulations to you too, Your Highness."
"?...Ohh.... Thanks."
It only took the boy a moment to figure out what he was being congratulated for, something he informed the curious Layla about, eliciting another shocked reaction from her.
"WHAT?! YOU ALREADY HAVE A PSEUDO-AUTHORITY IN THE LAW OF TIME?!"
Her loud voice attracted the attention of all those nearby, including the gods of Gade who gazed at Arthur with a mixture of shock and fear.
Idall who possessed a Pseudo-Authority in the past felt even more shock, but it was still not up to the level felt by Edward, Esna and Layla.
After all, the two of them were aware of the fact that Arthur had lost all his law comprehensions after casting ’The Third Magic’, meaning that he had gone from 0% to 50% of the Basic rank law of time, in just a little bit less than two years.
"Absurd!"
"Everything in existence is Absurd."
"And you’re the king of those absurdities!"
The two Deities present, Undine and Number One were also shocked to hear that Arthur had apparently lost his law comprehensions at some point, and the fact that he regained them all and even surpassed them in less than 2 years left them flabbergasted.
’The Law of Causality should normally not allow such fast law comprehension speed...or is it because he’s a Singularity?"
They were unaware of ’The Third Magic’, as such, they could only speculate the reason for Arthur’s ridiculous feat.
[Progenitor or not, isn’t this a bit too much?]
Undine spoke up as she looked at Arthur, noticing the law energies swirling around within the boy’s body, courtesy of his other law comprehensions, two of which were very close to reaching Pseudo Authority level.
Though, he would have to at least become a Legendary for his soul to be able to hold more than one Pseudo-Law Origin Core.
◇ ◇ ◇
After they finished tabulating the bundle of abnormalities that was Arthur and managed to deal with the Allied armies and stuff, the quartet finally had the time and peace of mind, to do something about their ragged appearances.
Layla’s Personal Maid, who also happened to be ’Number Two, carried a portable changing booth with her, one she had Layla and the other girls wipe down and change in.
After this, they all sat down and chatted with Arthur, narrating their experiences over the past two nineteen days to him.
"You guys went through quite a lot...."
The boy was genuinely surprised upon discovering what led to Layla and the others having to fight against Kulir whom he killed earlier, and he even felt a bit bad about it considering it was partly his fault that they ended up here.
It was then, that Undine who had retaken her position on Nicole’s shoulder, suddenly made a statement.
[Everything went just as expected.]
At first, they were momentarily confused by this, but Layla’s eyes widened the next moment as she realised what Undine meant.
"You knew how all this was going to end from the start, didn’t you?
Both of you did."
The latter half of her words were directed towards both Undine and Number One, the two Deity Realm existences who were well aware of the situation on Gade from the moment Kulir began using fate to peek at them.
"You guys knew from the start that the threat that the Malevolent god of Darkness sensed.
Us being the ’Key to his defeat’ was because our presence here would have inevitably brought the person who was actually going to kill him over to this world; Arthur."
Undine gave a small smile that confirmed Layla’s conjecture as correct.
The Great Water Spirit had stated beforehand that she and Number One had excluded themselves from Kulir’s calculations via fate, as such, the ’threat’ the god had perceived was not either of them.
But Kulir, was the strongest entity on the Planet Gade, there should not have been anything besides the two deity realm existences capable of threatening him on the planet; yet, he still discerned that the quartet were going to be the key to his defeat.
Thinking about it now, the reason was because of Arthur, someone who had a whole lot of Karma and Fate with the four of them.
However, Kulir could only sense a ’threat’ and could not discern its true nature. The reason for this was that Arthur was not even in the same Galaxy, and Kulir certainly was not powerful enough to use the law of Fate on the scale where he could discern things about beings on other planets, much less another Galaxy.
