Chương 100: Chapter 99

Seraphina didn't know how long she had been in this state, but sometime ago, the Goddess had left to deal with some matters, and Cause and Effect had also gone off to do something. All that was left was a starry night sky. Seraphina looked at it. She didn't really want to talk to it, because she figured that this too worked for that being. So she spent most of her time just counting the stars within it....

"9, 009, 967."

"9, 009, 968." Eventually, she reached ten million, and she felt completely bored. Occasionally, she would watch the aurora borealis going through the System, and she wondered if this was how the monks felt. At some point, she had tried to test out her magic in this place, but she was quickly restricted. Soon, she couldn't help but crack. She opened her mouth to talk to the System.

"Hey, you."

"You were that woman's system thing, weren't you?" Hearing the voice, the System turned toward Seraphina. It opened its mouth.

"Yes. I was the being assigned to watch over Nina as she traveled within this world."

"Oh, I see." Seraphina felt that it was rather awkward. Eventually, Seraphina decided to have a one-sided conversation with the System, explaining how, in her childhood, when she had turned seven, they had figured out that she was capable of becoming the future Saintess. That was when her golden eyes had awakened. And from that moment on, her happy family had slowly changed into something she could no longer recognize. It started minimally.

One day, she saw her father come in with a strange, dark-like thing surrounding him. By the time she figured out what the thing was after turning to the Temple, things had already gone too far. She had also seen those grieving souls upon many other individuals. Occasionally, there would be a few people whom she would see with a golden light upon them.

She spoke of how, in the Temple, there was a higher concentration of those people with golden light, which made her feel comfortable around them, though there were still some who had those creatures surrounding them. She spoke to the System about her first life and how she mostly had no control over the things that happened due to the fact that, at some point, she had lost her golden eyes. And then a man came. This man, later known as Nate, would take over her position and go to help the world.

But in the end, she couldn't even keep her promise to help him and his sibling leave safely once the mission was done. She had had everything planned, but someone had let it be known that the Saintess was, in fact, a man. With that news spreading everywhere, Seraphina had no choice but to imprison Nate and state that he had been the one who imprisoned her in the first place. This was all to quell the anger of the people. But she figured out how to allow him to escape and gave him a new identity.

She was still under the control of her father, though, so she couldn't even put up much of a resistance. The System was listening to this. It didn't know whether or not to say that it already knew her life story because of the book itself. But seeing as she was not currently stable, the System decided not to speak.

"You know what's funny?" Seraphina chatted to herself.

"After the death of Nate, I thought that Jeannette had long been gone, so I would have put them together."

"But when I got both eyes and looked upon my father, Jeannette's soul was never there." She chuckled at the thought.

"He never actually killed her."

"It was someone else dressed as my father who did kill her, as I had seen her grievances faced upon him." Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

"You know, when the first Calamity happened, I felt rather indifferent."

"But it had been a rather traumatic scene, so I had forcefully removed it from my mind."

"The second life, I met Nate face to face, but we both came at the same time."

"I talked with him. He was rather angry and pointed fingers."

"I even wanted to tell him that Jeannette had never actually been killed by Duke Valquest."

"But Nate never listened."

"He stated that if I wanted him to help the Hero's Party once again in my stead, he would get revenge on my father and be able to kill him with his own hands."

"At the time, I could only agree, thinking that I would find a way to prove that it wasn't Duke Valquest who killed her."

"But even so, nothing worked, and he killed Duke Valquest."

"But even when that happened, the Calamity still appeared."

"By this time, I met with the Goddess for the first time."

"It was rather disheartening to see someone you had worshipped tell you to stop fighting fate."

"And when I opened my eyes again for the third time, ready to see Nate and ready to try something new, he was never there."

"I guess that's when Nina came into play." Looking back, Seraphina laughed bitterly.

"I guess I was just stupid."

"I was so, so stupid and really naive."

"My existence was the cause of why everything became the way it is."

"Maybe... maybe if my life had ended earlier, just maybe..."

"Maybe my mother and father would have stayed the loving parents I knew them to be."

"Maybe everything would not have gone down this path."

"Even the good life that the Goddess showed me..."

"Duke Valquest still gets killed."

"All my family members are gone."

"I know that I have to face it, but still..."

"I just can't be as heartless as Nina."

"As heartless as the Goddess herself."

"I feel things, and this is not..."

"I just can't." Tears had been falling down Seraphina's face. Her voice had started cracking toward the end, and she could barely get some words out. She wiped her face, crying profusely.

"I hate this."

"I hate feeling so strongly."

"Why do I have to do this?"

"Why?"

"Just why?"

"Why?"... After a little breakdown, Seraphina and the System continued to quietly stare out into the distance until the Goddess came down once again. With a light voice, she spoke.

"Are you ready to make your choice, Seraphina?"

"No," Seraphina replied.

"I'll never do anything according to your plans, so you might as well just leave me alone."

"Well," the Goddess said lightly.

"That's currently impossible." She continued.

"As I have put the world into a frozen state due to the fact that you yourself have yet to make a decision, this world will never move on until you choose. I'm here to give you a chance, as I need to attend to some other matters. Me staying here and watching over you has already caused many rules to be broken from the traditional pathway."

"But since this is a special case, it is a matter of doing and not doing. Therefore, I ask again: will you choose, or will you stay here for the concept of eternity, with the world never flowing onward?"

"In that time, you will remain here alone, with nothing to amuse yourself with."

"Is that a threat?" Seraphina asked.

"If you see it as such, then it shall be." Seraphina fell silent before opening her mouth.

"It's impossible for me to go to that place, Earthie, is it called? From my understanding of Nina herself, she came from a land that had no magic, so I would be an anomaly."

"Oh," the Goddess spoke.

"Did I not mention that?"

"I had long since taken away your magical powers, though I would return them to you if you chose to stay within this world. But if you wished to go into the earthly world, I can grant thee a wish upon this world."

"What are you plotting?" Seraphina asked.

"It's not a matter of plotting, but a matter of cause and effect. Your family, more notably Duke and Duchess Valquest, were never meant to meet their deaths at such a time. They were meant to be heroes of their own era, had things gone the way they were supposed to."

"Nina was to be the one to kill them, as they would have stopped her from following the path of evilness and, in turn, been killed by Nate Monet. But as matters stand, things are slightly off course."

"What do you mean?"

"Due to my fundamental nature of neutrality, my assessment of perfection differs from those of the other beings of my status. A Neutral Evil was meant to, against all odds, return itself to neutrality, and as Nina seemed to care for her previous world, she would inevitably never choose to go back. This meant that her process had come to an end, and was rather successful, in fact."

"Though the matter of her being Neutral Evil was never fundamentally removed, it was more so a matter of being than anything else, regardless of other means of understanding."

"What are you talking about?" Seraphina furrowed her eyebrows.

"What you're saying does not make any sense."

"I see," the Goddess said.

"Well, to speak in a manner in which you would understand, if you choose a path, the path of heading forth to the world which you were fundamentally supposed to be in, I can intervene in that world in such a way that would allow Duke Valquest and Duchess Valquest, as well as your other family members, to remain alive and not be removed from the world." Seraphina laughed at the absurdity of the situation.

"Are you trying to make me feel stupid? You clearly showed me the future, and in that future, my parents died. Yet you stand here and say that if I leave for the earthly world, you would allow my parents to live."

"It is as I have foretold. The world I showed thee was the world in which I stopped intervening.

If you wish to step into the earthly world, and you wish for this to be the wish I can bestow upon this world, I would be allowed to therefore allow for the people of that world to experience every single death and rewind you had intuitively gone through, from old to young, and will bestow upon Jeannette and Nate, the Monet siblings, information which allows them to perceive their true killer, the person toward whom their resentment should be directed, while simultaneously allowing Nate to experience the horrors of the world which you had seen with his own two eyes, sense of revenge, if you may."

"Why do you wish for me to go to that world so badly?" The Goddess stopped. She didn't expect this question. She took some time to think about it before deciding to give Seraphina the answer to her question.

"You are a failed sample. Despite being born in a world filled with Neutral Evil, and you yourself being fundamentally disaligned within it, your conviction grows stronger, allowing you to lean more toward Neutral Good than one would expect."

"But despite being a failed case, and your causal existence needing to be erased, your spirit and fundamental cause was so strong that it allowed you to be in a stable state, making it rather hard for anything to pierce through."

"You did not reach toward evil, despite things being there, all the natures being there. Had you reached toward evil, you would have landed in neutrality and would have long since succeeded."

"But you reached toward good."

"Though it was rather surprising, your tenacity was well respected among the beings and was one thing not accounted for."

"But the line between Neutral Good and alignment toward true Good is rather thin in your case. And you're on that verge."

"Once you step over it, you will collapse completely."

"Yet due to the fact that this error was brought upon by thyself, I have kept your critical state a secret to those above, which I can continue to do so if you wish to go and live your life within this world."

"Though I cannot guarantee Duke Valquest and Duchess Valquest's lives if you wish to stay in this world."

"But going to the earthly world will allow me to save them and allow you to potentially align yourself more toward neutrality and not fall into the fundamental nature of true Goodness."

"But from the stories I heard from Nina..." Seraphina spoke after a long silence and deep understanding.

"This world is fundamentally different from mine." The Goddess pointed toward the starry night sky.

"This System will be tasked to be with you in that world and will not leave you until you're able to gain a foothold and a deep understanding."