[211] Such A Hard Thing to Accept

Chapter 211: Such A Hard Thing to Accept

—

Seraphina was always a kind girl. Some used to say her name was too grand for a rat living in the slums, but I never thought the same. Like I believed, she grew into a brilliant star just as I did.

We first met when we were just kids. She was a little girl dying of hunger, as was I. I stole a piece of bread, and this girl jumped me to take it away from me. In the end, we ended up sharing the bread.

We lived like rats in the corrupted back alleys of the Imperial Capital, Eldrathor. However, before we realized it, we were always sticking together. Against the odds, Seraphina and I persisted.

Some said we might be siblings, as she was named Seraphina and I Seriphoth. However, our Goddess later confirmed that we didn't have any blood connection. But I guess just having such similar names made a sibling-like bond between us in those hard times. As someone mentally older, I had decided to take care of her.

I did just that until the day she was taken away by a passing pastor. He said there were imprints of the divine in her, and wanted to take her to the temple. Knowing that she would lead a much better life in the temple than in the slums, how could I stop her?

"Ser, you need to wait for me here! Once I rise in the ranks, I'll come and pick you up!" — was what she said before she'd vanish for years.

I didn't see her after all. I thought she had moved on, now that she had a better life. She was just a kid so I didn't even hold anything against her, I was happy for her.

Instead, I encountered that fateful incident of saving the Princess. I became a Knight, my life took a turn for the better.

I could have visited her then. As a slum kid, I wasn't allowed to visit the temple she was in. I didn't like such class differences in religion, however, it wasn't the Goddess' fault, the humans had made those rules. Anyway, as a Knight, I was allowed to visit the temple, I could have gone and met her if I wanted.

However, it had been a few years since we last saw each other. Since she never contacted me before, I was pretty sure she had forgotten me. She was a kid, after all. Thinking it would be embarrassing if she didn't recognize me, I decided to never visit her.

Later I realized that if I had chosen to visit her back then, she wouldn't have suffered the things she did.

Maybe she wouldn't have died.

****

[Third Person Point of View]

When she first joined the temple, Seraphina was already at a disadvantage. While the temple would often take orphans, that's from the orphanages that were associated with the temple. Rarely were rats from the sewer taken in. Especially in the temple of Eldrathor, which was quite prestigious.

So she was bullied in ways that didn't suit the ways of a church. Given that the ones who bullied her were not much older than her, it made sense. Kids kids often acted up.

She was forced to do chores that weren't her, until her hands would bleed, and her knees would hurt. The adults turned a blind eye to it, thinking it was the kids' way of welcoming her. Or maybe they thought it was a challenge from the Goddess?

For a short moment, Seraphina thought the same.

Until the other nun kids killed the pet cat that had accompanied her from the slums. It was as old as she was, and therefore quite old and dirty. Those kids found it unappealing, too dirty to be kept in the church. So they killed it.

Seraphina hadn't cursed the Goddess like that before. When her cat died, kneeling before its grave, crying under the rain, she shouted such obscene names to the goddess that would have even the devil pass out. Yet the Goddess didn't punish her.

At that point she was sure.

This religion was a hoax.

How could people who would kill an innocent cat for looking dirty be people of God?

Seraphina grabbed two kitchen knives and murdered those children. The entire Church, all of its branches united, were outraged by this. They tied her to a stake and burnt fire underneath.

Yet, the fire refused to burn her.

The Divine Goddess refused to punish her.

[My child,] for the first time in a long time, the Goddess had sent her voice directly to the mortal world. The church thrummed with divinity. [Your kitten is in my arms at this moment. He speaks of you well, and wishes you'll live a long time.]

This happened in the church and all who saw it knew the girl in front of them wasn't ordinary. With a heart so pure that the Goddess would reveal her voice, she must be… a Saintess Candidate!

The punishment was called off. Of course, it was, the Goddess refused to punish her, so how could the church go against it? They let her go, and she continued living her days. This time she lived much better than before, since nobody bullied her.

Meanwhile, nobody knew of one secret. While they had stopped hearing the Goddess's voice, the girl was still hearing it. In her head, the Goddess talked. Even Galaxara herself was surprised that Seraphina could maintain a mental connection with her at all times, without clasping her hands, without praying.

"You hag, can you shut up for a moment?! I'm trying to sleep!"

[....]

Her days were going quite well.

Until disaster struck once more.

One of the girls who she had killed was a child from a noble family. While most of those girls were orphans, one of them was from a Baron Family. Her uncle was also a priest.

Since the incident when the Goddess spoke happened in the church, although the story traveled outside, not everyone believed it. One of them was the Baroness, the mother of the dead girl. She was enraged at Seraphina and wanted her dead. With the help of her brother, Seraphina was taken outside.

To Seraphina, it was presented as an offer. "Hey, didn't you have a friend named Seriphoth? He actually became a Knight recently, he's in the royal castle. Would you like to visit him?"

She had obviously accepted. She was excited to meet an old friend, who she had been unable to contact all this time due to the bullying. All the letters she sent were torn apart.

So she followed the priest who offered to take her out. Little did she know, he was the brother of the Baroness, and handed her over to slave traders hired by the woman. She was chained and taken away from the Thyranais Empire.

Due to an odd collar, her divine powers stopped flowing in her veins. She couldn't communicate with the Goddess, she couldn't ask for help. She was taken to the Aularian Empire, an Empire built by the Black Mage King. Everyone with power in that place was a practitioner of black magic, it was a dark country.

She was sold in the slave market, bought by a gross Marquis Black Mage who wanted to test divine power mixing with dark magic.

That's where she died.

After years, Seraphina died during an experiment. Yet, the messed up mage continued experimenting on her dead body.

When even her bones began to melt, her body too damaged to be used for research, he threw her into the trash. Trash Collector Spells teleported her, along with the rest of the garbage, to a mountain of trash in some remote corner of the world.

That's where she rose.

Her broken body stood back up, her eyes red, her skin pale, and her heart not beating any further.

"Ugh…"

The collar around her neck was broken due to the fall. Life somehow returned to her, although not perfectly. Her heart didn't beat, her blood didn't run, and yet she could think.

Yet, divine power flowed through her veins.

The experiments had benefited her in ways that the bastard Marquis didn't realize.

"...What in Hell's name?"

"What, who are you?" Seraphina snapped at the angel flying before her. The Angel of Death had been waiting to collect her soul, yet her soul never left her body.

[Ozriel,] the Goddess' voice commanded. [Let her be, she's a special child.]

"...Sure," the angel of death rubbed the back of her head and left, leaving Seraphina to rub the back of her head.

"What am I supposed to do now?" she asked out loud, as if not bothered by the years of torture at all.

[...A new Hero has been chosen. I think you'll love to meet him.] Upon the Goddess' advice, the Zombie Saintess began to search for the Hero.

Only upon meeting him did she discover that the so-called Hero was her childhood friend bastard who never tried to look for her.

[Image Here]

-「We don't gotta be in love, no…」

****

The room thrummed as divinity exploded out of Seraphina, face to face with the man who everyone revered as the Hero.

"Who the hell are you?!"

She demanded while massive wings of light unfurled from her back. Her common clothes exploded to reveal a divine golden armor, and daggers of light formed on her grip.

The Saintess was the Hero Party's healer, for sure. Yet since Sieran had incredible healing spells under her belt, once that didn't need divinity, Seraphina often chose to do other tasks to fulfill her role in the party. She was a strong fighter, her dagger allowing her agile movements that even the Hero failed to overwhelm. She's the Party's fastest.

The man who wore Seriphoth's identity, the man she decided to refer to as Aqua in her head like those people from the other world did, stared at her in silence for a moment. He then leaned his arms back against the window frame.

"So it has come to this, huh," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "I'm not an imposter, Seraph," he sighed.

-「We don't gotta be in love, no. I don't gotta be the one, no. I just wanna be one of your girls. Tonight (tonight)…」

One of the Girls was a dirty song for a Saintess, but she sang it with him when she was a dirty sewer rat, not a Saintess. It's stuck with her since. What kind of magic was singing it right now, she wondered, she could sense no source.

"....." She remained sharp on her battle stance, her daggers glinting under the light as she held them in front of her.

Of course, deep down she knew the truth. If she could sense the depth of his darkness, her Goddess must have as well. And yet, she confirmed it's him. So how could she doubt it?

Or perhaps Galaxara hadn't. From the looks of it, his soul was quite deep and hard to perceive. If not for the special condition of her [Skill], she should be unable to see it.

Seraphina had a special skill. [Spiritual Nexus].

===

Name: Spiritual Nexus

Level: Maxed

Type: Spiritual Transcendent

Description: Spiritual Nexus is a unique and mystical skill that allows the user to interact with the essence of others' souls. This skill provides the user with the ability to observe, judge, and connect souls in profound and transformative ways. Even divine beings can be affected by this – if permission is granted by the said divinity.

Abilities:

Limitations:

===

Of all those littering words, only one line was important right now. The very last line that declared- "Even Soul Vision and Soul Judgement can't work on those with powerful souls unless permission is received."

The entity before her was one such soul. However, Seriphoth had given her permission a long time ago, and that permission is still registered in the Gaia System. Because of that, she could perceive his soul better than even the Goddess.

"A-answer me!" She shouted, prompting Aqua to stare at her.

Of course, it was a stupid question. If she could perceive his soul because Seriphoth had given her permission, that automatically meant he had to he Seriphoth. Just like everyone believed.

She knew that was logical.

-「Give me tough love. Leave me with nothin' when I come down. My kinda love. Push me and choke me 'til I pass out…」

But the sheer disparity between his soul back then and his soul right now made her unresponsive heart tremble. How could it be so different?!

Seeing her hesitation, the tremble in her eyes, he sighed, "Looks like you reached your conclusions. Stuff happens, people change. However my home is still my home, so I'm here going to protect it as I must."

"...." She stared at him, "You told me about that one mind exercise back in the day, remember?"

"I know which one you're talking about."

"Yes, the ship one," she said, still in a fighting stance, "The Ship of Theseus, imagine it has been preserved in a harbor as a museum piece. Over time, the wooden parts of the ship begin to rot, and each part is replaced with a new, identical part. Eventually, every single part of the ship has been replaced. The question then arises: Is this fully restored ship still the Ship of Theseus?" She gritted her teeth, "We've hunted down so many humans who had gone through demonification before. We know they're far from the same person, even if the demon originated from the human."

"...." Aqua silently looked at the ceiling.

There was a very important detail that Aqua had chosen to not focus on after coming here.

If not because of that, he would have argued with her point by saying: imagine if all the original parts removed from the ship were stored and later used to construct another ship, wouldn't that be the true Ship of Theseus? Among the two ships, which one would be the true Ship of Theseus?

Whatever the answer may be, it would be either one of them, or both.

If he could bring out the [Hero Icon], he could easily prove that he still has that 'old ship's parts' inside him. However, he hadn't touched the Hero in a millennia. He had tried connecting to it in the months he had spent training back on Earth, but it didn't respond.

The first time Aqua ever saw an Icon in action was in his 5th life when his Vampire Mother tapped into the Time Icon, one of the strongest Icons in creation. He gained his Hero Icon after that, in his 6th life, when he was quite the heroic tiger. However, the abilities that Icon granted were the abilities from his first life. It was great.

In his 9th life, he lost access to that Icon.

Even to this day, he could never tap into it.

In such a scenario, was her argument somewhat valid? Someone else in his spot might have frowned at her for doing this, but not him. Since he was aware of how high her soul perception was, he was unsure if she had a point or not.

"You don't have an answer,"

"Well, I may not be who you knew a million years ago, but I still originate from him, if you want to put it that way," he decides to be honest with her. He was used to telling her the truth always, especially because of her skill.

"...." she scowled at him. "A million years?"

"Yes."

"No wonder," she dropped her transformation with a sigh, and her wings and daggers vanished. "Are you a demon?"

"You should have asked that before you dropped your weapon," he shook his head, "I'm not." Not anymore, anyway.

"I see," she sighed. "I… I'm sorry. Maybe you expected me to hug you… and I wanted to do that too… but for someone like me… with my kind of unnecessary sixth sense, it's hard to perceive you the same as my husband." She said, "I'm sorry if that seems unjustified to you."

"It's alright," Aqua turned around, facing the window now. "Our goals align, that's all that matters."

"Mhm…" Seraphina muttered, and a moment later, hesitantly took a step. She turned around, and slowly walked out of the room, running when she was out of the door.

That left Aqua alone, all by himself.

A soft sigh escaped his lips, as he crossed his arms and faced the starry night sky. He had hoped to wrap his arms around his old friend after so long but reality had other plans.

In truth, he expected such an outcome. That was why he sent the other two away from the get-go, so they wouldn't have to witness this sorry sight. If they didn't hate him for the darkness in his soul, even after hearing Seraphina's claims, they might have even gotten mad at her instead.

He leaned against the frame of the window, staring at the bright night city that celebrated his return. Everyone in the city celebrated, except for the one person he wanted to celebrate with.

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Author Note: Not always do things just work out. Reality is harsh for Aqua.

Read the next chapter right away along with this entire month's (and next), on my .

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