I spent that day and the day after reading and training my swordsmanship, I couldn't strain my physical body so that was the only thing I could do.

On the evening of the following day, I went to Erian's tent and found fewer people inside. There were more corpses piled up on a carriage outside, and I didn't know how many were already on the mass grave. Among them I saw the boy I saw Erian heal yesterday, with an open wound in his chest, right upon his heart.

When I entered the main tent I found Erian using her spells and some civilians helping out as they could.

The pillaging time was over and the officials were starting to punish more severely the indiscriminate use of violence. Still, accidents were still occurring around the city, and they would probably go on until the army left.

I walked to Erian, surpassing the queue, and since I was wearing a cape with Hoss's symbol on it and a maid was following me, no one told me anything.

Erian's eyes seemed unfocused, and there were two dark circles around them, I wondered if she slept last night. Her expression seemed calm though.

She didn't seem to have noticed me, so I touched her shoulder.

“Erian?”

She ignored me.

I decided to let her finish her current patient and then call her again.

She finished healing a woman with heavy burns on her face, restoring her face completely, and after a civilian brought the woman away, another civilian brought in his arms a man with a cut in his stomach.

“Erian?”

She still ignored me.

But then I noticed something strange in her.

Her body emitted an abnormal quantity of holy energy, I looked at the small mound of mana crystals beside her and a suspicion entered my mind.

I grabbed her wrist and touched her skin, her wrist felt cold as a corpse and I could feel an abnormal quantity of holy mana inside it.

'As I thought.'

Erian was experimenting with the overuse of holy magic, the Healing attribute wasn't entirely made of holy energy, but it still was enough to have risks.

Her body now was at a temperature unbearable for a person and she was living only thanks to her ki, all her senses were dumbed down, her mind was hazy, and she couldn't do anything but focus on a single task.

The holy magic focused on finding Serenity, and most people tried to reach it by dedicating themselves to a single purpose. It changed from person to person, and the more the user felt fulfilled by the purpose, the stronger the magic became.

But using the attribute too much would cause the user to be overwhelmed by the sense of peace the magic gave, and lose themselves. At that point, they would become unable to think and control their magic, and then they would continue repeating the last action they were doing before losing themselves until death.

It wasn't very different from the symptoms of overuse of demonic magic. Their only difference was the fact that the physical symptoms were the opposite.

It was similar to an Overflow, but Overflows were caused by an unstable mind and the subject remained conscious of what was happening, while overuse could affect anyone who used the attribute too much and made the consciousness fade gradually.

I shouted:

“The healer is experiencing an overuse of holy magic, I'll take her away for a while.”

The man that was bringing the next wounded in line said:

“But there are many people with heavy injuries in line, like this man, he won't survive until she recovers.”

All the people in line glared at me, they must have already noticed.

“I don't care, she can't die.”

“But-”

The man made a step forward, and I pointed my wand at him.

Then I put my mouth close to Erian's ear and shouted:

“There are a lot of gravely injured people nearby, I have to bring you there so that you can heal them!”

Erian seemed to have understood and nodded, she didn't seem to be able to recognize me though.

I held her hand and dragged her out, she followed me obediently while staggering, while I saw some wounded look at me with hatred and others with relief.

I used my magic senses and entered the auxiliary tent where I felt the least healing magic in the air. I saw two women with bandages on their bodies and told them to get out for a bit. They obeyed fearfully and dragged their bodies outside.

I told Lae to get out and not let anybody in and took out the canteen of fresh Demon's Blood I planned to give her.

Erian was looking around, looking for wounded people, I forcefully hugged her body and restrained her. The procedure would be painful, and the confused Erian could try to fight back, I only hoped she wouldn't start screaming and put Lae in trouble. I cast a silence spell for good measure.

I then started injecting demonic mana into her, I felt her body start trembling, and her holy ki and mana started to swirl inside her.

Then she started emitting weeps.

“Ah Ah Ah.”

Her eyes opened wide and she was clenching her teeth.

She then started screaming.

“Ahhhhhhhhh.”

Her body started convulsing and her holy mana started attacking me. It was just an instinctive reaction though, so I had no trouble resisting. But still, it wasn't the best for my wounded spiritual body.

“Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh.”

Erian started crying, but her eyes seemed to start regaining a bit of luster.

“Aaaaaaaaaah, it hurts, stop, I have to....... heal.”

Her mind wasn't quite there yet, but she was getting better.

“Listen Erian, you overused your magic, you have to get yourself together, the world needs you.”

“Yes, they need me to heal them, stop, it hurts, let me go, I was almost there, I almost healed them.”

“No you weren't, you were about to lose yourself, you have to hold on, bear with it.”

I increased the amount of demonic mana I was infusing into her.

“Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh.”

I took her face in my hands and pointed her face towards mine.

“Erian, it's me, David, look at me.”

“M-make it end, k-kill me, it hurts.”

“Keep it together.”

“Kill me kill me kill me kill me.”

She started repeating those words obsessively.

Her convulsion stopped, her mana calmed down, and she started curving herself into the fetal position.

“Kill me kill me...... sob......kill....... sob........me......I can't bear it anymore.”

She then started crying.

I started infusing less mana and let go of my strict grasp on her.

She was now crying on the ground, she seemed very pitiful, now her determined and firm attitude was nowhere to be seen, she was just a scared girl.

I remembered how comforting her magic felt to me when I was wounded, and I felt the need to do something for her.

I hugged her, this time more gently, and caressed her hair.

“It's fine, the pain is passing, you'll feel better soon.”

She seemed to be soothed by my words, and her expression became softer.

She closed her eyes, and uttered:

“David, bring me away from here.”

I didn't know how to respond to that, I just tried with a couple of random reassuring lines.

“Don't worry, I'm here with you.”

Her face became even more relaxed.

She then fell into a sleep-like condition, her body now managed to return to a stable condition, but it needed to heal its spiritual body and stabilize the holy ki.

She didn't have the worried expression she lately had, she seemed to be sleeping peacefully.

She was cute with that innocent expression.

After about ten minutes, she opened her eyes.

She looked at me, and then looked around confusedly.

“You overused your holy magic, was about to lose yourself and I had to bring you back.”

She opened her eyes wide open and said:

“What, how much time has passed?”

“Twenty minutes, way too little, you need to rest.”

“No, I have still work to do.”

“No you don't, you'll recuperate here, and from now on you will use this only on yourself.”

I showed the canteen to her.

“But-”

“No buts, I'll leave Lae with you today, and if you don't do what I told you, I'll go there and murder everyone.”

She opened her wide open.

“You wouldn't.”

“Wanna bet?”

I wouldn't actually, but I could kill the ones that wouldn't survive without Erian's immediate healing if it was to keep her from risking her life.

I smiled menacingly at her, and she looked at me with doubt in her eyes.

“Even if you are serious, why would you do that for me.”

“Because you can save people, it's just a logical decision, a few sacrifices now will let more people live in the long run.”

“If healers are so important to you why don't you become a healer yourself?”

“Because I don't want to, and because I wouldn't be able to protect myself, I'm not the kind of person that sacrifices himself for the others, and if you had some brain you wouldn't do it too, those like me are still more necessary.”

She smiled.

“Anyway, it's not like I would live much more anyway.”

She then stopped smiling and continued.

“But you're right I couldn't die like that........ thank you, David.”

“It's good that you understand, now I have to go, I have an appointment and because of you I'm already late enough.”

“Wait, I have to check your spiritual body.”

“Tomorrow.”

"I can do it if it's just checking."

"Even if you check me you wouldn't be able to do more than that, just rest."

"Mph, all right, if you insist, sure you are as worrywart as a mom today."

'This damn girl.'

"I'm just trying to keep you alive because you can be beneficial to the world I want to create, it's not like I'm worried or anything."

I spoke by instinct, but my world reminded me of a certain anime trope I knew of, this really irritated me.

"Whatever, just not use your magic more than that, you are still healing. Take care of yourself."

She said with a serious face.

"Tch and you just called me a worrywart, anyway, don't use your healing. Now I'll be going."

"Bye."

I got out and ordered Lae to keep watch on her.

I then sighed and walked towards Cail.

Having to babysit Erian made me uncomfortable, I had to watch her defenceless figure for too much and I started feeling pity for her, the desire of protecting her started welling from inside me, but I knew I couldn't let my emotions have the better of me. I had to get a hold of them.

It was now night, and most of Cail's buildings were closed, the only exception was the taverns, brothels, and gambling houses.

I then found the building I was looking for, Tranquility, it was a brothel and gambling house popular among the soldiers, I planned to meet Arabella tonight.

That evening I put on an illusory mask, wore a soldier's uniform, and went into the city.

Before the battle, Cail used to have several buildings outside the wall, but they were all demolished to deny us any covering. The residents either went to Zaven or went inside the city and occupied the buildings left vacant by those who fled.

Anyway, most brothels used to be outside the walls, so the few brothels that are left are now having a lot of work and were constantly bustling with people, they were the ideal place for a secret meeting.

I asked the way to a few soldiers and they readily redirected me to the place, but they said it would be difficult for me to find a woman, it seemed they were kicked out of it because there were too many people, it was so full of soldiers that people started calling it “The Base”.

I paid no mind to it and went there anyway, I found the place and entered the crowded building.

It was similar to The Rising Sun, it had gambling games and a tavern where they were selling drinks, but this time there wasn't anyone going around, all the prostitutes were probably occupied in the rooms.

The only staff I could see were the gamblers, three people serving alcohol to the crowd, and two people that were probably taking in people whenever a prostitute freed themselves, a huge group of people was waiting in front of them.

I had to ask them about Arabella, but I was worried that whoever was being my guardian angel for the day would hear me and get suspicious of me if I asked for a person I wasn't supposed to know.

I tried to find a solution, but then I saw a girl walk out of a door and position herself between the other two women.

One of them then said.

“Well, it seems Iris freed herself. Let's start the bidding with 25 Horuses, I see 25 there, 30, 32...”

It seems the brothel actually started selling their prostitutes by bidding to raise the prices, if things were like this I just had to wait and win the bid for Arabella.

They were using the empire's currency for the bid, well, it was probably the only way the soldiers could pay.

The name of the currency was actually Aurum, the Latin word for gold, but everyone called it Horus since he was printed on every coin's back. On the opposite side, there was Esha.

The girl netted the brothel 42 Horuses, it was quite the price, you could get by for a week with that money.

I then patiently waited and offered a couple of times in the beginning, being careful not to win, to fool whoever was watching me.

After about half an hour, the girl I was waiting for came out.

“Here it is our greatest beauty, Arabella, let's start with 50, 52.....”

She was surely the most beautiful girl until now, she had a delicate face and long black hair, it was a good thing since it was the most natural thing for me, who had a good amount of money, to take the most beautiful girl.

“62, 63.”

“100.”

I said.

The woman looked at me baffled.

“Can anyone do better than that?”

No one raised the offer.

“Sold to the gentleman with black hair.”

I walked through the crowd and all men looked at me with spite in their eyes.

Feeling their envious glares while I took the most beautiful girl from them felt refreshing.

'I should make this my hobby.'

After all, I was a great fan of a certain type of cultured manga, maybe in this world, I would have the chance to make those drawing into reality.

I offered my arm to Arabella, she took it while smiling and lead me to a room.

As soon as she closed the door, she bowed to me silently, then pointed to a corner of the room, I looked there.

Two other people were there. They hid their presence perfectly, I couldn't perceive them until I saw them, I raised my guard for an instant, but they then bowed too, expressing their peaceful intentions.

Arabella then spoke.

“There is a silence room in this room, so don't be afraid to make noises, almost everything will be covered by it, dear customer.”

She then brought me to the corner where the other two were standing. The two guys walked to the bed as soon as we got near them and stopped hiding their presence.

Arabella then said:

“But in this corner, there is an additional incantation set by us, it will erase every sound. Here we can speak freely, mister David.”

She then pointed at the two guys.

“They are my collaborators, their vocal cords had been modified to imitate our voices, they will act like us to give us an alibi, please bear with them.”

The two guys then started to flirt with each other, and their voices were identical to ours, it almost felt creepy.

“It seems you guys are quite resourceful, or maybe there's something you really want from me.”

“Well, both are true, but don't be scared, we are a peaceful group and all we want from you is information about what you call blessings. You have nothing to fear, we never harm anyone while unprovoked, and we have all the interests in helping you.”

She was still smiling, but now her smile was more a busyness smile rather than a seductive one.

“So you want to know about my blessing? I can tell you something, but there is also a lot of stuff I want to know from you.”

“That's wonderful, I'm sure you heard a lot of false rumours against us while you were in Hoss so I'm happy you want to know more about us.”

“Great, then why don't you start telling me the story of your group?”

Depending on what I was about to hear I would decide if tell lies or truths about my blessing, but I would probably lie, just to be sure.

“First, we're called Hollows, but it is a name we have been given since we possess the Hollow attribute in place of the divine attributes, we didn't actually choose that name.

We are humans in almost every aspect, but there are some differences. We belong to another magical system, we aren't connected to the Heart Of The World, and our nature changed when we changed magical system.

Our only desire is to do what's best for the human race as a whole, and that is what gives us happiness.

We can't use the demonic and holy attributes, in their stead we have the hollow attribute, an attribute that pushes you to accept the world for what it is, rather than drive you to force it to change or preserve it unchanged.

That's our purpose, to teach as many people as possible to do the same, and that's why we go around looking for people willing to join us.

We only do that through peaceful manners though and never attack anyone if not attacked first, still, everyone tries to suppress us, probably because they fear our magical system.”

I didn't like their attribute at all, I hated the idea of accepting the world for what it was, and I wondered if once joined their system it was possible to turn back, the idea of my drive being erased from my mind terrified me.

The fact that another magical system existed was very interesting though.

The magical energy I was feeling in her felt very different from mine, it seemed pure energy, but foreign. I felt like it couldn't belong inside me. I could believe her claim.

“I didn't know more than one magical system existed, how many are there?”

“Just two, yours is the natural system of this world, while ours was artificially created by Claire, the hero of humanity and first hollow.”

That was surprising, the only idea of creating a magical system from nothing was mind-boggling, I wondered how strong she was.

But if she was that strong, why couldn't she win the war?

“So that Dark Lord thing was just Claire?”

“Yes the Dark Lord doesn't exist, they invented it to cover Claire's ascension to godhood.”

“And so, it's possible to create a system from nothing, and how difficult is it? Can Horus and Clair do it?”

“No, first, she created it starting from an attribute, the hollow attribute, and studied it until she was able to remove it from your system, second, they are still too weak.”

“So why did she lose the war if she was so strong?”

“For two reasons: Because she didn't want to hurt her people more than necessary, and because, honestly, she was a terrible politician.

She was extremely powerful, but she couldn't handle her empire, she couldn't stop her ruling class from becoming corrupt and greedy, and after a while, she found the whole world against her.

She couldn't stop the central and western continents' people to be coerced by small groups of people wanting all the continents for themselves.

They declared war asking for independence thinking they could beat Claire, and invaded the northern continent. She had to fight back, knowing what kind of people they were.

She tried to keep the casualties to a minimum and created the demi-humans, the orcs, and the goblins from animals, making them human-like, to scare her opponents with an army of never-seen-before creatures. She won.

She then tried to negotiate for the continents to reach independence through a democratic system, but the leaders of the independentists refused to step down, fearing being killed. Huge turmoils succeeded themselves in the western and central continents, and after a while, a new faction guided by Horus took over the western continent. In the meanwhile, the central continent became engulfed in a civil war.

She had to go there to solve the situation. But then, while she was there, a faction took the power in the northern continent with the support of Horus.

Claire then found herself alone, and after she calmed the situation in the central continent the northern and eastern continents joined hands against her and started sending troops to the central continent.

Claire could have still won if she fought with everything she had and not cared about losses in her army, but instead, she decided to avoid a total war and returned to the northern continent, trying to find another solution.

The central continent's territory was divided between the eastern and western continents' rulers and the northern continent's rebels fled from there.

She shut herself in the castle of Liberty, the capital, and started researching the hollow attribute.

After a while disorders started to appear due to the crisis caused by the skyrocketing of food prices, which was imported from the western continent, and the absence of Claire from the public scene.

Then an invasion was started again by a coalition formed by the central, eastern, and western continents, trying to seize the richness and technological advancement of the north.

Claire tried to avoid as many deaths as possible again, but when she saw there was no other solution than total war, she decided to use the fruits of her research and used her army to gain enough time for her to complete her ritual, ascended to godhood and created a domain that weakened the magic from your system around the capital.

From that day on, we go around helping people and trying to convince them to join us, that's the way Claire chose to resolve the war. We want to peacefully gather as many people as possible so that we can make it so there won't ever be any more wars.

That should answer both your previous and former questions.”

“It does, but I have another question. How are you so sure you can stop any war from happening if you recruit enough people?”

“Well, that's something I can't reveal to you yet. Maybe if one day you become one of us or our ally we can talk about it.”

“I see.”

The more I talked with her, the more my questions increased.

There were things I couldn't ask her directly though. The picture she portrayed of Claire felt far too good. She said Claire had an enormous amount of power but didn't want to use it to reach her goal, a noble goal at that.

She either wasn't as strong, as good or maybe she was just stupid. If it were me I wouldn't have held back with my power, the lives that would be lost in the war would have been compensated by the ones saved in the following peace.

Also, the fact that she created all the demi-human races only to scare her opponents didn't make much sense...... unless it was just an excuse to make this world like a fantasy novel from our world. It was very unlikely, but I couldn't see any other reason, if it was for that reason I would have done it too, after all.

Horus's actions seemed plausible, even now, he always is the one declaring war every time, it made sense to him to want to defeat Claire at every cost.

Anyway, now another matter needed to be discussed.

I ignored our actors, that was moaning while sitting on the bed with completely plain expressions, and said:

“That clears a lot of things, but there is another thing I want to know. What was the message I received when I was summoned? It told me to go to the Dark Fortress, which, from what you just said, is the ex capital of the northern continent and your headquarters. Was it one of you who sent me that message?

And does it have to do with the reason why you want to know about my blessing?”

“It does. You see, what you call blessing is the remnant of what you saw when you passed through the Heart Of The World when you came here.

You have been inside it and seen it, such a vision would normally destroy the mind of any living being, but for some reason, it seems that the Heart itself blocks most of the information and only leave a certain type of information depending on the personality of the summoned. The information is a part of the Heart so it's different from normal memories, it's like a fluid information changing depending on the situation the summoned is in.

This vision is a part of the core of your system, and for Claire, which is imitating one, studying everything she can about it is of the utmost importance. That's why before turning into a goddess she also did another ritual and cast the spell the Shovos used to summon her and her companions. The spell wasn't quite the same though, hers was an imperfect imitation and summoned only about twenty people every twenty years in random places among the ones she had been in.

The Shovos also summoned humans to study the visions, they weren't interested in the humans themselves, it's just that humans retained most of the information from the Heart among the animals they could summon.

The message was left by Claire to ask you to go to our capital.”

“Wait so she's the one who summoned us?”

“Yes, she had assistants in the ritual, but it was mainly her.”

That was unexpected, I never thought that might be the case. I thought the most probable option was some scheme from the empire or a magical experiment gone wrong, somewhere.

“So you need our visions uh? Kidnapping from our world seems a pretty brutal mean for someone who claims to be a pacifist, not that I mind though.”

“Claire was in a difficult position at the time, and she took an extreme decision. It is undoubtedly her fault, she could have taken it more slowly and relied only on her vision. She probably wouldn't do the same now. Anyway, what is done is done, now we can only use what she did to make the world better.”

All her talks about what's best for the world were a bit suspicious, they seemed like Alua's lies, in a way. I could believe Claire wanted that, but I couldn't believe she would be able to convince everyone to agree on the same values. Still, if she was truly like that, she could just force everyone to follow her doctrine considering how strong she was. She needed to have the guts to do so though.

Anyway, those hollows seemed better than the empire, her explanation made sense, I believed she wasn't treating me like an idiot by hiding everything inconvenient behind obvious lieObviously,ous she couldn't tell me everything, but at least it seemed we could talk as peers. There still was something that was bothering me though.

“So you want me to go to the Dark Fortress to have my vision examined.”

“Yes.”

“And what will happen there? I know the two demon kings were earthlings who went berserk after coming there. Why would I trust you.”

“Oh those childs, that was partly our fault. Nothing much happened at our capital for the first demon king. He was a necromancer who was pursued due to the attribute he used and he studied necromancy in our library in exchange for permission to study his vision. We knew he felt hatred towards those who mistreated him, and we knew he could use that knowledge to hurt people, but we still taught him. We don't refuse to help anyone and how to use his strength was up to him. We tried to convince him to live a peaceful life and let go of his hatred, but he still chose to go to the Esha continent and carry on with his vengeance.

The second child was a poor soul who was broken after participating in a war but still managed to reach us. We managed to save her from self-destruction and convince him to join us, like this she lived a good life for a while. But after a while, we committed the error to send her away on a mission for too long. Without her usual support she lost herself again, but this time she had the power of our system. She already had a good amount of power when he went away, but she managed to raise it exponentially by killing people.

She then started attacking every imperial she found, laying waste on the central continent, she always managed to get away in time and then attack again on a different spot. We finally managed to reach and kill her, but we took much longer than expected. This was partly our fault, we couldn't save her, and on top of that, we only made her stronger.”

“So you did nothing to them.”

“Nothing other than welcoming them as guests.”

I couldn't be sure she was telling the truth, but anyway it's not like I wouldn't mind becoming a demon king as long as I retained my freedom, and it's not like I had much to lose, right now I wasn't free after all. The fact that there were books about necromancy in their capital was also interesting news, Claire was the first necromancer after all.

“So, now let's talk business. What do you offer me?”

“We know you are in a difficult spot, we have many ears and one of us came to know that the imperials are considering killing you, some deem you too unpredictable. Regardless of whether or not you decide to help us, or even join us, we want to help you survive this situation.

Right now you are still not in fatal danger, but if it happens we can help you escape and shelter you.

At that time we would like to examine your vision, and if you accept, we can pull some strings to give you the best teacher in whatever attribute you want, on top of gear from our capital.”

“And how do you plan to get me out of here?”

“Right now it would be impossible, but during a battle, it might be possible. Although, since we don't fight if not threatened, we might only help you with support spells and healing. Those who consider us enemies knows this, so their best warriors won't attack us before securing you.”

“I doubt the soldiers won't attack you if you stand on the battlefield.”

“We don't care about factions, we consider every case separately.”

“Wait, so you are telling me you can't attack the imperials even if you know they want to kill you?”

“Yes.”

“How does that make any sense?”

“It makes sense to us, that's our golden rule, sorry.”

Sigh.

Maybe they weren't that great as allies if they were this dumb. Well, it was still better than nothing though.

“I see, then I'll take your help if I need it, and about my vision, we can talk about that later, right now I still don't know if I want to flee from here.”

“I'm happy to hear that, we are happy to be of help. Also, remember that we always value everyone's friendship, so if you ever stumble into one of us after all this is over feel free to talk to them.”

“I'll do that.”

Our aliases were now still moaning, feigning pleasure, it was hard to talk about the true identity of the Hollows and my life with those two in the background.

Arabella made a sign to them and they feigned an orgasm.

“Well, then, you should be going in a bit, if you want our help to escape create an illusory crow with three legs and make it fly in the sky, we'll send you someone. And if you do it during a battle we'll understand it's the moment to help you escape.”

“Thank you, Arabella, I'll be sure to keep a good relationship with your group from now on.”

Although it was a pity they were so pacifists they were still very resourceful, and they seemed to have spies everywhere.

“We appreciate it, now look at the aliases, when they come towards us, we'll get away from this spot. You should also rise your temperature.”

I made sure to follow her instruction to the letter and then exited the room with Arabella. Once out of the spot she dropped her courteous demeanour and started acting like a normal girl again.

I got out of the Tranquillity and returned to my tent with a lot of thoughts in my mind.

Ces' s proposal was still an option, but now the idea of fleeing seemed more and more alluring. Like this, I could be free and develop my talent without impairments.

I continued thinking and after a while, my lids closed by themselves.

Before falling asleep I wondered if Erian was fine.