Every game had its set of rules. In chess, you could only move your pawns in a pre-defined way. In poker, you could only use special follow-ups with your cards to get yourself as close as possible to victory. This truth was also applied to more basic principles like society, duels or physics.

In society, if you stand out, you’ll get yourself either shunned or admired by the mass. If you don’t respect the established law, you’ll end up in prison or be executed a few days later. If you don’t possess good manners or don’t know how to correctly behave with people, you’ll get ostracized.

In duels, if you don’t play fair and square, you’ll get labelled as a disrespectful scum. If you don’t allow witnesses to take part in it, you’ll be treated as a liar who loves to imagine valiant stories just to please the public. Those were unspoken rules which mainly served to make everything go smoothly, avoiding the most chaotic cases. They were set to determine who was being honest and trustful in their interactions, and who was the despicable one who valued his egoistic win more than everything else.

The same could be said about reality itself. When you jump, you fall back on the ground, and they called this rule ‘gravity’. When you open the window, a wave of chilliness invade the room, and they called this rule ‘thermodynamic’. When you place two electrified metallic stick, they either repel or stick to each other, and they called this rule ‘electromagnetism’. Those were intangible rules, but they were constantly applied to every people of this world. Everyone, but the gods. Did that make them sore loser? Should they be seen as despicable beings because they weren’t following the rules imposed to mortals? The answer was a definitive negative, because another force played its part on this worldwide board.

This force was what mortals called ‘divine energy’. It was sufficiently potent to terraform lands, to slash mountains in half, and even alter the fabric of reality to permit some unreasonable moves. Thanks to this advantage, gods were naturally allowed to not be affected by the more natural rules. It was kind of like a joker in a deck of cards. However, even divine energy had to respect its own set of rules.

As a scientist devoted to the study of divine energy, Friture understood a few of those rules, but that was all theory, as it was proved difficult to experiment with the low quantity stored. Besides, the moment the higher-ups learnt that it could be used as a powerful explosive, they weren’t interested in anything else but military utilization, be it in the form of grenades, rifles, canons or boosting pills, all of those based on processed divine energy. There were actually more uses than just throwing it at the enemy to make it detonate in the middle of their ranks, just like the one he recently discovered. It was a great opportunity to show the world that divine energy wasn’t only a fuel for war.

Trellia, on her side, had a different point of view on this matter. Ever since she succeeded in manipulating divine energy, she was struck by an illumination: she needed to employ this force for the sake of the world. But how, she asked herself at that time. At first, she just helped common villagers with regular tasks. It became a daily habit, until the same village was attacked by a demon. As two opposing faces of the same coin, she knew exactly what to do. She used divine energy as a mean for battle, and expelled the demon back from where it came. Since this encounter, she devoted herself to hunt more demons, all demons.

And now, on this fateful day, she learnt that divine energy could be used for a different cause. Not to bring harm to her enemies, but solace to the people she protected.

“How is it going, Trellia?”

“Mmmh… Good, I would say?”

Trellia was sitting not far away from the cabin, meditating to cool her head while she exerted a hard-to-reach level of concentration. Manipulating divine energy was one thing, using it to attack a foe was another story. But spreading it to apply the effect to every living being in the surrounding? Now that was a challenge even she found hard.

In order for the project to be a success, she had to expand her influence as far as possible, while always checking if the desired effect was still applied. It was an arduous task, that was why she needed as much calmness as possible to let her focus. However, even for a goddess with this amount strength, it was a task she couldn’t accomplish on the first try.

“Ahhhh… What the heck is this… What the heck did you just tumbled on, Friture?...”

Her body was covered in sweat, not from physical exhaustion because all she did was sitting on a rock, but from mental exhaustion due to the long sessions she was training herself to accomplish this feat. Friture tried to hide his blush while lending her a cup of water.

“Are you okay?”

“If I feel okay?...”

Trellia examined herself, noticing just now how strenuous this exercise was for both her body and mind. She drank a mouthful of the cup before swiping the sweat from her forehead with a sleeve, then took a rest to catch her breath.

“I don’t feel fine at all… This is hardcore, you know?”

Too much exhausted to comply anymore, she leaned on her back, trying to grasp as much fresh air as possible to freshen up. She lazily rearranged her clothes, sensing that they were revealing a bit too much of her breasts to the wild.

“I should look for more decent clothes, those are too tattered for a goddess” she thought while worrying for Friture’s state of mind. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to have noticed any of it, too busy he was to write things on his paper. “Is he too dense to notice me, or is he just…?”

“Hey, Friture?”

“What is i-!”

Friture panicked when he saw a woman he would not hesitate to call beautiful facing him, lying on her front with a reddened face and a charming smile which would entice any man who saw it. And of course, as a man, he was enticed. With this angle of view, a simple mistake from his eyes could lead him to stare at something he shouldn’t. So if not for her chest, what should he be staring at? Her lips were shining, covered by a gloss she licked with appetite. Her cheeks seemed like they were burning with intensity, covered behind feminine fingers which you would not believe could display a tremendous strength. Her half-closed eyes irradiated a certain attractive fury, while at the same time betraying the fatigued state she was stuck with for now.

“Do you have a woman in your life?”

A woman in his life? She meant if he loved someone and wanted to share a family with this special person? Of course not, he wanted to retort, he had always been far too busy with his work to even consider falling in love. But now he couldn’t say anything, stammering on his words each time he tried to try to give her an answer. This reaction was enough for Trellia to feel like teasing a bit more.

“Ohhh, really~♫? But you look so cuuuuute, and you’re so smart! There must be someone interested in you, isn’t it?”

Feeling cornered by the situation, Friture hid behind the sheet he was holding, concealing his uneasiness from the goddess that knew nothing about privacy and personal feelings.

“N-N-No… No, there isn’t! Nobo… No one cares about me!”

Even he qualified what he just said as quite rash. Of course there were people who cared about him. It was just that you counted them on the fingers of two hands. They were not many, but they still counted. However, did they still count after all that had happened? He felt sad, dwelling like this on this grim part of his life.

“Then… What would you do, if I say I care about you?”

Friture never noticed how close she was of his face at this point. When did she move? When did she approach him? Was he so shocked he didn’t hear her footsteps, the wind of her movement, or even the breathe she exhaled? And now that they were separated by only an inch from each other, he felt frightened by this alluring sight.

He was frightened not because he felt threatened, but because of… Something more primordial to him. Right now, he was confronting a part of life that he never understood, that he never desired to understand, a domain in which he always lacked the guts to get interested in. Because he lacked confidence. Because he feared for the other side’s mockery.

And now, those regrets, those fears, they all emerged again, freezing him in a state where he couldn’t respond to Trellia. He wanted to run away. He wanted to ignore her, hoping she would lose interest in him, just like the others did. He wanted to be left alone, that way nobody would laugh at him like they always did. He wanted to shout, but he was repressed by his own weakness. All he could do now, was…

“Just kidding!”

… And everything went back to normal. Trellia was drinking the last drops of water in her cup, while Friture was desperately trying to reconnect himself with reality.

“By the way, Friture. I think I’m starting to grasp how it’s done. With one or two more try, I’ll be able to perfectly use the method you explained to me.”

“O… Oh… Okay…”

Trellia already had a deep familiarity with divine energy. This method sure was novel on its own, but that was all it was: a different method to use it. It was like telling a man to use a pickaxe instead of a shovel to dig a hole, the method differed, but with enough practice he would find the most efficient way to do it.

“For now, I think I’m already able to cover the whole forest.”

“Ah… It’s impressive…”

At this rate, the duo would be able to do the same on the whole kingdom. Then they’ll extend their influence on the other kingdoms, until everyone was covered with divine energy and protected from sudden death. He should be happy about it, however the recent shock dulled his emotion for now.

“But I also feel I’m reaching my limit.”

“Oh… Wait, what?”

What limit? Which limit? What was she talking about?

“I may be the most powerful goddess you may know of, but spreading and controlling divine energy on such a large scale isn’t as simple as you may think. In addition, I also have to make sure that every living beings covered is affected, otherwise they’ll just feel a nice breeze.”

Modesty has never been her forte, but if she said it, then it really was an unforeseen obstacle in their path. Friture pondered on a solution to solve this problem, maybe engineering an amplificatory, or asking the support of other gods. Trellia didn’t know how to feel about the amplificatory, and requesting the help of gods would only lead to misunderstandings from unconcerned parties.

“Do I really have to influence everything, or I can just focus on citizens of each kingdoms?”

“You can filter who is affected and who isn’t?”

“Yeah, sort of.”

Up until now, Friture asked her to also apply the protection on animals, for the purpose of preventing them from falling to the curse of demonization. It would most probably make other problems rise as well, but if it could hinder the birth of more demons, Trellia would happily give it a try. However, it seemed it was too much, even for her.

“That way, I may be able to cover more territory…”

“How much land, you think?”

“Maybe… From those mountains to the west to those mountains to the east.”

She could basically cover half of the kingdom of Biscotti already. It was truly a formidable feat, a really good news for them. However, it also clearly exposed the new limit of her ability. How would they manage to cover all kingdoms? Sadly, even with all his knowledge, Friture couldn’t solve this new problem. That was why Trellia smiled playfully, raising her finger with the intent to sound important.

“I have a plan… We just need a Treasure Sword.”