Saji’s expression took a turn. She turned her head to look at Ji’s face. Shock and confusion filled her mind as well as a somewhat bitter feeling she couldn’t pinpoint.

Ji continued to smile.

“I shouldn’t argue with Kelin, the queen of the forest gods, should I?”

Her smile broadened. “I will provide you two with a place to rest and this evening we will host a feast in your honor! Jea?”, she looked over to Jea. “Please bring those two to the guest building.”

Jea was still shocked by Kelin’s attire and stared for a while before reacting. She blinked once. “Y-yes of course!”, she hurriedly nodded. “Please follow me!”, she said to Ji and Saji.

Ji shook his head. “We appreciate your hospitality, but if possible, I would like to postpone the feast until tomorrow evening. We two -,”, he looked Saji, “Still have some things to take care of.”

Kelin made a gentle nod. “So, it be then!”

Ji and Saji went to follow Jea, leaving behind a very disoriented Rey.

Jea led them to a building close to the forest, it was fairly large and fully equipped to house people. She led them inside, showed them around and then politely excused herself.

After this Ji and Saji were left alone in the house. Ji looked at Saji.

“We will talk this evening.”, his expression was solemn.

Saji simply nodded.

Evening came earlier then she expected.

A few hours later she heard music coming from the roof of the building. She looked out of the window of her room and saw that it had already become dark outside. A few lights burned in the windows of the surrounding windows and she could see flickering lights wandering through the nearby woods.

It was a mysterious town that could easily stem from some sort of fairy tale. A city with a magical forest in its center. A powerful goddess that protected the towns citizens from the evil powers lurking outside. Even though Saji had already seen nude female dragons stripping for lewd gods and a strange young man being able to teleport to random places, this fantasy town still felt exciting and new to her.

She sighed. It felt like only a few hours ago she had still been a girl living a fairly normal life, but now her family was dead, 7 billion people were dead, and she was travelling around with a god who supposedly once was a human.

There was no explanation as to why he had saved her, why he didn’t save her family and friends. She didn’t know the reason for this mass genocide nor did she know what role Ji played in it. Right now, she knew almost nothing, and it felt sickening.

She didn’t know what to do. Her lips pressed against each other.

Finally, she stood up from the bed and exited her room. It took her a few seconds to orientate herself in this new environment and a few minutes to find the stairs leading to the roof. Then finally she stood in front of the door that led to the rooftop.

It was painted in a dark brownish green color and looked rather dirty. From the other side she could hear the music playing. It sounded like old jazz from the 80ties played on a modern bluetooth loud speaker.

Saji closed her eyes and reach out to grip the doorknob. She tensed up and turned it. One push and the door swung open.

In front of her was a clear night sky, thousands of stars one wouldn’t normally see because of the light pollution caused by cities glittered on the black canvas that was the sky. A few gentle lights burned in the nearby houses and she could see small parades floating fires dancing through the forest.

A figure sat on a bench right next to the edge of the roof, a small blue loud speaker next to him.

“Those fires are found in almost every mythology in human cultures.”, Ji’s voice was calm and smoothing just as the jazz playing in the background. “They are fire spirits enjoying their long-missed freedom.”, he turned his head and Saji could see the gentle smile on his lips.

For some time neither of them said anything.

“…you like jazz?”, she asked.

Ji laughed. “It’s hilarious isn’t it? A millennia old god enjoys a music style from the 19. hundreds… but yes I love jazz.”, he looked back to the beautiful night sky.

“But let’s get to the point. You want to know some things and I have every intention to answer the question that trouble you.”, he made a pause.

“I will have to start with something that happened about a dozen millennia ago.

Back then humanity was nothing but an insignificant newcomer amongst the species. We were weak, primitive and had a tendency to harm ourselves. Compared to the vast number of different fairies, spirits and elven we were nothing but a bunch of weaklings struggling for survival.

We, the few gods humanity had, constantly fought to improve humanities situation. We worked for hundreds of millennia. Some perished, others became famous amongst the other gods. One by one we overcame powerful races and increased our power.

Through constant struggle hundreds of gods were born during this era. Most of them died while sacrificing themselves for the good of humanity, but their sacrifice led to many more gods, to a more powerful foundation for our race.

After multiple ten thousand years of struggle humanity had become a powerful faction amongst the races. Hundreds of gods protected our kin and helped developing our culture and civilization. No one dared to openly attack us anymore. We were so powerful that even all the other gods and races combined would not be able to suppress us.

Yet, our normal kinsmen were still far weaker than the ones of the other races. No matter what we did, no matter how powerful us gods were, we could not protect every single one of us. The human gods were the strongest, but the human race was still the weakest.

The path of Immortals was born during this time, the Magi followed them. They were two paths that could strengthen an ordinary human and make him as powerful as the other races or even as powerful as an god!

Yet those who could become immortals or magi were still only few and many died as step stones for the few that achieved power and immortality.”, Ji took a deep breath.

“Unfortunately, the hundreds of thousands of years that we toiled had wrapped our world view. So many had sacrificed everything for humanity and many had become overprotective of humanity. In their eyes humanity was the only thing that was important, the only thing they had to consider.

This was when a part of the human gods decided to suppress the other races and ban them from the mortal world. They wanted to eliminate any danger that might harm humanity. The majority of human gods adapted their stance and came to name themselves ‘heaven’.

They wanted to be a heaven above the sky, the ultimate protection for humanity that would ensure the flourishing of our kin.

Frankly spoken they were mad fanatics that had lost all reason through the passing of time. They couldn’t see that they would have to harm all other races to do what they desired, and they couldn’t realize that they would only harm humanity in the end.

The other part of the human gods, who for whatever reason did not want to support this madness, sided with the other gods who wouldn’t allow something like this to happen.

In their overprotectiveness, the heaven wanted to ban all gods and every race except for the humans from openly appearing on the planet. It was a mad plan, unreasonable and sickening.

Naturally it came to war.

I lead the human gods who could not accept the unreasonable stance of those lunatics and fought against the heaven.

Hundreds of gods died on both sides. Blood rained from the sky and tainted the world. The immortals and magi were completely wiped out and their teachings and doctrines were destroyed. Every single bloodline was severed down to the last toddler. It was bloody and dirty!

The fight devastated vast parts of the earth and killed many innocent beings, many races were completely wiped out, others had only few remaining kinsmen scattered in hidden places all across the world

We gods lost our freedom, millions of beings lost their lives and billions could never return to the place of their origin. In exchange humanity became the dominating species on the planet.

All of this happened for the wellbeing of humanity.

This is the reason why I cannot stop those lesser gods from killing. If I protect everyone they will destroy what is remaining of the human faction. But to tell the truth I do not want to protect every human. We are too many and we need to make space for those other races.

I will preserve humanity, but in order to do that I will first have to let most of them die.”