And here we have a longer chapter because I felt nice and because I felt enlightened about what I should write. Also I might not release tomorrow and you can consider this as a crappy way of making up for it.

Enjoy.

-Waffle Fluff

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He is terrifying.

Nothing as boring as I had thought he was at the beginning.

I went out of the room and quickly ran to Grandma to seek advice and guidance on what occurred. After explaining it, even Grandma was baffled, but she still took care of him as her own child afterwards, with no regard to what I had told her.

A day after the ‘fear’ incident, Sephtis awoke. He didn’t appear famished or had any apparent hunger after his awakening. Although Sophia had fed him porridge while he was asleep, it can only do so much to someone who can’t swallow it consciously, so we thought that when he woke up, if he did, he would be really hungry.

But our fears were apparently not based on anything, with his hunger being the same as all the other normal sleeping sessions.

When he awoke, Sophia cried silent tears of gratitude while thanking the gods for listening to her prayers and saving Sephtis. Although she had prayed, the only reason she did so was because she had no other people that could help her. In reality she had already abandoned her religion a long time ago when her belief didn’t save her children and she only wore the habit as a uniform for the orphanage.

For the next week, Sophia watched Sephtis like the ‘scavenger bird ‘from the Darklands. In fact, Sephtis even showed some reaction to it, making a face that appeared similar to irritation, but no babies can understand what her actions symbolise, so it was probably just chance.

One week later, with Grandma believing that Sephtis recovered sufficiently enough and wasn’t in any immediate danger, she left to continue her duties around the orphanage tending to the other kids.

However, the instant she left with me following, Sephtis somehow got out of the cradle and managed to get to the dark corner of the room before falling asleep again. When I returned to the baby room and saw Sephtis lying in the corner, I quickly called for Grandma.

Shortly afterwards, Grandma arrived panting from her old age and incapability to run due to it. Prior to her arrival, I placed Sephtis back into his cradle and when she arrived, I informed her on how he was asleep in the corner of the room.

Shortly afterwards I went to tend to the other babies and do my chores before I was called back 20 minutes later.

“Julie, come over here for a second.”

I come over and look at Sephtis, who seems to be studying and analysing me. This sent shivers down my spine, not because of the actions themselves, but because they were coming from a 2 and a half month old boy.

“Julie, from now on you are in charge of looking after Sephtis.”

When Sophia said that, I felt an onslaught of emotions and states of mind, with the predominant one being fear. I was scared of the thought of looking after this child which could release such a terrifying air.

As I was about to object and yell at her due to the onslaught I just experienced, Grandma placed a finger on my lips, an action she would do a lot in my infancy due to my outright attitude which even existed at that time. This action stopped me from screaming and let my emotions settle. Grandma Sophia then spoke, detailing her reason for stopping my proclamation of rebellion.

“Julie, you decided that you want to take up looking after the kids when I pass away. Although I was at first opposed to such an idea, you imposed your ideals upon me and I resigned on the condition that you agreed to do everything I said, as long as my order doesn’t disregard your wish of taking care of the children.”

After removing her finger from my lips, she continued with her reasoning.

“There should be no problem, think of looking after Sephtis for the next year as training for taking over the orphanage.”

Although I admit I am hot-blooded, I am reasonable and if you give me a good enough reason, I will accept it. But nevertheless, I was not gonna become this person's guardian without any opposition. Who knows, it may even work.

“But Grandma, I want to look after REAL children. I have watched him for a while and looking after him has no complications, he just eats and sleeps. Honestly I was more surprised when I heard he fainted in the corner but not because of the fact that he did so, but rather that he actually went as though to escape our sight.

Please Grandma, I don’t mind looking after kids at all, in fact I would love to look after the newborns, but not him please.”

I stated my arguments, and although I said that I dislike him because of his boringness, I know this is no longer true. I also know that almost all of my emotions that I stated was a lie. In truth I was just afraid. Afraid of that feeling of death.

Although I opposed her to the extent of my powers, I still had to give in to the reasonable arguments she made and admit the unreasonability of my arguments.

But since I couldn’t say directly to her face that I simply hated him outright, I needed to say it to someone, so I turned to the orchestrator of this whole matter and said:

“I don’t like you.”

I was about to turn around and leave to help the other kids but I was stopped by a high-pitched, but clear voice.

“That makes two of us.”

I turned my head, with my eyes open wide in surprise and looked straight at him. As though realising he spoke unnaturally, he said some words quickly as though in an attempt to discard the matter:

“Now that we’ve got that straight, goodnight it was nice meeting you.”

He then turned his body to lie on his side and then closed his eyes, falling asleep.

For a good half a minute after he ‘fell asleep’, I stayed next to his bed with my mouth agape. After realising what happened I ran off to tell Grandma about the whole event, but she didn’t believe me and thought it was a ruse to make me get out of taking care of him.

I tried telling my friends and told Milly, Zale and Liz as Mark had left the establishment to seek his own fortunes a month ago. None of them believed me however, and I was just laughed at as though it was a joke.

That night I hugged my pillow and with tears in my eyes said:

“But it’s not a joke.”

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Viewpoint of Sephtis:

Upon falling into a slumber I awoke in the centre of the throne room like every time before. This time however, Betty was here with me, standing in front of me.

As I stand up I say:

“Oh… I thought you would be sitting. You always sit in front of me without offering me a seat. I thought you would do that again.”

“What do you take me for. The only reason I sit most of the time is not because of a haughty attitude but rather because I have to work 24/7 with no resting time other than sitting. Who wouldn’t want to use the most of their free time resting?”

“Yes, yes, fine. Now can you teach me how to manipulate and use the Death Element.”

Remembering that a certain action from my previous world is quite helpful in convincing people, I decide to put it into practice. The divine art of the ‘Puppy Eyes’. Seeing my expression, Betty quickly tries to stop me.

“Oh put those eyes away, either way I’m gonna teach you.”

I disable my divine art and then watch him expectantly.

“Right now you can’t actually use Death Magic to damage anyone. At most you would be able to kill an insect, but even that would require effort.

Although you can’t make use of the magic itself at the moment, eventually you will be able to. So right now I will teach you the way to use and manipulate it. I will also tell you all it’s drawbacks and weaknesses. It only really has 2 positives and even those aren’t complete positives.”

“... Is death magic really that bad?”

“Well not really, I will tell you why when I explain it. I will not be able to teach you later since I will be working for the next few years. Also because of this, I won’t be able to contact you for a while.”

Hmm… I would normally be celebrating in this scenario, but Betty is a comforting existence. At least I know that when he is around me Gods can’t take any actions against me.

Reading my thoughts, Betty answers my worries and removes them.

“Don’t worry, none of the Gods have actually noticed your existence, and I intend to keep it that way. This is another reason for why I will go, because if I stay by a certain mortals side for too long, it gets relatively suspicious.

Now that we got your worries behind, lets go into the explanation of Death Magic.”

He takes a large breath and starts explaining.

“Death Magic is the ability to impose the law of death upon others. This imposing can cause different results, with the most often one being the death of the target. This is one of the positives, but as I mentioned before, it also has a drawback.

Although it has the capability to kill instantly, leaving no traces but as a result is unable to torture or damage without resulting in fatality. Because of this, this magic can only really be used on true enemies. An application of this ability would be one such as this:

If you fight an entire army of people greatly weaker than you, you can spread your ‘death aura’ out across the battlefield and they will all collapse dead with no wounds anywhere. This skill will take an enormous amount of ‘aura’ to use but the good thing is that it is instant.

The other positive is the opposite of the previous imposement application. In the previous application you would impose death upon the enemy and their souls would shatter, leaving the world for good. However, there is another single target ability which requires incredible manipulation capability and needs to be backed by incredible ‘aura’ capacity.

This application is where one, instead of shattering the soul, pulls it out of the body and does what he wishes with it. He can absorb the soul and with it, it’s memories and a tiny portion of its powers.

I am fine with you absorbing souls but don’t do it too regularly. It would upset the balance of souls thing and also end up being a pain for me.

Luckily, I think that whoever created the capability to reap souls did think of the future and set a drawback to those who attempted to do so.”

“Question: What do you mean by who created the capability to reap souls? Didn’t you create it?”

“I thought of the application, but I am talking about The Creator. The creator of the first Gods and the first immortals.”

“I see… Continue then.”

“Thank you for not starting the who is The Creator topic. The occasional Gods that visit me annoy the hell out of me with that conversation topic.

So, carrying on: The abilities that the ‘Death Element’ section of magic has is very limited and I will only teach you 2 applications of it.

Firstly we have the ‘Soul Reaver’ application. It is where we steal or reave the soul out of the enemy. It is single target, as anymore will simply be too hard to handle for you and destroy both of them.

Upon taking the soul out of a person, you are free to do what you wish with it. You can destroy it, but that kind of counteracts the notion of taking it out. You can also absorb it to gain it’s memories and powers as I mentioned before. You can also place it back into the same persons body within 12 hours and the person in question will awaken a day later feeling the same as before.

The second application of ‘Death’s Aura’ would be imposing your aura. You impose your aura upon people which could result in the shattering of their soul if strong enough, or it can just pressure people to their knees, similar to what I did in the beginning with you.

I try to suppress my pressure to the maximum, but I can’t do it perfectly so I end up leaking a miniscule amount of my ‘aura’. That was what you felt before I bumped up the pressure by a tiny bit.

This ability is really useful for avoiding fights because you can disrupt people souls with your imposement strongly enough to knock them unconscious if you so wish. However, the drawback of this ability is that if you have enough ‘aura’ to knock them unconscious straight away, that means you have enough power to kill the person 2 times over.

Actually there is only 2 applications in total but there are lots of subbranches and directions in which you can temper these skills. Now, although the explanation is all good, the best way for you to learn how to use the basic imposement and reaving aspects of ‘Death Magic’ would be to experience it first hand.

So without further ado.”

All of a sudden his previously old face, coupled with his white beard and hair underwent incredible changes. His faces wrinkles lifted, his face changed to appear young and he suddenly appeared to be in his early 20s. When his face changed so did the colour of his hair. It appeared as though a wave of colour originating from his hairs roots spread to the tips of his hair.

His hair quickly became black with a slight tint of purple and simultaneously grew to reach all the way to the bottom of his back. His previously hazel eyes turned golden, contrasting with his blackish-purple hair.

While all this was happening, a black mass suddenly expanded from his back forming gorgeous black feathered wings.

I watched him with pure amazement.

Is this really the old man from a second ago?

As I asked myself this, he looked at my astonished face and his facial expression didn’t change one bit. I thought that he would at least have some kind of reaction such as a grin or something to my flabbergasted expression, but he didn’t.

This time, he truly looked like the embodiment of Death. I couldn’t command my body, it just suddenly knelt on one knee and my head looked up at him, as if admitting it’s inferiority.

Lord Death looked over me and said with a deep, knowledgeable voice devoid of any of the stupidity that Betty gave off.:

“Stand mortal, this is my warform."

My body, stands by itself, without being commanded by me and after I stand up, Lord Death continues his explanation.

"All gods have a warform which they undertake when using their abilities, and almost all of them result in a change of appearance as the other look that we have are fake self-created appearances.

My warform or original form, however you call it differs greatly from my chosen appearance due to the differing personalities. I created the other personality as my original body cannot feel emotion to any reasonable extent other than curiosity. It was due to that curiosity to feel emotions that led me to create the previous form you call ‘Betty’.

I must say, Betty dislikes this form due to the dulling of emotions even though he knows that this is the original form.

Anyway, we shall go back to the demonstration.”

He raises his right hand in front of him and all that I remember that happened after that was an intense sensation of ‘Death Aura’ being pushed into me before fainting.

I wake up, however I am still in hell.

That was an awkward sensation… Falling asleep in a dream that is.

Suddenly I hear Lord Death’s voice again.

“Now that you are done with imposement, here is reaving.”

I can’t even turn around to face him in time, all I feel is an intense pain everywhere on my body but at the same time, I feel like my body isn’t hurt at all. Then the pain goes away along with my consciousness.

I awaken again, but this time in my safe, warm cradle filled with pleasant feelings.

“So that is the true face of ‘Lord Death’.”

I mutter this as I look around. It seems to be the dead of night due to the lack of sunlight shining from the sole window at the back of the room.

However, now that I get to stay awake for longer than 3 minutes like last time, I can feel a change in my body. I feel as though ‘aura’ is being and is capable of being released out of my body. My eyes open wide as I have this revelation.

Hurriedly, I exert my ‘aura’ without converting it to an element just to see whether or not I am actually capable of doing so. My ‘aura’ easily comes out, it’s colourless and almost fully transparent due to the lack of any element but I can still faintly see it.

I, Sephtis, at the age of 2 ½ months am able to do magic.

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Hope you enjoyed the chapter. It's only 1000 words longer than normal, so not that much longer unfortunately. But I had to end it on a badass note so I settled for ending this chapter here.

-Waffle Fluff