Once I explained my anxieties to everyone, each one was helpful by talking about things that might be relevant. Me, Gauron, Aria and Chirene. I had a feeling that through talking between the four of us, I could find a satisfying answer. The first hypothesis was, quite frankly, horrifying.

“Okay, I will be honest with you. Shortly after we met and you started studying this other world, it occurred to me that you might be a potential future Tyrant.”

Chirene said this in a flat tone, staring at me seriously. Aria exploded.

“What? How can you say this? You were the one that convinced him to do it!”

I tried to open my mouth to defend Chirene, after all it was my own choice, but she immediately responded.

“I am well aware of this. However, it does not change the symptoms. It’s just too convenient for him, even though I myself am aware of the possibility, I simply cannot stop myself sometimes. I might be guiding him to a path of ruin, but I…”

Even though I concerned me, someone else got much more heated.

“Shut up! You know? But you can’t stop yourself? Lies! You’re probably just manipulating him for some twisted reason!”

Chirene clicked her tongue.

“If I had a drop of good sense in me coupled with selfishness, then I would just run away, run away so fast and so far that we would never see each other ever again. Instead, I’m staying and sticking my neck out so I can record, for perhaps the first time ever, the ascension of a Tyrant!”

By this moment, it had pretty much escalated into a shouting war.

“So he is going to become a Tyrant and that’s it? Because you decided? You’re just putting him through some horrible experiment!

Yes, even at that moment, I was still there, even though they were speaking as if I wasn’t. I thought I could see a single tear escape Chirene’s eye as she grabbed and lifted Aria through her dress. Gauron tried to intervene in a panic, but he was knocked back easily by a lash of her tail. I really wished they wouldn’t destroy my books, but at least the ones on the shelf Gauron fell on had already been read by me. Damn, High Succubae are plenty scary.

“Experiment! Experiment? You have no idea what being experimented on is like! Trust me, I will do almost anything, if it means I can lessen the impact of another Teldarion on this world. Almost anything, includes discovering how good people like Gaius eventually becomes a Tyrant.”

Even with her feet dangling, Aria still looked defiant. I swear I was trying to defuse the situation.

“Can’t we talk a little more…”

But it wasn’t any good.

“Well, I suppose making a person into a Tyrant would be acceptable then?”

Chirene threw Aria, wrecking another shelf in the process.

“My books…”

What was I going to do if I ever needed to reread any of them?

“So you think of yourself as some innocent girl, while clinging to Gaius, and pretty much being a point of normality for him. The loss of emotional support is quite possibly one of the triggers of turning someone into a Tyrant. You’re a piece, just as much as I am.”

That was news.

“Huh?”

Finally Chirene had said something that dumbfounded Aria. But the one that replied was Gauron.

“Are you saying that there is something or someone behind Tyrants? That makes no sen…”

He did not finish the word and sat there or a few moments, looking like he had just seen a revelation. After he told us about the thing that he had encountered, which possessed his companion’s corpse, Chirene didn’t seem that surprised.

“That’s just incredible. So, that entity… is quite possibly the one responsible for all the calamities of our world.”

Chirene then went silent, deep in thought. Gauron still had some doubts though.

“Not necessarily, that may have been unrelated, or even a minion of some other Tyrant that just hasn’t started his reign.”

Chirene nodded.

“We should consider all possibilities.”

At that moment, something else hit me.

“Anyway, how come you’re here?”

She returned a confused look.

“What do you mean?”

How to put it clearly…

“You’re very powerful, and even if I don’t know the difference, a High Succubus should be more important than a Succubus, so, how come you were in this house near this small town in the first place? And you called the man that came from the other world “Master”. Care to explain?”

The others looked at her, now curious as well.

“That is a valid question. Well, now is as good time as any to talk about it, I guess.”

It’s not exactly a secret, but I suppose it’s not something that is usually said out loud, anyway, we Succubae are truly servile people. It’s not that uncommon for some of us to come up with elaborate processes to find someone that we find worthy to serve. In my case, I asked for a friend to make a very complex puzzle game scroll. In his words:

“As you asked me, it is quite hard, so I don’t think anybody will be able to summon you in quite a few years. To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was lost somewhere before anyone solved it.”

Imagine my surprise when, little less than two years after, the summoning magic activated and I found myself in this house.

Master was… an uncommon man, by any standards. He seemed to have two different moods. He would either be extremely quiet, or talk quite a lot. When I asked about the scroll’s puzzle he merely said:

“That? It was but a child’s game.”

Then, almost a week later, he gave me a lengthy speech about how its logic was easily identified and that, once that was known, everything else was too simple.

He passed most of the time writing scrolls with plans, which he then sold or wrote in an alien language in a blank book, which Gaius has already read.

At first I didn’t believe in his claim of being from another world, but I could not help but accept it. He had a worldview quite different from ours, which you can see reflected in my attitudes today. He was the first one to say that the works and studies of Tyrants had any value.

“If victims suffered for it to be produced, then all the more reason for you to not let it have been in vain, you just have to make sure that it’s not just quackery though.”

On his counsel, I had my servants and friends search for and accumulate anything to do with any Tyrant.

Even if I call him Master, I often feel that he did more for me rather than the contrary, which is why, even though it might turn Gaius into a Tyrant, I will have him carry out Master’s will.

It all started in an evening I casually let out an inexcusable question. Do you miss your old world? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him make such a painful expression before or since.

“I don’t think I have a world to go back to.”

He answered, with strain in his voice. He went on to talk about how having become a paradise for a long time, it was heading towards ruin. In order to prevent that ruination, he did experiments along with others, which he believed brought him here.

He never looked for ways to go back, instead he sought to apply his knowledge to our world. Eventually, he deemed it too dangerous, but still continued construction of magical tools to pass the time.

On his deathbed, he changed his tune again.

“Inside that steel mountain that appeared along with me lies all the light and darkness of my world. Please, look for someone to make use of it. I’m sorry, but I don’t care about what happens to your world, just, don’t let it go to waste.”

In the end, he didn’t even ask me to bed him even once. He was quite an obsessed man. He was obsessed with the legacy of his lost world. That is pretty much it.

That was her story. Surprisingly simple I must say. I would say it explained some things, yet others remained unknown. To me, all that I learned back then was useful. Willingly or not, knowingly or not, we were part of some kind of game or dispute. Was it greater existences? Gods, devils? I didn’t know. It did not sit well with me. But I didn’t feel like stopping. That other world was all I had, or at least all that I felt I had, not as a person, to myself, but as a meaningful existence to the world. From that moment on I decided that, even if I continued on that path of power, I would be careful of how I engaged any power struggles. I refused to, I would never become a tyrant.

Gaius: Childhood - END