After being asked by Neiro to show the Status Window's of Neiro's siblings and new friend(?), Stephen was left confused by one of Neiro's titles.
-"'Dear'? What? Given by who?"
-'Stephen, I don't want think we're close enough to call each other by such nicknames.'
-"Ha ha, very funny. Since when does Melissa have a mother?"
Neiro led his siblings to the circle of small children that were sitting around one of the Teacher's of the church, a priestess called Emilia.
As Emilia heard the church doors open and close, she paused a bit and looked at the Smith trio as they walked towards the small circle of children. Her attention was caught by the way Lana and Vamas followed after Neiro like two little ducklings, which caused her to let out a small smile.
She wore a light brown robe and was in her early thirties. Her shoulder length hair and eyes were both a dark coffee brown. She was exuding an aura of warmth and it was clear that she was the most well liked out of the Teachers by the children.
-"Well well well, looks like we have a few late arrivals. Come here and introduce yourselves."
The children were all between the ages of five and seven and they were all being taught how to read, write and count while the children from the ages of seven to ten were taught how to do basic math.
The younger children study during the morning while the older children study during the evening, this being the reason for why Raymond is currently at the Smith home, playing with the stick that looks a lot like a war axe.
Both Lana and Vamas started to get nervous as they were suddenly asked to introduce themselves to a bunch of people, some of them even being relative strangers. Neiro decided to go first in order to show them that all will be fine.
He slowly walked until he was right besides Teacher Emilia and then started introducing himself while also asking Stephen a simple question.
-"Hello, my name is Neiro Smith, the eldest brother. I am five years old, I like to play with my brother and sister, and I grow up, I want to explore the world!"
'Stephen, could you show me my Teacher's status window? I am curios about her.'
-"Alright, might as well. Oh? It seems that I have also achieved my last task."
As Stephen was about to summon the Status Window, he was pleasantly surprised to find out that the last task, which was to raise the amount believers that the Goddess Bianca has by 1.000 people. After he summoned the Status Window, which happily did something that it should normally not be able to do, he was even more surprised, although this time it wasn't due to pleasant news.
[Emilia Status Window]
Name:Emma
Species:Basic Midorian Human
Existence Rank:Peak Enforced Basic Human
Stats:
STR(Primarily uses her mana and divine energy to further strengthen herself):45
AGI(Great reaction speed, has the ability to quickly react and strike at even the smallest mistake.):65
DEX(Inhumanly flexible, has a lot of control when it comes to her limbs):100
END(Is still undergoing training to make herself less susceptible to physical attacks.):74
THG(Has gone through warrior priest training but ended up failing to become one, due to their training techniques his body is much tougher than most):8
PER(Incredibly perceptive, having trained her senses by a lot in order to better detect Demonic beings.):100
WIS(Is heavily reliant on her 'sixth sense' but she is still a very smart individual, but when she thinks that she is right about something, she is very hard to be convinced that she is wrong.):25
CHR(Due to her higher Existence Rank, her previous average looks turned into great beauty. She is currently wearing a concealment artifact in order to mask her true appearance):15
INT(Has studied the history of the Aurora Empire extensively and knows many ways to detect and deal with Demonic Spirits):18
LCK(Has a good 'sixth sense' and her hunches are more likely to be true than untrue):25
Mana Capacity(Has expanded her mana core in order to properly convert mana into medium quality Divine Energy through various elixirs and training methods.): 5000/5000(Full)
Medium Quality Divine Energy Capacity(Has gained a medium quality Divine core by becoming a member of the Demon Purging Order, allowing her to store, use and convert Medium Quality Divine Energy):1000/1000(Full)
Trait(s):
-Medium Quality Divine Core:Possesses a medium quality Divine Core, acquired through a special ritual. Allows the holder of one to use Medium Quality Divine Energy.
-Low Physical Pain Resistance(Through a lot of training, she has toughened her body when it comes to Physical Pain)
-Very Low Psychological Pain Resistance(Through a lot of training, she has toughened her body when it comes to psychological pain.)
-Medium Poison Resistance(Has ingested many locally available poisons from the Aurora Empire, giving her immunity to such poisons.)
-Medium Venom Resistance(Has gained low immunity to venom's by getting injected with many locally available venom's from the Aurora Empire.)
-Low Blunt Force Trauma Resistance(Through a lot of training, she has toughened her body when it comes to Blunt Force Trauma.)
Skill(s):
Active:
-Animal Healing Magic(Expert):Allows her to heal animals by using Medium Quantities of Mana, healing wounds, greatly strengthening the natural immune system of the animal, allowing for the healing of small scars, damaged nerves and reattaching amputated limbs while also working as an alternative to food, water,air while also healing the target's fatigue.
-Divinity manipulation(Adept): Allows her to transfer Divine Energy to her deity of choice and to use Divine Energy as an alternative to Mana along with being able to create Divine Energy constructs.
-Divine Fire(Adept):Allows her to burn Divine Energy in order to create Divine Flames. Divine Flames are effective on beings that the user perceives as 'demonic', working on a low conceptual level. Divine Flames burn the soul instead of the body so most fights used with them leave intact corpses. Can be used to detect beings that the user perceives as 'demonic' but it inflicts tremendous pain even if they aren't 'demonic'.
-Animal Flesh Manipulation(Adept):Allows her to manipulate and inspect the muscle fibers, tendons and joints inside animals, allowing her to cause muscle cramps, twisted joints and even stop the heart's of others. Requires physical contact with the target.The higher the THG of the target, the harder it becomes to manipulate their flesh.
-Water Manipulation(Intermediate):Allows her to slightly alter the states of matter of water, letting her transfer the heat from a small barrel of water(50 L) and allowing her to either freeze it completely or to make it come to a boil. Physical contact is required due to the need of a conduit of heat. The higher the THG of the target, the harder it becomes to manipulate the water inside them. Can also create small waves and allows for water filtering, creating drinkable water out of contaminated water sources so long as the contamination isn't too severe.
(...)
Passive:
-Lion Style Swordsmanship Technique(Expert):Has trained herself in this style of swordsmanship for a very long amount of time during her time in the Auroran Army before she got inducted into the Demon Purging Order.
-Demon Extinguishing Style Swordsmanship technique(Adept):A style of swordsmanship created by the founder of the Demon Purging Order that is centered around using Divine Energy to attack the souls of 'Demonic' beings by coating the sword of the user in Divine Energy, imitating the 'Aura' of high level warriors.
-Demon Extinguishing Style Hand-to-Hand technique(Adept):A style of hand-to-hand martial arts created by the founder of the Demon Purging Order that is centered around using Divine Energy to attack the souls of 'Demonic' beings by coating the limbs of the user in Divine Energy, imitating the 'Aura' of high level warriors.
-Interrogation(Adept):Has some experience with Interrogating various criminals by using various methods in order to get them to confess to their wrongdoings. Due to still being a Low-ranking member, she can only interrogate by using aggressive methods.
-Torturing(Adept):Has some experience with inflicting great amounts of pain to various already convicted criminals as punishment in order to 'punish' them. Still inexperienced as she can only deal 'normal' amounts of physical pain.
(...)
Title(s):
-Low-Rank member of the Demon Purging Order(Given by:Demon Purging Order members)
[End Status Window]
Neiro continued talking without even a single change in his expression, and after encouraging his siblings, he sat down at one of the more free spaces within the circle, asking the other kids if they can make some space for his siblings, which they agreed to.
Stephen, meanwhile, was starting to feel nervous for 'Emilia'.
-'Well this is quite a surprise, I wonder what a member of the 'Demon Purging Order' is doing in GreenWood village. Also why is there a Demon Purging Order? I thought that demon's were extremely rare to find in Yvon. Sounds like a waste of manpower'
-"As I have told you before, the Demon Purging Order is a relatively 'hidden' order of the Church of Humanity. Most commoners don't know about them but you can find out about their existence if you just look for them in history books or through any information companies.
I have no idea why she is here, much less why she is acting as a teacher for young children."
Stephen wasn't sure if Neiro was somehow discovered to posses a System or if his anomalous existence was discovered either. If a company that deals with Universal Beings hadn't found out about him, then how would an organization that is limited to one continent on a relatively low-level planet be able to find him out?
Just then, an idea popped into his mind.
"Oh I know! You could read her mind and find out about her goals, then we can plan around her and deal with her!"
-'Why would I do that? That's rude.'
Stephen just looked at Neiro as The Anomaly clapped at his siblings successful introductions, then patting the spaces besides him, which they then sat on.
-"Alright class, I will be giving you all your usual exercises while I give your new churchmates their learning material. Don't misbehave, alright?"
All of the children then said at the same time:
-"Yes Miss Emilia."
Teacher Emilia then brought out six pieces of low quality commoner paper and three charcoal wooden pencils. They had visible bite marks and visibly shorter than a normal pencil, with signs of it being sharpened via a knife several times.
She handed two pieces of paper each to Vamas, Lana and Neiro, with one of them being completely blank while the other had the Midorian Alphabet and numbers, going from 0 to 9 in ascending order.
-"Alright, today I will be teaching you the letters and numbers, how they all sound like and then once you go home, I want you to write out all of the letters on the pieces of paper that I have given you. Please don't write on the paper's that already have the letters and numbers on them and return both them and the pencils tomorrow.
Now come, I'll be teaching you about the first letter of the alphabet, the word 'alphabet' even starts with it! And don't hesitate to ask if you are curious about or don't understand something, alright?"
Emilia had a kind smile as she slowly placed her finger over the letter 'A' and then started sounding out the sound while the Smith triplets started imitating her, slowly going letter by letter and once they got to the last letter, she told them to start saying the names of the letters on their own, helping them whenever they had trouble.
Neiro didn't have much trouble with this learning exercise, while Vamas had a harder time memorizing them and Lana had a hard time saying some of the letters. Once Neiro finished learning the letters, he started helping his siblings alongside Teacher Emilia, which made her smile.
As The Anomaly was learning and teaching, he was also having a conversation with Stephen at the same time.
-'Are you feeling better now?'
Stephen let out a small sigh as he continued to glance at Teacher Emilia from time to time and then responded.
-"I wouldn't say better but I am not as upset as before. Will you be needing me any time soon? I have to watch my next training video."
-'No, I will be playing with Raymond later today and then rest. Feel free to tell me your tasks once you are done though, I will try to be a bit more accommodating this time."
-"Very well, have fun."
Stephen then flipped the 'switch' inside his mind and disappeared from GreenWood church, starting his fourth training video while mentally preparing himself in order to deal with Syssy's shenanigans.
[...]
The video started off with a celebratory tune and confetti falling down along with a massive cake. The cake then started shaking until finally, Syssy's cartoonish body sprang out of the cake and yelled out.
-"Congratulations! You have really outdone yourself this time Stephen!
I was honestly expecting you to take a decade or two to get all of the tasks completed but your host was much more clever than I had thought!
Disguising himself and meeting with Matthew and telling him that he is a messenger of the Goddess Bianca? Fabulous!"
-'...What? No, all he did was go to sleep...He told me later that he just 'convinced him', but I never even saw him go outside.'
-"As expected of someone chosen by the Goddess of Levity, laziness must be flowing through both of their metaphorical veins!"
A laugh track then started playing, eerily similar to a sit-com that Stephen used to watch during long driving hours.
"Well, enough about that! Today, Syssy will be telling you some very important things, so listen well!
First things off, you must have thought to yourself at least once:'Why does our company choose teenagers or random people instead of actually skilled people to fulfill the needed tasks?'
The answer is very simple, to save on costs! Do you know how expensive it is to mess with actually talented or skilled people? And so, we have decided that, unless it is absolutely necessary, we will get products that are lower than Medium Basic as an Existence rank.
That is why we usually target losers, untalented, bullied, wastes of space, dying or random, generic people! It also helps that most times, they are also very desperate and much more easy to manipulate.
There's also those 'mass summoning's' that you already know about, stuff like:"
Syssy then started using the panicked voice of a young, male high-schooler.
"Oh no! My classroom was suddenly transported into another world by some king in order to save their world! Oh the inhumanity!
I am also either bullied,unattractive or a side-character, and now I have a useless power!
Now I have been left to die because I am too weak. Oh the inhumanity!
What's this? My useless power is actually very overpowered for some unknown reason? Now I am no longer a loser and instead have a massive harem, with some of them most probably being my slaves, and am basically omnipotent!
Hurray for the inhumanity!"
Syssy also decided to grow black hair and black eyes as they said that. Shortly after they finished, they then returned back to normal.
"Yea most times this is most times because of us. Mass summoning's are the equivalent of a 'buy 1 get 1 free' deal."
-'...I suppose that explains some of my questions.'
-"Next up, we have to talk about Forbidden Knowledge."
-'...Can we please not?'
-"Forbidden knowledge varies greatly and it can affect beings in many ways. You have forbidden knowledge that can make you become a scary tentacle monster with 17 toes, forbidden knowledge that you cannot remember even if someone were to send it directly into your mind, forbidden knowledge that instantly kills you if you are of a low Existence Rank, etc.
Forbidden knowledge, in essence, is something that a being of a high enough Existence Rank wants to keep forbidden or to punish people that learn of it. You have to be very powerful or have some unique power in order to make a piece of knowledge forbidden.
However, that is one type of forbidden knowledge, the one 'made' to be forbidden. We also have knowledge that is forbidden to be known lest something happens. There is a difference.
Knowledge that is forbidden to be known is also separated into different tiers:
-Knowledge you cannot speak out loud.(Aka a being's name, a location, etc.)
-Knowledge you cannot write or read.
-Knowledge you cannot think about or have the memory of.
Most times this knowledge is related to certain beings. Now don't worry, so long as you don't make a catastrophic mistake as a system, Forbidden Knowledge will never show up. Your existence as a system also grants you and your host some protection from outside Forbidden Knowledge. For example:
'■■■■■■■'"
Stephen's whole body started to hurt on a conceptual level, like getting punched in the liver but exponentially worse. Shortly after he then slowly started feeling better and let out a massive scream of pain.
Syssy's let out its tongue in a 'cute' way and started acting in a bashful way.
"Oopsie, I forgot that the first time you encounter Forbidden Knowledge, the pain is much worse. But you'll forgive me, right?"
-'Fuck you and your entire existence.'
-"Now that you are probably done cursing me, time to learn what just happened. What you 'heard' was some abysmal Forbidden Knowledge made by the company. We can only protect you from Forbidden Knowledge up to a certain level but don't worry, we made sure that Midor doesn't have anything that is worse than what you just heard."
Syssy's tone then became serious as it lost its cartoonish appearance and all of Stephen's line of sight was filled by their rectangular body.
"Now I will warn you:
Never speak a higher being's names or titles if they are above medium Apotheotic.
They will know and they will notice.
If you are extremely lucky, you will be safe, they will ignore or take a glance and then forget about you.
The higher the being, the worse it will be. Do not try to do something as dumb as use Forbidden Knowledge as an attack.
Your protection will glitch out around Forbidden Knowledge that is above what you should be able to find on Midor. Immediately incapacitate or blind yourself and your host.
If you cannot do that, then immediately kill both yourself and your host."
The scene remained unchanged and Stephen felt incredibly scared once more. He stared at the words written on Syssy's body and then did a mental nod. After a few moments, Syssy turned back to its normal cartoonish appearance.
"Now that the scary stuff is over, it is time for your next tasks! These ones will be a bit more simple, so you don't have to worry too much. Here they are!:
-Get your host accepted into Aurora Academy.
-Get your host to become a person of great renown.
-Increase Goddess Bianca's believer amount by 10% of her current amount. 0/1500
Simple enough, right?"
-'...Neiro becoming a person of great renown? Also how the hell will I get him accepted into Aurora Academy!? I basically begged him to not go there!'
-"Also, since the other system's will be notified of this anyways, I will be telling you this as well. A few months into Aurora Academy's new school year, in which your host will be participating, a few surprises will happen! Don't worry though, it won't be anything too huge.
Due to the nature of the things you have learned today, after this video is over, instead of more Forbidden Knowledge knowledge, heh, get it?
You will instead be getting some knowledge on the 'fantastical' beings on Yvon. Dragons! Spirits! Demons! Vampires!"
-'Why the hell are there vampires on a planet orbiting two suns?'
Just as Stephen asked himself that, he then found himself back inside the GreenWood church, right above Teacher Emily and Teacher Fabian who were having a very interesting conversation.
-"Lady Emma, can you tell me why you have been sent to our meager church now? I do not want to come off as rude but I feel like your services would be better used elsewhere."
-"The reason why I am here is to investigate the disappearance of Teacher in training Matthew by the order of His Holiness."
Stephen could barely contain his excitement as he finally managed to learn why someone from the Demon Purging Order was here. But at the same time, he was also terrified that he and Neiro might have been found out due to them making Matthew take care of increasing the Goddess of Levity's amount of believers.
Teacher Fabian had a startled look on his face and then looked down in shame as he sat down on one of the pews.
-"Matthew was a good child, I can assure you that he wouldn't sell his soul to a Demon."
Inquisitor Emma sat down besides the old priest and tried to pat him on the back but decided that it would not be appropriate.
-"He was seen leaving the village with two crates in the middle of the night. The only reason why he wasn't stopped is that he said they were for his Divine Task. We haven't received any report besides his disappearance."
-"...He said in his letter that he was out on a Divine Quest and that he was chosen by one of the deities under the Great Teacher. He left all but his clothes at the temple and then left in the middle of the night. I didn't report it because I did not believe him.
I had simply thought that he was feeling overwhelmed by his life here and so he decided to leave while using a Divine Task as an excuse."
Emma let out a soft sigh and then responded.
-"That wasn't your call to make Fabian. We have received scattered reports of him going from village to village, and even to some towns, preaching to the masses and encouraging them to become believers of the Goddess Bianca."
Fabian was flabbergasted but quickly composed himself, letting out an awkward cough as he saw that Emma noticed his surprise.
-"Forgive my rudeness Lady Emma, I was simply shocked that he would be receiving a task from Goddess Bianca. She isn't usually so 'active'. But while I understand that I will be punished for my negligence, I do not understand why you have decided to teach our youngest students."
-"It is because I think that Matthew was involved with a Demonic Spirit."
Fabian almost had a heart attack as soon as he heard the words 'Demonic Spirit' come out of Emma's mouth, even grabbing his silver book necklace and holding tightly onto it.
-"Y-you think that there is a Demonic Spirit among the children?"
Stephen was starting to feel extremely nervous and worried, fearing for their safety.
-'Neiro won't do anything to them right? Maybe just mess with their minds and wipe their memories...probably...I hope.'
-"Unfortunately yes, and I already have someone that I greatly suspect that I met today during the morning lessons."
Stephen started to nervously look around the church as he feared the words that will come out of Emma's mouth. He looked at the pews, at the walls, at the door, the ceiling which had small cracks of white light coming from them, most probably cracks which let the light of Melos come through..
-"W-who do you suspect? I am embarrassed to admit that I do not know of any child that could have gotten possessed by a Demonic Spirit."
Stephen was preparing to go to the Smith home and tell Neiro about what is happening, but was interrupted by what he heard next.
-"I suspect that Lana Smith's body is occupied by a Demonic Spirit, Fabian."
-""What?""
Both Stephen and Fabian replied at the same time, both utterly confused by what the member of the Demon Purging Order had just said.
-"Y-you must be joking, surely. I have known her for more than two years and she did not exhibit any signs of having been a Demonic Spirit, she is just a shy five year old girl."
-"That is what It wants you to think. I have looked through the various Church documents here along with talking with the other members of the church and village in order to learn as much as possible about the children, and I have found some very concerning news."
-"S-such as?"
-"Five years ago, Anastasia Smith was giving birth to triplets, something that has taken the lives of many mothers in the past, and when I spoke with the midwife, she told me how there were several complications during their birth but Mrs. Smith managed to hold out and delivered all three of her babies safely.
During the past five years, the Smith triplets were all very healthy and quiet children, barely crying and playing with each other. They did not have any health problems and during the winter's, while cold, they still did not get sick.
Lana Smith was also the quietest out of the three, with her older brothers, Vamas and Neiro both playing happily with each other while she simply stared at animals.
As she started growing up, she had started behaving strangely. Talking and listening to various animals, simply looking at various plants and then telling other kids or adults that 'they felt thirsty' before showing any signs of lack of water. She had even put her hands into the ground and then was able to find various plants without even looking at them!
Take all of these things separately and she would simply be a slightly odd or more well behaved child, but all of them together?"
Fabian looked convinced while Stephen looked at Emma like she was mentally ill.
-'What? No! That's because of Neiro! He made it so that they do not cry as much! He made sure that they do not get sick!
He made a fucking skin walker!'
Stephen knew that for someone that did not know the full picture, Lana was indeed a very 'strange' child, but that didn't mean he wasn't frustrated.
As dumb and dumber continued to talk with each other, Stephen was thinking about what he should do, his gaze moving around the church as he thought.
-'This is bad. If it was about Neiro getting branded as a Demonic Spirit then they might have gotten off with a simple memory wipe, but involving his little sister?'
He looked at the pews, made out of average quality wood, which had some cracks or small drawings made with pencils on them.
He looked at the carpeted floor, the carpet being made out of the fur of some large hairy animal.
He looked through the windows, seeing Neiro's unblinking face as he stared at the three beings inside the church.
He then slowly looked up at the ceiling and 'closed' his 'eyes'. If he still had a face, he would be having an 'I'm screwed' expression.
He then heard the unmistakable voice of The Anomaly inside his mind while his mind actively filtered out the conversation between Emma and Fabian.
-'We need to talk.'
-"How long have you been standing there."
-'When I saw you return.'
-"What do you mean by when you sa-"
Stephen then remembered that the light coming from Melos was purple, not white. And so he slowly looked up and activated his 'night vision' which simply allowed him to see everything as if a bright flashlight was pointed at it.
On the ceiling of the church, an innumerable amount of eyeballs were looking all over the building, all of different colors, shapes and species.
They covered the entirety of the large ceiling, and when he looked up, they also all started staring right at him.
He looked back down and then moved towards Neiro, asking him with a slightly terrified voice. He had never understood how someone could be trypophobic, but after seeing that, he now understood.
-"S-since, cough, since when were those things there?"
-'I left them there after I left so that I'll know when you are done with your training video. Now, I think we have something we need to talk about.'
-"You aren't going to deal with them now?"
-'No. I have something special planned out for them. And don't worry, this time I'll make sure that only they get punished, and only if they cross the line.'
Stephen was not quite sure where exactly the 'line' was in this scenario, but he sincerely hoped that those two do not even get close to it, much less cross it. He knew that his hopes were most likely not come to pass, but a System can only dream.