"Huff.. Huff.." Carlessa stood as she breathed heavily, her bright red hair and eyes soon transformed back to normal, her dark blue hairs decorated her beauty once more and she stared off into the distance with a satisfied feeling.
"Waaahhh.. You killed it way too soon.." Duskiell suddenly interrupted her rest with a scoff.
He walked towards her and placed one of his hand onto her shoulder.
"Next time, give me the kill okay." He said.
"Hah?!" Carlessa's brow was quickly furrowed as her veins began to bulge. "Do you want to die HUH!?!? GET OFF!—
"Good grief, its just a chimera, if it were an awakened, you would've gotten the kill."
She brushed off the dusts and blood stain on her sleeves and coat before she searched for Murph and the others.
Murph was standing at the side of the street alongside Heimfher, he wasn't allowed to go into battle as the chimera demon was way stronger than what he could handle, after all, at his stage, Heimfher was only able to shoot basic fireballs.
"Good job." Murph said, he successfully evacuated everyone in the area right before the other divisions of the Protection Bureau comes.
As Carlessa and Duskiell approached Murph and the others, she abruptly stretched both of her hands and said.
"Phew, that was a good exercise!"
While Duskiell walked towards Heimfher and asked for a handshake.
"Good job." He said.
Heimfher was about to accept the handshake from Duskiell, however, when his skin touched with Duskiell's, a burning sensation made Heimfher to promptly snatch his hand away from the handshake.
"O- Ow!.."
"Hahahaha! It's hot right? You see that fire tornado from before and this burning hand of mine? That's what you can do when your fire magic isn't just a little fireball.. So, cheer up and let's eat some awakened hearts when we catch them." Duskiell said with his amused face.
'Eugh.. You say that as if eating human hearts is normal...' Heimfher thought.
A few seconds later, Heimfher heard multiple sound of horses galloping in the distance, it was from the carriages that was coming for them.
When Murph heard the sound of those carriages, he gave an immediate order to his division.
"Let's investigate this one first.. A chimera going rogue in the middle of the city is obviously caused by someone, we'll jump into the hole that chimera was coming from– Bentley, stop with the detection and prepare for battle, Lena, prepare your healing magic—
"Harith will deal with ambushes if there's any, and Heimfher, go support anyone that seems to be struggling."
Murph's stern voice and face was seen as charismatic by everyone, including Heimfher, he realized that despite his power not being an offensive type magic, Murph had something that the others don't when it comes to the division, and that is, a great sense of leadership.
"Understood." Bentley replied.
"Got it." Harith also added.
"O- okay.." Lena followed from behind.
'He looks like a great man except from the fact that he never told me anything about everything else that i need to know when being an awakened...' Heimfher said to himself, the corner of his lips curved as he moved forward along with the others.
The entire division 0 soon jumped into the hole, with Murph being the first to check if it was depeer than they thought or not, when Murph landed just fine, the rest of the members followed.
Thud!
Heimfher was caught by Duskiell so that he won't snap his leg bones in half, and when he arrived at the bottom of the hole, Heimfher was surprised to see the looming darkness that was surrounding him, but other than that, he also noticed that the place he was in wasn't just a random underground space, it was a sewer.
"Ohh.. Boy— We're in some deep shit.. Literally." Duskiell said with a short laugh.
.
.
15 minutes later—
Step!
Step!
Step!
"This sewer is pretty long isn't it.." Harith abruptly said, starting the first conversation ever since they arrived in the sewer.
"That's because this is the city's sewer system.. It's not an exaggeration to say that this tunnel will turn and bend in every direction, spanning across the entire city.. If we don't watch our step and remember where we came from, its a certain that we'll get lost.." Murph answered, he and the others were being lit up by a fire.
And that fire came from Heimfher, he summoned a fireball a while back and kept it on his palm, without ever shooting it anywhere.
"Heimfher, do you still have your mana?" Murph asked, he was worried that Heimfher would ran out of mana after keeping the fireball lit for more than 15 minutes.
"Still fine, no side effects yet." Heimfher replied, he gave Murph a thumbs up with his other hand, telling him that he's okay.
Seeing how much mana Heimfher truly had inside of his body, everyone around him was expectedly surprised.
"Just how much mana is in your body.. Damn.." Bentley said, he looks at Heimfher with a pretty mixed feelings, but he still respected him nevertheless.
"Maybe i should also bet on my survival on consuming blight mana.." Carlessa boldly said, inviting the people around her to stare at her with a weird face.
"You know if you died i can drag your soul into my sword?" Duskiell said with a cheeky smirk.
"Huh!? What!!?" Carlessa looked at Duskiell in disbelief after hearing his words.
"W- w- what are you talking about! Im not actually going to drink blight mana okay, wait— In the first place THERES NO GOD THAT CAN DO THAT!"
Her scream almost destroyed Duskiell's eardrums, he immediately covered his ears with his fingers when he realized that Carlessa was about to shout infont of him.
"Ahahha why are you so mad, what if there is a god like that? You know.. Maybe the God of Soul, or perhaps the God of Sentience Weapon... Surely the God of Soul exists.." Duskiell jokingly said.
The sewer still stretching as they walked, Heimfher also slowly beginning to feel bored, when he was looking to whats infront of him, he briefly had something that he was curious of.
So he asked Bentley and Harith about it, Duskiell was arguing with Carlessa so he can't really ask them for now.
"Hey, Bentley, Harith.." Heimfher said, to which both Bentley and Harith quickly answered.
"Hm? What is it?"
"Is there something wrong?"
"Is there really that many gods in the world? Murph said there's countless of gods and goddess, but how much exactly? Infinite?" Heimfher asked as he whispered to them.
It took Bentley and Harith a few seconds to reply back as they had to look at each other as if conversing telepathically whether they should tell Heimfher or not.
"That's right, there's many gods.. Everything in this world has a god." Bentley said.
"Everything?" Heimfher was quite confused with the answer.
"Yes, Everything." Harith then continued the explanation.
"Any object, any elements, any foods, any plants, any— Anything.. However, its more appropriate to say that anything CAN be a god.. Im sure Murph had told this to you before, but every God above us is once a human too, or rather maybe a mortal creatures too.. They ascended into the seat of Gods through their efforts or enlightenment, which still is a mystery to everyone—
"Someone which had worked hard for decades to master their skill wasn't worthy to ascend, and someone who claimed to have found the meaning of everything also wasn't worthy to ascend, the exact way or reason as to why someone can ascend into Godhood is something that no one was able to understand—
"However, what i know is that.. There's a lot of gods up there.. For example, there may be a God of Carrot, but until someone found the ritual method for borrowing that god's power, no one can be sure of their existence.. Because the only way to prove the existence of a God. is through the ritual.. The God of Carrot may exist, but it also may not, if it isn't, that means its seat is still empty, and any creatures, humans or not, can ascend into its seat—
"It's just a matter of when.. Same with every seatless god titles.."
Heimfher was left speechless once again, he didn't ask other question or reply back for a few seconds. But when he do, his question was instead more bizarre than before.
'Murph didn't say half of that though.. Ahaha..'
"Then, do you think there's a God of Reality? Or maybe a God of Fate?" Heimfher asked.
His question stunned both Bentley and Harith, but only them, Lena, Duskiell, Carlessa, and even Murph, all turned their head towards Heimfher as he just said something controversial.
"W- what?!" Heimfher was confused with all the gazes he received in a short amount of time.
"Hey hey, you're asking some pretty bold questions here.." Duskiell said.
"Huh, didn't expect that to come out of your mouth." Carlessa added.
"H- Heimfher.. Are you serious?" Bentley tried to make Heimfher take back his words, but out of nowhere, Murph interrupted their conversation.
"What you just asked—" Murph said, his eyes then glanced back into the darkness of the sewer.
"Is considered Taboo.. Even as an awakened, we all inevitably is still a human– Listen, Heimfher.. Everything can be a god in this world.. And that means, yes.. Even reality or fate itself.. But do you know what it means if there's a God of Reality or a God of Fate?—
"It means they can control Reality and Fate itself to their liking, among the most absurd gods there is.. There is 5 Gods that were anonymously agreed to wield the most power- And that is the God of Reality, Fate, Time, Life, and Death—
"But.. To become a God of something so absurd and only a mere concepts, it must require something so absurd aswell.. That's why we can never be sure if those Gods existed or not, atleast we know that the Goddess of Life and the God of Death exists, however we haven't confirmed the existence of the other three.. Because to do a ritual to borrow a God's power, you need to gather things that relates to those god's title—
"What do we have to bring to meet with the God of Reality? Conciousness? Air? Something like the fabric that created this very earth? No one would be able to do something like that.. Unless there's an ancient awakened that hadn't ascended yet and has accumulated immeasurable strength.. And since speaking of such gods bring a lot of discomfort, it's considered taboo by many, they think talking about the 5 taboo gods will bring misfortune, with the exceptions to the Goddess of Life."
The whole air around the sewer gradually became colder as Heimfher and everyone else stayed quiet after Murph ended his speech, there was no longer any need to continue, and the division 0 walked further into the sewer with a heavy mind.
"Hm?..." Murph stopped abruptly, startling everyone behind him, his eyes squinted as if trying to see something infront of him a little clearer.