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“Since we all now know that Morgeth isn’t the actual leader’s name, why don’t you tell me who it is and I will go have a discussion with them and try to bring this all to a peaceful resolution?” Cain asked once their massages were finished.
He also stealthily recorded the Djinn, in case the status of the once-per-lifetime racial ability reset when he summoned others of the species.
“Unfortunately, one of the first things he did after I gave him the power with my wish ability was to prohibit me from revealing his identity. I can’t even tell you who might know and not have such a prohibition on them.” She sighed.
“That’s fine, we can find out about him on our own later. Can you tell me what city you arrived in? How about what sort of starting gear a Djinn gets?” Cain asked, wondering if he could fool the system’s limitations.
“I started out incorporeal, and these are the clothes I get when I become solid. I started out on the outskirts of Valmar, on the far side of the continent, near the shore closest to the Western Continent. It has been a long journey to get here to your farm.” She informed him, unaware that what she said could and would be used against her boss.
“Did nobody tell you about equipping gear?” Cain asked, wondering about the default clothing when she becomes a solid comment.
“I mean, I know that people wear armor and stuff, but if I’m in trouble I become incorporeal.” She responded, clearly confused.
“Alright, I have just the thing for you then. It’s a very lovely dress, and it will keep the hot sun off your skin, now that you are going to be visible for a while. Hold this and concentrate on equipping it, your system will do the rest.” Cain explained.
The item he handed her was just a basic cotton dress, with leather accents so that a rogue could use it as well. Her class only said [Djinn] the same as her species, so Cain wasn’t one hundred percent sure what sort of equipment she was compatible with.
The dress vanished from her hands to appear on her body, and the girl smiled. “Oh, this is lovely. Can I keep it?”
“But of course, it’s just a piece of clothing. I could give you armor and whatever else you need as well if you decide to leave the employment of the one pretending to be Morgeth.” Cain suggested.
“But I swore loyalty.” She sighed again, then flopped down on a bench in despair, not seeing a good way out of this for her.
While she was distracted, Cain called and merged with a Record Keeper and had it use its most powerful [Dispel] on her.
It might not be one hundred percent effective if the ability really was a Spirit Awakened one, but it had a pretty good success rate, and as far as Cain could tell, it had worked on the first try. She hadn’t noticed it yet though.
“Do you know much about the history of this world? There have been people here for an incredibly long time, and there were two major wars in the past. One between the races, and one between the Ancients and the Gods.” Cain began, sitting beside her to tell his story.
“Oh, I never asked. How did it go for them? I mean, they challenged real gods.”
Cain smiled at her enthusiasm. “Let me start a bit earlier than that. The Ancients were originally much like you, incorporeal beings, only they were made of pure magic, tasked by the Creators to Build this world for them. After thousands of years, they grew bodies of their own, enormous tentacled ones that the people now call the Ancients.
They created many of the species in this world, and the Creators placed the others, and the Goddess of Reincarnation brought in the souls of people who died in other worlds to begin populating this one.
For a while, everything was good, but the Creators had enemies, a group of Human Gods, who wanted to tear down what the Creators had built, in order to punish them. At first, the Creators were unaware of the Humans’ treachery, and the Ancients, their representatives in this world fought on their behalf, building up their own power and the power of the world to keep the Human Gods at a standstill.
Finally, it was too much for the Ancients, for they weren’t actually Gods themselves, only constructs who had gained a body, and they were banished from this world before the Creators stepped in and drove the Human Gods out, leaving many humans behind in this world to go along with what the Creators had already put here.
On the other continents, there are many, many humans present, it is only the Southern Continent that is so heavily demon and Youkai populated. Since you didn’t know much about the world they might not have told you all that yet.” Cain explained, generously padding his knowledge of the past with plausible-sounding half-truths.
“That is amazing, and you are one of those Ancients?” She asked.
“No, that brings me to the second half of our story. Many thousands of years after the war against the Gods, the species of the world all went to war against each other, over a series of pent-up grievances.
During that war, the Human Mages cast a spell, a grand one that encompassed the whole world, to summon Champions and Heroes to their side to aid them to victory. It was an incredible spell and brought hundreds of reincarnated humans here to fight.
But the Laughing God, one of the Creators, saw that as too mundane. So, he changed the spell. Nearly every species, all over the world started getting new arrivals that looked like them and could access the System that you know today. One that would make them heroes and champions. That is how I arrived here, the System Transferred me here, the same way that it brought you.
So, we are a lot alike, you and me. We are both members of lost species now, no longer what we were before we arrived. The only difference is that I have been here a little longer.” Cain told her after his best attempt at captivating public speaking.
He had attracted a number of Bunnies as well, as they loved a good story, and even Luna, who was still sleeping when Cain went for a massage, had returned, draping herself around his neck and clapping in appreciation for the story.
“Is the little Lamia a transfer too? It started me very young, but she looks to still be only a few years old.” The Djinn asked.
“Nope, I was actually born here. This is my dad.” Luna told her proudly, and the young Djinn looked shocked.
“So your mother is…”
“A regular Lamia, with white scales and bright pink hair, but only two arms. She is back at one of our other houses on the Central Continent, taking care of the rest of the children.” Luna told her with a smile.
“That was an excellent story, and I didn’t expect you to be such an open-minded family man, but what was the point of it?” The Djinn asked.
“When the Record Keeper disenchants a curse or debuff effect it can take a little while to properly wear off, and sometimes it will reactivate on its own if the attempt doesn’t work completely. I just needed to distract you with an interesting history lesson for a while until we could be certain that you are no longer under the control of the one leading the army.” Cain told her.
“Wait, you can counteract the ability I gave him? But it is Spirit Awakened.” She gasped.
“Lower rank abilities still work to counter higher rank ones, they just aren’t always effective, the higher level effects will sometimes resist them. It happens with non-awakened abilities as well.” Cain answered while the Bunnies all nodded in agreement. They had all seen the healers working on particularly tough poisons and curses during their training.
“So you can free the people?” She asked hopefully.
“I mean, technically, yes. It would be slow to do them all one by one, but we could. Instead, I want to catch him and take that ability away. I understand that likely means a duel to the death, but if that’s what it takes, then I am willing to try, for the sake of the civilians on the Southern Continent.” Cain told her.
Really, he had no intentions of actually fighting. He had acquired a lovely spell from his spell crafting that would send someone directly up in the air for thousands of kilometers. The demon might be tough, but unlike a powerful Dragon, he probably couldn’t survive in a vacuum or fly through space on his own. That should end the whole mess in an instant.