The song of birds and the laughter of the nuns filled the hallways of the church as it always did.
Walking through this beautiful sight, Sol simply smiled and continued walking without anyone noticing his presence. Everything was as it usually was.
His direction was clear and his steps were steady and well-paced. He only stopped when he reached an office which he walked through with no problem.
Sitting on a desk, with a mountain of paperwork so high one would believe it was impressive they still stood tall.
On the other side of the paperwork was a young girl still in her teens, with golden hair shining like a sun, and blue eyes that seemed to contain the sky.
At least that was how she usually looked.
Right now though… Aurora Highland, now Aurora Castitas, looked like a shrew that was on the verge of exploding.
Her hair was in disarray, proof that she had not been able to groom them for long. There were large dark bags under her eyes, denoting how long nights she spent without sleeping, and even though she looked like she was on the verge of fainting, she was still continuing to look at the paper and sign.
“I am busy. What do you want?”
Aurora raised her head and glared at Sol when he appeared sitting on the guest chair. Her eyes were bloodshot red and dry.
“You look like some evil witch in the story told to children.”
“Ugh.”
Aurora groaned and looked down. She covered her face and screamed,
“Why in the mother goddess’ name do I have to do all this, Hah!?”
It was quite the outburst but Sol simply smirked while giving her a glance filled with sympathy.
Since the royal family took care of the governance of the land, one would think that they were more busy than the church. But it wasn’t so.
The King had an overview of the Kingdom but it was the nobles who took care of all the work in their territory. So the work the King ended up with was only a fraction of what was necessary.
Another large part would then be taken care of by the minister. Only leaving the strict minimum for the King to take a look at. Even then it would be an amount of work large enough to devote many white nights.
But the church was even worse.
Millions of prayers. Hundred thousand of donations. The necessity to accommodate the believers. The regular mass, the hundreds of useless ceremonies that all lasted for hours upon hours, the organization of the Paladin and so much more.
This was even more so in times of wars like this where even the non-believers suddenly started to pray to the goddesses and visited the church.
“I thought you wanted more power in the church? Shouldn’t you be happy?”
“I wanted more power, not more work!”
Aurora stood up and vented her feelings as she shouted.
The last few days had been hell on earth for her.
More than ¾ of the work charge of the Supreme daughter was assigned to her. At first, she was happy. She could see her influence growing rapidly. But now she realized that one should be indeed careful of what they wished for.
She thought the supreme daughter only had to sleep, pray sometime and look pretty. Now she realized how wrong she was.
The worse was, this amount of work had been carefully calculated, after years of experimentation, to be handled with relatively no problem.
But there was one hicc. A little problem they could have not accounted for. Those calculations have been made with the hypothesis that the one working would be a King rank or a Duke rank at least. Thereby enjoying the increased power of their brain's ability to process information and the higher level of energy to sustain their body.
But Aurora, despite all her power, was still in a weak human body that had yet to even reach the Duke level.
Aurora cursed in his low voice again and again. This wasn’t how she envisioned her reincarnation. She hadn’t suffered so much for eons only to end up as some desk worker.
Looking at her like this, Sol felt almost bad about what he was about to say.
—Almost.
“Well…*Ahem* It seems like Camelia won’t be available for the next few days. At least up to a week, I believe. So you will have to take care of all her work.”
Aurora looked at him with a blank look.
Sol felt like he could even see what was going on in her brain. She had a look that was screaming, <<What hell is this bastard saying to me now?>>
When the information finally sank in her mind, Aurora shook her head and looked feebly at the work that already seemed without end.
“No…No. That woman despite her personality is a true workaholic. She wouldn’t…”
At first, there was denial. She simply refused to accept the situation she was, clinging to Camelia’s work ethic.
“Damn this shit! I cannot take it anymore. I quit! Go find a new holy daughter!”
Second was anger. She realized once again how much she would have to complete in the incoming days.
“Look. The kingdom is in an important phase, right? We are facing war, right? Why don’t you try to understand my position a little?”
This was followed by bargaining. Since screaming was useless, at least they could have a deal, right?
“Hah…Why? Just why? My life is hell. Everything is meaningless. Perhaps I should just die? I haven't even seen the sun in days. I am literally in a prison.”
Depression settled in for more than ten minutes as Aurora lamented the fact that freedom was a lie, equality was an illusion and the world was filled with malice toward hard workers like her.
“I…I will do it.”
In the end— Aurora flopped down on her chair and looked at the ceiling blankly, totally drained when she realized that none of what she was saying was moving Sol. Her fate was sealed the moment he walked in this room and there was nothing she could do.
Her words of acceptance and utter defeat sounded so pitiful. Sol decided to put an end to her suffering. After all, there was a limit to how much you could overwork someone before they simply decided to snap.
“I will ask my partner to send a few undead to you. They can’t do too much but menial tasks should be easy.”
The crown was also overworked so he couldn’t do much more than this.
“You…You will?”
‘Ugh.’
She looked at him like a lost puppy wet from rain that finally found shelter, food and a caring owner.
“Haha. Don’t expect too much but I will do my best.”
Aurora sighed in relief.
But the more it was so, the more Sol became curious.
“You…You are not exactly Aurora, right? You have nothing to do with Lustburg. Why work so hard.”
Responsibility could only be felt if you cared.
When he first entered this world, Sol had felt no deep attachment to Lustburg. This was why he only did the bare minimum as a prince and didn’t care for much more.
It was only now that he took things seriously that his workload increased.
But even then, if he decided to stop working. There was no one who could stop him.
As a holy daughter Aurora had absolute authority. Not even Camelia could actually force her to work and no one could dismiss a Blessed.
“I…I want to enjoy my life this time.”
Aurora unconsciously caressed her neck as shadow of memory flashed in her mind.
“This work is a pain. It’s exhausting and I hate the responsibility. Still. This is my new life…I don’t want to die with regret in this new life.”
Her eyes were hazy and the earlier atmosphere of the clumsy girl subsided slightly.
“Who were you really in your last life?”
“Who I was, huh?
“I was Dawn. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
‘And you are the one who put an end to my life.’
Aurora looked at her ‘father’ with a complicated expression.
In her last life, she had also been the eldest and the one who was the most overworked taking care of an entire nascent universe while her siblings did nothing but have fun.
A forlorn smile flashed on her face as she looked up. She wondered what the Divine realm looked like nowadays. She was pretty sure her Divine Kingdom should be a complete wreck currently.
“Dawn… I did not say this last time. But I think it’s a beautiful name.”
“Thanks. My father is the one who named me.”
“Your father…What kind of man was he if I may ask?”
She chuckled at the ironic situation she was in currently. But looking at the genuine curiosity in his eyes, she thought deeply.
What kind of man Adam was?
“In my eyes, he was like a god. An omnipotent being who held no flaw and was able to do everything he wished. One who spread joy and happiness to all of us and gave us love with no hesitation.”
Her voice was soft, “I should have understood that there was no thing as someone without flaws. I should have remembered that Light could not exist without darkness. If I did…”
If she had noticed sooner the distress her father was in…Perhaps this whole tragedy would have been avoided.
She shook her head. “Well, the past is what it is.”
Aurora looked down at the paperwork and started to scribble again in silence and Sol took it as his cue to leave. It seemed like he had asked quite an insensitive question.
“Sol…”
“Hum?”
“Please come here.”
Just as he waved to leave. Aurora called out to him. He was quite curious about what she wanted. But when he finally approached her, the only thing she did was take his hand and place it on her head.
She slowly closed her eyes and spoke in a low voice. “Now…Please…Tell me I am doing good work. Tell me that you are proud of me.”
Sol was quite perplexed by this sudden situation. But, hearing the desperate plea in her voice.
He did as he was told. Slowly, gently…He spoke words of encouragement.
“I wanted to tell you this two weeks ago. Thank you for your hard work. Thanks to you, I was able to protect people dear to me. Thank you for everything you have done. Your work was more than good. It was great. I am proud of you and I am glad to have someone like you as a companion.”
‘Ah…’
Aurora closed her eyes tighter at those words.
She refused to cry in front of him.
This was the last modicum of pride she would keep.
