After a few moments of jesting and playing around by themselves, Sol and his merry party decided to take the road once again.
This time Setsuna was sitting next to him as she was unable to walk correctly at the moment. It seemed that she had gone past her limits by trying to match him all night long and her ass was now protesting against her every movement.
Sol found it really funny but stopped himself from laughing right at her face. At the end of the day, he was also partially responsible for her current condition so laughing would only cause detriments that he was not willing to face right now.
Persephone was also standing next to him while holding a book in her hand, she was writing something in said book and Sol soon realized that it was some sort of explanation about what happened the night before.
“What is this?”
He asked her, curiosity shimmering in his blue eyes…
“Freya asked me to write anything I am able to learn once I tried the ring for myself. You know how she is with tech, right? This is to satiate her curiosity. I must say though, the results were more than just amazing.”
“Heh, I guess you guys still doubted me a little, huh…”
“Indeed.”
Persephone was direct and blunt in her words. “The curse we are suffering from had been bothering us for thousands of years. All the strongest and most knowledgeable witches gave the possible eradication of the curse a try but there was nothing we could do against it. So we simply gave up.”
She closed her book. “You just wrote a new page in the history of the witches and all that while only being a Duke-ranked being. So you should understand our disbelief in the matter, right?”
She laughed quietly under her breath, “Though, I guess you had never been someone who could be observed with mere common sense.”
“I am quite awesome, right?”
“Someone is having quite the big head now, huh…”
“Haha. Do not worry. Arrogance has been beaten out of me by reality too many times. I am just bringing pure facts into the table.”
He was rich, strong, and handsome. If he wasn’t awesome then who was? This had nothing to do with him being arrogant.
“I decided to be more open about my feelings lately. It makes things easier for everyone, don’t you think?”
“I guess it does, huh.”
Persephone smiled quietly.
“You know, I have been meaning to ask. What did you do before becoming a witch?”
Sol asked with a soft tone. He was rather curious about Persephone’s history. He knew basically everything there was to know about all his other women, but she was still a mystery to him to this day.
“Oh? Are you trying to know more about me? Does that mean you consider me as yours now?”
Her smile took an edge to it as she looked at him to which Sol answered as plainly as possible…
“I do.”
He shrugged his shoulders before speaking, “Of course, this is my own interpretation of things between us. So you are free to deny it if you want.”
Sol wasn’t naive enough to believe that just because he shared a bed with a woman it would mean that she would fall for him.
But if there was one thing he knew, it was that he was quite possessive. Perhaps even more than he believed in the past and this feeling of possessiveness was growing by the day.
“I like your frankness.”
She nodded and looked up, “Well, unlike Medea and many others witches, I do not have a sad or heavy past I think. Fufufu~”
Most of the witches chose to become a witch because they had no other options left for them in life. They all lived a life where they could only change or die.
Kali, Medea, and Freya were all orphans who had been taken by Ambrosia one after another.
But Persephone was a bit different than everyone else…
“I was a princess, hehe.”
Medea aside, they all opened their eyes wide when they heard this shocking revelation…
“Back then, as you know, was the warring era. The Seven Kingdoms didn’t exist as it did now. There were two great empires with the Elves and the Demons being in command of each. All the others races were strugglings under the control of those three races and we humans were at the bottom of the bottom as slaves under the control of the Elves.”
It wasn’t as if the elves chained down all humanity for labor. Like now, human society was allowed to thrive in a certain way. But rather than one big kingdom, they were divided into many small ones.
“If I remember right, back then, the Demon King was trying to conquer the world. It was a rather fun era, all things considered. Angels still stayed above like the lofty beings they like to present themselves as while the Elves fought against the Demons for hegemony.”
The reason beast men were also called war beasts was because of this very era as they were the principal force of the armies. Unlike demons and elves, they had a short reproduction cycle and accelerated growth in the earlier years.
Dwarves were used to make the weapons and humans were…
“Well. We honestly didn’t have much use. I guess this is why they didn’t consider us in the grand scheme of things.”
Humans could only awaken at the age of 15 and then only 10% of the population could sign a contract with other races. Out of that 10% only another 10% could actually sign a rather high-ranked contract.
The problem was...
“Humans who could actually sign contracts were greatly appreciated. Elves used us as a way to make their children grow faster. Because of this, rather than forcing us on the field, humans were groomed. In a way, you could say that we were cattle to them.”
She laughed under her breath as she thought of that distant past. There was no exaggeration to her words. Elves in particular would create special human farms to make sure they would produce the best possible offspring.
This was what it meant to be royalty back then. Nothing more than glorified cattle for the Elves and Demons to use.
“I was born with a rather high capacity if I have to be honest. Enough to contract an A+ rank beast. So they were especially careful with me and wished to use me and wanted to find the best breeding partner for me to bring birth to another talent.”
Sol’s eyes twitched as he heard those troublesome lines.
“Ohoh. Don’t look at it like this. I wasn’t sad or badly treated. Do you think a sheep who never knows freedom would dream of the wide sky?”
Unlike what many would think, royalties were not unhappy with their destiny. You could only dream of what you knew about, after all.
You needed to know freedom in order to fight for it.
“But I was bored.”
She chuckled. She was bored indeed. That was all. Nothing more, nothing less.
“Mother heard about me and was quite curious. I guess she wanted to test making someone with talent a witch. To see if anything would be different.”
“So… You accepted to sell your soul… Because you were bored?”
“Fufufu~ When you say it like this it sounds quite stupid, doesn’t it?”
She chuckled but there was no doubt nor regret in her life.
“I hated it you know. I hated my life. A life where everything was already planned from the day I was born to the day of my death. I knew exactly what I would do the next day, what I would eat, who I would meet, and where I would go. The man who would become my husband, the day where I would give birth myself, and how many children I would have.”
Mirth left her eyes as she continued in a cold lifeless tone, “A life where nothing exciting happens. A story that was so boring that even those who love calm stories would become bored by it. I hated it. Despised it. And loathed it with every fiber of my being. So… When Mother Ambrosia came up with a proposal, a way for me to finally write a new exciting story… I jumped in with no hesitation whatsoever.”
Sol digested this information with a cramped smile, before nodding to himself, “I thought you became crazy after becoming a witch. I see now that you were crazy from the start.”
“Crazy is such a heavy word. Let’s just say that I was seeking a new path.”
“So you never resented anyone?”
“Oh, I did. This is why when our little dear here became entangled with your ancestor. The first thing I did was fight against the Queen of Southern Pride. Heh, it seems like our visit was too much for her. Right, Medea?” [1]
Why did she learn the power of life? Of course, it was partially because of Ambrosia. But she could have chosen space, time, or death. The reason she choose Life, in particular, was quite simple.
She wished to completely trample on the elves by using the power they were the proudest of and that by the ‘Cattle’, they used to raise.
“Haha…”
Medea chuckled awkwardly, refusing to remember that fight.
In the past, she had considered Persephone a gentle and demure woman who could not even hurt a bug.
After all, why else would she learn the power of Life that focused on Healing?
She should have realized then that one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. No matter how beautiful it may be, what was underneath can only be considered the stuff of horrors.
Persephone had been utterly and completely ruthless. The only thing she did was keep others elves away as Persephone trampled and completely trashed their queen.
From what she knew, that fight had completely destroyed the Concept of Pride the queen had been building on to become a Demigod.
Sol looked at the smile on Persephone’s face and decided then and there to be very careful not to piss her off.
“So, I hope my story was entertaining?”
“It was. I —”
Kyaaa~!
The shrill scream of a woman filled the forest and startled the birds as they flew away in a hurry.
Sol's eyes shone with stars as he stood up in an instant, “We can discuss this later. No one does a thing. Medea, I am talking to you. No spell, no swords, or shadow. Nothing! I will take care of it this time.”
Sol could smell it. The smell of a true adventure finally waved at him.
For the first time in his life, he would be able to play the role of a knight saving the beauty in distress.
(AN: Sorry, guys. This is the last chapter of the month. But I promise everything will be back to normal on June. Once again sorry for everything. I hope to see all of you guys back soon.)
[1]: For those who forgot, reread the first Elves’ special chapter.
(AN: In short, Persephone is my Unohana. Only those who read or watched Bleach Thousand Year Blood War will understand. Jokes aside, I hope you liked Persephone’s backstory.)
