Yet Shakti stood atop the towering city wall, her brow locked in a frown, her face so grim it looked fit to wring water from.
She was replaying the words Haimer had left behind yesterday as he walked out of the captain's office.
Recruit a thousand people.
That was hardly a number you could laugh off.
In Orario as it stood now, even the great, deep-rooted Familias would find it a pipe dream to recruit and absorb a thousand new members in one go.
"Captain."
Footsteps approached, and a tall Amazon guardswoman sidled up beside her.
She followed Shakti's gaze out beyond the walls, her voice lowered.
"Lord Haimer... can he really bring back that many people from outside the walls?"
The guardswoman glanced at the vast, desolate wilderness beyond the city, her face full of doubt.
"Out there it's nothing but endless wasteland and ruins, monsters wandering everywhere, danger at every turn. Merchant caravans have to hire heavy guards just to travel that road, and there's barely a village safe enough to make camp in. Where in the world would Lord Haimer find a thousand living, breathing people?"
Shakti didn't answer.
"...But—"
"They're here."
Just then, Shakti's gaze suddenly sharpened, fixed on the point where the distant horizon met the sky.
At the very edge of her sight, the thick morning mist parted, revealing a broad passage.
Haimer's tall, lean figure, wrapped in the gold of the newly risen morning sun, walked step by step into view.
Most striking of all, he seemed to be carrying a little girl cradled in his arms.
The girl had brilliant golden hair and wore a rather thin nightgown. Her small head was tucked comfortably into the crook of Haimer's neck, and she slept soundly, murmuring soft, sleepy sounds now and then.
Behind him trailed a dense, dark mass of figures.
The line stretched further than the eye could follow.
Several hundred little girls of uneven height walked in a reasonably orderly line, quiet and well-behaved, following in Haimer's footsteps.
Shakti studied the crowd of small, delicate girls. Then, at last, she relaxed. "...So it really is just a bunch of children."
Children were children, after all.
Especially since every one of these Cursed Children looked to be barely past ten. Seeing that it really was just a group of children—
Shakti's heart, which had been hanging high in her chest, finally settled back into place, and she let out a long, heavy breath.
After all, in the stories told across the Heavens, Lord Haimer was indeed a true god of calamity.
His past of slaughtering fellow gods was enough to make even Ouranos, a great god himself, wary of him.
But that reputation existed only in the eyes of some of the gods.
As far as Orario was concerned—
since Lord Haimer had descended to the Lower World, he'd been nothing short of a benevolent god.
He was always kind toward commoners, and hadn't hesitated to use force to purge the rot of Familias that preyed on the weak.
Now, going out beyond the walls to take in a group of orphans adrift in the wilderness and bring them back to Orario for careful care — that seemed entirely in keeping with Lord Haimer's recent conduct.
"Scared me half to death. I actually thought he'd gone off and raised an army of a thousand." The Amazon guardswoman patted her chest and let out a long breath of relief.
But reality, as always, hit harder than imagination.
As the massive procession drew closer—
Shakti, a Lv.5 elite adventurer whose keen instincts had been honed on the edge of death countless times, felt them flare instantly, locking onto the girls walking at the very front of the line.
In that instant, her expression changed.
After all — whether it was the girl with long black hair or the one with chestnut hair, both leading the front of the column—
something about them made Shakti's instincts scream danger, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end.
"These children... they're not ordinary refugees at all!"
Having sensed just how unusual the girls were, Shakti felt her confidence waver.
At the same time, beneath Orario's gate, in the shadow of the towering wall—
the veteran members of [Haimer Familia] had likewise been waiting there for some time.
The morning breeze stirred the hems of the girls' clothes.
Onigawara Rin wore a short, practical swordsman's outfit built for movement, a famed blade hanging at her waist. Mary Kikakujou's noble golden curls cascaded down over a pale blue dress that flattered her full, elegant figure. Inaba Tsukuyo stood with her eyes closed, dressed in a red-and-white shrine maiden's robe. Amou Kirukiru wore light armor, her black hair loose and unbound, a wild, arrogant smile at the corners of her mouth. Hanasaka Warabi rubbed at her sleep-heavy eyes, while Nomura Satori toyed idly with a few kunai in hand. Tendou Kisara stood silently in a jet-black kendo uniform, her long blade cradled in her arms.
Beside them stood the Holy Emperor, along with Aihara Enju riding atop the massive Kyoubou, and Kohina Hiruko perched on Kyoubou's head like an exquisite little doll.
At first, they'd all worn looks of eager anticipation.
But then, once they made out the long, dragon-like column of little girls trailing behind Haimer on the horizon—
the air among them seemed to freeze solid.
"Y-you've got to be kidding..."
Mary Kikakujou's sky-blue eyes went wide, and every trace of her carefully maintained noble-lady poise vanished.
She raised both hands and clutched at her prized golden curls, her rosy lips trembling as though she might scream in sheer panic.
"That's — that's way too many of them!"
"Kami-sama just went out for a bit and came back with this many girls?! Look at that dark mass — that's got to be several hundred of them!"
Mary kept her voice low, but there was no hiding the panic underneath it.
An image rose unbidden in her mind — a tragic scene: in this brand-new stronghold, a swarm of fresh-faced little girls chattering around Haimer, some clinging to his legs, others tugging at his sleeves, all vying wildly for his attention.
And herself, the senior among them, unable to so much as brush the hem of Kami-sama's robe, left to crouch pitifully in some cold, forgotten corner, drawing circles in the dirt with a stick, heartbroken.
How could this be... She and Kami-sama had already gone that far!!!
Was she really going to become nothing but *** right after her very first taste of it?!
Mary felt like she might fall apart completely.
"Don't tell me we're going to have to compete with a hundred-plus little girls for Kami-sama's favor from now on?!"
"And besides, no bed is big enough to fit that many people!!!"
Mary ground her teeth, a fierce sense of crisis making her want to charge forward right then and there.
"Mary, are you sure you're focusing on the right thing here?"
Hearing this outrageous rant, Onigawara Rin, standing nearby, pressed one hand to her forehead and rolled her eyes hard, an exasperated remark slipping out despite herself.
"Is there anything in that head of yours besides how to climb into Kami-sama's bed?"
Mary really was getting more lovesick by the day.
Even as Rin complained, watching the massive column draw ever closer, her pretty doll-like face couldn't help but fall too, her fine brows knitting together.
Setting the rivalry for attention aside, though, having so many new members flood into the Familia all at once was bound to be a huge shock for veterans like themselves, who'd only joined a few days earlier and had just leveled up to Lv.3.
Especially Inaba Tsukuyo, standing off to the side. Though her eyes stayed shut, the hearing sharpened by Divine Blood, combined with the information fed back by her rare Development Ability, Mind's Eye, painted her a picture ten thousand times more staggering than anything the others could see with their own eyes.
"This presence... Seems like the new arrivals Kami-sama brought back this time are every bit as extraordinary as Enju and Little Hiruko."
The moment Tsukuyo's words fell—
everyone froze for a beat, then, as if lightning had struck through their minds, snapped back to their senses.
Of course!
Kami-sama had said, before leaving yesterday afternoon, that the children he was bringing this time were Cursed Children, just like Enju and Little Hiruko!
As members of [Haimer Familia]—
having been brought to this world by their own Kami-sama from another one, they had long since come to understand — through the odd fragments Tendou Kisara and the Holy Emperor occasionally let slip — the world those two had originally come from.
— that cruel world ravaged by Gastrea.
These children were all just like Aihara Enju and Kohina Hiruko!
All of them Cursed Children carrying the Gastrea virus inside their bodies!
Especially when they thought back to a few days earlier, bathing together in the grand, luxurious bathhouse.
When Aihara Enju and Kohina Hiruko had stripped without a second thought and leapt cheerfully into the pool—
the other girls had, for the first time, seen the old and new scars covering their small bodies — whip marks, burns, wound after horrifying wound.
In that moment, the very air in the bathhouse had seemed to freeze.
Rin, Mary, and the others all understood — beneath those innocent, carefree smiles, these girls had lived through unimaginable misery in their old world, hunted like rats in the street, suffering scorn and abuse at the hands of adults.
It was their own Kami-sama who, like light descending upon the world, had used his unimaginable Divine Power to erase the death countdown hanging over their heads, to change their miserable fate, and to give them a true, second life.
But — sympathy was sympathy!
Think about it carefully — that was a full hundred-plus prodigies with terrifying talent!
A hundred-plus Cursed Children meant a hundred-plus new recruits with talent on par with Enju and Little Hiruko, all about to officially join [Haimer Familia]!
"Ahh... this is just torture."
Hanasaka Warabi yanked hard at her own bright yellow hair, mussing it into a tangled mess, her whole face crumpling into a bitter frown, her wail edged with a sob.
"As a senior facing a hundred-plus terrifyingly talented juniors, the pressure alone could make me explode!"
Her words struck an instant, powerful chord with the others.
After all, Aihara Enju and Kohina Hiruko alone had already been enough to make these ordinary humans feel a needling pressure at their backs.
And now — a hundred-plus more Cursed Children on top of that.
If these hundred-plus girls, none of them even ten years old, ended up overtaking them through sheer terrifying talent and reckless, life-or-death drive—
then where would they even put their faces after that!
For a moment, anxiety hung thick in the air.
Not everyone, however, was anxious about it.
Amou Kirukiru stood with arms crossed over her chest, openly sizing up the girls drawing ever closer.
"Heh. Isn't this a good thing?"
"The more prey there is, the more fun the killing gets."
"If they were all just spineless weaklings who couldn't even hold a blade steady, I wouldn't feel the slightest thrill even stepping on their heads."
As a pure battle maniac, Amou Kirukiru couldn't care less about competing for anyone's favor.
Especially since, in her eyes, she'd already carved her mark onto Kami-sama's body and soul — he belonged to her, permanently.
Now, all she cared about was whether the environment was cutthroat enough, whether the opponents were strong enough, whether they could push her to show more of her potential before Kami-sama, wring out even a fraction more of her limit.
As for Aihara Enju and Kohina Hiruko—
they clearly had none of these convoluted, roundabout thoughts.
Afterward, as Haimer, still carrying Tina, drew nearer to the outskirts of Orario and stepped onto the broad stone road, they arrived at a vast stretch of farmland.
This was the farmland belonging to [Demeter Familia], the commercial Familia that grew and sold fruits and vegetables.
It was autumn in Orario just then.
A breeze swept past, rolling waves of golden wheat rippling across the fields, the heavy heads bending the stalks low.
The air was thick with the scent of rich earth and ripening crops.
To children who had only ever known life in a ruined, apocalyptic world, this vibrant, abundant landscape looked like something out of a fairy tale, and their eyes went wide with wonder as they looked eagerly this way and that.
Just then, footsteps sounded from the edge of the field ahead.
A voluptuous goddess appeared, carrying a bamboo basket full of fresh fruit, walking toward them with a smile.
— it was Demeter herself, the patron goddess of [Demeter Familia], who held the lifeblood of Orario's agriculture in her hands.
She had clearly just received an urgent report from one of her children working the fields, saying that Lord Haimer had appeared near the farmland, and had rushed out to see for herself.
But the moment Demeter got a clear look at the scene before her, she was thoroughly startled.
"H-heavens..." Demeter stopped in her tracks, her free, pale hand rising to cover her parted red lips, her already alluring almond eyes filling with shock.
"Lord Haimer, just where in the world did you go to... spirit away so many little ones?"
As Demeter appeared, Midori Fuse, somewhere in the column, immediately sensed something out of the ordinary.
Even sealed within a mortal shell, a god's unique presence couldn't be entirely hidden.
"Kami-sama..."
"This big sister — is she also a god of this world?"
Hearing Midori Fuse's question, Haimer smiled and nodded, not bothering to hide it.
"That's right. Goddess Demeter is a kind goddess who presides over the harvest. A lot of the fresh vegetables and fruit you'll all be eating in Orario from now on will probably come courtesy of her Familia."
With Haimer's answer, the wariness the children had felt toward this unfamiliar god faded somewhat, the guardedness in their eyes melting away into thick curiosity.
____
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