There are moments when a person is truly, profoundly speechless.
Shin had no idea what the Great Witch had been like six hundred years before the events of Magical Girl Witch Trials — back when the great extinction of her clan had not yet happened.
Setting aside the six-hundred-year-later version, who'd eaten a certain mushroom and spent the aftermath in a state of internal war with herself — the one from six hundred years prior still shouldn't have been like this, no matter how you looked at it.
If someone didn't know better, they'd think she was literally living out some kind of "Bear Many Children" destiny path. Shin genuinely wanted to crane his neck back and check whether some Rank 0 corruption had started pulling strings from above.
Or maybe the Great Witch had secretly awakened a second cheat ability called the "Many Children Many Blessings" and hadn't bothered telling him, quietly running her own empire of influence from Witch Island.
Inside the Academy of Raya Lucaria, Ranni's avatar had already departed.
In the end, she hadn't disclosed where her true body was (not that Shin needed her to). But before leaving, she had given Shin a Finger Maiden Whistle and a map of the Lands Between — an apology, she said, for her rash attack earlier.
Ranni had also told Shin about her two elder brothers, Rykard and Radahn, and their whereabouts, suggesting they might cross paths again someday.
AAA — handing out Finger Maiden Whistles like they're going out of style, blue puppet lady.
But setting that aside — while the Elden Ring fandom might perceive Ranni as having a certain... morally ambiguous quality, she was already several tiers above "normal" by the Lands Between's own standards.
Compared to a certain brother-obsessed Valkyrie and a certain character best described as gender-ambiguous by design, all Shin could say was that the Two Fingers had very interesting taste in choosing their "Empyreans." No wonder Ranni had gone to such lengths to stick it to them.
But Shin had also noticed something worth paying attention to —
The "Great Rune of the Unborn" he now held was feeling a little like a hot potato.
After all, this was the era of the Shattering — the entire Lands Between was a pot of boiling chaos.
To restore the Elden Ring and claim the title of Elden Lord required a minimum of two Great Runes. Plenty of demigods couldn't even scrape that number together.
And here was Shin, already carrying one — absorbed directly into his body by his system.
If not for the fact that the [Boundary Breaking Talisman] could pull him home at any moment, Shin might have seriously questioned whether Marika was running some kind of scheme — though he had a quiet suspicion her motives weren't entirely straightforward either.
Enough. First things first — eat.
Moving through the Academy of Raya Lucaria with the silent precision only a Pillar Man could manage, Shin slipped out without a single soul noticing. By the lakeside, he had a Giant Shrimp — freshly caught, shelled, and skewered — roasting over a fire, while he scrolled through the group chat history.
[Aspiring to Be the Perfect Human]: Just woke up, what did I miss?
[Aspiring to Be the Perfect Human]: Did the Great Witch's kid's matchmaking go well? When are we getting wedding drinks?
[Moon Princess]: Hard to say.
[Moon Princess]: I'm getting a bit worn out — thirteen children are pushing it. Give me a moment, I need a drink of water.
[Many-Headed Monster] (Admin): Thirteen. Perfectly reasonable.
[Many-Headed Monster] (Admin): One, seven, fifteen, thirty-two... I have a hundred and twenty-seven.
[Moon Princess]: *spits*
[Moon Princess]: ?
[Moon Princess]: Admin, if you don't mind my asking — what is your species?
[Many-Headed Monster]: ...Human. More or less.
[Moon Princess]: Hard to say.
[Aspiring to Be the Perfect Human]: That does seem hard to say.
Reading that, Shin very nearly spat out the Liurnian lake lobster he'd just bitten into — just like a certain [Moon Princess].
A hundred and twenty-seven. So alternate personalities counted too, apparently. He'd always wondered how Mitake Mutsumi managed to land herself an admin position in a group full of beings like this.
Setting supernatural power aside — you genuinely earned that seat on your own merits.
[Queen of Britain]: A hundred and twenty-seven... raising even one is already enough to give me a headache. I can feel the strain the Admin must be under.
[Queen of Britain]: That said, speaking purely for myself — if it comes to that, I do hope my daughter will have quite a few children of her own. Our people have always been somewhat lacking in numbers.
"Our people are lacking in numbers" — so this Queen of Britain was almost certainly Morgan from the Faerie Round Table, not a certain ahoge-sporting girl.
Shin made a mental note.
He had to say — cross-server group chats really were something else. Running a tally through all the members so far: either their bodies weren't human, or their minds only approximated humanity. The common thread was that not a single one of them was a normal person.
[Lord of the Lands Between]: @Spreading Witch Factor (Temp Account) — For both of you, here are portraits of several of My daughters. Take a look and see who might be to your liking.
[Lord of the Lands Between]: [Image] [Image] [Image] [Image]
After a brief pause, [Lord of the Lands Between] sent a new message.
Four portraits of young women — all of whom Shin immediately recognized.
Ranni. Melina. Malenia. Torrynt.
He had to admit — the real-life renditions were considerably more striking than their in-game counterparts.
As for Marika's four daughters — each one was genuinely beautiful in a way that stopped you in your tracks: one all quiet grace and refinement, another with a presence that seemed to shimmer like light through silk.
The one he'd just met, Ranni, was no exception. There was nothing to critique there.
But wait — the last one... who was that?
To be continued…