By Zephyria 
The companions’ rooms were on the third floor.
Now I finally had the leisure to look around. It was unclear whether they had chosen a large one because they wouldn’t be staying for just a day or two, or if they had simply built a large building because it was meant for members of the Duke Valentia Family.
Even without seeing it, I could tell how many people were moving around in this building. Several servants and maids hurried up to the fourth floor, conveying congratulatory words to my parents. Others whispered amongst themselves about the unbelievable recovery.
The companions were gathered in the largest reception room among them.
Since the owner, I, was not present, they couldn’t have rested comfortably. It was my fault that they had endured such a harsh journey, and seeing them gathered like this, enduring without proper hospitality after finally entering a roofed house after so long, made me feel incredibly apologetic and embarrassed.
Benjamin offered me the seat next to him, so I sat down for the moment.
“I should have prepared a meal, but I was so preoccupied…”
“It’s fine. They gave us snacks. That’s not important, though. Why did you suddenly summon only the gods? …Are you alright now?”
“Yes. I have fully recovered.”
“With divine power?”
“If you put it that way… yes.”
Hugh Benson’s complexion was strangely subdued, and despite my perfunctory tone, I only felt more grateful. Gano Paquin pulled up a chair around the reception room table, and Spiritus reclined on the long bench by the window.
As I prepared my own tea, I poured a cup for Gano Paquin as well. Where should I begin? It was a habit to push the explanation onto those with better speaking skills than myself, so I found myself pondering for a long time whenever my own explanation was needed.
“It seems a Shard of the Oasis was lodged in my brother’s body.”
“…A Shard of the Oasis?”
Elwin, startled, straightened his upper body as he sat.
“Yes. I don’t know how a Shard of the Oasis, which was said to have crossed into the Magic territory, ended up circulating in the heart of the Empire…”
“This time, Sarah must be screwing with us.”
Spiritus, who had been listening in without much interest from afar, interjected with a provocative tone.
“Sarah?”
“Yeah. A pacifist like her wouldn’t take the youngest’s side.”
“…That’s true…”
I wasn’t sure if he meant ‘like a child’ or ‘like a dog.’ Spiritus’s attitude, using deliberately ambiguous pronunciation to speak crudely, was filled with annoyance. I interrupted their conversation between Gano Paquin and Spiritus.
“Who is Sarah?”
“The God of the Saras River and peace.”
“The Fifth?”
“Well, whether it’s five or six. She came into being around the same time as Spiritus here.”
Come to think of it, I had heard about this from Ruben before.
The people of Yulan believed the abundant fishing yields of the Indus Bay were thanks to the blessings of the God of the Saras River.
The Fifth God cherished peace and seemed to still be alive. Quietly. The memory of the blue sea turtle swimming upstream was deeply etched in my mind, so I hadn’t expected the God of that river to still be intact.
I counted the number of gods I knew and had experienced.
The First Goddess was the First God of the continent.
She was born first and, with her kind disposition and broad tolerance, often mediated disputes among the gods. When Gano Paquin and the Ninth God clashed this time, she was the first to go to the Magic territory to stop the Ninth God.
The Second God is the Sun God.
Residing in the temple of the Shatun Desert, he sought to burn away all impurities in the form of a Makrir. He also confronted the Ninth God, making it his goal to reseal the Ninth God, and he helped me. He was always accompanied by intense heat, so his ability to help was limited as he couldn’t venture far into the human realm.
The Third God is the God of the Oasis.
He always lived life as he pleased, treating irregularity as the rule. However, he retained a shred of responsibility. Fearing my soul would tear the world apart, he held onto a small shard for a long time and endured, and he left to prevent the Ninth God from creating a hole in the world. And now, only a small shard was found, isolated.
The Fourth God, Gano Paquin, the God of Records and Lakes, and the Sixth God, Spiritus, the God of Dreams and Monsters, were with us now.
Gano Paquin had resolved to kill the Ninth God to protect humans, and Spiritus followed due to his friendship with Gano Paquin and to reclaim the Stigmata he had given to the Ninth God and his followers.
The Eighth God was that sea turtle, wasn’t it?
Even after the sea turtle that governed the Indus Bay died, many spirits remained in this world. Just as countless humans continued to live on their own after the first human died.
Lost in thought, I asked cautiously.
“What did the Seventh God govern?”
“If you had to say, it was the God of Grass, Flowers, and Trees. Though the First now handles that as well.”
“…Is that allowed?”
“Why wouldn’t it be? After all, a seed that has been sown must sprout. Since the First is in charge of the earth, it wasn’t bad to tie it together and govern it with her…”
“No, what I mean is.”
I glanced at Elwin for a moment. His expression was still calm, but his fist was clenched so tightly that the veins on the back of his hand stood out. While some may scoff at divine revelations, if one doesn’t believe in gods, their voices cannot be heard. It was difficult to fathom the feelings of a follower who had lost their god.
“If the God of the Oasis were to die, what would happen to all his oases in the desert? I was wondering if another god would inherit that role.”
“…”
While Gano Paquin pondered his answer, I asked again.
“And previously… when Shayden Rose gave me the records. What did you see that surprised you so much?”
Gano Paquin cupped the teacup with both hands. Watching him, I refilled the empty teacups of the others. The deeply brewed color reflected red in the white cups.
“Let’s take it one by one… one by one.”
“…”
“We can’t definitively say the God of the Oasis is dead yet. For one thing, those two I briefly encountered in the Magic territory last time had a significantly weaker presence than you. Even if all those shards were poured into the Saras River, the Ninth God knows that Sarah and Sith wouldn’t merge. They are both freshwater, but their natures are entirely different.”
“But after the Oasis cried out and disappeared last March, my brother became like that.”
“It was a very small shard. It contained no trace of the Origin.”
“…”
“Honestly, even though the God of the Oasis is a bit of a show-off, he’s better at fighting than I am. I don’t think he’s someone who would be easily defeated.”
It seemed pointless to probe further on this matter. I quietly closed my mouth. Gano Paquin, suppressing a groan, managed to compose his voice into a calm tone and continued.
“And what I saw before… was a memory of Beneto.”
Beneto?
Beneto Loki Sheeran? Rubel’s father, the late former Emperor?
“It was written about him…?”
“No, it didn’t seem like humans knew. Anyone can read and memorize records as they are written, like a library archivist. As the God of Records and Memory, I can read higher-level things. The memories of people embedded in the records.”
“…”
“Among those records, I found a document written by Beneto. That’s why I ‘saw’ his memory.”
Everyone held their breath.
His tone was still troubled.
“The princess of Floyd… is apparently still alive.”
“…Pardon?”
“She’s called the Third Princess of Floyd, but I mean Melatia Floyd, who married without a middle name. The woman who was Richard Flo Sheeran’s birth mother and Beneto Loki Sheeran’s first wife.”
Royalty without a middle name meant they couldn’t inherit a title unless they became king.
At that time, the King of Floyd was greedy. As the former Emperor of Sheeran was advanced in years when he had children, he took many concubines and had many offspring. As a result, there were eight princesses and princes in Floyd at the time who could send a marriage proposal to Sheeran at any moment.
Beneto Loki Sheeran chose one of them to marry and ascended the throne with Floyd’s help. However, he had no immediate intention of having children. He was young and full of ambition. After the elderly King of Floyd died, he planned to consolidate his power and shake off Floyd’s influence.
If only he had known the pressure Melatia Floyd was under from her home country, he might have deceived her. At the time, Beneto was very busy adapting to the imperial throne he had just inherited and did not properly attend to his young empress.
And Melatia fell into an inappropriate relationship with the bodyguard who always stayed by her side.
It would have been better if Melatia had eloped with the bodyguard.
Every day she was with the bodyguard, Melatia would sneak into Beneto’s chambers. Beneto didn’t want a child immediately, but he wasn’t the type to flee from a weeping woman. He accepted her. And naturally, he assumed their child would be the next emperor.
Melatia’s relationship with the bodyguard was discovered two months before Richard was born.
Beneto borrowed Philix’s Divine Relic. Fortunately or unfortunately, Richard was indeed Beneto’s son. Beneto could not forgive Melatia, but he could not abandon his young son either.
From then on, Melatia no longer performed the duties required of an empress. She simply began to beg Beneto daily, weeping, to release her. She pleaded to give up her claim to her name and live as if she were dead, relinquishing custody of Richard.
Beneto, the ruler of the Empire, needed a perfect empress.
He attached Melatia’s name to a doll made of straw and cloth and buried it. The princess became a commoner and lived in seclusion with the bodyguard, taking only a few trinkets.
Soon after, Beneto married Kate Antines as his empress and fathered twin siblings, Rubel Anti Sieron and Lucilla Anti Sieron. Kate Antines managed high society with near-perfect skill. Beneto believed his empire was complete with this.
Until Richard learned of Melatia’s existence and confronted Beneto.
“…Who, with what, to whom… what…?”
“Becoming an Imperial bodyguard requires more than just a certain amount of effort. It must have been good when he was taking the Emperor’s woman. Melatia was beautiful, young, and pitiable. But in the end, the bodyguard, who was driven out of the capital and stripped of his title, apparently came to resent her and himself.”
“…”
“Their love ended the moment all the trinkets Melatia brought ran out, and the bodyguard became a mercenary, leaving to feed her. And he never returned… Melatia wanted to return to the Imperial Palace, but she was already a dead person, so she couldn’t. Floyd, who had lost their connection to the Imperial Emperor’s maternal relatives with her death, certainly couldn’t let her return.”
“…”
“So she waited. Until her own son ascended the throne, she did the only menial task she could: embroidery. Unable to wait any longer, she contacted Richard when he was twenty years old.”