Reincarnated as a mana core

Argul was still on the couch with her eyes closed when someone entered the inn. She listened intently to the sound of their casually nearing steps and concluded by the softness of them that it was Alyra. 

Her daughter sat down next to her without saying a word and Argul grunted in greeting. She could swear she heard Alyra roll her eyes in response. "Hello to you too, mom. How very talkative of you."

Argul cracked open an eye. "As if you are any better, sneaking up on me without saying something."

She opened her eyes full and turned towards her daughter. Alyra smiled sweetly at her. "Well, it's not like you didn't hear me so you can hardly call it sneaking, can you?"

Argul sighed softly. There was just no winning sometimes and argumenting more about this was pointless. "Where did you lose the other two, hmm?"

Alyra mock pouted disappointedly. "You are no fun mom." See, sometimes you win by not playing a game in the first place.

Her daughter looked towards the kitchen. "The two of them are behind the inn to continue training. We came home a bit earlier than usual today."

Argul turned thoughtful at that. "Training huh?" Considering Arthur's past she could guess what sort of training that was, though she didn't mind it really. Just having a certain skill didn’t make one a bad person, only the way they used it.

Alyra nodded sagely. "Yes, training. Nothing you have to worry about." That was certainly one way to make her worry about it and she was sure her daughter knew so as well.

Argul punched Alyra's shoulder playfully. "Very funny."

Then she leaned back on the couch. "Though, that reminds me that I have to think of something I can do with Mia once there isn't anything useful I can teach her anymore." 

The girl was learning incredibly fast, mainly because she seemed to grasp and remember most things after being told the first time. A large part of the lessons they had were exercises to get the girl used to the knowledge because of this.

Alyra shrugged nonchalantly. "She does have learning seven, so what do you expect?" Yeah, that explained a-

Argul turned to her daughter with an incredulous expression. "Learning seven?!" Hell fucking nah. She had the skill only at stage three and she had been with the system for more than twice the amount of time than Mia had.

Alyra scratched her cheek in thought. "Well, it is part of what you could call her main quest at the moment and you do have to consider that she makes everything to not think of the time before the incident. Your teaching gives her a lot to think about, so it's not really that surprising for her to delve into that with her all."

Argul relaxed, that reaction had been insensitive of her and Alyra was quite right. Mia wasn't really talking a lot about her life from before and neither Argul nor Alyra were pressing her in that regard. 

Argul was pretty much the reason for the girl's life taking a turn for the worse and she didn't think that putting any more pressure on her foster niece would make anything better. There would come a time however when Mia had to face her demons and Argul was determined to be of help for her then, even if it meant she had to take the girls blame and hate on herself. She had been ready for that the moment she had decided to educate Mia and not search for a new family for her.

A heavy silence set in between Alyra and Argul, only interrupted by Alyra awkwardly fumbling around. After a while Alyra scratched the back of her head, continuing the conversation uncertain. "Soo, I've originally left Mia and Arthur to tell you about something."

Argul could only sigh. The way her daughter had started this could only mean that it had to do with something she normally wouldn't talk about.

Alyra turned serious and looked Argul in the eyes. "You remember the fanatics that had entered your domain once?"

Argul nodded, of course she did. What she had caused as a sideeffect of opening her domain they were doing actively and willingly, mass murder. They were the crazy dudes that had hunted the lizard-kin villagers into her domain. Something she had to admit, however wrong it might sound, she was quite thankful for, because they were good people and she rather had them than the fanatics themselves in her domain.

Alyra continued, still careful with how she formulated her message. "You are also aware that your domain will still take a few days to get up to its normal mana levels and the only mana movement outside of it only occurs because of wind and water?"

Argul nodded again. Her stat gain had significantly reduced the time needed to fill her domain up with mana again, despite also using some mana up for the domain growth. Here on Erod it meant that the intent produced by sapients didn't move anymore, something that would eventually happen once she had portals on more extraterrestrial portals anyway.

Alyra rhythmically tabbed her chin with her index finger. "Don't understand me wrong, these things would have happened either way, your domain remodeling only sped things up, but the intent built up on Erod caused a few very interesting beings to be born."

She looked Argul in the eyes once more. "As well as a god."

Argul raised an eyebrow. That was quite a statement and believing it was quite difficult.

Alyra immediately waved her away. "Not a god god. I call it god because it lives off the faith of its followers. I don't know much about it yet either, but what I do know is that it is aware and calls itself Meran."

Argul cocked her head questioningly. "So no godly all encompassing powers?"

Alyra nodded. "I can tell that it doesn't even have a fraction of the power you have over your domain, but I can't tell what it can really do, because it hasn't done a lot yet that humans wouldn't be able to."

Well, that was quite ironic. Gods, the shepherds of humans that are no different than their poor food providers themselves. Argul could already tell that that knowledge alone would make her a heretic for all believers in the near future.

She hummed out thoughtfully. "So, I take it Meran is the god of the fanatics?"

Alyra nodded in agreement so she continued. "And the sermon in sacra in two weeks or something is definitely going to give birth to another god?"

Again her daughter nodded and Argul frowned. In all seriousness, she wouldn't really care if they left her alone normally, but now that she had learned a bit about intent she could already see trouble arising without Alyra having to explain everything to her. 

Basically, if these creatures were born by the intent and fed on it, they would at least mildly resemble it. Now, Meran was the result of an off branch of christianity that came into existence because of the incident and the sermon in sacra would be christian too, which would mean that the two gods were the same at heart. The result could only be war and christianity had a thing for that if you looked at the religions history. They had gotten a lot better in the near past, but she doubted that would help with the Meran fanatics.

She looked at her daughter. "What exactly did it do though? You haven't said that yet."

Alyra looked around and took a pen and a piece of paper that had been left on the table after one of the play evenings. "Wait, let me scribble things down so I can tell you everything at once."

Then she began to draw a map on the paper. Argul watched her patiently and continued to think about the future gods would bring. 

She was mostly interested in two things. Were they able to enter her domain and harm her?

In theorie not, because most of the intent not belonging to her domain got flushed out, but the process of that wasn't very fast, especially on the first floors. Due to more mana going to the bigger floors more mana also exited them to Erod. Well, not right now, but normally. She would have to research more about gods to be certain, Alyra would want her to do that anyways.

The second thing was, how did you kill such an entity? 

Alyra wasn't telling her more information about the gods, which meant they by themselve weren't a danger to Argul and her family, but she would still like to know. Even if it only was, because she wanted to know how long it would take for a status quo to set in again.

Alyra had seemingly finished most of her map and was busy drawing entirely too many trees, so Argul decided to interrupt her there. "Are the trees that important?"

Her daughter looked up, then at the map again and her tail began to wag in embarrassment. "Uhm no, sorry." Argul cheered in her mind. For once she had managed to get her daughter back, though she had to admit that it was also kind of cute.

Alyra cleared her throat and pointed at the map. "So, this is what you would find east of the birch forest your portal is in. It's not very exact, but it will do for this just well."

She directed Argul's attention away from the cutely overfilled forest towards the important part of the map. "So the empty squares are small towns or important villages and the filled squares are the big towns of the region. They are all controlled by the church of Meran."

Alyra tapped her pen on the table. "What Meran did first, was founding a country with him as the head and a pope as his chosen representative."

She drew a somewhat round shape encompassing all of the marked towns and villages and a bit more. "That is roughly their current field of influence and about where the border of their country would be."

Alyra pointed with her pen at the lines between the markers. "The dashed lines are roads that are currently being constructed and the full lines are those that are already done. The ones between the big towns are being widened too."

She looked up from the map at Argul. "The first thing the Holy state of Meran did after celebrating the arrival of their god and killing a few demons ,was declaring war on the village in your domain and assembling multiple strike teams."

Argul groaned, of course they would. Alyra looked at her understandingly before she continued. "They are also expanding to the south, seeking more people who have been fouled by the demons. It's not on the map right now, but there is a pretty large city there that is not going to give in without a fight."

Alyra tapped the pen on the map again. "After the mana integration and the following bloodshet the Holy state of Meran has around 300,000 inhabitants now, that's about as many people have been living in Sacra in the beginning and twice the amount of inhabitants the city to the south has."

She looked up once more. "I don't tell you this, because I want you to do something about it, but because it is potentially dangerous for Mia and Arthur. I do not think we have a year before a full out war breaks out."

Argul frowned. She did not want to get involved in a war, especially not in a war of beliefs. That was definitely not part of her current life plans. She clicked her tongue in annoyance. "3 months. I need 3 more months to finish teaching Mia and then we will definitely leave. Depending on the situation we might want to start earlier."

Alyra nodded and burned the piece of paper to ash with a quick spell. "Is it okay if I tell the others when we will leave?"

Argul nodded. "Yes, but don't tell them the reason. I don't need rumors to spread and destroy a possible chance of coexistence between the two gods."

Alyra looked at her doubtfully before she accepted her judgment with a shrug and headed towards the kitchen for the back exit. Argul didn't believe in the coexistence herself, but that didn't mean she had to destroy any hope for one from the beginning.

She sighed deeply. She would also have to leave a message for the village in her domain somehow. She liked them and would rather not lose the lizard-people. Before that though, Argul would enjoy her free day, she could worry about everything afterwards.

---

Rash POV

Rash laid on the soft grass underneath the weird fake sky. He had already finished his duties for the day so he could laze around and enjoy his existence as much as he wanted. 

Things were going really well lastly and the crops were growing insanely fast in this new land. Most of the villagers had also been able to work up their stats to a good 300 points overall. There were only a few like Rash who had started receiving less quests after hitting around 500 stat points and most of them were part of their fighting force. In his opinion they were ready for the stupid cultists should they come again. He grinned and flexed his muscles.

A weird distortion of space appeared above the center of the village and Rash immediately turned as serious as only he could get, which meant his grin widened. Whatever that was, it could only mean trouble. A blood red thick liquid came out of the distortion as if space itself was bleeding and started to form lines of writing, some of the letters still sticking together.

Rash ran towards the village while he read the very ominous message. Not a drop of the liquid had touched the ground yet.

The birth of a god

A fanatics dream come true

A thick blood red flood

A wounded lizards desperate cry

You have been advised, prepare

For not you may die.

He entered the village a few minutes later and saw a crowd that had already assembled. Rash had to give to whoever was creating that message that it brought across the point quite well, despite being written all mysteriously.