บท 16: God Siblings
It had been a little over two years since our battle with the Goblin King, and since then, it had been pretty peaceful here in End Town.
So many new people had come to visit, mostly adventurers wanting to get stronger, but we had the Adventurer's Guild to thank for that. If it wasn't for them opening a branch here, I don't think we would have gotten this much traffic.
The hot springs were a big hit too. I mean, I did kind of expect it to be popular, but seeing all those rookie and veteran adventurers gather together to take a bath after a long day of adventuring in the forest was always fun to see. From what they said, no other town in the country provided a service like that.
I also ended up building a temple for Phelena. It wasn't a huge temple or anything, but it was definitely one of my finest constructions if I say so myself.
The best part of the temple was the statue, which I also made myself. I wasn't as proud of the statue as the rest of the temple, though.
See, the temple I had to create from scratch, thinking about the layout and the walls' appearance, how tall, how sturdy, etcetera.
But making the statue took me quite literally two seconds. I just grabbed a giant rock, thought about Phelena's appearance while I cast earth magic on the rock, and *poof*, a 5-meter statue of Phelena was done, a very detailed one at that.
The villagers praised it a lot, saying they always believed Phelena would be that beautiful and that the statue gave them a sense of "salvation" or whatever.
Don't get me wrong, the statue was nice, and it did look exactly like Phelena, at least the way I saw her. But it took me two seconds to make.
'Sculptors in my old world would have been pissed…' I thought.
One day while taking a bath in the forest home, Vespera glanced at me and didn't take her eyes off of me for a few moments.
"Umm, Vespera? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Ichiro, you've gained some titles! I was wondering why I felt you've gotten way stronger than your usual MP rise," said Vespera as she kept her eyes glued on me.
"Oh, right. I haven't inspected myself in a while… But wait! How did you break through my "Inspect Block"?"
"Huh? I'm your familiar. We are connected to you… Did you really think you could hide your stats from us?"
"No, that's not what I meant. I didn't know you could bypass it. I thought my spell was broken or something… Anyways…"
<Name: Ichiro
Age: 14
Skills: Kobudo, Martial Arts
MP: 14,000
Titles: Child of Phelena, Master Alchemist, Master Craftsman.>
Vespera was right. I did have two new titles. I focused on each of them to see why I got them and what their effects were.
<Master Alchemist: Obtained after crafting over 1000+ high-grade potions alone. Gives the holder a much better understanding of alchemy materials and increases their preparation work and brewing speed. Can randomly increase the quality of a potion.>
So, in other words, this title was going to increase my work speed whenever I made potions. It wasn't really a bad deal, but the last part bothered me a little.
'Can randomly increase the quality of a potion? What if the potion is the highest quality possible?' I thought.
Some of my potions, like the "Holy Panacea," were already so powerful that I thought that upgrading their quality would probably add an effect that would extend someone's lifespan. While that sounded cool and all, I felt a potion like that could bring some trouble.
<Master Craftsman: Obtained after crafting or constructing over 500+ high-grade pieces. Makes the holder much more adept at his work and reduces the amount of MP used when crafting with magic.>
"Ohh, that one seems nice!" I exclaimed.
The Master Craftsman title seemed to have less of a downside to it than the alchemy one. It would make me more adept at my work, which I supposed meant I would be working faster and more efficiently. But the last part was the one that caught my attention again.
'Reduces the amount of MP used when crafting with magic?' "Heh ha ha ha!" I laughed out loud, making both Vespera and Yoru glance at me with confusion.
They wouldn't get it, though. The thing was, that all the crafting I ever did was with magic. I hadn't made a single piece of construction work using my hands, none.
During the times that a lot of new people were moving into the village, I was spending over 10,000 MP just building their homes. Now that the title would make me spend less, I felt a bit relieved.
After I was done with my bath, I went back inside the house and went up to the third floor to get ready for bed. Thanks to Vespera, the bed on my tree house wasn't a wooden, uncomfortable piece of trash.
Now, I actually had soft pillows and blankets, which only made Yoru want to sleep on the bed with me even more, but I wasn't opposed to it.
Vespera only slept once every three days or so, but whenever she slept, she would make herself a little space on my bed and sleep with me.
'Seriously, this woman is a legendary beast…'
That same night, I glanced out the window for a moment and looked up at the stars, and just as I did that, I felt my body suddenly moving toward them.
It took only a second, but when I regained my senses, I realized I wasn't standing in my room anymore. I was in an empty plain, very similar to the one I was sent to when I died in my old world.
"Wait… Did I die again?"
"Oh ho ho. No, no, you are not dead!" said a somewhat deep man's voice.
"We wanted to meet you, little brother! Hee hee," said the voice of a woman with a much higher pitch than Phelena's.
I didn't say a word and only kept looking at my surroundings, waiting for the two sources of those voices to show themselves.
"Uhhh, one moment, please, it takes me a minute to materialize here…" said the woman once again with an embarrassed tone.
A few moments later, two figures appeared right in front of my eyes.
A woman with light, purplish hair, wearing what looked like the robes that doctors would wear in the new world. And a man who resembled a dwarf when it came to facial features, but his stature was more of a normal human's. He wore a white shirt, brown pants, and a leather apron.
Even with their somewhat normal appearances, there was an ethereal air and feeling coming from them that was almost overwhelming.
"Wh-who are you guys?" I asked with a nervous tone.
"My name is Sirica, Goddess of Alchemy."
"And I am Hephaestus, God of Crafts and Blacksmithing!"
"It is good to meet you, little brother, hee hee." said the goddess Sirica with a playful giggle.
"Uhh, yeah. It's nice to meet you guys, but umm… What is happening?" I asked, once again with a nervous tone.
"Ah, we just wanted to meet you! Don't worry about it. Your body is safe and sound. Once we are done here, you will go back like nothing ever happened!"
"I see… That's good, I suppose… So, uhh… Was it you guys that gave me my new titles?" I asked the pair.
"Hee hee, something like that! Our titles are given automatically when someone completes our requirements. But, of course, we do get a little notification telling us when it happens." Explained Sirica.
"Imagine our surprise when we saw the notification, and it was our little brother! Oh ho ho ho!" Laughed Hephaestus.
"You called me little brother a few times now… Wh-what is that about?"
"Huh? Are you not a child of Phelena?" asked Sirica.
"Yeah, I suppose so…" I replied, scratching the back of my head.
"Then we are siblings! You may be a demi-god, but that doesn't mean I love you less than my other God brothers, hee hee."
Hephaestus nodded. "I agree, demi-god or not, you are technically our little brother!"
"Are all the gods children of Phelena?" I asked, genuinely curious. This wasn't information I had heard anywhere in the new world.
"That's right!" said Hephaestus. "But let us cut to the chase…" He continued.
They both explained to me that they asked Phelena for permission to contact me since I had obtained the titles that related to them, and they also knew I was a demi-god.
They wanted to meet me to praise the work I had done. It was pretty surreal to receive that sort of praise from actual gods. I did enjoy whenever a villager thanked me or simply enjoyed the work I did, but having a real, powerful deity telling you that they loved your work was completely different.
After a friendly tea time with both of my god siblings, where I talked about the potions and crafts I had done, they sent me back to the world, and I found myself standing in the exact same spot where I was looking at the stars before I got there.
I smiled a little. 'Heh, I guess there's a ton of things I don't know about this world yet…'
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