Chapter Text
“You mean… I could read all of this even after I die? Forever?”
“Yes.”
“I accept!”
The disembodied voice laughed. “Now, the last few people have been rather… unlucky. So, we’re going to make you immortal until the job’s done. You merely have to call on me, and I will bring you to my library when you’re ready.”
“Ooh, so I can do whatever I want until then?”
“Provided you accomplish the task before Jurgenschmidt collapses, yes.”
“I’d be happy to help you out, Goddess! Please take care of me!”
“If you ever have any questions or need help, just ask.”
“Will do!”
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It was a day with a beautiful blue sky when the star fell. That day would be known forever in history as Starfall, a day that would be celebrated across all of Jurgenschmidt for centuries to come. The day Mestionora herself descended to the mortal plane to impart her judgement upon the royal family and all of noble society.
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“Lord Ferdinand! The Lord of Winter is too strong this year! What have the Giebes been doing?” Karstedt complained from where he had arrived next to Ferdinand to sip his jureve and heal the laceration on his arm.
Ferdinand grimaced from where he sat upon his own feybeast, clad in armour that sparkled under the bright light of the clear sky above. He was far above the storm that brewed below so that he could more carefully watch the ebb and flow of battle.
It had been over two weeks since their fight began. Dark circles bruised the skin under his eyes from overuse of stimulant and mana-restoring potions. He had not expected to be away from the temple for so long, as this usually went more quickly. The knights of Ehrenfest were not many when compared to other duchies, but never had they struggled this much in his living memory.
They had even been excluded from the recent Purge. How had this come to pass?
He caught his eyes closing without his consent, so he took a small sip of stimulant. He had gone past the point of overdose days ago. Now he walked a tight line between functioning and collapse.
“Stay strong! We must succeed!” he bellowed to the knights below as he moved to join them.
The sky dimmed so suddenly that Ferdinand, the knights, and even the Lord of Winter itself paused to stare up in shock. The blizzard fell away under the sight of a bright light growing larger and larger in the sky above.
Ferdinand’s eyes widened. It was coming their way!
Before he could so much as bark an order, the bright light flew past him straight toward the ground.
The knights, who had mostly withdrawn to a safe distance, were still not prepared for the explosion that annihilated the Lord of Winter in one strike. An explosion of golden dust replaced the remaining flakes of snow that danced in the air of the great light’s passing.
The dust healed the knights, many whom had been crippled by the explosion.
Ferdinand hovered in the sky above, shocked to his very core. Had the Gods themselves sought to strike down the Lord of Winter for some slight?
——————
Urano looked down at her glowing hand, then around at the men who looked ready for battle. Mestionora had said she would be immortal, but she wasn’t going to fight a bunch of knights for no reason.
“State your business!”
She startled, realizing she had stayed standing there, looking around at them all for far too long.
“The Gods see fit to meddle in the affairs of mortals due to your incompetence in managing their Garden,” she said simply, with confidence she didn’t realize she had. Knowledge of this world had been burned thrice into her memory. Something about mortal minds becoming ill suited for this Grutrissheit thing that the royal family had been fawning over for years. One of her duties in saving Jurgenschmidt was to make some significant changes to a royal library and a tree of knowledge.
The man who stood at the edge of the circle staggered for a moment, and Urano narrowed her eyes to make information sprout above his head.
Quinta/Ferdinand
MP: 10356
Grutrissheit: 65% complete
There was more information about his background and whatnot, but Urano’s attention was completely absorbed by the third line.
“Grutrissheit.”
The man — was his name Quinta or Ferdinand?? — widened his eyes and took a step back with fear in the lines of his face before his noble mask covered it.
“How is it that Jurgenschmidt is on the brink of collapse, when someone who has Grutrissheit lives?”
The knights around them looked confused. A few looked at the pale-blue haired man in shock.
Golden eyes skated around the crowd in dismay. Somehow, Urano could see straight through him as though he were an open book. He didn’t… want it?
She blinked. From one moment to the next, she appeared in front of the man. He staggered a step back.
“You… don’t think you deserve it.” She tilted her head to the side with a frown. Long, dark blue hair floated behind her with her sudden movement. It trailed the ground with its length, but Urano sensed no dirt touch it.
Weird.
“Well, it’s not really a matter of who deserves it, you know.”
——————
“Well, it’s not really a matter of who deserves it, you know. The world will end in less than a year. All of it. Dust.”
Ferdinand stared into eyes the same golden colour as his own. Wisdom shone in her eyes as though the Goddess Mestionora herself had graced the ground with her presence. She seemed to read his mind so effortlessly — she had fallen straight out of the sky and wiped out the Lord of Winter with one strike — she knew that he held part of Grutrissheit in his schtappe.
He took a knee before her and crossed his arms over his chest. “May I have the honour of praying for a blessing in appreciation and awe of this transcendent meeting, ordained by the harsh judgement of Ewigeliebe and Mestionora?”
She looked down at him with a hard expression. “You may.”
“Oh Ewigeliebe, God of Life, and Mestionora, Godess of Wisdom, may this serendipitous meeting be blessed.”
The mana pulled out of him in that blessing made black claw at the edges of his vision, and Ferdinand hastily reached down for the vial on his belt and took a sip of the stimulant. He could not fall unconscious.
She plucked the vial from his limp fingertips the moment after he finished, and a judgemental “hmm” escaped her.
“You’re at the end of your rope, huh.” She looked down on him and smiled. “Oh Dreganuhr and Schlaftraum, may this one be blessed with the sleep of three days in the span of his next blink.”
Ferdinand blinked in shock, and in that moment, his consciousness knew no more.
And an instant later, his eyes opened from a three day long sleep. He felt refreshed. His mana had been restored. All because of this woman.
She had called for a specific blessing from the gods outside the norm and it had been granted as though she had the ears of the gods themselves.
He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw. He had no choice. Whatever her whims, he must obey, for he had taken a vow to the gods upon becoming High Priest.
The moment she fell, his fate was decided.
“What would you have me do, oh messenger of the Gods?”
She smiled. “You’re going to take the foundation of this country and rule it. Take out your Grutrissheit.”
“As you command. Grutrissheit.”
He heard an effusion of murmuring voices among the knights who crowded not far behind him. He had never wanted this outcome, but the Gods themselves commanded him through this woman’s words. She brought to him his own hell to suffer as punishment for his failings.
She put her hand atop the book that was his Grutrissheit, and he gasped as her mana flowed through him and dyed him even as she filled in the gaps in his book. He surrendered to the great power that flowed within her and bowed his head. His teeth chewed on his lip as he fought not to lose his composure.
Her mana was so… warm, and kind. Nothing like what he had expected. He had thought pain and discomfort would be his only companion henceforth, but perhaps, he had misjudged this woman.
“There. It is done.”
She summoned forth a magic circle next to the crater that she had come from. “Here we go.”
“Wait!”
A man ran from the group of knights and approached them.
“Eckhart! Stand back!”
“No, milord! I will come with you and assist you.”
Ferdinand looked back and forth between Eckhart and the messenger.
She smiled, to his surprise. “You have a loyal friend, there. He can come.”
Eckhart kneeled and crossed his arms across his chest. “Thank you, milady.”
“Oh no, don’t call me that.” Her nose scrunched up in distaste. “You can just call me Urano.”
They both stared at her in shock.
“Lady Urano?” Ferdinand asked.
“Just Urano.”
“Is… that a title?“
She looked at him funny. “No, it’s my name. Now stop wasting time. I have more important business to attend to after this.”
They both bowed again and entered the circle with her. In a second, they were transported straight into the throne room of the Sovereignty.
Ferdinand prepared himself for battle as their presence caused a raucous.
“Schutzaria.”
The shield that appeared did more than blow all those who attacked it back.
It shredded them to pieces.
Ferdinand’s eyes widened at the blood that painted the entire throne room red.
“Oh dear.”
Urano had scrunched her nose up again, then she puffed out her cheeks. “Well, that’s a bigger mess than I expected.”
People screamed and howled around them, running from the room.
“I feel like this should make me sick right now, but for some reason, I just don’t care. Hm.” Urano tilted her head to the side, and it was those words and that expression that filled Ferdinand with more fear than he had felt thus far. “You guys really did piss off the gods.”
Ferdinand swore that in that moment, under the bloody protection of Schutzaria’s merciless shield, twenty years were shaved off his life.
“Oh well! Time to get to work I guess.” Then she paused. Looked at him. “Hmm… you have the most MP I’ve seen so far, but what if you die? Then I’d have to deal with this crap myself. I don’t wanna do that.” She looked up towards the sky beyond the ceiling of the palace. “Hey Mestionora, can you make this guy immortal too?”
The Goddess herself must have answered, for Ferdinand felt as though his blood boiled and his entire existence had ripped itself apart before suddenly, he was standing there as though nothing had happened. He looked down at his hands in shock.
“It worked? Oh good.” Urano lowered her head to look at him. “Don’t fuck it up.”
Ferdinand stared at her with his eyes and mouth wide open at the shameless nature of her cussing.
“You have no idea what’s really at stake here,” she said with a serious expression. Her eyes practically glowed all colours of the rainbow, but she wasn’t Crushing him.
Who is this woman?
She led them through the abandoned throne room to the room behind it. She pressed her hand to the ground, and a great staircase opened in the stone she led them down and down and down, until finally, they entered a room with a foundation pool larger than anything Ferdinand had ever seen before.
It was easily the size of a large pond.
“There is no way I can dye this. It is too large.”
Urano giggled. “You’re immortal now, silly. Your MP went from around 10,000 to 999,999. You’ll be fine.” She got behind him in a blink and pushed him toward the pool. “Hop to it!”
Hop? Like a shumil? Ferdinand grimaced, but he did as ordered. His life had never been his own — now, doubly so.
He set his hands down and let his magic pour into the nearly dry pond. It dyed in seconds, there was so little mana within it to compete with his own.
He tried to pull his hands away, but they wouldn’t move. The magic poured and poured, long past the point of where he assumed he would pass out. What did she say? 10,000 to 999,999? That is nearly one hundred times the amount I had before.
It was sheer insanity.
The moment the foundation was filled, Ferdinand found himself released from its grasp. He turned to the woman expectantly awaiting her next command.
She nodded to herself and pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket.
“Check. Check. Cheee-wait.” She looked at Ferdinand. Then down at the note. Then she pulled out her own Grutrissheit with a spoken word.
It was thin and sleek, not a book as he was expecting.
“Hokay. Krone. Finsumhang.” She took a deep breath. “Oh mighty King and Queen of the endless skies, ye mighty God of Darkness and Goddess of Light; oh mighty Eternal Five who rule the mortal realm, ye mighty Goddess of Water Flutrane, God of Fire Leidenschaft, Goddess of Wind Schutzaria, Goddess of Earth Geduldh, God of Life Ewigeliebe; I ask that ye hear my prayers and grant thy blessings. Grant Quinta/Ferdinand the strength to defeat his enemies, the endurance to protect the Garden, and the wisdom to convince those who oppose his goals. May he rule Jurgenschmidt and bring this world into an age of prosperity, invention, and peace. Most importantly, may he guide the people to increase the standard of education and make plenty of printing presses to produce as many books as possible!”
What? Ferdinand stared at her incredulously. That was what she really cared about? Seriously?
The blessing exploded into the room with the light of a million specks of mana. As he stared at this ridiculous woman who prayed to the Gods to make him make the populace produce more books, he brought up two fingers to his temple and grimaced. She is a favoured disciple of Mestionora. I should not be so surprised.