838 Side Story 1 – Neverending Adventure

“Two days ago, the 32nd group of diplomats finished their trip to the other universes. After their regular report, we confirmed that the basic information which the Overwatch Association provided to us is mostly true. All the countries have finally reached a preliminary agreement on joining the Overwatch Association.”

The end of the Holy War didn’t mean that products born of war would instantly disappear. The fairies’ war intelligence organizations transformed swiftly into a tremendous media empire thanks to the other species’ requests.

In the past, one would need to have connections to their country’s information organization in order to receive world news. Nowadays, a person simply needed to spend some money on a morning newspaper in order to enjoy reports on how other governments had low efficiency while enjoying their morning tea.

“46 years have passed (an entire generation for humans) since the Overwatch Association invited us to join. We’ve finally reached a preliminary agreement to sign their Overwatch Contract after all this time, which really makes one exclaim over the enormous differences between all the species and countries in our Eich universe and how difficult it is to achieve unanimous agreement. There’s also the tragically low governmental efficiency (the Elven Empire expresses that they think this efficiency is already ridiculously high, and that they would prefer to think this over for another 50 years because the world is changing too quickly for them to accept), it really is a mistake of the current allied government system…”

Katerina set down the Black Crow Report newspaper in her hand and shook her head. The first part of this report was reliable, but the last part was filled with attacks on and disagreements with the current governing system.

That would have been fine by itself, but this report kept attacking the leader of the current Mist Alliance, and claiming without evidence that there were secret schemes and trades involved. It seemed the rumors regarding the Black Crow Report being funded by descendants of nobles from the previous generation were quite believable.

“It seems that I’ll need to mention this to Reyne… Forget it, with how the Mist Alliance secret agents are capable of being everywhere, they probably long since know about this already. They’ve probably already taken over the editing department of this newspaper, and are reeling in the fish right now.”

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The people’s way of thinking had massively changed due to being in constant contact with the outside world, bringing everyone a new worldview. This change would be greater than any physical change. It was now common to see new political concepts such as “entrapment”, “double agent”, “high-level traitor”, and so on become commonplace in everyone’s vocabulary.

Katerina was a high-ranking council member in the newly established country of Matart, the country for scholars and engineers. As Katerina was the person with the inheritance of the Sky Tower from the Haletdam scholars generation, she often interacted with the outside world for technological information exchange, and received a lot of inspiration herself. Even in all the universes, the Haletdam scholars generation had been top-notch in their expertise of creating artificial souls.

Although the new country Matart had only been established recently, and Matart was physically a really tiny country, this was the holy land for the latest magical engineering and engineering, so countless magical engineers and engineers came here. In terms of technology and academic expertise, Matart was already on par with a major country like the Mage Country.

In the past three decades, the Northlands Mist Alliance led the way and created many policies aimed at letting Eich’s countries ally and trade with each other with the excuse of eliminating war, getting in contact with outside universes, and becoming accustomed to the revolutionary changes in the world, all “in order to give all countries and species a chance to sit down and talk rather than kill each other”. This had the support of San Antonio, Auland, Bardi, and other such major countries. After so many years of development, Eich’s countries now felt as if they were all one allied government.

Without a doubt, this made it a lot more convenient for other universes’ civilizations to interact with Eich, along with making Eich far more peaceful than before. However, there were always those who were still dissatisfied, such as remnants of the previous Holy Light Faction, or formerly strong countries who were no longer able to act like big bullies to their subordinate countries, or small countries who felt like they were being picked on by bigger countries in this “allied government”.

But overall, this was already an extremely rare peaceful period of history for the past 46 years. Being able to have far fewer wars and investing manpower and resources into planting crops and improving people’s lives instead was already something unimaginable in the past.

Things were quite obvious. Being able to achieve this wasn’t because modern-day people were more noble than people from ancient times, nor was it because modern-day people loved peace more. This was simply because of major factors from both outside and inside.

The outside factor was naturally the opening of the dimensional barrier. Although the other universes’ civilizations still maintained the attitude that they would show restraint and not interfere with Eich’s internal politics, more and more information about the outside universes was being transmitted to us every day. The outside universes were no peaceful heaven, and the unwritten rules of war and elimination of the weak still existed. Maintaining sufficient military strength, technological achievements, and overall strength would always be the foundation for having one’s civilization survive in the countless universes.

Pressure would give one motivation. Eich’s species became far more unified than before due to the threat of the other universes. Peace was mostly achieved on Eich… Even the Chaos Abyss’s Demon Lords were preparing recently to join the “Eich alliance government” now, which really made people exclaim over how quickly the world was changing.

The internal factor that pushed all of this along was naturally the Hell Faction, which was taking the lead at the forefront more and more these days.

The death of the God of Holy Light exposed the weakness of the previously strongest God Faction. People discovered to their astonishment that the Holy Light Faction actually didn’t have a single Main God after the God of Holy Light was gone.

While the Holy Light Faction was busy falling apart, Estrada, one of Hell’s Four Pillar Gods, took over the God of Holy Light’s Divine Concept of Holy Light. Estrada also took over the Holy Light’s “legacy” in the mortal plane.

It would be impossible for the Holy Light Faction to take back what had previously been theirs after it had been lost, especially since Estrada swiftly became the Hell Faction’s second Main God after Ayer. Estrada made the pure Holy Light the official standard of Holy Light. There was now a great power level difference between Estrada and the Holy Light Faction, and the latter had also lost most of its foundational source of belief. The Holy Light Faction that lost its divine ruler was naturally soon marginalized.

It was also because this relatively moderate new Holy Light religion was acting behind the scenes in many ways that the Eich alliance government involving many species was successfully accepted by everyone. If things were still like how they had been before, it would be impossible for the Holy Light Faction to accept any non-human species.

It could be said that everyone with a brain could tell that with the current overall situation, it was now an unstoppable tidal wave of history that the relatively more moderate Hell Faction would be completely replacing the overly warmongering Holy Light Faction.

Another result of “replacing the ruling faction” was the assessment of historical figures—historical heroes and criminals.

The new God of Holy Light Estrada was the first to have his reputation whitewashed since he had now become the new God of Holy Light. Since he hadn’t had a tainted reputation for long, and he already had had an excellent reputation beforehand, it was quite easy to give him the title of “the strongest human who’s also a protector of the pure Holy Light”.

After time exposed the truth to the world, a controversy arose regarding how to assess two people… a certain pair of twin brothers.

Roland Mist, the creator of the Mist Alliance, the founder of the teachings of pure Holy Light, the inheritor of the Holy Knights’ path of protection, the creator of Hell, and… also Emperor Yongye, who had almost destroyed the entire world of Eich!

Karwenz Mist, a Chaos Main God, a completely selfish individual who acted as he pleased. There wasn’t much controversy about his actions or personality, but he selfishly opened the dimensional barrier… When assessing this incident 46 years later, this could only be viewed as a good thing.

Meanwhile, Roland Mist had tried his utmost to prevent the dimensional barrier from opening, and he had almost succeeded. Even though he indeed had good intentions, he also had tried to prevent the progress of history.

“One twin was doing something bad with good intentions, while the other was doing something good with wicked intentions. It’s so hard to differentiate right and wrong between them.”

“Without Karwenz opening the door to the dimensional barrier, all of Eich’s species would still be fighting over resources, living space, and to become the ruling species. Even with the Hell Faction taking over as the most powerful faction, it would still be impossible to stop all the wars for personal benefits and survival.”

“…Aren’t you just saying this after the fact? The endless number of ravenous wolves from other universes would have enjoyed the feast first if it hadn’t been for the previous God of Holy Light Karolan’s sacrifice which attracted the Overwatch Association’s peaceful civilizations to us. Eich might not have even survived if that hadn’t happened.”

“I agree with the person before me. You think it’s fine to simply assess a historical figure because of the results? With that way of thinking, Karwenz, who did so many evil things, is actually a hero who saved the world? He clearly didn’t have any good intentions at all. You think that all his evil deeds can just be forgiven simply because the result was good?”

“…I think that it’s fine. There are no ifs in history. Isn’t having a good result more important than anything? The information’s no longer classified. Karwenz indeed didn’t have good intentions, but there were others fighting with him for the sake of their ideals…”

Information on the twin brothers had become unclassified starting from about three decades ago. Controversies about how to view them had never ended since then. Since the twin brothers were overly powerful to the point where even the Cycle of Reincarnation couldn’t wipe their souls clean, and they were still serving a sentence in Hell even now, many neutral observers gained trust in the Hell Faction’s fair and just carrying out of the Concept of Law for everyone.

“Even the creator of Law and Hell will be judged after his death. In that case, there’s no need to doubt the seriousness and truthfulness of Hell’s divine laws.”

Katerina helplessly shook her head as she recalled all the controversies and arguments that would arise whenever the twins were mentioned. 46 years had passed, but her past memories weren’t hazy even in the slightest. Katerina felt some mysterious regret and pain in her heart when she thought about how that oh-so-hateable Roland was still being punished in Hell right now.

“…The strongest Main God Elisa has publicly declared that unless Hell releases Roland Mist’s soul within three months, she’ll start the fourth War of Hell immediately. Wood Spirit Mother Goddess Amelia has expressed that she’ll definitely join Elisa’s side… This is repeating yet again.”

This declaration of war that others were helpless to do anything about had already happened multiple times before. Elisa and Amelia were respectively the strongest and second-strongest Main Gods in the world right now, and they had constantly been trying to attack Hell in order to save Roland’s soul from his punishment there.

Ayer and Estrada were the only two among Hell’s Four Pillar Gods who actually had Main God power level. Additionally, both Elisa and Amelia had a special relationship with Roland, so they were unable to go all out against Elisa or Amelia. Whenever Elisa and Amelia teamed up to attack Hell and cause trouble, it really was a major headache for the Hell Faction.

However, it was impossible for the Hell Faction to release Roland. Not only would that be absolutely destructive for Hell’s divine laws, even Roland himself adamantly refused to leave… Could it be that he had gotten addicted to being in jail?

Additionally, Katerina knew from her own information channels that five years ago, during the third War of Hell, Elisa clearly had the power and opportunity to destroy all of Hell itself, but in the end, she had refrained from destroying all of Hell in order to save Roland. Perhaps this was because Elisa knew that creating Hell had been Roland’s foremost desire and accomplishment in his life.

Katerina shook her head as she threw away a horrifying advertisement which said, “Friend, do you know about Beifeng? You’re welcome to join the interdimensional Divine Church of Beifeng!”

In a way, this legendary Dracon had become renowned throughout the endless universes. His church sprouted in countless worlds, and countless admirers were drawn to his teachings about how “true love knows no boundaries”.

It was said that back in the day, as he traveled alone through the other universes, he also managed to create a powerful team to help save Eich, but due to certain reasons, such as passing by developing beastmen planets, a planet of the apes, and so on, he was too late to arrive to do anything useful.

Since Beifeng was “far too active” in the other universes, more and more people from Eich were now too embarrassed to admit that Beifeng had also originated from Eich. For people of Eich nowadays, if someone from an outside universe asked “Do you know about Beifeng”, that would be a humiliating slap to the face which would cause a fight… apart from the dark cultists who worshipped Beifeng.

Katerina shook her head and discarded the scary incidents and dirty information which she had just recalled. She then saw a posted bounty that made her not know if she should laugh or cry.

“Bounty: hunting Adam Han, an idiotic red-haired vagabond. His traits are that he’s incredibly stupid and that he has no sense of direction. He’s someone irresponsible who left his wife behind while saying ‘I want to see the outside world’. If anyone meets him, please contact council leader Margaret from the Mage Country. I will give you an ample reward. PS: it doesn’t matter if he’s captured alive or dead. Please feel free to kill him if you’re capable of doing so.”

Katerina toyed with the bounty in her hand as she seemed to smile at the red-haired swordsman in the shadows in front of her who had his head lowered as he looked at a map in his hands.

“…You’re quite skilled to have angered Margaret to such an extent when she has such a good temper. Still, when I think about the time, you should have left the city long ago, so why are you here asking for me to help open the city gate?”

The red-haired swordsman fell silent upon hearing this. However, the reason was obvious due to how his arms trembled as he held the map… He was holding the map upside-down yet again!

“I… as an adventurer, I want to go out and see the endless universes outside. A place as small and narrow as Eich can no longer satisfy me.”

“…It’s really not in order to escape your responsibilities as the husband of the Mage Country’s council leader and your position as the head warrior of the Underground Alliance?”

Adam fell silent as large drops of sweat kept falling from his forehead. After all these years, he still couldn’t tell a lie at all.

“Actually, I’ve learned some information that Roland will soon be reincarnating in an outside universe. He’ll probably need helpers…”

“…And then you’ll continue acting as you please together? Count me in, but I don’t think I can go right now…”

The voice outside the door was quite familiar. Adam immediately perked up in high spirits as he was expecting someone to go together with him.

“Little Red, I knew that you would come…”

However, his voice trailed off at the end as his entire body stiffened, because he instead saw an even more familiar person.

“…Let’s return home.”

Margaret seemed to have a much kindlier appearance than she did before as she held a red-haired little girl’s hand. However, the smiling expression she had as she glanced over at Adam made him really want to turn tail and run away immediately.

“…Elisa has already finished her preparations. It will be at least more than a decade before Roland is able to have fun messing around everywhere. You should return home first.”

Margaret helplessly sighed as she glanced at her daughter who had a pleading expression. She originally wanted to explode right when she saw Adam, but in the end, she decided to talk nicely and properly deal with her bastard of a husband after they returned home.

“At the very least, you should accompany our daughter Lisa for some more years, and it’ll be about time after she grows up to be an adult… Will that be fine? Dear?”

It was rare for Margaret to speak so softly like this. What else could Adam say since he was becoming more henpecked every day? He nodded in agreement.

“The adventure hasn’t ended. It’s just… I should rest for the time being.”