The incident ended, but the situation exploded.
Victoria was completely flat on the ground, stuffing sweets into her mouth, covered in mud when the incident was over.
As daylight arrived and things calmed down, the Bet family dragged Victoria back home.
And from that evening, reporters and broadcast journalists began flocking to the Bet household.
Morris refused to comment in front, but no one would just take that as an answer and leave.
If you turned on the news or opened a newspaper, you’d see reports about the disaster in Bern City, along with mentions of a miracle, which included me.
Surprisingly, there wasn’t much about Victoria.
Why? Because out of nine thousand harvesting periods, two pennies—specifically, 181 had psychic abilities. Of course, only 129 of those used their abilities in front of people.
The rest were hidden.
Anyway, most psychics gained similar abilities. There are roughly three types.
One is a movement ability. Not teleportation, but the ability to move quickly or carry multiple people down from high places.
Another involves manipulating wind, water, and fire. It seems like an ability that emerged to somehow handle the accidents themselves.
And the last is a survival ability.
It’s the ability to generate shields, harden the body, or rapidly heal from wounds.
Total: 9,190.
On the surface, that seems like a lot.
But considering the last moments of the first world, there were close to a hundred million harvesting periods, that’s not so many.
Back then, if someone recited a contract document, it was immediately accepted.
No one thought of controlling numbers. Back then, we didn’t know that too many would lead to collapse.
Once it started spreading, it increased exponentially.
Limiting it wasn’t dangerous. In other words, with this number, there’s still a long way to go until the deadline.
This time, I want to create a sustainable automatic warmth harvesting system.
Anyway.
Tens of thousands of people in Bern City witnessed me granting abilities.
The media questioned that. And rather than asking why such an incident occurred, they made more effort to report on the miracle that emerged from this incident.
As a result.
The area around the Bet house was filled with reporters.
Of course, soldiers in charge of public order surrounded the place so they didn’t break in, but it was quite a headache with people continuously taking pictures with cameras.
However, Morris and Beatrice were too preoccupied to protest.
Right now, a special envoy from the royal family was present in this house.
“Are you the one they call the Apostle of God?”
A man in an ornate suit, the mayor of Bern City, and several others in thick exoskeletons stood around.
The fortunate thing is that the religious tones of those present here weren’t too prominent.
If you dig through the memories gained from the third world, there’s a reason for that.
About a hundred years ago, there was a group armed with obsessive faith that acted as a bulwark protecting human settlements from dangerous woods.
Because of this, their power grew excessively, and the kingdom improved its own abilities based on magic engineering technology to counter that.
However, when a major scandal involving various countries and their main religion broke out, faith rapidly declined, and seizing the opportunity, nearly every nation pushed forward the concept of powerful mechanical devices based on magic engineering technology and pure reason.
That succeeded, and religion lost power and fell.
Now, many believe in technology itself. This means we are in an era similar to the faded memories of the Belle Époque—a time filled with hope that science and technology would illuminate the future.
If, in such a world, suddenly the Apostle of God appeared, naturally, it would spark interest.
It’s dangerous in many ways.
So I stepped forward and said,
“I’m not the Apostle of God. I have nothing to do with God.”
I thought about calling myself a living being, but since it’s vague to say my identity is a living being, I dodged the issue.
Immediately, the man who introduced himself as being from the royal family narrowed his eyes at me. To him, it probably appeared as if a small girl was speaking, and he could look at me as a being that should be killed.
“Then does that mean you are a demon?”
“Isn’t that something God calls a deity outside of his religion?”
When I challenged him, he looked at me with a gaze of uncertainty. I wonder how developed theology is here.
At least, the people in this city don’t seem to have much belief in God.
They either just know it exists, or they know that some people in the countryside go to church.
“If I had to pinpoint, I’d say I’m an endangered species. If I’m the same as others, there might be one or two.”
I believe if something were to emerge while I’m up here, it would be considered the emergence of a fellow kind.
Saying this, I saw the understanding flash across the man’s face. He appeared quite relieved afterward.
That’s a relief.
Instead of viewing me as a ghostly occult being, I seem to appear as something that can be killed instead—an entity almost on the brink of extinction.
A fragile and sorrowful creature facing destruction.
He looked at me with that expression.
“Then, what about the blessing you supposedly gave? Can you explain the blessing that heals any wound and allows someone special powers, like the girl over there?”
His tone changed.
It was no longer a confrontation with something unknown, but rather a closer approach to dealing with a somewhat dangerous individual. The title switched from the formal “you” to the more casual “you.”
Easy enough.
“I don’t really know. But I do have some guesses. Is that all right with you?”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
Every time he asked a question, I sensed his tension easing, and his shoulders relaxing. I must look like someone beneath him now.
“I speculate that it’s about drawing out the best potential. People aren’t inherently strong, smart, and capable of special psychic abilities, are they? But because of that, it’s impossible to draw them out again from those who have been drawn out once.”
I had to append that at the end.
I needed to explain beforehand why the second instance wouldn’t happen. I used my ability once, but why wouldn’t it happen the second time?
Many people start to think a favor is a right when it continues. So, to avoid being resented by others, I clearly draw the line.
Having explained beforehand, I push all the blame for future mishaps onto them.
In reality, I’m the bad guy, right?
A fraudulent contract means everything related is bad news.
I pretend not to know that and cram that into a corner. And because I exactly stated I didn’t know, I set up an escape route in case some truth comes out during future research.
“Is that a person’s ability?”
The surprised man asked me sharply.
“Yeah. That’s right. I just push them up. In fact, I’m not even sure why it happens. Isn’t it just how people are, to be strong?”
I subtly nudged people higher.
The man stared at me intently. Then he asked this question.
“Why did you change them?”
This was a question asking why I turned people into harvesters. So I decided to stick to just the facts.
“People wished for it. If they hadn’t, I wouldn’t have acted.”
This question effectively shifted the blame onto Victoria.
It made him think of me as a machine that only opens possibilities while having no intent of its own.
In reality, I act just like that.
I believe that no extra push is needed to push people down a dirty path—they will understand destruction if given power. After all, there’s a saying that power absolutely corrupts.
“Do you want power?”
I threw out that famous line that makes it clear the choice was yours.
The man stared at me for quite a while and then replied.
“I’ll hold off on answering that for now.”
Postponing isn’t a bad strategy. If they claim to be from the royal family, this sort of verbal skirmish is likely more detailed than mine.
Then he left me and began to talk with Beatrice, Morris, and Victoria.
While they were ‘talking,’ strictly speaking, it was closer to interrogation.
Hearing that Beatrice and Morris didn’t know much about me, the man approached Victoria.
He asked her where we had met.
Victoria glanced at me with a fidgety expression. Probably asking if it was okay to talk about it, so I simply said,
“You can tell everything.”
I explained everything from when I was captured by the sahuagin to the escape until then. And at the end of that story.
When they heard about the sahuagin trying to summon a god, all eyes turned towards me, but I shook my head and pointed at Victoria.
They woke a giant monster while calling upon a god, but it wasn’t the god they wanted. And I almost became a monster, but I was healed when I became a harvester, and I barely survived with the psychic ability gained at that time.
Then I even mentioned how I was brought along when I didn’t want to go back home.
“How have you fared here?”
In response to the man’s question, Victoria explained the daily life she had here.
Beatrice, who lived with her for a week, agreed or added to Victoria’s words.
As I watched, it was hilarious how Morris’s gaze toward me gradually changed to one of pity for our daughter.
“Did you force the act of blessing from outside?”
“No, not at all. I told them there wouldn’t be a second round, so they shouldn’t think too much. If they got hurt in that state, they wouldn’t be able to heal.”
After Beatrice’s words, the man’s gaze dropped its guard. There was still some caution left, but compared to earlier, it was negligible.
Hehe.
This is it.
This is why I act like a bystander. No matter how much I want to steal warmth, I don’t want to leap in like a beast and end up being hunted like one.
Matching words to actions is crucial.
Not lying shines most brightly in such situations.
Afterward, we exchanged a few more conversations about my personal life before he issued a warning not to talk about what happened today to unauthorized individuals.
Then he, along with those who came with him, left the Bet household. I thought I would just stay inside until things cooled down…
But the next dawn.
A piece of paper, written as an invitation but read as a command, flew in.
It contained elegantly phrased sentences, but summing it all up without any modifiers, it simply said:
You are invited to the royal family.
Press conference scheduled.
Awarding of distinction and prize for actions during the Bern City disaster.
Transfer to the Royal Academy.
Targets: Bel & Victoria.
“No, mom. Then what about the clockwork school for me?”
“They’ll fully fund it, so just think of it as going to a better place…”
Victoria clutched her head, and Beatrice wore an expression that said she had expected this.
Also, the royal invitation differs for me and Victoria. For Victoria, it was literally an invitation, but for me, it meant my residency was switching from Betga to the royal family.
Under the pretext of protecting an innocent person without a place to go, they would take me away.
I was glad this turned out as I had expected. Rather, I was thrilled that it happened this way. Now, how much warmth would it be to make high-ranking officials into harvesters?
But there was one thing I questioned.
“Royal Academy? Are they out of their minds?”
Transfer to the Royal Academy? They want me to go to school? At that moment, Victoria approached me with a playful expression filled with escapism.
“Why, don’t you want to go to the academy?”
“I’m, um, a bit dumb compared to ordinary folks…”
That’s the problem. So even if I have memories, I can’t apply them. Ugh.
“No way, a monster is dumb?”
“As long as I’m not dead, it’s fine if I’m dumb.”
Victoria, who had teased me, nodded with a somewhat sour expression.
“I’ve heard that if you’re dumb, your body will suffer, but it seems the reverse is also true…”
