Chapter IX: Reincarnated Into A Lewd Game?! (9)

Previously 

His hands trailed down his feminine frame, letting a sigh pass by his lips. He had long given up on any prospects of growing taller nor muscular, especially when his hips were beginning to flare wider than his shoulders. His face seemed to have grown rounder with his waist growing thinner. 

Honestly, his body was nothing short of erotic and unrealistic. Don’t forget, he was a boy.

Deep breaths Willow, He told himself. His stomach grumbled. He reminded himself that he had been appointed family chef since he couldn’t stand the blandness of medieval cooking and had to rush himself downstairs before the family lost their minds over the food. 

Oh, perhaps that was what all the groaning and muttering was about. He took a quick bath before stepping downstairs, to which he was met with an assortment of cheers as the family chef was about to do his magic. 

The sun began to rise. A blanket of morning dew rolled over the town but even through the hail and mist, people still found their way towards the Townsquare. Their feet were jittery. Their hearts pumped ice. 

Parents made sure to hold onto their young children so that they don’t lose themselves in the thick crowd as they looked onwards to the future generation of the town who paraded around in a straight line. But most of their attention had been caught by the young boy of Olivia’s as they were in disbelief. 

The young teens had been dressed in a simple white robe, along with a crown of flowers adorned on their necks -- a traditional look that those performing the Awakening had to wear -- something that only made Willow’s cerulean blue eyes pop, making him appear as if some sort of divine gift from the Gods and reminded them why he had been called the flower of the town. And right beside him was the town’s young lion, or lioness. 

Elm still had that impassive look on her face, something that made her appear as if she wasn’t anything special, but the residents of the town knew that was far from the truth. Her father had been the captain of the town's guard, a jolly, old braggart who had the strength to repel a Were-bear and from his announcement yesterday, his daughter seemed to have accomplished the same level of strength as well.

It was a given that the town was looking forward to these two’s Awakening the most and some of them had already begun speculating over the Emblems they would awaken. 

Willow looked to the side and saw his mother waving at him with a smile while his father stood guard along with the other men of this town. He held Elm’s hands tightly, a nervous smile on his face as he knew that today was finally the day.

“Are you okay?” Elm asked.

Willow looked up to meet her eyes. “Yeah. I’ll be fine. Just a little nervous, is all.”

“You’ll be alright,” Elm said. “I’ll protect you.”

Willow just gave her a wry smile as the guilt in his stomach started to roll around even more. He reminded himself that he needed to do what he was about to do, both for his sake and hers. And also, the world.

The parade of young teens marched on before stopping right in front of a great marble statue of Tetis - the Goddess of Harvest And Fertility, a minor deity that had supposedly helped their great ancestor found this town. But of course, the main religion was still the Humlic Church. 

Each of them closed their eyes and bowed, thanking Tetis for the bountiful harvest this year and hoped for the coming years to be just as blessed. Eventually, they moved on past the tribute and found themselves stopping before a marble-white church that’d weathered with time but still functioned as well as it did in the past.

In front of the church, a man stood. He was of average height for a human male and had short, combed hair that was beginning to turn grey. His face also showed signs of aging with wrinkles on his dotted cheeks and forehead. He dressed himself in the clothing of a priest of the Humlic Faith - robes of black and a golden cross that hung low in front of his chest. Willow almost laughed. In the game, the humans had been the only race to which the devs had been too lazy to create an epic myth and faith, so they simply copy-pasted Christianity with a couple of minor tweaks. 

The man greeted the young adults with a warm smile as if he understood why the bunch looked like a nervous wreck. In front of the audience, he formally introduced himself as Father John before he went on to explain the process of the Awakening. The town square quieted down as Willow saw, from the corner of his eyes, his father being dragged off somewhere with a look of urgency on his face.

‘Oh shit.’ Willow thought, knowing that the event had truly started. He turned to look at his sister and she, along with the rest of the town, had been patiently and attentively listening to Father John’s explanation, unaware of the incident that was about to transpire.

His legs were beginning to shake as he tried to calm down. He tried to listen to the old priest’s explanation and saw that the Awakening had the same description as it did in the game -- with a couple more important facts taken out for safety reasons. 

Here, Father John explained that the Awakening was a divine gift of sorts from Hum himself and that it was only through his blessing that they were allowed to awaken their Emblems or supernatural abilities, so to speak. And that since they were of the human race, Emblems would be the only ability they get but it was all they needed since the other racial blessings were considered beneath Emblems.

Willow sighed as he saw that religious supremacists who liked to tweak certain facts for continued faith from the people existed here as well. He knew that Father John was somewhat right in his explanation. . . .if he didn’t let his fanatical views of his faith cloud his judgement. 

One of the few tweaks he’d made in his explanation was that Emblems were a gift from the Human God but that was only half-right. It was actually that Emblems were something that was born from a human’s soul, the crystallization of his/her desire and the Human God simply helped alleviate the process of bringing it out. But of course, if Father John had simply said that, the continued support and devotion towards the Humlic Faith would decrease and that was something religious people feared.

Elm seemed to not care too much about the racist words coming out of the old priest’s mouth which tickled Willow’s stomach, knowing that this girl would later grow to unite the many races living in the world.

In the game, the protagonist Elm would go through her Awakening, coming out as the prophesied Child Of Light, or the Celestial Hero who would then pave her path to eventually slay the Demon God and unite the world. But that was all so far in the future. 

No, what worried Willow right now was the closer future, the tragedy that was about to fall right into their laps and the tragedy that he was going to abuse so as to escape this town and the predetermined plot of the world. 

He remembered how the town would soon fall into chaos and anarchy when the demons attacked, with homes set ablaze as the morning sky was covered with soot and dark hail. The moment Elm came out of her Awakening, the demons would immediately launch an attack and go on to raze the entire town to the ground. Elm would fight, kill, fight and kill some more as a river of blood would be all that’s left of the town when morning rose.

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