3 Chapter 3: The Love of Good

There were many ways to describe a mathematically prodigious person.

Cytortia was not mathematically prodigious. She was many things, kind, sheepishly brave and upstanding despite quaking her boot.

That's why she would greatly regret this later down the line.

"Okay, mortal, This is Five-in-Six-pointed Stars Holy Diagram," Cytortia said, trying to ignore the muffled sound. "I invented the method myself. Trust me, it will be perfectly safe. Technically, the Diagram was theoretically 70% complete, but Scathach just jams some Celtic spirit technique in it, so it is more or less 100%."

"Mmmmf, " one particular boy was struggling inside the diagram that was a mismatched mix of both Taoism and Celt sigils. His face was stretched with worry. The boy's lean body was contorting in the caterpillar movement sending an insignificant rippling across the desert sand.

The badger approached the boy with an evil grin. It's grin so insidious that it would be no strange in a slasher movie monster.

"Don't blame me, kid, as my new student you aren't permitted to use any kind of weak-ass awakening formula. Oh, and I will treat a power level lower than 800 as a failure."

The badger's laugher terrified both the mortal and the goddess.

Cytortia mouthed a small 'I-am-sorry' and charged the circle with a snap of her fingers.

"Ready Mana shock circle! Five, four..." Scathach yelled triumphantly.

"Mmmmf!"

"ONE."

Rem screamed something unintelligible. His eyes widen at the fact that his master skipped two numbers.

"ZERO!!!"

Blue electricity unfolded in his vision and compounded with the smell the burning magnesium.

..

"Unlimited possibility is born from a single page of paper," said a woman's voice. "Have you ever heard of this?"

Rem founded himself lying on the warm ground. He looked up at the black expanse of starry paradise. The platform beneath him was ever shifting pallets of colors, while air smelled like a rose garden. This place would create an image even Vincent Van Gogh, or Leonardo Da Vinci would burn into their memory. Yet, their painting of the woman standing in front of him would somehow manage to trump even that.

She had a lustrous black hair and eyes as hopeful as the magnificent sky. Her skin was moderately tanned like she spent most of her time gardening and basking in the sun. The airy scent of rose garden was emitting from her like a soothing pheromone. Despite the hint of her outdoor attribute, she also possessed a natural charisma and one-of-kind magnetizing sense of intelligence. Her gossamer dress seemed to be made out of distilled rainbows fiber dyed in warm white light.

Her presence comforted Rem's heart like the parental understanding he never received.

He was home.

She took off her cheap glasses and closed her copy of Harry Potter.

"The cloth?" The woman said, looking down at her garment. "The thread of rainbows is hope. The white-dye, on the other hand, is a combination of possibilities and hope."

"That single sentence gave me diabetes," Rem replied.

"I know right?" She returned the snide remark with a joyful laugh and a sad smile. "But deep down, you of all people worship this material more than anything, Remus. That's why you hate humanity so much. You understand why they put the pressure on you and couldn't bring yourself to hate them for it. No, you loathe every fiber of their existence for what they did to me."

A single tear trickled down Rem's cheek. He didn't know why it was there.

The goddess smiled, and the stars in the sky started shining brighter and more alluring than a supernova.

"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Satholia. The living embodiment of Happy Ending. The goddess of Hope and incarnation of Idealism; The Patron of all that join the fight so that the beacon of good may prevail."

...

Satholia and Rem sat down on the edge of that multi-color platform. Below them were several windows showing event all over the multiverse.

"Want some chocolate?" Satholia politely handed a bar of chocolate to Rem. "You must be famished."

Rem looked at the screen full of death and destruction and bit into the chocolate.

One screen showed a planet-size purple lotus with fanged petals and tentacled stamen engulfing a green and yellow planet.

Rem didn't want to know what happened to that poor planet.

"Is it this bad?"

Satholia nodded solemnly.

"It will be worse," Satholia looked at another screen, slowly clenching her fist in and out with frustration."I will not sugarcoat this. It will be only a matter of time before entire Phantasia goes out of the count. Then we would face a multiverse ending disaster."

"How does Phantasia belly-flopping cause a multiverse-level apocalypse?"

"We are the front-line."

"That's right Rem," Satholia said grimly, pointing at the screen showing swarms of reptilian monsters tearing apart a planet with a ring resembling Saturn. "If Phantasia goes down, that thing and its buddies will get a free pass to enter Multiverse at will. If that happens, you can kiss all life good-bye."

"You should be able to do something right?"

"Rem, I already did everything I could do from here," Satholia stood up and walked toward the center of the platform.

Rem followed her.

"The thing is I am simply too powerful," Satholia complained. "This platform was isolated from all realities for a reason. Without isolating myself, my very aura tips the universe's balance so badly that its law unraveled. Trust me, I am as sick at this whinny excuse of a universe as you do."

"So that why bad things happens?" Rem said, finally comprehending how much of a raw deal both him and his patron got. "You want to intervene, but your very intervention will destroy everything standing. All you can do is watch."

"Yes," She sighed. "And even my clairvoyance was severely restraint, looking too far ahead will outright annihilated that timeline. At best, I can only foretell the event in a few months at the maximum, and even then the detail is extremely vague."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Rem, it wouldn't be so bad if Phantasia was not the nexus of the multiverse. The entire world is the stop-gate for the world enemy."

Horrifying realization dawned on him.

Rem couldn't help but feel there was something odd about this arrangement. It was too random for the goddess of good to reach out to a nobody. Logic dictated that a good reason need to underline every action.

"I have done everything I can," Satholia said. "Truth to be told, I plan to rope you into this much later, but alas, you are the nearest of my ace-in-the-hole. To be short, I need you to guide her Rem. The key to winning is that goddess."

Rem nearly keeled over.

"I know," Satholia admitted. "She was far from an excellent candidate. Something you could relate to I presume."

"Satholia, boss, no offense," Rem panicked for the first time ever.

"Your candidate had no mental fortitude, and her luck was one of a kind. As for me, there are better choices. Natural leaders, star athletes, Kendo Champion, or someone who scored the top of the nation in several sciences and still ace their sport. I'm the most mediocre person here."

Satholia looked over the stars and spoke celestially.

"Rem, why do you think you had <The Way of Optimism>?"

"You gave it to me." Rem answered for once unable to comprehend better options.

"No, you made it your own. My energy, the Center-force, never discriminated in sharing its power. That spark of Center-force you pick up merged with your sense of salvation. It's created the unwavering belief that life is not pointless despite everything pointing the other way. In your heart is a spark of optimism; the belief that no foes or challenges are insurmountable. Right now, the world needs that hope more than ever. Like you, Cytortia also has that special spark inside of her. In time you will come to see it as I do, and you two will start a miracle."

Rem silently wiped that away trickled of tears. His heartfelt more at ease than it'd been in years; but yet something needed to be asked.

"Why only me?" Rem said. "With this mission, you need all available hand on deck."

"Rem," Satholia looked at him in the eyes. "You, like it or not, are the only available hand on the deck. With magic being introduced on Earth, most of a fighting power on your world already have enough problems keeping the lid on things."

Satholia raised one finger to count that reason.

"Out of them, we have to cut out all the untrustworthy sort that could create a massive problem. To make this worse, your main weaponry: the skills and magic, are deeply correlated with passion and world-view. Those who refused to accept this new world and embraced its mystery ultimately shoot themselves in the foot. Magic has its own law, and let say that most of your top scorer on Earth would not take the paradigm change well. They will be dead on arrival when magic was involved."

"Is magic ability proportional to divergent thinking capacity?" Rem asked.

She nodded.

"We are fuck," Rem lamented. This pretty much meant that everyone under standardizes education would likely screw.

Satholia raised her second fingers.

"Finally: the logistic. Most of Phantasia is gunning for your world to take a piece out of it. Foresawing this a month beforehand, I pulled my trump card. Although manifesting in Phantasia would be nasty for everyone involved, I can still materialize myself with a grain of my power through some ceremonies. One of these ceremonies allowed me to manifest as an aspect of the world. It can only be done once every thousand years and last only a few hours, but I got the job done."

"What did you do?"

Satholia paused. Her cheek turned slightly redder.

"I sacked Mount Olympus."

Rem blinked.

"You did what?"

"I teleported to Mt. Olympus to have an audience with Zeus. They denied my request, and I couldn't afford to waste any time so I...er... punch down their gate, strolled past their defense and fought a gauntlet through the pantheon. Honestly, it was a pretty short fight."

"You fought the Olympian?"

"More like traumatized them," Satholia nodded sheepishly. "I admit I selected them for the negotiation because they are all jackasses who would likely start a fight. I will even confess that they are still fixing the carnage I left on Olympus right now."

"That's why Ishtar and Athena bother to give Earth the soft-deal," Rem said, realizing the truth behind the beauty goddess's behavior and responded with agape. "They are terrified of you."

Satholia nodded, too embarrassed to look back.

"I know it was crude, but I want a stretch. Plus Arachne and Medusa have been praying for salvation since forever."

"What deal did you make with Zeus? I hardly believe you used your once in a thousand-year privilege to do something mundane?"

Satholia turned back toward Rem with fewer tomatoes on her face.

"After I punched him in the ball with enough force to break mount Olympus in half?" Sathalia said as she reminiscent about that particular moment. "I basically threatened him to do his job and stop being a self-center brat else I will come back. By proving that I, the Queen of Center, exist and have enough power to knock one of the strongest factions of gods like it was nothing will persuade the rest of the divine into trying to get into my good book. This will give them an incentive to protect your world, but being selfish bastards, they will do so by taking the Earth in as part of their alliances. Anyone worth something special enough to be on the database will likely be recruit by the gods, assuming our opposition didn't already get their hand on them first. I hate to admit this, but anything under Zeus' and his peers' wing was a potential security leak, and they must be discounted from our operation."

Satholia gently lifted her third fingers and pointed at the screen showing a massive monster swallowing up the sun.

"Combined all of these factors with several logistic problems like abilities and distances leaves you as my best bet Rem. You must aid Cytortia Tianshang and grows your factions into the one that could single-handedly save Phantasia itself if the worst-case scenario comes passing."

Rem nodded. His eyes were filled with a massive amount of doubt but zero hesitation.

"Alright," Rem said to his patron."But what is the ability I got to work with?"

Satholia's hand lit with a rainbow sparkle that sank into Rem's chest like a pigeon arriving at its nest.

"<Arrival of Dream>," Satholia said as a pleasant feeling crept up Rem's chest along with the comforting aroma of summer. "It's a power to bring dreams into reality. But be warned, prolongs uses will ultimately drain your stamina and your range is currently limited to your territory. Most important of all, it cannot grant wishes or miracle, only providing a path toward one."

Rem felt his body turned weightless as white light gently wrapped over his skin. His mind was being called back to reality, but he didn't want to leave. He wanted to stay here a bit longer with the first person to ever praise him on anything. That's why Rem Breaker used all his willpower to fight the recall and tentatively reached his hand out to thank his ever-so-distant savior. It was the only gesture of gratitude he could manage.

With the gentleness of mother love, the goddess of good accepted the gesture with an understanding smile. It was a small proof that someone was there for him when he needed the most. It was nothing be noted, but for Rem, it was all the encouragement he needed. All the effort he puts to stand against the abrasion of the world was not in vain.

"Tell Scathach to head to Northern land of the Elves. There you will find a girl who lost her will to fight. The time has come where she had to pick which destiny she will walk. To be one of Cytortia's mightiest ace or a monster her clan fears she will become. Go and find the Exile Lightning...It's time for her to come out of her forest."

Her face faded away and with it began the start of this fight.

"Oh, and tell the badger that if Phantasia got invade I will force myself down there the universe be damned! Tell her if that ever happens, the first thing I will do is strangled her for an explanation!"

With that heartwarming message, the world turns dark.