Chapter 6: Demons & Gods

Oswald slowly walked down the stairs towards the dining room.

As he arrived, he could see a luxurious table laid with all sorts of luxurious pastry's and hams.

There were cheese platters, freshly baked bread, and Oswald could even see some small breakfast cakes placed on the table.

It was a feast fit for a king!

Oswald knew from his memories that his new family was extremely wealthy, but when such a sight was seen in person, it was really difficult to adapt too.

It had to be known that there was no special occasion going on today, this would just be considered a normal every day breakfast for this family!

Oswald walked into the hall only to see that his father had already arrived.

Oswald saw his father sitting down with his head buried deep in the newspaper with an unhappy frown on his face.

"Good Morning father." greeted Oswald with a smile on his face.

Hearing the voice of his son, the frown on Elliot's face was instantly replaced with a smile, and once he saw that his son was in a much better mood than yesterday, his smile widened even further.

"Good morning son." Said Elliot

"How was your night?"

"It was good," replied Oswald

"After some time to rest and think about it, my mind feels much clearer. I have decided that even if I can't become a spell caster, I won't give up on becoming a Transcendent. A warrior is not necessarily weaker than a spell caster!"

As Elliot heard this, he couldn't help but nod in agreement.

"Good! Good! The son I know is a true talent. It doesn't matter what you choose to do, I have full confidence that you'll be the best there is!"

As Elliot and Oswald continued their chat, Oswald turned towards the newspaper with a hint of curiosity and asked.

"So what were you reading in the newspaper? I could see that it grabbed your attention, so it made me curious."

As soon as Oswald asked that question, the smile on Elliot's face quickly stiffened before it faded into a rather serious frown.

"I'm afraid it wasn't good news." Sighed Elliot.

"From the newspaper, I found that another family had been completely massacred. Not even the mice hidden in the walls were spared! Every living thing in that place has been brutally slaughtered!"

Hearing this, a look of disbelief appeared on Oswald's face as he asked,

"A secret massacre yet again?"

From his memory, Oswald knew that this wasn't the first time such a strange thing had happened.

Over the last few months, such slaughters and masters of families had been happening on and off with irregular frequencies.

Seeing Oswald's disbelief, Elliot sighed as he continued speaking.

"That's not even the most shocking part. The worst thing is that this time the family that was slaughtered was an official knight noble family. It's said that the head was an official knight Rank Transcendent, but even he was left slaughtered. From the autopsy, it says that the man didn't even put up any resistance before they were killed!"

"What!" As soon as Oswald heard this, he stood up in shock.

The slaughters had happened before so when he heard there was another one, his shock was more at the fact that the culprit had not been caught yet, but now his panic was directed straight at the culprit.

The previous victims had all been regular peasants. Most times they were just more slightly affluent merchant or craftsman families, but now they had actually dared to massacre the family of the noble ordained by the Empire!

How bold! How brazen!

Before, when the investigations were done into the massacres, Oswald was sure that the investigators were being a bit sloppy. After all, the people they were investigating for were just regular peasants. The way this world worked was such that, even if a few more peasants were slaughtered, the higher ups would only get involved unless there was a serious number of deaths.

But now they had actually dared to kill a noble of the Empire, he knew that things were going to get serious.

This was still the territory of the great Thourian Empire at the end of the day. To do such a thing and get away with it was like a slap in the face for everyone present.

But besides the shock at the brazen attitude of the perpetrator, Oswald was also shocked at the perpetrator's strength.

To kill a Rank 1 Transcendent so easily would mean that the perpetrator would have to be at least Rank 2 Transcendent or possibly even Rank 3.

Such a person was not the common riff raff fighter that you would encounter on the street. They were true elites that would take countless effort and resources to produce.

Elliot gave Oswald a few moments to take in what he had just heard before he continued further.

"After the people investigated the case, they suspected that it's either a cultist group or a Demonic Transcendent that needed to complete a strange ritual for his Transcendent profession. Since things are getting this way, I'm thinking of hiring a rank 3 Transcendent to guard the house for the next month. By then, things should have calmed down."

When Oswald heard this, he couldn't help but nod in agreement.

As a family of great wealth, The Blakewell family didn't lack guards.

As it currently was, the Blakewell family had 3 Transcendent rank guards under them. There were two Rank 1 Transcendents and a single Rank 2 Transcendent.

While it may seem strange for a Transcendent to work under a family like the Blakewell with no actual Transcendent power to their family name, such cases were actually quite common in the Thourian Empire.

Becoming a Transcendent didn't just require great talent, it also required a great amount of wealth. For those lucky to be born into wealth, this was not really much of a problem, but for the common folk this could be catastrophic.

For most commoners, the only way out would be to join a stronger faction and work for them, but these factions either had strong requirements in talent or really restrictive contracts.

For the remaining Transcendent that would not like to give up their freedom, the only other option was to either become an adventurer with a high mortality rate or choose the much safer and much more stable job of being hired by some wealthy businessmen.

Of course, the relationship between the businessmen and these Transcendents was not that of master and servant but more of a boss and employee kind of dynamic.

Oswald would often see the Transcendent from time to time at the manor from time to time, but after Oswald's mental space collapsed and the attacks from the other nobles became fiercer, they were transferred away to protect the factories and warehouses from their covert attacks.

Before Oswald had been worried about what could happen if the attacker had targeted them whilst the guards were away from the manor, but with the addition of a Rank 3 Transcendent, Oswald could rest with a relative peace of mind.

But even with this, he still realised the heart of their problem.

'I have to get stronger.'

Relying on guards alone for protection would not be sustainable.

Even if they could stop the crazed slaughterer, they could never stop those greedy nobles. Only his own strength could truly solve his problems.

As Oswald was wrapped in his thoughts, he suddenly heard a set of footsteps.

Looking towards the side, he could see a tall figure enter with a much smaller girl by her side.

She was a little girl no older than 8 years old. She had a head full of bright blonde hair placed into two pigtails and a set of dazzling blue eyes almost identical to her father's.

As soon as Oswald saw her, his memories seemed to surface, and he didn't need to think before he realised who this was.

It was Elaine, this body's younger sister.

As soon as the small girl saw Oswald, her little face quickly lit up as she tore away from her mother's grasp and rushed towards Oswald.

"Big Brother! Big Brother! You're finally back."

Seeing the girl hugging him tightly, Oswald just chuckled as he patted her hair.

"It's okay. I'm back."

After hugging Oswald for a while, Elaine looked up at Oswald with a pair of innocent eyes and asked,

"So, brother, did you bring me any gifts this time?"

As soon as Oswald heard this, his body froze.

His body's original owner had always spoiled his sister. He would give gifts almost every single month and anytime he went out for an extended period of time, he always brought her back gifts.

Now that Oswald was back from wherever he had gone, to not bring his sister back a gift was quite odd.

Fortunately for Oswald, Freya soon noticed his awkward situation and let out a loud cough as she scolded Elaine.

"Now Elaine, you can see that your brother has a lot of things to worry about recently. Now is not the time to bother him with your childish demands."

As Elaine heard this, she started to sulk.

"Humph! Fine!" Huffed Elaine as she walked up towards the table.

Just as they were getting ready to eat, Oswald saw everyone put their hands together and made a praying gesture.

Oswald, confused at this gesture, said nothing and decided to follow along.

Right after clasping his hands, Leon heard Elliot speak.

"We pray to the Goddess of Dawn to bless our food. We also pray that our days may be long, that we will live to see the rise of Dawn many more times in our life. Amen."

"Amen," responded everyone else.

After finishing the prayers, everyone started to dig into their breakfast.

But as he was eating, Oswald couldn't help but think back to the little prayer they had done earlier.

Gods.

Unlike in his last life, where Gods were a thing of constant debate and discussion, the Gods of this world were for certain a very real thing.

On more than one occasion had the Gods descended from the heavens to bestow their blessings or to bring about unimaginable destruction. Even just believing in a god has become a Transcendent profession where priests would be granted special abilities or techniques!

The world was generally polytheistic, where the belief in more than one god was not just allowed; it was even promoted.

Of course, there would be gods that would be favoured more in some regions than others.

Take the goddess they just prayed to, for example.

Elaris, The Goddess of Dawn.

The Church of Dawn was the official state religion of the Thourian Empire, so most nobles and people would pray to the goddess from time to time. Although most people stayed within the realms of shallow believers and often switched what gods they would pray to when they needed to gain something.

As Oswald was thinking about the gods of this world, he continued eating and had soon completely finished his meal.

Oswald looked around and saw that the others were almost finished as well.

Seeing this, Oswald stood up and picked up his bag from the side.

"Well, I guess I should be going now. It won't be good if I'm late for school."

As lady Freya saw her son still so eager to learn, a smile couldn't help but blossom on her face.

"Alright then, take care," said Freya

After saying this, Freya turned to the side to see her daughter still stuffing her face with the breakfast cakes and frowned.

"Elaine, stop eating so much! You have to go to school as well."

Hearing this, Elaine's face flickered with an extremely unwilling expression before she sighed and ran to the side of her brother.

After saying goodbye to their parents, the brother and sister duo stepped outside.

As they arrived at the outside gates, they could see a luxurious black carriage in front of them with an old-looking man standing readily beside it.