Suan woke up in the morning to a bright new day, as her teacher plopped down on her own bed. She was obviously exhausted.
“Senior, what’s wrong? You appear to be tired so early in the morning.” (Suan)
Lousphy looked at her with a dull expression.
“Combat training with Luna. She wanted to test herself.” (Lousphy)
Lousphy then laid her back onto her bed.
“She was crazy strong. Her scales are an armor on a level I have never encountered before. Her physical strength must be equal to a tyrant class too. Even her fire blasts would have melted my divine shields.” (Lousphy)
Suan looked at her, puzzled. Tyrant class! Fire blasts! And not a scratch on Lousphy! Just how strong is her teacher? It made her shudder at the thought.
After some morning prayers, Suan left her teacher to her rest while she began her daily routine of observing the town. It was as peaceful as ever. The demon’s minions interacted with the divine followers with a relative tension, but that was normal. However, Suan has recently noticed that there have been an increase in settlers in the area. More people have begun to settle in this out of the way realm. From both factions, the divine and the demons2demonsspecies. Much like the werewolf she met that one time, that she got in trouble with, these people were also a little bit of both, they were followers of both factions.
Naturally, gatherings came to be in such events, and they told stories of their past. Some demon minions that were around would brag about stories of how they fended off a wild beast that attacked their former town, or other such sacrifices where their divine spirit turned demonic. Another gathering was at a sage demon’s residence. Unlike their usual nature of the two phrases, knowledge is power and power corrupts, this demon had a naturally happy demeanor. Every day, he would act as a teacher to the many minions and divine followers. He taught them simple life magics for daily cleaning and necessities, recipes for potions and food stuffs, basic arithmetic, and other mathematical tasks.
This sage was a natural teacher and enjoyed doing it. Today, the lessons involved botany, specifically flowers. The female population took the most interest, but there were some men as well. At the bar, there was a only few low ranking adventurers and minions because the main job that they usually received was to subjugated the demon forces, which was against the law in the demon’s realm. One would start with I did this, then another would say I did that. Suan remembered that Luna came to town once to privately order from the bar a restocking of her favorite wine, when she overheard one adventurer say they’ve slain a dragon. She accepted her races challenge on behalf of the deceased, scaring the adventurer out of town. Now, the bragging has lessened in their false bravados.
After her normal tour and daily blessings, she had been tasked with taking a tour around the whole realm. The crop fields always had a bountiful harvest, and the mines were always pumping out materials like a factory. With the meat from the forest, Suna had no doubt that this realm is very prosperous. It had a monthly income of several ingots of metal, bags of vegetables, and many preserved meats, fish, and stag that was exported from this realm to the realm of heroes.
The church’s branch in this realm always receives a lot of donations. The realm is so rich that all the donations come from the divine mortals alone. People have so much, that they have nothing better to do with it then give it to the church. As for the demon’s minions, there is a strange change happening among them. Something she, herself, can’t pin down, but she still sensed that many of the minions are working harder and are becoming more loyal to their master. It’s not a feeling of financial security or anything like that either. It’s just a simple fact that the minions are doing more.
It was around noon, when Suan returned to the church, and Lousphy just finished with her bath and was still bare naked when she came in.
“Done with your rounds, young one?” (Lousphy)
Suan nodded and went to the plate of food the pasture left for her. The bread was lightly seasoned and the water had traces of fruit flavoring in it. It was bread and water, but by certain standards, it was a lot better bread and water than she normally receives. Her shift was over now, so she can do whatever she wishes for the time being.
Normally, she would pray like a good angel and train with her sword. Suan once spared with her teacher to test her skill against her, but Lousphy easily overpowered her, even while she was obviously holding back a great deal. She imagined for a moment if Lousphy and the demon lord of the realm fought. Who would win? If Lousphy struggled so much against a dragon, it’s hard to picture their fight.
As Suan swung her sword while training, and thinking such thoughts, she was interrupted by a disturbance outside. It was that time of day when the realm revealed a prediction of the coming weather for the next day. The accuracy is always about 70% right, which isn’t bad for a demon’s broadcast. She moved to the doorway where she and Lousphy entered the church from, to look outside. There’s a lot more people than normal, something big must have happened. After the news, a strange strip, that they called a virtual simulator, was shown on Luna’s forehead, then Lousphy’s.
Their eyes seemed to dull as the projection changed to the two in a wasteland. After a few courtesies, they began engaging one another in combat, and Suan was confused. This almost seemed like the training her teacher mentioned before.
Then, it clicked, and this explained her perfect, but sweaty condition earlier.
“You evil angel! You deceived me with your story. I hope she burns you to a crisp.” (Suan)
Another day then passed for Suan. She was a trainee watcher for the Realm of Balance. Nothing truly exciting happened on this day, or the many others to come. It was a peace that Suan easily got bored with, but she still hoped that it never ended.
