“I’ve learned many things in the past few weeks; about love, power, myself… and of course, our Goddess of Light. I was so foolish, we all have been. I have seen and heard things that you cannot even imagine… Life is about change and transformation. It does not matter if you were born Human, Cat-Tribe or even a Goblin, because we all have the opportunity to become whatever we desire.” Elina’s words would have been considered heresy in one of the larger Luxian cities, especially ones belonging to Humans.

However, to those awestruck villagers and pilgrims from other similar towns, she seemed like the incarnation of Lux. Of course, her Charisma was so high, that she could have probably convinced them she actually was an avatar of the Goddess of Light.

Thus, she continued her speech uninterrupted: “Two weeks ago, I was merely a rank-G and level-six Cat-Tribe adventurer… Then I met Michael, an obnoxious and truly ridiculous, immortal Human man. If it wasn’t for our Goddess guiding him to me, I certainly would have died on the night that we were destined to meet. Now, she has brought us here, to Luxiana. I will not pretend to be an oracle or prophet, neither am I a messiah. There is something that I am certain of though; we are powerful, and we will only become even stronger in the future.”

A fairly muscular, middle-aged man, with black hair and fur, suddenly stood up out of his seat and walked towards the podium. There was a terrible scar across the left side of his face, and on his body was thick, steel-plate armor.

He furrowed his brows, and asked the angelic woman “What is it that you expect from us? Are you telling us to swear fealty to you people? The bastards that your Companions so easily massacred earlier… Hell, they probably could have easily wiped out Michelle City. I don’t doubt your power, but I simply don’t understand your motives…”

Elina smiled wryly, as she stealthily read the message that had been in front of her face the entire time: “New Quest: You have saved the village of Luxiana from disaster, but if you simply leave them now, it would only be a matter of time before the town is ultimately destroyed. The central power in Michelle’s Prairie is the small Human kingdom of York, which treats Cat-Tribe and other Warbeasts as expendable soldiers. With all of the chaos at the moment, most of Luxiana is being conscripted, but regardless of whether they rebel or follow the order, the town will certainly be destroyed by bandits, magical-beasts or York.

“At rank-G, it is possible to absorb a single village into Michael’s Waterfall Sanctuary’s territory. However, unlike normal land, it will still be possible for enemies to invade or attack, and the people living there will not be considered Residents, but Citizens. Thus, it will be necessary to develop defensive structures and a military force to protect them with. In return, you will be able to collect taxes and receive Favor, depending on which Goddess the Citizens worship.

“Convince Village Chief Arnold to make Luxiana a part of Michael’s Waterfall Sanctuary. Reward: 1000 Light Favor, 500 Gold, and 1000 Experience.” She honestly did care about the safety and prosperity of the town, but money and levels were an even bigger incentive.

The angelic cat-girl gazed into that man’s eyes and directly told him “We don’t want to control or rule you, but without our protection, you will all certainly perish. In this turbulent era, entire kingdoms and empires are effortlessly destroyed, while other forces rise from the ashes. The question is, what do ‘you’ want from us? What do ‘you’ want from yourselves? What is it that ‘you’ desire? Are ‘you’ content to remain as farmers and fishermen for your entire lives? If you are, then that’s perfectly fine… but wouldn’t you prefer a choice? Rather than struggling simply to survive, wouldn’t it be better if you could all thrive? Also, for those of you who have traveled here in hopes of becoming closer to Lux… She comes to visit our house sometimes.”

After that speech, Arnold chuckled loudly, explaining “You really don’t have to try so hard to convince us. Actually, if you didn’t offer it, I was going to request something similar… Besides, there’s no way in hell we’d be able to resist, even if we wanted to, heh-heh-heh.”

Thus, the Quest was completed rather easily, but everyone was dumbfounded when the already glowing woman began radiating even more light. Then a loud and feminine voice resounded “You have reached level twenty.”

Typically, that announcement would only be audible to the person who was experiencing the ‘level-up’. The fact that the ‘Goddess of Light’ actually spoke before all of them so grandly, caused everyone to start believing that Elina really was a prophet of some sort.

Suddenly, another message appeared before her golden eyes: “A new Class has been offered to you: Oracle of Lux. Would you like to accept?”

As she placed all of her new stat-points into Intelligence, the Priestess obviously agreed. Her body began radiating an enormous amount of light again, as she received an extremely overpowered new spell: “Battle Resurrection Level 1: Brings a fallen Companion back from the dead, during combat. Casting speed depends on the target’s maximum HP. Must be within 10 meters of the target. Costs 10 mana per second to channel. Can only be used once every 100 minutes.”

Unlike Residents, the Citizens didn’t hear or see any messages and their benefits weren’t nearly as amazing. However, they were still rather excited over the prospect of joining Michael’s Waterfall Sanctuary. Even the name of his territory sounded ‘safe’ and secure… Of course, they still hadn’t realized that most of the houses and other wooden structures throughout the town were currently on fire, along with the palisade.

The seven-hundred villagers and fifty adventurers who stayed outside to shuttle buckets of water between the river and the raging infernos, were far too preoccupied with the fields, to notice that the town was burning as well. There were actually a handful of Water-Mages, but Talia was more effective than everyone else combined.

Her solution was to simply extend her aura to the maximum of sixty-five meters, and utilize ‘Air Manipulation’ to remove the oxygen from the area. It wasn’t as difficult or dangerous as creating a vacuum, so she didn’t have to spend much mana in the process.

Unfortunately, the total farmland was about three square miles, and she wasn’t able to fly while putting out the infernos. Ironically, the first ‘person’ to notice the disaster, was a certain, colossal Demonic Ultrasaurus.

From her perspective, it seemed like a village made for mice or other small rodents. However, being of the Fire Affinity, she was naturally drawn to the flames.

Cunty roared “So~ warm~!” as she rolled around and crushed burning buildings rather easily. She weighed at least a few dozen tons, but it was spread-out over her entire gigantic, one-hundred meter tall body.

At that point, everyone within the church was able to look out the windows and see that colossal monstrosity, but noone was willing to go outside and tell it to stop. Even Elina was terrified by that gargantuan creature, and it was too far away for her to use ‘Identification’ on.

However, a gigantic bright-green fox suddenly appeared and ‘Intimidated’ the Demonic Ultrasaurus, chasing it out of the mostly destroyed village. After that, two six-meter tall Tyrannosaurus-Tribe jumped down from the edge of the cliff and began swimming across the river rapidly.

Each of them had ‘Intermediate Fire Manipulation’, so they were able to quickly put out the burning town. Watching that strange scene, Arnold asked “Are they… friends of yours?”

Elina sighed, muttering “More like neighbors… That strange monster is probably one of Michael’s creations.” There weren’t any humanoid casualties from the fire, but the town’s stables, chicken coops, pig-pens and other livestock containment buildings were destroyed: killing the animals inside.

Finally, the angelic cat-girl turned to the crowd and announced “I’m really sorry about all of this… but don’t worry, it should be possible to ‘fix’ things up before nightfall!”