The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 76

The world of my past, the world where I came from, still often comes to mind. It was a life of isolation for me but it wasn’t as if I loathed every moment of my near-forty years there. I especially enjoyed visiting the orphanages and playing with the children. Of course, most of the boys considered sword-fighting and ki training forms of play, so whenever I went, I ended up spending hours teaching them.

I remembered one day rather explicitly, when a boy in the orphanage - ah right, Jacob was his name - asked me a question.

"Brother Grey, do you believe in God?" he had asked, looking up while tugging on my sleeve.

I’d never believed in God, or whatever higher being some of the people believed in. How could there be a god in a world where your level of martial strength determined how you could live your life. Parents who birthed physically weak or crippled babies were considered humiliations, often ridiculed by others behind their backs. Those babies, even if they did grow up to live past adolescence, would never be able to amount to anything. They would have about as much recognition as a fly buzzing in someone’s face: annoying, better off dead, useless.

Even a woman, no matter how beautiful and charismatic she was, would only amount to a high-class prostitute if she didn’t have at least the minimum strength needed to be considered ’mediocre’ amongst practitioners. Even those old bastards in the council, that sat on their asses all day and used everyone like pawns, were once grand fighters and famous figures.

How could a god exist in a world like that? Even if a god or deity existed in my previous world, he certainly wasn’t very merciful or loving, let alone fair.

When that child, Jacob, asked me if I believed in God, I couldn’t answer. These children believed, like I once did, that there was a higher power watching over them... protecting them.

Again, in this world, I was asked a similar question, but by someone much older than me.

Did I believe in deities...some sort of higher powers that were above us and unreachable?

"..."

"I’m not sure. Do deities exist?" The words ’...in this world?’ almost slipped from my mouth.

"Haha! I’ve been asking that question all my life, but I’ve started to think that deities might still exist," Grandpa Virion let out a hearty laugh.

"What made you change your mind?" I tilted my head in curiosity.

"Her." I thought Virion pointed his finger at Tess, but I realized it was the sleeping Sylvie he was directing his gaze at.

"Wait, Sylvie? You think Sylvie is a deity?" Almost choking on my spit, I directed my gaze back at Gramps.

"Brat, deities are different from what religious books say about gods. Deities are beings that are able to ascend from what we consider their mortal bodies and fully harmonize with mana. Dragons, at least, what I’ve read about them, are beings that can naturally become deities. They can’t be classified as just S class, or SS class mana beasts; if you compare it to mana cores, deities would be at the level one would reach after breaking out of white core stage." Grandpa Virion looked down at his own two hands as he said this, letting out a scoff.

"Here we are, elves, humans, and dwarves alike, at most, barely able to tap into the power of a white stage mana core. Yet, there may be beings still existing that can easily level mountains and flood valleys... Haaa~" Again, Grandpa Virion had that faraway look.

He closed his eyes for a while before slowly opening them again, his gaze shifting towards me.

"You’ve read about the war between the three races, as well as the most recent war between the humans and elves, but compared to those two wars, this continent was much more chaotic and dangerous in ancient times. The three races were nomadic back then, always on the run from mana beasts. The humans, elves and dwarves all travelled separately due to clashes in appearance and culture, but whenever any of the races met, we were on fairly good terms...we had to be; we exchanged information and traded raw resources that we picked up along the way. This is now known as the Beast Era, where the mana beasts were rampant and ruled the continent."

"I don’t understand. Why didn’t we use magic to drive the mana beasts away? I could understand maybe avoiding A-class mana beasts and up, but I don’t see why we were so helpless." My brows furrowed in confusion.