Besides, the little girl was cute enough to get away with it! Even mass murder.
"Hehe, uhm, whatever your name is," I said, gently squishing her chubby cheeks, "you can call me Papa if you want. Just... don’t do it in public, okay? It’d be dangerous. For both of us."
"So you don’t even know her name?" Bina groaned. "You must be a terrible parent, Master Ruben."
Point taken. Except I don’t remember birthing anyone.
I looked down at the girl again.
"What is your name, anyway?"
She beamed and said, "Coastelle is Coastelle!"
...Ah, I see, I see. I totally understand...
(Uhm, Platform... I... Please?) freēwēbnovel.com
{That individual is the embodiment of the realm, Coastelle. You can view her as the "god of Coastelle." Every heavenly piece has an embodied presence like her.}
(Really? Then Gihon had one too?)
{Correct. You have already encountered her. The dragon mother—Gaia.}
(EH? Really?! This is the first I’m hearing of this! And hey, I didn’t exactly ’meet’ her. More like... I ran for my life when I tried to invade Eden and she entered full Divine Wrath State.)
Coastelle was a wonderful name I came up with for this realm, but calling this cuteness monster that? No way. It just didn’t sit right.
"Do you mind if I call you..." I started slowly, staring at her face glowing in anticipation, "...Flora? Do you mind if I call you Flora?"
Her big dark eyes widened. Then a smile bloomed on her face, and I nearly got a nosebleed.
"Yes! Yes!" she jumped up happily. "Flora loves the name!"
She’s already calling herself Flora! Ahhh! So cute!!
But something was clear—Flora didn’t know how to speak, not with her mouth.
Everything she said came straight into our heads. That’s how Bina could hear her too.
And now that I’d been holding her this long, I couldn’t ignore it anymore.
The sheer pressure...
I’d been feeling this monstrous aura from her little body. So I decided to check her Prime Value.
I could do it myself now—without Platform’s help.
I’d run the usual manual checks: total magic output, motion responsiveness, intelligence rating, average strength... and a bunch of other geeky, headache-inducing nitpicks.
Absolute pain in the rear, actually.
Also, my estimates wouldn’t be as accurate—maybe 70% at best. Platform’s readings usually hit around 98% accuracy.
Still, when I checked for myself...
What I saw made my smile freeze over.
(Platform. I think my PV reading meter is broken—I’m seeing stars. Please, help me.)
{Not exactly, Master. Your readings are close to accurate this time. her Prime Value truly is—}
Again, if you probably don’t understand how numbers work, for some reason, I said "Two million, five hundred thousand" Prime Value!
And according to Platform, Bonafide gods’ Prime Value starts counting from 2 million.
If not for her incredible cuteness, I might’ve dropped her and leapt back in panic.
And since I’m not perfectly accurate at measuring this stuff, she could even be somewhere around 2.7 million.
Goodness. Now that I’ve found her out, would I have to be responsible for her?
I was hoping to just sneak off and return now and then for a boost of cuteness-energy. But Flora’s clinginess said otherwise. She was following me back.
Not like I had any confidence in subduing her now, anyway.
Ah, which reminds me—
Ahhhh!!! I was dying inside from the overload!!
"Ahem. So, uhm, we’ve been messing with the realm for a while now," I began, low-toned. "At one point, we almost even destroyed the entire thing. You weren’t hurt, were you?"
All our noise and chaos must’ve torn into the land, and that sphere of void earlier too.
I was starting to think Flora might’ve been affected by all that.
"No. Flora feels no pain," she said seriously, still hugging me tight. "But... it tickled sometimes."
Apocalypse-level disasters tickle this little girl?!
She continued, "But the last magic was very bad. Flora wanted to send it to the surface... but then it disappeared."
Pison should be sacrificing virgins tonight—
The end of the world almost arrived, and no one even knew it.
I think it’s safe to say Levi saved Pison... Except she was also the cause of the entire problem in the first place.
Flora added that nothing belonging to Coastelle could be truly destroyed. Everything would always come back.
When I asked how that worked, she said it "feasted on Papa’s magic" in order to reverse the shift of destiny.
But I wonder; what kind of Grimoire is that...?
"Ancient Papa’s Magic"? Never heard of it.
Flora glanced at Bina for a moment, then began gathering energy in her tiny palm and aimed it straight at her.
"Wai—what are you doing?!" I yelped, grabbing her hand mid-cast.
Flora blinked at me, puzzled.
"Huh? Is it not enemy?" she asked innocently.
"No, she’s an ally!" I corrected quickly. "And you—Bina—stop blushing and explain yourself."
She flinched and tried to compose herself.
"Uhm, B-Big Sis Flora—"
...Big Sis? Since when?
"—I’m not an enemy, okay? But if you don’t believe me, go ahead and blast me with your strongest magic to prove my loyalty to Master Ruben!"
Alright, I’ll shut her up by wrapping vines around her face now.
Flora didn’t seem pleased.
Her tiny brows furrowed, hands tucked behind her back like she’d been scolded.
I walked over and patted her head.
"I absolutely understand. You were trying to eliminate a threat," I said. "You didn’t do anything wrong, mhm?"
She looked up at me sheepishly.
"Flora... Flora is sorry," she said quietly. "I sensed too much dark feelings inside it... I thought it was bad."
"That’s probably just her perversion you sensed," I explained. "Honestly, I completely understand wanting to erase her. But she’s with us, alright? And she’s a she, not an it."
Flora nodded, accepting that.
Ahh... it’s been too long since I spoke with someone who listens to reason.
But wait—what did she mean earlier? That nothing belonging to Coastelle shall be destroyed?
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