Chapter 12 - An Uneventful Spring Night

Unlike the bar section of the golden glass that was mostly active at night, it's casino section was active all day long filled with thousands of people playing different kinds of games and making all sorts of bets.

The casino was so large that it needed nearly 50 managers alongside their numerous subordinates to manage all the sections of the casino.

Although majority of the workers were dwarves, members of other races could be seen occasionally as dealers for some games or waiters carrying drinks around.

"Where do we start now?"

Cattleya asked white looking around slightly surprised at the sheer size and number of games in the casino.

"I've been to other casinos before but this one is certainly the largest I've seen."

Laughing at her honest reaction, her hooded companion proceeded to lead her to the nearby slot machines.

"Why don't we start small, it could take years to play every single game here so let's make it our goal."

There were over a hundred slot machines lined up and even more people gathered around them, occupying a machine that was just vacated by a sad looking elven man, Cattleya inserted the tokens she exchanged earlier and decided to spin the wheel.

Ring! Ring! Ring!

Both Cattleya and her hooded companion were left staring in shock at the three sevens displayed while the elven man who just vacated the seat began sobbing while murmuring about being more patient to himself.

Cattleya decided to spin the wheel a few more times and ended up getting three sevens each time. She asked skeptically,

"Beginners luck?"

"It's a little too much for that. Let's move on to somewhere else."

And so they moved on to another game ignoring the screams of the elven man who tried and failed once again.

After playing various games for a few hours, Cattleya's hooded companion decided to call it a day and left, not before promising to hang out with her if they met there again. They exchanged contact information before parting ways. As for Cattleya, she decided to go back and play around some more.

That was how their friendship began, sometimes they went to other places in the neutral zone besides casinos and bars, most of their destinations were various amusement parks where they always played around as if they were teenagers.

Sometimes they just drank all day and sometimes they spent so much time in the casinos that the managers had to come and beg them to leave.

A few times they won so much money from some certain people who didn't exactly like that and tried attacking them in deserted areas outside the casino however the two were beings who could potentially be masters of entire pantheons, albeit small ones, dispatching a few thugs was hardly a work out.

One time they sparred against each other and ended up destroying most of a certain world, which prompted one of the dwarven deities from the Morass tribe to personally descend to put an end to their fight.

Although they were made to promise not to do so again, they still did so and when the dwarven deity in-charge of the world they were on descended, they combined strengths to beat him up. This led to them being wanted as fugitives in that section of Bracken.

The liquor created by the dwarves was potent enough to make even higher existences like superior gods and greater devils get drunk despite their high resistances.

Sometimes she passed out due to being too drunk and he had to carry her back home, the same scene played out when he got too drunk also.

The friendship between the two continued for years and they got close to the point where they could be considered best of friends despite being of different races and genders.

One uneventful spring night, the two were drinking as usual when they discovered that a new liquor was going on sale, despite her hooded friend's advice not to, Cattleya still ended up buying it and naturally wound up more drunk than she already was.

"It's was on this day, years ago that we first met, cheers to our friendship anniversary!" She said sluggishly before downing the rest of her drink and passing out in the table. Looking at her, he wondered if he would be able to make the trip back home after carrying her due to the fact that he was only a little less drunk than she was.

Because she always came over to the golden glass, she got a house nearby in the same area, but it was still quite the distance away from the casino.

Sighing loudly he decided to just use one of the rooms in her home like he always did when he was too drunk to go home. Unfortunately, this time, they were a lot more drunk than he thought.

Although he was able to get to her home with ease, the moment he closed the door, she did something that he never expected.

In her drunkenness, she jump kissed him, she also didn't seem to have any intentions of letting go. It wasn't the first time he'd been in such a situation with other women, part of the reason he wore a hood with inhibition magic was to hide his wonderful appearance from being seen which helped him deter a lot of women from throwing themselves at him.

Normally he would be able to handle this kind of situation with ease, or he could just push them off his body before they can even reach out to kiss him, normally that is.

This time he was dead drunk and although he had a little voice of reasoning in him telling him to stop, the one telling him to indulge himself in the meal placed before him was louder and so that's exactly what he did.

The house that Cattleya bought was one aimed to be used for relaxation and stress relief, when buying it, the agent told her that the place was built with the aim of being able to relax anywhere, no matter the place.

This was the reason why there was a sofa bed placed in the living room, not too far from the door. All he had to do was carry her over there, and once again, that is exactly what he did. They were both already in the mood so, they just let their bodies do the talking.

Waking up the next morning with the greatest hangover ever, Cattleya was about to get off her bed before realizing two things.

One, she was naked and two, there was someone else in it with her. Upon those realizations, her head became a lot clearer as she used detoxification magic on herself to deal with her hangover.

She then decided to do the same to her companion who woke up not long after and also came to the same realizations that she did earlier. With a slightly hopeful voice, she asked.

"We didn't right?"

However, the reply that came was the one she desired the least.

"We did, you instigated it." He replied sighing.

"Yeah I figured, this is quite awkward."

She twirled her hair around her finger in an attempt to hide her embarrassment as she spoke, taking care to avoid his eyes.

Unfortunately, for her, he did not do the same, he moved over to her and held her face looking her straight in the eyes before saying,

"What's done is done and can't be undone, well it could but that's a lot of work and I'm not up for that, let's just act like we always do with each other, though that may take a while."

"Yeah I get but, let's get dressed first shall we."

She replied pointing out the fact that the both of them were still naked.

"Yeah, let's do that first."

His earlier actions were an attempt to cover up his embarrasment, however that ended up as quite the catastrophic failure.

Exactly as he said, they were not able to meet each other for a while, not because of anything serious but simply because they were too embarrassed to look each other in the face.

This situation lasted for about a month, however when they next met the news Cattleya had for him was the worst he could have possibly heard at the time.

"So, I'm pregnant."

She said it so casually as one would order a drink at a bar, however, the contents weren't so casual especially for her hooded best friend and father of her unborn child.

He almost choked on his drink when he heard her say that, to which she laughed at him like she was expecting it. He raged to himself internally.

'It was just the first time, how could I be so unlucky but lucky.'

He then remembered his wife who turned a woman that threw herself at him once into a flower pot and shook in fear slightly.

'She's going to be so pissed'

As he calmed down, Cattleya decided to drop the second bomb,

"Oh, I'm keeping it too, i actually wanna see how it's like to raise a kid, that's something I've never done."

Most gods have an elitist attitude and discriminated against other races, despite having multiple affairs with the women of these races, if they were to conceive, the gods either forced them to abort the child, or claimed they knew nothing about it.

However, Cattleya's baby father was not like that. In fact, the moment he figured out why she said that he was slightly pissed off at her.

"Just what do you take me for, there's no way I'd try to get you to kill the innocent child."

Hearing his reply, she laughed before saying,

"You might actually turn out to be a good dad."

"Doubt it, I will try my best though." They both laughed as he said that.

When she returned back to her home in the burning realms a month later, she was quite unlucky to encounter her brother Creuserey who had a similar passive life sensing ability as their father, he was able to instantly tell as he sensed two life signs coming from her.

After succesfully persuading him to not inform her parents, she then used the spell she devised to block her Father's sharp senses, something her mother failed to do after countless attempts.

All was fine until the day that one of the aides of the Devil king Diablo, who had the authority of foresight and ability to receive oracles, Drirnos, received two prophecies relating to the child of destruction who is said to bring an end to the gods.

After hearing the prophecies, she felt that it was similar to her situation however, she ignored it believing there couldn't be such coincidences.

Her father ordered for a neutral stance to be taken in relation to him. However, her hooded best friend did not think the same, he had someone, a god with a limited foresight ability look into the child but he was unable to see a thing.

He instructed the lesser god to keep trying, unfortunately this was to no avail, that is until the day he teleported right when the god was utilizing his ability, his presence lessened the barriers placed by casualty that prevented the gods ability from working.

Feeling like it was too good to be true, he called Cattleya and had the god use his ability in their presence.

The end result was as he expected, there were no barriers blocking his ability and he was able to see the appearance of the unborn child of destruction. That was exactly the confirmation needed to be sure that Cattleya's unborn child was the one spoken of in the prophecy.

Cattleya still refused to believe it, however after witnessing the law of casualty protecting her against multiple attempts on her life, she had no choice but to accept the reality.

It should also be noted that the time they foresight god used his ability in the presence of Cattleya and her hooded best friend was also the time Apollo tried to do something similar as such the reason he was able to see part of Cattleya's appearance.

However, unlike that foresight god, Apollo's authority did not extend to seeing the future directly, even so, he tried to see more than he was allowed to and ended up having his divinity halved as a repercussion for attempting to mess the law of casualty. It was a minor offense so he got off lightly.

As she recounted the events that led to her meeting with the father of her child, the anger on her father's face kept on increasing, as he wanted nothing more but to beat up the god who was responsible.

Unfortunately, although he could take guesses on his identity, there was no way to confirm it as Cattleya had no intention of saying who it was.

After promising her brother and father to not do anything that will cause herself to be in danger, she went on to break that promise immediately afterwards as she ordered that rumors be spread that she was the mother of the child of destruction.

When her father heard what she did he was furious but she simply replied saying,

"With how those gods are snooping around, someone would have figured it out sooner or later, I only hastened the process."

Her reply was logical as her father lost any reason to scold her after hearing it, only shaking his head in exasperation as he ordered multiple high ranking devils to guard his daughter, just to be safe.