Chapter 152 - Esna Wood, Potential Godslayer

"I knew Lute would get the hint, finally some true privacy."

Arthur gestured for the standing Esna to take a seat opposite him, she obliged and stared at him weirdly before speaking up.

"This...Universe, Hell. Is it really as big as the memories that gem passed onto me?"

"Yep."

Esna was silent at his reply. She had learned the theory of other worlds existing, she had also seen ancient books that spoke of the container that held myriads of planets and stars within itself.

A galaxy.

She could not comprehend how large such a thing was then.

However, she was now forced to fully understand, how large not just one of these galaxies were, but many others and the fact that the thing called a universe actually existed.

"To be honest...I still don't fully believe all this."

"Of course, that's the normal reaction."

Arthur placed his hands on the table in front of him and stared at Esna straight in the eyes. She met his gaze and her body trembled involuntarily.

"You, the memories said you were some sort of prophesied child that gods wanted to kill.

I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that gods exist and they were even beings who could compare with them."

Arthur chuckled lightly and ran a hand through his messy hair before replying. 

"All the things you saw were all real. They all exist.

However, that's not all."

Esna stared at Arthur with a look on her face that said 'There's more?' She clearly did not want to know, however Arthur just grinned and continued speaking.

"You see, there are these things called 'slayer' races.

According to what I read in the royal library, these races pop up when the actions of a certain race are considered harmful by a multitude of other races in many universes."

"Did you just say universes??!"

Esna interrupted Arthur and asked with a loud voice, seeing that, Arthur realized that Tasha did not include knowledge of other universes and sighed.

"Don't worry about that for now will ya."

He then stood up and walked to the nearby vending machine, after getting two canned drinks from it, he tossed one to her and sat back down.

"How did you know I liked strawberries?"

"I didn't, just guessed."

Esna sighed and took a sip from the drink while staring at Arthur who continued speaking.

"Any way, slayer races have been appearing for billions of years so people have inevitably attempted to find out the reasons for their appearance.

There are also other mysteries about them that have not yet been uncovered.

And as I said earlier, it was discovered that slayer races pop up when the actions of a certain race are considered harmful by a multitude of other races.

However, everything has a start.

Even races.

The first of every race is called a progenitor.

It does not matter how small that race is or how weak it is.

Even slayer races have progenitors.

I believe, that I am the progenitor of the god 'slayer' race."

"You? Slaying gods?"

Esna stared at Arthur with a look that showed she could not fathom the thought of god being slayed, much less by Arthur.

"Obviously I can't do any of that now, but everyone starts from somewhere don't they?"

Arthur spoke with a tinge of annoyance, his irritation at being weak was evident in his voice.

The event that occurred earlier where he could not even stand when exposed to the pressuring aura transcendents passively released from their bodies still irked him.

He understood that a the fact that he was already a grandmaster at the young age of 14 was already a feat in itself, but that didn't change the fact that he was ultimately still too weak to do anything significant by himself.

He needed to rely on Lewis, Lute and his other subordinates to protect himself from enemies far above what he could take on.

'The Third Magic...I should really cast this soon.'

He pushed those depressing thoughts out of his head and spoke to Esna who had finished digesting the information Arthur just gave out, or at least it seemed she had.

"So, as I was saying. 

These things called slayer races have many mysteries about them.

One of which, is how random their appearances are. A slayer and a slayer, would obviously have a slayer child.

However, there are instances where parents of two completely unrelated races have a slayer child.

The reason for this and the cause or a way to prevent it have not been discovered yet."

"So you're saying that the kid born from two human parents could be a slayer?"

"Yep."

"That's absurd."

"As is everything else in existence."

Arthur replied to Esna's words with his own while shrugging his shoulders. 

"Anyway, random shit like that happens, and I believe that you, happened to be one of those random cases."

Esna pointed to herself with a questioning look on her face and Arthur nodded before continuing.

"To put it mildly, I believe that you may be a member of my god 'slayer' race. You would be the first one I have ever met so I am not so sure.

But besides that, I can't really think about a reason for the strange feeling we go when we met.

If it's you as a member of a god slaying race, meeting their progenitor, then it can be explained, I think."

Pondering on his words, Esna realized that there seemed to be some sense in them, just as she was about to speak, Arthur then asked her a question.

"By the way, how old are you?"

It was a casual question but unfortunately, it was one she did not want to answer.

"Huh? Don't you know it's rude to ask a lady their age?"

"That's bullcrap, what's the big deal about your ages?"

"It is a very big deal, anyway I'm not telling."

Esna crossed her arms in front of her chest and looked away, as for Arthur, he just kept on asking her to tell him.

"Just tell me already, I wanna confirm something."

"Why do you even want to know anyway? Either way, I'm not tel- 13."

"Just s- Huh?"

The two stared at each other in confusion.

Esna was confused on why she suddenly blurted out her actual age and Arthur was confused why he just lost a bit of magic power.

'It couldn't be...right?'

"Why did I...?"

Looking at the confused Esna, Arthur decided to try something out.

"What's your dad's name?"

"My dad's...why should I t- Richard Woods."

Once again, she was confused as to why she suddenly answered his question as if it was natural and Arthur had his magic power decrease again.

'Again, I lost magic power and her reply to me was obviously not at will. More like she was forced to reply. Does this mean I can exert some sort of control over her? Or perhaps not her but all members of my race?'

He then decided to ask a third question.

"What's your mother's name?"

"Why do-"

Esna was about to reflexively reply but stopped and covered her mouth for fear she might speak without willing to again.

"Ha, I'm not gonna ask anything again."

Although Arthur said that, she obviously did not believe him, evidenced by how she still had her hands covering her lips.

"I'm serious, just put your hands down."

Esna wanted to shake her head in disagreement but she found her hands moving down on their own.

"Wha-wha-"

While she was wondering why her body refused to listen to her, Arthur confirmed his theory.

Ever since Arthur met Esna's father and was intimidated by him, summoning Celestia was not the only thing he did.

He also reflexively activated the Authority of a progenitor, as while it would not have an effect against Richard who was only human, the boost to his strength it gave him was quite good.

However, he had not deactivated it ever since.

In other words, throughout his conversation with Esna, his Authority had been active, however its energy consumption was minimal as all it was doing was boosting Arthur's base strength parameters.

When he asked Esna the first question and felt some of his energy drain away, he also felt his Authority do something other than just boost his base power.

The same for the second, however when he asked the third, he deactivated the Authority and nothing happened, no loss of energy, neither did Esna answer him regardless of her will.

This was what confirmed his suspicion that while his progenitor authority was active, he could exert some sort of control over members of his race.

He did not know the limits of this, but he had enough time to test it, after all, he planned to take Esna with him, back to the academy.

"Hey Esna, I have a proposal for you."

"Huh?"

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"Lemme get something straight, so you want me, to go with you, to a school filled with devils and many other races, where 14 year olds being stage 5 hunters is apparently a normal thing."

"Not exactly normal but yeah, by the way, what's stage 5?"