Chapter 424: Everything will be fine now!

“Father…”

While Kael was training his Sword Aura, Imperia suddenly called out.

“Hmm?”

Kael stopped; his attention was now on Imperia.

“The Elders are praying for you again.”

Imperia informed, making Kael frown.

“Right now?”

He questioned, a little confused. He looked at the sky, thinking that he had maybe lost track of time while training, but the light wasn’t out yet. It was only evening; he had already given them afternoon rations, and there was still a bit of time left for dinner.

So Kael didn’t understand why they wanted to meet him.

Yes, this was another one of the ideas that Lavinia came up with this past week. On the very first day, the Mage had realized that they couldn’t stand together with the elders as they distributed food.

It would take too much of their time—time they could otherwise use to train and get stronger.

At the same time, the Mage also knew that she couldn’t just disappear completely either; for her plans, their presence was important. The people needed to know that the food they ate and enjoyed came from them; the people needed to be more reliant on them.

So in the end, Lavinia came up with this plan.

She left everything to the Elders themselves. Since these people were basically veterans who had worked for decades and only retired recently, they understood how to work together and manage everything efficiently.

The only thing they needed was the ration.

So instead of giving them a week’s worth of ration all at the same time, Lavinia thought of a little more complicated method.

She dove deeper into the concept of ‘Divine Rations’ and told the elders to pray for the rations. She also set up a few more conditions to make it seem a little more realistic.

Some of them were like this—

Their prayers would only be heard if they prayed with pure hearts; there shouldn’t be any greed in their minds. Meaning that while they are allowed to enjoy the food as much as they want, they can never wish for it just so they could store it inside their Sanctuaries.

The prayers can only be heard if more than ten elders prayed together; they needed at least this much faith energy to generate the Divine Rations.

There were some other conditions too, but that was all just Lavinia making things more complicated than they should be.

After all, in her perspective, this was how religion worked.

And because they had at least one ant behind every single one of those elders, every time ten or more elders gathered together, closed their eyes, and stayed still for more than a minute, Imperia would inform Kael about it, and they would appear with Divine Rations, surprising all the Elders and strengthening the notion of Kael being an actual God in their eyes.

After all, even if they were told that they were actually praying for the Divine Rations, the one who was bringing it to them was Kael himself. This simply reinforced their idea of Kael being a Dragon God, and the elders now had almost blind faith in him, so much that many of them might even give their lives away if he asked them to.

If it was before, Kael wouldn’t have accepted it; however, he had already seen these people’s situation. He had realized that he needed to keep that hope factor alive, so in the end, he gave in and went along with Lavinia’s plan.

“It is not about the rations.”

Imperia informed, making Kael’s frown deeper,

“What is it then? Is everything alright? Are they alright?”

He asked in a concerned tone.

By now, Lavinia had arrived next to him as well.

“Let’s talk as we get there.”

The Mage suggested with a light smile as she quickly moved close to her means of transport. Kael stared at her with a deadpan look on his face; however, when he saw the Mage walking towards him with her arms extended, he had no choice but to raise his arms as well.

Lavinia fell into his arms and very quickly tucked her hands inside his shirt, touching his bare back and feeling his warmth. Kael did the same thing. Since almost half of their bodies were covered with their capes, no one could see what they were doing. Plus, the two of them had become so used to hugging each other like this while they slept that this now felt normal to them.

Of course, even if they had questions about whether it was right or not, none of them said it out loud; they felt a little too comfortable in each other’s presence to stop it right now.

Yes, their emotions were getting the better of them.

‘Ahem, ahem.’

Suddenly, Kael heard Vitaria coughing inside his head; the sound quickly pulled him out of his reverie as he flinched.

‘You can enjoy each other’s embrace later, Father. I think you should go meet the elders now. Weren’t you worried about them just a few seconds ago?’

Vitaria spoke in a cheeky, playful voice.

Since she was currently inside the Sanctuary, she was able to talk to him with their mental link without Lavinia or anyone else knowing.

‘You are itching for a spanking, aren’t you?’

Kael answered as his mouth twitched, but knowing that Vitaria was correct, he held Lavinia tighter and flew towards the Elderly.

He landed in front of Maela’s house, where most of the elderlies were gathered. Imperia had already informed him that the matter wasn’t serious and no one was hurt. He didn’t know the details, but those words alone were enough to give him a sense of relief.

Knock Knock

As Kael and Lavinia separated, he quickly knocked on the door, and in an instant,

“Lord Kael! You are here!”

Old Maela greeted him with a big smile on her face.

“Grandma Maela.”

Both Kael and Lavinia smiled as they nodded at her.

“See? I told you he would come if we prayed like this!”

“As expected.”

“Dragon God…”

Behind Maela, the rest of the elders began muttering to each other. While it wasn’t the first time Kael had appeared when they prayed, before this, they only prayed for the ‘Divine Rations,’ and according to Kael’s words, he only ‘brought them here for them.’

He tried to frame the rations as something Divine, not himself—but this time, the Elders didn’t pray for the Divine Rations; they prayed to the Dragon God, and just as they expected, their God appeared at their doorstep.

There was no denying it anymore; their God now lived together with them. Their generation was blessed, and from this moment forth, their people would no longer suffer.

Of course, none of the elders called it out or confronted Kael or Lavinia about this; they whispered to each other and stayed silent. After all, they knew their God didn’t wish to stand on a pedestal.

He wanted to stay humble, wanting to keep the appearance of a ‘perfect’ human.

“You are all gathered here together; is there anything I can help you with?”

Kael questioned with a light smile, ignoring the elders staring at him with fervent eyes with all his might.

Seeing his reaction and knowing exactly what he was thinking, Lavinia, too, was having a hard time holding her laugh, but in the end, she managed to pull it off and kept a straight face.

“Yes!”

Maela nodded at Kael’s words; she then turned towards the rest of the elders, and they all nodded at each other.

Then, Maela slowly held Kael’s hand and took him to her hall, where a large amount of rations was kept on top of a mat.

The sight confused Kael.

He glanced at Maela with a frown, and the woman explained,

“This is all the rations the people from our block have received this month.”

“And…?”

Kael tilted his head, confused as to why they were showing it to him.

They weren’t expecting him to turn the rations into something else, were they?

“We want you to take it.”

Maela answered, making Kael blink in surprise.

“What…?”

Now he was even more confused.

Why were they giving him their rations?

Was this some sort of offering?

“We have the rations you bring to feed us.”

Maela explained.

“That does not mean you have to give this to me. Keep it for emergen—”

“There will be no emergency, Lord Kael.”

Another old man, Armin, spoke with a confident look on his face.

Yes, this was the blind confidence these people had simply because they now believed that they were living together with their God.

“Yes!”

“Everything will be fine now!”

The rest of the Elders nodded as well; the confidence in their tone was almost concerning.

And before Kael could try and convince them—

“We do not know how much time we have left, Lord Kael.”

Maela spoke in a low voice, attracting Kael’s attention.

With a gentle smile on her face, she tightened her hold on his hand and—

“All of us have lived a long life, and your presence alone has blessed us in the last moments of our lives,

But…

If we store these rations in our Sanctuary and if something happens to us, the rations will disappear permanently,

And we cannot allow it.”

The old chef then looked into Kael’s eyes and—

“So please, Lord Kael, keep these rations in our stead.”

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