A Jaded Life

Chapter 1335

Landing in the centre of Maggie’s community, I got a few odd looks. Part of those looks were directed at my wings, as few people here had seen those before, but some of them were focused on me. Luckily, it didn’t take a genius to notice the hostility some of those gazes held, or I might not have noticed it in the first place. As things were, I could almost feel some of those stares stab into me, to the point that I briefly focused on my Mind Magic and took a brief glance into the minds of those who were staring the hardest.

What I found was both a little disappointing and so utterly predictable that it was boring. Somehow, during the last few days I had spent in the north to make my prison and fly around, a rumour had spread through this community like wildfire. Allegedly, I was trying to take control of their community, trying to turn myself into a Goddess, and was holding important arcane knowledge hostage to accomplish that. According to rumour, everyone of them should have the same capabilities I had demonstrated, and it was only because I was deliberately limiting them that they were so mundane and weak. Without my presence and influence, they would be able to rise above and excel.

A part of me wanted to challenge Joshua, whom I assumed to be responsible, but what would that change? He wanted to pressure me into teaching him, though I wasn’t sure he had thought that one through. Why would I want to teach him now, if I hadn’t been willing before? Would teaching him magically, or maybe miraculously, restore my reputation, or would nothing change in that regard? Was he trying to show off his supposed power, trying to threaten me by ruining my reputation and suggesting he could add even more, and worse, rumours to this?

Or had he only started the rumour, and the rumours had then taken a life of their own at some point, maybe due to jealousy, or possibly because somebody else had joined in on the gossip? People could be irrational during the best of times, and the current situation here was far from that, so maybe the original rumours had mutated, like the disease they were. Sadly, the only inoculation to this was exposure to the truth, and I was far too busy to introduce myself to everyone in the village, let alone convince them of my benign nature. Especially as that would be a lie in and of itself, I was many things, but benign and purely benevolent was not amongst my virtues.

Shaking my head, I let the wings on my back disintegrate into glittering ice that sparkled in the dim light of the sun, enjoying the brief moment of exposure to an almost pure manifestation of one of my favourite elements before starting to walk away. The people behind me were starting to talk as I was walking away, some of them sounding quite annoyed, others appeared agitated.

I didn’t stick around to listen, but my hearing was good enough to pick up on the fact that there seemed to be two distinct groups, both with a very different impression of me. Some of them, at least from what I could hear, were fully on board with the rumours I had plucked from a few minds back there, making me think that those were the voices connected to those minds.

A few others seemed to be on my side, trying to convince those angry with me that they were wrong. I almost had to laugh at that idea. Whenever had logic, reason and facts been enough to convince somebody that an irrationally held belief was, in fact, wrong? People seemed to like holding on to such beliefs, especially in the face of evidence. It was that kind of phenomenon that bred numerous conspiracy theories before the change, and why would the end of the world as we know it change such a fundamental part of human nature? That would take something much more severe; maybe if there were no more humans, it would be gone. But probably not, even their ghosts, or maybe some artificial intelligence, would continue to argue, even after all humans were gone. Or maybe especially then, trying to convince people that the Earth was actually flat, that mankind had never gone to the moon or some other strange idea.

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Though the thing with the flat Earth, how would magically created spaces play into that? How did those work with the rest of the globe? So far, I had only seen relatively small spaces, without any impact on the planetary scale, but what would happen if such a space were to be large enough to swallow a continent? Would the mass of such a continent still impact the rest of the planet, or would something weird happen? Could I somehow dimensionally encapsulate Antarctica and claim the continent for myself, maybe with a few Penguins enchanted to work as my personal butlers, or maybe chefs?

This was an interesting question, and not one I could answer easily. Maybe this was something I could discuss with Lady Hecate, though it might well be impossible to make a dimensional pocket large enough to have an impact on that scale. So, the idea to claim Antarctica for myself and turn it into my own, comfortable pocket-continent might be impossible in the first place.

For a moment, I considered seeking out Joshua and giving him my challenge, but then I decided differently. Instead, I would ask Luna, Lia and maybe even Maggie to quietly add my own twist to the rumours already coursing through the community.

Namely, those who wished to learn magic from me had to seek out Jademoon Tower, just as it had been the case in the previous winter. And earlier in this winter, showing just how stupid those rumours were, once anyone put the slightest bit of logic and mental effort towards disproving them. But maybe that was too much to ask from a large group of random humans, even those who didn’t know me should know somebody who had learned from me.

Hel, large parts of the current comfort this community enjoyed were due to my teaching, especially regarding the numerous enchantments that provided fresh, clean water. Somebody should realise where those came from; it wasn’t as if this community was located near a source of clean, fresh drinking water. While there was a brook somewhat close to the village, few, if any, people made regular trips there, and those who walked the distance didn’t do so to collect water, but to try catching fish or something like that. But alas, I might have overestimated the ability to reason logically in a large group. People could be so utterly… disappointing.

But disappointing or not, I had no interest in going back on the promise I had given Maggie a few weeks ago, right after the mess with the Blessed City. To say nothing of that strange, niggling sense of guilt and responsibility I felt for the numerous women who had become pregnant, largely due to my desire to break Sunna’s power over her city.

So, I didn’t go along with my first instinct to simply leave in the face of large, hostile groups of people. Instead, I calmly walked over to the hospital, quite proud of the work I had done here, and entered, glancing at the list of people who wished for mental treatments. I had been quite lazy with those, especially disappearing two days in a row now. I would have to make up for that, especially since treating those people was slowly improving my Mind Magic. Not in a dramatic fashion that would yield a lot of skill points, maybe because the people were volunteering and there was essentially no danger to me while treating them, but I was feeling myself get better with that magic.

Like earlier, picking thoughts from a mind, or even the deep scan on Joshua a few days ago, those were tricks I hadn’t really managed before. But now, after working with Jess and a few of the other locals, trying to help them overcome trauma? It was getting quite easy to enter others' minds and view their memories, at least as long as I took my time.

Maybe I would eventually be able to just glance at someone and know everything they had ever done, read their mind’s history like an open book and file it away in the ever-expanding library of my own mind.

It sounded like an interesting ability, allowing me to learn a lot about other people, their minds and magic in general. But it also sounded like a massive headache waiting to happen. Did I really want to know the teenage insecurities and adolescent misdeeds of everyone I ever met?

Just imagining it sent a shiver through my body. I had more than enough of such memories within my own lifetime, so a mental filter, or maybe some brain-bleach, would certainly be necessary if I ever learned how to scan minds like that. Just for my own sanity.