Chapter 23: Geography, history and religion (1/2)

”Your conversation with Little Lilith was particularly interesting.”

Sol made a deadpan face at the way his teacher brought her peeking habits.

Still, he nodded. He was rather happy about his discussion with her and managed to learn some things he didn't have a complete grasp on.

Edea smiled before waving her hand in the air, mana gathered at the tip of her fingertips, and soon a spherical holographic map was slowly formed in front of him.

”But she is right. It's necessary for you to always have a better grasp of the world.”

It wasn't the first time he saw such a map. After all, it was the map of the known world.

”As you know, our world is a body made out of 30% of land and 70% of water. We have a worldwide population of nearly 2 billion and a ratio of 3:7 men to women .”

Each time Sol saw this map, he couldn't help but fall deep in thoughts. Even though the form of the continents were a little different, this map really made him think of Earth.

'No, this is more like Earth's Pangea map with the continents already a bit away from each other.'

He could already roughly recognize the shape of Africa or America. This was one of the reasons that made him think that this world should either be Earth in the past or most likely, a parallel Earth.

”The living places are divided into seven countries, with each of them taking a huge chunk of the habitable land.”

On the map, the number of places where living and farming was possible were highlighted in green while the ones that weren't in red. The green was overwhelmingly inferior to the red.

”Our country, the kingdom of Lustburg is headed by the luxuria royal family and the Castitas Church. We are one of the largest countries with an area of more than 3 million km². The largest one being Gluttony Foss with 18 millions.”

Sol and Edea mirrored a grimace at the mention of Gluttony Foss. The royal families and church of gluttony Foss worked differently than the one for the other countries. Since one woman held power over the two structures, the moderatio church, and the Gula royal family, with total impunity.

Echidna Gula. Also known as the mother of thousands of monsters.

A being only slightly younger than the fourteen divine beasts. Some even called her the fifteenth divine beast.

That woman was the stuff of legends and nightmares. Mothers used her name to scare their children. Some people even thought that her existence was a myth.

But this wasn't the problem. It wasn't like there wasn't a bunch of old monsters in this world aside from Echidna. No, the problem was that for some unknown reason, she would regularly wage war on a random kingdom every few decades.

No one knew her goal, no one could understand her.

She was in no way interested in conquest. The fact that the world still had seven kingdoms was the proof.

She wasn't interested in resources. The part she held control over was fraught with minerals and cultivable land. Her kingdom was completely independent of any form of trade outside of its borders.

She wasn't interested in slaves nor manpower, the population of her kingdom was the largest by far in the world.

In short, Echidna was an enigma, and getting her attention was synonymous with calamity. The last time she waged war… was 13 years ago, against the Lustburg kingdom.

The result? An overwhelming loss, the death of the majority of the men who were sent to war, making the man/women ratio of Envilya to be 3:7, and the death of the king, Mars.

----

A depressing atmosphere settled briefly between the two.

Sol clenched his fists in frustration. In this world, Echidna was no different from a natural calamity.

No. At least with magic, you could stop an earthquake or a tempest. But, no amount of magic was enough to stop Echidna.

At least this was the consensus… Until Mars.

'Man, no matter how he was with women, my father was truly a badass.'

He didn't know much about this part of history. No one around him was forthcoming about what happened and there was no exact record of what happened.

The only thing that was known was that, at the price of life and that of his wife, Mars managed to create a barrier that sealed Echidna within her castle and would slowly but surely weaken her for each year she was under it.