A News Station in the Capital City of the Terran Republic

“Oh, you mean that rumor,” Chloe plays along while shaking her head. “The one where some people are beginning to wonder if the Warden is entirely human herself.”

“Right!” Jackson says while pointing at his sister. “I’m particularly fond of the rumor of her being some amalgamation of the White Knight’s genes and a void creature.”

“Why not a demon?” Chloe asks with a frown, but her brother just shakes his head and says, “That’s not possible. There have been records of a human and a demon trying to have children before, and each and every time the child died or became a full-blooded demon soon after childbirth. Some of them even before they were fully born.”

“Ah, right,” Chloe says with a look of understanding on her face.

“So what’s your favorite rumor?” Jackson asks while leaning forwards in his chair as if conspiring against something.

Chloe purses her lips before looking back behind her chair for a moment and then back at her brother, “Well, I know this rumor is completely impossible, but I personally like the rumor that she is the daughter of the White Knight of Humanity and a blood lycan.”

Her brother gasps at that, making his sister quickly bring her hands up to say, “It’s not a very founded rumor. Just one that people made jokingly online because she resembles a blood lycan with her wolf-like features.” She lowers her hands again. “I just really like the whole star crossed lovers thing that it would mean between the White Knight and a demon. It’s just,” she pauses as she gets a dreamy look in her eye, one that isn’t actually planned by the production as she truly feels this way, “romantic! Don’t you think?”

Jackson smirks slightly and says, “Yeah, but it could never come true. And if it did, the White Knight would draw a ton of ire from the people.”

“You don’t think the Warden would get any hatred?” Chloe asks with a faint look of feigned surprise as she tilts her head.

Her brother shakes his head and says, “Probably not. She’s fighting on the frontlines against the demons after all and helping quite a bit at that. It’s not her fault who she was born to.”

Scarlet

I stare blankly at the TV screen as the two news reporters continue talking, but I don’t really pay much attention to what they’re actually saying. Not after hearing them say that even if I was exposed, the humans would probably direct their anger towards Amelia instead of me.

“That’s… actually not all that surprising,” Tar says from his place in my lap. I look down at him from my place seated on the couch before he explains, “Well, it’s what they’ve already said. You’ve made your position on Earth’s side of the war clear for all to see, even if the demons are too stuck in their ways to realize it. So sure there will probably be a lot of people who are afraid of you if you get exposed, the majority probably won’t be. And even amongst those afraid of you, I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of them still consider you a weapon that they’re pointing towards the demons.”

Oh. Right.

I’d basically be a clan demon turned traitor, helping the humans with their sorely lacking manpower.

“Yeah,” Tar says with a nod of his head before lying his head back down on my legs. “Amelia won’t be getting off that easily though.”

True. But she probably won’t care.

Tar hums in agreement.

I’m pretty sure Amelia doesn’t care about her public image at all.

It’s too bad she can’t just erase that memory from everyone’s minds though. If it were ever revealed that is.

“She mentioned something to you about it before, right?” Tar asks as the news reporters move on to talking about Blake, who is apparently fighting on the frontlines at the main battlefield.

Yeah. She said that it would be too much information to remove from too many people’s minds. That she doesn’t have the mana for it, and even if she did, she would end up turning a sizeable chunk of the world’s humans into walking vegetables by doing it.

“How did she wipe out all of the other information on her that she did before?” Tar asks while raising his head to look at me again.

Well, apparently she was unconscious for nearly a year after that. On and off, of course. With her waking up and doing the removal process bit by bit with each tiny detail about her one at a time before going back unconscious.

But she can’t do that with one large and very prominent piece of information that will be at the forefront of everyone’s minds.

A rather large restriction on that skill, but I guess it’s still just a skill. And all skills have to have their limits.

Even a Title-Bearing Mythic skill like Erase.

I think there’s also a level limit on the skill. That she can’t Erase anything or anyone who is a higher level than her at all, and the higher level the being is she’s trying to erase or erase something about, the more mana it costs to do it.

“It’s the skill she got for her White Knight of Humanity Title, right?” Tar asks, making me glance at him with a raised brow.

I thought you already knew all this?

He stares at me for a few seconds before slowly lying down to take a nap.

You forgot, didn’t you?

He doesn’t answer.

I snort while shaking my head.

It is the skill she got from that Title, you’re correct. And it’s an incredibly powerful skill. The ability to erase anything from existence for an incredibly large amount of mana as long as it’s a lower level than you. Including a concept itself, although it would only be for a like a few meters cubed in volume.

“Oh, right, couldn’t she erase something like gravity entirely in a small amount of space, as if that concept didn’t exist in the first place?” Tar asks, acting like he hadn’t forgotten.

Yeah. But it costs more mana than she has to erase someone who’s even just two hundred levels below her, so she doesn’t use that particular skill often. Might actually cost more than she has to erase someone who is three hundred levels beneath her.

I lean back against the couch in the middle of the living area of my rather small suite of only a few rooms at the base. Something that’s supposed to be a privilege for someone at my Class, but just feels small. Probably because I kind of got a tad used to the Princess treatment on Tartarus in terms of rooms and stuff. Not to mention that it wasn’t much different on Earth before that considering my suite at the university.

Anyways, that news station actually made me relax a little bit.

Before I can really get comfortable though, I immediately sit straight again and pull out my terminal.

I forgot to check.

How are the online forums responding to this news?