Son of the Hero King

"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. 

What more, he inflicted such a severe loss to the chimera Army, that it was unbelievable. 

Mars Luxuria was a hero. He was the Hero king, and he was dead. 

Should he feel proud of having such a father? 

Sol didn't think so. He would rather sacrifice the world than sacrifice himself or his loved one. 

He didn't hate his father. He didn't have the qualifications to hate him, nor did have enough memories about his parents for them to be nothing than strangers. 

But… If Mars was the hero in people's minds, in Sol's opinion Mars was just a bastard who murdered his wife and died with her, effectively making their child an orphan. 

He knew it was extremely selfish. A thought not worthy of a king. But, humans were selfish. He wasn't a saint. 

"Master, forget it, let's continue."

Sol wasn't one to dwell on negative thoughts, there were simply too many things he had to do than to lose time worrying or brooding. 

Edea, cast an approving glance at her disciple before continuing, 

"This world structure is simple. Fourteen goddesses, fourteen divine beasts, seven kingdoms, and seven churches, and at the very peak of all that–."

She made another hologram appear. This time in the form of a pyramid. She lightly touched the very peak as she said, 

"The mother goddess."

-----

The genesis of the world was so. The mother goddess created the world. She was an all-powerful being, but she wasn't satisfied. She felt alone. As such she decided to have people surround her.

Those people were her fourteen daughters each of them born from one of her sins or virtues. 

Each of her daughters was born as a pair. Making seven pairs. 

For a time, a long long time, those fourteen lived together, but then the daughter also wished to create life-like their mother did. 

Their first creation were the fourteen divine beasts. But, those creations weren't enough. Or rather they were too perfect. So perfect that they had no way to grow nor change. 

So, the fourteen daughters turned their attention toward the world. 

"What if we created life on this world void of any life?" Asked one. 

"What if they were granted imperfections so that they could grow and change?" proposed another. 

Soon they reached consensus and created life. Each pair created one race. 

This is why nowadays all of the seven races created kingdoms and churches following their respective goddess. 

---

Edea finished her tale as she smiled, "Of course I don't need to ask you which of the fourteen goddesses created humans right?" 

She didn't wait to answer as she continued, 

"The same happened to the divine beasts. They followed the goddesses who created them and became the symbol of the kingdoms and churches that were being created."

Another image appeared, it was that of a bird. No, more precisely–

"The sacred Phoenix of chastity, Gabriel and–" 

A second image appeared close to it, 

"–The cunning snake of lust… Asmodeus."