'Fuck, I forgot! I'm in a devil temple!'
In her flustered state she had overlooked a crucial point. She was not born through a devil union, but through the traditional ritual. The purest way of forming a supreme young devil, channeling the essence of desires from the lower races.
It was obvious that the devil of this temple would be peeking at a successful ritual.
'What should I do now? She must have seen the stars on my back. If she forced me into a contract-'
But her thoughts stopped there as she recalled this particular devil in the book. Her heart calmed a little when she realized the one watching her was Gula, Queen of feasts. This devil, fortunately or unfortunately, was a peculiar one. She never forced a devil into contracts nor killed devils without reason.
She seemed more benevolent than most Tavja would encounter. But it wasn't necessarily kindness that she did those things. It was more like conflict was low on her priority list, as long as she could eat, she couldn't be bothered with anything else, Tavja theorized.
Fortunately she would most likely not do anything malicious, unfortunately she would most likely give no advice or helping hand to her. So gaining a backer early on was a no go.
'This one is most likely eating and watching me to pass the time, like some strange dinner show.'
Tavja placed the golden plate down and turned around to the statue.
"???"
But when she turned around to greet the statue, the head was turned back to its normal position. Tavja squinted her eyes at the stone form. Had she mistaken it? No, the closer she looked at the Idol the more she recognized the strange energy flooding it.
Like an instinct, Tavja could feel the mana that flowed through this place. To her, it felt no different from using her other senses to detect changes in her surroundings.
'Is this magic? It oddly feels familiar… or maybe like a warm wind blowing past your skin?'
She wasn't sure of the feeling, just the presence.
Now being aware of the peeper, Tavja's body automatically adjusted itself to be acutely aware of the world around her, as a result, the magic particles flowing around now seemed to alarm her body of its hidden existence.
Devils being at the Apex of the mortal world was not just an empty title, and as a six star devil, Tavja's body adaptation was amongst the best. Though Tavja couldn't explain why she was now sure the statue was currently 'alive', she was more than sure.
Tavja walked up to the statue and gazed up at it. Unlike earlier, when she stood at this angle, her eyes and the statue's did not meet.
"...."
"...."
"Maybe I imagined it?"
She decided to feign ignorance. She knew how to read a room.
'Gonna keep pretending huh? Fine.'
Tavja decided to ignore the peeper and proceed with her initial plans, gathering information. She would make contact with this face stuffing devil at a later time, she had no time to delay.
As a shut-in whose life revolved around reading web novels, fantasising about getting transmigrated from her boring and empty life, and theory crafting in online forums about the world of {Tragedy of Heroes}, Tavja was oddly the perfect individual to be put in a foreign situation like this.
Her apprehension about her circumstances had all but vanished after a short amount of time here, and her mind began to work on the most optimal path towards her own survival and strength since there seemed to be no readily apparent danger.
'As a transmigrator, one needs to first do the initial checks.'
In her mind the initial checks were obvious. Such checks, of course, referred to a transmigrator's boon, their golden finger!
'System.'
….
Nothing.
'Status'
….
Unresponsive
'O-options?'
….
Pointless
'Tch! Well, I guess R.O.B. thought being a devil was enough of a golden finger.'
She shook her head, she liked this gift, but if she was gonna live in her dream world to the fullest, she would be greedy. She wanted a system, and since she knew others in the book had one, she wanted one as well.
In the story, a system was essentially standard for all the main characters, even the talented ones. Why should she sit around getting her stats exposed while those guys stood there haughtily pretending to be 'geniuses'. If they were gonna cheat, she would too.
Tavja grinned at the thought. In the novel, there were no pure devils as a main character. They all showed up briefly and played antagonistic parts, and what she found annoying was the fact that a few of them fell because of some MC reading their stats and skills, taking advantage of that knowledge to play the pig to eat the tiger.
In fact, the amount of losses sustained by the devils from such methods led to most of them retreating back to the gates of Hellnia right after its reopening.
Tavja glanced at the statue at the center of the temple.
'And one of those that got played the hardest was Gula.'
Even without being a malicious entity, Gula died rather pitifully in the story. All because an MC took advantage of knowing her special abilities.
'Another victim of Damien and his racist lovers.'
Tavja really hated that character, to her, that guy and his harem was an eyesore. She would be sure to pay that cast a visit in the future, she had no need for them to ruin her path to greatness with their 'righteousness'.
She walked up to a table and picked up a large soup bowl, she studied it a bit, then nodded. She then proceeded to carry it to the even larger bowl held by Gula. Under Gula's hidden yet curious gaze, Tavja dipped the bowl in the black liquid and filled it up.
'Now, if I remember correctly, this essence of desire can also be used like this.'
Under the horrified eyes of Gula, Tavja poured it onto the stone floor beneath the altar and began to rub it around. She ignored the twitching lips of the statue and moved with deliberate strokes.
'Strange, my memory seems better than I remember it being in the past.'
As she drew on the ground she realized she could see the intricate patterns of her goal vividly in her mind. Every stroke, circle, and word warped around a concentric pattern, giving birth to a complex sigil.
If Tavja were paying attention to her surroundings, she would witness the statue of Gula craning her neck to observe the writings on the ground, her face dumbfounded and confused as to why a young devil would know such a complicated and nearly unreadable sigil.
~~~
'Has this child already awakened her ancestral knowledge?'
Gula thought as she watched the eccentric young devil scribble lines on her dining room floor with the extra essence gathered from the lower beings. She had been secretly watching the little devil after she felt a spike of energy erupt from her old abandoned temple.
She had no idea who started a ritual in her temple so far away from her territory, and she was even more confused that it had been so successful. The place was empty, there were no sacrifices, nor were there any indication of other devils having entered in the past hundred years.
Initially she thought one of those filthy greed devils had broken past her barrier and was taking advantage of the essence gathering crystal to spawn more of Greed's dogs, but to her surprise the little devil that exited the fountain had no traits of a greed devil. No greed devils have pink hair and eyes, and typically a greed devils facial appearance is rather… well, below average compared to others of the devil race.
But the little girl before her, even at such a young age, possessed a beauty that surpassed most of her kin. Gula could easily tell that when she became older, her appearance would most likely have no rival. She felt a pang of jealousy thinking that, but she also couldn't help but admire such a doll-like face.
'Could she be a devil of the Luxuria branch?'
It was hard to tell, the child was beautiful but she showed a level of narcissism like the Superbia branch as she inspected her face and body with Gula's tableware. She showed a bit of compulsion, randomly slapping herself and laughing maniacally like the Invidia branch as she became lost in thought every now and then. She then showed traits of intelligence like the Acedia branch as she drew sigil after sigil on the ground, indicating an initial awakening of her ancestral knowledge.
The more she watched, the more intrigued and confused she became. She had only heard of a handful of devils that deviated from the norms of newborns. She remembered hearing about one other devil in particular hundreds of years ago that baffled Superbia in her temple in a similar fashion, but she never had the chance to meet him before Superbia and him passed.
'Should I reveal myself to her?'
Gula, being a gluttonous devil, often spent her time indulging herself in decadence. Recently, she didn't really care about much else, she liked eating delicious foods, drinking rare wines and seeing pretty things.
She had stayed so long in the temple for that very reason, the girl was indeed pretty. Gula felt as if she was watching a small pink butterfly just now breaking out of her cocoon, observing her new surroundings with innocent wonder.
But after watching for a while, she now became a bit more curious about the type of devil this little one was. Maybe speaking to her would bring her more insights about the young devils nature.
'Also…'
She remembered seeing the little circle of six stars on the little girl's back. Gula felt it rare to meet a six star devil that none of the devil families or factions had sunk their malicious claws into. A truly free supreme devil.
'Her circumstances are similar to mine.'
Gula smiled thinking back to her past as a young six star devil, before the establishment of the primordial devils and all the underhanded schemes that followed.
'Perhaps talking to her and warning her about the outside world would be a good idea.'
She glanced back at the pink haired devil finishing up with her grand sigil.
'I'll welcome her when she's finished with whatever she's do-'
But before she completed her thought, something even more baffling happened, something Gula had never even seen or heard of before.
The little girl clapped her hands together and spoke."[Promised Wish:] esicrexe ym thgir ot na ecneidua htiw eht revresbo, rossessop fo lla egdelwonk!"
As the words escaped the girl's lips, black chaos energy began to surge into the sigils. The amount was so staggering the Temple began to rumble and shake.
Gula was taken aback, she could feel the little devils minuscule mana, she shouldn't be able to harness this amount of chaos energy. Even for her, channeling this much would be dangerous.
'She used some sort of wish magic, but it doesn't seem like she'll be able to handle that energy with her body. S-should I cancel the wish?'
But before Gula could even make a decision on helping the girl, a terrifying aura swept through the temple. The rumbling had subsided, replaced with unsettling stillness, as if every molecule in the area had frozen in place. Time had stopped.
Through the statue, Gula herself was affected. Her body was placed in a stasis, the muscles in her body could no longer move, her heart had stopped beating, every cell of her form had ceased, save for her mind.
She still lived, she felt no discomfort, but the fear in her now frozen in place heart was surging wildly. She couldn't struggle, she couldn't shout, she could only observe.
And observe she did, as the void itself slowly tore open, revealing a giant black eye in front of the young devil, who seemed to be unaffected by the stasis field around her.
The little girl bowed in front of the eye and spoke.
"This one requests a name from the Observer… also,I wish to make a deal with the left eye."
The giant eye squinted at the young devil for a moment, seemingly in thought. It then glanced at the statue, where Gula watched, frozen in place.
The eye shifted its gaze back to the still bowing little devil and spoke.
"The first request is recognized and accepted. The Master has already chosen names for you, young one. Left Direction is considering your second request, he wishes to know what you are offering?" the eye spoke, it's tone neutral.
Tavja replied coolly. " I offer what the Left Direction desires most, Time of course."
Though the entity was just an eye, anyone watching could tell it was smirking at that answer.
"Hmph, he has readily agreed… I must say, you are quite generous. Sharing such knowledge. Most devil's hoard such information." The eye leaned in, getting a closer look at the girl.
The pink haired devil smiled. "Does it even matter if she knows?" she replied, completely at ease.
But the eye saw all. The subtle trembling of the heart, the hairs raising on her neck, the small fluctuating soul deep down. 'Quite good at hiding it.' He thought.
"Hmph true...rules are rules, those that should know, know. Those that don't, don't."
The eye then blinked.
As the little one stood there, a black gate began to expand rapidly under her.
Gula on the other hand, was incensed. Her mind was in chaos. What was that spell she just cast? What was that gigantic eye hovering in her temple? Why is its presence so overwhelming? Arent entities that directly change laws like this banned from entering planes of Neel?
Such thoughts had well surpassed overloading Gula's mind, so much so that the conversation between the girl and the eye had yet to register to her. By the time Gula came back to her senses, and realized she could move again, The young devil and the eye had already disappeared from her temple.
~~~
The Observer's plane. Somewhere in between.
When Tavja opened her eyes once more she stood in a white expanse.
The ground, though just as white as everything else, seemed to be made of some sort of metallic material, given the hard and cool sensation it gave her bare feet.
There were no walls anywhere, and the sky itself was white and stretched to the horizon, yet had no indication of any sun nor stars.
In front of her sat a table and two chairs, also white.
Despite everything being as snow white as it was, there seemed to be no strain in her eyes, nor was there any trouble indicating one thing from another.
At the table, there hovered above one of the chairs was a single giant human looking eye with a golden iris.
The eye was about the size of a basketball, as Tavja gazed at it, it gazed back.
'Not as unsettling as the other.'
The Eye then leaned forward in what seemed to be its version of a bow.
"Welcome young devil, I am Left Direction, head of the Observer's eyes that gaze at the past, present, and future. You may call me Left."
"Hello, Left."
Tavja greeted the eye as she walked to the chair and sat down.
The eye scrutinized Tavja for a bit in silence as she scrooched her chair closer to the table.
Although she remained calm on the outside, she was a little weirded out with how the eyes seemed to have a voice coming from seemingly nowhere.
The eye wasn't using anything like telepathy like she assumed.
It seemed more like a voice just came into existence where Tavja would guess a mouth would be.
Once she was settled she rested her arms on the table and placed one hand on top of the other. She then smiled at the large eye, ready to begin.
Despite her fears deep down, she was also excited for what was to come next. Gaining a devil name and finalizing this deal with Left Direction will build her foundation of power and prepare her for the difficult road ahead.
'I just need to play my cards right, and the world will be my playground.'
Her grin couldn't help but widen.