Calvin knew he should hide away deeper in the alleyway.

  If one of the shop owners got irritated…

  Well, they usually got irritated by his presence even when he was healthy, just by his appearance, let alone now. Diseased, ill, even more of an eyesore than normal.

  Calvin didn’t know what he was hoping for, reaching out of the alleyway.

  Pity?

  Sympathy?

  Some alms?

  Maybe a swift death at the hands of the guards, instead of slowly wasting away to this disease?

  Or maybe… A hand to reach out to him too, to grab at him and pull him out of this hole of misery?

  But that was impossible, even in his dreams.

  So when a hand did reach out, touching his hand—holding tight to Calvin’s dirty, blood-streaked, oozing hand to lift him up—he didn’t know what to believe.

  It couldn’t be real. Perhaps his mind had finally broken fully, giving up on reality and hallucinating something comforting in his last moments?

  He stared up at the well groomed man pretending to blend in— simple clothes and haphazard dirty makeup couldn’t hide his clean and sharp appearance from someone who observed people all day like Calvin. The stranger couldn’t have been more out of place. And when he heard the man’s words, he knew he was indeed just hallucinating.

  “Kid, I’m a god. Well, demigod, technically, but it’s almost the same thing, y’know? Wanna be my disciple?”

  If Calvin had been any less delirious, any less ill, any less tired, if he’d been even slightly confident that this wasn’t a dream, perhaps he would have answered differently. Perhaps he would have let his well honed paranoia rule over him, wondering if the man was just broken in the head or this was some sort of a weird fetish he had, offering orphan kids weird, unbelievable kinds of offers and hopes, but…

  Calvin was just that right combo of delirious, tired, ill, and recklessly confident.

  “Sure.”

  …that worked?

  (??﹏??;)

  Honestly, Dominic was surprised it worked too. He was just starting off the conversation in a direct manner—he’d expected mistrust from the kid, to have to prove it to him by healing him and doing some magical shenanigans, but well. If it worked, it worked.

  “I’ll make sure you don’t regret this, kiddo.” As he spoke, Dominic let his Holy Power flow through his arms into the kid, fully healing whatever disease he had.

  To his surprise, it was the same kind of plague that the villagers had, but that village was quite far for anyone who couldn’t fly. Was this plague something mainstream in this world? It seemed far too virulent for that, considering how unbothered everyone else seemed. Well, he could look into that another time. Right now he had more important things to do.

  Heal and bolster the kid’s body fully, cure the malnutrition, bring him to his genetic peak, imbue any and all talents he could think of, remove the memory block—

  Huh? The kid has a memory block? Why does the kid have a memory block?

  Dominic slipped the kid into slumber while he cautiously removed the memory block cautiously. Had it been placed for the kid’s own good? Maybe he was some secret heir who remembered past lives or some great secrets that had to be sealed for his own safety, and the whole ‘being a homeless orphan’ was a trial set by his family?

  Dominic had seen that particular trope happen live far too many times for him to believe in the concept of the world being sane. He would not be surprised if some secret ninja assassins popped out of the shadows and tried to end him on the spot. Or mage assassins, perhaps, that’d be more fitting for this world based on the mana imbued on the roads and the fact that Rift Sealers was a thing.

  No assassins of any sort appeared, and the kid’s head didn’t explode—he could heal the kid if that happened, alright, he wasn’t being irresponsible!—so clearly the memory seal had been malicious.

  Dominic was tempted to scour through the kid’s memories himself, but that would be far too invasive. He knew how much trust he’d lose in the kid’s eyes if he were to breach his privacy.

  Now that Dominic had repaired and boosted everything about the kid, his robust physique revealed he wasn’t a preteen, just malnourished.

  Anyone below a few hundred thousand years was a kid in his eyes, but still. His new disciple wasn’t a kid kid.

  But the kid did need time to rest and let his new body acclimate itself, which meant talking to him would have to wait until he woke up.

  “So, what now?” He’d imagined his search for a disciple taking a little longer, and hadn’t quite planned out what to do after.

  Maybe you could rent a room at an inn? Mister Disciple could reveal what the memory block is about once he wakes up, Mister Dominic!

  (*′▽`*)

  Dominic nodded. “Inns, of course. Good plan. So, what’s the currency around here? Show me how a gold coin looks, and I’ll create a few hundred thousand of those to use.”

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  M—Maybe a few hundred thousand would be t—too much… I think even the Nohl Royal Treasury only has a few hundred thousand gold coins… A few thousand should be plenty to spend!

  (?﹏?//)

  “Hmm. Your currency system is broken. A royal treasury only having a few hundred thousand…? That’s just a sad state of affairs. Is Nohl a small kingdom, perhaps?”

  Not at all, it is called an Empire for a reason! It is the dominant force on this continent, the most powerful human nation in the world!

  (,,>﹏<,,)

  Dominic shook his head again and sighed. “Primitive.”

  (╥﹏╥)

  When Calvin woke up, it was in a soft bed.

  A very, very soft bed. Straight out of his dreams.

  He blinked, taking in his surroundings. He was in… an inn. Wooden ceiling, wooden floorboard, brightly smiling man—

  Memories began rushing in, starting from just before he fainted.

  Kid, I’m a god. Wanna be my disciple?

  Based on how good his body felt—and how different it felt—the man had done a lot more than healing him. Realistically, the man was just a very accomplished Rift Sealer with a god complex.

  But the memory that truly stuck to him, that truly disturbed him, wasn’t when a man claimed to be god and completely healed him on the spot.

  It was the memory of a different, robed man… injecting a goddamn disease into him. An unnatural glowing thing, malicious and unmistakable.

  Calvin hadn’t fallen ill naturally. Someone deliberately spelled the plague into him, incapacitating him, leaving him to slowly wither and die a brutal death.

  And then, they memory spelled him, sealing that memory away into the depths of his mind. If not for this healer, the memory would have died with Calvin believing only blind chance brought about his terrible death.

  Calvin didn’t know how to feel about this.

  Rage?

  Fear?

  Despair?

  Rage that his life had been so worthless, that any mage could just experiment with him and no one would ever find out? Fear that he did not have the strength to protect himself, make worth for himself? Despair that he had no way to grow—

  Calvin’s head snapped towards the smiling man with an audible click.

  He did have a way to make himself stronger. A way that had been offered to him out of nowhere, an offer he had no idea why the man would ever make to him, of all people.

  Perhaps he needed someone to fatten up like a lamb before slaughter, so he healed him and trained him and—

  Oh, who was he kidding, the man had no reason to trick him and call him a disciple if that was truly the case. He could’ve openly said he wanted to sacrifice Calvin, and Calvin would have still taken the chance. At least then he’d die being of use to someone, die healthy and not withering away in some random alleyway.

  The man kept smiling, staring at Calvin without blinking, clearly waiting for Calvin to speak first.

  The man’s gaze made Calvin uncomfortable, made him want to break away, look at anywhere else but at the man, but… Calvin was stubborn. He wouldn’t break this staring contest first.

  And so they stared at each other for a solid minute.

  But, in the end, it was Calvin who finally broke the silence, hesitantly. “So… you’re claiming to be a god?”

  “Demigod.” The man corrected. “I know it’s rather unbelievable, even with me healing you. Any amazingly skilled Rift Sealer could heal you. Potions exist in this world too, after all.”

  “Demigod is still unbelievable, yes, even after the healing.”

  The man stroked his chin, his eyes narrowing. “Then, what could I do to prove that I’m indeed a demigod and not just pranking you…? Hm, maybe I could change the weather…? No, that won’t be amazing enough… Aha!” The man’s eyes shone with sudden excitement, “I can pause time!”

  Calvin blinked. “You can what, now?”

  “Well, not the time of the entire universe,” Dominic clarified. That’d be ludicrous, even for him. “But for this world, sure!”

  He could momentarily stop a world’s orbit and its time, but the entire universes’ and its providence, fate, destiny, all those fiddly tangled things? Yeah, no. He wasn’t the Mythical Time God!

  His disciple just stared at him blankly.

  “Is that insufficient?” Dominic would normally offer to do something more dramatic, like destroying a part of the world, maybe draining the seas, perhaps passing some divine oracle, but he was here for good karma, after all. He would like to avoid anything too negative unless absolutely necessary.

  “N—No,” his disciple stuttered out, his face surprisingly pale. “Can you really stop time? Can you do it… now? Right now?”

  “Right now, right here,” Dominic stated and smiled, clicking his left thumb and index finger.

  And the world froze.

  It was an eerie sensation, to feel time freeze.

  Time was such an integral component of the world, such an integral component of human perception, such a constant factor, but it had been ever present. Only now, with time fully stopped, did Calvin realize what kind of a void time previously filled.

  He could still see.

  He could still hear the demigod’s words, as distant as they were.

  He could still move. When he stood up, it was without resistance, and he walked to the window of their room with ease.

  But something felt fundamentally wrong. Broken. Missing.

  His body was screaming at him, telling him to stop paying attention to what he was currently perceiving, to not understand any more of what time meant, of what time actually did, of the role time played—

  It knew that some knowledge was taboo.

  Calvin stared at the scenery outside the window with muted fascination. Everyone was frozen. Vendors, pedestrians, even objects in midair such as leaves or that one child’s balloon.

  “Shall I unpause time?” A muted voice asked, far, far away, belonging to a being truly out of his reach.

  “Sure.” Calvin replied, not even fully processing what left his mouth till it had.

  The click that echoed behind him was overwhelmingly loud, surrounding him, wrapping around his every sense—and then, everything was right again.

  As though he’d been drowning in quicksand without realizing it, and now finally been pulled back out to safety.

  The pedestrians and people finally continued to move. The balloon flew away into the air, permanently lost. The leaves fell to the floor, blown into the capital from god knows where.

  “Does this prove I’m more than a Rift Sealer, kiddo?”

  Calvin turned back to him and murmured, “Y—Yes.” How should he address the man? This was a god, after all. Would a respectful term like ‘sir’ or ‘master’ even come close? Maybe ‘Your Holiness’? Or ‘Revered God’?

  “You don’t have to be too formal with me,” the man said, smiling softly. “You can either call me master, or by my name. Which is Dominic, by the way. What’s yours?”

  “Calvin.”

  The man—no, Dominic—nodded, his smile growing larger, “Calvin… Calvin. Good name. Now, then, kiddo, I did notice something peculiar when I was healing you. You’ve been memory spelled, but I removed the charm. Do you remember anything new? Perhaps something concerning? Would you like my help dealing with any of it?”