Unsurprisingly, Kale reacted to Desmia's denunciation of the woman he loved with disbelief and indignation. "On what grounds are you making these absurd claims, young mistress? You barely even know Sherry!"
Desmia turned up her nose. "I know enough to call out a malefactor when I see one. Sherry Amarone is incredibly suspicious for various reasons; however, it's clear to me that you're too blinded by love to see it."
"What reasons could there possibly be for you to suspect her? She's beautiful, kind, and smart!"
Desmia arched an eyebrow. "Well, for one, she's not hideous for a human but calling her beautiful is a stretch don't you think?"
With family members whose peerless beauty transcended the realm of language for comparison, Desmia's standards for attractiveness were higher than the heavens. Thus, practically no mortals entered her eyes. In her opinion, unless one was fond of imperfections, mortals could never compete with deities when it came to looks.
"Two, isn't it evident that she feigns kindness as a means for deception? You're less likely to suspect someone who seems nice and courteous of doing unscrupulous activities than someone who's openly nasty and rude. And three?" Desmia shrugged. "Eh, sure I can admit that she's clever. I'll let you have that. Yet, as clever as she may have been, ultimately, she still couldn't escape from my sharp senses and brilliant web of reasoning so really it's me who deserves praise."
"Un...No one is greater than big sister." Ferris' hands were clasped together as if in worship.
"Obviously." Desmia haughtily flipped her ponytail over her shoulder as if brushing away the mediocrity and incompetence she perceived from those around her.
Meanwhile, Kale's bottom lip was quivering. "Well, Sherry's great in other ways too, okay? She works extremely hard every day!"
"That's what makes her successful," rebutted Desmia. "It takes a lot of effort and ambition to be an accomplished bad guy otherwise you'd get caught pretty quickly."
Kale's eyes reddened as he struggled to suppress his negative emotions. "I can't believe you're so dead set on the idea of Sherry being a bad person when she's been nothing but nice to you!" His voice cracked in the middle of his sentence. "I really thought you were supporting me, young mistress!"
Desmia narrowed her eyes as she leaned towards Kale . "...Are those tears? Kale...are you seriously crying right now?"
"No!" Kale hurriedly shielded his face and turned away but his abrupt movements forced a stray teardrop to fly from his face.
Desmia's face was painted with incredulity. "Oi, is there a need to be so emotional about this? It's just one girl. So what if she's a bad apple? Look at the world you're in. Look how many girls there are. You basically live in an orchard. There are dozens of other apples for you to pick from. Shinier, tastier, fresher apples!"
Ferris nodded. The metaphor was lost on him but he liked apples. In spite of his extremely dull sense of taste, he enjoyed eating apple slices that had been cut into a variety of whimsical shapes such as rabbits and swans. "Un...apples are a nice fruit, Uncle Kale...Don't...don't cry...Our family has many apple trees at home....We can...we can give you lots of apples...."
Desmia nudged Kale's side in an attempt to be comforting. "Just take it from me, your infinitely wise mistress, once you drop the bad apple you'll have your hands free for all the other apples."
"Stop calling her that! Sherry is not a bad apple!" Kale snapped. "Young mistress Marysol—You—You're the worst!"
After saying this he dashed off on his own with an arm covering his face leaving Desmia to clutch her forehead in exasperation. Why is everyone around me either a silly and soft-hearted crybaby or a calculating and wicked fox? I demand a middle ground!
"D-did we say...something bad?..." Ferris asked with a worried expression. "Does Uncle Kale maybe...really hate apples? Our family has other fruits too..."
Desmia rolled her eyes. "It's not actually a fruit issue, kid."
"....It's not?"
She grimaced. "You really don't know anything do you? Damn, that cheap old bastard really gave you pudding for brains didn't he?" Did you secretly do something to him in Heaven besides the book thing, Ice Block? I bet you did. Why else would he give you a faulty brain on top of a flimsy body?
Desmia once again felt the urge to play with the baby soft skin on Ferris' face so she began kneading his cheeks. "In regards to Kale, simply put, he's in denial. It's a thing mortals do a lot to protect their feelings."
She paused as she tried to think of a simple analogy that even a child would understand. "You ever see a turtle pull its head back into its shell when it gets frightened?"
Ferris thought for a moment then shook his head. The only time he had seen a turtle was when it had been boiled in a soup.
She rolled her eyes at his ignorance before exasperatedly concluding, "Well, you just have to imagine it because the same as that. Anyways, what I'm trying to say is most adults are pretty lousy. Humans adults are even more so because they're greedier and more likely to be tempted by banalities and short-lived thrills."
Her tone was unusually calm. "Sometimes all it takes is one individual's machinations for hundreds of thousands to lose their lives."
Desmia might not have visited the mortal realm much but being a member of the Underworld royal family, she was still aware of all the major events that transpired in the Mortal Realm, especially the ones resulted in a high number of fatalities.
After the gods split into their respective factions, in the simplest of terms, it was agreed that in regards to the governance of the Mortal Realm, the Heavenly faction would have jurisdiction over the living while the Underworld faction would have jurisdiction over the dead.
Thus, the bulk of the work of the Underworld had to do with ensuring that deceased souls from the Mortal Realm were first escorted to the Underworld in a timely manner and then carefully processed. Upon reaching a conclusion as to whether or not a soul had lived a morally good or bad life through the means of a fair trial, the officers of the Underworld had to decide how a bad soul should be punished and for how long, and alternatively, how and when a good soul should be reincarnated.
While Desmia's father, the God of Darkness, was the supreme ruler of the Underworld, contrary to expectation, he was rarely personally involved with the handling of souls since he preferred operating primarily as an overseer. Only when there was a complication would he step in but as complications were atypical, this big boss actually spent his days very idly. Every other day or so he could be spotted wandering the imperial gardens with his wife or roaming around the marketplace trying to find amusing trinkets for his children. As a result of this, the denizens of the Underworld often joked that the God of Darkness treated his work as emperor as more of a side business because his main business was clearly being a doting husband and father.
Whenever they heard someone saying this, the God of Death and the God of Justice, the two actual busiest in the Underworld, would launch into a tirade about how unfair the life of a subordinate was. With their boss stepping out as often as he did, they were the ones whom were always left without holidays! No holidays meant no opportunities to mingle with female immortals! Alas, these two long-suffering gods had lost count of the number of millennia that they had tried and failed to escape bachelorhood. A ludicrous overtime pay rate meant nothing when you had no lover, wife, or children to indulge!
Naturally, as Desmia was a young immortal with a special identity, few responsibilities were assigned to her.
That being said, when the Underworld experienced extremely busy periods, such as the periods following the outbreak of an epidemic, war, famine, or some other natural disaster in the Mortal Realm, even Desmia had to aid in the completion of paperwork for deceased souls.
All deceased souls were entitled to a trial but before a trial could held, a stack of paperwork had to be completed. As powerful as the gods were, there were no shortcuts they could take with paperwork for the departed: all documents had to be completed one at a time and exclusively by hand.
On one occasion, Desmia and her siblings had to spend three intolerably dull weeks doing nothing but filling out forms after millions had lost their lives in a catastrophic war that embroiled four independent states. When Desmia found out that the main cause for the war had been something as ridiculous as the four state leaders' desire to monopolize the affections of a certain belle, she erupted in fury.
Following which, she nearly stormed over to the each of the leaders' pretrial holding cells to deliver her own brand of divine retribution. Did those leaders think they were the only ones capable of ushering in disasters, ruining lives, and being wildly unreasonable? She could be unreasonable too! In fact, those that knew her well would even admit that she was often more senseless than not! Those leaders liked engaging in meaningless shows of violence? Perfect! She would show them a truly senseless and violent spectacle that would forever be ingrained in their souls!
Only her siblings knew that a calamity more terrifying than the war itself had been scarcely avoided that day due to Karia's ability to quell their youngest sister's wrath with a thousand year old flower wine. Never had a group of brothers and sisters been so grateful that the treasured baby of their family had a predilection for drinking.
In the present, Desmia snorted as she prodded Ferris' tender cheeks. "You probably don't even get what I'm saying right now but just remember that you can't grow up like that."
"...L-Like what?"
"Useless. Stupid. Boring." Before I ruin you, you can't self-destruct otherwise it would be too uneventful.
"For someone as foolish as you, it probably be a good idea to avoid girls altogether if you want to make it to adulthood. The day you underestimate a female is the day you'll croak." Desmia made a sharp slashing motion over her neck.
This was true even in the case of the four leaders as the one woman they were all trying to possess had just been playing with their feelings. In the end, not only did she emerge from the war unscathed, she also managed to latch onto the man whom went on to unify the four previously warring states into one colossal empire and became this new empire's very first imperial consort.
Yet, even more unbelievable than that was the fact that not long after she gave birth to the empire's heir apparent, her husband, the emperor, mysteriously passed away from illness. Then somehow despite all odds, she, the late emperor's widow, came to succeed him as the first female empress instead of her son.
In the history books that were written about this time period, historians had no choice but to explain the first emperor's death as an unforeseen tragedy and the first empress' subsequent rise to power as a miraculous phenomenon; yet, that was only because they did not know what the gods knew.
Since reviewing the entirety of a mortal's life course after their death was a part of their duty, they knew that the first emperor had not passed away because of illness but because he had been murdered by his beloved wife. Yes, the empress whom had first been the imperial consort had purposely concealed her talents and poisoned the emperor to death with a tasteless, odourless, and colourless poison that she had developed with her own hands to usurp the throne.
Truthfully, when Desmia had learned of this she was almost impressed by this cunning and ambitious woman's courage and skills until she remembered that this woman indirectly and directly sent numerous people to their demise and numerous deities to be buried under a mountain range of paperwork.
Shortly after her memory had been refreshed, the petty tenth princess of the Underworld sneakily placed a curse on the first empress of the empire.
As Desmia was an unconventional princess, her approach to curses was also unconventional.
Hence, after the empress had been cursed, she found herself afflicted with many uncomfortable and peculiar ailments month after month like clockwork. On every fifth day of the month, her eyes and nose would be runny and she would sneeze nonstop. On every tenth day, a vicious pimple would grow on her butt cheek making it difficult for her to sit. On every fifteenth day, she would be plagued with dozens of horribly itchy mosquito bites all over her body. Lastly, on every twentieth day, she would be overwhelmingly gassy to the point that she would punctuate every sentence with a loud burp.
Eventually Desmia was punished by her mother for her unauthorized intervention into human affairs and forced to lift the curse but by that point, the empress had already suffered for several years because time flowed much more quickly in the Mortal Realm.
"Un...I'll avoid...I'll avoid all girls that aren't you, big sister!" Ferris sincerely pledged.
"I'll be good...I promise....I don't want to die....." Though Desmia constantly belittled his lack of knowledge, in this matter, Ferris was not completely clueless. From whispered conversations between his family's former servants, he learned that dying was essentially synonymous with being forced to go somewhere far far away and not being allowed to ever return. It was the reason why everyone abhorred his devilish eyes and by extension—him. Devils were harbingers of death and everyone feared death.
"Dying's too s-scary....I-If I went...went somewhere far far away...I won't be able to be with mommy, daddy, big brother... and.... and...... you..." He dejectedly lowered his head. "I won't be able to be with you, big sister Marysol...and...and that's the scariest thing....It's really scary not being to be with you..."
Desmia instinctively shuddered and then she angrily messed up his hair until it appeared as if the top of his head had been attacked by a flock of wild birds. "What's really scary is how nauseating the words that come out of your mouth are!"
Ferris bit his lip. "I'm sorry...big sister Marysol.....I-I-If you...you don't like it when...when I speak then...then I'll stay quiet from now on..."
She made a face. "Ugh. It's even more nauseating that you're so compliant." Just what exactly how did you offend the God of Literature to be reduced to this state?
For reference, Desmia tried to recall some of the things that she had done in the past that incurred the displeasure of others as she started walking. Could Castor have accidentally broken the wing of the God of Literature's cherished pet like she did to the God of Time? Or could he have emptied a bottle of truth elixir into the God of Literature's tea and made him confess to his secret crush like she did to Raewynn? Could he have used an array to send the God of Literature to the coldest region in the Immortal Realm, the Glacial Plains, like she did to one of her former tutors?
"Big sister! Watch out!"
Ferris' shouts startled Desmia out of her reverie but before she could shoot him a peeved look for his unusual behaviour, the younger boy jumped in front of her and pushed her backwards.
Not even two seconds later, a crudely dressed peasant woman tossed a large basin's worth of waste water just in front of their path.
As the filthy waste water permeated the ground, it emitted a vile stench that caused both children to reflexively hold their breaths and stagger about in the middle of the street.
Around them, only a few townspeople wrinkled their noses as they walked by but no one was surprised by what had transpired. Although the public dumping of waste water into the streets was an act that was strictly prohibited in name, in most rural communities it was a fairly common practice because there were few guards stationed outside the capital that cared enough to fine people for doing it.
It took a while before the two children could breathe normally but when they did, both of them anxiously inspected their clothes for stains.
While the two had appeared to have avoided the rain of waste water due to Ferris' decisive actions, the mere possibility of being splattered by even a drop of someone else's liquid discard horrified the noble heirs to no end.
However, in the midst of their inspection, a series of terrible shrieks was heard in front of them.
"That damned street urchin just snatched my jewelry and ran!"
"Heavens! My purse!"
"That little sh*t took my satchel!"
"He's over there!"
"Someone stop that thief!"
In the commotion, Desmia hastily patted the spot under her belt where she had hidden her coin purse to see if she had been targeted as well but found that her belongings had remained untouched.
Yet, right when she was about to lift her lips into a self-satisfied smirk she was met with Ferris' panicked expression.
"B-B-B-Big sister!...My-my-my bag!...It's g-gone!"
"Are you serious?!" The little bastard actually got robbed?! Seriously? Seriously?!!