Age 6
Joy cleans the statue of the Goddess of cosmos.
It is quite a difficult task to clean this statue of the Goddess.
The statue isn’t humanoid in shape.
Instead, it has four arms.
Each arm is holding a different thing.
Left two hands are holding a sphere and a plant that look out of this world in the other hand.
The right two hands are holding a ring shape object and a creature or something that resembles a snake in the other hand.
All the objects have different meaning and reason for her to hold.
However, right now he just finds the gaps of these objects to clean a little troublesome.
The dust gets trapped in the groves and makes it harder for him to just remove it with a cloth.
But he persists and in the end is able to clean even a little of the dust from the four objects.
Now the face of the Goddess…which doesn’t really exist.
The statue is faceless and doesn’t even show much of anything else.
There are of course other odd things like random jewelry made of stone, eyes that aren’t in their right places and empty holes that lead to nowhere.
All in all, the Goddess looks alien.
Like she comes from a different world.
He has even heard that every statue of Goddess of cosmos is different.
No one statue looks like the other.
These statues do show that the Goddess comes from the cosmos.
From another planet.
According to the scriptures, the world is actually a sphere and there are other world or planets like us.
But they’re unhabitable and unable to sustain life.
Even the science of this world has said that the preaching of the Goddess of cosmos helped them understand the world outside of this planet.
There are rumors that scientists are actually believers of the Goddess.
In the preachings, it is also said that the Goddess was the one who bring life on this planet form the cosmos.
So, in a sense she is our Mother who gave us life into this world.
After cleaning the Goddess’s statue, he sits in front of it and closes his eyes to pray.
He has been working at the same temple from the moment he was left here.
He’s been taking care of the temple.
Keeping it clean and doing whatever he can to maintain the sanctity of the place.
While doing so, he has somehow become a pious believer of Goddess of cosmos.
Believing is her has given him a reason to not give up on himself.
It helped him keep his sanity and not be depressed cause of his past death.
He still has trust issues.
It has become hard for him to believe in anyone.
Sometimes, he feels suspicious of anyone.
He hasn’t recovered from his last life.
How can he not have trust issues?
However, he did start sharing his despair and low moments with Goddess.
Talking about his loneliness or his inability to have trust in others.
It helped him be himself and not lose trust in other humans completely.
Of course, doubt is in his nature and he is still quite cautious.
He never talked about his past lives to the Goddess.
Fearing that someone would hear him through the walls or hear his thoughts.
His paranoia has strengthened a lot in these years.
He hasn’t encountered any odd magic related events in these past six years.
Which has also made him paranoid.
Making him wonder how do people hide magic from the ordinary people.
But he doesn’t know much so he didn’t make any theories or guesses regarding that topic.
He prays to the goddess about keeping his parents happy and safe.
This prayer was for both his current mother who abandoned him here and parents of his 2nd incarnation.
His current mother never came to visit him after leaving him behind.
Either she isn’t allowed to or she has moved on.
He also has no knowledge of what is happening with his parents of his 2nd incarnation.
He hasn’t found any lead where they are.
He knows that he is still in the main continent of the south part.
So, basically in the Country of the Poor.
That’s literally the name of the south part of the main continent, the Country of the Poor.
This place doesn’t even get a proper name.
Whatever info he has gathered is that, this part of the continent is given to the migrated people, basically slaves.
People who were brought form the outside as slaves for the rich.
Now, the slave trading has been abolished and even said to be a sin by all the eight official churches.
There is still some illegal trading of slaves.
But people are working towards completely removing it from the entire country.
This info had enlightened him as this is why official investigators came to check on the foundation so quickly.
Trying to trade slaves under the noses of everyone sure sounds like a foolish move.
But there are people who still try to kidnap children or woman to be sold to the rich.
Or royalty.
The Country of the poor is basically a land given to these, once a slave, people as a sign of goodwill.
Making it look like to the countries, where these slaves come from, that they’re being treated respectfully.
Joy understood that it is just of show.
He lives here and knows how is the actual place is.
There are very few temples or churches.
Other countries of these continents straight up ignore whatever is happening in here.
It is just a depressing reality.
People who are illiterate may think that this place was given to them out of care and love.
But instead, this place is just to make more slaves for the rich.
Now, instead of slaves they use servants to make it sound better.
And the worst of all.
The people with power are deliberately ignoring these, once a slave, society because they don’t know how to deal with them.
The countries of these slaves don’t want to get them back and the main continent is happy to keep these people for their own use.
He has heard these talks and gossips from the people who sit in the temple.
Eavesdropping has become a habit of his now and he doesn’t even mind if he is prying on other’s private life.
To him, it is better to have more knowledge than no knowledge of what is happening around you.
‘I am sorry my past parents.
Your sons have become a little shameless.’ He lampoons and says sorry to the Goddess.
He is just a little less than an attendant of this temple.
A helper of sorts.
No persist mind him much, they’re actually are quite friendly to him.
Seeing his devotion to the Goddess also helped him being a part of everyone here too.
So, his piously believing in Goddess is sort of a tactical maneuver too.
The temple of Goddess isn’t as big as the church of the All Maker that he saw in his 1st incarnation.
But it is still respectable as it is in the Country of the Poor.
After thanking Goddess for giving him her blessing to live to age 6, he comes out and greets the priest that have come back to the temple.
The temple itself isn’t as big and only have few quarters so some of them live nearby.
He still has to clean the seats too and get water from the well.
Later, he would help everyone here to do few tasks.
Soon, morning preaching will start too.
Preaching in this temple only happen at weekends so soon there will be a lot of people here.
But first he needs to meet Sir.
Nors.
He was the persist who had found him at the steps of the temple.
He was also the one who requested to keep him in the temple as a helper.
He is very grateful to that old man.
Without his kindness, he might’ve already thrown into the streets and then he had to beg or do some shady things.
That just sounds like a sure way to die one day out of nowhere.
Joy sighs not because of all the work that he has to do.
But because he has forgotten many of the rituals and symbols that he had learnt form the cursed book.
It turns out that his memory isn’t as good as he had thought.
This has put a little stop in his path to become someone who can hold magical powers.