“Hey, it has been a while,” Angela said when Gaius suddenly found himself in that dark place again.

  “You took your time showing up this time around?” Gaius asked. “Is it because of the changes, or is it because of the girl?”

  “You are getting more sharp,” Angela said. “How did you notice it?”

  “Well, it was pretty obvious, the two things that stood out the most in this new chapter of my life.” Gaius tried to shrug.

  “Remember what I said before?” Angela asked. “About your actions making things happen that will change things forever in this world.”

  “I wasn’t supposed to be here in the first place and the real Gaius died at birth, so…” Gaius said. “Isn’t that obvious?”

  “Not really, think about it,” Angela explained. “How things will change, for example, if you had a baby brother or a baby sister.”

  Gaius stopped to think about that for a moment… he was fine either way, but he certainly would act differently according to who is born. If it is a boy, he will teach him how to fight and how to attract girls too. Although Gaius success rate was pretty low on Earth, he can still use that as experience.

  Still, if it is a girl, instead of teaching her how to attract, he will probably chase them away alongside Zairus. Teaching her magic was also a good idea… that was a world where everyone could become pretty strong, but there were still many difficult things on the battlefield for a woman, aside from the bloodshed. Perhaps teaching her archery was a better option.

  “I guess I get it, more or less,” Gaius said. “Even if my actions change according to the situation, they will create ripple effects.”

  “That is right, that is even more true if you act based on emotion instead of logic,” Angela explained.

  Emotional decisions often come with heightened intensity and passion, leading to more dramatic actions. These actions can provoke stronger reactions from others, amplifying the ripple effect, as emotions tend to spread and escalate more quickly than logical, calculated responses.

  Emotional decisions are often impulsive and less thought out, leading to outcomes that are harder to predict and control. The unpredictability can cause a chain reaction, as others may respond to the initial action in unexpected ways, further spreading the ripple.

  “In any case, with magic, your power to influence the world will increase even more, so you should just be mindful of that,” Angela said. “I won’t say what you should or shouldn’t do, but it is just better to always be aware of that to avoid regrets.”

  Once Angela said that, Gaius woke up… he was sleeping outside the carriage using a tree to support his back. He felt it hurting quite a bit as he stretched his body and saw one of the guards nodding off.

  A month had passed since the start of the journey and they were finally crossing the border of the Quarteria state… nothing happened during this time, though. Aside from Gaius failing to learn anything new about his magic. He summoned all the underlings he had killed during the war, though.

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  “She is as cryptic as ever…” Gaius thought when he saw the sky getting clearer in the distance. That morning was coming.

  Gaius recalled the time he summoned the wrath demons… their loyalty was at the halfway point, so they were using a bit more mana from him. He had eighty of them, so that was quite troublesome. Still, he forced them to stay still while the others turned them into punchbags, which made them more obedient.

  Gaius had tried to avoid dwelling on the unsettling thought, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that the wrath demons d might have once been human. This possibility troubled him, particularly because it offered a plausible explanation for why he could summon so many of them at once, unlike other creatures where he could only summon one per species.

  The demons were unnervingly quick to learn and follow simple commands without hesitation, which only deepened his suspicion. The more he observed their behavior, the more he was forced to confront the disturbing idea that these demons might have originated from human souls twisted by wrath, making their servitude all the more troubling.

  At the very least, they might have inherited those traits after a human ancestor turned like that for whatever reason… that was a world of magic and monsters, so mutations should be even more plausible and quick to happen. There were other things that could explain that, but they were even more troubling to think about.

  “Well, time to change gears,” Gaius thought and then grabbed his spear.

  Gaius trained with his spear until breakfast. He tried to focus solely on his meditation, but that didn’t work, so he decided to train his body for a change of pace and clear his mind.

  It wasn’t like training would improve his parameters, but it was better to make his body get used to the strength that he had. After the war, he got some cramps, after all, and he didn’t even fight the melee for that long.

  Once breakfast was ready, Gaius went to clean himself near a river nearby and when he returned, he saw the girl suddenly avoiding his gaze. She had done that a bunch of times. She was terrible at playing dumb, but Gaius ignored her since he knew that she was that fearful of him.

  They didn’t talk even once during that month. She probably knew his name, but he never heard hers. The servants and guards only called her Miss, for whatever reason. Still, Gaius could tell that it was something that Ekirenton had planned, so he kept his guard up.

  As Gaius and his group ventured deeper into the borders of Quarteria state, he couldn’t help but notice the gradual shift in the landscape. Initially, the land was dotted with patches of green, small signs of life, and vegetation that gave the territory a somewhat hospitable appearance. However, as they traveled further, the greenery began to fade, replaced by a dry, desert yellow that stretched endlessly in all directions. The air grew drier, and the heat became more hard to endure, making the environment feel increasingly harsh.

  It soon became clear to Gaius that the entire region was dominated by desert, with the few signs of civilization taking the form of nomadic tribes rather than organized states or cities. These tribes, scattered and constantly on the move, moved out a live in the barren wastelands, far from the cities and towns that Gaius was used to. The lack of established villagesgave the territory a sense of wildness, a land where survival was a daily struggle against pretty much everything.

  The desolation of the area reminded Gaius of his homeland, particularly the remote, monster-infested region beyond the western side. Back home, the land had been similarly annoying, with monsters roaming the wilds and few humans daring to venture into those territories. The similarities between the two places were striking, both were lands shaped by their harsh environments, where danger could be found at every turn, and survival often depended on strength and cunning.

  The guards that kept driving wearing their full plate armor soon took out some parts since they were sweating bullets. The servants wearing maid clothes couldn’t do that, but they were sweating bullets, and it looked like they would pass out at any moment. Even the girl looked like she was enduring hell.

  Gaius’ adaptability wasn’t that high, but he could withstand the heat a bit more than the others thanks to the Spiritual Armor. Since he could only do that for himself, he told everyone to drink as much water as possible, but despite that, soon one of the guards and one of the servants fainted.