Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 24: Different Gods

"I assume everything has been going well with the water source, Lord Carvalho?" Cecilia asked, her tone light and conversational.

Hettor’s posture straightened, his expression turning solemn and respectful. "Thanks to you, Saintess. The clean flow has been a blessing to my people."

"I am honored to have been able to help," Cecilia replied with a modest dip of her head.

It had seemed like nothing, at first. Just disparate pieces of gossip and data floating across her desk three years ago. The kind of bureaucratic chaff her aides would usually filter out.

But her mind, cursed and blessed to never let a puzzle lie, had started connecting the dots.

It began with the society pages, of all things. A small, frivolous article buried between announcements of royal garden parties and new fashion trends. Baron Stewart, a merchant known for his vault-like ambition and deeper pockets, was photographed at the lavish marriage of his beloved niece to the son of the Wereowl Tribe’s chief.

A simple union of new money and old feathers? Perhaps.

But the groom wasn’t just any noble beast. He was a self-proclaimed inventor, who had just conveniently and proudly announced his new ’groundbreaking’ magic device: the ’automatic clock’. A device that, according to the technical notes Cecilia had skimmed, required impossibly precise micro-cut part shaping.

Neat.

Then came the drier, more tedious infrastructure reports. A sudden, quiet, but statistically significant influx of a very specific type of specialist, ’precise water magic engineers’. The best in the world.

All of them were officially changing their residential addresses to the remote region surrounding the Aquiferra Basin, the single most abundant, pristine, and magically potent water source on the entire continent.

Coincidence, of course. The Basin was just a lovely, peaceful place for the continent’s top hydromancers to suddenly decide to retire.

But what finally made the hair on the back of her neck stand up was the security briefing. The number of mercenaries on Baron Stewart’s payroll had tripled.

Not the polished soldiers for show, not household guards. These were hard-eyed, battle-scarred killers imported from the northern fiefdoms, men whose only language was violence. The official reason filed with the city guard was a ’long-term wilderness expedition.’

A wilderness expedition.

To protect... engineers.

Near the most vital water source on the continent.

Right after his niece married into a tribe known for their silent flight and territorial prowess... whose new nephew-in-law just happened to create a device that, upon her second, sharper look, required constant, abundant water magic shaping for its assembly.

It was a hostile takeover.

They weren’t just studying the Aquiferra Basin. They were planning to control it. To put a meter and a lock on the very blood of the continent.

And the Werejaguars, whose territory, culture, and survival depended entirely on that free-flowing water, were the first, unwitting domino in their path. The guardian tribe that had kept this resource pure for millennia, the proud people who had always refused to bend the knee to the Empire’s rule.

Hiding the true architects of this scheme was child’s play. After all, in the halls of power, many already wanted the ’stubborn’ jaguars to be... relocated. Permanently.

This wasn’t some short-term business venture.

Not just to power a few fancy clocks, but to fuel an empire.

The clocks were just the public test, the proof of concept for a process they intended to scale to a monstrous degree.

Not just the water. They were after what the water could make. To mass-produce artificial, condensed mana stones on an industrial scale, they would need a power source of almost unimaginable magnitude. A constant, colossal, and magically pure flow of water to catalyze the alchemical reaction, to cool the forges, to purify the output.

The old way, mining mana stones from the earth, was slow, dangerous, and finite. The veins were drying up, the easy picks long gone. It wasn’t sufficient anymore for the ambitions of men like Baron Stewart. They weren’t just looking for a new mine, they were looking to build one. A mine that could never be depleted, one that would give them a monopoly on the very lifeblood of modern magic and technology.

And they were willing to drown an entire civilization to do it.

"I spent a whole night hunched over a map of your city," Cecilia confessed, her gaze drifting up to the intricate network of bridges and platforms woven through the canopy.

"Trying to flip the perspective in my mind, to see it through an attacker’s eyes. But I’m very sure you and your warriors will be infinitely more competent in that side of the planning. All my sleepless night really gave me was the number of possible assailants and where they might place their basecamp." She sighed. "A whole night of theory, and it can’t compare to seeing the real, living thing."

Beautiful, she muttered in her heart.

She didn’t say it aloud, but Chief Hettor’s eyes warmed, the stern lines of his face softening. He could see the genuine admiration in her gaze as she took in the symphony of engineered wood and vibrant life.

"Just a crude sight for the brilliant eyes of the Divine Saintess," Hettor said as regret weaving through his voice. Three years ago, after the attack was quietly resolved, he had tried everything to meet her, to thank his savior properly. But she had been guarded like a treasure in a vault, surrounded by the Weretiger King’s son’s people.

Now, it seemed she had not only broken that bond but had forged a new one with... well. Someone whose presence commanded the very sky.

"We heard the news from the capital, my Lady," Hettor’s voice lowered, becoming earnest. "Please, tell us it was all a lie."

Cecilia offered him a gentle smile. "What if it wasn’t a lie?"

"It is clearly a lie," Hettor scoffed. "What even is ’A year of prosperity, bountiful harvests, golden peace’? It sounds like a greeting card, not a prophecy."

"Well," Cecilia shrugged, "you can’t really blame the new Saintess, can you? If her gods didn’t whisper anything to her, what was she supposed to prophesize?" It was, she knew, the exact defense Ruby would use to gaslight her critics.

Hettor leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "My lady, what are you saying? Are you and the other Saintess served by... different gods or something?" He tried to frame it as a joke, carefully sidestepping outright heresy.

Cecilia’s smile widened into something radiant and utterly brazen. "Of course we serve different gods," she nodded, treating it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. She gestured casually with her chin toward the man beside her. "Don’t you see? I serve under Lord Oathran."

"COUGH!"

Oathran, who had been peacefully sipping his cucumber water, suddenly caught strays.

Hettor understood now. Real saintess, fake saintess, the theological debate was a luxury for scholars in distant temples. Here, in the real world, only one fact mattered: Cecilia had Oathran on her side.

The weight of that alliance made the choice not just clear, but laughably simple. Contradicting her wouldn’t be heresy, it would be suicide. And that was before he factored in the small matter of her having saved his people.

The path was illuminated before him. He knew exactly where he wanted to stand. More importantly, he knew where he needed to stand.

He made his decision.

"Where are you going to visit next, Saintess?" he asked.

If the Dragon Lord himself had chosen this ’fake’ Saintess, who was he, a mere jaguar, to dare choose otherwise?