How to Raise Your Regressor

"That is the law of equivalent exchange."

As ez as that, though I'm not sure if a troglodyte like Jennifer would even understand such a simple concept. I'm pretty sure that my words sound like 'Unga Bunga' to her.

"That law works only when both the parties are equal. But are we equal?"

The answer to that is 'no', now that I think about it. I'm the Origin while she's the probationary member of the New Dawn Guild. There's no fucking way we are equal.

Clearly, she is much, much worse than me.

But there's no need to tell her that, is there?

"Everyone is equal under the law of the almighty God," I drew a cross in front of my chest.

Let's hope my homie Jesus is also the Lord and Saviour of this world.

I doubt he is, but a man can hope, can't he?

"You don't strike me as the pious type though?"

How rude of her.

"You just don't know me enough."

"You are suicidal," she scoffed. "Piety and the desire to kill oneself usually do not coexist."

Fair point.

"I just can't wait any longer to go into the Lord's embrace."

But she's still a long way from being my opponent.

"The Lord would never want his subjects to kill themselves to get into his embrace," Jennifer raised her eyebrow.

"Blasphemy! How dare a heretic like you try to guess the Lord's thoughts!"

She should be lynched and burned on a stake for her heresy. How evil.

If it was a loyal follower of the Generic-Lord-Number-xx instead of me, Jennifer's statement would have resulted in a fight to the death.

Blind faith can cause people to kill their new-born child; an acquaintance they've known just for a day or two would get absolutely no mercy from them.

They would strip the so-called heretic naked and stone them in the middle of the road. Then after skinning them alive right in front of everyone, they would tie the heretic at a stake and burn them, while zealously praying to the Lord to forgive that heretic.

Most sane religious followers, to be honest.

Something like this did happen to me once, actually.

Not the lynching and burning part (that has happened more times than I'd like to admit), but the killing the new-born son as soon as it's born.

Hmm, if I remember correctly, there was a custom in the mainstream- no, only religion of that world where every family had to sacrifice their first son to the God they served after 5 days of his birth.

The priests conducted an extravagant ritual to send the son to God to be his loyal warrior or some shit.

And as if that wasn't enough, the way the lunatics sacrificed the new-born child was by putting the son on an altar and ripping his heart out.

Alive.

And the parents had to be the one to do it.

They were literally making the parents rip out the heart of their own child to turn him into a puppet warrior of the God.

I mean, sure primitive religions rely on fear to keep their worshippers in their hold, but this was still far from a tactical decision.

Like, even if we put morals aside, what a dumb fucking way to scare your worshippers. The peanut-brained idiot who thought up this idea had an IQ in the negative. Fucking dumbass.

Using fear to gain worshippers is one thing, but to earn their undying hatred by making parents kill their own child is just an invitation to disaster.

Not to mention that the new-borns weren't even being sacrificed to be the 'loyal soldiers' of the God. After all, while the idea of child soldiers may seem amusing, they make for terrible combatants.

What was actually happening was that the God was devouring the new-borns' lifeforce and souls for power.

I guess he believed that if he absorbed enough souls and lifeforce, he would finally reach the level of the current masters of this Universe, the Ancient Gods. Negative IQ, like I said.

Anyway, we digress.

Like I was saying, when I was in that world, I also had a new-born son with my then wife. And I, of course, wasn't going to sacrifice my son to an existence that was so beneath me, not for a stupid reason like that.

And while destroying such an insect would have been more than easy, my children were still watching me. They would have considered any show of force from my side as a declaration of war, and I obviously wanted to avoid that.

So, we ran.

We ran and ran, hoping to reach a place where the God and his dogs could never find us so that our son could grow up in peace.

But the dogs were relentless; for some fucking reason, they were obsessed with my child.

I guess the god had realised that my son was a special existence; it was the offspring of the Origin, after all. He wanted my son at all costs.

What happened next is obvious. No matter how hard you try, you cannot hide in a world that is against you.

And so, we were cornered. The dogs had surrounded us, while the God himself had descended to take away our son and devour him.

⟦What happened next?⟧

⟦⟦What do you think?⟧⟧

I don't think it needs to be said aloud.

⟦You erased the existence of every single one of them.⟧

⟦⟦Exactly.⟧⟧

When the chips were down, I asked my wife if she was ready to face anything to protect our child, and she obviously said yes.

And so, I unleashed hell upon the God and his dogs.

Surprisingly, no one had ever helped us in that world; the God's control over his subjects was masterful.

So, I punished every single living thing in that world.

⟦And what did your children do?⟧

⟦⟦Well, just like I said, they took it as a declaration of war. They almost launched a full-scale attack on me.⟧⟧

A severe overreaction, if I say so myself.

⟦Damn!⟧ The fucker exclaimed. ⟦What happened then?⟧

⟦⟦Again, what do you think?⟧⟧

⟦Hmm, you obviously wouldn't have done anything bad to them; they were still your children, after all. Did you spank them?⟧ He rubbed his chin.

⟦⟦Well, they might be the current masters of this Universe, but I'm still their father. I just needed to show them that I wasn't preparing for war, and that going against me would have absolutely no benefit at that point in time. They backed off pretty easily after that.⟧⟧

'Sometimes, a candy is all it takes to pacify a pouty child.'

Tune in next for more child hacks with ya boi Samur.

⟦I see, I see, that makes sense.⟧ He nodded, then abruptly stopped. ⟦Wait… I thought you had taken away their right to call you Father?⟧

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