In the end, Charlie settled in an uninhabited house he chose at random in Nagoro Village.
With the extreme population decline due to the falling birth rate, the younger generation's reluctance to marry, and the negative public sentiment that harbored less than favorable views toward immigrants, it seemed like only a matter of time before this country named Japan dissolved naturally.
The tangible impact was already visible now; there were so many abandoned, empty houses standing side by side in rural areas like this.
However, Charlie could only lament his luck when he stepped inside the wooden house of his first choice.
In the corner of the living room, he instead found a corpse that had long since decomposed until only dry, skeletal remains were left.
"The owner of this house seems to have died in silence without anyone noticing at all... How tragic." Charlie murmured as he stared at the skeleton with a short sigh.
Unable to bear just leaving and letting the bones remain abandoned, Charlie moved his hand.
RUMBLE!
Using Earth Spirit Art, he manipulated the ground surface in the backyard to dig a sufficiently deep grave, then moved and buried the corpse properly before finally deciding to look for another place.
Charlie then moved to the next empty house a few dozen meters away.
Fortunately, this time there was no surprise corpse inside.
SHUA!
He used Wind Spirit Art to sweep away the thick dust enveloping the room, then immediately laid his body down on the worn-out floor.
Staring at the dark ceiling of the room, he murmured softly, "It's been a very long time since I slept alone... That habit is truly a terrifying thing."
In the past, he had grown accustomed to feeling the warmth of Mahiru's body as she slept peacefully by his side every night.
But now, in the eyes of that girl, they were just two strangers who did not know each other.
Who would have thought that a simple level-up process could instead awaken the latent power of the Dragon King, which unfortunately carried the automatic side effect of memory erasure.
This situation was indeed highly unexpected; nonetheless, Charlie was still able to maintain his composure.
The new information fusing with his soul at this moment turned out to also include legal methods so that others could once again remember his existence.
"Making Mahiru my Familiar is the only legal method permitted within the God's Law." Charlie murmured while folding both hands beneath his head.
"A Transcendent is equipped with the Divine Authority to bestow a special blessing upon mortal races and convert their status into a Familiar."
"Once someone binds an official contract as the Familiar of that Transcendent, their soul will automatically enter the exception list of the God's Law."
"They will continue to remember the Transcendent completely without any constraints of time or distance."
"By the way, a Transcendent making a human a Familiar has a very strong similarity to how the gods in the Danmachi world bestow the Falna tattoo upon mortal races so that they can surpass their natural power limits."
Charlie spoke to himself once again after a brief pause.
"And the benefits of becoming the Familiar of a Transcendent are far more extraordinary."
"Among them is immunity to the God's Law. When a Transcendent is forced to release his power and triggers the world's memory erasure law, the Familiar will still remember him completely, no matter how far the distance separates them or how hard the world system tries to erode that memory."
"Different from the Orario adventurers who receive the Falna and must laboriously accumulate Excelia for the sake of raising their power, the physical body of a Familiar will be directly strengthened supernaturally from the moment the contract is ratified."
"Their magic energy capacity will surge sharply, and they will frequently obtain special abilities inherited directly from the element or Divine Authority belonging to their master."
"And the most crucial advantage that can never be granted by the Falna system of the gods is longevity!"
"No matter how high the Level of an adventurer in Orario is, what increases drastically is only their combat power, while their biological lifespan limit continues to run according to their original race."
"On the other hand, because the vessel of their soul has assimilated with the divine energy of the Transcendent, a Familiar automatically gains a lifespan far longer than their original race, granting them biological immortality as long as the master remains alive."
Thinking about this matter, Charlie let out a sigh of relief; the problem that troubled him was resolved even before he did anything.
As someone who had already obtained immortality after eating mermaid flesh in the past—even though it was only a weak type of immortality that merely provided the effect of perpetual youth as well as longevity but could still die if killed—Charlie all this time had always thought of ways so that the people closest to him like Kei and Ais could have a long life together with him.
He absolutely did not want to spend his eternity merely seeing off the departures of the people he loved one by one into the grave.
What about Aishia and Est?
Those two were Great Spirits; their lifespans were already countless from the very beginning!
Est herself was confirmed to have an age that was already more than a thousand years.
However, Charlie murmured softly once again in the midst of the night's silence, "Behind power and a blessing that great, of course there is a very expensive price that must be paid by the prospective Familiar."
"First is the risk of wagering one's life when the contract process is carried out. The body of an ordinary human is fundamentally very fragile. Receiving an injection of pure divine energy from a Transcendent directly can make the vessel of their soul shatter into pieces if the mental and physical endurance of the human is not strong enough to withstand it."
"Second, the existence of a life-and-death fate bond. If the Transcendent happens to be killed, the Familiar will immediately receive a highly fatal spiritual impact within their soul. They could lose most of their power, suffer permanent soul damage, or even die instantly along with their master."
"Lastly is the consequence of being isolated from the world as well. Even though people out there can still remember the Familiar, their position of always accompanying the Transcendent's existence will indirectly drag them to be isolated from ordinary human civilization as well. They must be willing to live under the strict shadow of the God's Law and will never again be able to live a normal life as an ordinary mortal human."
As for this last consequence, Charlie felt it was not a massive problem for most of the people by his side.
Kei had already lost her father and older brother in a world struck by the apocalypse, Mahiru was ostracized by her own biological father and mother, while Aishia and Est would not mind at all as long as they could always be near him.
Now, Ais was the only variable that was the most complicated, considering the girl still possessed a very strong attachment to the Loki Familia in Orario.
Would you like to continue translating the text to see how Charlie approaches the challenge of making Mahiru his Familiar under these constraints?
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