Combat Maid Harem

There was no reason for one to exist, but finding a reason for one's existence was the ultimate goal of life. Those that died never get to reproduce, and those that lived got to multiply. Such was the way of life.

Thus, those that were alive had strong attachments to living as those that didn't hadn't lived to reproduce.

…

Ten million years.

Time was lost to Lawrend. He had already forgotten his maids and the reason he was here in the first place. Compared to his ten million years of existence here, his life as Lawrend was but a speck of dust.

"This reminds me of that time I watched my world grow…" Lawrend whispered without thought.

Suddenly, like a spark of lightning, his memories flashed inside his mind again. He remembered who he was, and what he was fighting for.

"Phew…"

Lawrend visibly sweated as fear enveloped his soul. He almost lost himself contemplating. Questioning the mysteries of existence was dangerous. It could lead to severe consequences such as losing the essence of his soul, which was his goals and dreams.

It was simply too difficult to comprehend while keeping yourself intact.

Lawrend gathered himself and approached it carefully. This time, he constantly checked on himself by doing self-introspection. If he was acting deranged, he would stop and remind himself who he was.

Time was the greatest torture Lawrend could experience. There was nothing for him to do but study his own soul. The more he experienced, the more he realized that he was needing less and less to remind himself of who he was.

"I'm Lawrend Horiel Ignis. I still remember it."

Lawrend was slightly anxious about his memory. At some point, he had forgotten a lot of things, and he couldn't remember them anymore, but he was sure of who he was.

…

A hundred million… a billion years…

"Huh?"

Lawrend noticed something was different around him. He opened his eyes and scanned the dust around him. They were slowly moving in a specific direction. It was minimal, but they were moving in a curve as if they were revolving around something.

"Oh!"

Lawrend stared at a small ball of space dust spinning rapidly at the center. It was bright white in color and it had grown to the size of a basketball. It was a distance away from him.

"This is the star system of the Spirit World."

Lawrend understood that.

Instead of focusing on his soul, Lawrend decided to watch it instead. It was exciting at first but time flowed fast until Lawrend lost interest.

It was just space dust gathering into a ball. This cloud was so big that it would take so long to see it grow even a millimeter.

And so, Lawrend went back to studying his soul.

…

A billion and a million years…

"Huh?"

Lawrend opened his eyes and noticed the planet-sized ball of glowing red dust spinning rapidly. Compared to before, there were also big clumps of space dust revolving around it.

"This is unlike the evolution of my world…"

Lawrend was astounded at the speed of this star system's evolution. It was painfully slow at the start, but it started exponentially speeding up.

[Who am I?]

As Lawrend was looking around him, he sensed a tiny thought escape from somewhere.

"WHO!?"

Lawrend was spooked as anyone would in his situation. He had been here for so long that he was confident he was the only one here.

[What am I doing?]

The thought was filled with confusion. It had no accents or recognizable features as it was just a strand of pure thought from a soul somewhere.

"That is a small asteroid?"

Lawrend pinpointed the direction from where the thought was coming from. It was from one of the asteroids revolving around the glowing red planet.

It was so far from Lawrend, but Lawrend could still sense its thoughts.

"There is no point flying to it. It will reach me closer after some time."

Lawrend recognized that the glowing red planet was much closer to him compared to his distance to that thinking asteroid.

Half a year passed and the asteroid was as close to Lawrend as ever. Its thoughts were so powerful that Lawrend could not think properly.

[I'm so lonely… I'm so lonely… Why do I exist? I'm drifting around this red thing for so long…]

The thoughts were so erratic. It was like a teenager suffering an existential crisis. Lawrend shook the idea of getting close to it from his head. Its thoughts were too strong that it might affect his identity.

"Let's wait and see…"

Lawrend carefully observed the evolution of this star system and the mysterious thinking asteroid.

One day another asteroid got close to the thinking asteroid. They bumped each other and the thinking asteroid immediately took offense. It started spewing out curses that Lawrend didn't know where it got them from.

On a fateful day, the two asteroids crashed into each other and resulted in the thinking asteroid growing bigger. It was at first confused at the development, but then it became ecstatic as it realized there was something for it to do.

Two billion years…

This place was unlike what it was before. The tiny asteroid had grown to the size of a planet, and a star was starting to ignite its furnace at the center of the star system.

It was so big that Lawrend had to fly away from it so he wouldn't be enveloped by its hot surface.

The constant crashes into other objects moved the orbit of the thinking planet much further away. Its thoughts were few but they were filled with mysteries compared to the past.

[The universe exists not because of a cause, but because it doesn't exist in infinitely more places.]

Lawrend had grown impassive to these mind-numbing thoughts of the thinking planet. Although sometimes they were meaningless, it didn't mean that Lawrend didn't learn something from them.

He had gotten so many benefits from the thinking planet that he had the thought of becoming a part of it.

Lawrend knew that he couldn't let that happen so he constantly reminded himself once again, but for an entirely different reason compared to before.