Banished Divinity: Learning to be Human

From that day onwards, Sera's studying looked less like reading and more like watching Moo Moo perform an act of academic violence on her textbooks.

Every night, the little green cutie would float up from her desk, his tiny body humming with energy like a very small, very fuzzy generator. His antennae pulsed. His eyes glowed with the intensity of a creature who had discovered his life's purpose.

And then he opened his mouth.

His tiny mouth. The mouth that had only ever said "Moo." The mouth that had only ever expressed fear, joy, sadness, and love in that single, simple, ridiculously adorable word.

He opened it wide.

And he ate the floating book.

Page by page. Word by word. Equation by miserable equation. He consumed it like it was the most delicious thing in the universe. The supply curves disappeared into his small body. The demand curves dissolved on his tongue. The concepts of elasticity and marginal utility—concepts that had made Sera want to launch herself into the sun—vanished into the green fur of a creature who had always been more than he seemed.

Human Sera went absolutely ballistic.

Every. Single. Night.

"OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!" she shrieked, bouncing off the walls like a pinball machine that had been possessed by a very enthusiastic demon. She zoomed from the ceiling to the floor, from the floor to the window, from the window to the lamp—which flickered ominously and probably considered moving out. "HE'S EATING THE BOOK! THE BOOK IS BEING EATEN! MOO MOO, YOU CUTIE PIE! I LOVE YOU! THIS IS THE BEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN!"

She flipped upside down, her ghostly hair defying gravity—which was impressive for someone who was already defying several laws of physics just by existing. Her translucent face was inches from Moo Moo's, her eyes wide with wonder.

"AND I'VE SEEN A LOT OF THINGS! I'VE BEEN DEAD FOR A FEW MONTHS! BUT THIS IS STILL THE BEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN! BEING DEATH HAS BEEN WORTH IT JUST FOR THIS MOMENT!"

"SERA! SERA!" She spun toward Sera, her ghostly hands waving frantically. "DO YOU REALIZE WHAT THIS MEANS?! I DON'T HAVE TO TEACH YOU ANYMORE! I DON'T HAVE TO EXPLAIN SUPPLY AND DEMAND! I DON'T HAVE TO DRAW DIAGRAMS OR WORDS OR NUMBERS WITH MY FINGER ON THE WALL LIKE SOME DESPERATE GHOST TUTOR!"

She clutched her ghostly chest like she was accepting an award.

"I WAS THIS CLOSE TO VOMITING BLOOD, SERA. THIS CLOSE." She held her translucent fingers a millimeter apart. "AND I CAN'T EVEN VOMIT BLOOD BECAUSE I'M A GHOST! I DON'T HAVE A STOMACH! I DON'T HAVE BLOOD! I JUST HAVE SUFFERING! PURE, UNDILUTED SUFFERING THAT HAS BEEN SIMMERING FOR MONTHS!"

She took a dramatic breath—which was also impressive, since she didn't have lungs.

"BUT NOW? NOW I AM FREE! FREE, SERA! FREE LIKE A BIRD! A DEAD BIRD! BUT STILL FREE! FREE LIKE THE WIND! A VERY ANNOYING WIND THAT WON'T STOP SCREAMING!"

She spun in circles, her translucent form leaving trails of light in the air like a very happy, very dead firefly.

Moo Moo ignored her completely. He had become very good at this.

He hovered in the air for a moment, his belly round, his eyes bright, his antennae crackling with leftover energy. He looked like a very small, very green balloon that had eaten too much at an all-you-can-eat buffet and was now questioning his life choices.

And then—each night, like clockwork—he flew to Sera.

He landed on her shoulder. His tiny feet gripped her shirt with the determination of a climber reaching the summit of Mount Everest. His antennae touched her temple.

And then—

Zap.

Knowledge flooded into Sera's brain like a tidal wave of numbers and formulas and principles she had never understood before. Elasticity. Marginal utility. Supply curves. Demand curves. Marketing terms. The invisible hand of the market—which she now realized was not actually invisible at all. It was just very, very small and green and currently sitting on her shoulder, digesting her textbook.

Her eyes widened. Her mouth fell open. Her entire face took on the expression of someone who had just seen the universe's secrets and found them surprisingly boring.

"I... I understand," she whispered.

"Moo," said Moo Moo proudly. You're welcome. I accept payment in snacks and adoration.

"I UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING!"

"Moo moo moo." I am very smart. Please give me snacks now. I have earned them. I have consumed knowledge. I am basically a professor now. A very small, very green professor with no degree and no shame.

Minjae.

He had been watching for months now. Every night after his part-time job at the convenience store—the one with the flickering sign that said "OPEN" even when it was closed and the cashier who never asked questions because she was too busy watching dramas on her phone—he would walk the extra fifteen minutes to her street instead of going straight home.

He would stand in the darkness between the dumpster that smelled like regret and the brick wall that had seen better decades. Hidden from the streetlight's glow. Invisible to everyone who walked past.

And he would look up.

And he would watch.

He could see her window from here. The warm light spilling out like honey. The silhouette of a girl with dark brown hair—not purple anymore, not like the night they first met, just brown like earth and wood and the kind of ordinary that made extraordinary things harder to spot.

He could see the movement of her hands. The tilt of her head. The way she sometimes threw her pencil across the room in frustration—and then had to crawl under her desk to find it.

And tonight, as always, the chaos.

He heard everything. He saw everything.

The ghost of Sera shrieking like a banshee who had drunk too much coffee. High-pitched. Hysterical. Bouncing off the walls of the room and somehow carrying down to the alley where he stood. He could see her translucent form—he was able to see her ever since the explosion happened on that stormy night when he saw Sera climbing out of the window—the way her voice cracked when she got excited, the way she yelled about gold toilets and chicken nuggets and the unfairness of being dead.

He heard the zap. He heard Sera's gasp. He heard the wonder in her voice when she whispered, "I understand."

And he heard the little green creature's satisfied "Moo."

Minjae smiled.

He didn't know what that creature was. He had known something was different about that creature the first time he saw him after the fight ended—the way light bent around his tiny body like he was too important for normal physics. The way the air shimmered when he moo-ed, like reality itself was pausing to listen.

Because he did, didn't he? That creature understood everything.

That wasn't a pet. That wasn't a hamster or a lizard or any of the other things normal people kept in their bedrooms and forgot to feed.

That was something else.

Something from out of this world.

Like her.

Minjae didn't know the word for it. He didn't know the word for a lot of things—like why he kept coming back night after night, or why his chest ached when Sera laughed at something the ghost said, or why he felt more at home in this dark, dumpster-scented alley than he ever had in his own apartment with his own family.

But he knew one thing.

He was in love with her.

He had been in love with her ever since she came into this world ten years ago. Since she came from the sky and landed in front of him and his abusers, and looked at him with eyes that were beautiful and yet haunting.

From the window above, he heard Ghost Sera start screaming again.

"OKAY, OKAY, OKAY! NOW DO THE NEXT CHAPTER! MOO MOO, EAT THE NEXT BOOK! EAT IT! EAT IT ALL! I WANT TO BE FREE FOREVER! I WANT TO NEVER EXPLAIN ANYTHING TO HER AGAIN! RELEASE ME FROM THIS PAIN! RELEASE ME FROM THIS CYCLE OF SUFFERING!"

"Moo," said Moo Moo.

"He said he is full now," Sera said, sighing like someone who had accepted that her life was now being run by a very small, very opinionated green creature.

"YOU ARE NOT FULL! YOU ARE A CREATURE OF INFINITE STOMACH! I HAVE SEEN YOU EAT! I HAVE WATCHED YOU CONSUME! YOU ARE A VOID! A GREEN, FLUFFY VOID! EAT! EAT! EAT!"

Minjae laughed softly. He leaned against the brick wall—carefully, because once he had leaned against the dumpster and regretted it for a week—tilted his head back, and watched the light flicker in Sera's window.

One day, he thought. One day, I'll tell her. One day, I'll tell her that I know who she is. That I know where she came from. That I've been watching her—not in a creepy way, not like a stalker, but like someone who saw a star fall from the sky and couldn't look away. Like someone who has been waiting for ten years ever since he was twelve to find the right words.

One day.

He pushed off from the wall, shoved his hands into his pockets, and started walking home.

Behind him, he could still hear Ghost Sera screaming. The acoustics in this alley were remarkable.

"FINE! FINE! I'LL WAIT! BUT I'M GOING TO COMPLAIN THE ENTIRE TIME! THIS IS MY RIGHT AS A DEAD PERSON! I HAVE RIGHTS, SERA! I READ ABOUT THEM! IN A BOOK! THAT MOO MOO SHOULD EAT!"

"There is no such book in this world," Sera said flatly. Her expression was the face of someone who had long since stopped being surprised by anything. Her eyebrows were slightly raised. Her lips were pressed together in a thin line. Her eyes had the thousand-yard stare of a veteran who had seen too many battles—or, in her case, too many nights of a ghost screaming about gold toilets. "I, a Celestial Being, do not need a creature like Moo Moo to help with the rest."

"Moo," said Moo Moo. It sounded suspiciously like rude.

"I am not being rude," Sera said, crossing her arms. "I am just stating the facts. There is a difference."

"Moo moo." The difference is your face.

"I heard that."

"I STILL WOULD COMPLAIN!" Ghost Sera's voice echoed through the night. "AND BEST OF ALL—NO ONE CAN HEAR ME EXCEPT YOU!"

She started singing. It was not good singing. It was the kind of singing that made stray dogs howl and small children cry. It was the kind of singing that should have been classified as a weapon.

"🎵 I'M FREE! FREE FALLING! NOW I'M FREE FALLING! 🎵"

"Errr..." Sera pinched the bridge of her nose. Her expression was now one of deep, profound regret. The kind of regret that came from agreeing to share a body with a ghost who had no indoor voice and no concept of pitch. "I give up."

Minjae was still smiling when he turned the corner.

Behind him, he could still hear the ghost singing.

And somewhere in the distance, a dog howled.

First of all, I originally tried setting up a poll to see whether anyone wanted an interlude story...

And then I removed it.

Why?

Because honestly, you all deserve the best, and I decided to just publish the interlude story for everyone to enjoy!

You guys have been absolutely amazing, and we've now reached over 1.4K viewers! 🥹💛

Thank you so much for all the support, likes, follows, and love you've shown Banished Divinity. It truly means the world to me.

So as a HUGE thank you, the first interlude story will be released today! After this chapter 49 🎉🎉🎉🎉

So, For the next few chapters, we're taking a short detour from Sera's usual attempts to survive humanity and diving into a special interlude story focused on Gate - Rammer... Minjae. 😭

Now, some of you may have noticed something very suspicious throughout the story, whenever Sera says something completely insane, impossible, or worthy of an immediate psychiatric evaluation...

Minjae just goes:

👁️👄👁️

"...okay."

No panic.

No confusion.

No "Sera, what are you talking about?"

No calling an ambulance.

Just acceptance.

Well... there is actually a very good reason for that.

And I guess from the last chapter you read, you probably have even MORE questions.

Why is Minjae appearing at Sera's window?

Why can he see Human Sera?

How does he know Moo Moo?

OMG, the amount of questions. 😭

Well, don't worry. There is a very good explanation for all of it, and these interlude chapters will finally start answering those mysteries.

And that explanation begins with a girl who fell from the sky.

✨ Interlude Series: The Girl That Fell From the Sky ✨

This side story will run for 9 interlude chapters and will explore Minjae's past, the mysterious girl he met as a child, and the events that shaped the person he is today.

⚠️ Small Warning ⚠️

This side story dives into darker themes than the usual comedy-fantasy chaos of Banished Divinity. Expect:

✨ More emotional moments

✨ More supernatural mysteries

✨ More questions than answers

✨ Some unsettling moments from Minjae's past

BUT—

Not horror horror.

Nobody is crawling out of televisions.

Not “watching The Exorcist at 3AM and suddenly hearing your kitchen door creak open” horror.

Probably.

(Tribunal lawyers have advised me not to make any guarantees.)

So grab some snacks, prepare your emotions, and let's begin the story of the boy who looked at a celestial being and somehow decided that was completely normal. 😭✨