Chapter 19: "Quite Cute"
Chapter 019: "Quite Cute"
"From a different world than me?"
The unexpected truth made Shien pause in the middle of taking a sip of tea. His face also showed his confusion.
That reaction got the goddess laughing involuntarily.
"You didn't mishear me you know?" The goddess laughed, "There's many other worlds beyond Omnipotlin. The world of your previous life was just one of them. The only similarity between them is that those other worlds are all very peaceful. They have no gods nor demons, nor are there any special powers. Since they're absolutely independent existences, even us gods can't interfere with them. The limit of what we can do is to operate within the limits of [Logic[ to summon those with the aptitude of Heroes."
That really was something Shien never imagined.
However, thinking about it, that seems understandable.
If gods could really just summon people from another world as they liked, then the gods wouldn't have needed to create the various races to fight against the demons. They could have just summoned manpower from other worlds directly.
Although it's said that those who had the potential to be Heroes are unbelievably rare even in other worlds, it's not like that's any different in this world.
Since they won't have the Holy Sword, and not everyone could even have a unique skill. For the vast majority of people in this world, they can only work hard from the bottom up and slowly raise their levels and learn skills, and only then do they have the chance of standing above the masses.
Therefore, when it comes to the matter of manpower, then there's no real difference no matter which world it is.
If the gods could just summon all the people from another world over, then most of those will probably be no different from the people of this world, and they'd have to train up from zero without any real advantages. Only a small portion of them would be able to awaken their own unique skill, and whether of not those unique skills are usable in battle is still an unknown.
Only those with the potential to be a Hero could awaken a powerful unique skill and bear their own Holy Sword.
Therefore, what the gods need is a Hero, and so they can only summon Heroes.
Only, those who can become Hero are rarer than rare.
Since ancient times, the Heroes summoned to this world haven't even reached 10, and every single Hero came from a different world. That basically means that a world would at most have one person capable of becoming a Hero, and for many worlds, they won't have anyone that could become a Hero.
"Plus, even among Heroes, there are differences in strength." The goddess informed, "In the past, the Holy Sword and unique skills that Heroes awakened all varied."
Therefore, there would naturally be Heroes who awakened unusually strong Holy Swords and unique skills, and others who would be comparatively weaker.
That creates a problem.
That is...
"Even a Hero may not be able to defeat the Demon King."
As she reached there, the goddess's expression seemed slightly depressed. Or perhaps it can be said to be disappointment.
Seeing that, Shien understood.
(Probably, of those Heroes summoned in the past, not a single one of them could defeat the Demon King, huh?)
Otherwise, if the Demon King had already been defeated, then there would have been no point in summoning Shien.
It's because the Demon King is still around that the gods had to keep summoning Heroes.
It can thus be seen just how powerful the Demon King was, for it to have remained undefeated by Heroes across the ages.
Well then, what about himself?
Could he defeat the Demon King?
As Shien was thinking about that, the goddess once more turned her sight to him.
She just looked at him calmly.
"I think that you're the Hero most likely to reach this goal." She goddess seemingly spoke to herself, "After all, be it the Holy Sword or unique skill, I don't think any previous Hero could compare to you." Shien didn't know how he should respond to those words.
Normally speaking, should he be happy at getting that kind of evaluation?
Unfortunately...
"You still can't get happy about it right?" The goddess grinned, "In the various novels and legends of your world, there are plenty of protagonists that were born the with the strongest abilities, and there are protagonists that have normal or even worthless abilities that end up turning the tables. All kind of situation could all show up on a protagonist, so even if I called you the Hero with the most potential in all of history, you'd only feel that it's strange, right?"
To that, the corner of Shien's mouth begun twitching.
That goddess. She couldn't really have the ability to read minds or something, right?
...... Let's give it a try.
Thinking that, Shien begun picturing in his mind a number of images that are not for kids.
"......!"
In that instant, the goddess who was originally full of smiles suddenly froze, and on that beautiful face, a blush appeared.
"You... Why you...! Just what are you thinking!?"
The goddess pounded the table and shouted in anger, giving Shien a start.
"You can read minds after all!?"
Shien stood up in fear.
"I never said I couldn't, did I?"
The goddess still had a hint of a blush left on her face.
It looks like this goddess is still unexpectedly pure.
Just as Shien thought so in his mind, a gaze filled with killing intent drilled into him, making him shudder. Thus he hurriedly calmed himself and purged all extraneous thoughts.
"Hmph!" The goddess let out a cold sniff and stood up, "We'll end this chat here. I'll send you back!"
As she says to, and without giving Shien any time to react, the goddess wave her hand and the world begun twisting again.
"Wait!" Shien finally asked in a hurry, "You still haven't told me what to call you!"
That's also something that Shien had wanted to know all this time.
For all this time, Shien just knew that the other was a goddess. Now that he knows that this world had more than one god, and they were in fact a whole race, of course Shien would want to know the other person's name.
And then...
"You can call me Nien."
With that, the goddess calling herself Nien snapped her fingers, and Shien, along with the twisting space around him, disappeared from the temple.
......
Shien opened his eye within the room of the inn and discovered that he had returned to lying back on the bed at some point, as if he never left in the first place.
"I came back just like that?"
Shien was a little unsure. He even suspected that he might have just been dreaming all this time.
However, the delicious of scent of red tea still lingering in his mouth told Shien that was just happened was definitely not a dream.
"If only I knew, then rather than acting indecent, wouldn't it have been better to ask more questions?"
After all, there's still a lot of things that Shien doesn't know.
Still...
"I have to say, that goddess is quite cute when she's embarrassed."
Shien let out a cunning smile.
Thus, the night passed like this.