Volume 2 - CH 8

Chapter 8 : Goddess’ Holiday

Elios Goddess, Rena, was currently strolling through the main streets of Rox Kingdom.

As she walked through the festive streets, filled with decorations, stalls, music, and food, and seeing people’s happy and cheerful faces, she couldn’t help but ponder about the bane of her suffering—the existence of her clone.

Mona.

This was the name of the fake Goddess Modes had created by using a strand of Rena’s hair as the main catalyst.

In short, she was Rena’s clone.

So how did Rena know about the existence of Mona when no one in Elios knew about her?

While Modes’s special measures, which prevented the leakage of any news regarding Mona’s existence, was a huge success, the reason Rena knew about Mona’s existence was Mona herself. For some unknown reason, Mona would occasionally appear in Rena’s dreams, enabling the latter to know Nargol’s more privy information.

At first, Rena was confused. However, as those dreams appeared more frequently, Rena surmised the answer to her confusion. After pondering about it for many sleepless nights, she concluded that Mona was most probably her clone.

Moreover, even though Rena could receive information from Mona, the opposite never happened. Mona probably had no idea that she was providing information about Modes and Nargol to Rena.

Thus, Rena became the most well informed amongst the Elios Gods about Nargol’s situation.

— However, she also ended up with information that she didn’t wish to know.

— Because, what’s more sorrowful and hellish than her being forced to see Modes and Mona’s night activities EVERY-SINGLE-DAY?

— Worst of all, the other party was that ugly Modes!

It was nothing but a nightmare to Rena.

That was the situation.

That’s why Rena had summoned Reiji and his party to defeat Modes.

But, everything went wrong when Modes summoned the Dark Knight.

Rena’s strategies to defeat Modes and get rid of that clone were all completely thwarted with the appearance of the Dark Knight. She had tried to ask Casa several times about a method that could get rid of the Dark Knight. But, even the Goddess who could see the infinite future and all of its possibilities, couldn’t find a way to defeat the Dark Knight—he was simply too powerful.

Casa had also mentioned to her several times that she could only see the future with the highest chance of occurence, she couldn’t pick and choose a specific future to see. In short, she couldn’t see a future with a low possibility of happening nor any future that never existed. Moreover, Casa’s power to foresee the future wasn’t without risk. Thus Rena couldn’t ask for Casa’s help again either.

She had no choice but to act on her own.

But, the information she knew about Nargol was limited to the information that was known by Mona. It seems Modes didn’t plan to tell Mona everything, that’s why Mona’s information didn’t have a complete picture of the whole situation.

Even Mona had no idea about the summoning of the Dark Knight until the last moment.

However, this wasn’t because Modes didn’t trust Mona; rather, it was only because he didn’t wish to burden Mona with Nargol’s problems. He only wished for them to seek comfort from each other.

But, there was a time when he told Mona vital information.

The latest and most vital information was the fact that the Dark Knight was heading for the Silver Holy Dragon King’s place to retrieve its horn. He was planning to use it as the main material for the creation of another clone of herself.

Naturally, Rena wouldn’t allow another creation of her clone. She planned to intercept the Dark Knight as he was heading to his destination.

But, the Dark Knight was too powerful.

Rena and her Valkyries were powerless against him.

In the first place,  her Valkyries were already weaker than the Holy Knight Order, the very same Knight Order that was brought to the verge of complete annihilation when it fought against that single Dark Knight.

Thus, Rena changed her plans and used Reiji and his party to intercept the Dark Knight.

That was her original plan.

She installed a barrier at the Silver Holy Dragon King’s dwelling entrance that would notify the Hero and his companions about the Dark Knight’s arrival. She could already imagine the whole scenario: they would allow the Dark Knight to retrieve the Holy Dragon King’s horn, then, when he would start to happily leave, Reiji and the others would intercept him and hold him back at the entrance of the cave.

Then, her Valkyries would appear and steal the horn from him while he’s distracted by his fight with the Hero and his companions.

She had entrusted Reiji and the others with a bell that would send a warning signal when the Dark Knight entered the dragon’s dwelling and that would immediately teleport Reiji and co. right in front of that place. It was all too perfect.

Rena and her Valkyries had boarded her flying ship and headed toward Rox Kingdom as fast as possible as soon as they received news about the Dark Knight’s arrival in Rox Kingdom from Rena’s scout.

But then, she also received the news that Reiji and the others had just arrived today despite departing far earlier than her and her guards.

She was truly vexed and livid upon hearing that news.

Considering Reiji and his party’s strength, they should have arrived far earlier than her. Moreover, even though the others were less powerful than Reiji, everyone who came from the spirit world had the same power as a divine being in this world.

Yet, for the time being, Rena and the other Elios Gods had decided to treat Reiji and his companions as humans. They simply could not treat them as divine beings. Such a thing needed God Oudith and the other Gods’ acknowledgement. They hadn’t even treated the Elven and Angel races, races far more superior than humans, as divine beings just because they didn’t have the special traits needed. They weren’t going to give such privilege to people who didn’t even belong to this world.

It was for this reason that they had decided to treat the other-worlders as part of the human race, a much lower grade race in spite of their power that could rival even the Gods and other divine beings. Such treatment had of course caused a lot of trouble from time to time.

As Rena pondered about the reason behind Reiji and his party’s late arrival, she finally concluded that the matter was related to Chiyuki. She was certain that it was Chiyuki who deliberately delayed their arrival to Rox Kingdom since she was the one who wanted to stop Reiji from ever confronting the Dark Knight.

（It’ll be troubling if they don’t fight. I mean, what’s their use aside from fighting Modes? I guess I have no choice but to use THIS if she keeps trying to hinder my plans.）

Rena touched a certain small bottle in her pocket.

Love potion.

Anyone who drank that potion would madly fall in love with the first person they see after drinking it. Its effect was greatly boosted after the addition of a powerful charm spell of Rena’s doing. Rena planned to make Chiyuki drink this potion.

It was an extremely dangerous potion that literally turned anyone who drank it into the slave of the first person they saw.

Originally, that potion was supposed to be drunk by Reiji the moment he was summoned by Rena in this world. She had prepared that potion since there was a high chance that the summoned person would be unwilling to do her bidding.

That’s why Rena had this potion prepared for that situation.

But, it ended up as needless anxiety since Reiji readily agreed to Rena’s request.

However, Rena couldn’t help but think that she should’ve used this potion on Chiyuki from the very moment she summoned them. It would’ve probably saved her a lot of trouble.

But, the potion had its own limitations.

Firstly, it would only work if the one the target saw was someone that he/she considered as a target of love. The potion would lose its effect if there were too many discrepancies between the races involved. For example, the target won’t fall in love with a dog even if they saw the dog right after drinking the potion because they would never consider them as a target of their love.

Naturally, it was another matter if the said target had a “special” preference.

In addition, even if both parties were of the same race, it wouldn’t turn into love if the one that the target saw first was too far apart from the target’s preference, at most, they would become a good friend.

But for Rena, that was enough for Chiyuki’s case because that way, there would be no one else left to stop Reiji from following her orders.

As a matter of fact, the potion also didn’t work on targets that already served someone else, like a familiar for example. Moreover, the effects of the potion greatly varied depending on the target’s magic resistance and the amount he/she drank—it won’t show its effect if someone with powerful magic resistance drank only a small bit of the potion.

（I wonder just how much of the potion I should make Chiyuki drink before she becomes my slave?）

Rena kept pondering about that matter.

The potion in her hand was an especially powerful one. So powerful that one drop of it was enough to turn a normal human into an eternal slave.

(Should I assume that she has the magic resistance of a divine being as an average?)

That potion might be the last one since no other similar potion had been made. That was just how dangerous it was. It was so dangerous to the point that Elios had banned it.

Anyhow, the effect of the potion couldn’t be dispelled with magic, they had no choice but to eliminate the effect with their own resistance.

Rena knew that it wouldn’t simply end with banishment from Elios if it was known that she used such a dangerous potion. However, she had no other choice. But, she had no idea how powerful its effect was on someone with resistance that was on par with the average divine being since it was never used on a divine being before. She needed to figure it out as soon as possible to make it successful, otherwise it might only become a temporary solution.

Yet, if she thought about it more, it didn’t matter even if the effect was temporary since the target would be full of openings during that moment. Meaning that she could enslave the target with something like domination magic during that moment of vulnerability.

Thus, Rena now firmly decided to use that potion.

（I definitely have to make them fight the Dark Knight! Otherwise, it will be impossible to prevent the Dark Knight from cutting the Dragon King’s horn!）

Rena became a bit impatient.

But, luckily for her, the Dark Knight had yet to make his move.

He had yet to cut the Dragon King’s horn despite having already arrived close to its resting place.

That’s why, considering the result, Reiji and his companions had actually arrived on time.

It’s just that she had no idea where the Dark Knight was currently at in this country.

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Since none of her Valkyries specialized in detection magic, they couldn’t find the Dark Knight’s precise location.

Her Valkyrie team was currently on stand-by, quite far away from Rox Kingdom in order to prevent their presence from being detected by the Dark Knight.

Thus, Rena had decided to go alone to Rox Kingdom to make Chiyuki drink the potion, and oversee the situation from the vicinity.

Though her Valkyries had tried to convince her to come along, none of them were adept in covert operations. They were bound to get detected as they would stand out from the crowd if they all came together. Thus, Rena came by herself.

At the very least, it was less conspicuous than coming with a horde of Valkyries.

In fact, Rena herself wasn’t adept in covert operations.

But, Rena thought it was fine since humans, with their weak presence detection powers, wouldn’t be able to blow her cover.

Her main concern was the Dark Knight himself, reason being she had no idea about how powerful that man’s presence detection was. He might be able to blow her cover if his presence detection was as powerful as Nao, one of Reiji’s comrades. And, even if it wasn’t as powerful as Nao’s detection powers, he would still blow her cover if his powers reached Shirone or Kaya’s level.

Rena’s invisibility was that weak.

Thus, Rena entered Rox Kingdom with only that much preparation.

Rena was moving towards the direction where she felt the bell’s magical power, the one she had entrusted to Reiji and the others.

But, someone had suddenly stood in front of her and blocked her way.

（Eh? Who?）

Rena was extremely surprised upon seeing that person’s face.

It was the face of the man she saw once before, at night, when he had raided her temple by himself.

There was no way she could ever forget that man, with his jet-black hair, his not so conspicuous yet actually well-ordered face, his pale skin, and his pair of black quartz eyes that were now locked on her for the second time.

「D-… Dark Knight?!」

The man who stood in her way was none other than the Dark Knight himself.

（No way, to think that he can find me so easily!）

Rena heaved a sigh, lamenting her poor luck.

「It’s been a while, Goddess Rena.」

He, the Dark Knight greeted Rena.

For some reason, Rena didn’t feel like escaping from him.

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TN : Girl meet Boi!!