Chapter 1

PROLOGUE A Goddess’s Despair “I hereby announce that Ristarte will be the goddess in charge of saving the S-ranked world Gaeabrande!” Roaring applause echoes throughout the sanctuary of this unified spirit world, a separate dimension from the world in which humans reside. From every direction, I’m showered with the thunderous applause of virile men and gorgeous women. “What a rewarding mission! You can do it, Rista!” “Wow, Rista! You’ll be a full-fledged goddess once this is over!” Cheered on by my superiors, I force a smile onto my face. An S-ranked world…? You’ve got to be kidding me… I, Ristarte, was born into this unified spirit world as a goddess around one hundred years ago. Since then, I have summoned Heroes five times from the human realm in order to save worlds in peril. And, well, five times is quite a bit less compared to the other seasoned gods and goddesses. On average, one would usually perform several dozen summons in this time frame while some even manage to perform a few hundred to save various human worlds. Incidentally, S-ranked worlds are frightening lands that make even the most experienced gods wince. Why? Because the evil beings that are trying to dominate these worlds are said to have powers that rival the gods’. After returning to the room I was assigned in the sanctuary, I take out my list of candidates, consisting solely of relatively young Japanese people from the planet Earth. Ever since my third summons, I’ve been making it a point to summon only young Heroes from Japan. As a side note, the first Hero I summoned was from Mars, and the second Hero was an aborigine from a remote village in South Africa. It took an entire month to get them up to speed. In Japan, however, there exists fiction about being transported to parallel universes or being reborn in other worlds. These tales are apparently quite popular, which makes explaining things easy. And, well, although the fad is waning, it’s still popular in Japan and is taking the market by storm and— Ack. What in the world am I even rambling on about? I must be exhausted. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, though. I’ve been looking through piles of lists of candidates in my room for a while now, after all. My face has become oily, I have bags under my eyes, and to crown it all, I can’t stop nervously tapping my foot. After spending all that time brushing my gorgeous long blond hair, it’s already a mess. Still, even if it means sacrificing my beauty as a goddess, I continue gazing at two candidates’ abstracts I managed to select from the mountain of lists stacked on my desk. Let’s take a look at the first candidate. …He appears to be a Warrior. While he doesn’t have any magic, his attack power is high. Plus, unlike most of the other candidates, his initial HP of 101 is in the triple digits. All right, let’s take a look at the second candidate. …This one’s your basic Mage-type Hero. Being able to use fire magic right from the start and being resistant to water magic are both good traits. So is it going to be Sasaki or Suzuki? Suzuki or Sasaki? I’d prefer to take them both with me, but I can summon only one Hero per world. Suzuki, Sasaki, Sasaki, Suzuki, Suzuki, Sasaki—even their names sound similar. I’m starting to not care which one I choose… I place the two résumés I selected back onto the desk before letting out a deep sigh. “I can’t wait to get more experience and become a high-ranking goddess!” I know I’ve been saying that almost every day to my superiors, but this isn’t at all what I had in mind. If this were a C-ranked or D-ranked world like usual, then neither Sasaki nor Suzuki would be a problem. But this is Gaeabrande, an S-ranked world. I have to be extra careful with who I choose. The more I think about it, the more I feel that maybe neither of them would be the right choice. I—I guess I’ll just have to look through all the lists again. Besides, I might have accidentally overlooked someone… However, I suddenly start feeling dizzy before the mountain of documents on my desk and fall flat into my chair…causing the stack of papers to collapse onto my head. “Gyaaahhhhhh!” After letting out a scream unfit for a goddess, I find myself buried in paper. I bitterly swat the documents away from me, but one résumé is stuck to my forehead, and I can’t get it off. “Stupid…paper…! Ugh!” Annoyed, I manage to peel it off and give it a look. …But I can hardly believe my eyes. “…Huh?” H-h-hold up. Wait. What’s going on here? I mean, his stats are incredible for someone who’s only level 1. Am I hallucinating due to fatigue? Is the stress making me delusional? I rub my eyes and stare at the sheet of paper so hard, I could burn a hole through it, but the numbers don’t change. I-I’ve never seen a human with stats like this before! He’s perfect! Undoubtedly a man of extraordinary talent! He’s one in a million—no, one in a billion! Tightly grasping the résumé, I dash out of the room and head over to see the Great Goddess Ishtar… My heart racing, I proceed to the Summoning Chamber after finishing the application. When I was first told that I was going to be in charge of managing an S-ranked world, I cursed my ill fate… I never even dreamed I would encounter a Hero with such amazing stats! He’ll be able to save Gaeabrande in no time, and I’ll be one step closer to becoming a Great Goddess! I mean, seriously, am I lucky or what?! Seiya Ryuuguuin—what an imposing name. I skip down the marble passage, utterly captivated by his impressive stats…which is how I overlooked a certain detail. Or more precisely, I saw it, but it simply didn’t seem that important at the time. Personality: Overly Cautious It’s not long after the summoning that I regret my actions.