Hollyhope looked up in surprise.
“Ararararara,” she trilled out, tilting her head to the side. “I haven’t told you yet?”
Demi’s forehead wrinkled. “No,” she reminded the goddess patiently. “You have not.”
I really need to know what I’m doing here!!!
It had taken some time for the Council of Demi to reconvene after repeated assaults by Hollyhope’s cute expressions, her meandering detours, and well, Leonard, but by now, they had gathered together again and were feeling decidedly antsy.
One was holding up a sign that said, “we need to know what’s going on!!!” Two other members were pointing at the sign and holding up their own exclamation points. Another raised a sign that said, “What if we don’t have enough time to read books?!!!” Once she had, the other members became agitated and began pointing at that sign. Only one member was contentedly waving a little flag with a charming pink sheep on it.
A few such sheep could be spied grazing outside one of the windows in the cozy little kitchen.
The kettle at last began to sing, so Hollyhope paused to fill the pretty teapot while Demi waited for her answer.
The goddess picked up the top of the tea stand that had been packed full of little sandwiches, scones, cookies, and other small sweets and offered it to Demi with a serene smile.
“Everything is ready, so we ought to go back to the table and enjoy our snack,” she suggested.
Some members of the Council of Demi were still pointing at the book-related sign, but several of them had been sidetracked by the promise of food.
Demi herself tried to remain stalwart and focused, but then her stomach growled in a very embarrassing way. She flushed pink and meekly accepted the tea stand, tucking the book under one of her arms.
Hollyhope picked up the tray with the tea on it and gave another smile that could have made flowers bloom.
“Eating lots of good food is very important,” she said mildly. “You need to nourish your body and your heart. Besides,” she said cheerfully, “sugar is good for the brain! I’m sure we’ll be able to think lots and lots of wonderful thoughts after we eat. There’s no use trying to figure things out on an empty stomach. You’ll just become a grumpy grump.”
She had a point. And she had even used a justification that came directly from Demi’s own personal “Strategy Book for Doing Whatever I Want.”
Sugar was good for the brain.
Demi carried the tea stand to the little farmhouse table and again sat down in the spot she had occupied before, carefully settling the book in her lap and protectively covering it with one of the sweetly embroidered cloth napkins that the goddess had brought along with her tea service.
Hollyhope poured the tea. It had a rosy color and smelled a little of citrus. It was very refreshing.
She then passed Demi a little round plate and proceeded to put both cream and sugar in her tea.
One, two, three, four.
Demi counted the sugar cubes, then, as Hollyhope gracefully stirred her tea with a little golden spoon, Demi proceeded to make the exact same cream and sugar concoction for herself.
They both raised their teacups in unison, pinkies out, and then sipped their tea.
“Ahhh, so healing,” the goddess sighed at the same time that Demi said, “So refreshing.”
This made them both giggle. It was difficult for Demi to stay perturbed when she was sitting in an adorable room, drinking delicious tea with a pretty girl, and eating sweet and savory snacks. Hollyhope settled her teacup back on the table and chose a scone.
She began speaking as she split it and spread it with cream and jam.
“Because of various things that have happened, I’m the primary resident administrator goddess of this realm,” she explained with her healing smile.
She absolutely has the aura of an idol, Demi thought to herself as she chose her own scone from the tea stand. I wonder if all goddesses are like this?
Demi had no difficulties imagining Hollyhope onstage in a frilly outfit while a sea of cyalume glow sticks waved in unison.
“But being the only active resident administrator is really tiiiiiiiiiring,” the goddess confessed, miming rubbing her eyes. “I’ve had a lot of things to do recently, and it’s left me too exhausted to do everything. If I keep working like this, I’m going to shrivel up like an autumn leaf and blow away in the wind.” As she described this dramatic outcome, she lowered her voice to a whisper and she wrapped her arms around herself to mime getting smaller.
“That would be really really bad for everyone!” Hollyhope declared, steepling her fingers together in front of herself. Then she smiled again, tilting her head.
“That’s why I brought you here to help me with things!”
Arara, Demi thought. Here we go! I suppose even Harvest Goddesses need heroes, or heroines in this case. I wonder what that entails? Will I gather a party of agriculture-related allies and go battle the demon king of crop failure? Or is this the kind of scenario where I have to revitalize a certain small town with amazing advances in farming and ranching?
The Council of Demi held up their own signs in prediction of the possibilities.
“Dramatic quests!” “Thrilling adventure!” “Finding true love!” “Making friends with all of the magic beasts in the world!” “Reading all of the books in the world!” “Vacation!”
The members of the council conferred among themselves briefly after looking at one another’s signs, but quickly reached a consensus. They soon had a new sign that read, “Make friends with all of the magic beasts in the world, read all of the books in the world, find true love, and have a nice vacation!” They all seemed to be earnestly in support of this one.
Demi felt she was ready for whatever Hollyhope required from her. This was a world based on farming game logic, after all. She loved farming games and had played dozens of them over the course of her life. There was something very relaxing about tending to crops and taking care of sheep and chickens, befriending the local villagers, and romancing and marrying the most serious and cranky bachelor who was on offer.
I wonder if I’m expected to do that here, Demi thought to herself. She did say that I could be here for years with no repercussions. Then her cheeks turned pink and she was forced to cup them with her hands. Kyaaa ~, she thought to herself. In a game is one thing, but it’s different in real life!
Demi had captured dozens and dozens of targets in games, and romanced even the most difficult hidden characters—usually redeemed villains, final bosses, and alternate timeline versions of the aforementioned. She’d read lots and lots of books about romance, stacks of manga, and several hundred doujinshi. She might not have much experience having normal human relationships with actual, living people, but she considered herself a pro when it came to having relationships with imaginary ones.
(That was probably an embarrassing thing to be proud of. It was definitely an embarrassing thing to be proud of! All she had to do was think about it for five seconds and she realized it! She might just be a failure as a human being. It was best not to think about it.)
Still, even with hundreds of hours of experience courting entirely fictitious people, Demi wasn’t sure she was emotionally ready to romance an actual person, even in another world. It wasn’t really that she didn’t want to. She wanted to! It remained a huge preoccupation of hers, which was one of the reasons she had played so many games (and read so many doujinshi).
There would be holding hands, and kissing, and then this and that! And that and this! And everything in between!
Demi had a world class imagination. In seconds it had entirely carried her away.
Ahhhh she couldn’t think about that! Not here! She was at some strange otherworldly tea party with a goddess! She was going to die of embarrassment!
She gripped the book on her lap like it was a beloved stuffed animal and willed herself to stop existing, her whole face pink.
Hollyhope watched the silent tableau unfolding in front of her while peacefully sipping her tea and nibbling on her scone.
It took a while for Demi’s imagination to run its course, and she felt that she was left panting from chasing after it, hobbling along unsteadily until she crashed to the ground and resolved to pretend that nothing at all had happened. Ever. Ever.
When Demi finally recovered, she managed to verbalize a question that was not related to her overactive imagination regarding potential future paramours.
“What is it exactly that you want me to do?” she wondered curiously. She tilted her head to the side as she quietly waited for Hollyhope to outline her expectations. She could not escape the painful awareness that she had been the one to initiate the most recent elaborate detour.
Fortunately, it seemed that the goddess was actually ready to provide an answer.
“Oh, it should be easy for you,” Hollyhope reassured her. “I want you to take my place as the Goddess of Life while I rest up. Once I’m feeling a little better, it should be much easier for us to get everything done if we share the duties.”
She said it with such gentle certainty that Demi nodded along, saying, “Ah, I see. That makes perfect sense.”
And then a moment passed, and Hollyhope had a little more tea and chose a tea sandwich to begin eating.
And at last the words fully penetrated Demi’s brain.
“Wait wait wait!” she cried, throwing her arms up in an X before her. “Goddess? You want me to be a goddess? Not a hero or a farmer or something? You want me to be a goddess?!!!”