Stella snuffed out her candle and turned to her bed. I called out to her back, “Good night.”
“Good night,” she replied after a while.
Stella slipped into her bed amid the darkness and buried herself under her comforter. I heard raspy whispering from under it.
“Wait, so, Otaku and I are living together? From good morning to good night...? Guuuh, now I’m getting all sweaty. How am I supposed to sleep now that I’m so self-conscious about this...? I can’t risk oversleeping two days in a row!”
It wasn’t long before I heard snoozing from under the comforter. I fist-pumped internally.
Thaaank you, nurse!
It was a day in which I feasted upon tsundere-ness to my heart’s content.
At first being a staff was utter misery, but being my idol’s staff was nothing if not a gift. Stella’s dream was to join the mightiest military force in the kingdom, and she needed a strong spirit for that. If I could fulfill that role for her, I would gladly be her staff.
As it was, I basically had no means by which to return to my old world anyway, s—
“—O holiness,” came a woman’s voice.
It wasn’t Stella’s. Nobody else was in the room.
I looked to the relief of the Goddess with a start. Her lips moved beneath her blackened eyes. The relief twisted as if being pulled, resulting in loud creaking. It was like something out of a horror movie.
“O holiness, O holiness. O holy lord of all who sees the past, future, and present. Luxsaria Sein.”
The horrifying chant ended, and the light took a human shape. It was transparent like a hologram, but that figure was unmistakably the Goddess.
The Goddess had thus appeared out of thin air. Stella’s bed remained immobile, indicating she was still asleep. The Goddess walked next to me, her robes shifting.
“Can you hear me, O human from another world?” she asked. I felt the illusion of a cold sweat running down my back.
I’m just gonna pretend to be asleep and ignore her. That’s the good thing about being a staff; I don’t even need to try to keep a straight face.
As I was focusing my mind power to drive her away, the Goddess chanted “Ignaria Sein.” A fireball appeared above her palm. It swelled up in the blink of an eye, until it was big enough to cradle in one’s arms. It looked entirely like a miniature sun. She lifted up the roaring ball, and—with a smile—prepared to slam it into me.
“Wait, hold it! Hold iiit!” I cried just as I was engulfed by fire.
And yet, it didn’t burn or hurt. The fireball was an illusion just as the Goddess was.
Once the illusory fireball disappeared, the Goddess twisted her mouth into a mocking grin. “So you are awake. I cannot tell these things if you do not answer me,” she giggled. I grimaced on the inside.
What a blackhearted Goddess...!
I just kept stepping on land mines. I hated people who mocked others in a way that made it hard to tell whether they were joking or genuine.
“I have watched the two of you from the heavens for the entirety of today. You are having quite the lively school life, it would seem.”
“I’d hardly call it lively myself since I’ve only ever spoken with Stella.”
“And what of executing the witch?” the Goddess asked, her usual smile plastered on her face.
She had kind eyes and the furthest thing from a grimace on her face, but... I felt bottomless pressure exuding from her.
“Did you not wish to return to your original world as soon as possible? It hurt my heart to see your childhood friend sobbing over your comatose body once again today. She is awaiting your return with desperation.”
That was a cowardly way of putting things. It seemed like she understood what to say to manipulate people.
“I blessed your name and granted you power. All that is left is for you to execute her and—”
“Why don’t you do it yourself?” I asked. The Goddess froze mid-sentence. “Wasn’t it you who historically defeated the witches and ended the war? Can’t you just do it again?”
I had found it strange ever since Stella had told me about it. It seemed to me that the Goddess could just kill Stella herself without all this business about granting me divine power. What was a god if they couldn’t rain down fire from the heavens or whatever?
“That is not an option,” the Goddess said sadly. “In the process of ending Pandemonium, I ascended to the heavenly throne so that I might watch over humanity. As a deity, I cannot leave my throne; nor can I directly interfere with mortal affairs. All I can do is appear before my subjects in this illusory form to impart wisdom.”
“Then why did you choose me for this? Wouldn’t someone else be better for the task?” I asked. Unfortunately, there was no end to people who hated Stella’s guts out there. Giving any of them divine power would have Stella dead the next day, so why me?
“On a fundamental level, it simply makes karmic sense to give a victim of a witch the power to strike her down. But there is another reason...” The Goddess bent down and brought her lips to me. “...And that is because I have found myself fancying you.”
What?
It took me several seconds to understand what she said. The Goddess fancied me? Where was that even coming from?
I looked to the side and found the Goddess’s lustrous face incredibly close. Even as an illusion her curves were visible, and a gap in her robes revealed her significant cleavage.
“My statues litter the continent, but no one dares touch them to visit my heavenly throne. To meet me requires unparalleled intellect, bravery, and most of all, a mighty will to see the mission through. You, who have passed countless trials to come to my throne, are the one most befitting to be the savior.”
“The savior,” I mumbled after a pause.
“Indeed. You shall save the world by killing the witch. As the Goddess I extol your name, such that it will be passed on into perpetuity. I can even insure your reincarnation to this world if you have misgivings for your world of old. And of course, this rebirth will be one with unparalleled talents.”
The Goddess pointed to the room’s bed. The comforter was lumped up like a mountain as always. Stella was still asleep.
“Now, honor awaits just there. Now is the time to kill the witch. There is nothing to fear. Behind you stands the all-knowing, all-wise Goddess. Use the divine power I granted you to quash her foul presence with the hammer of justice...”
“Deus est mors,” I began in response. I heard a stifled cackle from beside me; the kind of laughter that was ill-befitting a compassionate goddess.
Energy built up on my forehead, and after taking a deep breath, I unleashed it.
The relief exploded off the wall and fell to the ground with a clatter.
“What...?!” the Goddess cried. Once again I had unleashed all of my divine power against her relief. This time, I aimed at her mouth. Who could have guessed that a literal wall relief could mouth chants? If I had known about this, I would have blasted it off yesterday.
“Ah, crap, I missed again! Aiming this thing is a lot harder than I thought. I’ll have to practice so I don’t miss next time.”
“Tch!”
The Goddess clicked her tongue, and with that, she disappeared. Without the relief she apparently couldn’t keep her illusory form.
I sighed in the now-dark room.
Seems like the Goddess is really insistent that I kill Stella...
Honestly, it had been hard not to burst into laughter when she brought up that savior stuff. She apparently wanted to fulfill some kind of objective by propping me up, but she underestimated me. No otaku would fall for a corrupt Goddess’s wiles over their tsundere idol. It was almost offensive.
Still, who knew how long I could keep her occupied...
“Nmm... Did something fall...?” Stella groaned, rolling about under her comforters. Apparently the sound had woken her up.
She lit up a candle in a daze, and...
“AAAH! The relief...!” she cried. She quickly picked it up off the ground and grimaced.
“Guh, what the heck...? Why is her holy visage so torn up? This is awful...”
“Don’t worry about it. Probably won’t get any worse than it already is.”
“I’m going to worry about it! I mean... Doesn’t this feel creepy to you? The Goddess relief in my room getting destroyed on its own like this really makes it feel like I’m actually cursed...”
“What feels worse than a ruined relief to me is a talking relief.”
“A talking staff is going to say that?!”
“Now that you mention it, I guess I am kind of creepy...”
Talking with Stella always made me forget I was a staff.
Stella burst into a bit of laughter. The gloom on her face, lit by the candle, vanished. I was glad. Since I could hardly be honest about being the one who destroyed the relief, this was the least I could do.
“It doesn’t matter to me even if you are cursed, Stella. In fact, that just adds personality! Otaku love seeing something like ‘cursed’ in a girl’s status menu. I certainly do.”
“You’re the only one dumb enough to actually think that...! Jeez. Talking to you makes me feel dumb for taking anything seriously,” Stella said.
Her hand shot out to snuff out the candle in order to hide her reddening cheeks. In the process, her hand hit the book on her desk, and it knocked into the ground. As it fell, something slipped out from the pages... A tiny, patterned piece of paper floated to the ground.
Stella inhaled sharply and picked up the paper with a trembling hand. “Th-This is...”
If I remembered correctly, that was one of the slips used in the Descension Ceremony.