Chapter 33

Aoi staggered as if struck by an earthquake. She leaned against the wall with her head down, muttering, “What is that?”

“What is that? It’s disgusting. It’s disgusting. No, no, it’s impossible. No, no,” she repeated over and over as if she was cursing. She rocked her head back and forth while still looking down.

Then, unexpectedly, her voice erupted, “You’re disgusting!”

Along with her cry, Aoi grabbed a teacup on the table. In one swift motion, she hurled it at Yuichiro. Being so close to her made it impossible for Yuichiro to avoid the teacup’s impact on his forehead. After it hit his face, the teacup shattered just beyond the periphery of his vision, spraying the remaining tea onto his face.

[Ack…!]

The shard sliced into the top right corner of his head. Along with the flower-scented tea, blood trickled down his temple. When Yuichiro raised one hand to look at the wound, Aoi let out a high-pitched scream.

“No! Help me, help me! Save me, save me!”

At the same time as she screamed, Aoi tore off her own sailor uniform at once. A faint bulge covered by a pink bra peeked out from her torn bosom. A red pearl pendant dangled from her neck and swayed slightly above her tiny bust.

Aoi’s scream caused the door behind her to be hurriedly opened. The Yellow tribe’s guard, who had been waiting outside the door, immediately walked into the room. When the guard saw Aoi’s disheveled appearance, her face darkened.

“Aoi-sama! What is…!”

“”No, no! That person tried to attack me! He touched my body! It’s disgusting, no!” Aoi pointed straight at Yuichiro while clinging to the wall. As for Yuichiro, his lips twitched in response to the outrageous accusation.

“You…”

[You’re not an innocent girl at all. You’re just a lying bit*h, aren’t you.]

Yuichiro’s hands, which were already clenched tightly, trembled slightly as a repulsive feeling of disgust rose up in him. When the guard noticed Yuichiro’s veins popping along his temple, she immediately drew her dagger from her hips.

“Stay away from Aoi-sama!”

The dagger’s tip was flung toward his chest. However, Yuichiro maintained glaring at Aoi, refusing to look away. In contrast, Aoi continued covering her face with her hands and sniffled. At this moment, Yuichiro no longer felt an ounce of sympathy for the girl.

“You lying bit*h.”

Angered by Yuichiro’s insult, the guard immediately raised an arm. The hilt of her dagger swung down toward him. However, before the dagger could strike him in the head, the guard’s body was knocked down on the table.

Kiki, as swift as a large cat, seized the guard’s arms from behind. “I will not allow this man to be harmed!” Kiki yelled at the alarmed guard, before slamming her elbow into the guard’s neck who was flailing around. In the end, the guard leaked a painful wheezing sound before losing her consciousness. Before long, the dagger slid out of the guard’s hand and rolled across the floor.

With her back pressed against the wall, Aoi shook her head from side to side and muttered, “Why? Why are you protecting him? I-I was the one who was attacked…”

Kiki’s face contorted in pain as she saw the stunned Aoi. However, she made no attempt in protecting Aoi.

Aoi’s hand then trembled convulsively. Moments later, she picked up the dagger that had been dropped on the floor. “Even though I’m the goddess!” Her eyes were filled with madness as she raised the dagger.

However, before the dagger could reach Yuichiro, Noah’s voice rang out once more. “Go, Izrael!”

Almost in sync with Noah’s low voice, the bracelet wrapping Yuichiro’s left wrist began to grow increasingly warm. The white pearl glowed faintly, and a long, thin, green body crawled out of the pearl— its golden eyes glinting at Yuichiro, who thought the dragon was laughing.

“Good grief, even the king is being rough with dragons!” Izrael chuckled lightly as he emerged from the pearl.

Aoi, in turn, gasped in surprise when the dragon appeared out of nowhere. Taking advantage of Aoi’s fright, Izrael wrapped his own body around her arms like a rope. She then let out a muffled scream and dropped the dagger she was clutching.

“Hiyaaa! Why? Why?!”

“You’re a raucous little girl. Shut up or I’ll bite your tongue off.”

Izrael’s threatening whisper, accompanied by a flash of his forked tongue, caused Aoi’s face to contort, clamping her mouth shut.

Afterward, Yuichiro lightly raised his own left wrist and muttered dismissively to Izrael,

“You, what’s this all about?” He asked, rattling the gold bracelet wrapping his left wrist.

“Ah~, I’m glad to be out here.”

“I’m not asking about that.”

At Yuichiro’s questioning, Izrael replied with a sly grin on his dragon face. “You’ve seen that pearl before, haven’t you?”

Yuichiro’s eyebrow jumped up slightly when he was asked this question. As soon as he began to search through his memories of his arrival in this world, he finally recalled.

“…the pearl on the pedestal?”

The white round pearl that shone on the white pedestal when he first met Izrael and the pearl in the bracelet on his left wrist were indeed similar.

Izrael gave a lighthearted laugh as if to say, “That’s right.”

“My bad, my bad. The pearl is connected to the pearl on the pedestal and you can see the scenery and sounds through it. It’s a pretty handy item considering it can summon dragons, don’t you think?”

When the dragon responded smugly, Yuichiro felt an immediate urge to punch him as hard as he could. The same could be said for Noah, who put on such a stalker-approved item on him without any explanation. Still, it was true that an item saved him, and Yuichiro sighed deeply because he could not be mad at either of them. Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, he heard a voice behind the dragon muttering a monologue.

Kiki stared at Izrael blankly as she stood there. After briefly staring at the dragon, Kiki shifted her gaze to Yuichiro. “The fact that you’re carrying the pearl with you, means that you’re really a goddess.”

Hearing all the too familiar questions made Yuichiro feel cringeworthy and embarrassed yet again. “It appears that way,” he said curtly, looking away.

If it had been before, he would have answered, “Well…” or “I don’t know”. However, when he recalled his earlier conversation with Noah, he could no longer easily deny the title of goddess bestowed upon him. Soon after, Kiki dropped to one knee on the spot in response to Yuichiro’s response.

“I sincerely apologize for my rudeness in the past. We, the Yellow tribe have made a grave mistake. Please punish us as in any way you see fit.”

Yuichiro shook his head from side to side in a dismissive manner at Kiki’s overly serious proposal. He then said, “Before you start talking about punishment, bring Temeraire to me first.”

Yuichiro had no way of knowing if Temeraire was being truthful when the man said he did not want to see him. But, even if it was true, he was not convinced until he heard it from Temeraire himself. At his command, Kiki dipped her head again and walked out of the room with quick steps.

He threw another glance at Aoi, and Yuichiro asked Izrael, “So, who the hell is this woman?” jutting his chin toward the girl. Following this, Izrael craned his neck, examining Aoi’s rigid face. Cold sweats were beading on the girl’s forehead as she pursed her lips into a single line.

After staring at Aoi attentively, Izrael muttered in admiration, “I’m surprised. This girl is also a human who has been transported from the same world as you.”

“In other words, is Aoi also a goddess?” Yuichiro asked hastily, to which Izrael cocked his head slightly.

“Well, that’s one way to look at it.”

“Stop being so vague. Be precise.”

Izrael shook his long whiskers brazenly in response to Yuichiro’s aggressive tone. As he opened his bright red mouth, his golden eyes squinted.

“Maybe this girl is a spare.”

“A spare?”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to understand if I said she was a replacement goddess for when you die?”

Yuichiro stared at Aoi involuntarily as he felt his blood rush to his eyes. Aoi also returned his stare, as if she could not believe what she was hearing.

Izrael continued in his smart-ass tone of voice, saying, “Maybe, you’re the spare one. This little girl might have been the real goddess and you were called here to fill in the part where she’s lacking. The little girl receives the king’s favor and the respect of the people, while you are in charge of the military affairs. Up until now, the burden of having only one goddess has been too overwhelming, and many of the goddesses ended up broken, therefore, this time, the god may have called in two of you to share the responsibilities.”

In short, both of Yuichiro and Aoi were two-in-one goddesses. They were called upon to make up for each other’s deficiencies, to help each other, and to serve as spares in the event one of them died.

Leaving the stunned Yuichiro and Aoi behind, Izrael made a distressed “hmmm” sound.

“Well, actually, I have no idea what God is thinking. It’s unheard of to have two goddesses at the same time, and God may have not expected that the king would select a human male as his goddess.”

The moment Yuichiro heard this, he felt the urge to insult, “What a shitty god, being so irresponsible!”

Aoi, still held in Izrael’s arms, said in a quavering voice, “T-Then, if it wasn’t ojisan, it’s possible that I’d be chosen as the goddess by the king?”

“Hmmm, I guess so.”

“Then why? Why did I have to be the spare?”

“How am I supposed to know that? It’s just luck, isn’t it?”

The reality was too cruel to be dismissed as luck. Assuming that he was the one who was carried away by the river and the girl was the one who showed up in the hidden temple. Or, if both of them had appeared in the underground temple, it would have been Aoi who was called the goddess, not him.

Aoi stared into the air with a stupefied expression. Suddenly, her neck bent down. “I thought I had finally…come to a world that needed me.” Her words dripped with immense sorrow. Her shoulders lightly shook.

Just as Yuichiro wondered if she was crying, a lurid cackle shook his eardrums. The obnoxious voice flitted around in his head and squeaked, “Kekeke,” like a buzzing insect. A grin spread across Aoi’s face as she raised her head. The girl’s inherent cruelty was hidden in her seemingly innocent smile. “Well, if ojisan dies, that means I will be the only goddess,” she murmured, a sweet smile on her face.

“Come, Azrael.”

Before Yuichiro could process Aoi’s words, the red pearl necklace she wore around her chest began to glow brightly. Shortly after he realized the light was the same as when Izrael had emerged from the pearl, he felt a sharp blow to his abdomen. A grunt escaped from the back of his throat from the heavy impact, as if he had been hit by a car.

“Yuichiro!!!” Noah’s cry rang out from within the stone.

The next thing he knew, a huge claw had wrapped around his torso, and he was being squeezed until he felt the blood drain from his face. Yuichiro coughed painfully as he struggled to breathe under the intense pressure and pain. Slowly, with erratic repeated breaths, Yuichiro raised his head. Before his gaze, there was a crimson dragon.

The crimson dragon clutched Yuichiro’s body as if it were a toy, its massive body crowding the room. Yuichiro’s toes dangled and swayed off the floor as the giant claws lifted his body up.

“Izrael, it’s been a long time,” The crimson dragon’s mouth released a calm voice reminiscent of an older gentleman.

Translator’s Notes

Hi everyone! As I’ve announced in CG’s discord, I’ll be releasing one chapter per week till the end of this month. I’m currently translating the rest of the chapters in Arc 3, so it’s taking me some time to finish translating them. Sorry 🙏 However, as promised, I’m releasing the extra chapter of Vol.1. So, go ahead and read the extra HERE!

Anyway, what do you readers think about this chapter? Leave your comments below!

p/s: If you like this chapter and want to read ahead, consider supporting me on Ko-fi!