"W-why... is there a..." Gulp. She swallowed hard. "Goddess here?" Doriana asked nervously, looking at Hera, who was also looking back at her, but calmly.
Aster turned his body slightly, shifting his gaze between the two women before tilting his head.
"Why are you acting like this? Hera isn’t going to devour you. Calm down."
Doriana looked at Aster as if she couldn’t believe what he was saying.
’What the hell do you want me to do? She’s a Goddess, damn it! And on top of that, a Peak Goddess. The highest rank a God can have!’ Doriana cursed inwardly.
"Hera, did you do something to her?" Aster asked, not accusing her, but simply trying to understand Doriana’s existential crisis.
When Aster summoned Hera, he had been somewhat surprised, but he was more prepared this time, since the system had already made it clear that his summon would be a Divine Being. Perhaps if he hadn’t known beforehand, he would have reacted the same way.
"Hm... I didn’t do anything to her?" Hera replied as she began walking, stopping beside Aster.
"Then why does she look like her soul is about to leave her body?" Aster pointed toward Doriana, who shifted her attention between the two.
’What the hell is this interaction between them?’ she wondered. ’A mortal treating a Divine Being so casually. Why is he still alive?’
"Hm, why don’t you ask her directly?" Hera said, turning her attention toward Doriana. Aster did the same a moment later.
"True."
Placing his hands on her shoulders, Aster tried to calm her down.
"Doriana, calm down... Why are you reacting like this?"
Coming out of her trance as she felt Aster’s gentle touch, she took a deep breath and calmed down a little.
"Lord Aster... do you have any idea how absurdly rare it is for a mortal to encounter a Divine Being?"
"No!... This is the first time I’ve ever met one," Aster replied.
"Exactly... Calling it rare is almost an insult. It’s almost impossible to see one." She took a deep breath. "Look, in my more than 12,000 years of life, I’ve encountered a Divine Being only once. And it was for maybe five seconds. After that, I never saw even a trace of one again."
"Wait, you’re over twelve thousand years old?" ’What the hell?’ Aster was stunned by the woman’s age.
"Yes, I am, Lord Aster. More precisely, 12,227 years old. I’m not as young as I used to be, but I’m not decrepit yet, so my memory is still good," she replied with a calm smile touched with pride.
’Not decrepit yet?’ Aster thought. ’She talks as if twelve thousand years is nothing. What is wrong with this woman?’ And more importantly... ’If this woman, who isn’t even a Divine Being, has lived for this long, then...’
He turned toward Hera beside him.
"Don’t even think about asking that!" Hera cut off his train of thought immediately, her eyes narrowing. She already knew exactly what was going through his mind.
"But I didn’t even say anything," he said, somewhat shocked, cold sweat running down his face under the intensity of Hera’s gaze.
’She figured out what I was going to ask? Can she read my mind?’
"It was obvious you were going to ask about my age. Your expression already gave you away. I don’t need to read your mind to know what you were thinking," she said as if it were obvious.
"Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to ask a lady’s age?"
Gulp!
"Sorry," I replied immediately.
’Scary. She scares me when she’s angry.’
"Good." Hera nodded in satisfaction.
Aster then turned his attention back to Doriana, who was frozen in place, staring at the two of them with a complicated expression.
"Yes, I understand how rare it is to encounter one, but... the way you reacted wasn’t surprise. It was fear... Why were you afraid of Hera?"
Doriana lowered her head.
"My encounter with that Goddess, several millennia ago," she murmured.
"Okay, but what does that have to do with it?" I asked. From the looks of it, there was more to this than met the eye.
Doriana trembled slightly as she remembered that day.
"I was walking through the forest near my village. It was part of my routine. Every day, I would walk through the forest for a while; it helped me relax. Then, one day, I walked to a stream a few kilometers from the village, and there she was. Sitting on the rocks in the stream." Doriana swallowed hard.
"Druids are sensitive to mana, so I immediately noticed that the being in front of me was something far beyond anything I had ever seen. Despite my fear, I approached that being to find out what she was doing there." Get faster updates on g.com.
Aster raised an eyebrow.
"You’re pretty brave! If I were in your place, I would’ve turned around and left as quickly as possible," he said honestly.
His words made her a little shy, but she quickly composed herself.
"Thank you! I couldn’t back down. I was the Elder of the Druids. With someone so dangerous near my people, I couldn’t simply ignore the situation."
"I understand." Aster made a mental note.
’I need to learn from her too.’
But he didn’t comment and let her finish.
"So I went to her. I tried talking to her, but she ignored me while roaring loudly and releasing such a powerful presence that I almost lost consciousness. I remained awake for only a few seconds. I had to release all my strength, and I still suffered internal injuries that took decades to heal."
’Just from this person’s presence, she suffered injuries that severe? And what if I had been in her place?... Well... my existence would probably have been erased.’ Aster thought inwardly.
"And what did she shout?" I asked curiously.
"Hm... let me see." She tapped her finger against her chin as she recalled the words—or rather, the roars.
"It seemed like she was furious with someone. During the five seconds before she disappeared, she cursed someone several times."
"Oh." Aster became even more interested.
"And do you remember what she said?"
"A little. I remember more of the ending, before I completely passed out. My mind was a mess, so I only heard a little."
"And what was it?" I asked.
"The part I remember went like this: ’You’ll pay for entering my lair and stealing my treasure. And on top of that, you banished me like a pest to this corner of the cosmos.’"
"Stealing treasure? Seriously?" Aster asked.
Gods stealing each other’s treasures. He almost looked at Hera, but remembered the furious expression she had worn moments earlier and decided against it.
"Yes! I remember that correctly."
She then remembered something else.
"Ah..." She exclaimed as the memory came back to her. Looking toward the sky, she said, "At the end, she said a name. I think it was the person who robbed her."
"And what was the name?"
"If I’m remembering correctly... it was Tiamat! Yes, she shouted that name loudly and then disappeared from the place. After that, I lost consciousness and don’t remember anything else," Doriana replied, a pained expression appearing on her face as she remembered that dark period.
"..."
"..."
Aster and Hera fell silent.
The silence stretched on for a while.
Aster turned toward Hera, who looked back at him.
"Is it who I think it is?" I asked.
"I don’t know... who were you thinking of?" she asked.
"The one known as the Mother of Dragons?"
"Yes, is it her?" Hera replied, somewhat surprised that Aster knew, but her attention soon returned to what the Druid in front of her had told them.
’Tiamat very rarely left her lair. There were only two people who could make her leave her domain.’
"Listen, Doriana... approximately how many years ago was this?" Hera asked.
Doriana was a little surprised by the Goddess’s question, but she became calmer. The Divine Being in front of her was with Aster, and they seemed close, with even a certain level of respect between them. So everything should be fine.
"W-well..." she began, stammering slightly. "If I remember correctly, it was a little more than 2,500 years ago."
Hera narrowed her eyes.
’Then I can already rule one of them out.’
’She was in seclusion at that time, recovering after an invasion attempt by foreigners from outside the Cosmos. So only one remains.’ You are reading on g.com, the official source.
She thought while tapping her finger against her chin and staring toward the horizon.
"Could you tell me what the woman you saw looked like?" She turned toward Doriana.
"She was tall. She wore some kind of silver dress, with a belt fastened around her stomach. She had very dark, thick red hair tied into a bun. Her eyes were a blazing gold. She wore earrings and a jewel with small chains hanging from her forehead that looked like rubies. Her skin was pale. And her expression was very cold," Doriana answered, describing everything she remembered.
"...I see," Hera replied.
"Hahaha, so that’s what it was!"
She began laughing as she wiped her eyes.
Aster, seeing Hera suddenly start laughing, asked her, "You know who this woman is?"
Hera nodded.
"Yes, I do... There is only one person Tiamat loves to annoy and steal treasures from as if it were nothing."
"And who is it?" I asked curiously.
Hera turned toward Aster.
"Ah, that’s AziDahaka. The Dragon of the Apocalypse!" she replied while trying to contain her laughter.
"I know that name!" Aster said in surprise.
"Well, saying I know it would be an exaggeration, but I’ve heard the name before."
Hera raised an eyebrow.
’Again!’
She commented inwardly.
At first, she had thought it was a coincidence, or an isolated case. But now she wasn’t so sure as she listened to him.
’Once, coincidence. Twice, an isolated case. Three times... well... there’s something going on here!’
"This leaves me with a question, Aster," she said, tilting her head.
"Hm?" I asked while looking at her. Her expression was now one of curiosity, as if she were trying to figure something out about me. "What is it, Hera?" I asked.
She walked until she was standing directly in front of me.
"How do you know all these names? First, it was Zeus when I arrived. You also knew about me. Then there was Tiamat just now. You even knew her title, and now, when I mentioned AziDahaka’s name, you said it sounded familiar."
Aster didn’t understand her question and made a confused expression.
Seeing his expression, Hera helped clear his mind.
"Aster... the names of Gods and pantheons are only known within the Divine Sectors. In the mortal sectors, we only use names created by us as disguises or our titles, never our true names. That’s why I want to know how you know our names so well."
She spoke, trying to understand the anomaly.
Aster was a mortal from a place where the very concept of mana and magic didn’t even exist. How could he know all of this?
’There is only one place like that!’
’No.’ She shook her head.
’That’s impossible. It would be far too much of a coincidence.’
"What do you mean? Hera, in my world, your names are rooted into its very core. Even people who aren’t your followers know your names," Aster said with absolute conviction.
Hera’s heart was pounding fiercely.
’Could it be?’ she wondered.
"What was the name of your world?" she asked, her heart beating even faster.
"Hm..." Aster tilted his head.
"It was Earth... of course!"
....
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