The Goddess Is Obsessed With Me

"Annoying, almost magical words came to my ears, and unknowingly, my breath was stuck.

The content of the quest says that a dragon rampaging near this area recently must be subdued.

On the surface, it seems like it's just hunting a difficult monster....

There was a separate element that shocked me.

That is, the external characteristics of the dragon, which can be confirmed from the provided information.

An abnormally large size compared to the usual dragons, dark skin, and a rough yet solid exterior like a rock that has weathered various environments...

As soon as I heard it, the image of a dragon that I knew all too well passed through my mind.

"Erina, what did you say for a moment?"

Seeing my atmosphere, which shows confusion without a proper reason, she tilts her head with a puzzled face.

She stops speaking and soon, she, too, opens her eyes wide, perhaps realizing what figure I am recalling.

And her subsequent suspicious expression, a mysterious smile that I can't predict what she’s thinking, starts to amplify the anxiety that I had forgotten.

"You're not thinking of something strange, are you?"

With a slightly anxious heart, I cautiously ask what she is thinking right now.

"Hmm~? I wonder~"

Her playful tone amplifies the anxiety I was holding back and makes me sweat nervously.

"Of course, I'm not thinking of anything strict~ I just thought nothing but that I want to erase that dragon from this world as soon as possible, even a second earlier?"

Sure enough, she says the opposite of the answer I wanted, and I sigh deeply inside.

"You're brave. Even though you say you'll catch the dragon, you don’t show even a speck of fear."

Mirina-san, unaware of the situation, said something to make the situation worse, unaware of my feelings.

It felt like adding fuel to a fire in an already burning situation and fanning it.

"I have a bad feeling, but I hope you can safely complete this trial."

With a warm and kind smile to encourage Erina, she stands up energetically as if a strange switch has been turned on.

"Just leave it to me! I will definitely cut the neck of that black dragon with these hands!!"

Her atmosphere, which is strangely full of excitement, rather comes off as scary.

Right now, I wonder what kind of picture is being drawn in her head, she was laughing, showing excessive joy.

I couldn’t dare to predict, but I was sure she had a very different idea than I wanted.

"According to what I heard, it seems that it's quite a famous dragon around here lately. Apparently, it appears with a huge shadow that appears somewhere, even though the sky is dry without a single cloud."

Mirina-san explains more about that black dragon.

"Appearing with a gigantic gesture that befits blocking the wide sky and casting a shadow-like darkness, the dragon always appears in the middle of people and runs wild."

The more detailed information I heard, the more the elder dragon I knew kept coming to mind, and it increasingly made me anxious, making me swallow my dry saliva as if I was a patient concentrating on the doctor's words.

"But surprisingly, even though it's causing such a riot and destroying buildings, there’s no news that there has been any casualty, not a single case."

The elder dragon I knew was also known to be corrupted, violent, and dark, but it did not indiscriminately harm innocent people.

"There's not only that, there was one characteristic of the guy that made me doubt my ears among the news I heard."

She looks at me with a serious look, props her chin, and creates a somewhat heavy atmosphere.

"The problem is that even though it causes such a riot and destroys buildings, it can't be caught at all; when the guards arrive at the scene, it’s already disappeared."

Disappear?

"What does that mean? Can you explain in more detail?"

To my question, Mirina-san also touched the chin part with an ambiguous expression, as the answer was based on rumors, not direct observation.

"To be honest, I don’t know the exact details either... It comes across like a mysterious existence like a character in a fairy tale, so I can’t give a definite answer..."

Nevertheless, she answers, pulling up as much information as she knows to provide as much information as possible.

"The entity is capable or not, every time the guards arrive, it disappears on the spot, like it teleported, according to the eyewitness accounts."

Disappear as if teleporting, hiding its form all of a sudden..." "Well, I guess that’s all I know? As I said before, it’s just a rumor, not something I witnessed, so don’t trust it too much."

Seeming to have said all she intended to, she straightened her back elegantly, leaned back, and nestled comfortably into the sofa.

"Thank you. Mother, this is enough information."

Erina responded, bowing her head to her mother, who had given various pieces of advice, and then gestured to me.

"Let’s go search for that dragon, Harold."

She spoke energetically, wore a faint smile, and exited through the door.

I thought I might have more to say, but nothing came to mind at the moment, so I just silently followed in Erina’s footsteps. "Although we set out to catch it... I don’t know how we’re supposed to meet it..."

Eventually, having accepted the dragon subjugation trial, we headed toward the nearby area where the dragon was frequently spotted.

"That’s right, there have been a lot of rumors about it appearing around here."

Just as Erina said, although we dashed outside, its invisible form perplexed us as we circled the same location repeatedly.

"But it seems true that it was spotted around here."

Saying this, she looked around and released a voice filled with leisure despite the tense situation.

"Why are you so sure?"

I pointed out the surrounding situations to Erina, who asked my question with curiosity, and began to explain.

"Look, isn’t the atmosphere of this street strangely unnatural?"

Erina looked around and opened her mouth wide as if she found it curious.

The overall atmosphere of our current environment was toned down.

While it was certainly a bustling street, people generally spoke less and all held anxious expressions, which was why.

Even in broad daylight with the sun high in the sky, the guards positioned every so often along this street proved that the safety of this street has been poor recently.

The strange silence and eerie stillness flowing through this usually bustling marketplace made it feel all the more alien.

"Is the strange atmosphere and the abundance of guards in this place not due to the dragon we’re hunting?"

"O...!!"

Erina, realizing what I was thinking, sparkled her eyes and looked up at me.

"Harold has good insight, huh? How did you know?!"

Her words, which praised me as if I had done something extremely impressive and hitting me with an excited stare, made me scratch the back of my neck.

"Well, even with such a deduction, we still can’t see the dragon we’re targeting."

Nevertheless, even with such an exciting deduction, the dragon itself was not appearing, so there was nothing we could do.

"That aside, Harold, is the black dragon we have to capture the same woman you and I know~?"

Then, she wears a mischievous smile and injects playfulness into her voice.

There was one prime suspect as to who the black dragon was, though it had become somewhat distant during the last part of the conversation with Mirina.

The dark-eating elder dragon I knew...

Could it possibly be Mir? That thought has been complicating my feelings since earlier.

If the opponent is really Mir, what should I do...

She was the only remaining elder dragon and was currently the strongest existing dragon.

This wasn’t the biggest reason, but even if Erina was there, facing Mir was absolutely a mission impossible.

Even now, thinking about the first time I confronted her sends shivers down my spine.

I could restrain her using all the magic I use, but the problem was I could 'only restrain' her.

During the first battle, I was barely able to bind her by making use of the diversion of the extermination team’s gaze and took the opportunity to unleash all my magic power, barely managing to neutralize her.

Since I used up all my magic power, I was no longer able to fight, but Mir transformed into a human form and showed herself to me, and moreover, she was in a perfectly healthy state.

She showed no signs of injury or weariness and was in a state where she could fight more if she wanted to.

From there, Mir made a sudden confession, but if she had been angry at the person who harmed her and tried to kill me, I would have left this world long ago.

In short, I mean I can't beat Mir; even now with Erina, who has awakened abilities to the point where she can even oppose the gods, it’s impossible to definitively say who would win in a fight to the death. "So, if the dragon we're looking for really is Mir, I'd rather resolve things through amicable dialogue than fighting...."

"I don’t know... But if it's the dragon we know, first, we need to communicate—"

"What are you talking about?! The content of the trial is 'subjugation,' isn't it? Don’t we have to eliminate it?"

Erina seemed to have no intention of cooperating...

The white shrine, always presenting a fresh sensation every time.

If one were to create a paradise on Earth, could it be a place like this?

I have seen it many times in the game and this is my second time seeing it in reality, but the unique grandeur that this shrine brings is almost too much to bear.

"Welcome, individual destined to be my follower, what assistance do you seek to have come here?"

No matter how much we investigated, there were clear limits with just the two of us, and we could no longer control time, so we came to the shrine of Morione.

She is the goddess of fate and could see a certain extent into the future, so we decided to ask for help, hoping that she could tell us where and who our target is.

"Morione goddess, we are trying to find the black dragon we need to subdue but cannot find a clue."

Upon saying that, she nodded with a smile that, depending on the situation, could feel somewhat uncomfortable, as if she knew what I was going to ask from the start.

"I don’t casually reveal fate, but think of it as an investment for the future and I will gladly break it."

"I promise to give the answer that my fallen knight seeks."

Even now, calling me a 'fallen knight' and 'future follower', it seemed like she still hadn’t let go of her regrets.

Even now looking back, it’s an incomprehensible level of prophecy.

While the words lacked any kind of persuasiveness, because an entity that can see fate said them, the forgotten aftertaste revives.

During my slightly distracted thoughts due to various things, a calm voice from the tall altar echoed through the shrine.

"The prophecy is complete, you need help with the trial you are currently undergoing, right? And the content is probably to subjugate the black dragon rampaging in the royal capital."

As expected of the goddess of fate, she spoke of detailed content without it being mentioned.

"Now, you can see that dragon if you head south from our shrine, and..."

She says an unwanted... no, a truth that I want to deny.

"If you want some advice on the name, I’ll tell you this much: it starts with 'Mi' and is two letters."

Ah...

So, is Mir at the center of all these events...?

I sigh deeply inside, lamenting, and my mind gets complicated about what to do in the future.

"Yes! Thank you! Shall we go quickly?!"

Oddly, Erina was the first to react to these words, and, with an excited mood that seemed to come from an unknown source, she grabbed my wrist and forcibly headed outside the shrine.

"Let's settle things today."

Erina, cackling and laughing maliciously, felt frightening, and I became worried about whether we could smoothly get through the second trial.

{As I left Morione's shrine, I was almost dragged around by Erina and we headed south from the shrine...

"Kraaaah!!"

A black dragon was indeed rampaging in the middle of a bustling crowd.

Even though it felt like it had been a long time since I saw it, the familiar black dragon roared, instilling fear into the people.

"Ah, aaaah!!"

"Save people!!"

Everyone descended into panic due to the sudden appearance of the dragon, chaos unfolded, and the black dragon’s violent movements sent debris from destroyed buildings flying, truly showing what chaos looked like.

"There it is!"

Erina, spotting the dragon and shouting with a lively voice, unsheathed her sword and charged at it without asking or investigating anything. It was personally incomprehensible why she was so impatient to fight, as she wasn’t a battle maniac.

"Mir?! Can you hear me?"

Although it was so noisy that even my voice couldn't be heard, I called out to her with all the strength I could muster while she was rampaging. "

"Kiek-?!"

My voice might not have even reached her ears due to the clamor, but for some reason, she responded, and her gigantic head, proportional to her massive body that seemed to block out the sky, began to turn towards me. And then....

Bang!

With a sound that seemed like a cheap sound effect, a smoky mist rose,

"Huh?!"

Erina, who had been leaping skillfully towards Mir, cut through thin air with a perplexed expression.

Swoooosh!

Soon, a strong wind began to blow from where Mir had been, and somehow the very dirty smoke that filled the street disappeared.

"Mir?"

I closed my eyes against the wind and smoke that blew towards me, and when I opened them again after the refreshing sensation passed,

The dragon had disappeared without a trace.

Is this the phenomenon of the dragon suddenly disappearing as Mir had mentioned before?

"Brother!"

While I was thinking about this, a child's voice started to be heard from somewhere.

Where is it coming from?

I'm not crazy, and it's certainly not an auditory hallucination... I definitely heard a child's voice, but where?

Although I looked around, I could not find the owner of the voice, and there were no people around to begin with since everyone had evacuated.

"What are you looking at?!"

However, the voice, which was heard once more, also carried a bit of annoyance this time.

It’s coming from nearby...

"Here, I said here!!"

This time, I recognized exactly where the voice came from.

The voice is definitely coming from...

Below...?

"Y...You..!!"

When I lowered my head a little, a slightly older little girl entered my view.

"Finally, you saw me! Nice to meet you, brother!"

Red eyes, and short bobbed hair that matched them well, along with a pale skin that contrasted with the dark aura she was emitting,

There stood a being that resembled the girl I knew yet felt so different.

"Mi...r...?"

I managed to squeeze out the name with a trembling voice, wondering if I had misrecognized the person...

"Uuu! No, that’s not it!"

The girl pouted like a sulky child, placing her hands on her hips and bending slightly.

Then, after finishing her emotional expression and deflating her puffed cheeks, she pointed at me and shouted with a dissatisfied aura,

"My name is Mi! Ru! Remember it properly! My name is Miru!"

Saying so, she patted my stomach with her small fist, as if she were a stubborn child throwing a tantrum.

She finished introducing herself, looking so much like the Mir I knew that I could mistake them for the same person.

No, really, who are you...?