### Chapter 15: Meeting the Goddess (1)
“Hello, Goddess. Please forgive my rudeness from earlier.”
I stood up and bowed formally, trying not to show any signs of distress. To be honest, I haven’t fully mastered the etiquette of this world, so I based my actions on what I remember from my past life, kneeling and giving a deep bow.
There was no point in risking improper noble-style etiquette and getting struck by divine punishment for disrespecting a god.
“Dear, there’s no need for such formalities~ I didn’t come here to scold you, but to express my gratitude.”
“Gratitude towards me?”
How could the Goddess express gratitude to someone like me? No matter how I thought about it, it didn’t make sense.
To begin with, I am not from this world, and I’m essentially a thief who stole someone else’s body. What possible reason could she have to thank me?
As I awkwardly looked around, the Goddess smiled faintly and responded kindly.
“Well~ I already know that you are the one who has worked harder than anyone else to ensure the happiness of the child I favor.”
“Ah.”
The child she refers to must be Cecilia.
In essence, she is thanking me for taking good care of her follower.
“There’s no need for gratitude. I am just a gamer who didn’t want to see that ending, nothing more.”
“Regardless of your intentions, your sincerity towards that child is evident, isn’t it? I, who am practically her godmother, am naturally grateful.”
“Hmm…”
To be honest, I feel quite burdened.
A world’s deity comes to thank someone who was just an ordinary citizen in their past life. Isn’t this treatment a bit excessive?
“That… I have a question.”
“Go ahead. I’m in a good mood now, so I’ll answer any question you have.”
The Goddess’s gaze, smiling warmly at me, was like that of a mother looking at her fully grown child.
As I felt the weight of her gaze, I cautiously spoke up.
“Why did I end up here? If my possession of Rab’s body was forced…”
“Ah~ I see you’ve been worrying about that a lot. This will take some explanation, so please have a seat.”
As she waved her hand, a small round table and two chairs appeared out of nowhere in the previously empty space.
At the same time, a tea set floated in from somewhere and gently landed on the table, serving tea to my cup on its own, a scene reminiscent of a scene from an animated movie featuring a beast’s mansion.
While I was distracted by the sight, the Goddess sipped her tea and continued her story.
“Hmm… where shall I begin? You know about the game that inspired this world, right?”
“Ah, yes… that terrible game!”
“Hehe, yes, it was indeed a terrible game. I agree with you.”
She smiled slightly as she agreed with my opinion, then continued with a solemn tone.
“In fact, that game was based on actual events. The episodes in the game were real incidents that happened in this world.”
“…What does that mean?”
“The main character of the game, the man who had his Cecilia taken by Rav Netoire and who saw her fall to corruption. That is the real history of this world.”
Indeed. The game I played wasn’t merely an adult-themed game; it was a documentary of this world’s history.
“The real problem came after that. After Cecilia fell, the world was destroyed once.”
“…What?”
The destruction of the world?
It wasn’t just that Cecilia was taken away by the Golden Sun in body and soul, was it?
What exactly happened?
*
Who do you think are the threats to this world?
…Right, exactly.
As someone who has played a game based on our world, you already know, don’t you?
The Evil God and his followers, commonly known as Black Mages, have long tormented humanity.
Our gods were created alongside the world by the Creator.
The problem is, just as light creates shadows, after gathering the light of the dimensions to create gods, a god was born in the place where the remaining light disappeared. That god is the Evil God.
Unlike us who love humans, the Evil God only saw them as food.
Or more accurately, it’s right to say that he viewed humans merely as prey.
The Evil God is an entity that grows by consuming negative human emotions such as squabbles, fights, duels, wars, adultery, incest, murders, and rapes— anything that corrupts the human heart.
And the Black Mages are deranged followers who collect these negative human emotions and offer them as tribute to the god they serve.
At first, since he, like us, was a divine being, and humans naturally experience negative emotions, we simply tolerated him as if he didn’t exist.
Though it was disheartening for us who love humans.
However, the problem was that the Evil God, unable to resist his insatiable hunger, intervened directly in human affairs, defying the constraints on his original form.
He descended to Earth in human form, inciting people and indiscriminately distributing his powers, causing those who consumed it to harm those they loved, and even creating grotesque creatures from parts of their bodies, leading to immense turmoil among humans.
Eventually, other gods, including myself, could no longer bear his tyranny and decided to use our combined strength to deal with him.
Despite gaining immense power from the negative emotions he consumed over time, his fierce resistance resulted in his eventual defeat, and we erased his existence from this world.
But he didn’t die.
Just before his demise, he detached a fragment of his consciousness and let it fall back to Earth.
With only a small amount of power left, he hid among humans and waited for an opportunity for revenge.
He grew stronger by parasitically attaching to people, and secretly expanded his forces while evading the eyes of the gods.
It was then that he noticed Cecilia.
The Evil God decided to make Cecilia his host.
Why Cecilia, you ask?
Actually, Cecilia had a unique quality.
What was it, you ask?
The all-encompassing talent.
Whether it was learning swordsmanship, mastering magic, gaining divine power, or learning art like painting or sculpture, Cecilia possessed the ability to become the best in any field she chose to pursue.
Remember how no one could catch up to Cecilia in magic during the game?
That’s because Cecilia genuinely wanted to learn magic.
If she were to pick up a sword right now and wholeheartedly pursue the path of a swordsman, she would become a master within five years.
Her talent was that overwhelming.
Upon discovering Cecilia, the Evil God devised a plan to make her his own.
It all started with you.
More precisely, with Rav Netoire, the original owner of your body.
Originally, Rav was destined to die in an accident. He fell from a horse and became a vegetable, gradually fading away.
However, somehow the Evil God learned of Rav’s condition and quickly took possession of his body. He then exploited Rav’s already reckless behavior to engage in various nefarious schemes.
With the vast wealth of Rav’s family, he easily carried out the Evil God’s dirty plans, while simultaneously using Cecilia’s engagement to secretly meet with her and brainwash her.
The Evil God specialized in brainwashing and corruption.
As a result, the number of followers of the Evil God began to increase due to his activities in the human world. As his power grew, so did Cecilia’s corruption.
If your memory is intact, you might have noticed a gradual change in Cecilia’s eyes around the middle of the game.
What you might call a “Yandere” in your language.
The kind of vacant gaze that signifies the loss of self.
That was not a game bug, but an actual gradual corruption of Cecilia.
The Evil God probed and exploited her pain and wounds, slowly tainting both her body and mind with his influence.
Subtly, so subtly that no one, not even the gods, noticed.
Gradually… bit by bit…
Eventually, after fully taking Cecilia as his own, the Evil God began to bring chaos to the world, and we were powerless to intervene as humanity marched towards destruction…
Bound by the rules of the world, we could only watch helplessly as our children perished. However, one god sacrificed their existence to turn back the flow of time, pulling a foreign soul from another dimension and placing it into Rav’s body before the Evil God could possess it.
That was how you ended up in this world.
