184. Goddess of the Hearth.
184. Goddess of the Hearth.
"Dammit...."
"You, let's meet again later."
The Geum Taeyang gang spat out ominous words as they fled.
Even for them, public authority seemed to be unavoidable.
'It was actually more offensive power than public authority, though.'
Still, I couldn't exactly do a sword dance here.
I watched the Geum Taeyang gang disappear into the distance and returned to the bench where I had been sitting originally.
"Just a moment."
"..........."
I wanted to go back.
"Thanks for helping me. Hmm... I don't have anything to give you, how about I buy you something tasty?"
"My parents told me not to eat food bought by strangers."
"What? Pfft....! Haaa, you're a more interesting kid than I thought?"
"I'm not a kid."
According to my ID, I was a full-fledged adult.
So please let me go.
I twisted my body and tried to escape, but the woman held onto me and wouldn't let go until the very end.
"Um... am I making you uncomfortable by any chance?"
"........."
Of course it was uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable beyond words.
'And no wonder, since she wasn't an ordinary person.'
Now, let's think about this.
Just how many people get hit on in the street?
Sure, it's not entirely nonexistent, but what if the one doing the hitting was a typical 'Geum Taeyang gang'?
No matter how you looked at it, this was it.
That classic choice that forces a save—if you don't interfere, it's the NTR route; if you do, it's the pure love route.
And in broad daylight like this, near the station fountain, a woman getting hit on by the Geum Taeyang gang?
It was textbook.
A cliché so typical it hurt.
And on top of that, even....
"Ah, now that I think about it, I haven't introduced myself yet? I'm called 'Hestia.' What's your name?"
".......Uhm."
...Even her name was in roman characters.
And not just any name—it was the name of a goddess from Greek and Roman mythology, one of the former Twelve Olympians no less.
Put another way, she was a heroine.
'And seeing that she wasn't wearing a school uniform...'
It was starting to come back to me now.
Hestia. In mythology, Zeus's eldest sister.
And in NTR Academy──the older sister of the Protagonist Jupiter.
"I'm... Chrono."
"Chrono, is it? Heh... that's a cool name?"
Moreover, just as she didn't hide her name 'Hestia,' she was in the same state as 'Ur.'
What did that mean? That the person in front of me, she herself was a 'goddess.'
Unlike the other Twelve Olympians who descended by manifesting through their apostles, Hestia was a (former) Main God who came down to the mortal realm herself.
'As far as I remember...'
Maybe the production team didn't want to create a convoluted family tree, or maybe they thought 'real incest is a sin!'—either way,
they claimed the mother was a foster mother, and the older sister (Hestia) was a goddess, so it wasn't incest.
Anyway, it wasn't a major issue, so I moved on.
"Chrono... I see. So you're Chrono..."
"..........."
The problem was this.
The other party was a goddess. A goddess like Ur.
And not just any goddess, but a (former) Twelve Olympian goddess with even more clout than Ur.
'Did she figure it out?'
I should have at least changed my name when I said it.
The trouble was that I had been spacing out because it happened so suddenly.
No, but if I could offer one excuse—I couldn't just let her be dragged off by Geum Taeyang.
With an NTR flag floating right before my eyes, what man wouldn't break it? And even aside from that, it was morally a situation where I couldn't just leave her be.
So I wasn't in the wrong. This was undoubtedly a proposition that could be proven beyond doubt, I say.
'...Huh? Ah, what was that?'
You're asking why Hestia, a goddess, would get NTR'd by Geum Taeyang if what I said was true?
First of all, since she's a virgin goddess, they said it was safe because they only did it from the back, not the front. I don't really know the details.
If you've got a problem, ask the production team. According to the backstory settings, she's apparently an anal play master, created to preserve her status as a virgin goddess or something.
"Here, take this."
"....Huh?"
While I was spacing out for a moment, Hestia had gone to a nearby churro stand, brought back a churro, and handed it to me.
It wasn't an ordinary churro, but a honey-topped churro. Combined, it was a honeychu—no, anyway.
"Food given by a stranger—"
"—then I’ll get angry?"
"I'll eat it well!"
Crunch. I bit into the churro.
The honey topping combined with the sweetness of the churro itself—how should I put it, it was like a carpet bombing of sweetness.
My tongue was tingling by the time I was eating it, but only after Hestia watched me finish every last bite did she leave.
"Next time, let's meet in an even cooler form, Hero!"
"Ah."
Hero.
The Hero. The personal pronoun Hera had used when referring to me.
"Aaaaa....."
So she did know after all.
The moment I realized that fact, a window appeared before my eyes.
[Warm Hearth's Blessing][Rank: C]
-Expands the target's 'vessel.'
-Accelerates the target's 'digestion.'
-After 3 days, this blessing disappears.
".....?"
What kind of description was this?
A blessing with vague content that was difficult to understand.
It didn't seem to be harmful to my body, so I ignored it and returned to the bench.
"Big Brother.... Mai was wrong. Sorry....."
"It's a gift we picked out together with Mai! Next time... well, I'll exercise restraint....."
"Alright, as long as you've learned."
A few minutes later, the two of them finally returned.
I received the presents they handed me and got up from my seat—wait, hold on.
"...Is this really a gift?"
The gift was a bit small.
Even if small, this felt excessively small.
I examined it closely for a moment to see what the gift was.
'This familiar shape. This familiar size.'
The thing you often saw at love hotels.
I quietly looked at the two of them and asked.
"Ultra-thin studded condoms?"
"".............""
Could this really be a gift meant for me?
Was it possible these two saw me as a sex-crazed king who only liked sex?
"We also bought... these."
"Mai didn't buy any since she can do it alone."
Small envelopes held in both of their hands.
What came out of them was...
"Ah."
Cat ears. Cat paws.
Dog ears. Dog paws.
Final evolution, Cat Maid Minerva & Dog Maid Mai.
"I see."
So this was indeed a gift meant for me.
That night. I was able to fulfill my fantasies in many ways.
"I got taller?"
I grew 1cm taller.
*****************
Over the course of about 3 days.
My height increased by a total of 2cm.
After that, there was no further news about my height.
Only then did I realize what kind of blessing the [Warm Hearth's Blessing] was.
"'Expands the vessel' and 'accelerates digestion,' huh..."
The reason my body had gotten younger was, ultimately, to digest the 'Ares Guild Master's time.'
But in the midst of this, as my body's vessel expanded and the speed of 'digestion' accelerated, the speed at which my body returned to its original state naturally had to become faster as well.
'So if I could just gain Hestia's cooperation...'
By the time I returned to the academy, I would be able to go back to my original body.
Thinking that far, I was in a situation where Hestia's cooperation was necessary one way or another.
"But..."
The words Hestia had said before we parted.
[Next time, let's meet in an even cooler form, Hero!]
Here, 'cooler form' probably meant 'my current state.'
A form that had grown a little more than before. Through this, she made her necessity known.
And the meaning of the word 'Hero' tacked on after that—it was probably that thing I knew.
"Hera...."
The word 'Hero' that Hera had spoken.
The 'karma' of the 'Hero' that Hera had desired, that Hera had requested—the task of gathering all the apostles of the Twelve Olympians into one's own embrace.
If Hestia had said to meet again as 'Chrono,' I could have gone without a second thought.
But since she said to meet as 'Hero,' this was no different from her aiming for something, no matter how you looked at it.
'She was telling me to 'conquer' her....'
I had said this before, but Hestia was a virgin goddess, yet also a heroine who had a route of being NTR'd by Geum Taeyang.
A terrifying hybrid who propagated the experienced-virgin theory that it wasn't a problem as long as you did it from behind rather than the front.
And what made this possible was Hestia's 'inclination' itself.
Virgin goddess Hestia's inclination.
It was none other than—'pleasure-seeking.'
Simply put, she had an inclination to 'enjoy' 'playing around.'
"It's not like I completely don't understand."
In Greek mythology, Hestia had to stay inside the house as a virgin goddess and goddess of the hearth.
When she descended to look after Jupiter, she had to stay only at home because of Jupiter.
Despite being a goddess, despite having once been one of the Twelve Olympians.
Days spent merely looking after someone and being cooped up in a room.
Being such a person, she apparently couldn't help but be conquered by the electrifying, absurd, and shockingly proactive execution that Geum Taeyang delivered, or so they say.
The gist was that she was like a country girl who became enamored after seeing someone who knew how to have fun and ended up giving everything, front and back.
"The problem is that I have to be that person."
Hestia's request was simple.
I have the method to solve your problem.
So if you want to receive it, play with me! It was a request that, on the surface, seemed extremely cute and charming.
...Except the meaning of 'play' was 'pleasure-seeking,' including 'drinking, singing, and dancing.'
"When things went all the way, they even played around with drugs."
Just remembering that scene made my head spin.
Especially the finishing CG where her virginity was finally broken, she turned into a human, and there was that impregnation mating sex scene, it was truly...
"...Anyway."
I knew the method of conquest.
I also knew what to give and what to receive.
If so, what I had to do was exceedingly simple and clear.
"So... Minerva."
"Yes?"
Do you want to party like crazy?
"Won't you come with me to conquer the underground club?"
"....Yeeees??"
Follow the guy who knows how to play.
As a side note.
"...................."
"....What."
"Mai is."
"You have to guard the house."
"Mai is."
".........."
"Mai is."
"No."
Throwing a tantrum won't work.
In the first place, you don't even know how to play any instrument.
"What do you mean I don't have one."
"Huh?"
Mai suddenly stood up from her seat.
Then she reached out her hand toward me and said.
"Squite. Help."
─Bwooooooong!
"Uh, uhh...?"
Squite slipped out of my arms on its own.
Then, as if it was familiar, it shaped itself into a form and...
─Dudung, tak!
"DMC is one package, drums included."
"....Wow."
It had been a while since I'd heard of DMC.
As I expressed my light admiration, Mai excitedly played the drums as if she was getting into it.
I slowly turned my head and asked Minerva.
"Was this you?"
"....Let's call it part of an information exchange. A mutual supplementation, you know!"
Around the time Minerva learned about erotic videos from Mai,
Mai apparently learned drums from Minerva.
This was a real 'head'-scratching situation.