Chapter 121
Translator: uly
Chapter: 121
Chapter Title: Became the Gallery's Only Reptile
"Finally, it's over!!"
"Phew, I have no idea how many days it's been since I last slept."
Here were two goddesses with utterly exhausted faces, looking like they might collapse at any moment.
They were Raine and Irine, the goddesses who oversaw light and darkness, order and chaos.
Crack.
"Urgh."
"I'm beat."
The two goddesses were providing their managed dimensions to a higher plane—commonly known as Earth—in the form of a game.
The game's name was Protect the Earth's Hero!, often shortened to Jijiyong.
"We got more new sign-ups this time, right?"
"Yeah. And a bunch of returning players who quit before have come back too."
The game's popularity was steadily climbing.
It had even gotten offers to make an anime adaptation.
Of course, the two goddesses had turned those down.
They already had more than enough work without piling on extra.
"At least now we can rest a bit."
"Yeah. We've squashed all the bugs and finished work up to the next update."
As the game boomed in popularity, the saying "employees get crushed" fit perfectly—their workload had been beyond imagination.
On top of that, they'd done unscheduled extra fixes for difficulty issues in the latest event update.
"I'm crashing in bed for some sleep."
"Me too."
"Heh, didn't you say you were gonna meet up with the heroes?"
"E-even so, one day won't hurt."
"Fair enough. We've got five whole days off, so what's one day?"
Even so, smiles played on the lips of both goddesses.
They'd cleared work that would've killed an ordinary person from overwork and secured a full five days off.
"Great job, you two!"
"Hey."
"Thanks~."
As soon as the two finished, in popped the goddess of creation and destruction, Kishe, like she'd been waiting.
She was the youngest in rank, but her power surpassed the other two.
"Come on! Work's done, so let's all have something sweet!"
But Kishe didn't lord her strength over Raine and Irine.
Quite the opposite—she'd kept their favorite snacks stocked and tended to them while they worked.
She was doing the same now.
Kishe whipped up chocolate ice cream—something both loved for its sweetness—and fed it to them by hand.
"So, how long's the break this time?"
"Eh, about five days?"
Irine's words made Kishe's eyes go wide in shock.
Usually, they only got two or three days off. Five days? That hadn't happened since the game's early days, when there were hardly any players.
"Anyway, hurry to my room! Work's done, so let's party inside!"
"Sounds annoying."
"Can't I just go sleep?"
Kishe suggested a celebration party for the two, but Raine and Irine looked less than thrilled.
Still, they got up from their chairs and headed to her room.
No matter what, they couldn't say no to the baby sister's request.
"Drink up, drink up!"
"This isn't booze?"
"Who cares? No work tomorrow anyway."
And so began the three sisters' drinking party.
With Kishe of creation taking the lead, the food was flawless.
"By the way, Kishe, everything go okay with work?"
"Yep!"
"Work?"
Irine tilted her head at Raine's words.
"She's been hopping around meetings with other gods about a collab lately."
"Collab? Oh, that mutant hero thing?"
"Irine."
"Yesss~? Something to do with our Imoogi hero?"
The "mutant hero" they meant referred to one specific person.
Unlike other heroes who crossed dimensions in their original bodies, this was the first case of reincarnation as a native lifeform.
"Speaking of, did that issue get sorted?"
On top of that, he'd dragged in incidents left and right—like now, being unable to return to his original dimension alone.
Kishe had stepped up to handle it, but had it worked?
"He did way better than I expected. This collab meeting was set up because of that too. Get this—the god over there said to me..."
Crunch.
"Hm?"
"What?"
"What's that noise?"
At that moment.
An ominous sound from the living room.
"...Guess we should check it out?"
"Obviously."
"So, who goes?"
No one raised a hand or volunteered.
But staring each other down wouldn't solve anything.
In the end, Irine stretched out her fist and declared boldly.
"Rock-paper-scissors. Loser goes."
"Fine. Let's do it."
"No chickening out. Rock... paper... scissors!"
And the result of rock-paper-scissors was...
"Shouldn't have suggested it."
"Go on."
They said the proposer always loses.
Raine and Kishe both threw rock, while Irine alone threw scissors—meaning the one who'd suggested it got stuck with the penalty.
Click.
'Hallway's fine. Must be coming from the living room?'
She opened the door to a familiar hallway, unchanged as ever.
Wondering if it was from someone else's room, she checked the others—no issues.
By process of elimination, only the living room left.
Figuring it wasn't a burglar, just something falling, Irine opened the living room door casually.
She spotted a completely unexpected presence.
"Hello, Hero."
"Whoa, just a head!"
Who would've thought the thing behind the door was Goddess Irine.
When he'd first checked this place out, he'd thought it was a normal home. Turns out it was where the goddesses lived.
"So, why are you here?"
Unlike Raine and Kishe, who crowded close to peer at his face, Irine lounged on the nearby sofa and tossed out the question.
'How I got here...'
The reason he could come here.
He honestly explained that after finishing the trials in the white space, he'd successfully flipped the hourglass.
"Y-you already?!"
Kishe's jaw-dropping reaction left him flustered instead.
These were their quests and trials.
He'd cleared them and shown up proudly—why were they surprised?
"No... Weren't you just two trials in?"
"Then why are you here?"
What an obvious question.
"Why? Is there a problem?"
"Well... if you call it a problem, yeah."
Raine whispered, and Kishe scratched her head in response.
Doing the trials was fine.
It even let her meet other gods for collabs.
But Kishe had only gone to two meetings so far.
Meaning he'd only completed two trials.
"No way you can flip it with just two trials. And why's the authority you're radiating so stupidly strong...?"
As the goddess who wielded creation's authority, Kishe was certain.
Two trials couldn't possibly flip the hourglass.
Yet the hero before her had directly contradicted that certainty by showing up here.
As Kishe lapsed into thought, he started to tilt his head—then froze at the sensation of something tightening around his neck.
"No issues there. This is the place where we can use our power best."
"Shall we send you right now?"
They could send him immediately?
"W-wait a sec!"
"What is it, Kishe?"
Her thoughtful face from moments ago vanished; at his words, she jolted forward in alarm.
She spread her arms wide, blocking his path like she was shielding him from Raine and Irine.
"Not yet! We can't send you back yet!"
"What??"
"What nonsense is that?"
Couldn't send him back yet?
How far had he come, only for this now?
He narrowed his eyes and demanded an explanation from Kishe.
If it wasn't convincing enough...
"The authority I poured into you is way too strong! Sending you back like this will clash with my avatar's creation authority over there for sure. Worst case, it could get devoured, and you might cease to exist!"
Ah, so his creation authority was too potent, causing issues.
Botch it, and Kishe's avatar might eat him up.
Fine. Convinced... or not?
"That's why it's weird! Even if you cleared all the trials, it shouldn't be this strong per my design."
"You half-assed the authority stuff?"
"No!! I even capped the growth limit just in case! How the hell did you get this strong?!"
"Hah, I was finally gonna rest, and now this."
Irine's sigh mirrored his feelings exactly.
He wanted to go home and crash too.