Chapter 92
Chapter 92
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 92
Chapter Title: Became the Gallery's Only Reptile
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It doesn't return to the original location.
A clear error phenomenon left Kishine and me flustered as we turned to each other.
"What do we do?"
Why on earth?
What could have caused the problem?
'First off, the most plausible guess is that my eye is the cause.'
Since an eye, a part of the goddess's body, has dwelled in me, this space no longer sees me as an ordinary user and treats me in the same category as the goddess, blocking the path.
"That... makes sense!"
And Kishine positively accepted my guess.
So now, the remaining issue is how to solve this problem based on our hypothesized reason.
The simplest and quickest solution would be to remove the goddess's eye again.
But according to Kishine, even a small amount of the goddess's power has already seeped into my body through the eye, so it's highly likely I still couldn't return even after removal.
"Big Sis would know how to fix this."
The "Big Sis" she's referring to is probably Sahine.
But her soul is the lock sealing the dimensional rift.
And her body serves as a vessel for her younger sisters, who form the chains connecting to that lock.
"What do we do? I can't handle this power very well."
As she said that, the space beside Kishine warped.
Having used subspace with the black Yeouiju before, I could tell.
That was definitely a reaction from tampering with spacetime.
Considering the authority she possesses, it was baffling how she could do that.
Psssh.
"Ah. Doesn't work after all."
However, the warped space in the air deflated before it could expand further, returning to its original form, and Kishine shook her head with a regretful expression.
"Eh, I just used the traces left in this body."
Traces of power remaining in the body.
In other words, she used the power left in Sahine's body to manipulate space?
'Wait a minute.'
Then, in conclusion, since the eye I have is also Sahine's, couldn't I manipulate that power too?
"Pbbt. 40 points—close, but no cigar!"
"The eye you have did use Big Sis's body, but it's ultimately just a replica made with my power. See? My eye is perfectly fine, right?"
She widened her right eye and pointed to it.
Indeed, even after giving me the eye, nothing had changed for her—it was a replica created with her ability.
"So even if you can use it, Big Sis's ability would only be accessible at a very faint level. In fact, my power in that eye is stronger. Of course, it only contains the authority of creation, so you can't use destructive power."
Indeed. Instead of properly getting a status window, I gained a portion of the goddess's power.
No matter how romantic a status window is or how much I've wanted one since before, it's embarrassing to compare it to the goddess's power.
I shouldn't have pushed my luck.
"For now, I've confirmed that all the other heroes except you have returned to their original dimensions."
Kishine said this while quietly closing one eye.
Unseen but present in this space now were just me and Kishine.
All other users except me had returned to their original places without issue.
"I talked it over with my sisters in the meantime?"
Not only that, but she'd even discussed solutions with Raine and Irine during that time.
With three goddesses putting their heads together, maybe I could expect something this time.
"Don't get the wrong idea? For now, there's no way to go back right this instant."
"...You're not surprised?"
I don't know how long it will take, but at least there's hope of returning.
"You're calmer than I expected? Then I'll get right to the solution."
Ahem.
Kishine cleared her throat briefly and clasped her hands together.
With a small swirl of light, an hourglass formed.
All the sand had already fallen to the bottom, so unless flipped, no sand would flow.
"This hourglass will tell you if you can exit to the outside world."
Of course, it didn't look like an ordinary hourglass.
I gently closed my left eye and examined the hourglass with only my right.
Thanks to the insight of the goddess's eye, golden currents swirled around the hourglass in my right field of vision—currents invisible to the left.
"This hourglass is a divine artifact that only those with a certain level of spacetime power can touch. If you can not only touch it but flip it, you'll be able to leave this place."
"Right. It only works when the person themselves flips it."
So, what I need to do here is train my spacetime power until I can flip that hourglass.
"We've prepared something for that!"
With that, Kishine floated something in the air.
A blue interface window, similar to when opening the status window or gallery.
However, this one was enormously larger than the usual ones.
But despite its size, it contained absolutely nothing inside.
"Think of it as a kind of quest."
Quest?
At that word, I focused more intently on the system window in front of me.
But it was still a blank slate with no text whatsoever.
As I squinted and glared at the screen, Kishine said with arms crossed,
"Good, you're already doing great!"
"The quest window's contents are set to only appear once you can minimally handle spacetime power! And reaching that minimal level is as simple as focusing on it!"
So, I just have to stare intently at the empty quest window until the contents become visible?
Plop. Plop plop. Plop.
With that, Kishine piled up various foods and water in front of me, said to hang in there, and vanished.
There's nothing here?
Except for the empty quest window in front of me, it's a pure white space all around?
I already wanted to get out quickly, and now there's even more reason to.
This place was a very deep, deep mental worldscape of someone.
A space cluttered with all sorts of food and entertainment scattered about.
Kishine appeared there, stretching.
"Ugh, I should clean up a bit."
But she probably wouldn't actually clean, despite saying so.
She knew that herself.
Stepping over game consoles underfoot as she went, Kishine opened the door and headed to the living room.
Tap tap. Tap tap tap.
Click. Click.
"Hmm, fix some errors here."
"I've extracted all the stories from that dimension as text. Check it."
"Got it."
Clicking keyboard and mouse sounds filled the living room.
There sat two goddesses who had arrived before Kishine.
Identical twin goddesses, differing only in hair, eye color, and fashion.
They were Kishine's older sisters, Raine and Irine.
"Ah, the baby sis is here."
Irine, who had been manipulating streams of 0s and 1s with her mouse, spotted Kishine and waved lightly.
"Welcome back~ Did you talk things over well with the hero?"
"Yeah. There was a minor issue, but I prepared a proper solution."
"Issue? Ah, damn, did an error pop up?! Fixing code will push back the work!"
"No, this is real-world stuff. Not the game."
Irine suddenly freaked out, while Raine cleared up her misunderstanding.
Kishine tilted her head at Irine's more manic appearance than usual.
"Did you pull another all-nighter?"
Mentioning the most frequent culprit for her behavior, Irine nodded vigorously.
"Agh, the players were bitching, so I tweaked skill damage and a bunch of minor graphic images, and days passed."
"Watch your... mouth. Use nicer words."
"Biiiiiitchiiiing."
Clatter.
Kishine used her authority to clear all the trash from the table, then recreated snacks, drinks, and various goodies with the power of creation.
"What can I help with?"
"Nothing. You just keep brainstorming ideas."
"Oh! I actually came up with a great idea this time?"
Kishine, who handled most event planning, shared the past memory she'd read earlier with the two goddesses.
"It's definitely a good idea, but shouldn't we get the hero's permission first?"
"I'll get his permission!"
"Isn't it about time he's gone back already? How?"
"Leave it to me! You two focus on the work at hand!"
Compared to the two, who were tied down here and barely managing with avatars, she had more leeway, so it made sense for her to go.
"The story can diverge a bit, but the character designs can stay the same, right?"
"Should be fine once we get permission."
"Then I'll make some patterns, and you tweak the story."
"Okay."
The two goddesses were already discussing and planning without even getting permission yet.
And so began the version dubbed "all-time hardest difficulty" by players, one that would ignite their flames of passion to the point of melting: [The Unknown, and the Mystery of the Past].
"Once this is done, we can rest a bit, right?"
"Of course."
Sadly, the party system addition midway and the extra busyness from quelling player rage would remain a secret—so pretend you don't know.
"When we rest this time, I wanna sleep like a log."
"I wanna watch the heroes."
"Sigh, you wanna work even then."
"Sharing memories via avatar and seeing it firsthand are totally different."
Before dropping by El's place, Kishine shook her head at the sight of the two goddesses.
People wouldn't know.
Neither about Jijiyong's game nor the management of the real-world dimensions.
All of it was manually balanced by the goddesses' handiwork.