The Goddess's Request
I jolted awake as my severed consciousness snapped back into place. My heavy eyelids, thick with darkness, fluttered open with great effort.
“Ugh… what the actual fuck is going on?”
My body didn’t feel particularly cold or hot, but a fragrant scent of grass—something I’d only ever smelled in the countryside—brushed past my nose. Yet mixed with that clean aroma was the thick, earthy smell of dirt, which naturally made me mutter a curse under my breath.
After spitting out a few more choice words and pulling myself together, I opened my eyes fully. The sight of the vast, endless plain left me gaping in awe.
“Whoa…”
A sky so clear and pure I’d never seen anything like it in my entire life. A meadow so vibrantly green it seemed to define the very color itself.
Even the majestic foreign landscapes I’d only seen in photographs couldn’t compare to this.
But my brief trance at nature’s grand spectacle didn’t last long. As soon as I regained some semblance of sanity, I felt an unsettling wrongness in my body. I looked down—and screamed at the sight of two full, prominent mounds filling my vision.
“What the—?!”
They were covered by clothing, sure, but there was no mistaking the unmistakably perky breasts of a woman. And it didn’t take me long to realize they were attached to my body. They were my breasts.
Why the hell were these things on me? The sheer absurdity left me pinching the bridge of my nose in frustration. First the game glitches out, then I get dumped in some random plain, and now even my body’s been swapped?
A mirror would’ve been nice right about now, but since there wasn’t one, the only way to check my reflection was in something like water.
I scanned the area and spotted a small stream nearby. I rushed over, leaned in, and stared at my reflection. The face staring back was painfully familiar. I muttered in disbelief.
“…Aria?”
Aria—my main character from Colorful Skies, a dual-wielding swordswoman derived from the warrior class.
Rose-red hair that leaned more toward a soft crimson, grey cloth armor that was a cash-shop item, and two swords hanging at either hip. No matter how different games and reality were supposed to be, I couldn’t see the figure in the water as anything but Aria.
The moment I whispered my new name, a translucent blue window appeared before my eyes.
Greetings.
“Whoa—scared the hell out of me. Wait, isn’t this the same window I saw right before I blacked out…?”
I instinctively stepped back from the window that had appeared without a sound, but quickly realized what it was and muttered to myself.
I couldn’t remember it clearly since I’d been on the verge of passing out, but the familiar feeling told me this was definitely the same one I’d seen before losing consciousness.
Now certain, I calmed my racing heart and slowly read the text floating in the air.
I am using this window to deliver a few explanations to you, who must be quite confused right now. First, the place where you stand is a plain near the capital of the Fhara Kingdom on the continent. You are probably more familiar with its map name: Beginners' Plain.
Your body has been replaced with those of the characters you worked so hard to raise. Surviving this harsh continent in a frail human body would have been difficult. You may switch bodies by saying the word “Avatar,” which will open a dedicated window. For your convenience, I have also added Status and Skill windows.
There are two things I would like to ask of you. Please prevent the worst possible future that you have already experienced as a quest. Any method will do. Only you, a traveler from beyond the world, can stop that future.
Also, what you are experiencing now is undeniably reality. Please do not turn your eyes away from it.
…I beg you.
— Goddess Iriel
Huh. Hmm. Well then.
That was my very first thought after reading the whole thing.
Of course I’d clicked the accept button, but this whole unrealistic fantasy unfolding was still nonsense. Honestly, I didn’t even want to understand it—I wanted to look away. But that final sentence she’d tacked on, as if she’d predicted my reaction, made that impossible.
Do not turn your eyes away. It felt like something unbearable would happen if I tried to ignore the reality spread out before me. So, with the smallest act of defiance I could manage, I crossed my arms and closed my eyes.
Why did this have to happen to me? It could’ve happened to anyone else. I never asked for any of this.
“Haaaa…”
But no amount of denial would change what had already happened. If it was going to happen anyway, at least I’d received an explanation. That was something.
I barely convinced myself—almost like self-brainwashing—and recalled the contents of the now-vanished window.
“She asked me to prevent the worst future I experienced as a quest.”
The worst future I’d already lived through in a quest. The future Iriel mentioned was almost certainly the Human-Demon War quest.
It was the max-level quest for every class, and the only one where representative characters from all classes gathered in a single scene. In my memory, it remained the best quest in the game.
Apparently, in this place that was no longer a game but reality, it was called the worst possible future.
“But how the hell am I supposed to stop it?”
Even if she asked me to prevent the Human-Demon War, if my guess was right, it wasn’t the kind of event a single person could stop.
No matter how strong the characters I’d raised were, a war meant clashing forces in the hundreds of millions. Wiping out one side single-handedly was impossible from the start. Trying to find a compromise so the two sides wouldn’t fight at all was even more ridiculous.
The demons were literally born with the belief that all races outside their own must be exterminated engraved into their souls. The human-led alliance of many races, meanwhile, believed the demons had to be eradicated without exception.
So what could I even do?
Judging from the original quest storyline and setting, if this was the prologue period before any quests had started, there were still five years until the Human-Demon War. But I still had no idea what was happening or how things were unfolding…
“You there! You wretch! How dare you block the path of Her Highness, the Princess of Moonsgard, sacred realm of the elves! Do you wish to die?!”
…Huh?
While I was lost in deep thought, a shout from behind made me turn my head toward the source.
What I saw was an elegant wooden carriage pulled by a white horse. A coachman held the reins, and beside him stood a blonde woman—clearly the one who had yelled at me.
The most obvious difference from ordinary humans was the pointed ears rising from the sides of her head, loudly proclaiming that she was an elf.
I knew this elf. After all, she was a character I’d seen multiple times during the prologue while leveling my archer character.
Helia, personal knight and attendant to the elven princess. Her incredibly rude personality made her memorable even when I didn’t want to remember her.
‘If she’s here, then…’
From what she’d said, it seemed she was escorting the elven princess to the Fhara Kingdom. In other words, this marked the very beginning of the prologue story for the archer class’s main NPC—the elven princess.
I never expected something like this to reveal the current timeline so conveniently.
Honestly, I was starting to suspect whether this was truly a coincidence or not, but thanks to the important information I’d gained, I offered Helia my sincere gratitude.
“Don’t bark so arrogantly, you tree-clinging caterpillars.”
…Wait, what?