#051 Goddess
#051 Goddess
Normance resident Siniya Deial thought her life was over the moment the Sandworm swallowed her.
The rank smell of blood.
The horrifying walls of flesh.
And herself, melting away in the acidic fluids gushing from within.
Why?
She had only been fleeing from the Demon King's army.
It was only natural for a person with no power at all to flee from an army that covered the entire sky.
Should she have trusted the adventurers, trusted the Hero, and stayed to fight?
Or should she have stayed quietly at home, believing they would protect her?
What if she had pointlessly remained, and the Demon King's army had eventually struck down the adventurers and the Hero and entered Normance?
Then she would have regretted it.
Regretted trusting those people and letting herself die.
So she had escaped.
If she had known in advance that there was such a colossal monster in a place like this, she would never have left Normance.
But that was nothing more than a hypothetical.
"Ha, haha...."
Siniya had no power to turn back time, nor any power to awaken and escape from within this place.
For a woman who could do nothing but tend and sell flowers, there was no way to escape from the belly of such a colossal monster.
Would it be better to just bite her own tongue?
Siniya despaired.
If only.
If her prayers could reach, if the Goddess would look down upon her.
But the Goddess's power did not reach her.
This place was inside the Sandworm's belly.
The Goddess's blessing required receiving moonlight upon one's body, and Siniya was trapped in darkness.
Perhaps.
If she pushed forward as far as she could the moment the Sandworm opened its jaws?
Would the moonlight protect her then?
"Goddess...!!"
If only a miracle existed—
Kggggggk!!!
From above, she heard the sound of something being torn apart.
When she turned her head toward the ceiling, a long vertical line appeared and moonlight began seeping inside.
"Ah, aah...?!"
The Sandworm's body was splitting open.
Through the severed cross-section, the Goddess's moonlight began seeping in.
RIP!
Siniya tore off her outer garment.
As the moonlight slowly settled into her body, Siniya could not hold back the surge of emotion.
Drip.
The Sandworm's bodily fluid that fell onto the back of her hand vanished with a hiss.
It was a fluid as toxic as deadly poison that should have melted Siniya's body, but the Goddess's blessing instead purified the Sandworm's fluid and protected her.
Boom—!
With a tremendous tremor, the Sandworm's body crashed to the ground.
Thanks to the Sandworm having swallowed the earth whole, Siniya was able to escape safely despite the impact.
"Ah...."
She saw.
Beyond the Sandworm's corpse splitting apart left and right, a golden-haired swordsman extending his sword to the side, having cut through even the tail.
Watching the young man's back as he swung his sword like a golden storm, she thought:
A hero.
Unlike the mere "Holy Sword wielders" who only used their Holy Swords, or those who merely called themselves Heroes in name, the young man had saved Siniya—and everyone—with the power of a single sword alone.
Not everyone.
There were those who had died, and those who were injured.
Siniya herself would surely have had her body melted by the fluids dripping from the Sandworm's inner walls if the Goddess's blessing had not seeped in as it split open.
"......."
Should she call it luck?
Or should she call it the result of her prayers to the Goddess?
No.
It was thanks to that hero.
Because the hero had helped, the Goddess's touch had been able to reach her, and because the hero had been there, the Sandworm could no longer rampage.
Siniya stared blankly at the hero's back.
The hero was looking at a crimson witch running from the direction of the city walls.
A lover?
Or a younger sister?
The hero reached out his hand toward the crimson witch who suited him so well.
Patter-patter.
The witch merely tapped the hero's shoulder lightly, her gaze still fixed on the Sandworm as she ran.
A face that looked so urgent.
Siniya looked where the witch was looking, and only then realized that she had been lucky.
"Awaken!!"
As the witch thrust her staff high into the sky, the earth inside the Sandworm's body began to take shape.
The golems, formed like people, began rescuing those trapped right beside her.
"If you stay inside the Sandworm, the fluids will keep dripping down! Anyone who can move their body, come out now!!"
At the witch's shout, Siniya snapped back to her senses.
SIZZLE.
The Sandworm was dead, but its corpse remained.
The blood that had spilled from the Sandworm's splitting body might be tolerable, but the "stomach acid" flowing from its belly still remained.
"Anyone who can get out on their own, please come out! Those who absolutely cannot escape, raise both hands!! Those who can hold on a little, raise one hand!! If there is someone nearby who cannot reach out their hand, please let us know if you're next to them!!"
The witch's voice spread in all directions.
Siniya realized the witch was shouting while even using mana, and she struggled desperately to pull herself out of the mound of earth.
"Hn, ngh...!!"
Beside Siniya was a man whose face had half melted away.
Although she had the Azure Moon Goddess's blessing, the Azure Moon Goddess's blessing was only bestowed upon women.
Most of those groaning in pain throughout the area were men.
The men who had not received the Azure Moon Goddess's blessing were mostly bleeding.
"H-here!! There are people here!!"
"Aaagh!! My legs, my legs!!"
Screams echoed from all around.
Siniya bit her lip and forced herself up.
The witch was sending golems around while surveying the area, but she was overwhelmed by the sheer number of people.
"Are you all right?!"
The hero also helped the golems rescue people, and an elf who seemed to be part of their group, having run up from behind, rescued people with her own hands, getting dirt and Sandworm blood on herself.
And then.
"Excuse me."
The witch, who had run toward her, reached out her hand with a smile brighter than anyone's.
"Would you mind helping me a little?"
"......Yes!!"
Ah.
If the Azure Moon Goddess had sent down her blessing to protect women.
"Goddess...."
"Hm?"
"N-no, nothing...."
Then perhaps the Red Moon Goddess had descended in person to save these people.
Siniya took the witch's hand and slowly pulled herself out of the earth.
"......."
The witch quietly looked at the spot where Siniya had emerged, and....
"......Ha."
She was smiling.
For a moment, Siniya felt puzzled.
"Ah."
Beneath her.
There had been another person curled up inside the mound of earth.
Fortunately, he did not seem to be dead.
"Are you all right?"
"......I thought I was going to die, haah...."
"Please come out, quickly."
The witch personally reached her hand into the hole Siniya had emerged from and pulled the man out.
Until the witch had discovered him, Siniya had not even noticed there was a man directly beneath her.
If.
If not for the witch, the man might have been trapped in there and died.
"Lucius!!"
"Yes, Master!"
"Help this person up. I'm going to prepare a large-scale spell."
"A large-scale spell...? Aren't you pushing yourself too hard?"
"It's fine."
The witch clenched her fist and raised her staff.
"If I'm going to save people, I should do everything I can."
Siniya thought.
This woman.
'She's a goddess.'
An incarnation of the Red Moon Goddess.
* * *
'Damn, these troublesome humans.'
Trying to find the Sandworm's core, there were too many obstacles.
The Sandworm's core was not in its head.
It existed somewhere in the body, in a truly "unexpected" location.
So I had to advance from the mouth to the very end, personally detecting mana the whole way.
The problem was that while there would be no issue detecting it if nothing else was around, the humans trapped in the dirt and shrieking at the top of their lungs made detection difficult.
After all that effort of sending out mana to find him, it was some bald middle-aged man who wasn't even seriously injured—just a sprained leg—screaming because he wanted to be saved first no matter what.
How deflating.
If humans were going to be this much of a hindrance, it was better to clear them out quickly.
"Lucius! Rosemas! Leave it to the golems and move the people who can't move on their own first! So that when the priests arrive from Normance, they can be treated!!"
"Yes, understood!!"
"Don't push yourself too hard!!"
The two of them pulled out the people who couldn't get out on their own—the ones who kept getting in the way of my mana detection.
I used the earth that had entered the Sandworm's body to create golems and pushed people outside.
To find the Sandworm's core as quickly as possible, I kept running inward while dispersing the golems, and along the way I personally pulled out those I thought I could extract myself.
A stray thought that occurred to me while rescuing them.
'The Azure Moon Goddess's blessing is seriously insane.'
When I considered the ratio of casualties to injuries, those who had received the Azure Moon Goddess's blessing were less hurt.
Generally, the later someone had been swallowed, and the more revealing a woman's clothing, the safer she was.
'What a cruel goddess.'
If she was going to protect people, shouldn't she protect men too? Or at least protect everyone equally if they exposed themselves equally?
For a goddess to personally promote sex discrimination.
I wondered if it had been like this five hundred years ago too, but it didn't seem so.
Because five hundred years ago, our main enemy had been the Church of the Red Moon Goddess.
'Still, thanks to that, I obtained one useful piece of information.'
I was currently on the Hero's side, but I had confirmed one important piece of information.
Even exposed women were injured deep inside the Sandworm's belly.
In other words, in places where "moonlight" could not reach, such as inside a Magic Beast's body, the Azure Moon Goddess's blessing was less effective.
Whether it was simply because it was an indoor space blocked from moonlight, or whether Demonic Energy had to be involved, as in the bodies of Magic Beasts or Demonfolk—that was something I would have to verify.
'That's a matter for later, so let's set it aside for now.'
Right now, I needed to focus on finding the Sandworm's core.
"Ngh...."
I couldn't see it.
I couldn't feel it.
For a Sandworm of this size, there should definitely be a Mana Stone around here....
Squish.
"...?"
As I moved forward, I felt a strange sensation.
Looking down at my feet, the tip of my staff, driven into the mound of earth, was poking at something enormous between the gravel.
'Found it.'
A size just right for a fist.
Definitely a Mana Stone.
"......Awaken."
I used the surrounding earth to create golems.
Then I scattered them in all directions to rescue people, while simultaneously using the earth and gravel around the enormous object to create a small golem.
"Haa, haa...."
"Are you all right, Master?"
"I seem to be a little tired."
I created a golem and lay down in its arms.
The posture—kneeling on one knee with both arms extended forward to support—was sufficient for me to drape myself over and lie down.
"Lucius. There's no one left inside the Sandworm now, right...?"
"Yes. It seems we've just about rescued everyone."
"Then... I'll rest for a moment, so finish rescuing the people."
I lay down in the golem's arms.
Then I quietly closed my eyes and clasped the golem's hand.
Without anyone knowing.
I used the golem's hand to pull and grip a certain lump inside the golem's body.
"......."
It was huge.
The golden orb, filling my hand completely, contained an immense amount of mana.
With this, I could fight for another half year.
"The witch being carried princess-style in an earth golem's arms... Is she perhaps hinting that she wants to be held like that later...?"
Rosemas looked at Lucius, who was gazing at his master, and hung her head deeply.
"...If I could be held by Lucius like that too...."
Rosemas could only imagine that scene in her fantasies.