Arika, Mister Duragon, I’m so—rr–y—

“Then, I shall make it quick and simple for you. Granddaughter of Angelica, your Grandmother is in trouble.”

“Wait. What do you mean by that?! My Grandma is in trouble?! She has ascended to Goddesshood in this realm, right?!”

I gasped as the dragon declared. Is it the reason why she said sorry and said she’ll never see me again in the nightmare I had at that time? Come to think of it, she seemed like she was going to cry, too, and while I couldn’t forgive the ones who made her cry, I was already full of myself that I thought it was my fault to an extent, which I admit was not quite right.

“That ‘Goddesshood’ you spoke of is the root of these problems she’s having. Apparently, she broke a few old rules as the new Goddess, that some lesser Goddess who doesn’t approve of her made it their chance to overrule her.”

“…. Apparently some Lesser Goddesses are against my Grandma as a Goddess? Does anyone here know anything about this lore or whatever?”

I turned my head to Rana, who I expected should know better of their existence than I ever would. Both Rama and Dellney doesn’t look like they’d be a reliable source of this one information. I feel like I did read this lore once at the ETO wiki back in my old world when I could, but it lacks notable information aside from some footnotes that I skipped through it.

“Well, to put it into words… Lesser Goddesses are like this world’s Goddess’ underlings that are in charge of a few regions?” Rana tried to explain. “They used to be able to descend from time to time as angels to spread blessings, but they were forced to stay above thanks to the war against the Demon Lord…. It’s in some books I’ve read in the past....”

“While what that mortal child explained is correct, there are a few details she rightfully missed.” The dragon blows a sigh loud enough to sway our hair. “They were mostly Goddesses who ascended from humans in local regions. If they gained enough followers, they could’ve ascended to actual Goddesses, but the thing is, they couldn’t anymore as the war against the Demon Lord and the Demon Lord’s Last Attempt caused problems in the communications between ascended people and people who are still alive down there that only actual Goddesses could communicate and appear in dreams.”

While all this lore invading my privacy of a mind caused a headache to an extent, somehow I could get an idea on what’s going on. A Lesser Goddess got jealous of my Grandma’s immediate promotion to a Goddess even when she’s from another world, and used the reasoning of ‘She’s breaking the old time rules’ to dethrone her. Am I…. getting it right…?

“That is correct. Though, to be fair, I need to tell you that any female beings who died in another world and was chosen by the previous Goddess to be here is usually appointed to a Goddess immediately— and such beings are very rare and unusual.”

“So my Grandma was a very unusual exception and they got jealous of the fact that they caused problems for her so that she couldn’t contact me like before anymore….” I stopped by as I gulped. The direness of the situation could’ve been sensed from this alone— can we even fight a Goddess for the better of the situation, even when they’re Lesser Goddesses and we probably have dragons on our side?

“I have to correct that not every dragon is on our side. It’s nuanced, unfortunately. Some of them are against the favor of the real Angelica.”

“Dammit, so we have to fight dragons too— Rama, it’s okay! This one’s on our side!”

What I said out loud to catch the others up to the situation seemingly alerted Rama to the point that he conjured back his wand. That was very close!

“‘This one’, you say…. I have a name. Call me ___ ____”

“Mister Duragon….? That doesn’t sound like a proper name and just like I’m calling you, a Dragon, with a Mister honorific…”

“Alright, fine. I forgot people from the other world do not excel in spelling this world’s naming tongue. That sounds similar to what I intent on, call me that way if you wanted to.”

“Okay then, Mister Duragon. What do I– or better off ‘we' as I'm not alone here, need to do to help Grandma? Do we need to fight those Lesser Goddesses in some form?” I turned back to my friends before I continued on. I have to make sure they feel included too, or I’ll just be rude. I’m sure Mister Duragon reads my mind, so I do not need his permission to speak out loud. “Wait, before that, let me ask this one question...You guys in for this?”

“At any case, fighting against the Lesser Goddesses sounds fun, so I’m in!” Rana chimed in cheerfully as she raised her hand. It does cause me to roll my eyes and confuse Mister Duragon. As he’s probably reading my mind, I’ll just say this one thing for him to be careful of; Rana is very scary when she’s let off, and that she’s a borderline sadist. See, even you can sense it, right?

“We’re already in too deep. Count me in, Arika.” Rama sighed, as he handwaved his wand away. Right, I need to mention this just to be safe. He kept trying to attack you, Mister Duragon, but he’s actually a good kid. We call these kinds of characters— no, people as ‘tsundere’ back in my own world.

“....Am I getting paid enough for this?” Dellney asked. She’s kind of in a mercenary situation here, I couldn’t blame you for not trusting her. In fact, I couldn’t really do much, I’m not sure how much money I have left to pay for her services as a party member, maybe it’ll be better for efficiency if she didn’t follow us this time.

“In that case, that Dellney… I’ll help get her home. It’s Magifa, isn’t it? A few allies of mine could lend her and that Cheshire of hers a ride to that town.”

“Mister Duragon can help you back to Magifa if you want to. You don’t need to get involved.” I blurted out loud so that Dellney could decide for herself. That alright with you, Mister Duragon?

“Yes. I mean what I said.”

“A ride from a dragon?! Really?! Wait, that sounds like a rare experience I’d have to pay money for…..” Dellney raised her eyebrows before she started to seemingly think on her own, as she probably had started calculating in her mind the risks and returns— and there she goes, winking at me as she made her decision. “Okay, I’ll better be back on Magifa. You guys, return safely so you can recruit me again!”

She made a peace sign that’s quite similar to a gyaru posing for a picture in my own world. It’s rather adorable for a Dellney that I already knew as somewhat pathetic before this. Maybe she’d be a gyaru in my previous world had she been there.

“Could you stop babbling about unrelated things in your head? It’s getting noisy and annoying.”

Sorry about that, Mister Duragon. I cannot easily ease my need to talk in my head or I’ll go insane! Thinking of it, I've started to get used to talking in my head for the dragon to listen and speaking out loud for the others, which is a good thing as we probably needed more of those during this adventure.

Speaking of which, what exactly do we need to do, again? You should explain, Mister Duragon. I’ll translate it to the others just for you.

“That’s right, you– or let alone I myself haven’t quite explained the situation to those elven friends of yours, yet they followed through with you, how foolish of them…”

Pretty cool, isn’t it? Isn’t that what friends are for? So, where’s the fight now?

“I don’t know how much a fight could break out. In fact, we should avoid it.” The dragon then lowered its back as if inviting us for a ride…..? “Yes, I am inviting you and your elven friends on a ride. Except for that Dellney who wanted out, a friend of mine shall take her and her Cheshire back home safely after this.”

“Isn’t that good, Dellney? You’re getting another exclusive ride after us! Prepare yourself and Kay!” I explained to Dellney, who I heard responded with; ‘You better not be lying or I’ll have you pay a little more!’, but I put more priority on Mister Duragon. “So? We’re going up to the skies with your nest there, right…? Is that where the Goddesses are, physically?”

“Kind of. I’ll explain as we go back to my nest. Just go on my back for now.”

“Okay. Guys, let’s go.”

Thus, the three of us— the twins Rama and Rana with me, Arika, and the Cheshire Rui, complied and rode on the dragon’s back.