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The night after Veronica's 'date' with Anna, Ervas, and Veronica were called by a powerful entity through their sleep.
?
Of course, Veronica usually did not sleep, but it was not as if she was not capable of sleeping if she put intent into it, giving her the ability to dream.
Because Ervas and Veronica were the reincarnations of their split souls, they were inherently connected, and after having their souls in contact with each other for a lot of time, they had even managed to connect their consciousness while sleeping and dreaming together.
Sometimes they even dream of being one again the same person, but it is always felt awkward for the two because they had developed as different persons already, with different personalities and minds.
However, this time they seemed to dream without being merged into one.
They found themselves in a strange and dark place, with a floor made out of crystalline water that leaked a white light from within the depths of this water, illuminating the dark space from below.
"Where are we?" wondered Veronica.
"I don't have any idea… is this really another of our dreams together?" wondered Ervas.
Suddenly, the voice of a young girl filled their earing senses.
"Err… Hello…" it said.
Ervas and Veronica glanced around the space until they found the figure of a little squirrel below their knees, it was a beautiful squirrel covered in chestnut-colored fur and wearing a little collar with a cascabel in the form of a chestnut.
"A squirrel?" asked Veronica.
"It is a squirrel," said Ervas.
"Hahaha… this form is really embarrassing… If it were not because I am weakened, I would not look like a little squirrel, I apologize… Oh! And my name is Ratatoskr, I am the Heroic Goddess of the Squirrel-kin," said the little squirrel with a youthful and cute voice.
"The Heroic Goddess of the Squirrel-kin, I see," said Ervas, with an expressionless face, but his eyebrows were a bit up, showing his surprise.
"The Heroic Goddess of the- Wait, what?! Really? But you are so small" said Veronica, disappointed by the appearance of what was supposed to be a goddess.
It seemed that Veronica and Ervas were called by the Goddess of the Squirrel-kin through a dream… or that was what it seemed like.
"Y-Yeah, just as I said, this form is not really my true form, it is because I was weakened in the previous battle we had one hundred years ago after the Ragnar?k against a group of gods that tried to infiltrate into the Demon Continents… Long story short, one of those gods had a pretty strong attack that weakened me severely…" said Ratatoskr.
"So that's how it is… So why have you called us?" asked Ervas, casually talking with the little goddess as if they were acquaintances already.
'W-What with this kid? He is just casually talking with a goddess like me! I mean, I do not expect anything from him, but most of the time, mortals would get a bit surprised, at least… And his soul is… also very bizarre…' thought Ratatoskr.
"You think my soul is bizarre?" asked Ervas.
"EH?! D-Did you read my mind?!" asked Ratatoskr.
"Read your mind? You just said it out loud," said Veronica.
"But I didn't? You can read minds?" asked Ratatoskr.
"It seems so, sorry about that, I don't think I can control this… I also recognize that my soul is quite bizarre, there is a big void inside that I cannot get to close" said Ervas, seemingly a bit worried about the Void on his soul, which grants him a strong connection with otherworldly beings and also a large amount of constant mana.
"I-I see… I wonder why…" muttered Ratatoskr.
"So why did you call us here, goddess-sama? We were planning on going to the Demon Continents someday, so you did not have to bother doing this" said Veronica.
"Well… because you can just hear whatever I think, I guess there is no point in not telling the truth… I didn't call you anywhere, I was trying to leave an oracle with you two… but the moment I did, your consciousness was suddenly teleported inside my Divine Realm…" said Ratatoskr.
"Eh?! How could that happen without your intervention, lady Ratatoskr?" asked Veronica.
"I don't know! But there is something bizarre about your soul too, Veronica. It was something deep within your soul that brought you here with Ervas" said Ratatoskr.
"I see…" muttered Veronica.
'Could it be because of Abyssal Soul effect to bounce external effects? …So it caused us to bounce into Ratatoskr instead of receiving her message…' thought Veronica.
"Anyways… going back to the main point. I… I wanted to thank you two on behalf of Ophelia and Daeva, and me, of course… for what you've done for the small tribes of children that we left in the Human Continent of Anir's Hands…" said Ratatoskr, becoming a bit more serious.
"Ophelia… isn't she the Moon Rabbit Goddess of the Rabbit-kin?" asked Ervas.
"And Daeva must be the Heroic Raccoon Goddess of the Raccoon-kin," said Veronica.
"That's right! Those two girls are my close friends… but after that battle, they were even more wounded than myself, and are currently slumbering, I am the only one with a small amount of consciousness left… due to that I look like this," said Ratatoskr.
"I see… well, tell them to not worry about the details, that we did it because it came from our hearts," said Veronica.
"Yes, there isn't anything to thank us for," said Ervas.
"Hey! Do not be so humble, you are making me get embarrassed now! Anyway, things seem to not be over in the Devil Forest, right? With the whole Oggoth thing and all… for real, that bastard… I would crush him with my claws if I had the opportunity!" said Ratatoskr, although she sounded menacing, with her little voice it was just cute.
"We are planning on crushing him soon enough, so you don't have to worry, please go rest and don't overwork yourself, Goddess-sama," said Ervas.
"Yeah, yeah, leave it to us. Maybe when we reach the Demon Continent we can talk more personally" said Veronica.
"…Eh? Are you actually going to…? You two are way too crazy! You cannot simply say that you will crush a Demon God! You are mortals! …right?" asked Ratatoskr, as she glanced at Ervas and Veronica's souls, which were vast, bizarre, and aberrant, they weren't at all like those of a mortal, even counting that Veronica is an undead… they were currently overshadowing Ratatoskr, a Heroic Goddess soul completely. Even if she was weakened, such a thing should not even happen.
In a normal case scenario, Ratatoskr soul would be shown as vast and large, appearing at least as a twenty meters tall Squirrel in front of the two… but the two overshadowed her completely, and were the giants in this place instead of her, who was reduced to the size of an actual wild squirrel.
"We are, but we are confident in our victory," said Ervas.
"You could say that we have already cornered that poor fool long ago," said Veronica.
"…Eh? You cornered him?! I haven't seen everything in detail aside from your fight against his pawns… but what do you mean by cornered?" asked Ratatoskr.
"We defeated his primary force, we also rescued the people he had captive that served as his tool to quickly amass an army, and his powers were mostly exhausted when he raised all those Gazers that became our Experience Points," said Ervas.
"The only thing he has left is a speck of power, the Gazer King, and maybe a few monsters," said Veronica.
"Without such a large amount of monsters, he won't get as much worship nor sacrifices… and just as we read about Demon Gods, he won't be able to gather more power without that," said Ervas.
"You know how we gods acquire power?!" asked Ratatoskr.
"Yes… it is quite obvious, miss Ratatoskr, you're gods and you're worshiped… gaining power through faith and worship seems natural," said Veronica.
"But we also read about that in old books…" said Ervas.
"I-I see… wait, old books?" asked Ratatoskr.
"We are more comfortable without sharing that information in detail," said Ervas.
"That's right… But just as we said, do not worry, goddess-sama, we will handle things out fine. To procure to rest well" said Veronica.
"W-Wait don't go yet! I am very weakened, but I want to help you two somehow… at least let me bless you! How is that? I can also ask the other two to bless you as well, even if they're sleeping, it should be possible to wake up for a second to do the task," said Ratatoskr, trying to bless the two by releasing two sparks of yellow light into Ervas and Veronica's souls.
"A blessing? That might be useful…" said Ervas.
"Well, if you insist," said Veronica.
However, the sparks of yellow light that were the representation of Ratatoskr's blessing dissipated into nothingness when they entered into Ervas and Veronica's souls as if they were filtering it and slowly destroying it.
"Eh?! What was that? I can't bless you?!" asked Ratatoskr.
It seemed like Ratatoskr, a Goddess, was not capable of blessing Ervas and Veronica.
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The source of this c𝐨ntent is fre𝒆w(e)bn(o)vel