Chapter 975: Chapter 975: A Promise to Never Hide Things Again
"It’s probably because my advancement speed was too fast, and I didn’t have time to stop and properly stabilize my realm, which caused my mental exhaustion to intensify.
"Especially after clearing the Dungeon, I also worked with Mother-sama and Miss Ryougi on planning the new world, so I didn’t have any spare time to rest."
"All of these factors piled together and left me in pretty bad shape. Yesterday, Mother-sama and Miss Ryougi noticed how poor my condition was, so after I finished deterring the ’Miniature World’ side, they sent me upstairs to rest."
Bell didn’t hide what he had been dealing with the day before.
He had been incredibly sleepy at the time. Once he reached the second floor and relaxed his mind, he was on the verge of completely falling asleep at any moment. And precisely because of that state, Bell became even more careful about hiding himself, even though he was already back home.
"I originally planned to rest in an empty room. But in the hallway, I ran into Artemis just as she was coming out."
"After seeing Artemis, the last bit of mental strength I was holding onto finally gave out."
The moment his mind relaxed, it was already a sign that Bell couldn’t hold on anymore. Once mental fatigue accumulated past a certain point, his consciousness had reached its limit.
"After that, Artemis helped me into the room."
"Artemis’s presence smelled really nice. It felt gentle, the same kind of feeling Freya gives me."
The goddesses all glanced at Freya, prompting her to unconsciously straighten her chest slightly before spreading her hands, as if to say that she hadn’t forced Bell to think that way.
"Damn big boobs..."
The other goddesses didn’t carry much of a psychological burden, but Loki, who was especially lacking in that kind of maternal aura, felt distinctly uncomfortable. That heavy presence was particularly eye-catching to her.
Loki’s muttering wasn’t something the other goddesses paid much attention to.
Men liking women with good figures was perfectly normal. Bell’s preference for well-endowed girls was something all of them already knew. Otherwise, Loki wouldn’t have reacted so strongly in the first place.
"What happened after that was the next morning. With Artemis in front of me and behind me, I didn’t really manage to control myself."
Bell still chose to take the responsibility onto himself.
However, Freya and the others didn’t believe that it was simply Bell’s impulsiveness that caused the ’eating Artemis’ incident to happen a few months earlier than planned. Just from Artemis’s attitude alone, it was obvious that they had taken the initiative.
And just as Freya had said earlier, whether it happened a bit earlier or not wasn’t all that important.
"We can put Artemis’s matter aside for now. Just like us, it was only a matter of time for them anyway. Even if we feel a little jealous, that’s not something we can’t understand. But you were so exhausted that it took two ’Worlds’ reminding you to come back and rest before you finally did?"
"And even now, at this point, you’re still trying to stimulate your mind. Bell, do you really think you can’t push yourself to death?"
From the very beginning, Freya had noticed this issue. Especially when Bell deliberately shifted the topic toward Artemis, she was certain that whatever he had casually glossed over was actually quite serious.
"..."
Bell had thought he could skip past that topic. He fell silent for a moment, inwardly sighing at just how well Freya understood him. She could tell he was deliberately changing the subject.
"It’s not that I have any strange ideas. I just want to see what paths lie ahead. After all, Freya, you know that three digits aren’t the limit. The road to two digits is something I’ll have to walk on my own. Right now, I’m just trying to explore what that future path looks like."
The two-digit ’Full Authority Domain’ was different from the three-digit stage, where one expanded their authority to reach a state of ’omnipotence.’ ’Full Authority Domain’ required gathering and compressing all of one’s authority into a single whole.
Put simply, it was the process of turning infinity into one.
The more authorities a god or divine being possessed, the more time this process required. On the other hand, those who only held a single authority could cross into the ’Full Authority Domain’ relatively easily.
Of course, being able to reach two digits simply by mastering one authority and compressing it was something only a truly chosen individual could accomplish.
Bell believed that reaching that level required a solid foundation. That was why he was currently raising his baseline and slowly exploring the process of ’authority convergence.’
"That’s exactly why I always say you go too far."
Freya let out a sigh. She truly didn’t know how to describe Bell’s personality.
If you said he was cautious, there were times when he really didn’t treat himself like a human at all, pushing himself beyond human limits.
If you said he was careless, then in his actions he was extremely restrained, calculating, and cautious, rarely ever stepping into the spotlight, always staying behind the scenes.
In short, Bell was someone who was extremely hard on himself. He didn’t care about fame, status, or power, and focused almost entirely on strength. He was very good at controlling his desires and was rarely swayed by them.
And it was precisely because Bell was so devoted to pursuing strength that Freya worried even more.
She knew his nature too well. She knew that while he pursued power steadily, that very steadiness also meant he would constantly challenge his own limits.
"Don’t worry."
Bell knew that he really did go too far sometimes, but he still believed he had a grasp on his own limits.
"I’ve always kept my boundaries in mind. This time, I just went a little over. I was looking for my bottom line, so I pushed things a bit too much. Next time, it shouldn’t happen again."
"Next time..."
Freya covered her head helplessly, feeling a headache like that of a mother. Her troublesome child was challenging her limits as a guardian, and even his own limits as a human.
To prevent something like this from happening again, Freya felt it was necessary to firmly establish conditions regarding Bell.
"Bell, we need to set an agreement."
"Mm, what kind of agreement?"
"From now on, whenever you explore unknown territory, you must tell us. Otherwise, if something like this happens again, we won’t even know about it. This is the bottom line. You should understand."
This left Bell with no room to refuse.
He immediately understood that Freya wasn’t negotiating. This was a hard rule. She was setting a minimum safeguard so that if something like this happened again, at least someone would know.
’Does that mean I’ll basically have to report in every day from now on...’
Bell felt genuinely troubled by this.
He knew very well that he didn’t just explore unknown territory occasionally. He was doing it every single day.
He could probably brush it off somehow, but...
Looking at Freya in front of him, along with the other goddesses, this clearly wasn’t a situation he could just hand-wave away.
And more importantly, Bell didn’t want to lie to the people closest to him.
He could hide things. He could change the subject.
But he couldn’t lie.
"Alright. I’ll tell you whenever something like that happens from now on."
