Chapter 41: Chapter 41 — The Festival of the Hunt Part XII
The golden liquid slid gently down my throat. The warmth branched out from my chest to the extremities of my spiritual form, soothing the residual turmoil of the battle.
The scent of jasmine flooded my senses, bringing absolute stillness to my weary mind. I set the cup down on the porcelain saucer with care, breaking the silence with a subtle clink, and lowered my gaze toward the dark grain of the mahogany table.
It was in that instant that the weight of my reality forced me to bow my head completely.
Before me, the deity settled into her high-backed chair, adopting an upright posture that accentuated her sovereignty. Dakilla’s physical appearance radiated an imposing majesty that dominated the whitish space.
Her skin possessed a perfect pallor, like polished marble under moonlight, free of any earthly imperfection. Her long, dark hair floated around her in weightless waves, flecked with tiny bright specks that mimicked the stars of a distant galaxy, moving to the rhythm of an invisible cosmic tide.
Her robe, made of a fine silk reminiscent of dense smoke, clung precisely to her mature silhouette, highlighting the pronounced curve of her hips and the firmness of her sculpted shoulders.
The goddess’s eyes, two gems of deep, magnetic violet, remained fixed on me with the steadiness of one who has watched the birth and death of a thousand worlds. Her lips, full and stained a wine red, maintained a severe line before parting to deliver her verdict.
"Your mistake lies in overthinking, Harold," Dakilla began, her melodious voice resonating with the force of an eternal echo inside my skull.
"Your mind works at a destructive level.
You overthink things too much, analyzing every variable and trying to box the reality of this new world into the absurd rules of the stories you used to read in your past life.
That intellectual hyperactivity overwhelms you, paralyzes your primal instincts on the battlefield, and pushes you to act like a pretentious idiot in the most critical moments.
The giant crushed you because you were busy searching for a video-game logic where only pure brute force existed."
I kept my eyes fixed on my spiritual phalanges, unable to refute a single word. The truth of her statements drove into my pride with the precision of a scalpel.
"Your second problem," the goddess continued, resting her elbows on the mahogany table and interlacing her pale fingers, "is the distortion of your priorities.
You possess full awareness of your actions and you understand the real danger, but you place the well-being and safety of others on such a high pedestal that you erase yourself from the equation.
You throw yourself into danger to protect those women and the inhabitants of this world, forgetting that your own body is made of flesh, bone, and blood that are prone to breaking.
You are a genuinely good person, Harold. Your soul shines with an unusual purity, but you are an idiot who pretends to be a detached hero to hide your own fragility before the mirror."
Silence took hold of the mystical chamber. The steam from the tea kept rising, forming gray wisps between the deity and my defeated self. I wanted to raise my voice, to invent an excuse that would justify my arrogance against the titan, but my throat remained sealed by shame.
"And finally, there is the suffering," Dakilla’s tone descended into a grave whisper that reached the very foundations of my soul.
"The physical pain you experienced today is only a pale reflection of the torment you’ve been storing in your chest for so long.
You deceive yourself constantly. You put on that mask of an immature otaku, you act ridiculous, and you feign absolute happiness to avoid confronting your own demons.
You swallow your daily suffering, ruminating on it in the darkness of your mind, believing that it will magically disappear that way. You are only building up a massive burden that will eventually bury you beneath the earth.
You are a good kid, Harold. But you are still that—a frightened boy who hides behind immaturity to avoid breaking down and crying under the weight of the world. You are afraid to show your vulnerability."
My hands began to tremble over my knees. Tears, held back throughout my entire journey in this new world, threatened to spill.
I clenched my teeth hard, forcing myself to keep my composure while the cosmic silhouette of the goddess flickered in the periphery of my vision.
The guilt floated in the air, dense, almost tangible, suffocating me more than the mud of the canyon.
Dakilla let out a soft sigh, a sound laden with a strange, almost imperceptible maternal compassion that softened the rigidity of her divine features. The violet gleam of her eyes dimmed, taking on the hue of a peaceful twilight.
"You have to stop blaming yourself for what happened that day, Harold," she declared, looking at me with absolute seriousness.
"You have been carrying a ghost that belongs to the past for far too many years. It’s time to let go of that stone."
I clenched my fists so tightly that my spiritual knuckles turned white. That mention stirred the foundations of my former existence, bringing back the vivid memory of my greatest earthly regret.
The helplessness of that time mingled with the humiliation of my recent death, creating an oppressive emptiness in my stomach. I remained motionless, chin pressed to my chest, surrendered completely to the deity’s scrutiny.
The Goddess straightened up in her seat, recovering her majestic and untouchable bearing.
She raised her right hand, separating her thumb and middle finger with deliberate slowness.
A spark of silver light danced between her perfectly manicured nails.
"I’ll only give you five minutes, so enjoy them to the fullest," she declared with a mystical smile that softened the severity of her lips.
SNAP!
---
The sound of the snap reverberated through the immensity of the space like the echo of a distant thunderclap.
Instantly, the mahogany table, the porcelain tea set, and the imposing figure of Dakilla began to dissolve into a white, luminous mist that erased the boundaries of the chamber.
The coldness of the spiritual void vanished, replaced by a wave of comforting warmth that raised the hairs on my arms.
A familiar scent of lavender, cheap fabric softener, and freshly baked bread flooded my nostrils, bringing a surge of nostalgia that paralyzed my breath. The floor beneath my feet changed texture, becoming carpeted, soft, and familiar.
"Harold! Are you coming down for dinner or are you going to stay up there holed up all day?"
A familiar vibration shook my chest. That voice, laden with an everyday tenderness and a slight tone of reproach I believed extinct forever, broke the calm of the place.
I reacted immediately to the sound. I lifted my head, heart racing, forgetting the pain, the deity, and the Gacha system. When I did, the evening light filtered through the window of a perfectly remembered, orderly kitchen. In front of the counter, her back to me as she arranged some dishes, was her.
My lips moved in a broken whisper, unable to contain the emotion overflowing from my soul.
"Mom..."
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