It's Gone!?

Hot. Suffocating. Painful.

A lethargy so severe that death would be preferable assaulted Sei.

No good. Can't endure this. Let's just pass out.

Drenched in sweat, the dreaming Sei let go of consciousness.

It was a terrible dream.

No, had that suffering really been a dream? There was still something off about the body.

"Ugh…"

Pressing down on the chest, Sei noticed.

It was soft.

Where had those trained pectoral muscles gone? What was there instead were modest, well-shaped breasts.

"… What the hell is this…"

And then Sei noticed. The morning physiological phenomenon that had been occurring without fail for the past several years was absent. The voice had become high-pitched.

Fearfully, the underwear was pulled aside.

It wasn't there.

"What! The hell!?"

A girl's scream echoed through the house.

Stomping noisily into the living room, Ria and Carla were already awake.

Who should be consulted about this? That would obviously be Carla, but Ria's grinning face seemed to have already grasped the entire situation.

"Looks like it worked out."

Sei's mentality was one that could handle dying without issue, but this was a bit much even so.

"This was your doing, Shishou…"

"Don't say things that make me sound like a villain. All of your stats should have gone up, you know?"

Checking, Sei's abilities had indeed increased, and blessings that hadn't been there yesterday had also been added.

But the sex had changed to female.

It wasn't there.

It was gone.

"How in the world…"

Sei had always been told to have a feminine face, but was this a normal occurrence in another world?

"You drank the red sake yesterday, right?"

Yes. It was easy to remember because the head had felt like it was about to boil over.

"That was my blood."

How does drinking blood lead to this?

"Dragon's blood, you see, grants tremendous power, but it's also a deadly poison."

To put it bluntly, unless you're a fairly high-level creature, you can't drink that much of it without dying.

However, Sei is immortal. Low level, but simply won't die. So let's try having her drink some.

The result was feminization.

"I admit my thinking was naive on that front. I didn't expect it would change the body this much."

I'm really sorry, Ria said, bowing her head to her disciple.

The changes to Sei's status weren't limited to stats and sex.

In the titles column, "Disciple of the Sword God" had been added, and in the blessings column, "Kin of the Dark Dragon" appeared.

"Hmm, so Dragon's Bloodline didn't work after all."

"What's that?"

Ria spoke with disappointment, but Sei only had a bad feeling about this.

"Try using Identify on Carla's abilities."

As a story convention, the all-purpose Identify should be used more often, but come to think of it, Sei had hardly used it at all. Being told to, Sei stared at Carla without reservation and used Identify.

"… Her blessings include 'Dragon's Bloodline' and 'Divine Bloodline'…"

More to the point, Carla was strong.

"Dragon's Bloodline means possessing the potential to become a Divine Dragon. Though since Carla also has Divine Bloodline, she can't actually become a dragon."

Incidentally, Carla's titles included "Dragon Slayer," "Saint," and "Bride of the Divine Dragon."

… At this point, couldn't Carla-sensei alone handle the Hero somehow?

After all, Sensei is Level 313. Wouldn't heroes at level 30 or 40 just be small fry?

Having unintentionally thought in feminine speech patterns, Sei voiced this aloud.

"Setting aside the Hero, Carla should certainly be counted as a fighting force against the resurrected gods, but you can't tell a pregnant woman to fight, can you?"

Even after giving birth, it takes time for her condition to stabilize, and there's childcare to handle too.

That wasn't wrong, but the timing of this pregnancy was inconvenient.

"By the way, is killing the Hero a no-go from a Divine Dragon perspective?"

When Sei had used Identify on Ria, the display showed "Cannot Identify." But most likely, Ria was even stronger than Carla. In that case, wouldn't the Hero be brushed aside like nothing?

"… I should be able to defeat the Hero without issue, but there's a problem."

At that, Ria made a slightly bitter expression.

"The Hero is an unpredictable element. Certainly, if they fight, the Evil Gods and Demon Gods are probably stronger, but… 3,000 years ago, in the aftermath of a battle between a Hero and a Demon King, one Divine Dragon was annihilated. Along with all the dragons under her command."

The Hero is an irregular from another world. Therefore, there's an unspoken agreement that Divine Dragons avoid battle with Heroes. Even if the Hero should be far weaker than the gods.

"1,800 years ago, a Hero was also summoned. Having grown tired of dealing with things in this world, this time I threatened a god from your world to summon a human to exterminate the Hero."

Exterminate the Hero, huh. Like they're cockroaches.

"Won't you fight the Evil Gods or Demon Gods?"

"Hmm, dragons fundamentally only exercise their power during world crises. Evil Gods and Demon Gods are threats to humans, but they don't destroy the world. Except for me and Irina, the rest are taking a wait-and-see approach."

"Do you intend to fight, Shishou?"

"I do. But the timing is bad right now."

That was probably related to Carla's pregnancy. There must be reasons why casually fighting gods wasn't an option.

"Irina wants to fight, but the basic policy is to bolster human forces and have them take on the gods. She only has a handful of dragons under her command, so she's limited in fighting power as well."

Irina was a soft, gentle-seeming girl clad in golden armor. Sei's impression of her wasn't bad.

"Is she, um, weak? By Divine Dragon standards?"

"No, she should be roughly equal to the highest combat power among the evil deities. But as I just said, her subordinate dragons number… only about 10. Also, if a Divine Dragon and gods clash head-on, things get out of hand."

Ria stretched and retrieved an atlas from the bookshelf.

"This is a world map of this world."

"… It looks a bit like Earth. But there's no Australia or Antarctica."

"Yeah, those apparently vanished in the battle between Divine Dragons and gods 6,000 years ago."

"…"

"By the way, if a Divine Dragon sacrifices their own existence, an entire planet vanishes. A few full-power breath attacks can wipe out a continent."

What excessive firepower. Sei sighed.

"Well, that's fine for now. I'll ask more later. So, will this body go back to normal?"

"If you return to your original world, it should properly return to normal… Probably."

"Probably… And what about bodily functions? For example, um, periods?"

"Hmm, time for health and physical education class."

Prompted by Ria, Sei sat down.

"Unlike humans, dragons don't have ovulation cycles. If they have sex and don't use contraception, pregnancy is virtually certain. Therefore, no periods."

Oh my.

"In your case, if you're with a man, you'll definitely get pregnant."

"Please stop, that's disturbing."

"Conversely, if you're with a human girl and her ovulation conditions are met, a penis will automatically grow."

Yuri and futanari? Those attributes are a bit too strong.

"Well then, let's do some morning training before breakfast."

Leading the still-confused Sei, Ria entered the Sacred Chamber of Time.

The body felt light.

That was the first thing Sei noticed.

"Your stats went up and your gravity resistance improved, so you can move more easily, right?"

That was exactly right. Even the real sword that was handed over felt lighter than yesterday.

"Let's pick out a katana for you."

Saying that, Ria produced several dozen sheathed katana from seemingly nowhere and lined them up before Sei.

"First, look at all of them."

As Sei examined each blade, Ria explained each katana. Kotetsu. Muramasa. Yasutsuna. And so on.

After actually swinging them and considering the balance with body weight, one katana felt just right.

"Kotetsu, huh."

Kotetsu was a famous sword even on Earth. Even Sei knew of it… Though that knowledge came from games.

"That's the sword Kondo Isami used, right?"

"No, that was apparently a forgery of Kotetsu. When Isami went to Kyoto, Hijikata Toshizo gave it to him as a present, but there's no way Toshizo at that time could have afforded the real thing. It's said to have actually been a Kiyomaro."

"Kiyomaro?"

"Kiyomaro is also a fine sword. In fact, Isami used that sword in Kyoto, and it reportedly never broke, never bent, and cut well."

Nodding along, Sei watched as Ria actually lined up both the Kotetsu and Kiyomaro for comparison.

The Kotetsu looked like it would cut very well at a glance. Its form and shape were also elegant. The Kiyomaro had a more assertive presence than the Kotetsu. But there was no doubt it would cut well too.

Still, Sei's preference was for the Kotetsu.

"By the way, what do you use, Shishou?"

"Normally I use a Kotetsu. I change weapons depending on the opponent, but usually it's Kotetsu. And when facing god-level opponents, I use this."

Ria drew a single katana from her own shadow.

Its mere existence exuded pressure on the surroundings. A manifestation of divine might.

"The Divine Dragon Blade Gallach. The strongest weapon that can kill even gods… Want to try holding it?"

If it was said to be such an amazing weapon, there was more than just a little interest.

Ria's smiling face gave off a bad feeling, but surely it wasn't a cursed weapon or anything.

Sei reached out and touched the hilt.

In that instant, all magic power was lost and consciousness faded.