One Week Later

One week had passed.

Sei had more or less gotten used to having a woman's body. Carla seemed to want her to wear cute clothes, but she didn't force it.

"Even though you're so cute…"

No matter how wistfully Carla looked at her, this was one thing Sei wouldn't budge on.

Sei continued to dress like a man—well, the insides were still male anyway—and had now spent what felt like several months here.

When she thought about it, being turned into a woman might not be such a bad thing.

Back on Earth, Sei had been a minority.

When cute girls and beautiful girls talked to each other, just watching them made Sei happy.

But at best, Sei had only been a bystander.

Now, however, she herself was a woman. In other words, she could practice yuri. Wasn't that wonderful?

… This kind of hopeless mental flexibility might be what gave him the mental fortitude to not go insane even after dying countless times.

… Even so, losing that had dealt considerable damage.

She usually used the bath at home, but for a change of pace, she had come to the large public bathhouse.

Sei surveyed the women gathered at the public bath.

There were many dwarves. Of course there were. In this world, even female dwarves had beards.

The halfling girls might be cute, but they were out of the question. Their appearance was completely loli.

The beastkin were also out. They weren't just humans with animal ears—they were bipedal beasts. Even an average kemoner would probably find them out of bounds. Sei was normal.

"Not enough moisture…"

"What do you mean?"

Ria, leisurely soaking in the bath beside her, had magnificently defined abs. And her breasts were floating.

Sei was witnessing the miracle of breasts floating in water for the first time.

Next to her, Carla's abdomen had started to grow slightly larger.

"I think an adventure in another world needs a heroine, you know? But right now, we don't even have any heroine candidates."

Ria tilted her head at that, thought for a moment, then—

"Heroine."

She pointed sharply at Sei.

"N-No, that's wrong. Because if that's the case, then there'd be some other protagonist, and I'd have to… with them… gross…"

If Sei were gay, or even bi, this would have been an easy problem.

But Sei's mind was completely male. She loved watching girls get together, but she herself was also attracted to girls.

Well, even if she were bi, top and bottom would be completely different matters anyway.

"Well, I can understand how you feel somewhat."

Ria murmured while leisurely floating her breasts in the water.

"I told you I was once human, right?"

Sei certainly remembered that. She had heard that the Gift called Dragon's Bloodline was the path to becoming a dragon, so she assumed that's how Ria became a divine dragon.

"Actually, there's more before that. In my previous life, I was an Earthling, and on top of that, I was a man."

"… Huh?"

She had lived 42 years as a man on Earth, then been born as a woman in this world.

Apparently the dissonance had been intense until she reached puberty.

"Back then, there were quite a few reincarnators from Earth. The others were almost certainly the same gender as their previous lives, so I was confused too."

"How did you come to terms with it?"

"There's nothing wrong with a woman loving another woman, right? Especially in my case, since I can properly have children."

You're amazing, Master.

"In your case, you'd still be the one on top even with a girl, right?"

"Haa… well… yes…"

It was a bit late to think about it, but this didn't seem like an appropriate topic for a public bath.

"If you have a child with someone while you're in this world, the soul would belong to this world, so you can rest easy about that."

Sei didn't know what she was supposed to rest easy about, but she nodded for the time being.

Sei was watching TV.

TV after a bath. By Earth standards, that wouldn't be strange at all.

But this was another world. A fantasy world. And there was a TV here.

By the way, this house had no satellite broadcast antenna. None of the other houses in the dwarven village had TVs either.

Yet there was indeed a TV, and it was actually broadcasting.

"I'm just pulling in the Nihon Empire's broadcasts with magic."

That's what Ria said, but Sei didn't think magic should be used to explain everything away.

The broadcast content was about the intensifying war between humans and the evil gods.

It was extremely serious content. "Here's footage from the scene," the announcer said, as they showed video of an evil god reaching to the heavens trampling over human forces.

"Expecting heroes to fight that is asking quite a lot, isn't it…"

Infantry and tanks were being vaporized by laser-beam-like attacks. Where was the fantasy in this world?

Though an evil god reaching to the heavens might indeed be fantasy.

"They're being pushed back."

"Well, it can't be helped. Even a god of that caliber would require at least Level 150 to fight. Adult dragons would struggle."

Considering heroes were said to be around Level 30 or 40, it seemed unreasonable, but Carla was actually over 300.

"Where is this footage from?"

"The Dragon Claw Continent. Specifically, around here."

She was shown a map and had a finger point it out to her. South America, huh.

"By the way, where are we?"

"The Dragon Bone Continent, around here."

Central Eurasia. Separated from the battlefield by an entire continent. Was there not much to worry about then?

"Is this area peaceful?"

"Yes, I've destroyed most of the gods on this continent. There might be some hiding, but Level 150 would be more than enough. At that level, I could defeat them in my spare time."

The Divine Dragon-sama who casually defeats gods in her spare time is crazy awesome.

The broadcast continued, now showing footage from a different continent. Here, the human forces seemed to have the upper hand.

"That was the Dragon Fang Continent. About 2,000 years ago, Irina reduced their numbers significantly for leveling purposes, so humans can hold their own there. The Nihon Empire's power is also significant."

"The Nihon Empire?"

"Yes, it's a nation built by Japanese people who came from a different Earth than yours—a parallel world's Earth. It's this archipelago here. The area is small, but it's an absurdly powerful nation."

Ria briefly explained the Great Collapse from 3,000 years ago.

The crisis of Neahs and Earth colliding.

In response, Neahs's previous Dark Dragon, Valis, destroyed Earth at the cost of his life.

The few surviving Earthlings settled in the Neahs world.

The place where Japanese people in particular gathered became the Nihon Empire.

"Speaking of which, which country summoned the heroes in question?"

"… Where was it again?"

"The Kingdom of Neosis."

Ria had completely forgotten, but Carla-sensei was different, as expected.

She pointed to the southern part of the North American continent, called the Dragon Wing Continent.

Apparently, North and South America were the main battlegrounds in the war between evil gods and human races.

As a result, the borders were a mess.

Moreover, races originally created by the evil gods were sometimes defecting back to their side, reigniting issues of racial discrimination.

It was truly a mess.

"I understand wanting to borrow the heroes' power, but the summoning ritual that has been fragmentarily passed down isn't the original. It's doubtful whether they'd become forces capable of fighting gods."

"Is there such a thing as the original summoning ritual?"

In response to that question, Carla retrieved a historical timeline from the bookshelf.

"You can see here the First Millennium, the Second Millennium, and the Second Great Collapse, right? Those three times were when heroes were summoned using the proper hero summoning ritual passed down from ancient times."

"Come to think of it, how does the calendar work?"

"There are two calendars: the Unified Calendar and the Silver Calendar, but the Unified Calendar is more common. The war that Ria and I participated in was this Second Great Collapse."

Oh? That meant…

"Carla-sensei, have you also been alive for about 3,000 years?"

Ria made sense. She was the Divine Dragon-sama after all. But Carla shouldn't be a divine dragon.

"I'm actually four years older than Ria."

That was the most surprising fact of all. Now that she mentioned it, Ria did seem to act spoiled around Carla. So she was the older wife.

"To get back on topic, those first three times properly summoned powerful heroes. However, 1,800 years ago, heroes were summoned using a different ritual, and they were clearly weaker compared to the previous three heroes."

"That's not the only difference. The fourth hero summoning brought 15 people. The previous three times were just one person each."

And this time it was 36 people.

"Didn't the divine dragons get destroyed by getting caught up in battles between demon lords and heroes? Then wouldn't weak heroes like the current ones be easy to defeat with a divine dragon's power?"

"Probably, but even in the previous hero summoning, there were two exceptionally strong ones as exceptions. I still don't want to fight heroes."

"The problem is that no matter how much we try to erase it, the hero summoning ritual keeps appearing from somewhere. At this rate, heroes will probably be summoned again in about 1,000 years."

"It's probably some sealed god giving out oracles. I wish we could have a peaceful world where heroes aren't needed… but humans just love to fight and act righteous."

"Even so, this summoning is understandable, but the case of the Kingdom of Aseroa was indefensible."

Apparently, a human supremacist nation had summoned heroes to gain an advantage in their fight against the demon race.

Ria and Carla had worked hard to send all 15 back to Earth.

The Kingdom of Aseroa itself was destroyed by enraged dragons.

Since the divine dragons' basic policy was to eliminate heroes, this time they had threatened Earth's gods to summon Sei.

Even so, there was this.

Heroes summoned to defeat enemies that modern weapons were completely ineffective against. And she might have to fight them.

In this one week, Sei had become considerably stronger. Her level had risen to 15. But even so, wouldn't she be unable to defeat the heroes?

That's what Sei thought, but she was half right and half wrong.

She couldn't defeat the heroes. Not yet.

But she didn't realize just how strong she had become—it was beyond her imagination.

Since coming to this world, Sei had only fought Ria.

A being with sword skills that could be called Sword God, and on top of that, divine dragon abilities.

If fighting in human form, she was probably the strongest existence in the world.

And though it had become so commonplace that Sei hadn't noticed, she was immortal.

If she could force a mutual kill, she would always win. She didn't understand how reckless her tactics could be.

"However, the Kingdom of Neosis has done something foolish."

Carla said as if sighing, which made Sei curious.

"Countries that perform hero summoning are destroyed by dragons. Just like the Kingdom of Aseroa."

The information she shared in response to Sei's gaze was shocking.

"I thought dragons don't fight heroes?"

"We don't fight heroes, but countries that perform the summoning… and those that attempt to… are destroyed. To prevent the ritual from spreading."

Carla's calm voice sounded very cold right now.

"If they're doing hero summoning, it becomes a world crisis. Rather than that, wiping out everyone involved ultimately benefits the world."

However, Ria continued.

"There was someone who turned the tables on a dragon trying to destroy her country though, wasn't there, Dragonslayer-san?"

"I was still young back then."

Carla said, looking down slightly.

Come to think of it, one of Carla's titles was Dragonslayer.

"I'll tell you about that another time. It's one of the many things that happened during the Great Collapse."

Being told that, Sei couldn't ask for further details.