But this time, Ash restrained himself, because, 'This doesn't seem very good.... Kissing your junior like that.... and she's human..... Damn it, is this because I've been around humans too long? No, I was human to begin with. What's wrong with liking cute girls? When a cute girl asks what you want to do, can a normal person really hold back and do nothing? I've already been pretty restrained, haven't I? It's just...'
Ash's thoughts gradually became a mess. He felt like he had accidentally done something bad without noticing.
Even though he had already hugged her and lifted her up before, and this was only one step further now, was it really okay if things kept going like this?
After all, Sense was human, while he was a demon. Even if he was willing to take responsibility or whatever, what would happen after that?
Just like he had already fully understood before, if he hadn't crossed through time in the past, and if the Goddess hadn't strengthened the seal over this planet, maybe he could have directly used the system to raise the limit of lifespan.
But now, even with that mythical era demon's magic that imitated miracles, the system, couldn't break through the Goddess's seal.
That's why he felt he had to defeat the Goddess before thinking about these things, but... still, the same question remained, when facing a cool and cute emotionless girl, could a normal person really resist the urge and do nothing?
Although Ash was troubled over his impulsive actions, he didn't seem to regret them that much.
He even felt that not kissing those soft pink lips already counted as proof of strong willpower.
No, maybe it was because of his own preferences and longing for older women that increased his resistance toward short girls. But if he didn't have that preference, would he be attracted to this type instead? That was something he was somewhat troubled about too.
But before he could think it through, a shocked cry suddenly came from the street corner, "Y-You.... I never expected this! We agreed we'd both like older women! But you.... you actually like this kind of lo!i girl?"
"??"
Hearing those strange words, he blankly turned his head and discovered.... the priest he had met earlier, Sein, had appeared for some reason, glaring at him with a betrayed expression.
That immediately made Ash feel annoyed, "Why do I run into you everywhere?"
"Because this is a church?", Sein pointed at the church beside them, "I'm a priest. What's strange about me coming to church? More importantly, you.... flirting with an innocent girl right in front of the Goddess! Acting lovey-dovey before the Goddess herself, you're definitely going to hell!"
"I really didn't expect you to think I could even go to heaven."
"Haha~ What are you thinking? Obviously I was joking."
"Who denies it at a time like this?"
Ash's mouth twitched slightly. For some reason, he suddenly felt like just beating him to death on the spot.
But before he could react, Sein got excited first.
"The jealousy is real! Real! Extremely real!"
"Why repeat it three times?"
"Because I'm seriously very jealous!"
"But don't you like older women?"
"Compared to staying single myself, I can't accept an old friend getting a girlfriend before me! More importantly! What about Fern and Frieren? At least decide who's going to be the main wife before you start fooling around! Damn it! I'm so jealous!"
Even though he was supposed to be condemning him, halfway through Sein started envying him again, even beating his chest and stomping his feet.
Looking at the overly expressive middle-aged man, Ash glanced at the girl beside him, who still hadn't recovered and was blankly covering her face, then couldn't help shaking his head like he was looking at a game character.
"Putting aside Fern and Frieren, and your narrow-mindedness, honestly... do I look like the kind of person who flirts with innocent girls?"
"Then what were you doing just now?"
"This girl is my junior," He reached out and gently stroked the girl's hair beside him, feeling the smooth touch, and unconsciously said, "And don't you think she's cute? Besides, if she's your junior, then it's definitely fine, right?"
"How is that fine? That's even worse! That's even more beast-like!"
"How rare. A man actually called me a beast."
"Damn it! A traitor is showing off in front of me.... I'm so jealous! Goddess, please introduce me to an older nun too!"
Sein got more and more emotional as he spoke. He was no longer just beating his chest and stomping his feet. He directly leaned against the wall and kept pounding the church's stone wall, praying for the Goddess's mercy.
Whether the Goddess would pity him or not was hard to say. But if believers saw him like this, they'd probably treat him as a fake priest and beat him up.
Honestly, Ash wanted to pretend he didn't know him, but it felt like Sein would follow him anyway even if he left, so he still suggested, "Alright! Alright! Calm down.... How about I buy you a drink?"
"No! Explain yourself first, or I won't be able to drink! If I wasn't weaker than you right now, I might actually want to fight you to the death!"
"That's scary."
Thanks to Sein, Ash had calmed down and returned to normal, even laughing a little.
"But really, this girl isn't even an older woman. What exactly are you jealous about?"
"It feels like I've been betrayed! We agreed on older women! Why did it turn into this?"
"I got possessed by a ghost?"
"I'm saying.... aren't you afraid of getting stabbed in the back for saying that in front of a girl?"
"That does sound possible."
Ash carefully lowered his head to look at the girl beside him. Sense had already recovered and was now expressionlessly staring at him, making him quickly wave his hands to explain, "What I meant by possessed was just that Sense is too cute, and I couldn't hold back for a moment. I didn't mean anything else."
"I know."
The girl, who always lacked expressions, didn't react much and only nodded lightly.
"Then why are you still staring at me? And without any expression too..."
"Am I not always like this?"
"Uh, I guess that's true?"
Feeling like he had worried for nothing, Ash silently lowered his head and held his forehead.
He felt like he should say something else, but in this situation... the more he said, the more mistakes he'd make, so he gave up for now.
———
Since Sein was there too, Ash obviously couldn't bring an unrelated man to their secret base.
So they could only find a tavern and chat about recent events first. Compared to Ash's experiences during this period, Sein had just been wandering around traveling all this time.
Although he still hadn't found the man he was looking for, he had been living pretty comfortably. Whenever he reached villages or towns with older women, Sein couldn't help staying there a little longer.
The two should have continued talking about recent matters, but before they could chat much more...
"Recently, even the imperial capital has become pretty unstable. I wonder what's going on," Sein deeply inhaled his cigarette smoke while giving Ash a meaningful look.
"Don't look at me like that. It has nothing to do with me."
"How did you reach the level of lying with your eyes open like this?"
"I'm serious."
Ash flatly denied it without changing expression or heartbeat at all. Sein immediately showed a disgusted look like he'd swallowed a fly.
"What were you doing in that other tavern just now?"
"Handling a dispute. I already told you that, didn't I? More importantly, why were you wandering around randomly? Aren't you afraid something might happen to you for no reason?"
"Normally no one targets priests."
"Normally priests don't go to taverns."
"Ah... Uh.. Mm..."
That simple rebuttal immediately left Sein speechless. After stammering for a while, he started changing the subject, "S-Speaking of which, I went to the Village of Swords recently."
"When you don't want to answer something, you just change the subject?"
Ash stared at him coldly, making Sein immediately push the blame onto him.
"I learned it from you! But that's not the point!"
"Then what is the point? Also, there are only short girls in that village... no, just one little girl. Why did you go there?"
"Didn't Gorilla Warrior want to leave his name in history? So I thought maybe he'd go try pulling out the Sword of the Hero."
"And? Did Gorilla go?", Ash lazily took a sip of alcohol and waved away the cigarette smoke so Sein's smoke wouldn't pollute Sense's air.
Seeing that, Sein hesitated for a moment before silently putting out the cigarette to avoid letting Sense inhale secondhand smoke. He even muttered that Ash shouldn't bring her to taverns in the future, then seriously continued, "I don't know if Gorilla went or not, but when I got near that barrier.... guess what I found?"
"Don't tell me someone pulled out the Sword of the Hero?"
"Not that, but..."
At the end of his sentence, Sein leaned closer and whispered, "That Sword of the Hero is fake!"
"Huh? You're messing with me, right?"
His hand slipped and he nearly slammed his head into the table. His face was full of obvious disbelief.
Even Sense, who wasn't interested in their older-woman-lover conversation at all and could even be said to dislike it, subconsciously looked over after hearing that.
But Sein looked unusually serious now.
"I'm serious!"
"What makes you say that? You know what the real one looks like?"
"I went to see it before. Back then there was an extremely strong blessing from the Goddess there, but now the blessing is gone."
Sein's expression and tone had never been this serious before.
"Even if the exact same Sword of the Hero is sitting there, other people might be fooled, but I'm a priest! How could I not recognize the Goddess's miracle? That thing is just a fake fixed into the ground with magic."
"You're saying someone pulled out the Sword of the Hero? But disguised the scene afterward?"
"Exactly!"
"Could it have been your friend?"
"Impossible. That guy is all muscles and no brains. If he pulled it out, the whole world would already know about it. Besides, he can't use magic at all, so he couldn't fix something in place like that either. Which means.... the real hero has appeared!"
Sein, who had heard before that Himmel never pulled out the Sword of the Hero, became visibly excited while talking about this.
The animated look on his face made it seem like he was looking forward to the birth of a new era.
However, Sense, who had been sitting quietly beside them like a doll and silently listening the whole time, suddenly stood up after hearing that. Expressionlessly, she grabbed Ash's hand and half-forced him out of the tavern.
"Huh? Miss? What are you doing? Why are you suddenly interrupting adults talking. Ah! So girls really don't like taverns after all?"
Sein watched Ash being dragged away. Although he tried stopping them a little, he quickly sat back down again and shook his head, sighing about how forceful girls were these days.
But after only taking another sip of alcohol, he suddenly realized something and abruptly stood back up, shouting toward the two who had already left, "Wait! Ash! You haven't paid for the drinks yet! Didn't you say you were treating me? At least pay the tab before..."
Sein instinctively tried chasing after them, but before he could leave the tavern, two bartenders blocked his path. One of them flexed his trembling chest muscles and threatened, "What? You trying to skip the bill?"
"Uh, no, I'm not trying to skip it! Calm down... Look at me, I'm a priest. How could a priest possibly..."
"How could a priest possibly be in a tavern! Stop pretending! Either pay now or sit back down quietly!"
"Ha! Haha..."
Unable to argue back, Sein awkwardly laughed and silently sat back down, planning to finish his drink first before thinking about anything else.
———
[On the Street]
As Ash was dragged out of the tavern, his thoughts unconsciously drifted toward the Sword of the Hero in the Village of Swords.
Naturally, he had people watching that dangerous item, 'But after watching it for so long, it turned out to be fake?'
But he also hadn't heard any news about someone pulling out the Sword of the Hero. More importantly, during a time like this, if the Goddess allowed someone to pull it out, then could it be...
"Could the Goddess be planning to deal with you?", Sense suddenly voiced the worry in his heart while holding his hand.
"Probably not. I haven't done anything unforgivable... probably? No, definitely not! Besides, when the Demon King invaded the northern continent before and basically half the world fell, the Sword of the Hero still wasn't pulled out. Maybe it was always just decoration?"
"Could that really be the case?"
"Maybe the Goddess Church made it themselves. Just putting on a show to create more proof of the Goddess's existence and attract more believers."
His logical analysis made Sense unconsciously nod.
"That's not impossible. Otherwise it should've been pulled out long ago."
"Exactly. No need to worry. Let's just keep eating, drinking, and continuing our previous plans."
Ash smiled and gently rubbed her head, looking completely unconcerned.
That calm appearance let Sense relax a little too, but... after lowering her head slightly, there was still a trace of worry on her face.
Actually, Ash himself was uncertain too, because... if things were really as he said, Heiter should've mentioned it before.
Heiter wasn't the kind of person who lied. More importantly, if Himmel couldn't pull it out, Heiter would've definitely said those comforting words too.
And the barrier around the Sword of the Hero really was absurdly powerful, far beyond any technology humans could control. Even Flamme from the past couldn't accomplish something like that.
More importantly, only people holding the holy scripture and acknowledged by the Goddess could use "Goddess Magic," and the deeper the Goddess's favor, the greater the power they could use. Along with the Goddess's protection on priests and clergy, these things were all undeniably real and more than enough to prove the Goddess existed.
So the Goddess Church had no real reason to deliberately make a fake Sword of the Hero.
But neither of the future seers he knew had ever mentioned the Sword of the Hero being pulled out and used... and neither of them had any reason to hide it from him.
Which meant maybe the Sword of the Hero had simply been taken and hidden by some unknown person?
After all, if it had been used, or used against him, those two would've had no reason not to tell him. Unless, they never saw it at all, or they couldn't see through the future altered by the Goddess.
Of course, there was also the possibility that Sein was lying, but Ash didn't think Sein had lied, nor did he have a reason to. Sein might be unreliable, but not enough to tell this kind of lie.
Honestly, even Ash himself couldn't sort out this whole mess anymore.
"The weather today... isn't very good."
He slowly raised his head and looked through the gloomy sky that had been hanging overhead since morning.
The gradually approaching dark clouds carried a heavy darkness, like nature itself was giving a deep warning of bad omens. They moved forward slowly, almost sluggishly, yet for some reason brought an extra chill that made people's hearts uneasy.
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