The scale suddenly emitted a crisp chime. The mountain-like pressure vanished. The platter Ray stood on shot back up into a perfect horizontal line with a burst of golden light so bright it rivaled the sun.
"Ow... my back... my life..." Yaru crawled out of his pit, but before he could celebrate, he was blinded by the radiance emanating from the other side of the scale.
As the light peeled away, a figure began to solidify in the air.
It was a young woman with radiant blonde hair, wearing a crown that symbolized supreme divine authority.
She was dressed in a sheer, snow-white gown made of woven starlight, its ethereal fabric clinging to a figure that was both saintly and... surprisingly perfect.
The crowd fell into a collective state of déjà vu. People rubbed their eyes, some turning back to look at the fifty-meter statue in the square.
"Hey... why does that girl look so familiar?"
"More than familiar... I feel like that's the face I pray to every morning before I wash my face..."
"No way. Is that...?"
Just as the crowd began to vibrate with confused murmurs, Ray's deep, magnetic voice cut through the noise like a hammer shattering glass.
He offered an elegant, respectful bow, his eyes glinting with a mix of surprise and reverence.
"I never expected Goddess Ladia Herself to grace a humble mortal's retirement ceremony. This is, truly, the highest honor."
The square fell into a graveyard silence. Even the wind seemed to freeze.
"L-Ladia?! The actual Goddess?!"
"The guardian of the continent for a thousand years... came down from the heavens just to act as a weight for Ray's pension ceremony?!"
The Goddess parted her ruby lips, her voice echoing like silver bells.
Her gaze swept over the masses, landing squarely on Ray with a playful, enigmatic smile.
"A merit that could outweigh all the treasures in existence... what else in this world could possibly balance the scale except for Me?"
"I presume Your Ladyship has descended to reclaim the Divine Sword?" Ray spoke calmly, standing on the lowered scale as if he were simply returning a borrowed garden tool.
He stepped forward and knelt on one knee, offering the sword with a flawless knightly salute.
"The Demon Lord is dead. Order is restored. As promised, I return the sword."
Ladia didn't take the sword. Instead, her porcelain-white finger tapped the blade's spine.
The legendary relic dissolved into a warm rainbow of light, merging into her holy form. Then, she raised her palm, ancient golden runes swirling like fish in a pond before condensing into a streak of light that shot into Ray's forehead.
"I did not descend to take, Ray," Ladia's voice turned hollow and solemn, vibrating with divine authority.
"Your merit rivals my own. In the vast river of time, there is nothing in this mortal realm worthy of being your reward. Therefore..."
The Goddess paused. The mercy in her starlit eyes suddenly flared into something almost... predatory.
"Therefore—I offer Myself to you as your reward!"
Before anyone could process the shock of the words "rivals my own," the unthinkable happened.
The sacred, untouchable Goddess Ladia yanked up her flowing skirts, ditched her dignified image entirely, and with a joyful shout, lunged through the air like a golden bolt of lightning—slamming straight into Ray's chest!
"I GOT HIM! I've been waiting a thousand years for this!"
She wrapped her slender arms around Ray's broad chest, rubbing her face against his armor like a happy kitten.
This public broadcast of The Goddess's Devotion was a visual nuke that left the audience in a state of collective brain-death.
"...Huh?"
Ray's brain, which had successfully outmaneuvered the Demon Lord, officially suffered a system crash. He stood there like a statue, arms raised awkwardly, staring down at the "Incarnation of Faith" wiggling in his embrace.
"Did... did Lord Ray just get hit on by the Goddess?" Baray's steel claws clattered onto the pavement.
"Hey, old man Yaru," Lyre poked the frozen dwarf, "can your abacus calculate the value of this reward?"
At the front of the crowd, Seraphine's pale face went through a spectrum of colors. She bit her lip so hard a bead of blood appeared.
"NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT—!!!"
A piercing scream shattered the weirdly romantic atmosphere.
Seraphine's icy composure disintegrated. Like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, she stumbled forward, her eyes bloodshot.
"I... I've been secretly in love with Ray for ten whole years! How can some 'Divine Lunatic' just pop out and steal him away?!"
Seraphine raised her staff—the symbol of Absolute Truth—her magic power exploding in a chaotic frenzy.
She looked ready to start a cross-dimensional war with the Supreme Goddess for the man standing before her.
"Heehee... Hahaha!"
To everyone's surprise, Ladia wasn't angry. She leaped back gracefully, escaping Ray's arms and letting out a bell-like laugh.
"Oh, you're so easy to prank! I'm just messing with you. Being a Goddess is a busy job; I don't have time for a boyfriend."
She straightened her hair, shooting a mischievous side-glance at Ray.
"However, that was a little revenge. Who told him to barge into the Divine Realm to borrow a sword while I was bathing? He stood there and stared—wouldn't even leave when I yelled at him."
"—WHAAAT?!!"
This bomb was more powerful than the previous hug. A thousand scorching gazes pierced Ray like solar flares.
"So... that stoic 'Hero of Justice' face was just an act?" a passerby whispered, his eyes filled with judgment.
"Doing that to Goddess Ladia... what a scumbag! God, I'm so jealous!"
Ray's "eternal iceberg" face finally shattered. Sweat poured down his forehead as he waved his hands frantically, trying to salvage his reputation before it hit rock bottom.
"IT'S A MISUNDERSTANDING! A total misunderstanding!" Ray roared at his judging peers.
"The Demon Army was at the gates! It was an emergency! I looked away the second I saw her—I didn't see an inch of skin! I spoke to her with my back turned the whole time! You know my character!"
"Oh? Your back was turned?" Ladia twisted the knife, resting her chin on her hand like a sly fox.
"Then why were someone's ears as red as ripe apples, Lord Ray~?"
"THAT WAS... THE HEATING IN THE DIVINE REALM!" Ray shouted, feeling his decade of accumulated dignity deserting him at a speed of Mach 1.
"Alright, alright. I'll stop teasing the over-righteous Hero." Ladia finally suppressed her laughter. She snapped her fingers, and the gold light in Ray's forehead pulsed.
"What I gave you just now is a Divine Beast Contract. The rarest SS-Rank creature in existence: The Little Coin Beast. Take care of it, and not only will it produce endless gold coins, but its dimensional stomach can store a fortune. It even automatically loots any treasure within a hundred-mile radius. Your retirement will be spent doing nothing but counting money until your hands cramp."
A snowy-white, cute little beast appeared on Ray's shoulder, nuzzling his cheek with a crisp clink-clink sound, like coins hitting a floor.
As she stepped toward a shimmering portal, Ladia turned back one last time, playing the role of a divine matchmaker for Ray and the blushing Seraphine.
"By the way, Ray—the 'Aura of Fate' between you and that Elf lady is so sweet I can smell it from the heavens." She winked.
"Perhaps your union will be the spark that changes the world. Cherish this hard-earned destiny! Ciao~!"
The Goddess vanished. A different kind of silence filled the square—an "awkwardly romantic" chemical reaction.
"...Aura of Fate?" Seraphine whispered, her staff clattering to the ground. Her pointed ears were red enough to bleed.
Ray stood there, the little beast on his shoulder spitting out a gold coin, and looked away from everyone's intense stares.
"Goddess... mind your own business," he grumbled, though his voice lacked any real bite.
In the golden glow of the sunset, Seraphine stood frozen, her usual grace long gone. Her fingers twisted together, her snow-white skin flushed from her cheeks to her neck. Just as her heart felt like it would burst, a steady, warm force pulled her forward.
She stumbled half a step and found her vision filled with silver armor and a familiar scent.
A broad, warm chest appeared before her, and before she could gasp, she was pulled into a firm embrace.
Her cheek pressed against his chest, and she could hear it—Ray's heart, steady as thunder but racing just as fast as hers.
"Don't speak."
Ray's voice was husky and tender, dropping over her like a calming spell. His large hands, though slightly stiff, wrapped around her shoulders with absolute certainty.
"I've always known... I'm just not good with words. I hid my heart behind my sword and my mission. But from now on, I'll prove it to you through my actions."
On his retirement day, the man who stood at the peak of the world and faced demon lord without blinking finally opened his heart to the girl he had loved in silence for ten years.
"WHOOOOOOOO!!!"
The crowd erupted. Baray slapped his thigh, Lyre started sobbing again, and Rosalind wore a soft, satisfied smile.
The little beast on Ray's shoulder chimed its gold-coin cry.
Under the gaze of the Goddess's statue, a new legend—a much warmer one—began.