Chapter 25: Advances

"...Hmmm..." A few hours pass, and while the ceremony ends and Nio is presented to the public, Ryu has already informed Stelaria that Nio is a dragon. Since the real Nio is wandering through the city, it’s her copy who’s suffering the consequences from Stelaria, who doesn’t know the Nio in front of her is a copy.

"So you want to see my wings, tail, and horns?" Copy Nio practically repeats Stelaria’s words as a question to Stelaria, who speaks with an almost severe expression because Nio hid this fact.

"Yes, as a saint you should never have hidden this. I want you to reveal your dragon parts." Copy Nio, who thinks exactly like Nio and has the exact same memories, ponders what to do for a moment.

"All of them? I-It’s embarrassing like that... it’s kind of intimate."

"Don’t play that card. There’s nothing intimate about dragon wings, horns, and tails."

"W-Well, I was talking about other dragon parts... W-Why are you mad at me? D-Did I do something wrong?"

"..." She suddenly makes a crying face while Stelaria grows confused, and then Nio leaps onto Stelaria’s waist, crying and apologizing, saying she was just afraid she wouldn’t be accepted.

Nio is someone with no honor whatsoever, so she doesn’t mind having the image of someone who cries if it lets her control the narrative. Copy Nio even lets her horns, wings, and tail show, and her enchanting appearance is almost that of a mystical beast.

Which isn’t too far off, since she has the [Divine Beast] class. Stelaria hugs Nio, who sheds tears onto her clothes. Her cute tone, combined with her smaller size and adorable voice, make the attack 100% effective on Stelaria’s brain, which practically turned to jelly after being enslaved.

"H-Hey, don’t cry. I-I didn’t... I didn’t mean to seem like I wouldn’t accept you." That was exactly what would have happened. If Nio had revealed she was a dragon, she wouldn’t have even entered the theocracy. Stelaria would have gotten the justification to expel her before she even had the chance to set foot in this place.

But Nio’s crying makes Stelaria feel like a sinner, so she quickly tries to calm the teary-eyed dragon girl in front of her.

"I-I’m super permissive with other races." Another lie from Stelaria. She’s extremely prejudiced and even xenophobic by a saint’s standards, detesting people of non-human races and only accepting races like elves who resemble humans to an extreme degree.

"I never would have done anything to you if you’d revealed it before, and I would never judge you for being a dragon!" Stelaria lies so much it seems natural. If she had known Nio was a dragon, another possibility besides expelling her would have been having her executed for being a "false saint" corrupting the true faith of the theocracy.

Using the excuse that a filthy and impure being like a dragon could never truly be a saint, and that she, as a saint, can verify this fact even though there’s no evidence against other races being saints.

It’s truly almost ironic how her mind now, forced to protect Nio, acts while ignoring the past and the feelings that still exist. After all, the first thing that came to her mind when she saw the wings was that their skin would make excellent clothing pieces because of their universe-like tone.

Nio notices the lie from her tone but just keeps acting, because if she stops crying now it would be suspicious. Stelaria keeps calming her in a hug with an uncomfortable expression.

Meanwhile, the real Nio, wandering through the city, grows bored with all the theocracy’s culture, since everything is tied to the recent celebration for the new saint. So she opens her wings and flies swiftly into the skies.

The real Nio looks down at the theocracy from above, gauging whether she could decimate the entire kingdom with a single ball of flames shot from her mouth, and deduces it would be impossible. She’d only cover 70% using all her strength — a lamentable possibility for the population unaware of this measurement.

"It seems my powers, even when used to the max, are limited to the range of a kingdom, which means my servants’ powers don’t go beyond that... destroying a country. It’s a lot of power, but still not as absurd as destroying an entire planet." Nio feels satisfied.

It’s great for her to know that her NPCs can’t destroy the world on their own, even if they spent days attacking everything nonstop, and she’s also glad she doesn’t have the power to do so, because it means her wife can’t either.

"Haaa... I’m exaggeratedly strong, but I have an equally strong enemy. That makes me tense and paranoid... It’s hard to try to think of enemies in this world when I already have an enemy I know is here and is a real threat." She flies over the kingdom, still invisible, sighing as she assesses everything.

’I think I’m assessing too much. I’ve spent the last few days just assessing this world. It’s time for action. I should start by increasing my power, right? There must be things in this world to make me stronger, even if I can’t go above level 100... permanent buff items... and maybe new forms of magic.’ She flies up above the church to the highest point.

’If I make a teleportation circle, I can go to and from the theocracy very quickly at any moment, just by drawing another instantaneous transmission or fast travel circle...’

At this high point, she begins drawing magic teleportation circles. With this, she can teleport from one circle to another. She plans to possibly leave the kingdom right now, leaving her copy behind.

And then she’ll leave this magic circle so she can return at any moment, or flee from one point to another if she encounters any danger. After being drawn, the magic circle vanishes almost instantly, so no one will see it.

"Let’s see if this works... if it does, it should connect through my magic to the one in my palace..." Nio tries to activate the magic, and to her surprise, it’s much faster than in the game, sending her automatically to her palace.

"..." But to Nio’s misfortune, she didn’t want to return. She wanted to cancel the magic. She looks around, realizing she appeared on the 3rd floor of her palace. Each floor of the palace has a teleportation circle. She didn’t choose, so she thinks it was random.

"Nio?" Nio hears a voice she didn’t want to hear. She was found by one of the floor apostles before she could leave as quickly as possible. Nio slowly looks at the person who called her name.