Chapter 525: The Truth Between the Goddesses

“Goddess Oriane, may I sit on the floor?” I ask, my tail thrashing with difficulty because I sacrificed part of its mobility for two years, so until that time is up, it will never be able to move normally.

“Of course, and you need not keep calling me goddess. Just Oriane is fine with me.” She gives me a gentle smile as she sits on the floor as well, which almost makes her seem smaller than she really is. I sit down too, staring at her.

“Oriane, why did you create all these different and emotionally temperamental goddesses? You’re like, super powerful. I’m sure you could have made them more peaceful.” Except for that so-called Goddess of Nature, and the Goddess of Elves, they’re all troublesome goddesses.

Especially the Goddess of Humans and my mother. Those two cause the most problems of all, and I admit it, yes, my mother is undoubtedly problematic.

“They… weren’t like that in the past… and that’s not how I created them, though I knew they would become that way…”

“Really? What were they like?”

“I can show you…” Around us appears a kind of purple cube, and we are inside it. On the cube’s walls begin to appear images of many small goddesses, like children.

They are all gathered around a table talking, and I see two goddesses that catch my attention most. One is my mother, and the other is the Goddess of Humans. There’s a third goddess with horns. The Goddess of Humans and this horned goddess are hugging my mother, one on each arm. They look happy.

“…This…” The other goddesses around are also talking peacefully. Even Delphina is there, talking without all that authoritative and dominant posture.

“This was Echidna’s first year of life. At this time, she had self-control issues. She would unconsciously shift from her true form to a humanoid form, and from humanoid form to monster form, also unconsciously.”

“…They… seem really happy.” I stare at the many goddesses. There are more than twenty of them, which surprises me. I didn’t know there were so many goddesses; no one mentioned this fact to me.

“There were many daughters. In total, there have been more than 30 goddesses, but some were killed, and some had their existence erased so thoroughly that not even memories of them remain. So my daughters believe there are fewer goddesses than there were… Most of them have been almost completely forgotten, and I am the only one who remembers them.”

“Who is this?” I stand up and approach the images, touching one girl. She is… interesting. She has white hair, and her eyes are yellow and red, with spiral pupils. I feel a strange connection to her.

“That… is the first Goddess of the Apocalypse. She is staring at her sisters who will be killed in the future. She knew, and always knew. She would be killed by Echidna and erased in the future if she hadn’t been killed before. She knew she would be killed but never tried to stop it, understanding it was simply destiny.”

“…She… is my saddest daughter. Because she always knew the future, she isolated herself somewhat, never able to get close to her sisters…”

“…”

“They all look so happy… Why did everything fall apart? And how did she die then, if not by my mother’s hand as it should have been?”

“From what I had heard and understood, the relationship between Echidna and Elysia was always bad. Is that a lie?” From what I had discovered, Elysia always hated my mother for being a monster, and the cause of the hatred between them was prejudice and because Elysia killed my aunt, the Goddess of Demons.

“…Everything fell apart… I wouldn’t say everything fell apart exactly… I’d say a bunch of innocent children foolishly tried to do more than they could because they didn’t understand they were loved…”

“…?” I am confused, but the goddess moves her hand and the images on the walls change from that friendly gathering of child goddesses. Now the image shows a bright room, and all the child goddesses are entering through the door with enchanted faces.

Soon the children reach the center of the room and open a chest. Inside the chest is a large piece of paper.

“What would this be?” I question, wanting to understand the context and why the goddesses who once loved each other now hate each other.

“That is my blueprint. I’m sure you must have heard and still remember. But the goddesses stole the foundational blueprint I used to create them, and used it to create life…”

I watch them all looking at the blueprint with curiosity. They seem to be talking about something, but it can’t be heard.

“They are saying that with this, they can make me proud…” Oriane says as I look at my mother staring at the blueprint. She moves her hand to try and take it, but Elysia grabs it first and waves the paper with a smile.

It seems like just childish play and a silly provocation, not a serious theft. But my mother gets a wild look I recognize well—when a wild beast is threatened. Regardless of whether it was a game, my mother runs and shoves Elysia, who falls to the floor confused.

“…” The horned goddess, who must be my aunt, runs to my mother and holds her from behind in a hug. I see my mother’s teeth have grown into sharp fangs, and her hands begin to be covered in darkness, generating monstrous claws for a mere child.

Elysia, seeing my mother’s look, crawls backward with obvious fear and, along with fear, confusion. It seems Elysia had never felt fear before, so this first experience must be searing.

“Hey, why is the Goddess of the Apocalypse tearing the blueprint!!?” All the child goddesses look at the Goddess of the Apocalypse, who is tearing the paper.

“…Pandora, I’m sure you remember Adam and Eve, the first humans from the mythology of the world you came from. Tell me, what one rule were they not supposed to break?” Oriane asks me with seriousness.

“…They were not to eat the forbidden fruit. In some stories, the forbidden fruit was also… the fruit of knowledge…”

“They were not supposed to look at that, not yet. It was their choice, but they should have waited for me to show them. The ancient Goddess of the Apocalypse destroyed the paper solely to take the blame in place of her sisters.”

“And just as she wished, I placed all the blame on her. Otherwise, all would have been punished for making this mistake… and this mistake was what caused everything between them to cool.”

“They didn’t understand their sister had saved them from punishment. All they understood was that Echidna got aggressive again, Elysia got scared, and the Goddess of the Apocalypse destroyed what they wanted to use to make me proud…”

“They wanted that foundational blueprint to create life and thus make me proud. However… they were blinded by competitiveness. They all saw the blueprint, and they all memorized it…”

“What was the punishment for the Goddess of the Apocalypse?” I ask, wanting to know what kind of punishment this child who seems so gentle received.

“…None…”

“…What do you mean?”

“…I wasn’t truly going to punish any of them. I am destiny, time, and I know everything that will happen. I already knew what would happen, but they did not. And the Goddess of the Apocalypse only saw a single, immutable future, even though the future always changes…”

“So the Goddess of the Apocalypse killed herself, so that all blame would be 100% hers and there would be no way for me to punish the others. But she didn’t need to kill herself, because I wouldn’t have done anything to her. But she didn’t know… she sacrificed herself…”

“And you feel sad for not stopping it?”

“Sad, yes, but not regretful. Because life is made of choices, and I respect the choices of all living beings. I could have stopped her, but that wouldn’t have truly saved her.”

“She would have remained overly responsible and blamed herself for everything, and would have tried to take her life again in the future, over and over, whenever she thought I was angry with them.”

“While almost all my daughters wanted to obtain my approval, love, and respect, the Goddess of the Apocalypse feared me and wanted to protect her sisters. And this, because the guardian of time is one of my avatars that protects how time functions.”

“And this avatar only allowed the goddesses to see bad futures, because the goddesses are too powerful. If they had free control over time, they would cause irreversible problems for themselves. So the Goddess of the Apocalypse never knew I would not punish them.”

“She only knew that if they looked at that paper, punishment would come to all who looked. And I did not correct the misunderstanding. They all knew they would be ’punished,’ but they wanted so much to make me proud that they thought if they made the mistake but put it to good use for something good, my pride would set the punishment aside.”

“But the real problem is that, although the Goddess of the Apocalypse always kept herself more distant, she was the glue that held the sisters together. Without her tending to the problems, everything really began to crumble in their relationship.”

“Whenever one hurt another, whenever one was sad, worried, or irritated, and whenever they fought, the Goddess of the Apocalypse was the one who repaired their relationship.”

“But now, without a Goddess of the Apocalypse tending to their relationship, they began to fight and hold onto hatred more and more, until they grew up, forgetting that they once all loved each other.”

“…And it got so bad that Echidna, out of insecurity, couldn’t manage to leave her monster form. And of course, the more time she spent in her true form, the less her sisters remembered how she was a gentle, friendly child with the others.”

“And Elysia, who already feared her from the past, began to see her only as a monster, and began to turn other goddesses away from her. The only goddess who stayed with her was her ’twin’ sister, the Goddess of Demons.”

“In the end, their fights didn’t start from prejudice or hatred. The truth is, they don’t even remember why they hate each other. But I remember. And it all started with the attempt to make me proud by doing something they shouldn’t have…”

“It was… all a childish mistake. And that childish mistake ruined the beautiful friendship they had. And without a mediator like the Goddess of the Apocalypse, they had no way to stay united, being too different…”

“Do you understand, Pandora? They never fought because they were different, temperamental, or because they had unique ’races.’ They fought because they were children who made a mistake and lost the only responsible person who kept them united…”

I see some tears on Oriane’s face as she speaks. It’s easy to see she is very sad about this. And now that she has explained it, I realize I knew almost nothing about the goddesses, and their hatred is very different from what I expected.

’That is sad… but it has nothing to do with me…’ I feel nothing about it. They had their chances and made their choices, and Oriane, as a neutral goddess, would not interfere in the destiny her daughters chose.

’In the end, it seems we aren’t all that different after all…’ Who would have thought, I and all the goddesses have more in common than I imagined.

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