Editing Failing Witch:Volume3 Episode4 (section)

===Part 3===

Yagoro gasped.

But the broom hadn’t broken apart below him and it hadn’t crash full-speed into the lake.

He was in a temple of white stone. The night sky spread out overhead, but he didn’t recognize the constellations. Not from Earth and not from the world of swords and sorcery he had arrived in.

He took a look around.

(Where am I?)

“Sigh. So you’ve finally wormed your way in here, Yagoro?”

He heard an exasperated voice.

It was the goddess.

She stood at the center of a circular spring with her long blonde hair and wet priestess garb clinging to her pale skin.

““Class 1 L-FS – Strange Picking. …That mysterious ability doesn’t come from me, so I thought it was some dangerous human mutation. At first, anyway.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I am talking about the insolent human-born ability that someone smuggled past me.”

“I don’t care about that!! Where’s Viocia? What happened to Dorothea and Melehe!?”

The goddess shrugged.

Was she impressed or exasperated with Yagoro’s ability to say he didn’t care about this?

“They are still alive. You see, time is currently frozen.”

“…?”

Time was frozen?

The Student Council President had controlled space, so based on the theory of relativity, maybe it was possible to directly influence time too.

“Oh, this isn’t based on all that human logic. I’ll be blunt, Yagoro, you’re visiting the goddess’s bath because you are on the verge of death.”

“How can you call yourself a goddess when you keep getting in my way and trying to kill me with your divine punishment? You’re more like a god of death who deals in human souls, don’tcha think?”

“There’s no real rule saying the god of death can’t also be a goddess. There are plenty of examples from a variety of cultures. Like Persephone, Izanami, Nirrti, Ammit, and Neman☆”

Had Yagoro let his unconscious assumptions about male and female gods color his view there? Regardless, he was a little annoyed at having her use this accusation of divine harassment to distract from the threat she posed in constantly trying to shoot him down.

The goddess, who used accurate accusations as a weapon, titled her head.

“Also, I would say you’re better off under my management than someone else’s.”

“Oh, really?”

“I’m certainly better than a god of destruction who lives for nothing but destruction itself, or a god pestilence who spreads deadly disease while insisting that microbes killing their host is a peaceful and proper way of life.”

She had a point there.

And his agreement further irritated him.

The goddess was at least moving her pieces on the board to “create a better world” based on human standards. That was cold comfort for Yagoro who was being manipulated as one of those pieces, though.

“Were you the one who sent the President here?”

“I was.”

“And did you give her whatever that ability was that she was babbling on about?”

“I was☆”

“What about me winding up here?”

“''That was an accident''.”

She sharply denied that one with a smile.

She seemed quite insistent that he did not belong.

“What do you want from me?”

“To defeat Adelaide Weaponbay Sanctuary to correct that world.”

“…And you can’t do that yourself?”

“If I were to directly intervene, it would change the world too much. But if you’re fine with the planet being covered with giant frogs or chameleons instead of humans, I guess I could do it.”

Yagoro’s mouth formed a small triangle.

How could she say this after all that divine punishment she had sent his way? That seemed like direct intervention to him. Dangerously direct.

“With an ordinary witch who will die in around 100 years, I could just let her do as she likes. But she is a Limit Breaker, meaning she has conquered her ordinary lifespan. Letting that extraordinary assassin continue on like this is the same as letting her control that entire world until it has been altered beyond repair.”

“Let’s see if I have this right: you, as a god, refuse to have even a single world leave your control. But you’re just too powerful, so if you were to punish her, it would alter the world itself beyond repair. So instead you tossed a decently-powerful human in there to have her eliminate the assassin?”

“Correct. 100 points☆”

“But even after you set President Ulrike up with some kind of special ability, she still couldn’t defeat that woman?”

“120 points. Yagoro, you do not belong in that world. Your Strange Picking power lets you force open the dimensional boundary, but that was not something I gave you. Accepting your help is risky, but I don’t have any other choice. No one asked you to wind up in that world, but since it happened, I decided to make some last minute adjustments to coordinate your ‘journey’. Because you are my last hope.”

…That would be why he wasn’t allowed to leave that world until he had achieved the goal she had for him.

His arrival from Earth had been a complete accident, but the goddess preventing him from returning had been completely intentional.

“Sounds like a bad joke to me.”

“But you have no other choice,” replied the goddess. With a smile. “Or are you really willing to go back home alone and abandon Viocia Modestlucky, Dorothea Rockpool, and Melehe Superlative?”

“…”

“Adelaide Weaponbay Sanctuary is a true believer in the vested interests of the outdated, inflexible patriarchy that insists on crushing any witch with sufficient power. As long as that traitorous witch remains, those girls can only rise so far even if they do pass the entrance exam. They have no future after graduation.”

“I see you know how to motivate your human pawns, scummy goddess.”

“Oh? Would you have preferred a more direct approach?”

The goddess standing in the center of the spring clasped her hands in front of her damp chest.

And she gave him an upturned look with tears welling.

“Please, hero. I will grant you as many ultimate forbidden skills as you desire, so will you please save the world that I carelessly let leave my control?☆”

“Goose bumps.”

The goddess froze in her pose of entreaty.

That must have hurt her feelings.