Cecilia’s face froze.

Maybe you’d expect it came from terror or awe or divine revelation after what she experienced until now, but no. It was because her brain simply... stopped processing. Let’s explain what she saw.

The vehicle parked at the edge of the cemetery, half-hidden under the drooping branches of an old oak tree, was a Daihatsu Hijet.

A mini truck. A tiny, adorable, practical mini truck. It was the sort of vehicle a friendly neighborhood florist might use to deliver potted plants. The sort of vehicle that looked like it should have a smiling cartoon character painted on the side.

It was, in no conceivable universe, the sort of vehicle that two ancient gods should be using to transport themselves and a stolen grave gem through the mortal world.

Cecilia stared at it. The mini truck stared back with its round, bug-eyed headlights.

"You can sit in the passenger seat," Momo said, gesturing toward a vehicle that looked like it would struggle to outpace a determined bicycle. "I’ll drive."

"T-then..." Cecilia’s mouth moved, but the words took a moment to catch up. "How about Lord Caled—Bunny?"

Momo tilted her head, a strand of blonde hair slipping across her cheek. "He sits on the truck bed, of course. He sits there anyway because the two of us can’t fit inside. His shoulder is huge."

Cecilia’s jaw practically left the vicinity of her face.

The image bloomed in her mind, of Caledfwlch, the All-Oblivion, the blade that split the sky, crammed into the flatbed of a Daihatsu Hijet like a bag of gardening supplies alongside the grave robbering tools, his knees probably tucked up to his chest, the wind ruffling his white t-shirt as they puttered down the road at what was surely a very sensible speed limit.

Cecilia cleared her throat.

"Ah, don’t forget to tell your husbands you’re okay and with a friend," Momo added.

Right on cue, Cecilia’s phone buzzed. She glanced down and found the group chat. Eastiel had sent a character, "?" accompanied by a tag on her name. It was perhaps the digital equivalent of a raised eyebrow and crossed arms.

She checked the time and as expected, it was late.

She typed back a thumbs-up emoji and added, "I’m with friends. Will go home after finishing dinner."

No need to specify that the friends were a pair of gods.

She pocketed her phone and climbed into the passenger seat.

The interior of the Hijet was... cozy. That was the generous word for it. Cecilia found herself shoulder to shoulder with Momo, the two of them pressed together in a space that had clearly been designed for people who didn’t possess the cosmic beauty of ancient deities.

The dashboard was simple and unassuming. There was a little air freshener shaped like a cherry blossom dangling from the rearview mirror.

Momo pulled out the red gem and held it up to the faint glow of the streetlamp filtering through the windshield. It pulsed gently, like a heartbeat trapped in crystal. She turned it over in her fingers, her expression unreadable.

"You grew stronger fast," Momo said, without looking away from the gem. "I’ll tell you things without you asking. Don’t need to look at it curiously like that."

Cecilia narrowed her eyes. "If you can already read my mind, just force exposition already."

Momo turned toward her, and the full weight of that devastatingly beautiful face was suddenly very, very close. Cecilia felt the heat rise to her cheeks before she could stop it.

It wasn’t fair. How was anyone supposed to maintain a sense of dignified irritation when confronted with cheekbones that seemed to have been sculpted by the hands of creation itself?

"Would it make a good story?" Momo asked, her voice carrying the faintest hint of a tease.

Cecilia gritted her teeth. Too pretty! Toooooooooooo pretty! This is a harassment! How can Caledfwlch even conduct himself normally on a daily basis around this bei—

"I understand your frustration," Momo continued, mercifully leaning back and giving Cecilia’s personal space a reprieve. "You want to know about the worlds the System used, right? Some already exist. Some were created especially for you."

Cecilia’s eyes went wide. Her irritation evaporated in an instant. "WAIT!"

Momo blinked. "What?"

"The task said I can ask anything to you after I complete it. Is this part of the reward?!" she tumbled out the words in a rush, panic edging into her voice.

Because if this was the reward, if she was burning her one guaranteed question on something she might not need and would be able to deduce anyway, then everything was a scam!

Momo’s expression softened. "Don’t worry. You can still have that question. It’s for any question we might not want to answer, and you can still get the answer from us. These little facts, you can hear them because you’re already strong enough to know."

Cecilia exhaled in relief, her spine relaxing against the seat.

"The first world the System put you in is a world we specifically created for you. It’s actually made for you to learn the basics. The world you came from didn’t have the correct basic knowledge about magic, and that first alternate world helped us hint you of the way to actually effectively use it."

Cecilia turned this over in her mind. She had suspected as much. But hearing it confirmed, hearing that an entire reality had been constructed just to give her a training ground...

"That... I already figured," she said slowly. "But you said, you created that world?"

"Mm." Momo nodded elegantly in the confined space. "It’s like creating a concept and letting it expand. It grew itself into an individual, self-sustained dimension separate from your real world."

She raised the red gem once more, holding it between two fingers. The faint light from the streetlamp caught its facets, and for a moment, the interior of the Hijet was painted in shades of crimson and rose.

"To build that kind of world, you need something like this."

Cecilia’s eyes went wide. "What... is this...?"

"A rift seed." Momo flicked the gem toward her.

Cecilia fumbled, her hands scrambling against the sudden terrifying weight of the thing and caught it. This was a seed? A seed that could grow into an entire world?

Her fingers wrapped around the gem, and she felt how warm it was.

Momo smiled. "It’s fine if you drop it, but I prefer you don’t, lest we need to squeeze ourselves in this cramped truck to look for it under the seats."

"Wh—" Cecilia stuttered. "What is this for?!"

"Not for you, of course." Momo chuckled. "But I thought you’d want to hold one, at least once."

The goddess turned over her shoulder and hummed. "I think Bunny needs some extra time. How about we go to the nearest drive through and buy us dinner while he works?"