The Max Level Hero Has Returned!

On a forum where people chatted about popular streamers, discussions heated up about something that happened in a recent stream from Evangeline.

Sure, it wasn’t necessarily a big front-page topic, but for those who had watched the whole chaotic situation unfold live, it was sufficient fodder for killing time with some light banter.

[Clip of the Saint of Tionis dragging away the so-called goddess. Upvote if she's cute]

The video showed Willow—who had been grumbling but still sincerely answering questions—kickind and screaming as Davey O’Rowane suddenly barged in and dragged her out.

[LMAO look at her screaming and being dragged out hahahaha]

[Seriously, what the heck is up with their family? Hahaha]

[My standards are too high now after watching such streams.]

[The trap is that if you only look at their faces, they look more like siblings than father and daughter lul]

[Isn't the Saint of Tionis around our age??? I heard he's in his twenties.]

[Marriage in your twenties, AND taking care of kids? Bros, pls, be advised, shit is LAME AS HELL. Matrimony BTFO]

[Why bro?]

[You freaking idiot, I said don't do it, so don't!]

[Anyway, I get boss’s eccentricity as a dragon, but what's the deal with this kid Willow?]

[Bro, how tf should I know what's going on. She calls herself a goddess OMEGALUL]

The viewers still believed her to be playing a Goddess of Harmony character for content.

[LMAO a fuckin goddess, bro??? Was she being real?]

[Dunno must be a bit. rofl]

[Yeah, VTubers use a lot of interesting concepts these days. But being a goddess is new lols. Feels kinda refreshing, tbh.]

[But I DID get the feeling she wasn't human. Normally, I would’ve brought up all sorts of stuff to shitpost and insult her, but for some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.]

[Same. It felt like committing a huge sin for some reason.]

The natural aura Willow emitted after becoming a goddess had exerted an unwitting influence over all those who saw her.

[Seriously, why the FUCK won’t Leo and Sagittarius stop spamming the chat and donations telling everyone to bow down and worship her (⁠╯⁠°⁠□⁠°⁠）⁠╯⁠︵⁠ ⁠┻⁠━⁠┻ it’s getting old]

[Those two big spenders won't shut the fuck up (T-T) it’s crazy]

[But I heard those two aren't human, either. Tbh... maybe she isn’t faking it? What if she was actually being for real?]

[If she's actually a goddess, that’s super endearing LMAO. Can you imagine a humble, clumsy goddess like that? loools]

[Clumsy for sure. She's super prickly but totally a dork lol. What a tsun.]

[You fuckin’ dips don't make any sense. How can a human's daughter be a goddess???? Do you have dumb????]

[Yeah, her dad’s a saint dude It’s kinda weird for her to be a goddess.]

Most people seemed to settle on the idea that Willow was simply acting as a goddess for content.

However, the world was wide, and all sorts of people lived in it.

[Sit down, losers. It’s time to teach you a thing or two. There are three KEY CLUES that show the Willow who appeared on her stream might be a real goddess. (1/4)]

[First? Everyone knows the Saint of Tionis is in his twenties, but since his daughter Willow is clearly not a toddler, it could only mean that she’s not a normal human. It's impossible for the child of the Saint of Tionis and our queen to grow that fast. (2/4)]

[Second! Did you see the bizarre phenomena that happened when she waved her hands??? I've seen many mages and Awakened individuals, but I've never seen anyone wield power like that. (3/4)]

[Third. We currently live in a world where gods exist, and you can see their apostles on TV sometimes. If you disagree, you’re probably right. (4/4)]

Despite being an admittedly in-depth post with decent reasoning, it still lacked persuasiveness.

[I disagree. Leaving the Saint of Tionis aside, how do you know about our queen to say something like that?]

[And why is his wife your queen, you freaking psycho loool?]

Naturally, there were more who opposed this user’s theory than supported it.

However, the person who posted knew more than they let on.

[I'm a first generation Awakened. The detailed evidence is confidential, and only a first gen Awakened like myself can know such a thing. Plus, I'm one of the few Alf Online users who transitioned to Tionis's side. The Heins Territory was famous there, and I heard the queen is human. If she were a demi-human from some other race, there’d be evidence to support it, but NOTHING shows up. In any normal case, their baby should still be at the crawling stage.]

[Now that you mention it, that does make sense...]

[It's understandable that a first gen Awakened would make a queen joke.]

[Okay, but a goddess is crossing the line, you crazies...]

Of course, suspicions lingered, but only a small minority wholeheartedly believed it.

[Whatever, all I know is that Willow is so cute I'm just repeating the clip nonstop.]

[You maniac. You'll only come to your senses after you get caught.]

[I heard that everyone messing around with deepfake shit on the deep web just vanished overnight. I wonder if they’ll try to stick their heads out again.]

[Who knows?]

* * *

“Hey. Keep your arms up.”

In her own sanctuary, Willow—the topic of a slew of online gossip— was currently kneeling with her hands raised and a tearful expression.

“Dad...” she whimpered and called out.

“You’re not looking back on what you did wrong.”

“Seriously, do you think you can do whatever you want now that you’ve got me—Kyaaa!!”

“Oh please, ‘got you’ my ass! Don't say things like that.”

It seemed that she still didn’t grasp the seriousness of the situation. He figured even a hundred words would do no good.

Davey mercifully lowered her arms, and then abruptly hoisted her onto his shoulder again.

“Kyaaa!! What are you doing?!”

“Hold on tight. We're moving.”

Flit!!

As he lightly slashed his empty left hand down, the space tore open and created a rift. He stepped through it without hesitation.

He’d thought for a second that the cold of his destination would feel like cuts to the flesh. However, he had already reached the state of being immune to heat and cold.

Arriving at the completely frozen land, he lightly tossed her down. She groaned and landed on all fours, wincing at the snow beneath her hands.

Even so, perhaps because she was a goddess, she didn’t shiver, as if the cold was something trivial for her.

“Still, I was expecting a little more,” Davey said to himself.

“More of what! What?! What were you expecting?” Willow stood up and whined, lightly hitting his arm. “More importantly, where is this?”

“It's the problem that popped up when you ran away.”

Willow, who had been annoyed, froze instantly and looked around with a serious expression. “No way... I was only gone for a little over an hour.”

“And this is the result. Originally, this dimension barely ever sees any snow.”

She was shocked. “You mean... this happened because I didn't suppress my power?”

“In a way, yes.”

Dizzy, she held her forehead with one hand and staggered. “It can't be! What kind of shackles did you put on me...”

She was a being with immense power. A being who, through a series of countless coincidences, had been granted the high-level authority of a goddess.

Davey suspected that Goddess Freyja had subtly slipped the authority into her when she resurrected, though it was possible that she wouldn't have been resurrected without it.

“This is why I told you to wait until I found a solution,” he sternly told her.

“Let’s take care of the snow here first!” She frantically reached out and waved her hand. Five-colored specks of light scattered, following her hand and spreading across the land.

At the same time, the incessant, heavy snowfall instantly stopped. Warm light began to shine once more over the world which had been suffering from terrifyingly low temperatures.

The piled-up snow slowly vanished, as if time had been reversed.

“Dad,” Willow began.

“Yeah?”

She continued, “Then... I shouldn't be here, right?”

“No one knows we’re here right now,” he explained, lightly tapping the empty air. “You know about magic mirrors, right?”

“Yes.”

“It's the same logic. You can see and touch dimensions, but the others won’t be able to recognize your presence.”

“A space like that exists?”

“It's a space I can only enter if you are present. It's the first time I’ve actually been here.”

By crossing the dimension with Willow, he had entered a space permitted only to her.

She stared blankly at the dimension that had been buried in snow. “How many... died?”

“Fortunately, there are no living beings here.”

“That's... a relief.” Willow, her face complicated as she looked at the dimension that had become a snowfield, turned away.

“I’ll wait for your solution.”

“Good. That's my girl.”

“You have to promise! You’ll find a way, won't you?”

“I will.”

“I’m going to be so bored....”

With that, she returned to her sanctuary.

* * *

Shortly after, Willow was looking at the twenty or so clusters of light before her. It seemed her father’s efforts had not been in vain.

“The purification... didn't it happen faster than expected?”

Davey admitted, “That’s what I’m wondering, too.”

Out of the countless zenoen, about twenty souls had been purified with a frankly miraculous speed.

They were enough to serve as apostles, ones who could ultimately handle her duties on her behalf.

“What are you waiting for? Appoint them as your apostles right away.”

These beings lived for the sake of the gods anyway. Therefore, they’d show no resistance to being appointed by Willow.

She silently reached out, gathered the clusters of light in her hands, and slowly spread them around. Divine power burst forth around her, enveloping the clusters of light that then formed into unique beings.

Their forms were, to his surprise, various kinds of cats.

“Cats?” Davey stared, flabbergasted.

Willow’s eyes sparkled, instead. “Aren't they so cute?”

“Did you just turn them into cats?”

He thought it was utterly absurd.

Even before becoming demons, the zenoen had humanoid forms. While they might not have retained any memories, turning humanoid beings into cats was just mind-boggling for him.

“No, they aren't just regular cats.” Saying that, she closed her eyes and began to utter a mysterious language.

The collars around their necks all glowed and scattered. The beings soon showed up again in beastfolk forms, complete with cat ears and tails. The peculiar thing was the small wings sprouting from their backs.

“I pledge my everything to the Goddess of Harmony!”

Perhaps because they had yearned for a god, they showed surprisingly little resistance to being subordinated.

They acknowledged Willow as the one they’d serve for life, and she patted their shoulders and spoke, “Welcome! So, your job now is... ummm... Dad? What should I do now?”

“Ah. Honestly, I don’t know either.”

Her deification had far too many incomprehensible aspects to begin with.

He had used an immense, high-level authority—the authority of sacrifice—to activate her leftover remnants and reform her so that she could exist in the world again.

If that was all there was to it, Willow resurrecting as a goddess wouldn’t have too many questionable parts.

However, there were clearly a litany of strange aspects. So many, in fact, that even if one were to say the problem came from the power she had held for too long acting as a trigger and making others recognize her as a divine being, it wouldn't suffice. Strangest of all was the fact that there had been no real problem until then.

The authority of harmony that she currently possessed was also the authority of the Goddess Freyja. In other words, before coming under Willow’s purview, it was a power directly managed by Goddess Freyja herself.

“Your Holiness,” Davey suddenly asked. “Did you, perhaps, subtly slip the authority of harmony to Willow?”

Facing his question, the Goddess Freyja turned her gaze away, maintaining her silence.

As he continued to follow her face, she finally conveyed a certain truth.

[An empty goddess cannot persist.]

Apparently, Willow was given a high-level authority because she was resurrected as a divine being yet empty inside, needing the goddess to share her own authority.

“Soooo, what do we do now?” He had no clue, having never been through such a situation.

When he sought the goddess's advice, she slowly reached out to Willow's forehead and placed a finger on it.

Whummm!!

A miraculous sound rang out, and her eyes opened wide.

“Ah! So this is how you do it...”

Perhaps indicative of how a whole divinity like Davey was different from a complete god, she seemed to quickly grasp how to use the high-level authority, and she waved her hand. Streaks of light then escaped her and seeped into the zenoen who had become her apostles.

Their eyes soon sparkled with intelligence.

“Now, listen up! You’ll act on my behalf to handle harmony in places I can't pay attention to. Though it's a small power compared to mine, you can still adequately handle all but the major problems.”

They could either push all phenomena to an appropriate level of frenzy, or suppress them.

Even if they couldn't harmonize an entire dimension instantly like Willow, they could imbue harmony to a certain extent.

The apostles, having received her command, slowly bowed their heads before then scattering and vanishing one by one.

“Where’d you send them?” Davey curiously asked.

“Harmony isn't something you need to constantly pay attention to. They'll find a suitable place and start resonating with their respective dimensions.”

Willow now had entities delegated to handle duties on her behalf.

All that remained was finding a way to solve the immense burden that was put on worlds when she manifested. Even though her manifestation only possessed the power of an ordinary person, her mere existence put a huge strain on the dimension.

That was the aftermath of her descent.

Faced with this problem, Davey felt confused and at a loss.

Willow suddenly said, “Dad, I'm fine, so go on.”

He was startled. “What?”

“You aren't going to find a solution immediately, anyways. Just dividing up my mind-blogging tasks has already given me enough breathing room, so don't overdo it and exhaust yourself.” 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Saying that, she reached out and gave him a simple push. A crack had appeared behind him in his path, and he was flung out.

His surroundings instantly shifted, and when he opened his eyes he was back in his room in Heins Territory.

Perserque asked him as if she had been waiting, “You're back already? How’d it go?”

“First, the apostles were successfully created. We also harmonized the twisted dimension.” He regretfully added, “Unfortunately, the problem of the burden caused by her manifestation remains.”

“Willow ran away on her own, but it doesn't mean it's completely impossible for her to handle, so we should take comfort in that.”

What she said was true.

Just then, he heard Amy announce from outside the door, “Your Highness, you have a guest.”

He was surprised. “A guest? Who is it?”

She hesitated. “Well...”

“Just send them in.”

Following his command, the door opened, and a young girl slowly walked in.

“Frelia?”

She was a Valkyrie, one of the two remaining apostles of Neltarid.

“The God Neltarid has sent a divine message. For you.”

No long talk was necessary for him to understand. It came from the god who took care of the aftermath when Willow manifested. Neltarid seemed to have something to say to him.

“They aren’t going to be petty and lecture me like their junior for a single mistake, are they?”

“Y-you! How dare you speak to a god like that!!”

“Watch your mouth, girl. An apostle being so impudent? What has the world come to?”

“Eek!!”

“Enough. Just tell me what they wanted you to convey.”

She sighed, and then adopted a reverent posture to deliver the message.