Chapter 14: A Little of the World

"...Hmmm... I see, I see..." Nio quickly read through the books she found in the theocracy’s church. As soon as she had some free time, she went to check if she could read them, and fortunately she could make out the letters, even though she didn’t know exactly what kind of script it was.

It just so happens that the status translates automatically, as a way to keep the status unified so everyone understands what it says.

"Their church worships... players? This one here is a player, isn’t it?" Nio wonders as she reads the books. There are several gods and goddesses, but she can tell that all of them were players.

Of course, to the church they were gods, but the way they’re described makes Nio know immediately that they were players, which implies that before the game shut down, certain players had already fallen into this world.

Besides, these so-called gods died, something that doesn’t even make sense in Nio’s mind. A god shouldn’t just die from natural things like age or general illness.

"That was... curious. They look like GMs? These items here were GM items... and some GMs were also part of the lore as special appearances..." Nio recognizes some from before she played the game. Some of them had already quit the game by the time she started playing.

She knows them because it was thanks to researching them that she got the idea to ask to be part of the game’s lore.

"It seems their deities aren’t real gods, just high-level people, which also means that, as expected, high-level people are powerful to a point where people consider them divine." Nio leans back in a chair.

Thinking about it carefully, many of these "gods" described were from races like humans, which explains death by time and disease, whereas Nio is a dragon, so there’d be no way for her to pretend to be a goddess that humans would worship. But it also means she won’t just die of age or general illness.

"Although they worship several deities, it seems that in the end, all power lies with the saint. The church seems to treat its gods more as symbols of power and the saint as the real symbol of their ideology... so I won’t have problems knowing little about historical context. Since no one knows me... I can dominate this kingdom from the inside out."

"A shield... the more things I have, the harder my wife will have to work to destroy them..." Nio doesn’t expect to defeat her wife easily, so she plans to buy time, and the only time she can buy is by building things that incite Typhon to destroy those things.

That’s why the theocracy seems like a good shield that can hold Typhon back for a few days if Nio is found. Besides, pretending to be a human saint is also another good shield. It’s much harder for Typhon to find Nio pretending to be a human than Nio dominating kingdoms while spreading her name and her power.

"I got lucky... really lucky, and I need to know how to use this luck strategically. This kingdom is good cover, a good shield, and a good source of information... my NPCs can also handle the rest of what’s missing."

"If I can get a battery strong enough, I can put my palace back in the skies and move it to a safe place, and since it’s inside the theocracy’s territory, other kingdoms will hardly try anything against my palace for now." Nio places a book on the table and looks at her hands.

Her wings, horns, and tails hidden away, which no one else sees, but as she sees them, she thinks about her current life. She still doesn’t know what to do.

Dominate the world? Live in hiding? Defeat Typhon? There are many paths, none of them a very good future depending on the results. She’s never had so much trouble predicting variables.

In the game, it was easy to predict actions, people, and objectives. In reality, it’s hard, extremely hard to predict how everything will play out.

"I’m getting paranoid... I want to fish. It’s something calming for my current self... but I can’t fish... I feel like my mind is stagnating at a bad moment..." Nio fights her dragon instincts as she stands up, dragging herself with steps where she barely lifts her feet off the floor.

She’s been studying something she found tedious for a few hours now, so she looks for her "older sister" to distract herself, because her head hurts from thinking so much about the future.

She follows the magic in the environment until she reaches the room where Stelaria is. Nio knocks on the door, and Stelaria takes a little while before opening it.

"...Nio... what do you need?" Stelaria takes a step back, wanting to distance herself, because being close to Nio makes her feel strange.

"Can we take a bath together?" Although the question seems perverted considering who Nio was before appearing in this body, in reality, Nio just doesn’t know what to do with her body. The female body seems very different from her male body, so she prefers help from a girl to take a bath, and partly because the lethargy leaves her sleepy and unwilling to move.

"I don’t..." Stelaria wants to refuse, but her brain wants to accept. She looks at the paperwork and the letters she was writing, partly to spread news about Nio, partly to ask if any noble knows something about this girl.

"...Whatever. I need to teach you how to behave like a saint..." Stelaria accepts with a certain displeasure, pulling Nio into her room, which has a very neutral tone, with few things that would say it’s a girl’s room, giving off an almost professional air.

"Are you okay?" Stelaria asks, noticing Nio’s dragging steps.

"I am, I’m just sleepy..."

’Damn personal choice... Nio in the game slept a lot because she was a dragon that never hibernated. Of course, nothing happened because it was a game... who would’ve thought it would be a disadvantage today...’ Nio hasn’t stopped to rest since she arrived in this world. Her dragon body demands the price of never sleeping for hundreds of years and changing her routine to sleep a little every day.

It’s not because she has absolute power that she doesn’t need rest. In fact, it’s the opposite. She needs to sleep even more than humans so she doesn’t enter hibernation.

"...Come on, go in the bathroom over there... I’ll... look for some clothes for you..." Stelaria feels a bit of pity before feeling pure discomfort at what she felt earlier.

’My head hurts...’ Stelaria thinks for a second before Nio heads to the side door, entering the bathroom. Inside the large bathroom, Nio just takes off her clothes haphazardly and throws herself into the water, but her heavy body just sinks completely into the bathtub set into the floor.

"..." She doesn’t need to breathe, so she just stays underwater staring at the ceiling. The cold sensation of the water makes Nio close her eyes and simply fall asleep underwater while Stelaria, outside, looks through her wardrobe for clothes from when she was younger.