Chapter 237: Why they choose me?

The Goddess looked down at him, her celestial eyes warm. A radiant smile bloomed across her face.

She was casually stroking his hair, her fingers tracing soothing circles across his temple while his head rested upon her lap.

"Good morning," she whispered with her melodic voice.

Eren blinked once. Twice. He didn’t immediately scramble upright.

Instead, his eyes remained utterly fixated on the two colossal, divine mounds of milky perfection that occupied roughly eighty percent of his vision, draped in gossamer white silk that did practically nothing to contain them.

"Didn’t realize the afterlife had a morning schedule," Eren replied, his voice thick with sleep and dry sarcasm. "Though I suppose the local scenery has remained delightfully consistent."

The Goddess burst into a bright giggle.

"My, my, you really haven’t changed a single bit, have you?" she teased, lightly pinching his cheek with amusement. "Tell me... should I be addressing you as Eric today, or Eren?"

"Call me whatever keeps the celestial room service running," Eren muttered, rolling onto his side before pushing himself up.

He sat cross-legged, looking at his surroundings.

An endless sea of pearlescent, fluffy white clouds stretched out in every direction beneath a sapphire dome of sky. The cloud-floor was soft, comfortable that could anyone rest for a thousand years without a shred of guilt.

Eren turned his attention back to the peak milf.

Calling her breathtaking was an insult to the vocabulary. She was the textbook definition of a transcendent, affectionate milf goddess.

’Well,’ Eren mused, rubbing the back of his neck, ’not that her divine rack matters right now.’

"So," Eren sighed, looking her dead in the eye with deadpan resignation. "Am I officially dead again?"

"Oh, heavens, no! Don’t be so silly, Eric," she chirped, waving a hand.

She rose to her feet with fluid grace, walking across the fluffy mist toward a desk that materialized out of nowhere with a velvet swivel chair.

"You’re merely taking a little nap while your mortal vessel reboots," she explained, picking up a tablet from the desk. She swiped a finger across the surface, humming a playful tune as data streamed across the display.

Her brows arched, a wicked, teasing grin splitting her immaculate lips.

"Oh, my word... look at this! Look at the little collection of gorgeous ladies you’ve surrounded yourself with, you terribly naughty boy!" She gasped dramatically, looking over the rim of the tablet to wink at him. "And look at the number of fates you have changed!"

Instead of smug satisfaction, a heavy, suffocating weight settled in Eren’s chest.

He let out a long sigh, collapsing backward against the soft clouds, throwing one forearm over his eyes to block out the perfect sky.

"Didn’t change a damn thing that actually mattered," Eren said, his voice flat, devoid of its usual playfulness.

The image of Alice kneeling in her own blood, the shattered mask, and the gentle, sorrowful smile she gave him right before the sword pierced through her played on a loop behind his eyelids.

"I’m still just as worthless as I was back then," Eren whispered bitterly into the clouds. "Couldn’t even stop a single person. The protagonist of the entire damn universe is bleeding out in a moldy crypt, and for what? If I hadn’t stuck my arrogant nose into Rujgard... if I hadn’t dragged her into that mess... Alice would still be alive."

The tablet dissolved into golden dust in her hands.

She turned and walked to him; she didn’t look down with pity—there wasn’t a trace of patronizing sympathy in those liquid-gold eyes. Instead, her lips curved into a proud, deeply affectionate smile that radiated unconditional warmth.

"And why, pray tell, does my brilliant boy insist on calling himself worthless?"

Eren kept his forearm draped over his eyes, his mouth set in a bitter, stubborn line. "Because facts don’t care about your celestial optimism. The Saintess is skewered like a street kebab because I couldn’t hit a target fast enough."

"Alice’s fate in that vault was never your fault, Eric," she chided gently, nudging his boot with her bare, glowing toes. "You’ve rewritten the fabric of that entire world in a matter of months. Did you already forget little Viola? Your sweet, fragile new sister whom you saved from hell by casually inventing an impossible mana stabilizer?"

"Did that for Duke Volsver’s favour," Eren scoffed from beneath his arm. "Needed the old bastard’s permission to waltz back into the Royal Academy."

"Oh, really?" Her brow arched with amused skepticism. "What about your father’s assassination?"

"System pop-up," Eren muttered, turning his face away into the clouds. "The damn blue box basically shoved the flashing red arrow in my face."

"Fine. What about Mira’s mother?" she pressed on, taking a step closer, tapping her chin with mock innocence. "She was completely cured because of you."

"Duke’s generosity," Eren fired back instantly.

"And Aria? Seraphina?" The Goddess was relentless now, leaning over him with her hands on her hips, her voluminous chest casting shadow over his chest. "Two brilliant, fractured women who were canonically destined to fall into blackened villainy, tearing the empire apart in a sea of blood. You reached out your hand and pulled them both back into the light."

"Self-preservation," Eren grunted, his throat tightening. "If those two went off the deep end, the capital would turn into a flaming crater and I’d lose my comfortable bed. I just prevented a disaster so I wouldn’t have to sleep in the dirt."

The Goddess frowned, letting out a soft, theatrical pout. But as she looked down at his rigid shoulders, the trembling tension in his knuckles, and the raw, wounded dejection written across his features, her playful expression melted away entirely.

She sat down onto the clouds beside him with infinite grace.

Reaching down, she gently took his forearm, lifting it away from his face. Her touch was warm, radiant, and impossible to resist. She pulled him up until he was sitting, her soft palms framing his face, forcing his stormy sapphire eyes to lock directly with her golden gaze.

"Then tell me, Eric..." she whispered, her voice dropping into a tender, maternal hum that bypassed all his cynical mental defenses. "What about Clara?"

Eren froze.

"Did you burn that brothel just to prevent another disaster?" she asked softly.

Eren’s jaw clenched. The witty retorts, the sarcastic dismissals, the smooth-talking rogue persona—all of it shattered, crumbling away to expose the terrified, exhausted boy hiding underneath.

"I was scared," Eren choked out, his voice cracking into a ragged whisper. "I’m just a fucking idiot who got dropped into a broken world. I somehow ended up with all these incredible, terrifying, beautiful girls around me... and every single day, I’m scared shitless."

He gripped her wrists, his fingers trembling.

"Can I actually save them all? What happens when my foresight runs dry? What happens when the script breaks and I’m not fast enough? I can’t... I can’t bear the thought of losing even one of them," Eren whispered, staring down at the clouds in bitter self-loathing. "So why do they have to choose someone as pathetic as me? Why put their faith in a worthless fake?"