Luke fled into the sky.
The situation was too urgent to think clearly, and he had no time to stabilize the entrance to the pocket dimension.
However, heading towards home was impossible at the moment.
It wouldn’t be wise to walk confidently towards home while emitting a divine light from his entire body.
If he carelessly headed directly towards Yerna’s house in this state, it would inevitably draw a tremendous amount of attention.
And that was something that absolutely could not happen to Luke.
He didn’t want to attract attention for that reason, and explaining it would be a headache.
And what could he even say?
Murder of a dark mage? Resurrection? Goddess? Arinseia?
All of that fell under information that must not be disclosed at this time.
Struggling to maintain his flight, Luke finally arrived at a secluded mountain and dropped Liv and the sarcophagus awkwardly.
– Thud!
“Ugh…!”
The sarcophagus hit the ground with a loud noise, but he had no time to care about such trivial matters.
However, despite being roughly thrown onto the ground, the puppet Liv was not affected much and quickly got up, fidgeting as if worried and approaching Luke.
Luke managed to lift his body and spoke to reassure Liv.
“I’m not injured, so you don’t have to worry… Hey, could you check if there are really no people around here? Please.”
“……!”
Liv nodded firmly, as if she understood, and turned to scout while Luke leaned against a tree to look down at himself.
“Cough, everything has shrunk too much…”
It felt as if he were wearing shackles rather than clothes all over his body.
The skirt was merely caught on his enlarged hips due to the broken button at the waist, and his legs had grown too long, causing the hem of the skirt to rise excessively compared to usual.
Moreover, his shoes were almost bursting at the seams, and every toe felt painfully squeezed.
Additionally, the underwear was constricting his chest so tightly that breathing became difficult.
‘How did I end up like this?’
Luke believed that the divine power was undoubtedly the sole cause.
Otherwise, it would be impossible to explain his current state.
It was clear that the divine power had affected his body in some way.
From that, Luke could soon guess the reason.
‘The part that allows me to handle divine power must have been the goddess’s fragment…’
His current body was a complex chimera.
The three major elements—beast, dragon, and goddess—had mixed together to form a strange balance, and within that, Luke Ilushi’s circle was responsible for the tuning.
However, that balance had just been slightly disrupted by the divine power he used earlier.
He did not create and use divine power from within his body, but accepted and used the abundant divine power from the outside.
Thus, the proportion of the ‘goddess’ in his body had grown significantly compared to ‘Luke Ilushi’ or ‘Parvati’ or ‘Liv’.
Furthermore, unlike mana, divine power was an area that his circle could not control, so he believed that this transformation was due to his failure in that tuning…
“Cough… it’s suffocating… I can’t take it anymore…!”
Luke barely managed to take off his shoes along with his socks and tore off the constricting underwear under his clothes like a corset.
At that moment, his cramped body finally relaxed, the pain in his feet eased, and his lungs could finally breathe properly.
In reality, his chest was still being pressed hard by his uniform, but it was expensive, and if he tore it, he feared he wouldn’t be able to bear the shame without it, so he refrained from doing so.
This was already enough to make breathing considerably easier, so he thought it would suffice.
However, even so, the physical changes remained unchanged.
Luke took another quick look at himself.
Two pairs of unfamiliar horns on the side of his head, a pair of unknown platinum wings, an even larger tail, and a body that seemed to have grown suddenly…
Nothing about his appearance could be explained away somehow.
As far as Luke knew, there were no beastmen with more than two horns.
The antler-like horns could theoretically resemble those of a deer, but…
However, the wings were simply beyond explanation.
No race would have wings like that around the waist.
Harpies were the closest resemblance, but they were classified as monsters due to their lack of intelligence to interact with humans, and their arms had transformed into wings, which did not resemble his current appearance at all.
Then what about the halo?
That was entirely unimaginable to explain to anyone.
He was no longer a dragon, nor a cat, nor a goddess.
In the eyes of others, he was literally a monster.
Or he might be seen as a pervert wandering the streets wearing an oversized school uniform that didn’t fit his body.
Thinking that way, he began to feel extremely ashamed.
Luke covered his body with his wings and bit his nails.
It seemed to help calm him down a little, having something in his mouth.
Was this something similar to human instinct?
Still, he didn’t bite them off. Biting nails is an act that makes the appearance of the nails unattractive.
But it was also difficult for Luke to refrain from biting his nails given the current situation.
Furthermore, as he shed the shrunken shoes and socks, he was now barefoot, and even the wind brushing between his toes was quite distracting, making him fidgety.
‘Why did I end up like this…’
What did he do wrong to deserve such a punishment?
All he had done was resurrect those who had died unjustly.
Wasn’t that the right thing to do?
“……That’s right. That was the right thing to do.”
Yes, he certainly did the right thing.
Then, wasn’t it okay to be a little more confident?
Just like not feeling ashamed after rescuing a child from flames even if his clothes got burnt, he didn’t need to feel ashamed of his current appearance.
Of course, he couldn’t openly state his circumstances, but so what?
He definitely did something heroic and accomplished something great.
So there was absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.
He shouldn’t resent his body that had changed so difficultly.
As he organized his thoughts and calmed his mind…
– Rustle, rustle.
“Eek!”
At the sound of rustling bushes, Luke jumped and let out a startled scream.
Not only that, but he instinctively conjured about three magic missiles beside him and aimed at the source, yet the created magic missiles did not launch.
“……”
That was Liv, who had returned after completing her reconnaissance.
Liv, faced with the magic missiles aimed at her, raised both hands and trembled as if in distress.
“……”
“……”
After a brief silence.
“I-I’m sorry. I’m just a bit on edge right now…”
Even thinking it over, he was not in a very dignified state of dress, and just because he thought it was not embarrassing didn’t mean that it would truly make an embarrassing appearance not be embarrassing.
As Luke’s restless hand gesture made the magic missiles dissolve into the air, Liv finally seemed to relax a bit and dropped her arms while lowering her head.
“……So, was there really no one around?”
“……”
Liv nodded.
That was a small relief.
“Then what should we do…?”
Luke bit his nails again and began to fidget with his toes.
The night view of the city below looked beautiful like stars rising on the ground, but such a scene could not soothe Luke’s anxious heart.
Then Luke suddenly thought.
‘Isn’t it too late already, and wouldn’t Yerna be too worried?’
To immediately contact someone, Luke pulled out his cellphone, and there was a message from Yerna asking, “Did you have dinner with Pyris?”
It seemed Yerna was not coming home today.
Well, that was a relief.
Luke simply replied that he hadn’t eaten yet, but would do so soon, and urged her not to worry and to concentrate on the remaining tasks.
“……For now, I guess I need to withdraw this cumbersome divine power.”
When Luke finally gathered all the divine power, two whole hours had passed.
Finally freed from his meditation, Luke sighed as he looked up at the sky.
It was already dark as it was, but now it had turned to the dead of night.
Buses were likely no longer running.
But even if they were, he would not be able to ride them anyway.
Because, despite withdrawing his divine power, Luke’s body had not returned to its original state; he had only stopped glowing and removed the halo and wings.
So Luke was forced to use ‘Fly’ again to stealthily fly through the night sky.
He would likely leave a trace of magical power, but even if he landed in a nearby alley near home and walked while concealing himself, it seemed he would not be tracked.
Right now, it was dark, so it was hard to tell who was who, and there would be few people around.
——
– Bang! Click!
The hurried sound of a door opening and closing alerted Pyris, who approached the front door.
At the entrance stood a beautiful woman, dressed in an ill-fitting uniform from Tigr Academy, muttering, “Why are there so many people out at this hour…!”
But Pyris was not particularly flustered; she ran over to the woman and hugged her leg.
– Hug.
“Sister!! I’ve been waiting forever!”
“Ugh, huh?”
“I was worried about you, but I held back because you told me not to go outside carelessly! How about that, isn’t that nice of me?”
The woman looking down at Pyris, who was hugging her leg and rubbing her face against her, sent a puzzled glance at Pyris.
“That, that’s right. Good girl. But don’t I seem strange?”
“Hmm… What’s strange? Luke sister is Luke sister, right?”
“……Uh, um…”
Luke muttered with a slightly blank expression.
“Yeah, I guess that’s how it is.”
Did the nature that the spirits see not change after all?
Well, it may be that body changes didn’t mean much to a spirit that saw the essence of things.
Even if he had transformed like this, he was still Pyris’s ‘Luke sister’.
Thanks to that, Luke felt a bit relieved and affectionately patted Pyris’s head.
“I’m back, Pyris.”
“Yeah.”
At that moment, as Luke was petting Pyris’s head, her eyes suddenly widened.
“Smell.”
Luke panicked and tried to explain.
“Oh, the smell of corpses, right? Well, you see…! There was a bad person in the forest, and I got covered in that while punishing them. So let’s keep the corpse talk a secret from Yerna…”
“No, that’s not it!”
“Uh, what?”
Pyris twisted away from Luke’s waist and looked angry.
“It’s the smell of delicious food! You ate it all by yourself!!”
“……Huh?”
“When I couldn’t go outside, you were the only one eating delicious food! I’ve been starving here waiting for you!!”
“Ah.”
Luke suddenly remembered that he had eaten fish-shaped pastries before coming home.
Could it be that Pyris picked up the faint scent of those pastries amidst the smell of corpses, dirt, and sweat on his body?
‘That girl’s sense of smell might be better than a hunting dog…’
Luke took out the crumpled-up fish-shaped pastry bag from his bag.
“Well… I did leave some for you thinking about you, but it’s already completely cold… And it’s been squished in the bag, so it doesn’t look very appetizing…”
Originally meant to give to Pyris, it had been sitting in Luke’s bag throughout the series of events, so it no longer resembled a fish shape, nor was it warm, making it look rather unappetizing.
But Pyris snatched it up as if it were a treasure.
“Looks delicious! You’re the best, sister!”
“……”
Luke sighed at that sight.
It seemed that Pyris found the fish-shaped pastry far more important than his current state of being.
“……I feel like my pride has taken a hit.”
