Chapter 17
“Heh.”
The goddess smiled smugly with her arms folded.
“That just proved it. You don’t want that girl to die, even if the chances are slim, right? This threat is valid.”
The hypnosis isn’t working.
Could she have separately investigated the conditions behind not being affected by monsters?
“Veleira. Do one hundred push-ups.”
“Huh!?”
Veleira got down and began doing push-ups.
“I-I hate this! Stop! You’ll make me sweat! It’s hard…! Ngh! Nnnngh!”
So she can’t do anything about suggestions that have already been implanted.
That was fortunate.
“How did you block my hypnosis? Tell me.”
“Ngh…! Gods can… divide their consciousness and create an avatar. I thought that might make it ineffective… I wasn’t certain.”
“That has nothing to do with why it doesn’t work on monsters?”
“I really don’t know about that… Nngh! I-I’m tired.”
She hadn’t even done ten, and she was already whining.
I learned from hypnotizing the goblin that hypnosis didn’t always work, but this was still somewhat unpleasant.
No, was I being too arrogant?
Thinking that it would work on gods without fail.
“Have you ever thought of telling another god about this method so they could hurt me?”
“I haven’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I never thought of killing you.”
“Stop the push-ups.”
There was a strange mixture of affection and resentment in her final words.
Since the words had come out under the influence of the suggestion, I could trust them, right?
Though, apparently, the goddess had once been human, so they weren’t words I could trust forever.
Putting it all together, Veleira didn’t hate me enough to kill me.
But she still wanted to regain her freedom, even if it meant weighing Isti’s life against it.
That was how I saw it.
“Release the suggestion. Then your beloved slave will be safe.”
“You expect me to trust someone who secretly schemes behind my back to evade my hypnosis?”
“Who are you calling a coward!?”
This was a difficult problem.
I had implanted the keyword 「Obey my commands」 in Veleira, but it was less certain than directly ordering her in a trance state, 「Do not harm Isti.」
What that meant was that words spoken in a trance state penetrated deep into the inner consciousness of a human—or an intelligent life-form, if that included goddesses—and caused all sorts of complex factors to combine and take effect.
In other words, she couldn’t think of anything else.
But if I first made her obey my commands, then released her from the trance and ordered her conscious mind, which had risen to the surface…
The goddess would recognize that she was being forced to obey my commands in the first place, which would provoke her resistance.
Even if I ordered her not to do anything that might harm Isti,
she could have her subordinates attack a place where Isti was likely to be, then pretend she knew nothing about it.
There was a chance it would be nullified by this kind of self-deceiving logic.
“To begin with, if I want you to release the suggestion, you’ll have to retrieve that avatar or whatever it is and be hypnotized by me again.
What if you receive an even more serious suggestion in the process?”
“It’s a deal we can’t make without mutual trust anyway, isn’t it?”
“You’ll trust me?”
“Yes. I have no choice but to trust you.”
“And how am I supposed to trust you?”
“Ask me whether I’m sincere. I can’t lie when answering your questions, can I?”
Not bad. She had thought this through.
Was she saying that I would trust the goddess because she had no choice but to answer truthfully?
“Are you sincere?”
“I swear on the name of the goddess Veleira. I’ll enter into this deal without lying.”
“But I don’t want to.”
“Tsk…!!”
“Do the push-ups. Until I tell you to stop.”
“Aah!?”
“Do you think I’d put Isti’s life on the line just because I was crazy?”
“Then I…”
“Why do you want to release the suggestion so badly in the first place?”
“You have to ask? I’m a goddess. I mustn’t be bound by a human, s-subjected… or humiliated. A goddess must always be beautiful and elegant.”
“Is that so? Then there won’t be a problem if only that is resolved, right?”
Veleira raised her head while struggling through the push-ups.
“W-What do you mean…?”
“Earlier, you called Isti a slave. But Isti isn’t a slave.
To be precise, she’s my girlfriend now.”
“Huh…?”
“You’ll be my first slave, Veleira. I’ll make sure you never have to worry about it again.”
“D-Don’t be ridiculous!”
“I’m serious.”
I had put my plan to corrupt the goddess on hold for the moment, but I had changed my mind.
I would break her here and now.
I approached Veleira as she did her push-ups.
“First, I should give my slave a name, shouldn’t I?
Veleira is too long. Let’s go with Bella. You’re Bella now. My slave, Bella.”
“Shut up…! Don’t insult me too much. If you make light of a Fourth-Rank god…”
“Bella. Bow down before me.”
“Urk!?”
Bella immediately prostrated herself before me.
“You seem to know human culture well. You know what this posture means, don’t you?”
“I know. It’s… humiliation.”
Bella’s body trembled.
“You think this is the end?”
I took off one of my shoes and planted my bare foot firmly on Bella’s head.
“Ngh!”
Bella’s forehead was forcibly pressed into the floor.
“How does it feel to be trampled by me?”
“Obviously, it’s the worst… Th-there is getting hot, and it feels strange… Ngh!”
“Not there. Say it properly.”
“When I was stepped on, my pussy got hot, and I felt strange.”
“That’s your true nature. Understand? You try to bargain with me? A goddess is beautiful and elegant?
Without suggestions or hypnosis, this is who you really are.”
“That can’t be true.”
Of course, it was vulgarity I had implanted through suggestion.
There was no way she could know that.
“Then ask your inner self, which is enjoying being trampled right now. Are you really beautiful and elegant?”
“…! ………!!”
“Don’t resist your nature. Being as you naturally are is what makes you happy. You were born to become my slave goddess.”
“That’s too cruel…”
“It felt good, didn’t it?”
“I-I liked it. I thought I wanted you to say more.”
“Well? That’s your true feeling. From now on, declare this: 「I am your obedient pussy goddess. Please step on me more.」”
“I am… your…”
I pressed my foot down repeatedly on Bella’s head.
“Your obedient pussy goddess… I am… Please step on me more.”
I squatted down, grabbed Bella by the hair, and forced her to raise her head.
Bella glared at me with a gaze that seemed to blaze.
“Do you think you can bind me with such fabricated words?”
She said that, but all the thorns that had filled Bella’s tone when she had been genuinely threatening me were gone.
She seemed afraid inside, but was struggling desperately not to look weak.
“We’ll find out if you ask me from now on.”
Bella’s face turned pale.
“Don’t…! Don’t look inside me!”
“Tell me what you’re thinking right now, Bella.”
“Bella actually wants to become… her master’s exclusive… pussy slave goddess… Please cherish me… a lot…”
Bella’s expression as she stared at me as though she wanted to kill me while saying those words was perfect.
Trampling and cornering her had been worth it.
The suggestion of submission had been strengthened beyond the point of no return.
Now to confirm it.
With her, who had no choice but to answer my questions truthfully.
“Bella, do you still want to release the suggestion?”
“I don’t want to release it. I don’t think that way anymore. ……I like being my master’s slave.”
“Do you still want to harm Isti?”
“I can’t hurt my master’s girlfriend…”
“Good girl. My slave.”
When I stroked her head, Bella’s fierce expression gradually softened.
Instead, her face became somewhat disgruntled, as though she hated admitting that she liked it, but I liked seeing her that way.
A goddess forced to reveal her true feelings in answer to my questions, and made to undergo humiliating experiences.
“Now get up.”
Bella stood, then folded her arms and spoke as though nothing had happened.
“Hmph…! Don’t think you’ve tamed me with this kind of wordplay. Just wait. …I’ll definitely come back again.”
The goddess who had declared herself my slave vanished as though fleeing.
She said she would definitely come back again. I was looking forward to it.
“Dekal? Are you done talking?”
Isti peeked her head out.
“Have you been waiting long?”
Isti answered hesitantly.
“I saw a little.”
“Mm…”
I didn’t know what to say.
“The noises were so loud that I wondered what was happening.”
Well, no matter how spacious the dressing room was, there was no way Isti, who had been in the same room, couldn’t have heard.
“If Darling wants me to, I can do it too.”
“Do what?”
“Be trampled, be cursed at… I don’t like it if the insults are… too harsh, though…”
“…I’m not going to make you do that.”
“If you want it, I’ll endure being tormented.”
She must have gotten the wrong idea after seeing me treat the goddess so harshly.
“Is that so? Then will you try enduring this too?”
I tickled Isti mercilessly.
“Eek!? Ahihi, st-stop.”
It was something I could brush off as playful teasing.
Even so, she didn’t ask about the dangerous words like hypnosis or suggestion.
But since I was probably the person she trusted most in the world, that was only natural.
That was why I could see Isti’s most innocent face.
“Did you pick out an outfit you like?”
“…I’d like it if Darling chose one for me.”
“Me?”
“Is that not okay…?”
When she asked like that, I wanted to make even the things that shouldn’t be okay work out.
Let’s rule out anything too revealing. It would be fine when we were alone, but I couldn’t let her walk around wearing something like that.
Something like the mini dress she had on now, which was good for moving around, would be nice.
I found one that caught my eye.
“This one.”
“Do you like it, Dekal?”
“Yeah. You’d look pretty in it.”
“Then…”
“Ah, and these for underwear.”
“These are… a little sexy.”
“Put them on for me.”
After coaxing Isti, I succeeded in getting her to wear slightly provocative underwear and a mini dress.
“Does it suit me?”
“You look beautiful.”
Isti gave me a bashful smile at my words.
Holding hands as we had when we came to the Eight-Colored Shell Castle, we returned to the Water and Grass Inn.
Despite being another world, time seemed to flow at nearly the same rate.
I found that doubtful, but decided not to think too deeply about it.
After eating with Isti, we left the Water and Grass Inn.
Strangely, the area in front of the guild building was noisy again today.
What was going on? Isti was right beside me.
Drawn by curiosity, I approached.