Local Dragon Ruins History 12 (Waifu Catalog, Nasu!Mythology)

A multitude of emotions flashed across her face. Her initial joy filled smile turned sullen as feelings of shame and guilt surfaced from the depths of her heart.

"In as much as I would love to catch up on lost time with my daughter… I cannot say that I feel particularly deserving of it. You may as well spend those points on whatever you want." I had never seen self-loathing in Sothis's eyes before, in my eyes, she had always been the strongest person I knew.

Aside from some understandable trauma regarding the 'Red Canyon' massacre and being fully aware as her body was being desecrated I couldn't… no, I didn't want to think that she had kept any of her feelings from me. I had wrongly assumed that her issues started and ended with the Agarthans.

I quickly considered the few topics that we had avoided speaking of from her past life in Fodlan and tried to narrow down the source of it. I loved her, I needed to understand and help her, not just sit around and hope that the passage of time will wash away all our problems.

"I certainly could... but I'd rather you get the chance to do what you always wanted after recovering your memories, I know you're not angry at Rhea anymore after considering what she's gone through…"

"Of course I'm not angry. She's still my daughter. I just don't think it's a good idea for her to see me like this, Seiros, Rhea… she's always placed me on a pedestal, if she saw me and finally realized how I wouldn't have been capable of solving the world's problems as she desperately hoped for… it would only break her. Regardless of whether it's just a clone of my daughter or any iteration of my 'real' daughter."

Ah, so it's that huh?

"Sothis, you can't seriously expect to live up to the falsehoods that the Church of Seiros had been saying about their 'goddess' right?"

"Of course not! But the people of Fodlan, everyone, they were dying and killing in my name for centuries! I can't hear nor answer prayers yet they believed that I could have saved them, or at least done something! And you know what? They were right. If I hadn't been so hasty in fixing the damn world and paced myself better then I wouldn't have gotten so weak to the point where I could be killed by some fucking bandit lord! The Progenitor Goddess, feh, if I could ever be called a goddess then I'm a sorry excuse of one."

I took a deep breath, preparing my response while knowing that I needed the full story before encouraging her with the facts that she is an excellent goddess. I only needed to take one look at Nyx and Demeter before I convinced myself that, if I were human, I would pick Sothis over them even if she had been objectively weaker and provided less personal benefits.

Having a caring, benevolent and human-like goddess trumped having a typical DXD god (who considers humans expendable) or a generally motherly goddess that goes flipping mad on rare occasions (e.g. Persephone related events or typical Greek mythology stuff).

I sat by her side and held her hand, then urged her to continue in one particular line of inquiry, "Was the damage that bad?"

She calmed down and answered me with a thoughtful look, "It… could have been worse. I mean, if I looked at it objectively, the number of survivors and refugees that we allowed into Zanado did not require all of Fodlan to thrive in. The amount of arable land was nearly sufficient to sustain their needs in the early years…"

"So you wanted to heal all the land as fast as you could so that the displaced survivors of whatever war Agartha began would survive, but instead of spreading out your power over a large area it may have been better to fix the land bit by bit over a long period of time."

"Yes, that's it. And I should have done that instead of getting desperate!"

"But why were you desperate? The circumstances were terrible but it could have been worse."

"You don't get it. If you were there, if you saw the despair and confusion of so many people having lost their homes and families because of the war-"

"-so you were operating on emotion because you, as the sole benevolent goddess of the realm, heard their pleas and essentially sacrificed yourself to help them as quickly as possible. What was that about not answering the prayers of mortals again?"

"T-that's not the same thing."

"Of course it's not, the expectations set by the church were not realistic nor was it reasonable for you to abide by it, they weren't looking for the goddess Sothis, they were looking for some make believe goddess that Seiros wanted them to believe in."

And that was the crux of it, she had been horrified by the crusader shenanigans done in her name and her inability to help those that called out to her in the years she had slumbered made her 'mistakes' all the more apparent to her, especially after seeing the world through the eyes of Byleth. But that's just from a certain point of view, one that is based on the idea that Sothis the serial uplifter 'owed' everyone divine assistance.

She had gotten better over the centuries but that was largely thanks to my influence moderating her desire to help with a 'sustainable and collaborative progress' direction. Her love for me, my power over her and the fact that it is 'our' people instead of just her people had stopped her from being compelled to do anything as drastic as before.

I continued on after the words properly sunk into her mind, "The real goddess Sothis was so moved by compassion that she sacrificed her power to bring hope to the people of a desolate land instead of preserving her power and letting the situation fester for a few more hundred years or so until future generations wouldn't even know of a healthy land beyond the borders you've set."

"But my actions allowed all those horrible things to happen!"

"Hmm, really? Perhaps it could be considered a mistake in hindsight and on a clinical level, incapacitating yourself did allow your enemies to cause damage on a greater scale… but you wouldn't be the goddess Sothis that I love if you looked at humans as if they were just a number, you looked and saw a desperate people… and you answered. Could you really say that you would do things differently if you were placed into the same situation again? Can you ever call that compassion a mistake?"

That was the finishing blow. Sothis vehemently denied the mere idea, "Never. I would do it all over again." Puffing up her chest, she affirmed it with more enthusiasm, "That's right! I created that world and I'm proud of it, why wouldn't I fix it so that my people can live there properly instead of living in defeat because some dumbass snakes decided that nuking the whole thing was a good idea!"

"Haha, that's more like the Sothis I know."

She blushed furiously and rubbed her cheek with a finger awkwardly, "I suppose I may have gotten caught up in past things a little too much. That said…" A radiant smile bloomed on her face as she looked up to me with her bright green eyes, "I would only do things differently if you were there with me Nikaias. I couldn't bear to leave a love-struck idiot like you alone for hundreds of years. Who knows what you would have done in my absence?"

I gave her my best innocent dragon look, "Oh, I don't know, I think I could still run an empire just fine… but with Blackjack and Hookers."

Sothis slapped my arm and frowned, "You dolt! That came out from nowhere…" Then smiled fondly at me, "Ah, but I expected nothing less. Mmn, what was I about to say again? Hmm… yes, you may summon Rhea, but only when we have completed our expedition in this world. It would be easier for her to adjust if she were brought to a place lacking… modern comforts."

Right, don't summon the technophobic and potentially crazy dragon lady until we are in a safe space, sounds reasonable enough.

"Anyhow, before you get carried away again with yet another beautiful girl, could you do me a favor and put your 'talents' to use by translating this language for me?" Sothis took out a huge sheet of symbols that looked vaguely familiar. "You can use these for reference." She then pulled out a stack of sheets with many spell-like circles that numbered in the thousands.

The innate wisdom of the magically adept species' that I had consumed coupled with my Social Talent allowed me to decipher the purpose of the upper-most sheets in an instant.

"These are all sealing spells."

Flipping through one of the stacks of paper confirmed my suspicion, for the most part, these spells were all dedicated towards sealing a single being then concealed it (from a very comprehensive list of detecting methods) so that it would remain hidden and forgotten.

"Correct. I got all this by copying and pasting everything God used on Trihexa for reference."

I knew it! Goddesses with the domain of [Time] are OP as hell! I made sure that she knew that I was very impressed before voicing my concern for her, knowing that she might have pushed herself a lot in order to get this data, "

"I thought you said something about potential headaches when looking through time in this universe with all the different realms scattered about."

"Well yes, but that's mostly when it comes to the future, I can't tell the exact time or make precise predictions but I can pick out tibbits from the past easy enough."

"You call this tibbits? This is the masterwork of the Biblical God! Well, besides making Heaven and the Sacred Gears, that is." Didn't she leave out the Angels? Oh wait, Sothis creates entire species' as well.

"Well now, when you've finished translating the language he used then perhaps I shall get right on that! Once we move our timeline somewhere else we could certainly use our own afterlife, or at least, a place of respite for the weary souls before they leave for their final destination."

"You are as beautiful as you are brilliant, Sothis." I started the translation work immediately after relocating to the study room. After a few minutes, I decided that getting some help would cut down this two week job to a few days at best.

"Meredith, I'm translating the Biblical God's custom magic language by using the seals he used on the Apocalypse Beast as a reference, wanna come help?"

My young magician spat out the tea she was drinking, casted a spell to clean up the mess and agreed on the spot. "Are you kidding me? This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! Wait, you saying the Beast from the Bible is real?"

"Yup. That's also kinda why we saved Valerie since they're going to use her Sacred Gear to help unseal and wake it up… which reminds me that I need to go stop them myself since they'll probably make do without it anyways."

… Come to think of it, Valerie's soul may be fully healed now but… did I properly check if she had all her soul back when I rescued her? Could those two devil buggers have at least one of Valerie's Grails still with them? Well shit. Guess I still have to deal with a mook army then. Ah well, I'll handle it after we study the seals to Trihexa so that we'll have a way to re-seal it.

"Sounds like an adventure to save the world. Count me in!" It appears that she's just as enthusiastic about getting revenge for Valerie as much as she is about achieving something 'great'.

I made excellent progress in the hour since Meredith began assisting me and teaching me about this world's sealing magic, she really was a prodigy in that field and it showed, at this point I already managed to find certain common signatures on the God of this world's designs. Valerie came into the study room a bit after that and asked 'Master Nikaias' (apparently that's a shared fetish across all my memory sets) for her daily sustenance in a proper servile tone, much to Meredith's exasperation and my delight.

I took a five minute break in order to feed Valerie before gently letting her down on having sex with her today as I had work to do. Thankfully she had reacted calmly and was accepting of my words... instead of shooting me her irresistible pouts and seductive look until I started fucking her. Valerie joined in the translation effort, roping Demeter along after using the Klironomia connected to the machine goddess to process information relating to God's seals and language.

At some point, literally everyone was in the study room helping me out on the project. Ingvild was there for moral support, Sothis began practicing the translated spells along with Nyx, while Demeter continuously learnt and collected information from Meredith, Valerie and myself to accelerate the translation process using magical pattern recognition. As the sun began to set, I told Valerie to take a break and signaled for Ingvild to follow after her.

The two of them eventually left for the beach where they had a pleasant chat before I sensed Valerie reaching beyond this world in order to retrieve several souls. In the end, I never did have to speak with my new in-laws since they were 'good parents' and gave Ingvild a 'Talk-No-Jutsu' tier pep talk that restored her willingness to continue on living past them.

I made a note to send gifts and pictures of our future wedding to Ingvild's parents in whatever afterlife they currently resided in as thanks for making my life so much easier. I can't imagine that anyone's parents (except Fayne's) would be happy that their daughters are becoming fine additions to my collection.

The days passed by and our group translation project became a bonding experience for us all. Valerie and Ingvild began getting along swimmingly after the former had helped the latter reconnect with her parents, them being at least half-human gave them yet another commonality that helped tied them together.

Perhaps the best part of their new sisterly relationship was Valerie's perverted influence on Ingvild, the dhampir couldn't help but talk about the joys of getting fucked silly by 'their rightful master' and pushed the descendent of Leviathan into trying out various outfits to better serve me.

"Ingvild. You're absolutely gorgeous. But please don't take Valerie's words for face value, you don't need to serve me like that, I'm a pretty domestic dragon myself and I like doing housework. Rather than that, let me help you adapt to your new life and we'll go from there."

I had taken Ingvild aside to explain to her that I wasn't actually looking for a maid or servant of some kind but would like for her to become my wife one day… though I certainly wasn't complaining about the many outfits she wore that emphasized her large breasts and healthy child birthing hips. "But I'm the only one here that hasn't done any lewd things and I don't want to be left out!"

They grow up so fast. I honestly would have liked to enjoy her innocence a bit longer, but alas, I had no one else to blame but myself for getting carried away and making Meredith give me a blowjob right after a home-cooked meal. As for Valerie, nothing more needed to be said…

"Well if you insist… go put on a swimsuit, I'm thinking that we can all have a beach party to celebrate the end of our group project." Ingvild nodded eagerly, clearly liking the idea, "A celebration on the beach sounds wonderful! Will we be playing games on it?

I used to run along the beach back at home… I don't think that really counts as a game." I smirked cockily, "Oh, there'll be lots of games like beach volleyball and… sandcastle building."

"Sandcastles?"

"OHOHOHO! You shall bear witness to my divine sandcastle construction skills! I have trained for over 200 years to build the most magnificent and sturdiest sandcastle in all of existence… castles of glass doesn't count even if parts of it is made from sand, just for the record." "Hehehe, did you get beaten by someone like that?"

"... No comment." Ingvild laughed melodically at my reaction, I found myself glad that she's finding her own happiness now, then remembered that she had an excellent singing voice-! "We're also going to have Karaoke on the beach!"

"What's that?"

"Basically, we'll take turns singing along to popular songs played by a machine." Ingvild got really fired up at the idea of being able to sing for everyone. As she left to see Valerie for advice in swimwear, I went ahead to tell Sothis of my plans for tomorrow, I found her currently teaching Meredith some of her exclusive spells like 'Sirius'. Sothis took the idea of 'adopting' the young girls seriously, Meredith had fallen into the role quickly under the motherly attentions of my dragon goddess. Her need to be recognized by a parental figure was a driving force behind Meredith's easy acceptance of Sothis.

The two of them were also keen on the beach party idea and decided to take responsibility for handling the fireworks portion of it. Before I left, Sothis decided to give Meredith some 'lessons' in how to please me, somehow I got the feeling that Sothis was doing a test run for future 'Oyakodon' times with her blood-related daughter Rhea.

Demeter and Nyx were gossiping about their respective family members and remarking on each other's counterparts like they were old friends. Things got a little bit tense when both Nyx and I rejected Demeter's requests to attack Hades before he 'kidnaps' Persephone like in the myths, thankfully, I played the 'better Hades than Zeus' card.

With the help of my compelling arguments and voice we managed to avert disaster. The two of them were also excited about the beach party, having never experienced one of this size before (Demeter and I had beachside dates), but had little to contribute on that front outside of making certain food requests. Instead, they started cycling through various swimsuits in front of me and asked for my feedback, after narrowing it down to a handful of top picks the pair rushed me out and insisted that I enjoy the surprise later on.

While I knew that I would undoubtedly enjoy anything they wore (except some really out there outfits like a giant kaiju outfit) I was, surprisingly, worried that they would wear something too risque and not at all practical for the long day ahead.

"Well I'm sure that everyone here will make sensible picks... Wait a fucking second, who here has absolutely no common sense due to having the wrong life experiences again…" I immediately started walking towards Valerie's room and opened the door, only to find the two girls wearing practically nothing but expensive gems covering their privates. "I saw it on the internet, it's most definitely a micro bikini!"

"There's no way this falls under any legal definition of a bikini."

"But it made it into a video game so it must have been legal!"

"Video games are not reality, there's no way running around like that can be comfortable." Valerie pouted at that point in our discussion, then grinned and pressed her near naked body onto my chest, "But what if I don't want to feel comfortable? At least, not in that way."

She drove a hard bargain, even so… for Ingvild's remaining innocence that was mine (by right) to soil and mine alone, I resisted Valerie's advances and insisted that she change into something more appropriate… for group events.

Even though Valerie chose a one-piece swimsuit she still did her best to show the most amount of skin that I could allow. Her pink swimsuit didn't stop at just exposing her back, but was also of side-tie design and displayed her prominent hip bones.

"This is my first time wearing something like this… I feel as if there is a problem down here-" Valerie 'slipped' and misaligned the bottom of her swimsuit, "-I don't wish to displease you my dear master, could you please help me fix it?"

Kuh… I almost lost control there. This is bad, Valerie is my type in so many different ways that I'm having trouble listening to my brain. The only thing that kept the stupid grin off my face was the fact that Ingvild was watching her 'big sister' intently. Please Ingvild, don't learn from Valerie! If you're going to seduce me then find your own path!