Yeah, so this douchebag is still talking. I’ve long since tuned him out and just answered with “uh-huh” and “I see” or whatever.

“-And that’s why I – the TRUE hero of this game, need to smite you! For the good of all, and so I can keep getting stronger! Just imagine what I could accomplish if I had your power!? I’d be unstoppable!”

“Yeah, so. I’m going to stop you right there. You can’t have my power. I’m a literal god, and you’re a literal idiot,” I counter.

“Y-you!” the so-called hero sputters, “How DARE you! The goddess herself brought me here, gave me the grand mission of saving the world!”

I furrow my brow. “First, what world, and second, what goddess? There are a lot of those.”

“Why, the goddess! The one behind the mask, pretending to be all the others! Even you! …Although I’ll admit I’m not quite sure how that works.”

“We’re not getting anywhere,” I sigh.

(Now you know how it feels,) Nyx comments.

I’m going to choose to ignore that for now. But yeah, sure. Dumb people are obnoxious.

“Let’s start at the beginning again, I guess. Who the hells are you, and why the hells are you here?”

The shiny armored idiot puffs up with self-assigned importance. “I am the TRUE HERO, Flight Skybright!”

I’m rubbing the bridge of my nose before I even realize it. “Yeah, no.”

“No?” they ask confusedly.

I drop heavily back onto my throne. “No, I’m not calling you that. Your name is stupid, and so are you.”

All sorts of veins start throbbing on the dumb human’s face. “You… You would mock the name the goddess herself gave me!?”

“Oh gods… she named you too? Do you even have a name of your own?”

“OF COURSE NOT! That’s one of the first things lost when you get sent to another world!” they snap.

I nod sagely.

And then I grin.

(Oh no. Another idea?)

Cram it, this one’s good.

“Well, your name sucks, so I’ll give you a better one. From now on, I’m going to call you Dipshit.”

“D-d-d-d-!?” they stammer in rage.

But before they can do anything even more stupid, I continue.

“{Status alter TrueName Dipshit}.”

I don’t even sag from the inevitable pounding headache.

“There, see? All done. Nice to meet you, Dipshit.”

“Wait, you can do that!?”

Vivianne’s interruption draws my attention for a moment, just long enough for Dipshit to roar in anger and start charging toward me, sword held high.

My retainers draw their weapons and start to advance, but I raise a hand to pause them. “No, I’ll handle this. I need to test just how stupid powerful Spellspeech is anyway.”

I wait until he’s almost in striking range before I point one finger at him and say, “{explode}.”

***

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

The clothes Olive keeps dressing me up in may be fancy, but they definitely still stain. I guess this set is probably going to be, I don’t know, burned or something now.

Maybe the vampire maids want to… what, lick it or make tea from it or something? Dried blood has to be something like that drink powder stuff or whatever, right?

Well, at least it wasn’t a total waste. I gave Dipshit’s former party their gear – as damaged and full of former-human as it was – as well as a thousand enni each as a reward for surviving being in a party with the ‘TRUE HERO’.

I’m not even going to ask who was behind this. I already know it was Dolos.

I can’t help but sigh.

Rose is busy absorbing Dipshit’s remains through the dungeon floor and walls, but that certainly doesn’t help me any. Meanwhile, Olive has been frantically failing to convey that I should visit the castle baths.

But it’s okay. I know what she’s trying to get at. After all, her babbling contained the word ‘bath’ at least four times.

Well, whatever.

“Fine. Take us there, then.”

Not even a minute later, I’ve reverted to ash and let my soiled dress squelch to the ground and promptly reformed my body. My fox maid immediately starts hosing me down with the apparently magic-powered apparatus on the wall that jets water all over.

And then she starts scrubbing my back.

…While Izahne disrobes much more slowly as only body-havers can and joins me.

Huh.

Without looking her way, I wait for her to sit in front of another nearby water apparatus thing before manifesting a feeler and lifting one of the wash rags hung along the wall. And then I cautiously reach over and scrub her back with it, while Olive does the same for me.

And after another moment of that, I stand and make my way to the ridiculously oversized pool of hot water.

Pearl is already in it and soaking – as soon as we arrived she didn’t bother with the wall water thing and instead just shed the entire outer layer of the rubbery oily goop she’s apparently made of now and went straight in.

The former healer unsurprisingly glares at me as I drop in with a splash. After a moment of settling into the hot water, I turn my attention to her.

“You know, I’m surprised you’re even here. I thought you wanted nothing to do with me or whatever.”

“I don’t,” she snaps and spits over her shoulder. “I’m not here for you. I’m here for her.”

She gestures in Izahne’s direction as my wife slides into the bath without even making the water ripple.

“Huh. Okay.”

It registers that my wife is actually kind of near me right now. Not close enough to touch, but. For some reason it feels like she wouldn’t normally be doing this, at least not lately.

(That’s because she’s making an effort to move on, idiot,) Nyx says just before materializing already in the water, displacing it around her with a pop and a splash.

I see.

Whatever that means.

…

“Hey, I thought you were supposed to be a consort or something? Why are you just standing back there?” I ask as Olive demurely waits to the side, still in her maid uniform.

And of course all she says is, “This one serves.”

“Fine.”

I manifest a number of feelers and reach behind me to snatch her from the ground, shifting her clothes into my dimensional storage and unceremoniously dropping her naked in the middle of the bath.

***

…And now we’re back in my ridiculously oversized bedroom.

Izahne, I mean. Izahne and me.

…

I still don’t need to sleep, and neither does she.

But she asked for this, and I’m not opposed to it, so it’s fine.

Yes, she’s clinging to me like before, but noticeably less tight. Also, I can feel the hesitance in the back of her mind through our bond, and how she’s trying to hide it or stifle it or something.

I manifest a feeler, something she doesn’t miss considering I can see her eyes following it in the darkness. Her hesitance grows into something more like trepidation, but I’m not really sure what exactly she thinks I’m going to do with it.

But I know.

And so I gently pat her head with it, and even more gently touch her with Consume.

My wife lets out a sigh and relaxes a bit more, and a bit more into my side.

…

…

Maybe this is what we needed.

Thank you, Olive, I project to the scantily-clad fox maid concealed in the far shadow of a support column. I felt her enter the room – because of course she did, she does every night and every night I throw her out. But then she stopped in recognition, and instead of audibly padding over she chose to hide and give my wife and I space.

And I appreciate it.

…

I’d appreciate it more if she’d just stop playing bedroom invader, though. I’m not sure what exactly she’s trying to make happen.

(You definitely don’t, and I’m not going to explain it, so just call it ‘human things’ again like you usually do,) Nyx sighs in my mind, despite still carving away in the forge like she usually does if she’s not following me around.

And that’s fine. I don’t really care.

(Good.)

Good.

***

Well, I’m back in the town square, sitting on the edge of the fountain.

…

…

It’s really setting in just how boring it can be, just being a god.

…

I need to find something to do.

…

Olive, are there any other dungeons or whatever around?

A flash of blue flames later, my loyal retainer drifts to the ground nearby and immediately reaches for her writing tablet – I can’t help but feel appreciation for how well she learned to do that.

Huh. No more dungeons, other than the one at Dungeon Town – okay so, it had a name originally, but I didn’t bother replacing the missing sign or anything and the adventurers just, kind of made their own. So it’s Dungeon Town now. Whatever.

Oh, and also the one I had Rose make under Moonside, the Moonside Labyrinth…

…

Wait, did we ever set that one up?

“We never set up the Moonside Labyrinth, did we?” I ask Olive.

She blinks, and then offers a small shake of her head.

“Good. That’s what we’re going to do now.”