"It's you..."
The silhouette of the giant goddess in front of him performed a pose, doing a V-shape with her fingers. "Yep! It's me!" she said, in a
non-goddess-like tone.
Michael knew there was something wrong with this hallucination. As it turned out, everything was being manipulated by the goddess in front of him.
"Why?" he asked.
The Goddess didn't seem to like his disappointed tone as she put her hands on her waist and pouted. "Hmph! Here I was, thinking you'd be elated seeing an old friend. Well, forgive me if I just wanted to see you."
He wanted to say that she did accidentally kill him, and that wasn't grounds for him to be friends with her. But given all the talents and powers she'd given him in his new world, they were pretty much even at that point.
"Is this still a hallucination?" he asked.
"Well...yes and no. Yes, in that your body is still in a hallucination, but you are really talking to me, the goddess."
"So, were you the one who made me have that hallucination of being back in my old world?"
The Goddess shook her head. "Nope. That's all you."
Now, Michael was even more confused than before. He thought that she showed that alternate reality of him being back in his old world purely as a way to mess with him. But as it turned out, it really was just a hallucination.
But why did Yuna seem like she was also affected?
The Goddess then laid down on her stomach, with her feet kicking giddily. "Anyway, I just wanted to talk with you and congratulate you on all the things you've done in your new world. I'm having the time of my life just watching from the sidelines," she praised.
Michael stayed silent as he was still struggling to process the information.
"Was the second scenario also a hallucination?" he asked her.
"That's real," she confirmed. "Have you guessed where you ended up?" "The Ancient Era."
The Goddess suddenly summoned a bell and rang it three times. "DING! DING! DING! That's right! I just showed you the life of the Ancient Humans before everything collapsed."
So that was real. I was standing on the Royal Continent thousands of years before the current one.
It was surreal to realize that.
"Wait. The woman and the priest said that they were worshipping Gaia. Are you her?"
The Goddess flashed a smile before shaking her head. "Unfortunately no! I just performed some tricks so that I could talk to you."
For a second, he thought that she really was the Goddess that the Vampires worshipped. But on second thought, she looked nothing like the Iron Maiden he saw when she manifested above his head.
The Iron Maiden looked dignified, while this Goddess looked... bratty. "Hey!" she screamed, offended. "Here I was doing you a favor. Hmph." "A favor?"
"Yep! I was just going to confirm one of your guesses about who that blonde girl is."
That blonde girl?... Kuno?
"Yep!" the Goddess beamed. "She is none other than the Original Vampire that the legends speak of. But as you already know, she has lost her memory.
You might think that it's a coincidence meeting her, but no. She sensed you when the Vampires started worshipping the Iron Maiden. It brought back a bit of divinity for Gaia."
Michael would have never thought that one of Fudge's little pranks ended up becoming so big. It was literally involving deities!
"I'm so excited!" said the Goddess. "Things are heating up. Things are finally changing! Gaia's on her way to revival, and the Dragonborns are close to their awakening!"
Michael noticed a slight change in the Goddess' voice. There was a slight emphasis on the word 'awakening.
On the surface level, it just looked like she was talking about the Dragonborns' awakening with their Divas and their Aubility Powers. But given the context of the situation, he was starting to think that she was talking about something else entirely.
It was weird that she would mention the Dragonborns when the conversation wasn't anywhere close to them.
"Awakening? What are you talking about?" he asked her.
The Goddess smiled and turned up her head. "Oh? You picked up on that, huh? Well, let's just say that they're finally close to realizing their true latent talents."
Michael did remember something. When he evolved the siblings from a Komodo species to the Dragonborns that they were now, he noticed that the supposed talent rating that they had was blank, meaning that not even ChatJK5 could properly assess their true talents.
Was the Goddess talking about this?
"Can you give me any hints? What kind of power do they have?" he
asked her.
The Goddess crossed her arms on her chest and turned away. "Hmph.
Now that you want something from me, you're suddenly acting so
friendly, huh?
Well, I can't tell you. Literally, or else space and time itself would rip this whole world apart.
All I can say to you is that you're on the right track. You have nudged
them in the right path.
Just keep on doing what you're doing."
Then suddenly, Michael felt the Goddess' voice start to move further and further away from him, her words starting to turn into an echo.
"See you later!" she said, winking.
Then, as his whole world turned white, he suddenly jolted awake, finding himself back in the dimly lit room with mushrooms growing on the walls and the cracks on the ceiling.
Right next to him was the same old man, who was still fast asleep but with a wide smile on his face. He seemed to have a grand time with his
hallucination.
[Michael? What happened?]
ChatJK5's voice was full of worry. For the first time, she was
completely cut off from Michael, leaving her all alone and filled completely with worry. Even if it only lasted for a couple of minutes, for her, it felt like an eternity.
It's fine. I just had a chat with an old friend, he replied. What
happened?
[You didn't seem to be affected by the mushroom, so I thought that
you were immune to its effects. However, you suddenly fell into a coma with no warning. If it had lasted for a few more minutes, I would have activated the death protocol.]
That seemed ominous. What exactly would you have done?
[I would have taken control of your body and laid waste to this land as
a way to honor your life.]
[Kukuku, and I would have helped you.]
Michael shook his head. He definitely couldn't die now after knowing what ChatJK5 and Harbinger planned to do post mortem. If those two
started working together, he feared for everyone's life.
"BWUA?!"
Suddenly, the old man next to him jolted awake.
"WOOOH! That was a good one!" the old man said, raising both his
hands.
Then, he turned to Michael. "Did ya have fun? You did right? Want to have another one?"
Michael didn't want to experience that again. After seeing his old life,
he realized that he truly loved to be in this world. And given a chance
to go back, he would still remain here. "No thanks," he replied. "Now, about the Morel Spores..."