"Lady Artemis..."
"Hm?"
"Lady Artemis, what brings you here?"
I asked the question as she looked around with interest at everything in sight.
Maybe because I was the one speaking first for once, she turned to me with an expression that was hard to read, as if she were both surprised and pleased.
Then she placed one hand on her chin and fell into thought. The sight of her was like a painting.
Her strange charm was so captivating that I almost lost myself just looking at her.
Kyaaa!
A shrill scream rang out from behind me.
"S-so noble...!"
"A-an artist! Bring me an artist! We have to preserve that sight forever!"
"Ah, I have no regrets left... (thud)."
"Lante collapsed?! Captain...!"
"(thud)."
"What are we supposed to do if you collapse too?!"
...Artemis Familia really was lively.
I understood it, but that reaction was just... what, were they Freya Familia or something?
"Hmm, why did I come here, you ask?"
Artemis answered in a calm voice, whether she knew her followers were reacting or not.
I wondered what kind of answer I'd get. It was a slightly tense moment.
"If I had to give a reason... just because, I suppose?"
"...Huh?"
"I did subjugate the Behemoth. I felt a powerful divine presence in Orario. Well, there are several reasons, but none of them really struck me all at once."
"Then why come to Orario...?"
"The children wanted to come as well..."
She drew out the end of her sentence and glanced at me from the corner of her eye.
"And I also had a bad dream."
With that, she went back to looking around.
"Now then, what is that over there? What do you call it?"
"...That is—"
What an absurd answer. And then an obvious change of subject.
I considered pressing her for a moment, but gave up and answered her question honestly.
If she was changing the subject, it meant she didn't want to talk about it, and I had no right to force anything on her.
Still, it was hard to endure this situation, so after watching the mood for a bit, I brought up another topic.
"Then, Lady Artemis, how long do you plan to stay here?"
"What, is my being here uncomfortable for you?"
"...If you intend to stay for a while, I thought finding lodging should come first."
"Hmm... that's true enough, I suppose..."
I brushed past the question that would have been hard to answer. Fortunately, my words seemed reasonable enough that we got through it safely.
Still, if that was her reaction to the question, then she clearly wasn't planning to stay for just one day.
Of course, gods who came from far away and left immediately were rarer to begin with, but... given her nature, I doubted she was planning to stay in Orario just to enjoy herself.
...Well, the situation was different from back then and now. Maybe she had followers with her and planned to rest for a few days out of consideration for them—
"Since it's come to this, it might be better to decide on a base of operations in advance."
"Yes, then I'll guide you— wait, what did you just say?"
Base of operations? Not lodging?
"Hmm, I rather like this Orario. Since it's come to this, settling down here wouldn't be a bad idea."
"..."
I was left speechless by her words.
I had never expected to hear something like that from her mouth.
Artemis Familia wandered from place to place without settling down, helping many people along the way.
For her to settle in Orario? The villages around Orario were already under the Guild's influence, so there would be little for her to do in practice.
In other words, she was saying she would give up the work she had done until now and act here as an adventurer...
"...Are you sure that's all right?"
"What do you mean?"
"If you settle in Orario, you won't be able to keep doing what you've been doing until now."
"How surprising. Has the children's fame spread all the way to Orario?"
The moment I heard that, my body gave a jolt.
Come to think of it, my cover was that I was meeting her for the first time. Had I been too careless just now?
"...They're famous, yes."
"Hmm. It is certainly a level of fame that's hard to see outside. But to think it had reached Orario as well."
I couldn't bring myself to meet her eyes as she looked at me with a faint smile, seeming to enjoy this far too much.
It felt as if everything about me would be laid bare just by standing across from her. I pulled my robe down tighter in a pointless attempt to hide myself, but for some reason it didn't feel reassuring at all.
"In Orario too, anyone above Level 2 is classified as a high-ranking adventurer. The conditions are a little more favorable than elsewhere, but in the end it's still a place where people live."
"I see. Well, that makes sense."
Her understanding expression gave me a strange sense of unease.
The goddess standing before me felt almost like the goddess I knew...
No, that couldn't be. Even if she was the same goddess, she was not the moonlight I knew.
The Artemis of then and the Artemis of now were clearly different beings. Even gods, who were said to be unchanging, could change; that was something I knew all too well by now.
The Artemis of that time had shown many changes over the time we spent together. She was certainly a unique existence, different from the Artemis before me now.
It would be rude to both the goddess in my memories and the goddess in front of me to look at them with the same eyes just because they were the same person.
I quickly shook off those pointless thoughts and returned to the subject.
"...For now, before deciding on a base of operations, it would be better to settle on lodging first. A base of operations isn't something you can obtain overnight, even if you want one."
"I see. That's true enough."
She nodded repeatedly, agreeing with me.
As if she were going to let my words carry her along.
"..."
That only made the strange sense of unease stronger.
Artemis was, you know. Back when she was in the divine realm, she was the ultimate anti-romance type who hated men just from looking at them.
The impression I had once heard of her and the woman standing before me now were just too different.
I had thought it was strange before, but if it was this different, I couldn't just pretend not to notice.
Even if my actions had influenced her, that would only have been within Orario. It might not be impossible, but surely it hadn't affected Lady Artemis, who had been active far away from here.
But Lady Artemis had already been acting strangely from the moment she met me.
Why?
I couldn't figure out the reason at all. It was so strange I almost wondered if she had come from the future like me.
I had only heard a few words about Lady Artemis from others, so I couldn't be certain... but no one would normally describe this as anti-romance behavior.
I glanced back over my shoulder.
The women's gazes were still swarming there.
They were definitely her followers. Maybe I could learn something by listening to them?
"Where are you looking?"
"Uph—?!"
Apparently she didn't like me looking elsewhere. Lady Artemis pouted slightly and placed a hand on my cheek, forcibly turning my face back toward her.
"Wai—"
Her face was too close!
My barely settled nerves were thrown into chaos by the sudden situation.
My face flushed like a rookie's, and my eyes darted around wildly. But with my face held firmly in place, no matter where I looked my vision was filled with the goddess in front of me, and with nowhere to run I could only squeeze my eyes shut and pray desperately for my heart to calm down.
But the warmth from her hands on both my cheeks wouldn't allow that, and in the end I had no choice but to open my eyes and meet hers.
"Oh?"
My reaction seemed to amuse her, and the goddess wore a mischievous smile.
That expression made my heart pound hard in a different way than before, and I thought that was unavoidable.
The playful expression on a naturally radiant goddess had the power to strike straight at the heart.
From far away, I could hear one collapse after another with dull thuds. So I wasn't the only one.
"..."
"..."
Unlike her teasing expression, the goddess did nothing after that. I had been frozen for quite some time already.
My master's teachings had long since been bleached out of my mind and vanished. My thoughts weren't working properly, and my memories showed no sign of surfacing, only sinking to the bottom of my mind beneath a blank, white haze.
"Mm, mm..."
A faint blush colored the goddess's face. Had she lost the courage to go any further after making that mischievous expression?
She was probably in the middle of getting carried away by the atmosphere with a member of the opposite sex she was encountering for the first time, only to regain her senses and end up unable to move forward or back.
That was so like her, and yet not like her at all, that my heart finally began to settle. Ironically, it was only because I confirmed that she was not the Artemis I knew that I could find some peace of mind.
But even so, the strange atmosphere that had formed between us did not disappear so easily, and an unbearable awkwardness hung in the air.
Maybe it was my imagination, but it felt as if even the world had held its breath and was watching us. As we faced each other in silence, our faces close together, she seemed to steel herself for something and opened her mouth—
"Ves-ta-kun?"
""?!""
Startled by the voice from behind us, we both sprang apart in a movement so abrupt it might as well have made a popping sound.
What was this situation? It felt like we'd been caught in some secret romance.
...No, what am I even thinking?
I'm not a rookie. Don't get flustered over something like this.
Even as I scolded myself belatedly, I turned toward the voice that had called out to us.
"Was I interrupting a pleasant moment?"
"...No. Of course not."
Ah, that startled me. I thought it was Arphia.
It wasn't Arphia, but Meteria wearing an Arphia-like expression. So they really were sisters. Now that I looked, they really did resemble each other.
The problem was why she had suddenly turned into Arphia.
"What exactly are the two of you doing right now...?"
Her voice was as soft and gentle as ever, but the emotion in it was absolutely not the usual one.
W-what is this situation...? It's like we got caught meeting a girlfriend in secret behind our parents' backs...?
"We were on a date."
"Eh?!"
"Don't say that so proudly! Are you invincible or something?! And why are you the one who's surprised, Ves-ta-kun!"
In the end, Meteria threw off her gentle tone and shouted.
But I wasn't in a position to care about that.
"A date...?"
Me? With Lady Artemis?
That was impossible. I had thought things were strange, but this was far too strange.
It was not the kind of thing she would say, even as a joke.
Combined with everything that had happened until now, the sense of unease inside me had finally grown too large to ignore.
The goddess standing before me now was...
Who, exactly, was she?