Former Hero, Solo Play Oriented

"Unnie!"

"Hngh!"

Kris gasped sharply, her body flinching as she turned to face me.

She rubbed her eyes hastily. It was obvious. She had been crying.

I asked, feigning anger.

"Unnie, are you crying?"

"N-No, I wasn’t."

Her voice wavered.

"Why aren’t you asking me anything?"

"Because Unnie isn’t that smart. Mmm… I only got the gist that our Seulbi is a Goddess! Hehe."

Really? No, she understood.

She understood that I had to choose—between this world and Astria Continent.

I could guess what Kris was feeling. Even if she couldn’t stop me from leaving, she didn’t want us to part.

Astria Continent would have to exist as a separate world, completely detached from Earth.

Why had I come to love that world? Was it because I was born and raised there? Because I had fought to protect it? Because I met my comrades there?

Or had I come to love it naturally because I carried the soul of the next Goddess?

What I felt for Astria was similar to the feelings one might have for a child—not one I had physically given birth to, but one I had raised with all my care.

For now, thanks to Han Yeoreum’s power, many Heroes had been sent there. And with me, their Goddess, still involved, the immediate threat of the demons could be dealt with.

If this were before, if it had been before I met Kris, my decision would have been different.

I would have left Earth without hesitation.

I would have returned to the continent I loved, lived happily among the people I had saved, spent a full human lifetime there, and, once my time as a mortal ended, continued to watch over that land as its Goddess.

But what if I chose to stay here because I didn’t want to part with Kris?

What would happen to Astria Continent without its Goddess?

What about the empires left behind by Leoner and Bernhardt? Igrain, who had been reborn and was now living a new life? Amelia, the Saintess who had devoted herself to me?

Would I come to regret it?

Every day, would I worry about the continent I had abandoned?

Would I fear that, without a Goddess, that world would once again become a lost fragment of a dimension—erasing everything I had saved?