“Holy Sword, I might really fail this time.”
In Xuefei’s small room, the Evil Dragon Girl lay sprawled on the bed like a limp cotton candy, her mind utterly scattered.
She dangled her legs listlessly, lost in some bizarre state.
It was worse than sage mode—in fact, it was sage mode on steroids.
She was well on her way to being fucked senseless!
At that moment, the Holy Sword, which Xuefei had stashed under the bed, spoke up softly.
“Hero, have you failed?”
“Yes, failed,” Xuefei replied weakly.
Stalling wasn’t an option in front of that stubborn woman. The only way to trick her demanded paying with her own body.
Take right now, for instance. In her utter despair, Xuefei had a sudden flash of inspiration: use a fight to break free.
But win or lose, the outcome was clear. She’d end up pregnant with Leia’s child and turned into the woman’s pet—or worse, her slave.
“No hope left?”
Xuefei reached out with her pale little hand, crimson pupils peeking through her fingers as she stared desperately at the drab gray ceiling.
A few bats flitted past the window outside. They hung upside down from the eaves, peering curiously at Miss Evil Dragon. But the instant their gazes met Xuefei’s blood-red eyes, they panicked and fled.
Miss Great Sage had betrayed humanity. The rest of the Hero Party was out of contact, and there was no way to reach them anyway. Even if she could, they would never believe that she—their former comrade—had become the big bad boss.
The Gods had probably summoned a new Hero by now, but what did that matter to her?
At the current difficulty level of the Camiran Continent, heroes were pointless.
Leia could summon millions of meteors with a flick of her wrist or whip up a tsunami with a single breath to swallow a whole island. Human city walls crumbled like paper before the Demon Race army.
This world already belonged to Leia.
Yet in that instant, Xuefei’s gaze hardened with resolve. She muttered to herself, “No, there’s still hope… if you can call it that.”
“Hero, have you come up with a plan?” The Holy Sword’s emotionless synthesized voice startled her, making her body jolt.
“You damn Holy Sword,” she grumbled. “Can’t even help me brainstorm some ideas!”
Xuefei reached out to smack it but deflated when she remembered it was under the bed. She flopped back down.
The Holy Sword, however, sounded a touch indignant.
“Master, I’m quite capable. If we can leave the Evil Dragon Palace, without the magic suppression holding me back, I can sense every enemy for you.”
“But we’d still have to get out of here first…”
Xuefei had almost no experience venturing beyond the Evil Dragon Palace.
Leia occasionally took her on walks, but those hardly counted as escapes.
She was under constant watch—not just from Leia herself, who perched atop the palace, but from the Head Maid and all sorts of detection devices. One unauthorized step, and it wouldn’t end with just getting knocked up with a dragon egg once.
“So, Hero,” the Holy Sword pressed, “have you thought of a good plan?”
“Of course. This might be a real strategy—or maybe just the desperate thrashing of someone at the end of her rope. Either way, I hope it means something.”
After all, she was a Hero.
Heroes weren’t chosen lightly by the Gods.
It was because, at that moment in time across her entire world, no one was better suited to conquering the Camiran Continent.
Getting fucked into pregnancy didn’t change the fact that Xuefei wasn’t some no-name loser!
She balled up her little fist.
“Holy Sword, listen to me…”
“Your powers aren’t suppressed enough to block ‘voice transmission,’ right?”
“I can transmit voice,” the Holy Sword replied. A hint of excitement crept into its flat tone, speeding up its words slightly. “But only if you touch me.”
“You’re really useless at the worst times,” Xuefei sighed. “No matter. This will do.”
“And your memory hasn’t degraded to the point you can’t recite classical poetry, has it?”
“My memory remains intact. Even the World Restart hasn’t eroded it.”
“As punishment, recite this: ‘Before my bed, the moonlight glows…'”
“…”
After a pause, the Holy Sword responded in its usual monotone. “My poetry database does not contain the verse you mentioned, Hero.”
“You’re such an idiot!”
“That may be a poem from one of your previous worlds, not native to the Camiran Continent.”
“…”
Xuefei nodded. The Holy Sword had a point.
The blade of the Holy Sword glowed faintly. “My memory is excellent. I remember your name, Mo Ran. I’ve rediscovered it.”
“What a foreign-sounding name…,” Xuefei sighed. She felt almost no familiarity with the name Mo Ran at all. “As long as your memory isn’t faulty, that’s enough. More than enough. Enough for me to turn the tables.”
Xuefei’s cute lips curved upward in a slight pout, though it made her mouth feel a touch sore. The fresh, clean fragrance lingered on her lips and tongue.
From her tone, the Holy Sword seemed to hear the voice of that undefeated hero from the past—the one who had triumphed in battle after battle.
It was as if the fight had never truly ended. It was just that all her former companions were gone now. Clearly, this time would bring the deepest despair yet. And the sun of hope would be harder to raise than ever before.
Xuefei confirmed it with a nod, because she was about to become a mom out of the blue.
“Hero, could you share your brilliant plan with me?”
The Holy Sword was curious.
Had the Hero found a way to defeat that Evil Dragon?
Or was she planning to pull the same trick as before…?
The Holy Sword remembered how, in moments like these, the Hero had always shattered despair with some clever scheme and forged hope from nothing. And her methods had often included sacrificing her companions.
From the perspective of the outcome on the Camiran Continent, she had succeeded.
So this time, was she planning to abandon the Holy Sword—abandon it?
“If there’s anything you need me to do, I’ll give it my all, Hero.”
“Really?” Xuefei tilted her head, a half-smile playing on her lips.
“The Holy Sword never lies.”
“…”
“You’ve got zero sense of humor, old pal.”
“I have no emotions. Strictly speaking, I’m a weapon programmed with intelligence.”
Xuefei rolled over, not caring in the least that her little foot had kicked the thin summer blanket onto the floor.
She wasn’t planning to sleep anyway.
“Holy Sword.” Xuefei’s gaze drifted to the ceiling, as if she were back in the past. “Do you remember how we used to roam the world? Traveling across countries, gathering power, assembling our team? Those were feats worthy of epic poems in the history books~”
“Of course I remember.”
Not everyone in the Hero Party had come from the Human World.
There was the girl skilled in magic, the wise sage, the swift elf, the mighty battle beast that fought like a hero, the beautiful snake-person princess…
The tide of memories surged through Xuefei’s heart, pounding against the farthest shores of her soul as she recalled their desperate struggle against the Evil Dragon.
“Do you remember Qiaosika’s apple pie? Oh man, it’s a good thing you didn’t eat any, Holy Sword!”
“Too much sugar,” the Holy Sword stated quietly.
“Yeah! Do you know what Leia said?” Xuefei laughed brightly.
“That one said she’d recreate it. And her apple pie really wasn’t as cloyingly sweet. But do you know why?”
“The Hero remembers every experience.”
The Holy Sword’s response made Xuefei’s nose tingle, but she pinched it and pressed on with her reminiscing:
“Yeah, Leia had mistaken salt for sugar. Do you know what a salty apple pie tastes like?”
“I can’t distinguish flavors.”
“That’s a shame, Holy Sword, because those two airheads made way too much. For a while there, apple pie was all we had for dinner! We had to pick between mildly salty and sickeningly sweet every night. Eventually, we got so fed up that mealtime turned into a blind loot box—we’d just roll the dice and hope for the best!”
“You seem to like Leia. It looks like the Hero has fallen to evil corruption.”
“I do not!” Xuefei protested vehemently.
“My judgment is infallible. Your spirit is closer to Xuefei than to Mo Ran.”
And this evil corruption seemed to stem from awakening Xuefei’s “fondness” for Leia, influencing rather than destroying her personality… What if Xuefei, as a girl, grew even more fond of Leia? Wouldn’t her personality undergo some strange shifts?
And if she fell to it completely…
“Hmph, I don’t like her at all…”
…
That night, Xuefei shared story after story with the Holy Sword.
In the cramped little room, she spun tales of things that might never have happened—sometimes with excitement in her voice, sometimes with sorrow, but mostly with a deep sense of nostalgia.
And as she’d asked, the Holy Sword recorded it all.
Time passed—who knew how much? Maybe half an hour, maybe the whole night. As the appointed hour approached, Xuefei propped herself up against the headboard, her white-stockinged feet swinging idly back and forth.
“You know how tough it is to clear an S-Rank world, right, Holy Sword?” she said with a soft grumble.
“I understand perfectly, but…” The Holy Sword paused, as if hesitating. “Are you sure about this, Hero?”
“Of course. Hmph…”
Xuefei hopped off the bed, smoothing the white dress she’d just changed into and her long hair that gleamed like silver satin. The bedside mirror reflected a Dragon Girl as beautiful as a heavenly immortal.
Her scarlet eyes shone like a priceless sparkling gem.
