"So find that child and protect them before they're turned into an evil dragon, all right?"
She understood at once that "that child" must mean the one who had been turned into the Evil Dragon.
It seemed he had been reincarnated as well.
And worse, judging from the Supreme God's nonchalant yet somehow urgent tone, it wouldn't be surprising if something were to happen at any moment.
Otherwise he wouldn't have brought her to the World Between at all.
Even with the Supreme God's blessing, this wasn't a place she should be brought to often.
"A beastman nation, you say. Which one?"
Just as there were many human nations, there were also many beastman nations of varying sizes.
She had no way of knowing how the balance of power stood after two hundred years, but they would likely never be unified into a single nation.
The same way human nations would never unite into one.
"Akashitrobia."
The moment she heard the name, flames of rage flared in Leticia's eyes.
"So they hadn't been destroyed..."
That was the detestable nation that had set in motion the birth of the Evil Dragon who'd brought chaos and despair to the world.
No, one could say they had even created the Evil Dragon.
It was no wonder Leticia felt such intense anger.
"To think they're that tenacious. I should have wiped them out while I had the chance."
They had created the Evil Dragon, only to lose control of him and let him run amok, suffering damage to their own country as a result.
Knowing the state they'd been in back then, Leticia found it almost strange that they were still around.
Perhaps she should have finished them off for the sake of the world.
Seeing Leticia seriously regret her actions, the Supreme God looked conflicted, as if he wanted to defend the beastmen but couldn't quite bring himself to.
"Your face is far too wicked for that to sound like a joke."
"It isn't a joke."
"That's even worse."
"Supreme God-sama, you know better than anyone how many nations and lives were lost because of that nation, don't you?"
"When you put it like that, it stings."
The Supreme God, who was smiling wryly, was the very one who had asked her to slay the Evil Dragon, so there was no way he didn't know how much turmoil the world had been in.
Had Leticia lost, the world would have been destroyed.
"Can't you do something about them, Supreme God-sama?"
"I've said it many times, but we can't meddle in the Mortal Realm more than necessary."
The gods said they couldn't intervene directly in the Mortal Realm.
Because their power was so immense that its effect on the Mortal Realm would be too great.
One misstep could throw the Mortal Realm out of balance, and that was precisely why Leticia had been chosen.
They could exert a certain degree of influence, like the way the Goddess of Fate had shaped her destiny, but going down in person to slay the Evil Dragon was another matter.
Far from protecting the Mortal Realm, they'd end up destroying it instead.
"...Oh dear, looks like time's about up."
The scenery around them abruptly warped and grew hazy.
"I'll give you this grimoire so you can handle whatever comes. It's best not to use grimoires that grant magic too powerful for the human world, but they're the finest tools for channeling magic, so it'll be a great asset to you, Leticia. Besides, that child wants to see you too. And take this as well."
A glowing round mass floated above the Supreme God's palm.
It drifted smoothly towards Leticia, sank into her chest and was absorbed.
"That's your mana. I'd been holding on to it since it would only have got in the way of an ordinary life. It'll take a little while for the mana to settle into your soul and body, so do be careful."
She felt a power inside her stronger than anything she'd ever experienced before.
Yet it was deeply familiar, with no sense of discomfort, as though she had always possessed it.
It felt as though it were already a part of her, but here she was only a spirit.
Most likely it would clash somewhat with the new body she'd gained through her rebirth.
"Well then, I'm counting on you. The Goddess of Darkness has been worried about the Evil Dragon's reincarnation too, so go and save him quickly."
"Before that, I'd like to punch you once."
"Ha ha ha! Farewell!"
The Supreme God vanished, laughing as though fleeing, and with him the grassland stretching as far as the eye could see disappeared too.
And then Leticia woke in that prison of a room.
Startled, she opened her eyes, and felt as though her vision had suddenly become clear.
She felt refreshed; everything that had been hazy until then had lifted.
But as she sat up from where she'd fallen on the floor and calmly assessed her current situation, her mood plummeted at once.
That said, it was only for a second.
What welled up immediately after was intense anger.
"He got away!"
Leticia pounded the floor with her fists, venting the anger that no longer had anywhere to go.
Hitting the hard floor with all her strength wouldn't so much as scratch it. If anything it only hurt her hands, but she was too furious to care.
Ideally, she'd have liked to turn that beautiful face of his bright red with her own two hands, but he'd been too quick to escape.
"Next time I see him, I'm definitely going to punch him in the face."
Having resolved that much, Leticia's anger turned towards another target.
The face of the violent man who had all but abducted her, brought her here and shut her in this cage of a room flashed through her mind, causing a deep furrow to form between her eyebrows.
"I'll have to beat the crap out of that guy before I beat up Supreme God-sama."
For the moment, at least, she'd found her immediate goal in a matter of seconds.
"But before that, I need to assess my current situation..."
As she tried to slowly rise from the cold floor, she felt a dull pain and a sudden loss of strength, causing her to crouch back down.
The pain came from both her ankles.
Deep scars remained there. They were painful to look at.
And not only that. Heavy shackles were fastened to both her legs, clanking dully every time she moved even a little.
The sound alone was enough to depress her, and on top of that the room she was in was dim, windowless, lit only by a candle.
She couldn't even tell whether it was day or night.
Then Leticia looked at her arms.
They were thin as twigs, nothing but skin and bone.
Her legs and body were the same.
Anyone who saw her would know at a glance that she hadn't been eating properly, and Leticia felt a mixture of anger and sadness welling up inside her.
As if adding insult to her injuries, Leticia found herself surrounded by a birdcage made of thick iron bars that all but declared she would never be let out.
What was more, the space she could move in was cramped, nowhere near enough room to live in good health.
That much was obvious from her limbs, stripped even of muscle.
There was no mirror in the room, but from the parts of herself she could see, she could imagine just how wretched she looked. She was so thin that she was glad she couldn't see the rest.
By contrast, the luxurious bed was large and soft, and the imbalance stood out all the more.
How on earth had it come to this...?
Looking back on her life as a caged bird, she did indeed have the memories of how this came about.
That was only natural. The Archmage's memories had simply returned, and the person called Leticia hadn't changed at all.
Of course, she'd also recalled the knowledge and experience she'd lost, so at first glance others might feel she'd changed, but to Leticia herself nothing felt out of place.
She simply felt a sense of relief, much like when one found something they had misplaced.
Leticia thought back to the days in this life when she was still living happily with her parents.
Ever since she was young, she'd dreamt of scenes and knowledge that she couldn't have known, which often surprised her parents and the villagers.
At the time she'd found it strange, but now that her memories were back it all made sense.
She realised that she had been unconsciously recalling and using the knowledge from her days as the Archmage.
Magic, too: she had used it naturally, without ever being taught by anyone.
Without a medium to improve the flow and control of her mana and let her use magic more effectively, the spells she could manage were truly only the simplest ones.
Even so, she remembered how the man next door would puff himself up over her basic magic, boasting as though she were his own daughter. "Leticia-chan's a genius! She used magic to help water the village fields, and in winter she started fires without firewood to keep us warm...!" he'd say, only for the other villagers to shoot back, "She's not your daughter, though."
For Leticia the Archmage they were elementary spells, child's play, not remotely difficult.
But there were only a few people who could cast those spells, and in the village at least she was the only one who could use magic at all.
Well, since the Supreme God had apparently been holding on to most of her mana, her reserves had been far from large, but Leticia had been glad to be of use to everyone in the village and had tried using magic in all sorts of situations.
"So my knowledge from my past life was coming out without me realising."
Memories of her past life and this one surfaced one after another, mingling and blending together seamlessly.
As they did, many things began to make sense too.
It wasn't as though she'd never once wondered, back in the village, why she was the only one who could use magic.
Neither her parents nor any of her ancestors had ever possessed mana.
"I said I wanted to live an ordinary life, and this isn't ordinary in the slightest."
True, the house she'd been born into was an ordinary farming household, but the fact that Leticia herself wasn't ordinary meant that nothing was ordinary anymore.
This was completely different from what she'd wished for; the feeling of this isn't it was just too overwhelming.
"Whoever's in charge, get out here!"
She shouted at the Supreme God, who wasn't there but was most likely watching.
Hearing that the Goddess of Fate hadn't managed to grant her wish because of the clumsy kid goddess, she felt less anger than sympathy. Thank you for your hard work.
But it was the Supreme God who oversaw that clumsy kid goddess, so she wanted him to take responsibility.
"And the Evil Dragon's soul getting caught up in it too, that's not funny at all!"
She'd traded her life to protect him, yet it felt like it had all been ruined.
The Evil Dragon couldn't be having an easy time of it either.
"And on top of that he tells me to find him and protect him. At least tell me where! Where?!"
With her anger exploding, Leticia couldn't stop the complaints spilling out of her mouth.
"There's a limit to how little you can learn, you Akashitrobia lot!"
The beastman nation that had once created the Evil Dragon.
She didn't know how much time had passed since then, but it seemed they hadn't changed their ways.
The mages had set out to destroy them, reasoning that a country guilty of the great sin of creating an evil dragon had no need to exist, but Leticia had been immediately summoned to the World Between and stopped by the gods.
She had been furious. Weren't the gods supposed to refrain from interfering with the Mortal Realm? But there was a reason why they couldn't allow the beastmen to be destroyed.
In that case, they could have spared the innocent beastmen and just destroyed Akashitrobia, but even so, the Supreme God and the Beast God who had created the beastmen ordered her not to.
Never had she felt the unreasonableness of the gods more keenly than then.
Being unable to take action against the root cause was something she couldn't accept.
The Goddess of Darkness, whose blessed child had been turned into the Evil Dragon, had sided with Leticia. Furious that her beloved child had been harmed, she had in fact given Leticia the go-ahead to wipe them out. Leticia should have done as the Goddess of Darkness said right away.
The other gods had given off the sense that they should be forgiven just this once, so the Goddess of Darkness had reluctantly backed down, and now it had all been for nothing.
The beastmen of Akashitrobia had no way of knowing about the exchange that had taken place among the gods, but she'd never imagined they would have learned absolutely nothing.
"...This time, I won't let him become an evil dragon."
Her gaze, filled with strong resolve, glittered brightly, bringing her pale blue eyes to life.
The dead, dark, stagnant eyes were gone.
"Right! First things first, time to gather some information!"
Leticia clenched her fist tight and thrust it high into the air.