Heiterge

We should be almost at our destination.

Fern glanced at Frieren, who was speaking, and asked, "Lady Frieren, why do you seem reluctant to go to the secret hot springs?"

"I suppose so," Frieren said softly. "Himmel and I searched for quite a while in the Etovis Mountains for this secret hot spring."

"When Himmel encounters a rare place, he will never stop until he has explored every single corner of it."

"Furthermore, we encountered a major problem on our way to the secret hot spring. A very troublesome monster is nearby, and to get to the hot spring, we have to pass through its territory."

Frieren had barely finished speaking.

A deafening, hoarse roar then rang out.

Then a three-headed dragon engulfed in black flames landed before the crowd, its wings blotting out the sky.

With a flap of its wings, streaks of black sparks fell upon the surrounding trees.

Strangely, although the sparks landed on the trees, they immediately merged together and turned into a raging fire.

Strangely, the trees that had been scorched by the fire appeared to be completely unharmed.

Frieren noticed something was amiss the moment she saw the three-headed dragon.

This was completely different from the situation she had encountered last time.

After summoning his wand, he said with a serious expression:

"Rienta, Fern, Stark, we might be in trouble. Let's retreat."

"Rienta? Fern? Stark?"

Frieren didn't hear any familiar voices, and when she turned her head slightly, she found that there was no one around.

She was alone, surrounded by raging black flames.

"Rienta, it's been a long time."

The three-headed dragon stood upright and, like a human, smiled and greeted the petite figure in front of it.

But only the one in the middle had a hint of liveliness in its eyes.

The two dragon heads on the side had their eyes closed.

Rienta was still marveling at the existence of such a powerful monster in this world the moment the three-headed dragon appeared.

But the next moment, he realized that his teammates were gone.

This is the first time I've seen something like this.

Even Frieren was completely powerless to resist.

Rienta immediately activated her ethereal transformation and set up dozens of [Projection Magic] arrays around herself.

Just as they were about to make their move, they heard the three-headed dragon's voice.

And it vaguely felt somewhat familiar.

Seeing that the three-headed dragon in front of her did not seem to have any ill intentions, Rienta did not make a move immediately.

He temporarily canceled the blurring effect and asked, "Who are you?"

The three-headed dragon chuckled and said, "No wonder you didn't recognize me; I do look somewhat different from how I did in the first round of the exam."

"I am Heiterge, and I am also the God of the Capital."

"The capital?!" Rienta stared incredulously at the three-headed dragon before her and asked:

How could you possibly be here???

"... Heh." The three-headed dragon chuckled, its tone slightly teasing, and said:

"I have to thank you for that, Rienta."

"I don't understand you."

The god, or rather, Heiterge, first transformed his body to be the same size as Rienta.

It instantly transformed into the demons of this world.

Apart from having two horns on its head, it is no different from a human.

Then, smiling, he said to Rienta, "Don't you have a lot of kitchen utensils? Hurry up and bring them out to entertain our guests. How can we chat without drinking tea?"

Rienta was silent for a moment, then waved her hand and took out a set of table and chairs from her Personal Space.

After the two sat down, they used magic to pour each of them a cup of tea.

However, it's not the black tea from this world.

It was the tea from his memory.

The tea liquor was a bright, pale green, but contained no tea leaves.

This is tea he made based on his own impressions.

It has a slightly astringent taste at first, but leaves a sweet aftertaste.

It is tea, yet it is not tea.

Frieren and the others didn't like drinking it, Rienta usually only had a cup when she stayed up late researching magic.

Heiterge picked up the teacup and took a small sip.

He frowned and said, "Rienta, is this tea?"

"Hmph," Rienta snorted, "I've never had tea before, so I can only rely on my imagination. Drink it or don't, it's up to you. If you don't want it, give it back."

After saying that, he reached out to snatch the teacup from Heiterge's hand.

Heiterge turned his body to the side, dodging Rienta's palm.

He chuckled lightly and said, "I didn't say I wouldn't drink."

After saying that, he drank the tea in his cup in one gulp.

"Where are Lady Frieren and Fern in the capital?" Rienta asked coldly.

Heiterge smacked his lips, as if savoring the tea he had just tasted.

"Just call me Heiterge. Don't worry, I won't lay a hand on them, and I'm no match for your master anyway."

They are now in your illusion.

Rienta was taken aback by these words and asked, "My illusion?"

Heiterge's expression turned serious, and he said, "That's right, your illusion. To be precise, another illusion of yours."

"I do not understand."

Heiterge did not answer, but instead pushed the teacup in his hand toward Rienta, his meaning quite clear.

Rienta's face darkened, but she still poured Heiterge another cup of tea.

Heiterge nodded in satisfaction.

Having the young Rienta pour tea for me is truly a wonderful thing.

I can brag about it to Honoroy when I get back.

This time, Heiterge didn't keep her in suspense and happily took a sip of tea.

He began by saying, "The matter is complicated, so I'll keep it brief."

"The first Rienta to arrive in this world was about 500 years before the Demon King was defeated."

"After reaching the pinnacle of humanity and defeating the Demon King at the time, a plan for ascension was devised."

"But he doesn't have your immortality, so he captured many demons and elves to study the secret of immortality."

"But his lifespan wasn't long enough to allow him to live to see the day his research succeeded."

"Ultimately, for reasons unknown, he discovered a way to travel through time, hoping to use this method to pass on the latest research results to his past self in order to accelerate the process."

"However, due to the corrective force, this method did not succeed."

"But this inadvertently created another timeline."

"This timeline also features a Rienta, but the two Rienta appear at different times."

"This time, he appeared before Himmel defeated the Demon King, and he became the new hero, defeating the Demon King in Himmel's place."

"After that, he made the same plan as the previous Rienta."

The results were pretty much the same.

"Constant failures lead to the creation of new timelines."

Rienta listened for a while, then couldn't help but interrupt, "Make it even more concise."

"..." Heiterge was silent for a moment, then rolled his eyes at Rienta helplessly.

"Anyway, there's a timeline where you broke this cycle, and then you used Rienta from other timelines to experiment."

"The illusion that trapped Frieren and the others was given to me by him."

"I think it's called something like [Mirror Flower, Water Moon]?"