By Zephyria 
A long, detailed explanation followed.
Mika told me in a tender voice that the mind method and sword art engraved into my body had become the foundation that would bind me to her side forever.
Throughout it all, she never once raised her voice. Even when I spoke harshly several times, even when I acted out to offload my anxiety and restlessness, or when I continued to spout useless worries.
Until just a moment ago, I had been drenched in a bottomless sense of helplessness. I couldn’t believe the unexpected stroke of luck that had suddenly fallen into my arms.
That was why I kept wanting to test Mika’s tenderness, the love bestowed upon me. I opened my mouth haltingly.
“…Still, if you find someone you like more than me…”
“Ruben.”
Had I been too persistent?
Embarrassed, I curled the tip of my tongue inside my mouth and fell silent. But Mika was still smiling. The love dripping from that expression made me feel ticklish.
Mika bit the tips of my fingers and kissed the backs of my hands. Over and over, until the tips of my fingers finally burned with a tingling sensation.
My toes, hidden beneath the blanket, curled up. After playing with my hand for a long while, Mika whispered in a voice that melted like sticky caramel.
My ears and my heart tickled simultaneously.
“Having finally learned of love through thousands of lives, the love that follows must also be given by Ruben. If Ruben does not recognize me, I will woo you until you accept me, so in any life, you need only permit me to be with you.”
“Even if I’m thirty or forty years older than you?”
“That would be wonderful. I have always admired Ruben’s maturity, which belies his age.”
“Even if… I’m a two-year-old baby and you’re an adult?”
“There would be so much to teach you throughout your life. I will live diligently while waiting for Ruben to be born.”
“What if I’m a woman? Or, what if you’re a woman?”
“Has gender ever been an issue for us?”
“…”
Mika’s incredibly firm tone, and the warm heat spreading from my extremities, blunted the thorns that had been driven deep into my heart and refused to leave.
Only now do I realize how foolishly I had been acting.
Until now, I had endlessly played the victim in the face of this love. Because I thought that I liked Mika more.
But that wasn’t the case. Mika simply possessed a heart strong enough to endure this fiery love. The size and weight of that heart were not much different from mine.
Like me, Mika hoped to be with me not only in this life, but in the next, and the one after that. The reason he didn’t seem anxious wasn’t that he didn’t fear parting from me, but simply because of his certainty regarding the lives to come…
The blurriness that had plagued my vision finally cleared.
This is not a dream. Because my dreams always bloom from despair, a Mika who speaks of nothing but such happy stories could not bloom in my dreams.
My chest tightened with the certainty that this memory could fully support and sustain the me of the past and the me of the future.
Mika continued speaking in a playful tone. I gazed at him, entranced.
“Just so you know, I will love you even if Ruben is born as an Orc. Though, considering the size of your soul, you’ll probably continue to be born as a human…”
“…Are you always human too?”
“Yes. Because that is the kind of god I am.”
Now I know what I have to do.
“Then, I’ll become a god too.”
“…Excuse me?”
“No matter how many times I’m born, you have to teach me the Hip-Circlet and the Azure Sky Unfettered Sword Art. If I say I won’t learn it, chase me down and teach me. You said you have memories of past lives, right? I’ll make sure to remember too.”
“…”
“While you live on this land, I will also be reborn steadily and wash away my karma.”
That was the only way for my eternity to become the same as Mika’s.
From what I heard, Mikael retains his current memories even when reborn, while I seem destined to continue a new life with no memory at all. The fact that our two souls undergo reincarnation and can continue to encounter one another was certainly a great blessing.
I trusted Mika, but I did not trust myself.
If the positions were reversed, I surely would have gone mad before living even ten lives.
Mika tends to cherish people quite a bit, so even if reborn, he would form many friendly relationships; meanwhile, I would have become anxious that Mika might find something he loved more than me, and I would have committed acts that no human should ever do.
As the evil deeds accumulated, the oblivious Mika would eventually hate me… and if that happened, even if my memories returned, recovering a love already lost would be a distant dream.
Fortunately, however, Mika’s love does not flow in a destructive direction like mine.
Patience and asceticism are second nature to Mika, and he possesses a tactless yet positive personality. Regardless of my surroundings, Mika could love me and wait for me with a smile.
Therefore, what I worry about most right now is not the depth of Mika’s patience.
How many times could a dream-like event occur where we are born at the same time and live every moment together? Mika would embrace me with endless love, but he wasn’t the type of person to immediately follow me into death just because I died. Thus, in most lives, I would be reborn with a gap of several or several dozen years, forced to live a life without Mika.
If my current personality and tendencies are engraved in my soul, the reborn me would certainly be quite violent. I could clearly envision a future version of myself who not only shows a lacking side before Mika, but also covets him while unable to trust his love, pushing him away endlessly.
Then the naive Mika would take my twisted venom at face value. He might even give up on me, saying, ‘As long as you become happy, it doesn’t matter what happens to me.’
I could not part with Mika forever for such a reason.
That is why I said I would become a god.
No matter how I might torment Mika, if there is a certainty that I, having regained all my memories one day, will love Mika again, I believe Mika will endure the wounds I inflict in my ignorance with a smile. He possesses the tenderness to wait and persevere until that time.
And that intense faith of Mika’s will make me a god.
In truth, the current me had many shortcomings to become a god.
A god was a being that emerged with memories of the past—a strong and special existence with some kind of salvation narrative, having experienced sufficient life in another world. However, I was born in this world, my innate power was not particularly strong, and I was scheduled to repeat subsequent lives while having lost my past memories.
But the yearning of a god is fulfilled in one form or another.
The Ninth God wanted to become human. Thanks to that, he was able to live a human life, albeit in a twisted form.
Similarly, as a newly born young god, Mika discovered Karzentia’s Lair through the absurd wish of wanting a large amount of dowry.
And now, the First Goddess hopes for a new god to be born into this world.
Then there is no reason I cannot occupy that position. I must take the helm so that I can give wings to Mika’s imagination and dream of a wish in the direction I desire.
Thus, with a tone full of conviction and the brightest smile I could muster, I looked up at Mika.
Desperately, I declared, hoping that Mika would not forget this moment throughout this lifetime and all the eternal lives to follow.
“Wait for me. Once I’ve set my mind to do something, I always get it done.”
I can become a god. We were destined to love eternally.
Because Mika will make me that way. Whether unintentionally, or exactly as intended.
* * *
Night came again, and then morning.
Unbelievably, I was filled tight and snug below. I twisted my waist at the pleasure that felt like it was simmering in my gut.
It was only yesterday that I completed the portal for the Kiadris Duchy. Dealing with Duke Kiadris was always a tiring and annoying affair. She acted like Beneto, but lived a more promiscuous life without remorse. And she was very greedy.
I had been on edge for so long that I fell into a dead sleep as soon as the banquet ended.
And when I woke up… it was now.
My mind was still hazy with lingering drowsiness. Then, the piece of flesh that had been slowly rubbing against my inner walls from deep inside stopped abruptly. Instead, the hand that had been gripping my waist moved up to cup my cheek.
It was slightly damp and very warm.
Just like the hot thing… currently inside me.
“…Hng…”
As I let out a shallow breath, he slowly withdrew. A whining sound leaked through my teeth.
Instead of opening my blurry eyes, I narrowed my brow slightly. At that, the thing that had briefly retreated burrowed back inside.
My entire body was so sensitively heated that I gasped. How on earth did he do this? I raised a trembling hand to wrap around Mika’s wrist.
I slowly opened my eyes. Did I cry in my sleep? My vision was blurry.
“…Are you awake?”
“Yeah, hng… yeah…”
“Then, for breakfast…”
“Nnh, no, no… just, just a little more…”
I reached out my arms. Without needing to reach far, Mika obediently lowered her head so that I could drape my arms around her neck.
The gaze looking down at me boiled with fervent longing and ecstasy. When I slightly poked out my tongue, the desperate kiss that followed made the strength in my lower waist tighten.
Ah. Now, I think I understand.
The thing filling me was Mika’s. A hardness that pierced straight into the most fragile part, with a shape and depth that I couldn’t forget whether my eyes were closed or open…
I obediently surrendered my body to the movements of slowly licking, biting, and sucking inside my mouth. My genitals, which shook in time with the thrusts that forgot how to swell and simply bounced, became plump with electric pleasure.
I slid and collided right against Mika’s lower abdomen. The sensation of contact was smooth.
Both Mika and I were completely naked.
“…Hng, ah. Ha…”
“…Do you… like this that much?”
“Yeah, hng. Ah! Ah, wait. Sud-suddenly it’s fast…”
“…”
“You’re being mean, ah.”
“…I’m also… ha. I’m in a hurry.”
“Ah, ah…!”
The sound of a tongue-clicking, as if unable to help it, was heard close by. As lips touched my ear, my temple, my cheek, and the tip of my chin in sequence, my stomach trembled again.
As if the caution he had used to avoid waking me had vanished, he withdrew far back and then thrust upward in a single blow, lifting my body.
It was from the Duchy of Valentia that I began begging to feel Mika fully the moment I woke up.
I was the type to have little sleep, but I was still a human who couldn’t survive without sleeping at all, and Mika always had more stamina than me and was tidy with the cleanup. No matter how drenched in hot pleasure we were the night before, when morning came, he would wake me with a neat face as if nothing had happened.
At first, I simply liked it, but as time went on, it started to irritate me.
I wanted Mikael to be crazy for me. Even knowing it might be impossible, even if I pushed him away saying I didn’t want to, I wanted him to desire me.
However, no matter how many times I told him in advance, if I pushed him away saying I hated it, Mika stopped immediately.
So, from a certain point, I began to teach Mika how to demand me. To reach out first and wrap around my shoulders, to kiss me first when our eyes met, and to slide his hand in without asking permission when we lay side by side in bed.
Among those, the request that flustered Mika the most was touching me while I slept.
I told him I wanted him to be inside me when I woke up, that I wanted to greet the morning while we were connected. I told him that anything he did was fine with me, and since I had already let him handle me, it was his responsibility—so he should touch my sleeping body however he wanted and wake me by rubbing deep inside.
Mika had refused flatly, rarely even raising his voice.
I found the sight of him being appalled, wondering how he could possibly play so obscenely with a sleeping lover, so incredibly enticing. I tried acting pouted and impatient, acted spoiled, and even tormented him during the night, but it wasn’t easy.
It was a triumph achieved after a full four months. It was even more surprising because I had given up and stopped begging since last month.
Ha, I let out a hot breath and a laugh together. I weakly turned my head to the side. Then Mika bit and licked my lips. I obediently stroked the nape of Mika’s neck and pulled at the glossy hair.
My lover, my love.
I loved that Mika did not remain stubborn until the end if I truly wanted something. I was happy that I was the one who could break his sincerity. My chest swelled with thumping anticipation and a pleasure even greater than that.
Mika was someone who could lift someone like me above his head with a single finger.
Mika stood on his knees, shaking me while seated. My body shook very easily, like a teddy bear stuffed with cotton.
The sensation of the inside closing tightly and densely was vivid. Eyes flushed with excitement and heat stared directly at me. Under that piercing gaze, my legs, spread open in heat, curled up tightly.
“…Ugh, ah… Ruben, …ha. It’s good, it’s good. I love you…”
“Nnh, yeah. Me, hng, me too, ah. Ah, there. Hieuk. Ah…!”
The hand gripping my buttocks so hard they were indented, and the hand that continued to shake me without stopping even as I wailed and arched my back in a spoiled manner—all of these were things I had taught him.
How long had I spent meticulously unraveling him?
Holy oil had flowed down to the back of my knees, leaving me drenched. My heels, stretched out in excitement, scratched the sheets and pushed me toward the edge of the bed. Mikael, whose cheeks, shoulders, and chest had all turned red, swallowed hard as if looking at something incredibly coveted.
“Ah…! Hng, ah. Ah, ah, hng, Mi-Mika. Mika…!”
“…Huu, Ruben. Here, haha, …is this, that much…?”
“Ack, ah! No, ah! Uuuuuung…”
“…It’s good…”
Whether he was asking if it felt good, or whispering that it was good.
Perhaps it was both.
As Mikael looked down with his eyes narrowed in a smile, my heart dropped as if it had broken.
It wasn’t just thumping; it was pounding. It felt as if my body was jumping in time with the sound of my heartbeat.
My body was folded halfway. From the shallowest part to the deepest part, I was scraped in one go. Unable to even curl up, I sobbed and shook my head. Brilliant, multicolored lights sparkled before my eyes.
The moment I felt Mika ejaculate inside me, I hurriedly blocked my own penis.
If I go now, I can’t do it one more time…
Seeing me like that, Mika let out a breath of disbelief, as if stunned. However, because Mika’s smiling face was clearly engraved in my vision blurred by pleasure, I kept grinning foolishly.
Quickly, again. As I arched my waist and begged, Mikael gripped my chest as if supporting it, shaking it slightly in a scolding manner. But in the end, he pushed his angry penis back into me just like the first time.
He was beyond merciful and kind.