Hah!

Eat my fist!

Only a short time passed in the outside world, but within the soul-space, Herbert had already thrown hundreds, thousands of punches.

After a fierce round of output, Herbert finally stopped.

It wasn't because he ran out of things to say.

There were plenty of predecessors to crib from; if he wanted to talk, he only had to mix and match, draw inferences from one case to another—couldn't be easier.

The problem was, he was starting to feel bored.

The Sun Goddess had never fought back; at first that was fine—actually felt pretty good.

But later, Herbert just felt like he was pounding on a punching bag that couldn't make a sound.

Tsk, no fun at all!

What's the fun of laning?

Is it in one-sided, crushing DPS? 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

No.

That feels great at the start, but you get tired of it fast.

The real fun of laning is always in the back-and-forth mutual greetings.

Only when you meet an evenly matched opponent can you bring out maximum aggressiveness and let your spirit fully ascend.

When his opponent stubbornly refused to open mic, Herbert lost interest and stopped.

So, did the Sun God get hurt by Herbert?

Absolutely.

She was already considering whether she should tank Order's punishment and just kill Herbert outright; just think how unbelievably pissed she was for a "Hakka" like her to get that far.

The problem was, the Sun God was proud.

She disdained getting into a war of words with Herbert over this sort of thing—and didn't know how, either.

["...Hmph."]

After living so many years, Alberta had never once quarreled with another mortal or Divine.

Not even once.

The reason was simple.

In the past, the Sun God had always followed the principle of "if you can throw hands, don't flap your lips." Faced with any enemy, she just went in swinging.

If violence can solve it, then it's not a problem.

But now, Alberta couldn't do that.

Not because of some boring reason like Mercy or compassion, but because she genuinely couldn't.

As her assimilation with Order deepened, her sense of "self" grew thinner and thinner.

Her current state had gone wrong; she was under Order's forced constraints and couldn't make a move lightly.

Let alone acting for the sake of her own anger, she couldn't even strike back when enemies attacked her Church.

Even wiping out the Sinful Desire Incarnation and the God of Assassination had only been possible because she used the proper excuse of "helping Herbert to repay a favor" to justify acting.

If she forced a move, all her years of effort and sacrifice would go up in smoke.

So all Alberta could do was endure.

She ignored Herbert's muttering-fist technique and prepared to withdraw her consciousness from his body just like that.

But just before she did, Herbert spoke again.

"Beloved Sun, please don't leave so heartlessly. For the sake of your humble follower, I beg you to linger a little longer."

He called out with deep emotion, hoping the Sun would stay with him a while more.

Compared to the earlier barrage of unceremonious wild swings, Herbert at this moment seemed incomparably humble and sincere.

["...Hm?"]

Alberta: What the hell?

I'm heartless?

You're my follower?

And you... humble?

What on earth are you babbling about!!?

If the Moon Goddess saw the Sun God's expression right now, felt her emotional turbulence, she would definitely be unable to hold back a gasp of amazement.

All these years, no one had ever managed to stir such intense emotional waves in the Sun God.

After personally experiencing Herbert's neurosis, even Alberta couldn't help taking this guy a bit more seriously, and slowly asked:

["What...do you intend to do?"]

No seriously, what the hell are you trying to do?

"Ma'am, don't be nervous, I don't intend to do anything out of line."

Feeling the cautious emotion the Sun God sent him, Herbert replied in high spirits:

"I just want to ask you—since you're unwilling to take responsibility for me, and I'm not willing to just let someone take advantage of me for nothing... then how about we each take a step back?"

["What exactly are you trying to say?"]

Herbert cheerfully said, "Let's talk about a cooperation, shall we?"

["Cooperation? Heh."]

Even among the gods, the most arrogant existence spoke with disdain when she heard that.

No ridicule, just a matter-of-fact, calm inquiry:

["You think you have that qualification?"]

"You think you have that qualification?"

And just as the Sun God was mocking the mortal for overestimating himself, the mortal spoke the exact same line.

Word for word, not off by a syllable!

["Hm? You..."] Alberta was quite surprised.

How did you know what I was about to say?

"Haha!"

Seeing that he'd guessed right, Herbert hummed in delight and laughed. "See, I knew it, it really was that line again."

He started teasing her mockingly: "You bunch of arrogant gods, why does every single one of you like that line so much? Did you all attend the same class for training or something?"

All taught by the same master, huh?

This kind of formulaic, assembly-line tsundere routine is really hard to get excited about.

"You ask if I think I have that qualification—well, I think I do."

He said lazily, "Not only am I that confident, I can even say that in this cooperation, you actually need it more than I do."

"Have you noticed that compared to before, your consciousness is very clear right now?"

["Hm?"]

After hearing the Sun Goddess answer with yet another "Hm?"—God knows the how many-th time—Herbert had already silently changed her nickname in his mind to "Mm-Mm Monster."

Just knows how to mm-mm-mm...

"I believe you understand your own condition better than I do, Master of the Sun. You're already on the verge of being completely assimilated by Order."