CHAPTER 754: QUEEN OF THE LAND OF SHADOWS

Speaking of Eiji, the one the pretty girls are talking about...

No, it’s still not time for him to appear.

But—!

In a place with a sky that was never clear and more often cloudy. Below it was a vast plain of pointed rocks with a lot of mist, there were countless ghosts or souls of the dead— and there was not a single living person there except for someone who lived in a castle on one particular hill.

Deep inside the castle, a very beautiful woman had been sitting for an unknown amount of time on the throne.

She looked to be sleeping while supporting her chin with one hand. If there were other people there, especially men like Eiji. They would definitely be mesmerized by her long purple hair and her perfectly proportioned figure clad in a tight black body suit.

That woman, none other than the ruler of the castle and the entire land of the dead— her name was Scáthach.

"Hm?"

At this moment, a voice woke her up from her sleep and she opened her red eyes.

Unlike usual where she was very calm and not easily startled, her pupils slightly emitted shock because in front of her, there was a transparent gold-colored window with white text that read:

[Ding! You have been added to the Interdimensional Inner Voice Group.]

"...I’ve closed the gates of the Land of Shadows for a long time. How could someone smuggle their magic into my brain? Interesting, what’s the point of this?"

Instead of fearing whether the other party had malicious intentions, Scáthach wondered curiously.

With her intellect of the abyss and her magical skills, she was unable to break the connection between her and the power displaying the mysterious thing in front of her and could not even see its origin.

She had a little hope about something she had long wanted in the owner of this power.

"Why not answer?"

Scáthach frowned, but she still looked pretty when she did that. She tried to touch the transparent golden window in front of her only to find it disappeared.

"....."

The throne room was again as quiet as a tomb.

However, before she was disappointed, this time a man’s voice sounded in her head.

[Test, test, one two three. Hello, do you hear me?]

"No, this seems to be a young man."

Unlike the previous voice that sounded like an emotionless woman, this young man’s voice sounded carefree.

Scáthach stared blankly into the air but her mind kept racing to analyze how the other party’s voice could be heard inside her head.

Unfortunately, she found nothing.

[Strange, are you deaf? Don’t speak with your mouth, I can’t hear it. Try talking in your mind while activating whatever you saw earlier.]

[Wait, did you see something before? This ability for inter-dimensional communication is still in the testing phase. But don’t worry, I’m a professional.]

Scáthach blinked her eyes.

A professional?

Every word you say is not professional at all.

Or rather, you just seem to speak normally like someone making a prank phone call to a random person.

Even so, Scáthach still tried what he said and yes, she seemed to feel a new mechanism inside her that could activate something.

If it was a normal woman, they wouldn’t think as far ahead as she did.

"I did it, young man. Can you hear my voice now?"

[Hiss!]

"Why are you hissing? Are you scalded?"

[Hiss! This sound...]

"What’s wrong with my voice?"

Scáthach asked curiously.

The young man on the other side is quite funny. Her disciples in the past had never spoken to her like that.

Of course, that was because she trained them seriously to become great warriors and they always spoke respectfully to her.

So it depends on the situation.

[Miss, your voice reminds me of a pretty elder sister who lives next door.]

"...A professional won’t tease me because they know it won’t work. Young man, I take back what I thought about you before. You seem to be an expert in seducing women, right?"

Scáthach’s voice sounded amused, but her face was still expressionless.

She had lived for so long that she had seen all sorts of people trying to seduce her because of her beauty. In the end, all of them including her favorite disciple failed.

After all, she was not interested in being anyone’s lover and only wanted to...

Still, Scáthach was curious how the young man would reply.

Would he stop pretending and praise her identity?

She bet with herself that that was what he would do.

[Miss... What did you say? Sorry, I didn’t hear you. I was multitasking.]

[Besides you, I’m also fulfilling someone’s wish to taste the best ramen in the whole world.]

"....?"

The famous female warrior queen of the Ulster Cycle in Celtic Mythology and the guardian of the haunted land called the Land of Shadows, Scáthach could not help but have a question mark over her head.

Wrong, her guess was wrong.

She couldn’t believe the young man hadn’t heard what she said, he still seemed to want to pretend.

However, what he said piqued her curiosity again.

"Young man, you are also cunning."

[By the way, I wonder what you thought of me before?]

"You actually heard what I said before."

[No, I didn’t hear it.]

"You..." Scáthach felt that the young man was also a stubborn person and did not want to admit that he was seducing her. Wait, why was she even arguing with him over that?

What she did not know was that it was because someone’s halo harem effect had penetrated the dimensional fabric and touched her existence.

However, the effect was not too much and it did not matter to Eiji.

He liked the process of conquest.

"Forget that, it’s about time you explained what this means? From what you said, your job is to grant someone’s wish?"

It had been a long time since Scáthach talked so much as she did now with someone.

Her disciples would have been surprised and one of them might have been jealous. Whether they are still alive or not, I don’t know but whenever they return to the Land of Shadows, their master will always be there and look the same since the last time they met.

She never ages because she is immortal.

[Exactly! Just for your information, those invited to the inter-dimensional inner voice group are randomly drawn.]

[You’re lucky because with that, I can grant your wish.]

"Really? It’s really random?" Scáthach was somewhat skeptical, especially about the lottery that got her selected.

She rather believed that this was intentional.

...

Mitsugoshi Company.

"Tsk, this woman is too vigilant." Eiji clicked his tongue while making noodle dough in the kitchen.

He even wore an apron over his white office shirt.

With his appearance, the scene was like seeing Gojo Satoru with bright red eyes cooking. The Shadow Garden member who worked at the company— Gamma who was peeking from the kitchen entrance blushed and photographed her lord repeatedly.

There was also Beta on the other side of the door, she had a nosebleed and was writing down how beautiful her lord was in a novel style. After all, her public identity is a novelist.

[Host, isn’t that natural? The other party is Scáthach from the Fate universe.]

Miss System responded to her host’s complaints and tried to cheer him up.

Eiji didn’t know about the last part, but he smiled which made Beta’s nosebleed even worse.

"Miss System, you think I’m complaining?"

[You don’t?]

"Actually, I refrained from saying ’Woman, you have caught my attention’ to Scáthach."

[It’s good that you refrained from saying that. Otherwise, she might have gone offline and not wanted to talk to an expert in seducing women like you, host.]

"Miss System, you must be joking."

[Want to try it?]

Eiji ignored Miss System’s question because he was sure she was joking.

He stopped communicating mentally with her and glanced at the two women who were feasting their eyes.

"Beta, don’t dirty the floor with your blood."

"Ah, yes! Sorry Eiji-sama, I’ll clean it up right away!"

Beta gasped, but was quite satisfied that she had been watching her lord wearing an apron for a few minutes.

She hurriedly went to the other room to get the mop while hugging her notebook with a lascivious smile.

A lot of inspiration was flowing in her brain.

"And Gamma, since you’re here, who is accompanying Koizumi and her friend?"

"There’s Aurora who serves them and even Hila who serves as security in front of the company, my lord."

Eiji’s hand movements stopped for a moment. When did the famous Goddess of Life and Goddess of Death in The Mechanic Legendary work at his company?

Well, they were probably tired of constantly living in the Shadow Garden headquarters. As a good leader, he did not mind his subordinates taking the initiative to help him in other matters.

Eiji did not remember him personally approving the two women to help Gamma in his company because they were bored.

However, that was not surprising.

"How about the work in your office? Have you finished everything?"

"There is still a little more. I-I will finish it soon, my lord!"

Gamma panicked, she did not want to disappoint her lord and ran back to her office.

Still, she hugged the camera in her hand with a lascivious smile. Many people who knew her as the CEO of Mitsugoshi Company would not believe she was the same person.

"....." Eiji certainly noticed how perverted Beta and Gamma were. The former often wrote stories about herself and her lord in the form of R18+ genre novels, and the latter collected so many photos of him that her bedroom was filled with them.

Despite that, he thinks they’re both cute.

By the way, you must be confused. But right now, he really was making ramen because this morning after he finished exercising with Mai and left her apartment.

His Future Insight informed him that Koizumi had finally taken interest in his invitation in the past.

Therefore, when he actually came to the company a while ago, he did not rush to meet her and directly made ramen for her.

He was going to surprise her until she couldn’t live anymore without his ramen.

[Sounds like an evil plan.]

’Miss System, you misunderstood.’

And what about Scáthach?

Eiji has also been trying out Miss System’s new feature— Voices of Inter-dimensional Heroines.

With this feature, he could have inner communication with random heroines from other universes and even meet them.

At least that’s what Miss System wrote in the description.

Eiji still had to rack his brains on how to seduce those women and that was what he was doing with Scáthach at the moment.

In other words, he was going to pretend and role play at the same time.

[Why are you silent again?]

A beautiful voice like that of an elder sister from the house next door sounded in his head.

Eiji was happy because unlike usual where he could only hear the inner voices of the protagonists which made him disgusting, he now heard the voice of a beautiful woman in his head.

Rasiel’s mind reading ability that he had been using a lot lately on the women around him didn’t count of course.

...

[I’m still here, I’m with you.]

There is a time difference or delay. So from Scáthach’s point of view, it had only been a few seconds since Eiji had not said anything.

"....." Hearing what he said, Scáthach did not reply immediately and tapped the back of her throne with her finger as if to say keep teasing her and she would ignore him.

She was even considering whether she would go offline and never touch this thing called the Interdimensional Inner Voice Group again.

[Ehem! Just kidding. Miss, don’t ignore me, I’m just trying to do my job here.]

"Oh, then explain what that job is and what’s in it for you, young man?"

On the other side, Eiji had almost finished making ramen with all his cooking skills.

The company kitchen was filled with a delicious smell that would make even Scáthach swallow her saliva if she were here.

[Simple, I can grant people’s dreams or wishes. In exchange for the wishes I grant, everything they have becomes mine.]

He said this only because he knew what Scáthach wanted from Wiki in his previous life.

If it was another beautiful woman, what he said would probably be different. Eiji did not have to worry about their unwillingness to submit to someone and tell them that he wanted their bodies and hearts.

"I feel like I was offered a contract by the devil. Many of them I have killed in the past... but none of them were able to impose their power on me like you are now."

Scáthach basically also asked if Eiji was a devil?

That’s not wrong but this time—

[I am the Hegemony God or can also be called the Lord of Dreams. Do not confuse me with the lowly creatures and even the gods you once killed, Scáthach.]

"Hoh." The corners of Scáthach’s lips lifted slightly. Not because Eiji knew her identity, but for a moment, she felt a chill in her body.

She had the illusion that she was in danger of death. However, that was what excited her!

Maybe this young man really could grant her wish?

"In that case, I’m interested. Young man, my wish is to be killed by someone. I will pay you with everything I have including my favorite magic weapon and my knowledge."

Scáthach was very clever, she was almost never fooled by anyone except on the battlefield and even then, she usually still managed to come out victorious due to her power that scared even the gods.

However, this time she might have actually been fooled by Eiji. Of course, she had thought that Eiji also wanted her body.

But her wish was to be killed, meaning she died afterwards and only left behind the other things she had.

That was why she was not worried that such things would happen to her.

[I will send you a magic contract for our deal and I want you to sign it. I will grant your wish later after I finish my business with the other contractors.]

"Of course, young man."

Right after that, Scáthach saw the transparent golden window appear again in front of her but this time it was a contract about the deal between her and the Lord of Dreams which she thought was... fine.

With her skill, the Wisdom of Dún Scáith that she got after surpassing humans by killing gods, and being left outside the World where she could only live in the Land of Shadows.

She was sure that there was nothing wrong with what was written in the contract in front of her. So, she signed it by wiggling her slender fingers in the air.

At the same time, Eiji grinned. In one of his hands, a paper contract that he had created himself with Anos’ magic knowledge appeared.

It had Scáthach’s signature on it so that she would not be able to break the contract once she was completely dead.

Actually, it was just a formality that Eiji did because he was bored. Even without this, he was sure a woman like Scáthach would not take back her words.

He was just playing a little trick.

[This is really an evil plan. But I admire you for managing to deceive Scáthach in this way, host.]

"I did not deceive him, Miss System. For now, let’s meet the female protagonist of the Ramen anime."

Eiji placed four bowls of ramen on a tray and after that, he told Beta to carry them while following him.

Currently, he was the actual boss of Mitsugoshi Company.

He was very good at cooking, rich, tall, strong and handsome. A silver-haired elf pretending to be human like Beta was even looking at him with love in her eyes.

However, unlike the protagonist Shadow or Cid in the original work who only viewed Beta, Alpha and the other Shadow Garden members as his subordinates— he, Eiji Seiya regarded them all as his women.

"Wait a minute, Beta."

"What’s wrong, Eiji-sama?" Beta carefully stopped walking lest she spill what she was carrying.

But she was surprised and her cheeks turned red because just then, her lord pinched her chin and kissed her lips gently.

"Mmm~!"

Eiji-sama! Eiji-sama kissed me!!

Beta closed her eyes and looked very obedient, but she was screaming like a fangirl in her heart.