'Wait, I'm Supposed to Become a Goddess?! But I'm a Guy!'

Night had sunk its teeth deep into the sky, cloaking the world in darkness.

Liam had already coaxed Mize to sleep, an act that took far longer than it should have.

He’d stayed there, arms gently curled around her as if reluctant to let go.

When her breathing evened out and the tension left her body, he carefully slid a pillow into place in his stead.

One last soft kiss on her forehead, and he slipped out of the room in silence.

His footsteps padded along the hall as he made his way toward his personal study, a quiet retreat.

Two guards stood on either side of the door, both alert despite the hour.

They stiffened and saluted the moment he approached.

Liam returned a simple nod, smooth and wordless, and the heavy doors creaked open.

Inside, the room held a stillness that felt deliberate.

He didn’t rush.

His stride was slow, almost lazy, as he walked down the length of the dim chamber toward the lone table at the far end.

His fingers grazed the edge as he rounded it, then he lowered himself onto the chair, cushioned in deep red velvet, its arms shaped into coiling snakes, their sculpted heads resting beneath his elbows.

The room wasn’t well-lit.

The oil lamp remained unlit on the desk, leaving only the pale moonlight spilling through the tall arched window behind him to scatter faint silver across the floor and walls.

Shadows stretched long and quiet.

Liam crossed one leg over the other, leaning sideways into his hand.

His fingers supported his temple while his molten-gold eyes, now dulled with fatigue, drifted over the room until they settled at the center.

There, kneeling several meters away, was the head butler, bent low in the dim, as still as a statue.

“My lord,” the man said, voice brittle with age and formality, “this humble one greets and thanks the lord for granting his time this night"

Liam didn’t respond at first.

When he did, his tone was languid but laced with chill. “It better be worth it. My dear wife’s pillow is now just a poor substitute, and she’s without warmth"

"If what you dragged me out here for turns out to be petty, I will make sure your soul learns new definitions of pain for eternal"

His entire presence shifted, voice dropping into something cold and unnerving.

His eyes no longer seemed human, those golden irises flickered with an unnatural brilliance, a smoldering light that didn’t quite match the moon outside.

But the old man… he swore he saw it.

That the moon, for a flicker of a moment, shimmered in sync with those eyes.

It couldn’t be real.

He forced the thought aside, composed himself, and spoke quickly.

“M-my lord,” he began, with a slight tremor, “there have been... complications with one of your directives.”

“Which one?” Liam asked.

His voice was colder now, and his gaze had sharpened like a drawn blade.

The butler hesitated, only a breath, but it was enough to make the air tighten.

He reached for a handkerchief and dabbed at the sweat forming at his temple. “Over forty of our underlings… have perished.”

A ripple passed through the atmosphere, the kind you could almost feel on your skin, like a hundred invisible blades brushing past in warning.

He rushed to explain, stumbling over his words, “B-but the collected souls had already been secured prior to the losses. It was only our men that were lost tonight…”

The butler slowly lifted his gaze, desperate to find some sign of leniency, but Liam’s stare remained level, unblinking.

“I assumed you’d already uncovered who was responsible,” Liam said, his tone dipping lower, like the calm of a storm pulling inward.

"But it seems... you don’t know.”

“I—”

His voice never reached the end. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

There was a sudden wet crack, his right hand exploded in a spray of flesh and blood, the skin ballooning before tearing open with a sickening pop.

“Argh!” he bit down a scream, knees collapsing as pain surged not just through his body, but through his soul.

The air itself seemed to recoil from the agony radiating off him.

He clutched the ruined stump, blood spilling through his fingers, his breath growing sharp and frantic. “I-I swear I’ll find out who’s behind it, my lord. Just give me time, I won’t fail again!”

His voice was strained, trembling as he bowed so low his forehead met the floor, dark red pooling beneath him.

The severed limb twitched once before a black flame consumed it, ashen in seconds, gone without a trace.

Liam looked down at him with distant disgust, lips curling faintly. “Don’t misunderstand, ant. You think I kept you here because you’re somehow special?”

“N-no, my lord—I never—”

“Wrong answer.”

He raised his hand and flicked two fingers.

There was another sound, sharp, brutal, and the second arm hit the floor.

A hoarse, broken scream echoed through the room, but the butler didn’t move to fight it.

He grit his teeth, half-mad from the pain, yet conscious enough to understand what worse things could come if he dared beg again.

In this place, in this chamber, death wasn’t the worst punishment. Death was a mercy.

What came after… was the real sentence.

Liam, ever patient, remained in his seat, head tilted, cheek resting against his hand, golden eyes calm.

His body slouched like a bored monarch, but the weight of his presence filled every corner of the room.

The butler’s breathing grew erratic. His face drained of color, sweat pooling at his chin.

He forced himself upright, trying to speak, to promise, to say anything.

“Enough,” Liam cut him off.

“I—ark?!”

A sharp hum filled the room.

A shimmering diagram flickered to life beside Liam’s chair, its gears and cogs turning with mechanical noises, like the innards of an ancient clock.

And then, it stepped out, an exact copy of the butler.

The replica bowed fluidly, no tremble in its limbs, no blood dripping down its sides.

“This humble one greets the lord.”

“Good,” Liam murmured with a lazy nod. He pointed a single finger at the broken man on the floor. “You’ll be replacing him. I don’t keep servants. I keep tools. And tools are supposed to work.”

"And he doesn't work... So now, he shall perish"

“As you command.” The new one didn’t hesitate.

Knowledge surged into its mind, a flood of memories, all of them belonging to the original. In seconds, it understood everything.

There was a pause.

And then, in the replica’s gaze, a flicker of something almost human, a flash of pity, a moment’s hesitation.

But it passed just as quickly.

The real butler, sensing something, scrambled backward, only to feel the air split behind him.

A portal tore open, nothing natural about it.

From its center spilled an impossible darkness.

Fingers clawed out, hands not quite shaped like anything of this world.

Voices came next, groaning, whispering, screaming in distorted tones that didn’t match their mouths.

“No- NO!”

He tried to crawl away. “My lord!!! My looooord!!!”

“Please- spare me!! P-please!!”

“Kill me instead, please, anything but this!”

“I beg of you-!”

"my lord!!!!"

"my godd!!!"

The hands dragged him by the ankles. His fingers scraped across the floor, leaving long trails of blood.

His nails cracked, broke, until he used his face to resist, mashing it against the ground to buy even a second more.

But Liam remained unmoved, eyes half-lidded, watching like one might watch dust settle in moonlight.

The screaming stopped only when the portal swallowed the last of the man’s body.

With a final gust of cold wind, the darkness folded in on itself, and vanished.

Liam turned to the new one, a gentle smile spreading across his face, one Mize often saw and liked very much.

“That’s what happens when you fail me,” he said, soft as ever. “Which, I must say, I absolutely detest, especially when it interrupts time with my wife over something this trivial.”

"I hated the idea of having my wife sleeping alone even for a second without me"

He leaned back.

“So? What do you think?”

The new butler bowed once more, his voice composed but his heart thudding hard beneath his ribs. “This humble one will not repeat the same mistakes as that failure, my lord. I will see to it that your plans continue without disruption.”

But deep beneath the surface of that calm tone, hidden under his composed expression, there was only one truth:

He was terrified.

Afterward, the head butler offered a respectful bow before taking his leave.

Liam, meanwhile, stretched his limbs with a low breath and turned on his heel, time to head back.

If Mize woke up and found him missing, there was no doubt she’d stir up a storm over it.

And tonight, he didn’t feel like coaxing her again.

The scene shifted.

The head butler descended the grand staircase of the castle, his footsteps quiet yet firm against the marble steps.

The heavy front gate loomed ahead, slightly ajar, beyond which a carriage waited under the pale glow of the gate lanterns.

The soft crunch of gravel accompanied his approach.

At the front of the carriage sat two figures cloaked in thick robes, their posture alert, hands resting on the reins.

As the head butler neared, both of them quickly stood and bowed with a sharp, practiced salute.

“We greet the lord.”

“To the town,” he said curtly, not slowing his pace.

“Right away, my lord.”

The carriage lurched gently as it began to roll forward.

The wheels creaked along the old cobbled path, and the faint blue light of the lantern swinging at the side cast a soft, eerie hue into the otherwise quiet night.

Inside the carriage, the atmosphere was stiff.

The head butler sat with one leg crossed neatly over the other, his back straight, expression grim and unreadable.

His gloved fingers tapped slowly against his knee in restrained irritation.

Across from him sat a young man, his features youthful and composed, dressed in a perfectly tailored suit.

He offered his usual smile, but there was tension behind it.

“Sayfein,” the head butler said without preamble, “I need answers. Now. What happened tonight that cost us so many personnel?”

Sayfein lowered his head, right hand pressed solemnly to the center of his chest in a formal gesture. “Replying to the lord… I suspect it was the Church of the Mother of Life behind the attack.”

The words had barely left his mouth when a sharp crack echoed in the carriage.

The head butler’s hand whipped across Sayfein’s face with brutal precision, twisting his head unnaturally as the young man crumpled sideways against the seat.

His cheek reddened instantly, blood welling at the corner of his mouth and he turned his head upside down to fix the posture.

“Fool.”

The old man’s voice was low, seething with controlled anger.

“The church is not to be mentioned. Don’t you dare include them in your excuses.”

“But, my lord—”

Boom.

A second blow landed, this time a clenched fist crashing into Sayfein’s face.

He slumped, coughing blood onto his suit, his hands trembling as he struggled to lift his head and compose himself.

The butler shook his hand once, flicking the blood away with visible disgust. “Do you still not understand? Even if the church is behind this, we don’t speak of it. Not to the lord. Not to anyone.”

He leaned forward slowly, voice sharp and cold as a blade.

“What do you think will happen if the lord hears it’s the church’s fault we lost people tonight? You think he’ll help us?” He gave a dry, bitter chuckle. “Wrong. We wouldn’t even get the mercy of death, we’d be dragged somewhere far worse. So keep that nonsense out of your mouth.”

His hand darted out, grabbing Sayfein’s head like one would seize a pest.

“Even if the church puts a blade through your heart this very second, you say nothing. Understood?”

With a flick of his wrist, he hurled Sayfein aside.

The younger man crashed into the wall of the carriage with a dull thud, landing in a heap like discarded paper.

The butler retrieved a handkerchief from his pocket and calmly wiped his fingers, voice returning to a steady cadence as if nothing had happened.

“Our role is not to destroy them. Fight them? Sure, on the surface. Make it look good. Cause damage, bloody their nose. But never destroy. That is not our order. Understood?”

Sayfein scrambled upright, nodding rapidly through clenched teeth. “Y-yes, my lord.”

“Good.” The head butler leaned back, folding his arms.

“I’ll enhance your strength. Tier One won’t cut it anymore. You need to go further. Transform more people into monsters, quietly, carefully. The more, the better. Just don’t get caught.”

He exhaled through his nose, almost scoffing. “We can’t touch the church directly. Not with her highness keeping them around like a favorite pet. But that doesn’t mean we’re powerless.”

Sayfein swallowed hard and nodded once more, his voice tight. “Yes.”