"Sigh..."
Furina lay in the bathtub, sighing inwardly, but she didn't utter a word.
As the Hydro Archon, there wasn't a single moment in her day when she could truly relax.
Her room was theoretically a place where she could let her guard down, but to be safe, Furina never allowed herself to speak her mind aloud.
If she did, it might expose the fact that she was merely a fake Hydro Archon. To solve the prophecy, Furina had to remain cautious at all times.
But the consequence of this caution... was pain.
Furina felt a suffocating pain.
When she first agreed to impersonate the Hydro Archon at the behest of the mirror, she hadn't anticipated that pretending to be a god would be so agonizing.
Yet, from the day of her first public speech, this pain had become the norm.
Even when she was alone, she couldn't afford to let her guard down for even a moment. She had to remain vigilant at all times. In this state, how long could she last?
A year?
Two years?
Or ten?
Furina didn't know. All she could do was hope that the day her mission ended would come soon.
"Sigh..."
She sighed again in her heart, then pressed her left hand against the bottom of the bathtub, preparing to sit up.
It was time to sleep.
Going to bed early and waking up early would give her the energy she needed. Without it, she wouldn't be able to make it through tomorrow.
Furina knew this logically, and she acted accordingly, never allowing herself to be willful—not even once—because she didn't have the luxury of being willful.
The responsibility she bore was that heavy.
So, even her bath time for relaxation had to end here.
—But today was destined to be unusual.
Because just as Furina was about to push herself up, her eyes suddenly saw... the space above her shatter.
Furina's eyes widened as she watched a man fall out of the broken space. Before she could react, her half-raised body was pushed back down into the water.
"Thud!"
"Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle...!"
The first sound was Furina's head hitting the bathtub.
The second was the sound of her head slipping underwater, her mouth opening, and bubbles rising.
Oh no! She was going to drown!
Was the fake Hydro Archon about to die by drowning? Was this the real Hydro Archon's punishment for her?
For a moment, this thought flashed through her mind, but the next instant, Furina reacted. Ignoring the pain in the back of her head, she pushed herself up, sitting up and pulling the man who had fallen on top of her out of the water. She then shoved him away.
There was no time to feel relieved. Furina's mind was now filled with panic.
What should she do? Was she about to be exposed? What should she do in this situation? If she were the real Hydro Archon, this would never have happened. And even if it did, she would have immediately punished the offender with divine retribution. But what about her? She couldn't perform any divine punishment! She was doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed!
The more panicked she felt, the calmer she became.
Furina's fear didn't show on her face. She didn't even have the luxury of thinking about the fact that her body had just been seen by a man. On the contrary, in that moment, she immediately found a possible way out from countless dead ends.
Furina leaned back, returning to her relaxed position in the bathtub. She crossed her right leg over her left, openly displaying her body, and looked at the black-haired man with an interested expression, a playful smile on her lips.
"How bold of you. This is the first time I've encountered someone who dares to spy on a god. So, how does my body look?"
No matter what this man's intentions were, she had to seize the initiative.
No one knew what the Hydro Archon was really like, so she would act as the Hydro Archon.
So... the Hydro Archon wouldn't care about something like this, right?
Furina didn't know if this would work. After all, when she was pinned down earlier, she had panicked, which was a major flaw. But what was done was done. She couldn't dwell on it. This was the only solution she could come up with at the moment.
And in response to her approach...
The man seemed weak, his left arm propped on the edge of the bathtub. He turned his head slightly and looked at Furina.
"Are you... Furina?"
Furina: "???"
Why was his tone questioning? What was going on? Was this man's appearance here just an accident? This man... Oh no, she used the wrong tone! She asked the wrong question!
In an instant, countless thoughts flashed through Furina's mind as she tried to figure out how to salvage the situation but just then, the man's eyes closed, and he slumped back into the water with a splash.
"..."
Furina froze for three seconds before suddenly sitting up. "Hey! Are you okay?!"
Furina quickly pulled the man, who seemed to have fainted, out of the water. She dragged him out of the bathtub and, without bothering to put on clothes, checked his breathing. She then began emergency first aid.
But after a while, the man didn't spit out any water, nor did he show any signs of improvement. He remained in a state of weak breathing.
"What... what's going on here...?"
Furina looked utterly bewildered.
After hesitating for a while, Furina finally put on some clothes. She then undressed the unconscious man, dried his body to prevent him from catching a cold, and carried him to her bed.
There was no other choice. Although the situation was strange and posed a significant risk of exposure, Furina couldn't just throw the man out of her room. What would people think if they saw that? And how would she explain it?
At the same time, Furina couldn't bring herself to kill the man to silence him and prevent exposure. She couldn't make the choice between the lives of an entire nation and one person unless that person was herself.
Moreover, she truly couldn't ignore someone who looked so weak and seemed to be in desperate need of help, leaving him to fend for himself.
So, what could she do?
Furina could only nervously carry the man to her bed, her face slightly flushed as she covered his naked body with a blanket.
Ahem, this man was too good-looking. It was a bit hard to resist.
Furina took a moment to calm down.
No matter what, she needed to think of a script for when the man woke up. She had to figure out how to smooth things over.
No matter what, the fact that she was a fake Hydro Archon absolutely could not be exposed.
Soon, Furina came up with a plan and waited for the man to wake up.
And with that thought...
Ten Years passed!!!