Volume 2, Chapter 4 – Light and Dark
When I joined the Divine Race I conquered the curse, and so I was able to take long baths again.
Up until now the curse would activate if I didn’t leave the bath before thirty minutes was up and send my clothes flying into the bath, so I always had to bathe while watching the time. Now I could finally bathe as long as I wanted.
Although I stopped sweating, I still got dirty, so I would usually bathe every day. More important than anything was the fact that getting into a hot bath was relaxing for the spirit, so it was essential that I did so.
“Phew…”
Feeling the heat soak into my body, I unconsciously let out a sigh. After pouring some water on myself, I dropped into the bath. Waves went through the bath, and the comfortable vibrations swayed my body.
I played around like that for a while, but because I had already been in for an hour, although I didn’t get dizzy I still thought that it was about time to get out, so I stood up.
And when I did, a man in a crimson robe suddenly appeared outside the bathtub without any warning.
He was a tall man with long, light green hair, and although he had a handsome face, he looked somewhat ill-bred.
“Ahn?”
It was so shocking that I had forgotten to even hide myself and stood there stock still. In front of me, the man looked around the room, before finally noticing me.
“…”
“…”
We continued to stare at each other wordlessly for a while, but the man finally lowered his gaze just a little, before averting his eyes with a scoff.
*imouto*
Still silent, I fired a relatively serious shadow bullet at the man.
◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆
After preparing an emergency meeting room and round table on the 5th floor, I sat down on one of the three chairs. The other chairs were occupied by the peeper who intruded on my bath earlier, and a blonde woman wearing a full set of silver armour. Incidentally, although the man took my relatively serious shadow bullet, he was left without a scratch.
Tena walked around the table and placed a cup of tea before each of us.
“Thanks. We’re fine now, so you can leave. Also, tell everyone not to come near this room.”
“Y-, Yes! Understood.”
Perhaps I accidentally let some of my urgency into my voice, because Tena leapt out of the room with great urgency.
I felt a little guilty, but considering the situation, it couldn’t help that I was nervous.
*imouto*
Not even in my dreams had I imagined that the 『God of Darkness』 and the 『God of Light』 would march in here directly together.
*imouto*
The man sitting to me left in a deep crimson sleeveless robe had introduced himself as Dark God Anbaal.
Whether his long green hair, or the bared chest beneath his robe, his appearance just made him look like a member of a visual kei rock band, but because of his bad attitude, crossing his legs on the table, I couldn’t see him as anything but a hoodlum.
He saw me naked in the bath. He looked at my chest and sneered. I already had a pretty bad impression of him. When I considered that this was the deity that they worshipped, I began feeling sympathy for the Demon Race. I’ll make sure to warn Leonora later not to be hasty.
But the feeling of pressure I was feeling was the real thing, so I had no doubts that he was a god. He was the god that ruled over “darkness” so considering the attribute of my shadow bullet, it made sense that he was unharmed.
On the other hand, the armoured woman sitting to my left who appeared in the bathroom to scold the Dark God for intruding introduced herself as the God of Light Sophia.
Her beautiful blonde hair was tied into three braids, and from her appearance she looked like a calm woman in her twenties, giving off a clean and serious atmosphere… but there’s one thing I’d like to say.
Her appearance was way too different to the statue in the church; it’s fraud.
If something like this is allowed, wouldn’t it be fine for me to change my clothes too?
I only saw it from afar, but I think the goddess statue in the church was wearing something like a nun’s clothing. And in contrast, the woman in front of me was wearing a silver plate armour without a single gap, and no matter how you looked at it, she seemed like the martial type. She was like Joan of Arc. The fact that the person herself was quiet made things scarier instead.
Honestly speaking, I was less afraid of the hoodlum Dark God than I was of her. She didn’t seem the type who understood jokes, after all.
In contrast, the Dark God was just acting tough and wasn’t all that scary.
When I turned my gaze to him, perhaps he noticed my gaze because he looked my way.
“The hell you lookin’ at?”
“A peeper.”
Ah-, oops. I accidentally spoke my mind.
“Hah! You think you have anything worth peeping at?”
“That thin body and…” he said, before wordlessly looking at my chest. I reflexively wanted to cover up with my hands, but I felt like I would be the loser if I faltered here, so I just boldly glared back at him. But of course, perhaps I should be saying ‘as expected of a god’ because the mystic eyes had no effect at all, and he didn’t even flinch.
“To begin with, the heck is a god even doing in the bath?”
When I glared at him, he blocked my eyes like it was annoying, and said that. Well certainly I don’t have a metabolism, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t get dirty, so I thought it was obvious that I’d clean myself but… Do gods normally not bathe?
I mean, I’m fine with this peeper skipping his bathes or whatever he wants as long as he doesn’t come near me, but if gods don’t bathe, then could it be that she also…
“Anbaal, it seems she still hasn’t been released from a physical body. It’s natural that she needs to clean herself. Don’t think of her as the same as you and I who exist only as souls.”
The Light God cut into the conversation as though scolding the Dark God. And at the same time, she glared at me with an incredible glint in her eyes. Could it be that she knew what I was thinking about? Understood, Oneesama, you aren’t unclean.
“A brat with her shell still stuck to her arse, huh? Tsk, how annoying.”
The Dark God gave a languid sigh as though saying ‘my my’.
But still, I wonder what they meant. If I take the Light God’s words at face value, then these two were just spiritual beings without a body. Seeing them sitting on chairs and drinking tea made it a little hard to believe, but since there wasn’t any need for them to lie here, it was probably the truth.
But in that case, what kind of position did that put me in?
“If there’s anything you would like to ask, then I shall answer. Before we get into the main topic, it seems that you need to be informed of some background information first.”
“Guess it can’t be helped, ey. We aren’t getting anywhere at this rate.”
The Light God spoke to me who was having questions. I’m concerned about what her ‘main topic’ is, but for now I’ll obediently ask my questions. It’s dangerous to get into a conversation with people whose motives you don’t know, but because I had so little information, I wasn’t in a position where I could form any strategies.
“What’s the difference between you two and I?”
I decided just to ask what I had doubts about just now.
“We are all the same in that we belong to the Divine Race. However, because the ones formed from the divided Creator God, Anbaal and I, were divines to begin with, we were always souls without physical bodies. And in contrast, because you were somebody who became a divine from a human, you still possess your body. Once your soul becomes a divine, your body will be affected as well though, so it isn’t as though your body is the same as when you were a human though.”
“Me and that overly serious woman over usually exist without possessing any substance, but right now we’re materialised. But well, once your body is destroyed you’ll probably be just like us though.”
In other words, right now I’m like a half-baked half-divine with a physical body, but once my physical body is destroyed, I’ll be a complete divine just like them? I get the feeling that we just casually skipped through a fairly heavy conversation.
“But well, even if you still have a body, you’re still a divine, so there shouldn’t be any problems with exercising your powers.”
“Exercising my powers?”
Could it be that she’s talking about the ‘Administrator’ skill that came along when I became a divine? I can’t think of anything else that matches, so I think that’s probably it, though.
“Yeah. That’s the ‘main topic’ that we came aaaall the way here to talk to ya about.”
The Dark God pulled his legs back from atop the table, and after fixing his posture, he put his crossed arms atop the table and leaned in. The sense of tension in the room surged up.
*imouto*
*imouto*
“Today the reason we came here… is to decide on our 『Authorities』.”