CHAPTER 47

Goddess of Ghosts

Back in the spirit world, Seiya heads straight for Cerceus’s café. Jonde, Kiriko, and I tag along as well. Upon arrival, Seiya approaches Aria and Adenela, who are enjoying afternoon tea at a garden table. Adenela’s eyes light up the moment she notices him.

“S-Seiya…! I-it’s so nice seeing you again!”

“Mm-hmm. Go away.”

As Adenela approaches, Seiya knocks her out of the way with his sword’s sheath and begins talking to Aria. How can he be so cruel to her?! Adenela’s really helped us out time and time again!

“Aria, do you know any deities who possess techniques effective against spirit-like enemies that don’t have physical bodies?”

“You’re talking about ghost-type enemies, yes?”

Aria places a hand on her chin and ponders. I ask Jonde:

“Hey, Jonde. Is the Death Emperor a ghost-type monster?”

“I do not know for certain, but I hear he rules over the dead, as his name implies. While he may not be a ghost himself, it is highly possible he commands ghost-type monsters, so the Hero is probably going about this the right way.”

“Hmm… Oh, Seiya! Isn’t your fire magic effective against ghosts? Plus, didn’t Valkyrie already teach you Astral Break?”

But Seiya shakes his head.

“What am I going to do if fire magic doesn’t work? Even if Astral Break is effective against ghosts, that’s still only one move. I want more options.”

Aria nods in response to Seiya.

“If you would like to learn moves effective against all types of ghosts, then your only option is to talk to the Goddess of Ghosts herself, Nephitet.”

Nephitet—another deity I’ve never heard of. The fact that I don’t know her doesn’t matter, though, because she’s going to teach Seiya a move that works against all ghost-type monsters!

“Aria, do you know where she is?”

“The spirit world’s graveyard.”

“Oh, that’s coo—wait! What?! ‘Graveyard’?! There’s a graveyard in the spirit world?! But deities can’t die!”

“Although it’s an extremely rare occurrence, some deities have been killed with powerful weapons like Chain Destruction while trying to save other worlds. And…”

“‘And’…?”

“Let’s just say that things aren’t always as perfect as they seem.”

Aria seems to be withholding something from me, but I decide not to pry since I don’t want to make her uncomfortable. Instead, I only ask her to point me in the direction of the graveyard.

Our destination is apparently at the base of the secluded celestial mountains where Rasti, the Goddess of Shape-Shifting, resides. On the way there, Kiriko latches onto my arm.

“R-Rista…I’m scared…”

“D-don’t worry, Kiri! This is the spirit world, after all!”

I try to cheer her up, but the countless eerie crosses and tombstones at the desolate foot of the mountains aren’t helping. I feel like the sky is getting cloudier as well. As my eyes pass over a nearby tombstone, I notice it reads: AGE: 35,422,442. W-wow! That god lived for a really long time. I wonder how they died.

While thinking this to myself…

“For some, the eternal life of a deity becomes nothing more than endless suffering.”

“Eek!”

I hear an unfamiliar woman’s voice coming from behind me, so I turn around. She has a pale complexion and long hair. While beautiful, she looks exhausted, and she wears a white, triangular piece of cloth on her forehead. What startles me most, though, is…

…sh-she doesn’t have any legs!

In fact, she doesn’t have a lower body at all! She’s just floating in the air!

I step back in fear when…

“Oops. Sorry…for bothering you. But it’s okay. I’m the keeper…of this graveyard.”

Sh-she’s a goddess?! And judging by the fact that she looks like a ghost… Is this Nephitet?!

She motions me over for some reason.

“No need to be…afraid. Come here.”

“Huh?!”

“I can see it…in your face. It’s nothing to be…ashamed of. It’s normal.”

She speaks in halting phrases while placing a hand on my shoulder.

“You have traveled here…to become…an Eternal Being.”

“What do you mean ‘Eternal Being’?!”

“It’s what we call those who have grown tired of living an eternal life and desire death.”

“O-oh, is tha—wait! What?! I didn’t come here to die!”

“Oh? You didn’t? But you look so hopeless.”

What the…?! Rude! I’ve still got plenty of life in me!

“Then why did you come here?”

Just as I’m about to fire off a fresh round of complaints…

“Move, Eternal BO.”

“Hey! Stop talking about my body odor!”

I yell at Seiya, but to the surprise of no one, he completely ignores me. Nephitet is the only one who matters to him right now.

“I want to learn a move that can damage ghosts with absolute certainty.”

“There are many…types of ghosts. Some are immune to fire, some to ice, and some to light. But even so…”

Nephitet draws the thin sword at her waist. There doesn’t seem to be anything special about it at first glance, but…

“Ghost Buster.”

A white film envelops the blade.

“Wh-what’s that…?”

“I granted spiritual powers to the blade. This sword has become spiritual matter. Its attacks will work…on any ghost.”

“Oh? So that technique makes spiritual attacks possible. That looks promising. Very well. Teach me that Ghost-whatever move.”

As always, the Hero’s attitude is nothing less than arrogant, but Nephitet doesn’t seem to be bothered in the slightest. However, she quietly shakes her head.

“First, we need to raise your spiritual power.”

The Goddess of Ghosts pulls a wooden hammer out of her pocket.

“One hit with this wooden hammer will turn you into a spirit. Only after becoming a spirit will you be able train your spiritual power.”

Whaaaaaat?! So Seiya needs to become a ghost?! This method sounds sketchy at best, but…

“All right.”

…Seiya gives her the okay without a fuss. He then takes the hammer from Nephitet and…

Bonk!

He hits me on the head!

“Oof!”

Why the hell are you testing it on me first?! Test it on yourself!

I want to get mad at him, but my body feels so light.

…That’s when I notice I’m looking down at my body collapsed on the ground.

“Wh-wh-wh-what the—?!”

Something resembling a white piece of thread is sticking out of my head. The other end of the “thread” is attached to the head of my spiritual self. I feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience like with Celemonic’s curse. The only difference is…

“Whoa…! The goddess was split in two! So this is what an astral body looks like!”

“I—I can see another Rista attached to the Rista on the ground!”

“Kiri! Can you hear me?”

“Yes, I can hear you!”

It looks like I can still talk to people after becoming a ghost, but when I try to touch Kiriko, my hand goes right through her. Seiya firmly nods to himself as he watches.

“Nephitet, how do you return to your original body?”

“Just lie down on it and let yourself sink back into your physical self.”

“All right. Rista, do it.”

Wh-who does he think he is, turning me into a ghost and then giving me orders?! Although I’m angry and annoyed, I obediently lie down on top of my physical body.

“Ah…”

And just like that, I’m back to normal.

Oh, thank goodness! It worked!

But just as I sit up—

Bonk!

—I receive another blow to the head, collapse, and find myself staring down at my body again!

“What the…?! Seiyaaaaaa!!”

“I wanted to test it out one more time, just in case. Hmm… It appears safe enough for me to try.”

“No, you appear to be an ass! Stop using me as your guinea pig!”

Before I even finish my sentence, Seiya is already floating next to me as a spirit. His physical body is lying peacefully next to mine. Nephitet then addresses our astral forms.

“Now, let’s begin your spiritual training.”

“‘S-spiritual training’…?”

“It goes beyond Nikola Tesla levels of research. It’s miraculous training that extracts the astral body using scandium and the Odd Eye.”

I have no idea what she’s rambling on about, but it sounds really occult! I wonder what kind of training they’re going to do. Nephitet looks over at Seiya and gives him his first task.

“All right, let’s start with one hundred push-ups and one hundred crunches.”

“How the hell is that spiritual?!”

I can’t believe my ears. Meanwhile…

“Okay.”

Seiya doesn’t even bat an eyelid and just goes with it. He gets low to the ground and starts doing push-ups in silence. W-well, uh… Seiya does love working out, I guess. I don’t actually know if this counts as a workout, but yeah…

After watching Seiya exercise for a while, Nephitet approaches him with a cup of white liquid.

“Here. It’s a whey ghostein shake.”

“A whey ghostein shake?! The hell is that?!”

“It has all of the essential amino spirits necessary to build a healthy astral body. It will raise your spirits, too.”

“Was that a pun?!”

Seiya takes the cup and blankly stares at it for a short while. He then slips behind me and grabs my nose!

“Bwah?!”

He pours the shake down my throat the moment I gasp for breath.

“Glllahhh?!”

The sludgy liquid creeps down my throat.

“How do you feel? Any different?”

“Cough! Hack…! How many times do I have to tell you to stop using me as your guinea pig?!”

“Hmm… You seem to be in high spirits.”

“See? She’s perfectly fine. Whey ghostein is a safe spiritual supplement.”

“All right. I’ll try it, too.”

“Let’s get you two spirit-buff.”

Nephitet then pats Seiya and me on the shoulder, but…when did I ever say I wanted to get “spirit-buff”?! I never asked to do spirit training, and I didn’t want to drink that supplement, either! Furious, I lie on my original body and return to normal, but Seiya keeps at it. Jonde gulps at the sheer level of effort Seiya is giving.

“Unbelievable… He’s still going…”

Beads of sweat drip down Seiya’s body. I have no idea how he’s sweating as a ghost, but watching him work out so intensely and push himself to the limit is so…

“…So cool!”

Hearing Kiriko mutter, I admit there’s something really attractive about how stoic Seiya can be even while working out. After a long push-up session, he stops for a ghostein shake when, all of a sudden, Kiriko approaches him.

“I—I want to be strong like you one day, Seiya!”

“Oh? Do you want a whey ghostein shake, too?”

“Oh, no… It’s not that…”

Ugh! That’s not what Kiriko’s trying to say! What’s wrong with him?

“I should take a break. I don’t want to overdo it.”

Seiya finally returns to his physical body.

“There’s something I want to try out during my break. Nephitet, if the thread connecting my physical body to my astral body was severed, would I die?”

“You mean the phantom thread? Yes, you will die if you cut it and leave it like that for an extended period of time. However, you should be okay if the separation only lasted a short while. You could even find another vessel to attach your soul to.”

“Interesting. So I can remove this man’s soul from his body and place it in another vessel?”

Seiya then approaches Jonde and hits him on the head with the wooden hammer.

“Oof!”

Jonde collapses to the ground, and his astral body appears above him.

“Wh-what do you think you’re doing?!”

Paying no heed to Jonde’s rage, Nephitet hands Seiya a pair of scissors.

“You plan on cutting his phantom thread, yes? Then use these spirit scissors. With these, you should be able to cut it without hurting him.”

Paying her no mind, Seiya grabs Jonde’s thread with both hands and uses brute force to rip it in two!

“Arrrrrrgh! H-have you lost your mind?!”

“I didn’t want to waste any time.”

“The spirit scissors would have been just as quick!”

Seiya ignores Jonde and pulls out a doll made of glittering gold “straw” from his pocket. I immediately recognize the eerie item. After all, I was the one who originally made it.

“This is the Ristarte Hair Doll made from Rista’s actual hair, or what’s left of it after I created Mega Rista anyway. I’m going to use this to perform an experiment.”

Seiya then takes Jonde’s snapped phantom thread and wraps it around the Ristarte Hair Doll. And sure enough, Jonde’s soul is sucked into it!

“Huh?! I-is this…? Is this me?!”

What the…?! I can hear Jonde’s voice coming from the doll as it flails its arms and legs. The ghastly sight causes Kiriko and me to shriek.

“Eeeeeek! The Ristarte Hair Doll is moving!! It’s moviiiiiing!”

“I-I’m so scared, Rista!”

But Seiya nods to himself with his arms crossed.

“Good. Very good.”

““What about this is good?!””

Jonde, now a doll, screams with me. What is wrong with Seiya?!

All of a sudden, Nephitet speaks up as if she just remembered something.

“His soul is going to synchronize with the doll if you leave him in there too long.”

Jonde the doll starts to panic.

“Then hurry up and put my soul back into my body!”

“Y-yeah, I don’t like this, either! Seiya, put him back!”

“Okay.”

Seiya hits the Ristarte Hair Doll with the hammer. He then unravels Jonde’s spirit’s phantom thread from around the doll and sticks it back on the head of his physical body. Jonde sits up and asks:

“D-did you make sure it’s attached properly?! It’s not going to randomly snap off or anything, right?!”

“Eh. I think you’ll be fine. Probably.”

“Why don’t you sound sure?! I thought you were always cautious!”

While Jonde is furious, Seiya seems to be nodding with satisfaction, contrary to his usual lack of expression.

“Today turned out to be very productive. I might’ve even found a solution to the other matter as well. Yes, this is promising.”

After the short break, Seiya returns to his astral body and resumes training.

“Let’s get out of here.”

We head over to Cerceus’s café, leaving Seiya behind to train on his own.

After meeting up with Cerceus and asking if he has a room for Jonde and Kiriko for the night, we’re invited in. He seems to have taken a liking to them during their part-time stint at his café, so he’s going to lend them a room like he did last time. However, since it’s still too early for bed, we decide to hang out for a bit. Kiriko merrily mentions:

“It looks like Seiya was able to take care of whatever was bothering him.”

He did say something about finding a solution to another matter. I still have no idea what that is, but… Well, I’m glad he was able to figure it out.

That’s when I notice Jonde frowning. I don’t blame him, though. Seiya put me through hell today, too. Feeling slightly empathetic, I recommend he have a drink to blow off some steam.

“I don’t blame you for being mad. Come on, drink some coffee. Let’s relax.”

After accepting the cup, Jonde solemnly mutters:

“I’m not mad. I mean, I was angry at the time, but when I really think about it…could he have been…?”

But Jonde strongly shakes his head.

“N-no, that can’t be! He would never do something like that for me! Anyway, I’m exhausted! I must be off to bed!”

“…Jonde?”

He heads to his room, leaving me and Kiriko to our confusion.