CHAPTER 48

A Gift

The next morning, I head over to the spirit world’s graveyard to check up on Seiya, only to find him training his astral body. No surprise there. His spirit looks even more toned than it did yesterday. Nephitet, standing by my side, nods to herself with satisfaction.

“Nice. He’s becoming quite spirit-buff.”

Apparently, by training his astral body and strengthening his spiritual energy, he’ll be able to use the divine skill Ghost Buster, which grants spiritual energy to corporeal swords.

“Nephitet! You mean he’ll soon be able to move on to Ghost Buster training, right?!”

“He could start right now if he wanted to. If he continues training like this and toning his astral body, though, he’ll probably be able to take first place at the Best Astral Body Competition for lean and toned athletes.”

“Wh-what…? Who cares about some stupid contest?!”

“Well, that’s unfortunate. Then I guess I’ll start teaching him how to grant spiritual energy to his sword after his break.”

With Nephitet’s approval secured, I walk over to Seiya, who’s in the middle of working out.

“Seiya, she said you can take a break now! It looks like you’ve got enough spiritual energy to learn Ghost Buster!”

“Not yet. I’m going to train a little more.”

“What?! Don’t tell me you’re going to enter that astral body competition!”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Do you really think I have time for that? I just want to increase my spiritual energy, since it would increase Ghost Buster’s power as well.”

“O-oh. Thank goodness… Just don’t overdo it, okay? Make sure you take breaks.”

Seiya continues his training in silence, so I decide to go check on Jonde and Kiriko.

It’s still early, so while Café du Cerceus is still closed, Jonde, Kiriko, and Cerceus are standing near the garden tables talking about something.

“You’re the God of Swords, right? I beg of you!”

“Cerceus, we beg of you!”

“Hmm…”

Cerceus wears a solemn frown and has his arms crossed. Huh? What’s going on?

“Good morning, Kiri. What’s up?”

“Oh! Good morning, Rista! Um… We were just asking Cerceus if he could teach us swordsmanship between shifts at the café!”

Jonde turns to me, his eyes brimming with determination.

“I have officially become a member of the Hero’s party. Though my body rots, I can still fight. I want to help save the world.”

“Hmm… And you feel the same way, Kiri?”

“Y-yes! I want to become stronger so I can help Seiya!”

Hmm… It doesn’t matter if they train, since Seiya’s going to end up defeating all the enemies by himself anyway. But, well…if this is what they want…

“Come on, Cerceus. Do you think you could teach them some swordsmanship?”

I try to urge Cerceus to help, but he doesn’t seem into it.

“I have laid down my sword. It is a part of me no longer.”

“I—I know you think you can just retire, but you are the Divine Blade, you know!”

I know why he’s hesitant. His spartan training with Seiya really traumatized him, so sword fighting triggers him these days.

“I, too, have been devoted to the way of the sword from a young age! There is no greater honor than getting to meet the God of Swords in the spirit world!”

“Hmm…”

“Cerceus, I beg of you!”

“Cerceus, please…!”

Cerceus lets out a deep sigh as they lower their heads to him. He then takes off his café uniform and dons a suit of armor before tossing two wooden swords on the ground in front of them.

“What’s wrong? I thought you said you wanted to train. Pick up your swords.”

“C-Cerceus, are you sure?!”

“We’ve already finished getting the café ready. We have a little time to spare.”

“Cerceus…! Thank you so much!”

“Hmph. My training is strict. Come at me when you’re ready. Both of you.”

…And that was the last badass thing Cerceus ever said.

Jonde attacks, thinking he is facing a much stronger opponent, but his wooden sword hits Cerceus right on the head.

“Ow!”

Kiriko follows up with a clean hit to Cerceus’s solar plexus.

“Gwah?! W-wait! One second! Just give me a second!”

But after using Scan on both of them, Cerceus’s face goes completely pale.

“K-Kiriko’s attack stat is over eighty thousand?! And Jonde’s is over one hundred thousand?! Y-you two are already strong enough!”

Well, they do live in an SS-ranked world, after all. Their stats are far from normal. Both Jonde and Kiriko shake their heads.

“It’s nowhere near enough! I must become stronger!”

“Me, too! I want to be as strong as you, Cerceus!”

“N-no, um… My attack is actually, uh…only around thirty thousand, so…”

Cerceus speaks in such a tiny voice that they don’t seem to hear his confession.

“Cerceus! Don’t go easy on me, okay? Please come at me with everything you’ve got!”

“Kiriko! He is the Divine Blade! Use your sword, not your words! It is the only way he will start taking us seriously!”

“All right! I’ll give it everything I’ve got!”

Jonde and Kiriko then proceed to beat Cerceus black and blue with their wooden swords.

“J-Jonde! Kiri…! Stop! Cerceus is foaming at the mouth!”

“I feel really bad about what we did to Cerceus…”

“Yes… I never expected the Divine Blade to be so weak…”

After carrying the unconscious deity to the bedroom in the back of the café, Jonde and Kiriko take seats at a table as a dark cloud of gloom hangs over their heads. Before long, Seiya comes walking over with a long object wrapped in cloth.

“Oh! Seiya, are you done with your astral training already?”

“Yeah. That should do it for now.”

“Then how about taking a break?”

I offer him a seat, but he ignores me. Instead, he holds out the long item wrapped in cloth.

“Hmm? What’s that?”

“I’ve been messing around with Synthesis between workouts…and I was finally able to create it.”

“You were synthesizing…? Wait. So you haven’t been taking breaks and resting?! Are you okay?! You’re not going to pass out again, right?!”

“I’m fine. In fact, this has taken a load off my mind.”

It has? Does that mean he’s found a solution to that “other matter” he was talking about?

“Anyway, check it out. I created a new sword to replace the platinum sword. It’s called a killer sword.”

Seiya removes the cloth, revealing three swords. He unsheathes one, exposing a silver, glittering blade.

“A killer sword, you say! What a fine blade you have created!”

Jonde probably has an eye for swords. He reverently stares at it and gasps in admiration. Using Appraise reveals that it’s a top-class weapon in both attack power and durability. It’s absolutely incredible that he was able to make such a powerful sword since Ixphoria lacks materials for Synthesis, but there’s something that’s bothering me.

“H-hey, um… Seiya? How exactly did you make that sword?”

“I combined fur from Grandleon, machine parts from Oxerio, some hair from Celemonic, and a little something extra along with a platinum sword to create it.”

So he’s been collecting parts from these powerful enemies to use for Synthesis?! When he gets fixated on something, he becomes obsessed! B-but more importantly…

“Hey… When you say ‘a little something extra’…”

I tremble, wondering if I’m missing handfuls of hair, but…

“Don’t worry. I only needed one hair from you this time.”

“What?! Just one?! Not a hundred?!”

“Just one. But instead, I had to use a large volume of body hair from an undead to make the killer sword, leaving me with no choice but to secretly pluck a hundred hairs from Jonde’s body.”

Contrary to my sigh of relief, Jonde is bewildered.

“Y-you used that much of my hair?!”

“You’re a walking corpse. Who cares if you go bald?”

“I—I do! Am I bald?! Mirror…! I need a mirror!”

Paying no heed to the flustered undead, Seiya holds out one of the three swords to Kiriko.

“Kiriko, you want to become stronger, right?”

“Huh? Y-yes…!”

“Then take this.”

“Thank you so much!”

W-wow. It’s not every day Seiya gives someone a weapon! That’s when I notice something written on the grip of the killer sword. I strain my eyes…and spot the name Kiriko carved in it.

“Wow! Kiri, it has your name carved on it, too!”

“I’m so happy! I promise I’ll treasure this sword!”

“It’d be confusing to figure out whose sword is whose if they ever got mixed up, so I carved your names in them.”

Uh-huh. I wonder what’s gotten into Seiya? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him give someone a present before. Seiya hands Jonde, who’s still worried about his hair, a killer sword as well.

“Here.”

“Wh-while I still have mixed feelings about this, I do appreciate it.”

“Hey, did you carve Jonde’s name into the grip as well?”

Kiriko and I look at the sword in Jonde’s hand, only to find the words…

Dead Body.

“What?! Why couldn’t you have just carved my name?!” Jonde shouts.

“It’s more straightforward this way.”

Seiya dismisses Jonde’s concern. I awkwardly laugh as if I have nothing to do with this, but…

“I made one for you, too.”

“R-really?!”

After Seiya hands me a killer sword, I bashfully say:

“I-I’m sure you wrote something like Idiot or Worthless Goddess on my sword!”

I timidly look down at the grip…

But there’s nothing carved in it.

“What the…?! At least write something!!”

What am I, thin air?! Am I invisible to him?! I’d rather have gotten Jonde’s treatment and had something rude written on mine, but I guess Jonde’s just as upset as I am. He’s massaging his temples, and his eyebrows are tightly knit.

“So we have three swords altogether. And the Hero has one, too, of course, which means…h-he pulled out four hundred strands of my hair?!”

“No. I plucked over six hundred in total.”

“What?! What possessed you to take that many?!”

“A hundred for my spare and a hundred for my spare’s spare.”

“Did you really need that many?!”

“Yes. Burning through multiple swords in the fight against Grandleon proved as much.”

Jonde clenches his teeth, unable to argue. Seiya then declares:

“Anyway, I’ll be heading back to Nephitet’s place to learn Ghost Buster after lunch, thus concluding my training for the time being.”

Later, we all head over to the spirit world’s graveyard together. As Seiya takes a battle stance with his unsheathed killer sword, Nephitet explains:

“Imagine you’re sending part of your astral self into the sword and that the blade is an extension of your body.”

With his sword in hand, Seiya closes his eyes, takes in a deep breath, then exhales. He doesn’t move a muscle, but the moment he opens his eyes, a white, filmlike aura surrounds the blade.

“Ohhh!”

Jonde cries in admiration.

“You’re a quick study. Yes, that is Ghost Buster. You can damage any ghost-type monster with that.”

“You did it, Seiya!”

Seiya learned Ghost Buster surprisingly easily. It must be because of all the astral training he did, coupled with his natural talent. Seiya walks over to me after sheathing his sword.

Huh?! N-no way! Is he so happy that he’s going to hug me?!

But just as my heart starts to race…

Bonk!

…Seiya’s fist slams right onto my head!

What the hell are you doing?! is what I want to yell, but I find myself staring down at my unconscious body. He brought out my astral body again!! Wh-what’s going on?! All he did was punch me, and now I’m a ghost?!

“Nice. Very nice. You learned how to extract your opponent’s astral body without the wooden hammer. You are…truly talented.”

Nephitet seems impressed, but what the hell?! I didn’t even know a move like that existed! I mean, what’s even the point of a move like this?! At any rate, I lie down on my collapsed body and return to my normal self.

“S-stop pulling out my spirit like that!”

I chastise Seiya, but he just stares at his hand.

“All I need now is to find a substitute vessel.”

“A ‘substitute vessel’?”

Jonde parrots Seiya’s murmur.

“Hrnnnnngh!!”

He then groans as tears pour down his cheeks.

“Jonde?! What’s wrong?!”

“Hrngh…! I’m sure of it now! This Hero may punch me and pluck my hair—he may seem like a terrible person at first glance, but…”

Unable to hold back the tears, Jonde faces Seiya and continues.

“You’ve been searching for a way to turn me back into a human, haven’t you?!”

“What?! I-is that true, Seiya?!”

Kiriko suddenly speaks up for the silent Hero as if she had an epiphany.

“Oh! So that’s the ‘other matter’ he’s been talking about!”

Is that why he put Jonde’s spirit into the Ristarte Hair Doll yesterday?! That means he’s been thinking about ways to save Jonde in between training sessions! Man, I knew you were a nice guy deep down, Seiya! We each look at Seiya with eyes full of adoration, but he simply stares back at us like we’re stupid.

“What are you talking about?”

Wiping the tears from his eyes, Jonde pats Seiya on the back and laughs.

“Ha-ha-ha! I know, I know! You’re a man! It’s embarrassing for you to express your emotions!”

Jonde tries to wrap his arm around Seiya while acting like he has him figured out. Seiya, however, pushes him away.

“Get off me. You’re gonna make me smell like a corpse.”

“Oh, come on! Let’s bond, buddy!”

“…That’s enough.”

In the blink of an eye, Seiya punches Jonde on the top of the head.

Bam! Wham! Crunch!

With a thunderous roar, Seiya’s earth magic splits open the ground, sending Jonde’s body deep beneath the crust until he can no longer be seen!

“S-S-Seiya?!”

“Seiya?! You went too far! Jonde’s forehead isn’t even poking out this time!”

Kiriko and I are horrified, but Nephitet approaches us with a smile. She then picks up the killer sword with the words Dead Body on it and hands it to Seiya.

“Here. Stick this in the ground.”

“Good idea.”

Seiya drives the sword into the ground where Jonde is buried, almost like a grave marker. He then says:

“I was able to master Ghost Buster, succeed in creating the killer sword, and dig a grave for a really annoying man.”

He brushes his hair back in trademark fashion.

“I’m perfectly prepared.”

Nephitet gives a thumbs-up, Kiriko is at a loss for words, and Jonde is buried deep underground. It makes me wonder if the “other matter” really was about Jonde. I don’t even know anymore.