CHAPTER 13

The Goddess of Shape-Shifting

I decide to connect the gate to the spirit world’s plaza this time. Leaving the evil, desolate lands of Ixphoria and entering a pure, holy world is breathtaking to say the least.

“We’re finally back!”

I stretch out while filling my lungs with the fresh air when…

“Rista!”

I turn in the direction of the familiar voice. Sitting at a garden table with an umbrella in the corner of the plaza is Aria, her eyes wide. She jumps out of her seat and comes rushing over.

“I was so worried!”

We haven’t been back to the spirit world for a week in Ixphoria time, which means it has been around two years in the spirit world. All of the deities in the spirit world, including me, are immortal, so the flow of time doesn’t really cross our minds. A few years is nothing to us. Even then, Aria is elated to see me, with tears welling in her eyes.

“I can’t see Ixphoria through the crystal ball anymore, and I heard the enemies had weapons with Chain Destruction… Anyway, I just couldn’t stop thinking about you two!”

“Thanks, Aria! But we’re fine!”

I put on a smile, but Aria looks back and forth between Seiya and me dubiously.

“Really? You look a mess.”

I lower my eyes and look at myself. My clothes are completely black with mud from living underground for so long. That’s when…

“Oh, you’re right. It’s hard to believe she’s a goddess.”

“Y-you smell t-terrible, Rista…”

I hear a few more familiar voices. When I look up, I see Cerceus and Adenela…both of whom are pinching their noses as if they’d planned this.

“I—I was living underground, so…!”

But they don’t listen to my excuses and begin staring at Seiya. He’s just as filthy as I am, and yet…

“Look at Seiya. What a badass.”

“Y-yeah, he’s s-so dreamy.”

“He looks even more refined than when he left…unlike Rista.”

“Hey!”

Why am I the only one who gets called smelly and dirty?! We were both living underground! Unbelievable!

Cerceus offers me a cup of steaming coffee to ease my nerves.

“Here, have a drink. It’s an espresso.”

That’s when I notice that Cerceus looks different. He’s dressed in a vest and is wearing a bow tie.

“Wh-what’s the getup for?”

“Oh, this? Actually, there’ve been a few changes while you two were gone! I finally opened my dream café! Welcome to Café du Cerceus! Please enjoy yourselves!”

“W-wow… Congratulations…”

As I look around, I notice a few more tables. It appears to be an open-air café. No wonder Aria and Adenela are hanging out in the plaza’s corner… Wait. Wasn’t Cerceus the Divine Blade? Why is he running a café now? I—I mean, as long as this is what he wants, then I guess it’s okay…

While sipping on my hot coffee, I am suddenly shown something that looks like a tree branch.

“This is my newest creation! They’re called churros, and they’re to die for!”

Uh… How about putting it on a plate and trying that again?! Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t even think of touching it, but I’m starving. I basically swipe the churro out of his hand before sinking my teeth into it.

“H-how is it? You like it?”

“It’s amazing! It’s so, so good!”

“Really?!”

“Yeah! It’s even better than death worms!”

“Oh, wonderful! …Huh? ‘Death worms’? I don’t know what those are, but I doubt that’s a compliment!”

Cerceus seems puzzled, but he clears his throat to switch gears and offers Seiya a plate of churros.

“A-are you hungry? Please have a churro.”

But Seiya instantly turns him down with a frigid glare.

“I don’t need any of your death churros.”

“…! What do you mean ‘death’ churros?! They’re normal, delicious churros!”

Seiya ignores Cerceus’s cries and turns his gaze to Aria.

“Aria, I want to train with another deity, as we discussed before. Can I start now?”

“S-sure, I let them know quite a while ago, but…”

“Then let’s go.”

“S-Seiya?! Hold on! How about changing first?! You’re not even gonna take a bath?!”

“I can do that later.”

Seiya and Aria start to walk away, leaving Cerceus disappointed that Seiya didn’t eat his churros and Adenela disappointed that they couldn’t talk more.

“It wouldn’t kill us if we took a little break…”

I complain loud enough for Seiya to hear me, but naturally, he ignores me. With Aria in the lead, we climb up a smooth mountain slope, for we’re heading to the secluded celestial mountain of the unified spirit world. While it appears majestic from the view at the sanctuary, this is the first time I’ve ever actually climbed it. I hear deities who wish to train as hermits live here, but…

We walk over the small pebbles for a while until we can see a small log house at the foot of the mountain. Aria knocks on the door.

“Rasti, it’s me, Aria. I’m coming in.”

I follow Seiya and Aria into the cabin…and my knees almost give way…because there’s a cyclops inside!

“What?! Wh-why is there a monster in the spirit world?!”

But the moment the beast grabs a book off the top of the shelf, a bright light illuminates the room. The massive cyclops instantly shrinks until the light fades, revealing a little girl with a book in her hand. While she is robed in mature, kimono-like attire, she’s around the same age as Eich in Little Light. The little girl then explains things to me as I gawk.

“The bookshelf is really tall, and I couldn’t reach a book at the top, so I changed into a cyclops.”

Aria introduces her with a cheerful smile.

“This is the Goddess of Shape-Shifting, Rasti.”

“The Goddess of Shape-Shifting…?”

My eyes naturally drift in Seiya’s direction for answers, but he acts like I’ve terribly inconvenienced him as he explains.

“Ixphoria is overrun and ruled by monsters, so I was originally planning on mastering shape-shifting here before starting my journey, since I’d be able to freely get around if I turned into a monster. Too bad a certain someone ruined that plan.”

Seiya stares hard at me as I awkwardly stand in silence.

“I’m talking about you, Rista.”

“I—I know that! You don’t have to rub it in!”

In a desperate attempt to change the subject, I approach the young girl in front of us, bend at the knees, and smile.

“Um… Nice to meet you, Rasti! I’m Ristarte! You can call me Rista!”

The young girl then furrows her brow.

“Don’t talk down to me like that. I’m a higher-ranking goddess than you.”

“…Huh?”

“Rista! Rasti has been here for tens of thousands of years!”

“S-seriously?! I-I-I’m so sorry!”

How was I supposed to know?! She looks and sounds like she should be in day care!

“You smell, and you’re filthy. What are you, the Goddess of Filth?”

“N-no! I’m the Goddess of Healing!”

As I frantically try to explain…

“Out of the way, Goddess of Filth.”

I’m suddenly hit in the butt from behind!

“Aieeeeee?!”

Seiya’s kick sends me skidding across the floor. Aria gasps.

“Huh?! I thought you two were close now!”

“A lot…has happened since then…and I’ve been demoted to parasitic weed…”

Aria is taken aback while I rub my butt, but Seiya just talks to Rasti like nothing happened.

“I have a question. Can you turn invisible with shape-shifting?”

“No. You can only transform into people or monsters that you’ve seen. And while this goes without saying, your abilities and status remain the same even after you shape-shift.”

“Hmph. All right, let’s get started.”

“Okay. Since you have Hero qualities, learning how to shape-shift in a week is very possible.”

“That won’t do. I’ve got ten hours.”

Rasti’s expression instantly clouds over.

“Don’t underestimate shape-shifting. It’s not like you’re changing clothes. It’s a divine skill that requires you to change who you yourself are: your voice, smell, physique, and even presence. It’s not something you can learn in one night.”

Rasti then raises a slender arm into the air before us.

“Awaken the monsters of your past buried in your subconscious…and chant the spell of shape-shifting.”

After chanting a spell, Rasti’s arm sparkles before instantly transforming into a colossal cyclops arm.

“You’ll need at least three days until you’re able to do this. It may look easy, but actually doing it takes a lot of effort.”

However…

“Like this?”

Before I know it, Seiya’s arm has already changed into a cyclops’s.

“H-have you learned how to shape-shift before?”

“No, this is the first time.”

“B-but actually changing your voice is difficult! You have to imagine the monster’s voice while chanting this spell… Then your voice will deepen into a cyclops’s just like this. After that—”

Rasti’s voice suddenly changes as she speaks, but…

“Oh? So, in short, like this?”

Seiya speaks up in an already deep, cyclopean voice.

“Wh-wh-wh-what?!”

…Feeling at ease, Aria and I retire from the hut and smile at each other as we walk.

“It looks like he’s going to learn the move in no time!”

“Yeah! He probably doesn’t even need the full ten hours!”

Seiya’s amazing spongelike brain is nothing surprising to us anymore. It looked like Rasti’s eyes were going to pop out of her head in astonishment, though.

“Oh yeah! Rista, you need to go see Great Goddess Ishtar later. She said she wanted to talk to you.”

“Huh? I wonder why.”

“I don’t think it’s anything bad, so feel free to take a bath and get cleaned up before you go.”

After descending the mountain, I return to the sanctuary and take a hot shower in the bath area. I put on a clean dress, brush my hair, then head over to Ishtar’s room…

“Ristarte, I am so glad you’re safe.”

Wearing a gentle smile, Great Goddess Ishtar is knitting in her chair just like always.

“I apologize for worrying you.”

“I heard everything from Adenela. She told me the first enemy from Ixphoria you encountered possessed a weapon with Chain Destruction…”

Her expression slightly tenses.

“There is one more thing that concerns me. When you broke the spell stone, the mist covering Ixphoria briefly cleared, but I couldn’t sense Demon Lord Ultimaeus’s presence.”

“Wh-why not?”

“I don’t know. While the current situation is dire, I feel that something even more frightening is about to occur…”

Ishtar then slowly gets out of her chair.

“I believe saving Ixphoria has gone beyond the scope of punishment. Let’s go to the heart of the spirit world together. I will ask the deities to reduce your sentence.”

I deeply thank Ishtar for her kindness. She is just like a loving mother. But is this really going to work? The heart of the spirit world—I’ve heard of its existence, but I’ve never been there. I don’t even really know where it is.

Ishtar ends up bringing me to the Chamber of Eternal Stasis, where all of the eternal souls of the gods are stored. Nobody is allowed to enter the room without Ishtar’s permission. Ishtar chants a spell, and the door’s seal breaks. The moment I set foot in the room, I’m struck with a mysterious feeling.

“This way.”

I quietly follow her. Shelves line the walls, storing palely glowing souls. After walking for a while, I find the shelves eventually come to an end, and I’m standing in front of a huge painting. It’s a mysterious landscape of a meandering path leading up to a sanctuary on top of a cliff.

“This is the heart of the spirit world.”

“Huh?”

Ishtar takes my hand, then begins to walk into the painting!

“Ahhh?!”

We run right into the canvas—or so I thought. I find myself on a meandering path. Standing tall on a cliff in the distance is a sanctuary. We’ve entered the painting. After walking to the stone staircase before the sanctuary, Ishtar suddenly comes to a stop and kneels, so I imitate what she’s doing and kneel as well.

“Three pillars of the heart of the spirit world—God of Creation, Brahma; God of Logic and Reason, Nemesiel; and Goddess of Time, Chronoa—I, Ishtar of the highest order in the unified spirit world, have come with a request.”

Before long, I hear a dignified voice coming from the back of the sanctuary.

“What is it, Ishtar?”

“Nemesiel, God of Logic and Reason, I come to speak with you about this goddess, Ristarte, in regard to her punishment to save the SS-ranked world of Ixphoria…”

Ishtar explains how the enemies of Ixphoria possess weapons with Chain Destruction that can destroy the souls of gods. She earnestly pleads with them, since Seiya and I could lose our souls if we continue our journey. However…

“Ishtar, the judgment is final. It cannot be altered. Ristarte and Seiya Ryuuguuin must bring salvation to Ixphoria.”

Ishtar calmly replies to his stern tone.

“Then, at the very least, could you allow Ristarte to use her divine powers?”

“No, it wouldn’t be punishment if we allowed that.”

Her request is immediately shot down, but…

“Nemesiel, don’t you think that’s a little too much?”

I hear a goddess’s voice coming from the sanctuary.

“As the parents of the gods, it’s our duty to protect our children. While we cannot change the destination, we need to make a little compromise if the enemies have weapons that can kill gods.”

“Goddess of Time, Chronoa, are you contesting the judgment that I, the God of Logic and Reason, have made?”

“I’ll answer your question with a question, Nemesiel. Do you not care if our children die?”

“I never said that.”

“Your words were no different—”

A neutral voice suddenly interjects moments before an argument breaks out.

“That’s enough, you two.”

Both Nemesiel and Chronoa fall completely silent. Ishtar then whispers in my ear:

“That’s the ruler of the heart of the spirit world, Brahma, the God of Creation.”

Th-that’s the voice of the highest-ranking god—Brahma?!

Hearing the voice of the Father of all Deities turns me into a nervous wreck!

Wh-what is He going to say?! Is He going to take my side?! Or is He going to agree with Nemesiel?!

Brahma’s voice echoes throughout the heart of the spirit world.

“Nemesiel, Chronoa, listen well. Without the use of Order, Ristarte’s healing abilities are actually rather miserable and no better than healing herbs.”

…?! Brahmaaaaaa?!

The supreme deity’s words almost make me cry, and Chronoa and Nemesiel begin whispering to each other.

“Did you hear that? ‘No better than healing herbs’?”

“Even though she’s a goddess?”

Nemesiel asks Brahma, “Are her powers truly that insignificant?”

“Indeed, they are most pathetic.”

…?! Did the supreme being just call my powers pathetic?!

After a few moments go by, Nemesiel says:

“Very well. We will allow Ristarte to use her pathetic—ahem—her healing powers, but she is not allowed to use Order.”

After returning from the heart of the spirit world, Ishtar places a hand on my shoulder and quietly nods. There are so many things I want to say, but I manage to suppress my feelings. I just need to be thankful that I can use my healing abilities.