"Bugoooooo!?"
Receiving a punch from me, a spirit with the head of a bull and a ripped body—a Minotaur-ish spirit—flew backwards while drawing a spiral pattern.
Let's see, the spirit I just blew off was the [Spirit of Copper], wait no, was he the [Spirit of Zinc]?
After that, I moved to the Spirit Realm together with Karen nee-san and made the greetings and explanations like I was told to, and just as we expected, they were split beautifully into two camps between the obedient ones who went "Understood~" and the rebellious ones who went "Why should we have to follow someone like you, ahh!?"
And, right now I'm talking with those rebellious ones (with my fist).
I did activate Divinity Release so it's not that tiring for me, but it's still troublesome. Take for example the spirit of copper or the spirit of zinc that I mentioned, they're basically elements of metal, and going even more down into the roots they would be minerals; as such, they're technically dependants of the [Spirit of Stone] who controls them all.
Which means, if I can make the spirit of stone obedient to me, I would be able to subdue all of these mineral-type spirits in one go, but they're giving me extra trouble by saying things like "There's no need for Stone-aniki to show up, I'm enough for this kind of puny god" or "What!? The [Spirit of Tin] is defeated!? Don't get cocky, you, he's the weakest among all of us!", etc. It's honestly annoying.
"Kyaa—a! He did it! Touya-sama won again!"
"Wonderful! Beat those rough spirits up more!"
"Serves you right! This feels so refreshing!"
The spirits who already swore allegiance to me are waving their hands at me at one side in the glittering milky-colored Spirit Realm. For some reason, there's a lot of female-type spirits here, while there are more male-type spirits on the other side. (TL: Touya…)
Thanks to that, I feel like I'm being hated due to a completely separate reason from one part of the opposition…
Of course, there are also female-types like spirits that give off an "anego" kind of feeling or ones that look like delinquent girls in the opposition, but as expected even if they're spirits I find it hard to punch a girl, so I made sure to stop my blows right before it connects.
After that, for some reason, those female spirits that were defeated and converted to my camp started cheering passionately for me… (TL: Oh, Touya…)
"Touya-sama! Do your best!"
"I'm cheering for you~"
Among the male spirits that I've defeated, there are weird ones who are also cheering me on passionately. I don't really want to become their acquaintance, though… (TL: I didn't put anything different in, but the cheering by the males a few lines above had that "okama" feel to it in the raws. What's an okama? Well, if you don't know, it's best if you stay that way.)
"I'll be your opponent next!"
And with that, another macho male-type who's naked on his upper half came out. He had a turban on his head, and Arabian-esq pants on his legs.
"Hey! Storm! Don't go against Touya-sama!"
"Sh-shut up! Even if it's a request from Wind-anego, this isn't one I can just accept that easily!"
Above the location behind me where my cheering group is, the [Spirit of Wind], wearing light green clothes, angrily shouted at the macho spirit in front of me. So this guy is the [Spirit of Storm], huh. He's supposed to be a dependant of the spirit of wind, but it seems he's being rebellious right now.
Well, the spirit of stone who's similarly in the opposition camp is also technically a dependant of the [Spirit of Earth], who has sided with me, so.
"Here I go!"
The spirit of storm wrapped his feet in what seemed to be small whirlwinds and launched himself explosively in my direction. Wrapping his fist in lightning, he poised himself for a powerful strike against me who's standing still—well, before that I shot him in the head with Brunhild that's weakly clad in divinity though.
"It hurts!?"
For it to end with just a "it hurts", I suppose that's the toughness of a spirit for you.
And just like that, I blew him away with a strike from the side as he approached me while losing his momentum.
"Dooooooooo!?"
The spirit of storm flew away while bouncing on the ground and stopped after colliding with the spirit of zinc that I defeated earlier.
Haa… How troublesome.
"Kyaa—a! Touya-sama is the best! Oi storm, you're all talk! Go and repent—!"
The spirit of wind chased after him and started beating him further. Oi oi, he's your dependant so shouldn't you be nicer to him… Look, he's even crying a little… There are ranks within spirits as well, and among them are the arch-spirits (TL: "大精霊") which can be considered as the heavyweights, or representatives of the entire Spirit Realm. The [Spirit of Wind] is tentatively one of those as well, but I really can't see her as someone that important. How to say it, she has a casualness to her that wouldn't lose against Karen nee-san…
"… Are you thinking something weird-no yo?" "… It's your imagination."
As sharp as usual. I avoid the staring attack Karen nee-san sent at me with a *fui*.
Among the arch-spirits, there are also ones like [Spirit of Water], [Spirit of Earth], and [Spirit of Light], all of whom have sided with me on this occasion.
More surprising, however, is the fact that the [Spirit of Darkness], whom I've dealt with in the past, has already revived and is siding with me as well.
I beat her up once, but possibly because of having been sealed for a few hundred years, she was apparently not in her right mind back then.
Well, more than anything, the surprising part would be how "she", who once was a grotesque dark octopus-like monster that grew countless tentacles, is now standing in front of me in the form of a cute black-hair black-eyed young girl.
Even now, she's waving her hands at me together with the spirit of light while seemingly embarrassed, wearing a black one-piece. With her short bob-styled hair shaking slightly together with her movements, she looks almost like a pair of sisters with the spirit of light, who's sporting a head of wavy golden hair, next to her.
The darkness spirit that had appeared in Ramissh was perhaps, the form it had taken after taking in its summoner Ramirez and being contaminated by the countless negative human emotions it came into contact with over a long time.
Honestly, thinking about how I had beaten that child up in the past is giving me some substantial guilt… I'm grateful that even though I'm the one who did that, she doesn't seem to hold any sort of negative emotions like fear towards me.
It's possible that when spirits revive, they revive as completely new existences that, while having the same powers as before, do not carry on the previous spirits' personalities and memories, etc.
My chest hurts every time she waves at me. I'm really sorry about back then. Please forgive me. I didn't know you were such a nice girl…
"Each and every one of you guys are pathetic! I'll be your opponent!"
The spirit who came up to me while saying that was a female-type with blazing red hair. The red-colored thin clothes she was wearing looked similar to the one worn by the wind spirit, but with shortened lengths here and there to facilitate movement.
"That's the [Spirit of Fire]-nano yo."
"Ho. An arch-spirit?"
"Yup."
Karen nee-san told me that. Hee, the spirit of fire huh. Or rather, are all the arch-spirits female?
"Arch-spirits… Actually all spirits in general, they go through life cycles lasting several thousands of years, at the end of which they would revive themselves and start anew, turning into a male or a female, or even into the form of a dragon or some other animals-no yo. It's just a coincidence that for this generation, there were a lot of female-types-nano yo. Well, their personalities and emotions do change according to their gender, though."
Is that so. It's still hard to fight against a female-type… Well, it seems that she's the last of the female rebellious spirits.
"Here I come!"
The spirit of fire charged straight at me while stepping on the air and accompanied by the sound of explosions. With each step she takes, explosive flame shot out from her feet, accelerating her further, it seems. Does that girl have dynamites attached to her soles or something!?
"Here!"
Fireballs are released continuously from her raised hands. Without any consideration for the surroundings, the fireballs turned the area nearby into a sea of flames. I'm a bit worried about the spirits cheering me on behind, but it seemed that the spirit of water had raised a protective barrier.
I fly around in the sky of the milky-white Spirit Realm while dodging the fireballs. When I turn into a god, I don't need [Fly] to be able to fly, so it's convenient.
"Scurrying around… Next is this!"
Several pillars of flame rose up in front of me to block my way. They then broke apart and swirled around me to form a flaming tornado, trying to incinerate me who's at the center.
Without panicking, I made a slashing motion with Brynhild which is clad in divinity, easily slicing through and dispersing the tornado.
"What!?"
"Next is my turn, I guess?"
The top speed I can achieve while in Divinity Release is far higher than even when I'm using [Boost] and [Accel] back on the Surface World. Of course, if I actually did that in the Surface World I would collapse almost immediately, but it seemed my consumption here is vastly reduced due to the Spirit Realm being closer to the Divine Realm.
I moved into the bosom of the spirit of fire in an instant. I grabber her hands with one of my own, and while paying careful attention not to cause her any injuries, I swept her foot out from underneath her, and threw her body onto the ground after drawing a beautiful curve.
"Wha—"
I thrusted the tip of Brunhild's blade in front of the chest of the spirit of fire that was lying down on the ground. The match's decided.
"It, it's my loss…"
I pulled up the spirit of fire who had acknowledged her defeat by the hand. Her face looks blank and is kinda red, I wonder if she's ok? (TL: *facepalm*)
"Y-you're pretty strong, aren't ya…"
"N? Well, yeah. I've been trained by the sword demon from hell every day after all…"
I still don't feel like I can win against Moroha nee-san even after all that training… Well she's the God of Swords, so it can't be helped if I can't win against her in terms of the sword, but I feel like I wouldn't win even if it's purely physical techniques…
"Alright, you guys still wanna go? Who's next? Since it's troublesome, you guys can come at me altogether if you want."
I threw some cheap insults towards the rebellious spirits. This isn't gonna end if we keep it up. I want to end this soon…
"We-well then, good luck. I'll be, um, cheering for you over there."
"Nn? Oh, thanks."
While squirming a little bit, the spirit of fire then ran towards where the spirit of light and the others were at.
She was red until her ears, and there was some kind of solar flare-like thing on top of her head but, I wonder if her body temperature is high? She's the spirit of fire after all. I didn't feel like she was hot when I was grasping her hands earlier though. (TL: ...)
Karen nee-san, who was watching that, turned her gaze that looks exasperated for some reason over here.
"… It might be because of his divinity as a dependant of the World God-sama, but he himself seems to be a natural spirit girl killer-nano yo… I fear for the future-no yo…"
"What're you talking about, saying things like 'killer'…"
I'm not killing them, you know. (TL: I give up.)
While throwing a word of complaint to Karen nee-san who said some incomprehensible stuff, I suddenly realized the rebellious spirits' camp was releasing some substantial killing intent at me. Uoo!? What, did the cheap insult just now actually work?
"How dare you…! Even our last hope, the spirit of fire-san…!"
"I'm jealous… I'm so jealous! That bastard, not being satisfied with just the spirit of darkness-tan… Unforgivable…!"
"Right now, I feel like I can kill even a god…!"
"Even if the flame of the spirit of fire is extinguished, this flame of jealousy within my chest will never fade…!"
Eh? Eh? They're crying… Are their tears red? Spirits sure are weird. (TL: I said I give up, ok?)
""""" Death to our sworn enemy (TL: "怨敵滅殺!!!") !!!"""""
""""" OOOOO!!!"""""
The rest of the spirits all charged at me while raising a somewhat tragic cry for some reason. Like I said, why the tears!? It's kinda scary, you know!
—A few tens of minutes later, all the spirits that came attacking ended up scattered around like a whole bunch of corpses. I wonder, why do I feel so bad… It's as if I'm the bad guy here. (TL: Oh, so you at least have some guilty thoughts subconsciously?)
"I have no regrets… There are times when one must stand and fight even knowing that he would lose…"
"Even if we disappear our flames of jealousy will never die… Someday, someday that guy will…"
"Spirit of darkness-tan… Ha ha…" (TL: the "ha ha" part was not laughing, it was panting. Not gonna say anything else.)
They're murmuring something under their breaths, but I'll ignore them.
From within the spirits that had been cheering me on, the spirit of light came forward, lightly raised her hand and began to pledge.
"In the name of an arch-spirit, I recognize Mochizuki Touya-sama as the king of us spirits. Please guide us well henceforth."
Following the spirit of light, the spirits of water, earth, darkness, wind, and fire all raised their hands and recited the same pledge.
With this, the matter with the spirits is somehow settled, I suppose. It was a pretty forceful solution, though…
Wonder if it couldn't have gone a smarter way…
TL notes:
Wonder if I should add these from now on.
Well then, this chapter: Touya being a dense op chick magnet. Same as usual I guess.