Chapter 22: The Gap Between Dreams and Reality
A girl lightly slept within the glow of light.
In her faint consciousness, familiar voices reached her ears.
One was a hearty, bold laugh. The other was more ordinary but carried a faint trace of hostility.
Realizing this, Ena Seishuin slowly woke up.
She found herself lying on a wooden floor. Next to her was the divine sword Ame-no-Murakumo, and Yuri Mariya lay nearby in the same manner—though Yuri seemed to still be unconscious.
Following the direction the voices came from, Ena saw Hikigaya Hachiman chatting and laughing with "Grandpa."
"I'm telling you, kid, do you really have to be so honest and loyal to your desires? Is your dream seriously just sleeping with a bunch of girls?"
"Hey! You damn pervert! My wish is to be popular, okay?! Totally different thing!"
"How's that any different?"
"It's totally different! I just want all the girls to want to sleep with me, that's all."
…That conversation was quite delicate.
But it was undoubtedly Hikigaya Hachiman's style. Only a god-slayer could shamelessly spout such embarrassing dreams out loud like this.
Ena sat up. Her strength seemed to have fully returned.
She could feel that Ame-no-Murakumo had expended some of its power.
It appeared Hachiman had used it to bring her and Yuri out of that other world and into this spirit realm where "Grandpa" resided.
"You're awake?"
The man and the god both turned toward her. What baffled Ena was that they actually looked genuinely delighted to see her awake.
But I heard everything you two said!
"What's with that look?" Hachiman asked, clearly confused by her expression. "Do you have a cold?"
Ena thought for a moment, then decided to take a deep breath as a show of dramatic flair—only to suck in a huge mouthful of cursed energy...
Right, this is the spirit realm. That backfired hard.
"Cough cough!" She started coughing violently.
Even with divine ancestor blood and the blessing of a god-sword, recklessly inhaling the energy of this realm after being injured by another god-slayer? Not a smart move.
But Hachiman completely misread her actions.
"You really are sick?"
He looked surprised and instantly teleported to her side, hugging her just as she was halfway upright.
"Let me check," he muttered, beginning to examine her condition.
Under his fumbling hands, Ena's blood circulation indeed seemed to improve—or maybe her vitality was getting a bit too stirred up.
Eventually, she couldn't take it anymore.
She grabbed the hand that was starting to wander inside her clothes and glared at him angrily.
Only then did this bastard reluctantly pull his hand back, looking rather disappointed.
"As a single man, your behavior just now inflicted serious emotional damage on me," spoke a certain god, who claimed to be retired, adding: "It was a critical hit, too."
"And your way of talking reminds me of a bird-headed man who learned human language the wrong way," Hachiman snapped back, still a bit sulky.
"Don't be like that! You humans invented it anyway. You're really talented in language," Susanoo-no-Mikoto laughed heartily.
But to Hachiman, his expression overlapped more and more with that of Horus, the bird-headed god.
That made Hachiman think of his rival, whom he hadn't seen since he crossed over to ancient Egypt.
Speaking of which—just where did that bird go?
Logically, he should've been affected by the flow of time just like Hachiman and forced out eventually.
Hachiman was now quite certain—gods may be powerful, but they aren't above the world itself.
To borrow phrasing from a previous-life novel, they may be the embodiment of rules, but they cannot transcend them.
Time is irreversible, even for gods. They can resist it better, maybe even travel through time briefly, but they can't stay forever.
Hachiman hadn't seen Susanoo in a long while either. And now he was talking way more like a creep, which made Hachiman suspicious.
"So… you met Horus?"
"Ah, yeah. After all, we're 'kin' in a sense," Susanoo replied with a grin devoid of any actual warmth.
In this world, any god-slayer—unless they're a complete rookie—knows that there's no such thing as a "divine race."
Rather, it's a human myth-making concept with extreme limitations.
If god-slayers can somewhat be considered a "group" with mutual recognition, gods definitely can't.
These beings were each utterly unique. There's nothing truly in common among them. Their names exist only because of myth.
Even if they share "common interests," outside the structure of mythology, when rogue gods meet each other, the results may be even worse than when they meet god-slayers.
In fact, mythology doesn't just limit how much gods can harm humans—it also limits how much they can harm each other.
Hachiman had once traveled to an era where gods and humans walked the earth together. There, he witnessed firsthand the conflict among gods.
The Hittite Sun Goddess and the Cretan Serpent Goddess both casually revealed this point through their actions.
Both these goddesses clearly knew Hachiman wasn't from that era.
One chose to invite him to an alliance, while the other tried to expel him preemptively. Gods don't act without reason—and especially not for the sake of humanity.
It's not that Hachiman looked down on his former species, but the humans of that time were so weak in the face of gods that they didn't even have the will to resist.
"No wonder you're acting so weird this time," Hachiman gave Susanoo a side glance. This god was getting harder to read.
Retired? What the hell does that even mean?
Maybe once he lived long enough and saw enough gods, he'd figure it out.
"Don't be like that~ That guy's really interesting. Have you fought him yet?" Susanoo stroked his beard with a wistful look. "How nice… I want some of that excitement too."
"No one's stopping you," Hachiman replied. "And that Great Sage Equal to Heaven—ancient Japanese onmyoji didn't have the ability to seal him, right?"
"You ruin all the fun by saying it like that," Susanoo kept smiling. "I'm not saying it had anything to do with me. I don't want that guy showing up at my door. Unlike you, he's very fierce."
Actually, I'm pretty fierce too, Hachiman thought.
But you gave me girls, so of course I'm being polite.
He sighed to himself. God-slayers really can't resist honey traps...
But...
He wouldn't mind being tested with even more honey traps!
While Hachiman's mind spiraled into unspeakable thoughts, he had no idea that someone really was planning—and had already started—to do exactly that.
Chiba had already undergone some changes. They'd only temporarily stopped after his departure. Now that he was in Nikkō, those changes had resumed—and had even started creeping into Sakura Academy.
But for Hachiman, he currently had no way of detecting any of this. The most pressing issues in front of him remained:
A mysterious ancient single lady warrior who insisted on taking him to Mount Lu to train in the Rising Dragon Fist, and a monkey who looked ready to stir up some serious chaos.
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