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When my eyes opened, I was in a garden sitting on a chair. In this garden I’ve never seen before, both familiar and unfamiliar flowers were arranged in such harmony that it took my breath away. However, the gentle sunlight beaming down on this garden gave me a serenity that I’ve never experienced up until now.

If I had to describe this place, it’s like a venue for a noble’s tea party. On closer observation, the ambience here is similar to that of Fiiyanamia’s courtyard. Still, it seems to have a different air compared to that place… To put it into words, it’s like—

「Heaven, I guess?」

Since I was looking around absentmindedly, I was late at noticing that there was someone on the other side of the table before me. Perhaps amused in seeing my jaw drop, or that I reacted exactly as she expected, the lady on the other side let out a chuckle.

She’s a lady that catches the eye. Her long black hair flowed straight down to her hips like a waterfall and her jet black eyes felt like it would draw in anything looking at it. She had slightly drooping eyes, plump lustrous lips, a shapely nose, and clear white skin. I can’t take my eyes off of her but it’s probably not because I was formerly a male. Any being that can recognize beauty would likely be charmed by her. Calling her a high class work of art wouldn’t be an exaggeration.

However, her appearance doesn’t quite match this place. In a tea venue with a western aristocratic ambience, she’s wearing a set of western-style clothes that matches Japanese preferences. While it is stylish and does look good on her, it’s so mismatched that my brain couldn’t help but ask ‘Why though?’.

「I assumed that this would be more familiar to you, you see?」

I see, I get it now. It does certainly feel nostalgic to see. Now that I think about it, her face also has a Japanese-ish look. Though I’ve never seen anyone this beautiful before.

「Despite how I look, I am a god and being one seems to come with an extraordinary appearance. Also, I don’t have a gender, so unlike you I can become a man as well.」
「A… god?」

Whooh, I’m starting to get confused, if what she said is true, then this beauty in front of me is a god, and can become both male and female. It’s hard to believe this situation but considering this place and her beauty, it might be true.

After all, unlike on earth, the gods in this world definitely exist.

「While this won’t be any sort of proof, if you see your appearance right now, you should somewhat understand that this situation isn’t normal.」

As the god said so, a large mirror appeared before me. Reflected on the mirror is a black-haired girl that looks similar to Ciel. In other words, this body isn’t Ciel’s.

『Ciel. Ciel, are you here?』

There was no response to my call. I don’t sense Ciel’s presence. I can’t feel Ciel’s existence.

「Is Ciel alright!?」

While it was only self-proclaimed, I forgot that she is a god and pressed her for an answer. Her eyes went wide open in surprise but she immediately smiled.

「You really cherish that girl, don’t you? Hmm, she’s sleeping soundly right now. She’s fine, don’t worry about it. Fii is nearby after all, so there won’t be any danger. Uh-huh.」

For some reason, it sounded awfully untrustworthy.

「If this is a lie then even if you’re a god, I will never forgive you, okay?」

I don’t have any expectations of being able to defeat her. After all, I can sense an infinite amount of that higher order magic power-like thing. Gradually getting used to my current senses, I can clearly tell now. She was not joking, she’s undoubtedly a god.

If I fight her, there’s no question that I would die. I might even face a nasty end like having my soul destroyed. Even so, without Ciel, I don’t care. Without Ciel, there’s no point in living.

「There’s no need to worry. With the exclusion of extreme circumstances, until you two reach 15 years old, I won’t let you two die.」
「Promise?」
「Sure, sure. As long as the two of you don’t die instantaneously, you two will be alright. To begin with, your barrier is still active. Really, why did things end up like this?」

If my barrier is still active, then that’s somewhat of a relief. The god replied with a tone of disbelief but is staring curiously at me for some reason. Putting the truth of her words aside for now, I once again turn my attention to the mirror right in front of me.

As I thought before, the girl in the mirror looks like Ciel. The color scheme is Japanese with Ciel as the basis. In other words, she’s quite beautiful.

As I raise my right hand, the girl in the mirror raises her left hand. I raise my left hand and she raises her right. I make a grimace and she does too.

I see, it’s a mirror. In other words, this would be my appearance if I ever had a body. Still, based on my own life experience, I should be beyond 30 years old. To begin with, why do I look similar to Ciel?

「Why do I look like this?」
「We’re finally back on topic. That’s because your soul has altered to fit Ciel’s body.」
「I don’t really think that anything particularly changed from before I died and right now, though. After all, my memories do continue from before.」
「You didn’t have any fixation on your former appearance, correct?」
「Well, that is true.」

I’m not even fixated on my gender. If I was, then I wouldn’t have changed the way I talked. Rather, how did I talk in the past?

「If you have wanted to stay a man no matter what, then things would be different; but because you didn’t display any resistance, your soul gradually adapted to her body. Since you are haunting her in a sense, it shouldn’t be any surprise for your body to be based on the host’s body.」
「That… does make sense.」
「Besides, appearance isn’t the most important thing, don’t you agree? There are people that are mature despite looking young, as well as those that talk childishly despite appearing stern. The important thing is for you to be yourself,」(Yumemura Reon.)

Suddenly, someone’s name echoed in my head, startling me. For a moment, I was wondering who she was talking about but it was me she was referring to, huh. Also, it seems like she took that thing into consideration just to be sure. Yumemura Reon. Certainly, I do think I had that name. It has barely had any use ever since I came to this world, so I completely forgot about it.

「…Even I didn’t think that you’d forget your own name, you know?」
「Yumemura Reon is already dead after all. The one before you is Ainsel.」
「Ainsel… is it? I know exactly why you chose to name yourself that but… are you sure about that?」
「I wonder about that myself. So far, I have no regrets. I think.」

Ainsel is the name of a certain fairy. To be exact, I think it’s a bit different but in this situation, the details aren’t important.

「Forgive me for my lack of knowledge, but may I ask what you govern as a god?」
「Oh, such an unnatural way of changing the topic, isn’t it? While there’s no reason for me to answer the questions of a human, I shall answer. I am the god who governs over creation and destruction. The Creator God, so to speak. The supreme deity. The creator and overseer of several worlds, or their divine split to be exact.」
「The real body is in a different place?」
「Correct, exactly that. My real body can’t just come before anyone willy-nilly after all, and even in this form, I’m limited to staying in each world’s divine realm. If I carelessly show myself before a human, that said individual would be crushed by my power upon seeing me.」
「I just have more questions now but, about that… Will I be fine?」
「The reason we’re here is precisely to teach you about that. Although the preface to this has become awfully long for some reason.」

Certainly, it’s undeniable that it took time to reach this point. Still, I was suddenly brought to this unfamiliar place and even separated from Ciel, so considering this we actually got into the main subject quickly.

「Haha, true enough. You were more stubborn than I imagined. Now then, let me explain the current situation. This is a location in the divine realm that’s nearest to the surface. You can consider this as my working area. Since you lost consciousness at Fii’s place, I connected to your dream. In other words, you’re currently asleep.」

There’s a lot of things I’m having a hard time understanding. Since Fiiyanamia’s place is a temple, getting connected to the divine realm is still understandable, I guess. However, all I was told was that oracles could descend. I was never told that I could be taken to the divine realm.

「Oracles, you say… They can only convey information unilaterally from our side. ‘A monster has appeared here and here. At this rate, the country will be in danger. Please assemble a subjugation team.’ That sort of thing. The details that can be communicated are limited in length as well. Normally, this would be sufficient, but in your case, your situation is a bit complicated. So, in case anything happens, I planned to communicate with you in this way. In other words, I have been preparing for this for a long time. It only happened now because you have finally satisfied the conditions.」

Conditions… probably coming to a temple. So since I stubbornly kept my distance from one, there wasn’t any chance for this until now.

「Something like that.」
「What are you going to tell me?」
「Basically everything about your existence, I suppose? Though I can only tell you about what I’ve tampered with, so don’t expect that I’d say absolutely everything about you.」
「Then… You did something to me, Creator God?」
「You say it like that but you already guessed that gods were at least involved with you, didn’t you?」
「It’s as you say.」

Ever since a while ago, I couldn’t hide anything from her. She just casually responds to my thoughts after all, this god is no joke.

Leaving that aside, since something changed because of the Artificial Divine Messenger, it wasn’t difficult to deduce that some sort of divine entity had done something with us.

「Save the questions for later. As a prerequisite, I’d like you to know my duties here in advance but can you tell?」

…What does a creator god do? After creating the world, I imagine that watching over the world would be the creator god’s duty. And being a god of destruction at the same time, I guess destroying the world too? I don’t really see any sign of that, in fact, the world doesn’t seem to be anywhere near destruction.

「I don’t know.」
「The answer is, miscellaneous duties in general. Basically working behind the scenes. Which is probably why my existence isn’t well known to the surface, I suppose? I created the foundation for the Jobs System though.」

She just casually said something amazing but being the Creator God, I guess it was nothing special for her. I suppose I should be satisfied with simply knowing why I’ve never heard of the Creator God up until now.

「Among these is something that only I can do, the management of souls between worlds. The cycle of death and rebirth and the reincarnation of the dead to a different world are exchanges that happen between worlds, so I’m the only one that can do it, you see?」
「That sounds difficult.」
「Exactly, it is. That’s why my motto is to at least find enjoyment wherever I can.」
「So was I singled out as a sacrifice for that then?」
「Hahaha, precisely so.」

The Creator God began laughing, but I don’t understand what’s so funny about it. Although from the flow of our conversation, it seems to be somehow connected to my use of the word sacrifice. That aside, is the Creator God the reason for my reincarnation? In that case, did I acquire some special ability like those in the stories?

「Not really.」
「So there was none.」
「It was a complete coincidence that I chose you after all. Hmm, but I guess ‘You weren’t supposed to have’ would be more correct of a statement. Your current power is a bit too strong for the surface, you see? Fortunately enough, you’re specialized in defense.」
「Will it perhaps… need to be sealed?」
「That won’t happen. After all it’s something you earned, power that you obtained within the rules of the world. I was the one that allowed this, so I have no objections against that.」

That’s a relief. If my magic power was to be sealed, I’d have no idea on how to protect Ciel.

「Well then, let’s discuss the topics in order; about what sort of being you are and what you will turn into from now on.」

Prefacing with that, the Creator God began to speak.

Hiya~! Once again, I’m back and it seems like there’s some juicy exposition about to drop next week! But first of all, there are some things that are lost in translation that I want to discuss here before I go on my usual long winded gushing~!

First of all, there’s an interesting thing about the Creator God, or rather her divine split. Her (for convenience’s sake) first person pronoun is the usual feminine pronoun (which also doubles as the neutral pronoun) “Watashi (私)” but there’s a certain something in Japanese called ruby characters, which serve as an annotation for how to read certain words or names. Which is why in the Fate series, Noble Phantasms have two names, the full kanji name (ex. Sword of Promised Victory) and the reading of the name (ex. Excalibur), the ruby characters would function to show the reading Excalibur on top of the full kanji Sword of Promised Victory. Anyway, I digress. The interesting part is that the Creator God’s personal pronoun is “Watashi” but is read as “God (神)”. In other words, every time she refers to herself, she refers to herself as god. Speaking a bit meta, this is honestly my first time encountering something like this. What I get from this is that she’s an individual as a divine split yet also every god that split from the real Creator God at the same time, so every time she refers to herself, she refers to both versions of herself, the real god and the divine split, but that’s my take on it. Feel free to wrack your heads as well~! And I’m sharing this so you do exactly that!

Second one is a minor thing that I still managed to handle quite fine in my opinion, but on the part where Ain was trying to remember how she spoke before, she was referring to the first person pronoun she was using, since there are two male pronouns, “Boku (for mostly young boys, so it has a hint of youth)” and “Ore (for more active/aggressive boys/men, also sometimes women since it makes them sound more intimidating; ex. Big Mom from One Piece). So yeah, minor thing but she forgot if she used “Boku” or “Ore” before settling down with “Watashi” because, you know, what happened five + years ago. Another minor thing is about the part with sacrifice. The literal translation there would be that “Hit with the white feathered arrow” which refers to a way of choosing sacrifices in the past. Specifically, it’s based on an ancient tradition where people choosing a sacrifice would randomly shoot a white fletched arrow to the air and whichever house it lands on would be the one they’d choose to get the sacrifice from. The more you know~!

Argh… I already blabbered so much… Ugh, I guess it’ll be a short gushing today. Ain was completely out of her mind, having to remind herself several times that she’s looking at a mirror, lol. The Creator God is being really ominous, lol. Also, Ain’s name was revealed~! But why exactly did the Creator God *not* audibly call Ain by that old name? Why is it such a big deal that Ain chose the name Ainsel? (Research the story Ainsel if you want to~) Also, good thing Ciel’s asleep right now~! Argh!! So much I want to say, but I’ve talked to much~!!

Now then, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please feel free to comment. Stay clean, stay safe, and have a nice day~!