"Alright, don't look so glum. Turning out like this isn't necessarily all bad."
Asakura comforted her with a mysterious tone.
Yanami's eyes lit up: "Could it be..."
"For example, you don't have to worry about running into any ill-intentioned thugs in the future, right? You can just crush them to death."
"I can't be happy at all!"
Yanami shouted loudly, "At least let me defeat thugs in a more normal way, like a Magical Girl!"
"While it's not impossible, given that you've mastered a magic, I'd still prefer you to be like a Mage rather than a legendary warrior."
Asakura said leisurely, "Also, there's no need to be so dejected. You should know that, in a sense, you can already be considered my Priestess."
Yanami couldn't help but feel hope again: "Could it be..."
"That's right, you must serve me well like a maid."
"That's terrible! This is the second worst news I've heard today!"
The girl covered her face as if struck by a bolt from the blue.
"Then what was the first worst?"
Asakura asked curiously.
"It must be the four times weight. For a girl, there's nothing worse than that..." Yuigahama Yui gently elbowed Asakura's waist, causing him to make a 'Man! Oh wait, it should be Woman!' sound, while she whispered, "Don't ask such tactless questions!"
Immediately after, she stared at Asakura with a strange look: "Also, what's with that 'serve' Service Club?"
"Huh, isn't this the Service Club?"
Asakura put on an exaggerated expression of shock.
"I have already explained the meaning of the Service Club. If Asakura-kun still insists on interpreting it in that vulgar way, then I can only begin to doubt whether his memory is consistent with that of a fish that can only remember for seven seconds."
Yukinoshita Yukino closed her book and looked at Asakura seriously as she spoke.
"Yukino—"
Towards Yukinoshita Yukino, the famous ice beauty of Soubu High School, rumored to freeze one's heart just by looking at her, Asakura met her gaze without any fear and said in a serious tone.
"Fish only having a seven-second memory is actually a rumor."
"That's not the point!"
Chihaya Anon, who had been somewhat intimidated by the tense atmosphere between the seniors, couldn't help but retort.
"Ahaha, serving is just a joke. After all, I'm not some evil god worshipped by a strange religion. It's a Service Club serving joke~"
Asakura laughed heartily, skillfully changing the subject, "However, regarding the Priestess herself, there's actually something I need to tell you, Yanami, such as some things unique to a Priestess..."
Seeing that his attitude was finally not as frivolous as before, Yanami, who had originally closed her heart to love, felt a little anticipation again. She gazed at Asakura: "Could it be..."
"Simply put, in order to maintain the link between us, you must, as a believer, perform a ritual of currying favor with the gods... cough, offering faith, every day."
Asakura said, "Just like the Kagura dance in Shintoism, Christian worship, Buddhist meditation and chanting, and so on."
Yanami slumped onto the table, her face a picture of collapse, as if thinking, 'I shouldn't have believed this guy had anything good to say.'
"Currying favor... ah..."
Yukinoshita Yukino said meaningfully.
"Currying favor... huh..."
Yuigahama Yui's pretty face flushed, not knowing what she was thinking.
"You're joking again, aren't you?"
Chihaya Anon spoke frankly, "Because Asakura-kun is quite mischievous."
"What's the fun if you say it too soon?"
Asakura said with a chuckle.
Yanami was originally a very expressive person, and now, because of his words, her expression kept changing, which was quite amusing, and he inadvertently found joy in it.
Of course, Asakura wasn't entirely lying either.
"As I just said, the relationship between me and Yanami is similar to that of a god and a believer. Yanami herself has no magic, and her physique cannot draw magic from others like mine. The 'Crowd' Magic, which is a superficial magic storage, does not meet the requirements. In such a situation, a special way of magic supply and demand is needed, which is this link between god and human."
He explained to everyone: "Believers offer their faith to a god through a specific 'ritual' in exchange for supernatural power from the god—although 'genuine' instances of this interaction are rare in our world, it seems to be quite common in other worlds. So what I said earlier was not entirely a joke. Yanami indeed needs to maintain her link with me through a ritual to obtain magic from me to sustain the artificial magic 'Crowd' on her."
Incidentally, although the artificial magic 'Crowd' has 'Magic' in its name, it is fundamentally different from other magic. If one had to say, the current 'Crowd' is more like a 'Divine Art' or something similar.
At the same time, because the supernatural framework of 'Crowd' comes entirely from the extension of Yanami's 'difference,' even if it was created by Asakura, Asakura cannot use this magic. This thing is exclusive to Yanami.
"So, the key is that so-called 'ritual' used to maintain the connection between you two, right?"
Yukinoshita Yukino quickly grasped the key factor in Asakura's long and difficult sentence: "What kind of ritual is it? What is the frequency of its performance? Can it be completed alone, or does it require the help of others (Yukino looked pointedly at Asakura)?"
"You're not really going to make Anna curry favor with Takkun, are you?"
Yuigahama Yui said with a strange expression, "I seem to have heard that in Shintoism, Priestesses are the wives of gods..."
"Leaving aside that I'm not a real god, even if I were to look for a Priestess who could be a wife, I would absolutely not choose someone like Yanami."
Asakura snorted with contempt.
"That's too much disdain! Although I don't want to be Asakura-kun's wife either, isn't that a bit too much disdain, hey!"
Yanami frowned and complained discontentedly, "What's wrong with me, anyway!"
"The fact that your weight is four times that of a normal person."
"Guh, kill me..."
Yanami, who had just propped herself up, slumped back onto the table in despair, her finger still stained with ketchup (Chihaya Anon: Why are there fries and ketchup here? Do normal people eat this in the morning?) writing 'The murderer is Asakura'.
"Alright, stop clowning around..." Asakura helplessly tapped her forehead, making the girl cover her head and look at him indignantly: "Listen to me properly, don't you want to know about the ritual?"
☰