The next morning.
Dawn had only just begun to break. The air still carried the dampness left behind by the night before, mingled with the fresh scent of grass and trees, enough to make anyone feel refreshed.
Click.
The front door of Chasing Light Villa opened.
A clear-eyed, handsome young man stepped out while stretching, his face filled with easy comfort.
"The weather's pretty good today."
Looking up at the sky, where the horizon had only just begun to pale, Kuroha nodded in satisfaction.
He stood in the courtyard and did a simple round of stretches to warm up.
With the faint crackle of his joints, he set off and began his long-neglected morning run.
...
Tokyo in the early morning.
Every so often, he could still see miserable Tokyo office workers hurrying toward the subway stations with briefcases in hand.
Their faces still carried the exhausted numbness of people ground down by work.
Only when they occasionally glanced at the uma musume in the advertisements along the street did a trace of relaxation flicker across their faces.
In this world, there existed a race like the uma musume, whose physical attributes were exceptional by any normal standard.
But technology had developed at an equally rapid pace.
To keep up with the times, the miserable lives of ordinary workers had not improved all that much.
Kuroha did not stop. While keeping his legs moving, he ran steadily forward.
The steel, concrete, streets, and city scenery along the way all receded behind him as he ran.
Before he knew it, Kuroha had run all the way to the seaside, accompanied by the cool morning breeze.
At that moment, the morning sun had just leapt above the sea's horizon. The light it cast down was bright but not harsh.
It gently covered the entire beach in a layer of golden gauze.
And there, Kuroha successfully found the people he had been looking for.
"Byerley, Darley, good morning."
By the roadside railing, Kuroha came up behind two graceful figures standing side by side, both immersed in the afterglow of sunrise. He slowed his pace and called out softly.
Now that the Power of Blessing inside him had grown stronger and stronger, he could already pinpoint the locations of the Three Goddesses anytime, anywhere.
At the sound of that familiar voice, Byerley was the first to return to her senses.
She hurriedly restrained the relaxed smile on her face, gave a light cough, and tried to put on the dignity of a goddess.
"K-Kuroha, good morning!"
"Yo, Kuro-kun. Have you had breakfast yet?"
Darley, beside her, was completely different. Her fiery red hair flew freely in the sea breeze as the tan gyaru turned around and greeted him with an energetic wave.
Kuroha shook his head helplessly, took a few steps forward, and stood beside them. He rested his hand on the cool railing and tilted his head toward them.
"You two didn't go home again last night, did you?"
"Uh..."
Hearing that, Darley put one hand on her hip and scratched her head somewhat guiltily.
"Only occasionally. Besides, it's not like we need sleep to recover our energy."
As she spoke, the red-haired goddess suddenly winked playfully.
"Come to think of it, Kuro-kun, aren't you the same as us now?"
"Not quite."
Kuroha smiled and shook his head.
"In my current state, I still need to close my eyes and rest for at least an hour or two every day."
The three of them leaned against the railing and chatted casually for a while in the sea breeze. Only then did Kuroha finally set aside his joking expression and get to the main topic.
"You two haven't been around these past two days, so I couldn't find anyone to ask."
"About Sunday Silence, you should both know what happened, right?"
"Sunday Silence... the child who suddenly fell into a spirited-away state a few days ago, yes?"
Byerley frowned slightly. Seeing Kuroha nod, she continued, "Yes. Darley and I both went to see her before."
Kuroha nodded.
"You told Luna at the time to wait until I came back before handling it."
"But the current problem is that I can't truly cure her spirited-away condition."
"We can't keep going like this. I have to return overseas next month. When the time comes, I can't exactly bundle up Sunday Silence, who might turn transparent at any moment, and take her with me, can I?"
Darley rested her cheek on one hand and looked out at the shimmering water in the distance with a bright smile, teasing him.
"Why not? Just bring her onto the plane with you."
"Otherwise, the moment you leave, that child will fall back into the kind of spirited-away state where she could fade away at any time."
"...In other words, you two can't deal with it right now either?"
Kuroha keenly caught the implication in Darley's words.
Byerley picked up the conversation from the side and nodded helplessly.
"Yes. As we are now, there really is nothing we can do."
Darley spread her hands and smiled.
"Kuro-kun, did you forget? Other than the tiny bit of will at our very core, all the rest of our power currently comes from you."
"And we can't use the 'blessings' that have already been released into the mortal realm..."
"So strictly speaking, aside from our essence being a little higher-grade, our current state isn't much different from that of ordinary uma musume."
"Then why did you tell Luna I could handle it..."
Kuroha frowned slightly.
But halfway through his words, he suddenly paused. His thoughts spun quickly, and then understanding dawned on him.
"You mean, once I fully become a god at the end of the year, I'll be able to handle it, right?"
"Bingo! Correct!" Darley snapped her fingers crisply.
The corner of Kuroha's eye twitched.
"That really is a simple and direct solution..."
"Mm-hmm. There's no helping it."
Darley spread her hands, then seemed to suddenly think of something.
"Or maybe, Kuro-kun, you could try creating some kind of magic system like the ones in anime or light novels?"
As she spoke, the red-haired goddess suddenly grew playful. Smiling brightly, she stretched out her hand and pretended to seize some invisible light in midair.
Then, with an extremely serious expression, she cried out in a sweet voice.
"Greater Healing!"
After finishing that childish pose, she tilted her head toward Kuroha, her eyes curving with amusement.
"Maybe if you shout something like that, it'll actually work~"
"Ahem! Darley."
Byerley quickly stopped Darley from further damaging the image of the Three Goddesses with her little performance.
Watching from the side, Kuroha could not help finding it funny too.
Come to think of it, if he really did have the talent to become a great mage, that would have been nice.
Unfortunately, before he even turned twenty, he had already lost his future qualifications to become a mage on Fujimasa March.
In this life, the script where he relied on staying a virgin and throwing himself against a dump truck of fate, then awakened the Great Sage skill and reincarnated as a slime, was probably completely out of reach.
Besides.
With his current physical condition, infinitely close to that of a "god," even if a dump truck of fate really came barreling toward him at full speed, it was hard to say which one of them would end up being the speed bump.
"Oh, right. There's something I should tell you two."
Kuroha suddenly remembered something and spoke up.
When the two goddesses looked over curiously, Kuroha cleared his throat somewhat unnaturally and gave a light laugh.
"Once I return from this overseas expedition, probably around the end of the year, Godolphin and I should be preparing to get married."
Darley: "..."
Byerley: "..."
(End of Chapter)
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