Chapter 482: 【Tales of the Gods 21】World Wound

【Tales of the Gods 21】World Wound

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Bonus 2

…Leeeen!

As Hikari sheathed her sword, a strange, ringing sound, like the sound of a bell, echoed through the yellow shopping arcade, dyed by the setting sun.

And then, a few seconds later, the sword, along with its scabbard, transformed into several orbs of light, and disappeared, as if being sucked into Hikari’s right hand.

This sword is a sacred treasure, forged by the God of Blacksmithing to destroy Youma.

……It was borrowed, though.

“Phew.”

Hikari exhaled softly, and was about to leave, the sound of her heels clicking—but she suddenly stopped.

“Ah.”

And she involuntarily let out a voice, her eyebrows furrowing.

Because the ‘Suzudou Butcher Shop’ that caught her eye—

Happened to be—

The family business of Shota Suzudou, who was her classmate, albeit for a short time.

“Haa…”

The feelings she had been suppressing and ignoring, came flooding back… and Hikari sighed.

Her classmates—29 of them.

They all lost their lives in a certain bombing incident, shortly after she stopped being human and started fighting Youma.

There was a student who brought a bomb into the classroom.

That student’s name is Runa Aihara.

Aihara, who held a grudge against her classmates because of her delusions of persecution, gathered information online and made a bomb.

And she committed suicide by detonating it in the classroom, taking her classmates with her.

That’s… the information that’s circulating publicly.

Or rather, that’s the official view, since that’s how the police handled the case.

But Hikari couldn’t accept that view.

Even though they had only known each other for a short time, she just couldn’t believe that Aihara was the kind of person who would do something like that.

But.

There’s no clues to uncover the truth of the incident.

Too much time has passed.

Even though she’s recognized as a god, Hikari isn’t omnipotent.

Her combat abilities have improved, but she’s still just an apprentice, so that’s about all.

Therefore, there’s nothing she can do but pray for her classmates’ souls.

A sense of powerlessness torments her heart… and if she left it alone, she’d just keep sighing and spacing out.

“…………”

So Hikari clapped her cheeks twice, to change her mood, bowed slightly to Suzudou Butcher Shop, and was about to leave quickly.

But…

“Haa!?”

Hikari stopped again.

Because she found something she couldn’t ignore.

It was a small ‘hole’, opened up ‘in the air’… in the alleyway next to Suzudou Butcher Shop.

A world of darkness, with not a single ray of light, spreads out beyond the hole.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

It seems that it had been hidden by the shadow created by the sunset, but as the sun began to set below the horizon, the shape of the shadow changed, revealing the hole.

“Crap, it’s a ‘world wound’…”

Hikari muttered, frowning.

A world wound is literally a ‘wound in the world’.

A hole that connects to the space outside the world… to ‘nothingness’, caused by some kind of damage to the world.

In most cases, this hole is opened by Youma.

And what are Youma, you ask? They’re ‘something’ that drifts in nothingness.

Youma, originally shapeless amoeba-like beings in nothingness, constantly desire to incorporate elements of the world.

So they cling to the membrane of the world, eat through it, and invade Hikari’s world.

And then they incorporate elements of the world one after another, changing their form based on that information, growing larger and larger…

Their appetite is endless, and if they were left alone, they’d eventually devour the entire world.

Therefore, gods like Hikari, who are in the position to protect the world, are constantly fighting to destroy Youma.

“I have to contact Takanami-sama…”

Hikari, having found the world wound, muttered that, and hurriedly took out her divine tool, her cell phone, from her pocket.

As mentioned before, Hikari, still an apprentice, can’t do much.

Exterminating small fry Youma is one thing, but repairing a world wound is too much for her.

So Hikari, trying to ask for help from a senior god, who is also one of her masters, took out her cell phone, and was about to operate it to connect the call…

But it was at that moment!

Beep…

Beeeep!

Hikari’s cell phone-shaped divine tool, taken out of her pocket, suddenly—

…Emitted a small, faint sound!

“Eh!?”

Hikari, surprised by the sound, involuntarily froze.

But she quickly regained her composure and moved the divine tool closer to the world wound.

Beeeep!!

The sound became slightly louder.

“…You’re kidding.”

Hikari muttered, her eyes widening.

What does that mean, you ask?

Her cell phone is a divine tool specialized in information retrieval.

It can be used as a means of communication, like a normal cell phone, and although Hikari didn’t understand how it worked even when explained to her, it also has a search function.

Furthermore, it has a beacon-like function… and the reason why it’s making a sound right now is because that beacon function is reacting to something.

So, what is her divine tool detecting, and why is it making a sound?

It’s souls.

The souls of Hikari’s classmates, who should have been lost in the explosion.

In other words, their souls…

Which she searched everywhere in the world, and had given up on, thinking that they had already disappeared.

Are somewhere beyond this nothingness.

In other words, in another world that should exist on the other side of that hole.

…They still exist!

Hikari, stunned, stood frozen in place.

The light illuminating her changed from yellow to red before she knew it.

On the other side of the glass of the arcade above her head.

Stars were beginning to twinkle.

The is the start of Arc 22.