Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
Seiji was unable to get into contact with Yui.
She didn't pick up her phone, nor did she respond to his texts. Thus, Seiji could only set this matter aside for the time being and wait for her to respond.
The next day, everyone trained in Kazuko's Domain, cultivated in Seiji's Spirit House, and then had their party.
The party was held in Natsuya's mansion.
Natsuya's mansion was basically now the main base for Seiji's knight order. It felt the most meaningful to hold the party here. Nobody had any objections to choosing this location for the party.
Seiji paid for high-class food catering, along with some expensive drinks… Well, Seiji paid the money, but the maid Mai superbly took care of all the work for him.
"Cheers to us passing the god's trial!" Seiji toasted everyone.
"Cheers!!" Everyone lifted their cups.
After the toast, everyone started eating and chatting. The atmosphere was quite happy.
Hisashi, Yukari, Hoshi, Kaho, and Mayuzumi chatted with each other about anime and manga. Mika, Chiaki, Kaede, Kazuko, and Hitaka chatted with each other about fashion. Shika spoke to Shinobu, while Mai fed Rana some food…
Seiji felt that all of this was wonderful to watch.
He used the spell that Yomi previously taught him to consecrate some food for Shinobu so that the puppet girl could taste the wonders of food.
He had already dealt with real gods by now, so Seiji no longer cared anymore about the religious meaning behind consecrating food for Shinobu. He cared more about helping Shinobu to experience the wonders of being alive.
Seiji and Natsuya also started chatting about novels. Not only did they chat about light novels, they also chatted about traditional novels.
Although it seemed like writing "anything" was fine in light novels, there was actually a surprising number of restrictions. In fact, it was the more "traditional" novels that sometimes had astonishing content within. Due to numerous reasons, there were only subtle differences between the story types.
Seriously chatting about such topics was actually quite fun. Time passed unknowingly, just like that.
Chiaki saw that it was good timing for her to volunteer to do a performance.
"I'm going to do a Manzai performance. My partner will be Seiji."
"Hey, I never heard about this!"
Manzai was a type of stand-up comedy performance. The concept of "commenting and retorting" also originated from Manzai. It was just that this type of joking around was spread even further by anime and manga.
Although he had never rehearsed such a thing with Chiaki before, he decided to cooperate with her since she had named him. Seiji went over to her side.
"You say that you don't want it, but your body is quite honest." Chiaki intentionally glanced at Seiji's lower half.
"I didn't say that I didn't want to… and where do you think you're looking at?"
"I'm checking your little son's condition. It seems quite healthy. That's wonderful."
"I don't need you to confirm that for me! How would you even see it in the first place!?"
"Now, let us formally begin. Seiji, I have an important question to ask you."
"What's that?"
"Suppose that you had a one-night stand with someone present today—"
"Stop! I reject this supposition!!"
"Then, suppose that you had a physical relationship with someone here that went beyond friendship—"
"You're just rephrasing things, and it somehow sounds even worse now! Rejected!!"
"Honestly, there's no helping you. Then, suppose that you had an incredibly sweet and sticky night with someone present…"
"That's still no good! I said that I reject such suppositions!!" Seiji intentionally used more energy than normal in his retorts.
"We won't be able to continue this anymore if you keep refusing. Are you that against the idea of starting something with anyone present here?"
"Why the hell do we have to start with such a kind of supposition! I feel like things will only become worse if I accept!!"
"That won't happen at all, because everyone present is quite willing to start that type of relationship with you. Isn't that right, everyone~?" Chiaki looked at everyone else.
"That's right-" Everyone laughed and went along with it.
"What type of expression should I make here?" Seiji intentionally acted as if he found this difficult.
"All you need to do is smile."
"Smile… the hell! This type of beginning is definitely a trap. I won't fall for this!!"
"Tsk, you're unnecessarily sharp in this area."
"You've finally revealed your true self!"
Seiji and Chiaki kept joking around and acting in comical manner, giving everyone an interesting performance. In the end, they finished by singing a duet together, which was received by thunderous applause.
After that, Hisashi gave a performance of his own. He emotionally sang the main theme song of "Honey Candy Girl", and even danced a little dance of his own creation.
Everyone could sense how passionate he was. However, Hisashi's singing was far too awful, and his dance seemed mysteriously disgusting. That was why his sister Kaede unhesitatingly gave him a bad review with zero compassion.
Yukari performed some poker card magic tricks. Her sleight of hand impressed everyone with how good it was.
Yukari mentioned that she had been quite interested in magic tricks when she was younger and that she had practiced them before. Now that she had Awakened, she felt that her new spiderweb ability was quite suitable for assisting sleight of hand magic tricks, so she started practicing magic again.
Although using a spiritual ability to perform magic tricks felt somewhat like cheating, the performance was indeed wonderful and interesting.
Kazuko showed off her ability to change clothes. She showed maid, nurse, policewoman, office worker, fashionable, idol, and other such styles… Every outfit she put on was incredibly beautiful, letting the boys have a taste of much eye candy, and causing the girls to sigh in praise.
Apart from the individual performances, everyone also played some minigames and had lots of fun together.
"Our future battles might be even more difficult that that god's trial. However, I believe that we can surpass them in the same way." Seiji then raised his cup in the end. "Let's have more parties like this in the future… Cheers!"
Everyone raised their cups and responded, "Cheers!"
"It would be best if you tell all your family and friends to leave this city as quickly as possible, even tomorrow." Seiji told this to everyone as the party ended.
In the end, he found himself unable to tell them about Soul Society's cruel plan. He could only remind everyone like so.
The sacrifice of more than three thousand lives… Just knowing about this brought a heavy burden to him. Since he couldn't do anything about it, he would have preferred not to know about this at all.
Seiji then returned to his own home.
Seiji was practicing his new drawing skill in his study when he finally received a text back from Yui.
Her text contained only two words: "Run away!"
Seiji was rather surprised to see such a message which gave him a sense of impending danger.
Why was he supposed to run away? What had happened!? Was Yui alright!?
No matter what, it was quite likely that a huge danger was approaching! What should he do!? Should he run away quickly as she told him to? But, to where? Was the danger targeting him specifically or everyone? Should he run away by himself or bring everyone with him!?
Various questions popped up in his mind. Seiji wanted to react somehow, but didn't know what to do.
At this time, he suddenly felt an ominous sensation.
Something cold and deep… an abnormal chill appeared in the air.
Seiji immediately cast [Astral Vision], which revealed a faint white mist in the air!
This mist seemed quite similar to the white mist that he had seen during the god's trial!
Was the god's trial now appearing in reality!?
No… wait, this seemed more like…
Warning bells sounded in Seiji's mind as he rushed out of the study.
"Shika, there's an emergency. Put on your clothes and get prepared as quickly as possible!"
He shouted this to his adopted younger sister who was currently in the middle of a shower as he then rushed to the living room.
"Seiji onii-chan, I feel so cold…" Reo told him when she saw him.
"Do you feel anything else apart from being cold?" Seiji went over to hug her and to check on her condition.
"My head feels dizzy…" Reo had an expression of obvious discomfort.
The white mist was beginning to thicken.
Seiji was just about to open up his Spirit House to take Reo to safety, when he suddenly received a system notification.
[Due to an outside power's interference, the door to the Spirit House cannot be opened up as normal.]
Hey, could his system please be a little more reliable at such a critical moment!!