abcnovels
Book 11
Book 11: Chapter 1: Shikigami’s Souvenir
“Uncle, I wanna eat this too!”
A young girl with bangs covering her eyes was eating her heart out in the festival’s food stalls.
“Here you go, Lass. What a nice appetite you have there.”
“That’s because this is super yummy!”
“Really? Then here, this is on the house.”
The middle-aged boss of the stall handed a small curry bread to the girl.
“Is it really okay?”
“Yeah! That’s one of my popular goodies, too. Please eat up.”
“Got it. Thank you!”
“Ehehe, I got a freebie. The humans of this world sure are nice.”
The girl left the stall, and she muttered while eating the curry bread.
“Yup, yup! This bread is also tasty!! That stall hits the spot. Alright, that stall can continue to exist.”
She took out a sheet of paper and a pen from her bosom and wrote the following note.
“Glendale, Royal Capital, the curry bread of that stall is delicious, extermination postponed to the very end — alright.”
The girl finished her note and put away her pen and paper, then she moved on, walking amidst the crowd of people celebrating the festival.
“Hmm, what souvenir should I buy for Evil God-sama?”
The girl was the shikigami serving the Evil God, who was still sleeping.
The deity she served had been slumbering all this time, so the shikigami, who had a lot of time in her hands, would visit the Human Realm to play.
“Whoa! A-Amazing…”
The shikigami was captivated by the gigantic ice monument displayed at the Central Plaza of the royal capital.
That monument was the work of art made by Undine, the Water Spirit King, and Sylph, the Wind Spirit King.
Glendale had been blessed with prosperity by Undine. The citizens would hold this festival quarterly in order to express their gratitude to her.
This year marked the fifth anniversary of Undine’s bestowal of her protection to this kingdom, so she sent a ice monument to them.
The shikigami didn’t look in front of her since she was so fascinated.
“—Ack!”
“Oh?”
She bumped into the back of a black haired, azure-eyed youth.
“I-I’m so sorry, I wasn’t looking in front of me —”
The shikigami was unwittingly mesmerized by the young man’s handsome face.
“I’m fine. Ah, but the crowd’s pretty thick from here on, so please be careful.”
“Y-Yes! I’m really sorry.”
The shikigami thought it would be a bother to the young lad if she were to continue the conversation further, so she decided to leave the area as quickly as possible.
“Ah, wait for a moment, please. There’s some trash sticking to your back, so I’ll get it for you…Alright. It’s fine now.”
The young man took the leaf that was sticking to the shikigami’s back.
He showed her the leaf, and the smile plastered on his face was too dazzling that the shikigami’s face turned beet red.
“Then, I’ll go now. Enjoy the festival!”
The young man then left.
The shikigami stared intently at his back until he disappeared from her sight.
──＊＊＊──
“Ack, goodness me. I forgot to buy Evil God-sama his souvenir…”
The shikigami belatedly realized when she returned to the Divine Realm.
“Oh well. Evil God-sama is still sleeping, so I guess that’s fine.”
“Oh? What’s fine?”
“—!?”
A voice suddenly called from behind her, so the shikigami whirled around in shock.
“Evil God-sama! Y-You’re finally awake?”
The Evil God was standing there, and he looked like he was still sleepy.
“Yeah. I woke up just a while ago…So? Where’s my souvenir?”
“Er… W-what are you talking about?”
“Hoh. So you’re playing innocent, huh. I see…That curry bread was delicious, wasn’t it?”
“N-No way, you woke up around that time —”
Yeah. I. woke. Up. Yeah, actually, wasn’t it really fun? Leaving the sleeping me behind, and playing around on your own in a human’s festival in the Human Realm.”
“Uwu…”
The Evil God’s words cut deeply to the shikigami.
“So? That curry bread or something was delicious, right?”
“Yes! It was extremely tasty —”
“Then get your @#$ out of here and buy mineeee!!!!”
The Evil God’s yell resounded in the entire shrine.
By the way, the shikigami did bring a souvenir to the Evil God’s shrine.
That souvenir was —
“Oy. Your clothes… Did you have a magic circle like that on your back before?”
“Magic circle? What do you mean?”
The Evil God noticed the magic circle stuck on the shikigami’s back.
“Eh, what on earth is this?”
Even the shikigami serving a deity wouldn’t be able to notice this magic circle that was stuck on her clothes, unless she looked at it really hard.josei
She hurriedly took off her outer robe and threw it on the shrine’s floor.
The magic circle wasn’t placed on her body.
“It’s not some kind of curse, is it? What a joke it’ll turn out if the shikigami serving me, the Evil God, got cursed.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with me as of now, but…Just what kind of magic circle is this?”
“No idea. Let me see, I’ll examine it for a bit — Huh!?”
The Evil God was taken aback when he lifted the shikigami’s clothes off the floor.
The magic circle had somehow transferred from the shikigami’s clothes to the floor of the shrine.
“What the heck is going on here…Just what in the world is this thing?”
“I-I don’t know either.”
Afterward, the magic circle stubbornly remained on the shrine’s floor despite all the efforts of the Evil God and shikigami to remove it.
──＊＊＊──
“Halt-sama. What is this magic circle?”
In his mansion’s living room, Halt conjured a tiny magic circle on his palm and stared at it for a long while. Tina was bothered, so she asked him.
Halt answered with a grin.
“This is something like a passport that will allow me to play in a certain deity’s place.”