The training to suppress God’s Presence was important, but since I wouldn’t be going beyond the Management Layer anytime soon, I put it off for later.
Then, I decided to confirm whether I had obtained any new powers, which was the original main topic.
In the Divine Realm, other than meeting the book-like world record, there was nothing specific I could do.
I had undergone a harmonization to align my soul and body, but since such things rarely happened, I thought it was a useless power.
That was until I met the Black Wolf to confirm.
To reconfirm the strange feeling I had before, I went to meet the Black Wolf on the 81st Floor.
As expected, Nana was by its side, already having enjoyed petting it.
“…Hmm?”
“How is it?”
Shurein, who had uncharacteristically followed me, asked Kousuke, who was tilting his head while petting the Black Wolf.
Shurein had followed along this time because, for a change, he wanted to see the Amamiya Tower Management Layer, not just the tower he managed.
“I don’t really know. I feel like it’s the same as before, but I also feel like I’m overlooking something…”
“Hmm… According to Peach’s fortune-telling, you were supposed to get some kind of trigger in the Divine Realm, weren’t you?”
“That’s what it said.”
Since I hadn’t acquired anything specific, Kousuke was tilting his head.
“Besides, I was just sleeping the whole time I was in the Divine Realm… Huh? I was sleeping?”
Kousuke muttered quietly so Shurein wouldn’t hear him, and then suddenly remembered that he wasn’t just sleeping.
“No, no, there’s no way that’s….”
Even though I myself was half-doubting it, or rather, thought it was almost impossible, I still decided to try what I had done in that bed, on the Black Wolf.
And to my surprise, I felt a response, and immediately let go of the Black Wolf.
“Hahaha… Seriously!?”
What I felt when I touched the Black Wolf just now was the dissonance between my soul and body.
It was the dissonance Kousuke had felt extensively in the Divine Realm.
But I never imagined I could feel that of someone else.
Still, since what I was feeling was precisely that dissonance, I was sure I wasn’t mistaken.
“Hmm, even so, I have no idea what to do with this.”
Seeing Kousuke start muttering to himself, Shurein, as usual, left him be and petted the wolves gathered around him.
From past experience, Kousuke knew that when he got like this, it was better to leave him alone until he gave up than to disturb him.
When Kousuke was confined to his room in the Divine Realm, he was engaged in the process of aligning his body to his changed soul.
However, what I was feeling from the Black Wolf now was a state where the soul was not aligned with the body, whose skill level had increased.
This meant that the soul should be aligned to match the body.
However, even saying that the soul should be aligned, I had no idea how to do it.
Thinking that far, Kousuke suddenly wondered what evolution actually was.
Then, he formed a hypothesis: perhaps evolution was the soul changing to match the body’s skill level.
“That hypothesis is good, but I have no idea how to evolve it in the first place…”
Kousuke, muttering to himself while petting the Black Wolf, looked quite strange to any onlookers, but no one pointed it out.
The Black Wolf being petted seemed to enjoy it, so no one tried to stop it either.
As Kousuke was thinking about such things, he unconsciously closed his eyes.
Noticing this, when he opened his eyes, he suddenly felt a strange sensation.
“…Huh?”
The strange sensation was in my right eye.
It wasn’t my left eye, which I usually used to view my status.
Thinking it might be the case, I tried using my divine power, just as I did with my left eye.
I used it gently, so as not to repeat what happened the first time I used
And as expected, something was displayed, just like with my status.
“What’s this?”
Text appeared, just like with my status, but nothing more.
With just this display, I couldn’t understand what it meant at all.
Thinking that I might have used too little divine power for the first time, I tried confirming it with a little more force.
Insufficient condition: Expansion of the Soul Vessel
“Hmm… I understand even less now?”
While I learned more, I also encountered things that further confused me.
First, from its name, I thought
If that were the case, then the insufficient condition displayed next would be what was lacking for evolution.
However, I had no idea what the condition “Expansion of the Soul Vessel” meant.
Since I couldn’t figure it out no matter how much I thought about it, I tried concentrating a little more divine power into my right eye, just as I had done before.
Insufficient condition: Expansion of the Soul Vessel (Prepare a vessel more suitable for holding a soul)
“No, that’s not helpful, is it?”
I wished for specific instructions on what to do, but it seemed that was not going to happen.
Unfortunately, even when I poured more divine power into my right eye, there was no further change in the display.
In the end, all I learned was that there was something lacking for evolution, and I couldn’t evolve without preparing it.
“Expansion of the Soul Vessel, huh…”
I tilted my head and thought, but couldn’t come up with anything.
“It doesn’t seem to be going very well, does it?”
Shurein spoke to Kousuke, who had been tilting his head for a while.
“Yeah, I just can’t understand this ‘expansion of the soul vessel’ thing.”
“Expansion of the Soul Vessel? What’s that?”
Shurein, taken aback by the sudden mention of something, was explained by Kousuke what he had seen so far.
“I see. So, you won’t evolve unless you expand this so-called Soul Vessel, is that right?”
“Well, that’s about it. Do you know anything about it?”
“No, I don’t know.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
We both tilted our heads, but ultimately, we didn’t understand.
“I thought it was a new power, so I could use it, but it feels a bit vague.”
“No, that’s not true. Just knowing that you’re on the verge of evolving is already unusual.”
“Is that so?”
Kousuke tilted his head at Shurein’s remark.
“Your senses are definitely dulled. Is it the influence of frequently meeting gods?”
Shurein looked at Kousuke with a somewhat exasperated gaze. Kousuke averted his eyes, feeling like he had a sense of what he meant.
“Well, that’s fine. More importantly, what should be done about expanding the Soul Vessel?”
Shurein, who hadn’t intended to delve too deeply, changed the subject herself. In other words, she decided to return to the main topic.
“That’s what I’m saying… It’s just too vague, I don’t understand it at all.”
“Well, that’s true. …Speaking of which, what about the other individuals?”
“With the Black Wolf, it was exactly the same.”
“…Hmm. I thought there might be some difference.”
It wasn’t that I only doted on the Black Wolf; I had checked other individuals as well.
I looked not only at the Black Wolf but also at the White Wolf lineage.
However, so far, only the Black Wolves had reacted in my right eye, and the White Wolves had no reaction at all.
All the reacting Black Wolves showed the same display, so I still didn’t understand.
“It can’t be helped. It was too opportunistic to try and understand it with just the Black Wolf. Let’s go see the other familiars.”
In the end, we concluded that trying to properly understand it with only the Black Wolf was too reckless, and decided to leave the 81st Floor this time.
The new power that has been carried over from the previous chapter has finally made its appearance.
…Can’t use it? No, no, it’s not like that, it shouldn’t be. Probably.
