Book 1: Volume 17 Side Story 1, Help me, Lady Celestial!

“Hi~n.”

A pitiless voice echoed in Asura’s mansion, located almost in the center of the Garden of Everlasting Spring.

The owner of that voice was currently buried under a mountain of documents.

The owner of the voice finally let out a whine, as the pile of papers continued to grow taller.

“Hey, sister! I can’t do it! This is absolutely impossible! I can’t handle this by myself!”

It was Jal who let out such a scream.

The number of applications from goddesses who wanted to connect with Kousuke was increasing, not decreasing, and finally exceeding Jal’s processing capacity.

The fact that it was not due to Jal’s slacking off was obvious from the piles of documents.

Seeing Jal surrounded by that pile, Eris let out a sigh when asked for help.

“I can see that…. Why are you handling this alone?”

“…Heh?”

Eris’s simple question made Jal sound unintentionally baffled.

“Why don’t you just use your subordinates or something and let them handle some of it?”

Hearing this, Jal was stunned.

“…Oh, I haven’t thought of that. All the trouble I’ve been going through…”

“Well, I suppose it’s what you deserve, no?”

Hearing Eris’s unrelenting words, Jal plopped down on her desk as if burned out.

“…My sister is such a meanie”

Because of Eris, they would have known from the beginning that the job would not be quick or easy.

That meant she’d known how to solve the problem all along with the assistance of her subordinates.

Incidentally, according to their rules, it was not common for them to use subordinates or minions.

It would usually involve handling the scope of one’s own work on one’s own.

Nevertheless, there were exceptions to everything, even for something like this.

“If you had asked me from the beginning, I would have taught you properly, wouldn’t I? However, I think it’s something you should know, too, don’t you?”

“Hahahahaha…”

Eris let out a sigh at Jal, who faked her laughter.

Eris and Jal were among the three Great Goddesses in the world of Earthgard.

Naturally, there was a lot of work to be done with that.

If Eris and Jal were to handle these tasks on their own, they would naturally be overwhelmed, and so they would use a number of subordinates to help them out.

In Eris’s case, however, one of her responsibilities included handling the problems that arose in Earthgard.

Jal, being in the same position as one of the three great deities, also had the ability to use such people, but Jal, who had never used such people before, was completely oblivious to the fact that she could.

Eris thought it was great that Jal was able to handle the work so well without using any subordinates.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t going to tell her that because she could see that she was losing her temper.

The reason why Eris got angry with Jal every time when she and Kousuke were exchanging thoughts was because… the work that needed to be done would be ignored.

Even if she wanted to prohibit the practice, she was unable to do so because she was completing all the work that needed to be done. She also could not speak out strongly against it as she didn’t want the other Goddesses to know.

Leaving that thought aside, Jal decided to recruit subordinates to handle the paperwork that had increased as a result of Kousuke’s remarks.

The number of applicants far exceeded their expectations.

The reason was simple: getting closer to Jal would increase the chances of getting close to Kousuke when he came next.

Although this was not a benefit for the recruitment, it was assumed to be. Thus, people gathered.

The fact that they did not dare to correct the assumption also contributed to the spread.

Jal did not correct it because technically, it wasn’t incorrect.

In fact, the next time Kousuke came to their place, she intended to introduce them as her subordinates, so it was not a lie.

After all the interviews and other methods of selection, she managed to narrow it down to two subordinates.

She had already decided what she wanted the two of them to do.

They were to sort through the large pile of paperwork.

To begin with, there were so many incomplete documents filed that there were almost no documents that could be approved.

They were tasked with eliminating documents that had simple omissions or errors.

The result was a great success.

The pile of paperwork was processed in a matter of days.

All that remained was to process the documents that could be delivered normally.

♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦

“Mufufu!”

Jal was in a good mood after being released from the paperwork of the past few days.

Not that there were no more documents for Jal to process.

After removing the incomplete documents, Jal’s workload decreased dramatically, and she now had more spare time to do her work.

“Jal-sama”

“Wah…! What? I thought we were done for the day…”

Mill suddenly appeared, and Jal ended up responding in the same way as Eris.

Mill was one of the two who passed the recent recruitment with flying colors.

The other, meanwhile, was Hellen.

Both of them were accepted because of Eris’s good eye, and they had shown great skill when sorting documents.

They completed a mountain of paperwork in just a few days, even though it was their first time doing the job.

…However.

“You finished it, but we received additional documents, so please take care of those as well.”

Jal’s face twitched at Mill’s words.

“What…? What additions?”

“It seems that now we’re here to help, some of the people who had been holding back are now sending us documents.”

Jal was devastated by those casual words.

“What do you mean, holding back…?”

“The previous situation was communicated to places like mine, so it seems that they were refraining in various areas.”

“Oh, that’s why they were hesitating…?”

“Yes, that seems to be the case.”

Jal shot a resentful glance at Mill, who told her without hesitation.

“That kind of glare won’t reduce the number of documents. Please work on it.”

Jal received an ultimatum from Mill and was taken away.

Jal realized that Mill was right, even if there was a large increase in the number of documents to be processed.

However, the increase in the number of documents did not mean that the number of items that met the criteria for acceptance had increased.

On the contrary, the number of documents to be accepted was decreasing.

“Ah, mou. I don’t care if someone barely meets the criteria and gets rejected, they need to stop sending it out when it’s clearly lacking.”

“Everyone knows that we receive a large number of documents here daily, so it seems that they expect us to accidentally let them pass.”

It was Hellen who responded to Jal’s complaint.

Hellen was right, there were quite a few people who submitted their documents expecting them to make a mistake.

“Heh! Really?”

“It looks like it.”

“What? What’s that? Even if the paperwork is approved here, it won’t mean anything unless you can grant the titles.”

At Jal’s words, the color of their faces changed.

“”What do you mean, grant?””

“What? You didn’t know? The paperwork screening is to prevent them from using their Divine Power unnecessarily, you know?”

In the first place, there was no such thing as paperwork screening in the old days.

To prevent people from using Divine Power unnecessarily, they decided to have the paperwork screening process first.

“If only I had known that earlier…”

“I’ll go notify them.”

When Jal came to explain these things to them in a relaxed manner, two of her subordinates started to move in a rush.

New Gods were unaware of the document screening process, let alone those who had existed for a long time.

That was why this situation was happening, but Jal, who was one of the three major Goddesses, had no idea about it to begin with.

Even if the paperwork was approved, it would be meaningless if they failed to grant titles using their Divine Power later.

If Jal had stated that there was this barrier, there would not have been so many useless documents created in the first place.

The notice issued on that date resulted in a significant reduction in paperwork, which was a good thing for both parties.

The result was that there would be more free time, and a happy-faced Jal could be seen…

“Just in time, Jal, I see you have some spare time.”

“Wha…? Sister!?”

The same scene as before was still unfolding, though.