Volume 18 Chapter 9, Kousuke Wavering

It ended up taking him a day more for Kousuke to be able to get out of bed.

And when he said he could get up…

“Ugh. I still can’t…”

He was once again suffering from slight dizziness.

He didn’t feel any discomfort when he was sitting up on the bed, but it was no good when he tried to walk.

Kousuke, sensing that further straining himself was no use at this point, quietly returned to bed.

Obviously, he was exhausted from lying around in bed all day yesterday. However, there was nothing he could do about his physical condition.

***

Returning to bed, Kousuke attempted to make an oracle to Sylvia, which he was unable to do so yesterday.

[Sylvia, can you hear me?]

The situation was not as difficult as yesterday, so he decided to continue the conversation.

[Ko-Kousuke-sama!? Are you okay?]

Sylvia replied, sounding quite flustered.

Eris told her that he would be late because he had more things to do, but since there had been no word from Kousuke himself, she had been worried.

Kousuke heard her voice and realized that he could not speak truthfully about his condition. Therefore, he tried his best to reply in his usual tone of voice.

[Don’t worry, I’m fine. I’m fine. Also, I think I can get a hold of that thing Peach talked about, so I’ll stay here for a little while longer.]

[…I understand]

Kousuke pretended not to have noticed that it took a long time for her to reply.

[So, I’ll leave everyone there in charge until I come back]

[Yes.]

After hearing Sylvia’s reply, he immediately ended the oracle.

In truth, the moment he tried to make an oracle to Sylvia, he was in the same state as when he stood up, so he was trying his best to avoid being noticed.

“Ummm… Am I seriously going to be okay?”

Kousuke realized after all this time that he could not be optimistic about his own condition.

***

Kousuke still felt dull, but he was not feeling pessimistic because he knew that he had recovered quite a bit compared to yesterday.

He was certain he would recover in time, but he knew that if his return would take too long, he would not be able to fool his close associates.

He estimated that he had a week at the most, but there was no guarantee that he would recover by then.

However, he knew that there was no point in being impatient.

He laid back quietly in bed, but since he had slept so much yesterday, there was nothing he could do but toss and turn.

That was until Jal came to visit him.

“I’m here to visit. How are you feeling?”

“Oh. I’m glad you came. I’m bored out of my mind.”

“Oh, as I thought?”

Jal knew Kousuke would be bored, so she came here in her spare time from work.

She felt bad for Kousuke, who was sick, but it was not every day that she had such a chance to speak with him in such a leisurely manner.

So, she took this opportunity to visit him.

Incidentally, Jal was not the only one who thought of doing so. Spica and Eris came to visit him later as well.

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It was night.

Kousuke had managed to pass the tedious hours with visits from the Three Great Goddesses, had his last and greatest guest.

“…I don’t like the way they treat me like I’m some kind of last boss.”

“Haha. No, sorry, sorry. But it’s actually how you are, isn’t it?”

Asura, sensing mischievousness from Kousuke’s tone, became grumpy.

Kousuke chuckled to lighten up the mood.

“So? How’s it going?”

“Well, I don’t really know. I’m perfectly fine when I’m lying on the bed like this, but when I stand up, well, I can’t really manage to stay on two feet.”

“Well, bipedal animals use a lot of energy to stand up and walk, after all.”

Kousuke nodded in agreement with Asura’s opinion.

“No, but don’t oracles usually use more energy?”

“Not really. What’s crippling Kousuke right now is when he moves as a human, right?”

“Ah, I see. I see. That’s what you mean.”

Understanding what Asura meant, Kousuke nodded again.

Kousuke’s soul had undergone some kind of transformation thanks to meeting the World Record with only his soul.

Asura did not know what it was, but she knew that his body was not keeping up with the changes in his soul.

His body was trying to stabilize the changes in his soul, but it wasn’t able to keep up with movements, such as walking.

“Can’t you adjust my body like you did when you first put my soul in this body?”

“No, I can’t. Even if I was able to precisely adjust Kousuke’s soul at that time, it is impossible even for me to accurately adjust your soul now after that being had transformed it.”

In the end, there was nothing that could be done unless Kousuke himself understood the state of his soul.

“Hmmm. Understanding the soul…”

If he could do that, he would have no issues. To get out of this situation, he would have to overcome it.

“Is there a better solution?”

“If there was, I would have given you some advice. There is nothing I can do about it.”

Asura shrugged her shoulders.

In reality, there was no way for one to understand the state of one’s soul based on what one heard from others.

He must inevitably understand it on his own.

“Hmmm… Well, I think it would be easier to understand if you could leave your body and become just your soul.”

“What? You can do that?”

Kousuke’s statement made Asura look at him with a puzzled expression.

“Well, yeah! I mean, if you can read minds, you should be able to do it!”

“Don’t be absurd. But if that’s the solution, can we quick do it?”

“What do you mean?”

“What do I mean, nothing, really? But it should be easy for you to separate my soul from my body, right?”

Asura looked at Kousuke as if she was saying ‘what are you up to?’.

“By all means, please do it.”

Kousuke pleaded and then bowed his head toward Asura.

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“Oh. So, this is what astral projection is like.”

Kousuke gazed with deep emotions at his body lying on the bed.

When he was lying on the rock in the forest, he had no awareness that he had become a soul because he only had the sensation of falling asleep.

This time, however, it was easier to understand because his body was clearly in front of him.

Kousuke had been contemplating about this rare experience for a while. He changed his mind when he noticed something while he was looking at his body.

“I’m sorry, Asura, but can I return back?”

“Eh? Okay, but… You should be able to go back as soon as you want to go back”

Kousuke closed his eyes and tried to imagine going back into his body.

The next moment, he felt a strange sensation of weight on his body.

After returning to his body, Kousuke quickly opened his eyes, but felt dizzy and quickly closed them.

That made him understand that what he sensed earlier was not wrong.

“Uh, yeah… I now understand why my physical condition is like this.”

“What? Really?”

“Well. It’s partly because my soul has not been anchored properly into my body as you said. It also seems like my soul was still unknowingly separated from my body.”

This was also why he felt dizzy when his soul came back.

When he saw his body in his soul state, he had a strange feeling about it.

With his intuition and what he saw… he decided to go back immediately and asked Asura how to do so.

“Does it affect you that much?”

Apparently Asura didn’t understand this either.

“Yeah. Well, I don’t know if this is the case because it’s me, or if it would be the same for other humans.”

In the first place, it was impossible even for high-ranking priests or priestesses to separate their soul from their body. It was safe to say that no one could answer that query of his.

Even more so since Kousuke did not acquire the ability to separate his soul from his body through extended training.

“I see, but now that I know the cause, I can spend less time being bored.”

“Oh, really?”

“It’s just a possibility. I can’t do it today, so I’ll give it a try starting tomorrow.”

“I see. Don’t do anything rash. You’re going to sleep like this today?”

“Yeah, I will.”

As Kousuke replied, Asura touched Kousuke’s forehead.

When Asura pulled her hand away, Kousuke was already sound asleep.