Volume 21 Chapter 1, Kousuke’s Blessing

Now that the ruckus with the Column Kingdom had died down, he decided to leave the rest of the work to Alec.

The political developments became too complicated with the revealing of Amamiya Tower’s arsenal, and it was obvious that if an amateur were to meddle in the affairs, it would cause problems.

Kousuke understood that he was an amateur at politics, so he left it to Alec, who had been involved in politics since birth.

As for the nations on continents other than the Central Continent, Alec said that they would be fine at this time, as Amamiya Tower’s unexpected strength would put them on the defensive for now.

If there was a problem, it would be the movement of individual towns on the Central Continent.

Each town had their own agendas, and if they made a bad move, it could lead to problems.

They were now divided into three major groups.

The first would be towns like Kennelsen that wanted to be under the umbrella of Amamiya Tower.

The next was those towns that were opportunistic.

The third would be similar to Sajival, and would be hostile to the Tower.

However, the third force was said to have stopped their movement because Amamiya Tower’s offensive weapons came to be known because of the commotion with Column Kingdom.

The executive branch had been very busy as the first town had started to show its actions in the opposite direction.

The towns in places where it would be difficult to help geographically even if they were allowed to join under their umbrella, for example, were put on hold.

If the four towns with transfer gates and the towns to the east, west, south, and north were all under their umbrella, there would be no need to worry about such things, Alec said with a laugh.

Kousuke saw the look on Alec’s face at that moment, and figured that politics couldn’t be done without some necessary evils.

However, although they were on hold, they were not left unattended.

Regarding the supplies of the merchant corps, priority was given to the flow of goods following the towns that had joined their umbrella.

Kousuke was impressed by the look on Schmidt’s face when he told him that he had made sure to make a profit, and that he was a merchant after all.

He also said that the logistics network of the big merchant corps seemed to be working well, and that the common ways of peddling were changing.

Kousuke, however, had no intention of eliminating the individual peddlers.

In fact, he believed that there was no way it would disappear.

No matter how much they tried, there would always be products that the big merchant corps would not be able to manage.

Such items would be replaced by goods distributed by individual peddlers.

Even if Kousuke had not thought of this, the individual peddlers would have thought about it.

Those peddlers who could not do so would be weeded out or absorbed into guilds or Crown.

Anticipating this, more and more peddlers like Schmidt and Rick joined Crown.

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While listening to the report on the situation, Kousuke was still training hard to suppress his divine authority.

If he was unable to do this, he would not be able to walk around the town on the 5th Floor with peace of mind.

The town of the 5th Floor was already more like a city than a town.

Incidentally, the criterion for being called a town was whether the population exceeded 100,000.

If the population numbers back and forth between 100,000 or more, it would be called a town, but since the number of residents in the 5th Floor was expected to increase even more, it was already called a town even when it’s below the number of 100,000.

Although he would like to take a good look at the city that had grown to such a large scale, he couldn’t go out with ease in a situation where he didn’t know where he might meet a clergyman.

So, Kousuke had been training hard, and it seemed that his training was finally coming to fruition.

Sylvia was watching over Kousuke as a matter of course.

Although to Collete, what they called “training” was just a flirting session, but of course, they were not just flirting.

After getting the hang of it previously, they were achieving good results.

Sylvia was there to check the results.

“…I can’t feel any divine authority from Kousuke-san anymore. With this, it should be safe for Kousuke to walk around the city.”

Finally, on this day, Sylvia gave him a passing grade.

Now he could walk the streets with a big smile on his face.

He was happy about that, but there was something else on his mind at the moment.

By suppressing his own divine authority, he was able to feel something new.

That was what he could sense from Sylvia now.

“…Hmmm. I wonder what this is?”

“Kousuke-san?”

Sylvia tilted her head at the sight of Kousuke.

Kousuke came up with some ideas, but he wasn’t sure if he should try them out right here and now.

Sylvia watched silently while Kousuke was troubled, deciding that it was best not to speak to him.

After a while, Kousuke talked to Sylvia, as if reaching a conclusion.

“I’ve felt something after I’ve been able to suppress the divine power…”

“Yes.”

“I could detect Divine Authority from Sylvia?”

“Oh, that must be Kousuke-sama’s divine power. I am Kousuke-sama’s priestess, after all.”

Sylvia, when acting as a miko, treated Kousuke as a deity, and so she would address him as sama in this situation.

She seemed to have a clear distinction between the two in her mind, though it was a subtle difference.

Regardless, she changed the way she addressed him currently because they were talking about the divine.

“Well, in Sylvia’s case, I have expected it, but there are times when I sense it in the other members as well.”

There were times when he would sense it from everyone for a brief moment, but only noticed it clearly now that he was talking about it with Sylvia.

Of course, he felt it most often with Sylvia, but the other members had similar characteristics.

By order, Sylvia was the strongest, followed by Peach, and the rest of the members were either similar or weaker.

“Perhaps it depends on the qualifications they have to be Kousuke-sama’s priestesses?”

Sylvia came up with that after hearing Kousuke’s story.

“Hmmm. I wonder? That’s one thing, but I can think of one other reason, you know?”

“…That is?”

“Whether they are qualified to be given Divine Protection.”

Sylvia pondered about Kousuke’s guess and, after a moment, shook her head.

“Well, when it comes to DIvine Protection, I don’t really know. Why not ask the gods about that?”

“Sure, I’ll try that, too. But there is something I would like to try first.”

What Kousuke wanted to try was what Jal told him about Divine Protection.

The Goddesses in the other realm had never needed help with how to give Divine Protection.

He thought that if he trusted his instincts now, he might be able to give Divine Protection.

However, there was no doubt that it would be an experiment on the human body in a sense.

When he told Sylvia about this, Sylvia nodded her head in agreement.

“If that’s the case, please try it with me first. I am also a priestess for that purpose.”

Kousuke agreed, feeling a bit guilty, knowing that Sylvia would respond as he had expected her to.

Sylvia understood Kousuke’s feelings.

Kousuke’s assumption, which included some hope, was correct.

Of course, Kousuke was attracted to Sylvia partly because of her personality and the way she thought.

Since he was a deity, he should be in a position to test without worrying about such things, but Kousuke was attractive to Sylvia as a person who would still worry.

Regardless of Sylvia’s thoughts, Kousuke prepared himself to grant Divine Protection.

The preparation did not necessarily require anything special, since he was only going to use his divine power to grant the DIvine Protection.

It was just a matter of preparing his mind for doing the task for the first time.

Using his own divine power that he sensed from Sylvia, he shared a part of his authority.

Sharing did not mean that Kousuke himself would lose that power.

Strictly speaking, it was more like giving others a copy of said power.

“I think that should be good… Did you feel any changes?”

“… I don’t really know myself. Uh… No. There’s definitely something that changed.”

“Looks like it. I looked at your status, and you have a Divine Protection firmly in place.”

Looking at Sylvia’s status, he could see a title of <Kousuke’s Blessing> attached to her.