While Chiaki was thinking about her mother, Seiji promised her father that he would do his very best to prevent anything bad from happening to her. Seiji would protect Chiaki.

“What do you need me to do?” Shingo asked after a period of contemplative silence.

“Please pay attention to anything strange that may happen to or around you. Also, please contact me immediately if anything strange does happen. Or, you can contact Chiaki.” Seiji paused for a moment. “I would also like it if you could please contact me if you can remember anything else regarding Chiaki’s mother.”

“…That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

“You don’t want any money?”

“I don’t need money.”

Shingo took a deep look at the boy sitting across from him and then retracted his gaze.

“Let’s do things like that, then.” After saying that, he stood up again.

“Dad…” When Chiaki saw this, she couldn’t help but call out to him.

The famous artist glanced at his daughter before starting to walk off.

Chiaki didn’t know what to say. She could only watch together with Seiji as her father left.

Although they had learned something rather important about her mother, that didn’t mean that the relationship between Chiaki and her father would instantly be repaired.

But, at the very least, an important step was taken today.

——————————–

Someone being spirited away, disappearing from the world entirely, with nobody remembering that person or having any evidence that person had existed.

This type of phenomenon was relatively common in manga and anime. Seiji’s deepest impression was from a certain anime named Shakugan no Shana.

He recalled that the female lead of this anime from his previous world had been ridiculously popular at the time this anime was released. The red-haired sword-wielding loli was an otaku’s dream girl. Shana had become the representative character of the tsundere trope, as well as the main reason behind her voice actress Rie Kugimiya’s popularity, helping Kugimiya achieve stardom as a tsundere voice actress in other anime afterwards. Even now, Seiji still remembered Shana’s famous triple ” urusai ¹ ” line. It was as if he could hear that line playing in his head right now…

Cough, he was getting off track.

In that anime, people who had their “power of existence” stolen from them would cease to exist, vanishing completely from the world and everyone’s memories. All evidence that this person had ever existed would vanish as well.

There were also many other anime and manga that used such an element in their story setting. The source of all this were the ancient legends about being spirited away.

Being taken away by a spirit, demon, or other supernatural existence could all be classified under spirited away. But, the most original meaning of the term spirited away referred to being taken away by a god.

“Completely vanishing from the world, with nobody remembering about that person, and all evidence of that person’s existence vanishing? That’s the highest possible level of being spirited away,” Natsuya told Seiji after she learned of the situation. “This type of spirited away, or shall we say, mystical phenomenon, only exists in theory. That’s because if someone really disappears in such a way, nobody will remember them and there will be no evidence of that person’s existence. Not a single person will know that this person has existed, so nobody will notice that the person has disappeared. That’s why there’s no concrete example of the highest possible level of being spirited away.

“This is a level of spirited away that’s only one level below the theoretical highest possible achievable level of being spirited away. The person in question disappeared, and the great majority of people have forgotten about this person. However, a few individuals still remember that person, or there’s a very minor amount of evidence of that person’s existence left behind. There are records of such types of being spirited away. Obviously, the situation with Wakaba-san’s mother is this type of being spirited away. It’s also possible that this wasn’t done by a god, but rather a spiritual ability user. A sufficiently powerful individual, or perhaps a spiritual ability user faction, can also accomplish something similar. But, if this was done by a spiritual ability user, that person should have done a more complete job.”

Natsuya had the same opinion as Seiji here.

“How powerful would a god have to be to cause such an incident of being spirited away if we go by Soul Society’s demon danger levels?” Seiji wondered about this.

“According to soul society’s classification, it would have to be ‘demon king’ level,” Natsuya answered instantly.

“Demon king level… as expected.”

Seiji had been hoping that maybe a god that could do this would only be at the ‘vicious demon’ level danger classification. Yet, Natsuya answered instantly with such confidence, shattering his tiny hope.

With his current power level, would he be able to deal with a god that was the equivalent of a ‘demon king’ threat level?

It was quite possible that he wouldn’t be able to… no, it would definitely be impossible!

Seiji decided not to have any outlandish hopes. A vicious demon level threat like the Snake or Samurai Demon was already so difficult to deal with already. A demon king level threat would definitely be impossible for the current him to handle, Seiji told himself.

But what if he included Natsuya and all his companions’ combat strength put together?

Add on his ability to save and load to go back in time, and perhaps he would be able to deal with a demon king level god. But, that would still be tremendously risky…

As Seiji mulled over things, Chiaki sat by his side and quietly sipped on some tea.

It felt rather scary to be watched by a god like this. She also felt scared that she might disappear from the world at any moment, with nobody ever remembering that she existed. However, Chiaki felt reassured because she had such a reliable boyfriend.

Apart from being afraid of that unknown god who was watching her, Chiaki now had a new emotion: anger.

If this god had caused her mother’s disappearance and brought so much pain to her father… this god seemed far too evil to her!

Since Chiaki didn’t have any memories of her mother, she didn’t feel the same pain of losing a loved one. She merely felt sad—sad for her father, and sad for her own lost memories.

Did all of this happen to her because she was a priest’s descendant, so she had the “favor of the gods?”

She preferred not to have the gods’ favor at all!

“I’d like to ask…” After some consideration, Chiaki came up with a question. “Where have the people who were spirited away gone to? What exactly… happened to my mother?”

Mika, who was also present and sipping tea, looked at her best friend. Even Shika looked in Chiaki’s direction.

“According to the ancient legends about being spirited away, the people who went missing were brought to mystical realms,” Natsuya explained. “This is something that regular people know about through folk tales as well… And with your mother’s situation, it’s highly likely that she became the servant of a god.”

“Is it possible that she’s still alive?” Chiaki asked in a soft voice.

“That’s possible.” Natsuya looked at Chiaki. “But to my knowledge, it’s impossible to return those who have been spirited away back to the human world. That’s because it’s impossible even for spiritual ability users to enter the gods’ realm…”

But as Natsuya said this, she suddenly stopped herself as something flashed in her eyes.

“What is it?” Seiji could tell that she suddenly thought of something.

“Impossible to enter the gods’ realm… that was the case in the past,” Natsuya spoke slowly. “Now that the Spirit Worlds have started appearing… what if the Spirit Worlds are actually the gods’ realm, or if they’re directly connected to the gods’ realm? That means…”

The gods’ realm could be accessed!

Those who were spirited away could possibly be recovered!!

The student council president didn’t say those two sentences out loud. However, everyone present was able to come to such conclusions by themselves.

“My mom… may be able to return?” Chiaki widened her eyes.

She had only asked because of her unwillingness to accept the current situation. She’d never expected to hear about such a possibility.

“It’s only a possibility,” Natsuya told her in a serious tone. “I can’t be certain that the Spirit Worlds are related to the gods’ realm or that they have any connection to the gods’ realm… even now, we still don’t know what exactly the Spirit Worlds are.”

Since she didn’t know what the Spirit Worlds were, everything was only a hypothesis.

The Spirit Worlds possibly being connected to the gods’ realm was also only a hypothesis.

But, this hypothesis seemed quite plausible.

“The Spirit Worlds… No, more specifically, I should be talking about the Realm of Cherry Blossoms.” Something flashed in Seiji’s eyes. “The Realm of Cherry Blossoms is actually the gods’ realm itself… I think that this is highly possible.

“First of all, why did the Realm of Cherry Blossoms appear? This is something that none of us knows the answer to. However, the Realm of Cherry Blossoms appeared during the cherry blossom viewing festival, right at the time when everyone in Sakura Island was enjoying the sight of cherry blossoms. There must be a connection here! If you treat the citizens’ enjoyment of cherry blossoms as a type of ‘worship’ towards cherry blossoms, then the cherry blossom viewing festival will be the highest point in everyone’s ‘worship’ of the cherry blossoms. This created a related Cherry Blossom Spirit World, or maybe even brought about the birth of a Cherry Blossom God… doesn’t this sound quite reasonable?

“And then, since Chiaki is a priest’s descendant, and she now senses the ‘attention of a God’ on her, this means that the God is getting closer and is about to appear. This is an exact match for the current situation with the Realm of Cherry Blossoms! In summary, I believe that the Realm of Cherry Blossoms’ real identity is the divine realm of the Cherry Blossom God. This all makes sense!!”