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Translator: Kazumi
Editor: Kabur & Silavin
From outside the room, voices could be heard saying, “Kousuke-sama!” and “Where are you?
Not long after Kousuke escaped, there were already people in the same position outside the room, which could be seen from the window.
While wondering what to do, the door was opened with a clank, as if the owner of the room had forgotten who was there.
“Kousuke, sama? …Ah?! I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, I understand what’s going on.”
Asura, the owner of the room, replied with a smile.
“Kousuke-sama wouldn’t be in this room, would he? Why don’t you look elsewhere?”
“I, I will!”
Eris said to one of the panicked Goddesses to offer her assistance, and the Goddess bowed her head and closed the door in a panic.
Kousuke let out a sigh of relief as he heard the door close.
As if seeing through Kousuke, Asura giggled at the ceiling.
“You’d better hide in there for the time being.”
“…I’m sorry to trouble you.”
Kousuke unintentionally replied in a polite tone as he settled into a corner of the ceiling.
Currently, Kousuke was hiding in a corner of the ceiling of the room where Asura was.
When Kousuke ran into this room, Asura had told him there was just the right spot, and he could escape to.
Eris’s response to the Goddess who had chased Kousuke earlier was not a lie.
Kousuke was in a gap in the ceiling, not in the room.
Of course, this was sophistry, but since Kousuke would have been caught up if she didn’t do this, this much could be forgiven.
“Aah. How did this happen?”
As Kousuke complained, Asura and Eris’s two gazes crossed.
“You deserved it.”
“You were too careless.”
“Ugh…”
Kousuke could not argue at all with their sharp remarks.
As to why Kousuke was in this situation in the first place, the story started a while back.
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It was the first day of his regular Sanctuary visit since welcoming the Prost Clan to the Tower.
Kousuke was at the standing buffet party as usual and was talking with Clara, who had successfully won the right to participate.
Naturally, the conversation centered on the events at the Arcis Temple.
However, the atmosphere at the party, which had been proceeding peacefully as usual, changed drastically when Kousuke said something.
“But I’m really glad I was able to summon Clara… right?”
Kousuke, noticing the change in the peaceful atmosphere, took a step back as if overwhelmed.
Clara and Jal, who were standing nearby, were holding their heads as if to say, “Oh no!”
“Kousuke-sama!”
“Uh, yes?”
One of the Goddesses, who had been happily listening to the conversation just a moment ago, came closer to him.
“You were able to summon Clara-sama with divine power?”
“What? I wonder…?”
Instinctively, Kousuke knew it was a bad idea, but he couldn’t lie, so he gave a vague answer.
Kousuke was already trying to escape.
It was only natural that he would do this when all the people who had been engaged in conversation here and there turned their attention to him at the same time.
Telling himself that it was not because he was a fool, he was ready to escape at any time.
Kousuke asked Clara, who was standing right beside him with a resigned look on her face, to make sure.
“Uh…was that a bad idea?”
“I was trying to keep it a secret for Kousuke’s sake, but I guess it was all for nothing.”
Seeing Clara shrugging her shoulders and saying that, Kousuke made up his mind.
In other words, it was time to make a run for it.
Jal, perhaps sensing Kousuke’s intention, pointed to the nearest doorway.
Taking a deep breath, Kousuke quickly fled from the scene.
“Ah! He’s running away!”
“Let’s go after him!”
Hearing such voices behind his back, Kousuke started looking for a place where he could escape with all his might.
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He finally found a safe haven after fleeing from the Goddesses who were chasing after Kousuke with their eyes flashing, and Asura guided him to the ceiling.
“…I’ve failed, haven’t I?”
Kousuke had never thought that one careless word of his would cause such a situation.
“Kousuke, you should reconsider the strength of your influence on those girls.”
In the first place, just being in the presence of the girls together at Sanctuary could have a positive impact on them.
If he could summon them to Earthgard through a divine summoning, the magnitude of that influence would soar to the ceiling for the girls.
Unfortunately, the divine summoning could not be invoked anytime, anywhere.
However, the girls really wanted to be summoned as soon as possible if they could do so for any reason.
When Kousuke mentioned the possibility of summoning Clara to the party earlier, the only thing holding them back from chasing him around was broken.
Knowing that this would happen, Clara and Asura and the others who had received the report were careful not to reveal it to anyone else.
But Kousuke’s one word had blown it out of the water.
It was understandable that Kousuke was unaware of this.
Kousuke himself usually operated in Earthgard, so he did not fully understand the meaning of a Goddess’s existence in the world.
For the Goddesses, who were in a sense trapped in the Sanctuary, the most exciting thing for them was to be able to descend to Earthgard.
The Goddesses would not have missed such an opportunity, and they did not spread this story because Asura and her colleagues could have easily imagined this situation.
Incidentally, the summoning of the three great deities at the inauguration of the Tower temple was a special case.
Since it was one of the reasons for Kousuke to become a living god, the Goddesses were satisfied with it, but not so with the summoning of Clara.
After all, the problem could have been solved without Clara’s summoning.
Kousuke had summoned Clara so casually that it was only natural that someone else would think that he would summon them as well.
While Kousuke was thinking about this on the ceiling, he heard a knock on the door.
“Who is it?”
“Sister Eris, it’s me.”
Jal’s voice was heard as she called out to Eris who was inside the room.
“You may come enter.”
As Asura said this, the door opened and Jal and Clara walked in.
“Oh my. You came as well?”
“Yes, well. I’m a part of this after all.”
Clara answered Asura’s question with a wry smile.
She had just been captured by the Goddesses and was being questioned about the details of the situation. In a sense, the situation could be called an interrogation.
Finally released from the crowd, they came to Asura to report the situation.
“By the way, where is Kousuke?”
Clara asked, to which Asura replied with a smile.
“Don’t worry, he’s hiding. I’m sure he’s feeling sorry for himself by now.”
Kousuke heard that line on the ceiling and repeated it in his mind, “I do”.
“That’s fine then… but if this becomes a reason for him to stop visiting or something…”
Seeing Clara’s worried look, Asura looked as if she had been hit with an opportunity to strike.
“No, of course not. Why would you say that?”
“Oh, no. I just had a hunch.”
“If it was just this much that stopped him from visiting in the first place, he wouldn’t be visiting on a regular basis, would he? You worry too much.”
“Yes, she was worrying too much”, Kousuke mentally said.
“Anyway, tell me more about the current situation. Then we’ll figure out what to do.”
Everyone present nodded in agreement to Asura’s words.
In the end, the commotion had not subsided by morning, and Kousuke spent the rest of the night on the ceiling.
During that time, Eris firmly explained to everyone that there were certain conditions that had to be met in order to perform a divine summoning.
In this case, too, those conditions were met, and Kousuke was able to summon Clara because he was aware of it.
After hearing this, the Goddesses were finally convinced and the meeting was dismissed.
