Chapter 395 Conversation With The Soul
Even after Marcato left, the frozen time did not start moving.
"Huh?"
As Sara tilted her head, Gaia appeared, looking different from last time. However, her vibe was quite different from before.
"Um, you're Goddess Gaia, right?"
"Indeed. It hasn't been so long that you should have forgotten me."
"It's just that your appearance is so different."
The Gaia Sara met before was an old woman in a work shirt and chinos, but the Gaia in front of her was a woman of indeterminate age, dressed in a dress as blue as the ocean. She didn't look old, but she didn't have a youthful vibe either.
"However, it seems you recognize me without being misled by my appearance."
"That's true. I guess because I often change my own appearance, I instinctively recognized you as Goddess Gaia. But I did doubt my own recognition because of what I saw."
"We can change our appearance easily, after all."
"But Marcato looked terrible, right?"
"Ah, that was because I fixed their appearance like that. Well, it seems you managed to undo it."
"I had no choice; it was hard to hold back laughter every time I saw them."
"That makes sense."
Gaia laughed with a voice like rolling bells, and she was surprisingly beautiful. Sara thought the 3 gods, including Marcato, were beautiful, but looking at Gaia made her realize what true divinity is.
"Why have you changed your appearance from last time?"
"At that time, your soul was quite worn out. I thought you might not be able to handle my power, so I held back and changed my appearance. But now, within you, there are pieces of us. No matter what form I take, it won't matter. For an ordinary human, it would be hard to even stand, let alone see my form."
"Indeed, it's a beauty that is not of this world."
"How carefree. You have already become something hard to call human."
"I hear people say I've graduated from being human or that I'm a Dragon all the time. I've gotten used to it."
"Hmm. That's a rather unfortunate way to speak about Dragons."
"Goddess Gaia is quite rude too, isn't she?"
At Gaia's remark, Sara slumped her shoulders in disappointment.
"Well, right now, that doesn't matter."
"Are you here about the soul possessing the king?"
"Yes. I can't help but feel uneasy leaving it to Marcato."
"I understand your feelings. According to Marcato, it seems the soul has become too attached to its host."
"I'm sorry I didn't notice it had gotten to this state."
Gaia looked at the king with a sad gaze and pointed her slender finger at him. From the king's chest, his soul was slowly pulled out. The king's soul, a reddish-brown color, was wrapped in a strange, gel-like net that was either a deep black or dark green.
Sara gently stroked the net that was tangled around the king's soul, as if to comfort it. Where she touched, the dark color faded, changing to a green like emerald.
"It seems it is happy to have found an understanding person."
"But this soul has done many bad things to be hated by so many, right?"
"That's correct."
As if responding to the voice, the net-like soul trembled slightly.
"Why did you do such things?"
When Sara touched the net, a sound like a moan could be heard, but it was not clear enough to understand as words.
"If they have changed this much, it seems I can only convey my will to the one they possess. It's too fleeting for me to hear. I suppose I'll borrow the king's body for a while."
Gaia returned the king's soul to its original state and lightly blew breath toward him.
"Hm? What is this?"
"O king of Avalon, can you see my form?"
When Gaia spoke, the king turned to face him and, in the next moment, knelt before Gaia with his face down.
"I cannot raise my face before the god."
'I see. This is the usual reaction when facing a god.'
"Then you may ask as you wish. Your soul is possessed by a soul that has fallen from a different world."
"What!?"
"You must have sensed it to some extent, haven't you?"
As Gaia spoke, the king quietly pondered.
"In recent years, I have often heard whispers near my ear. I thought it was just my old age making my heart weak, but I was ashamed of my weakness because of the wickedness of the content. However, I never thought it was the words of another..."
"The possessed soul can whisper to the heart of the one it possesses. But most people do not think that their inner whispers contain the intentions of others."
"I feel saved by your words."
"That is understandable. By the way, I'm sorry, but I would like to borrow your body for a while to hear the voice of the possessed soul. I won't harm your body."
"I understand. Please use it as you wish."
Gaia nodded slightly and placed a hand on the head of the kneeling king. ...At that moment, the king's wig fell off.
"Hey, what are you doing?"
"No, this isn't on purpose. My hand just slipped a bit. Since the king's own time is stopped, he shouldn't notice if I put it back."
"I don't think it's okay just because he won't notice. I feel like I've humiliated him for no reason."
The king's head wasn't completely bald. It seemed like his hair had receded from the front to the top, leaving some hair on the sides and back. If Sara looked closely, there were also sparse short hairs on the top.
"Just having hair makes you look younger, huh? I see, wearing a wig is more about not wanting to look weak as a king than vanity."
"──No, he's just worried about being bald."
Suddenly, the king started speaking in a rough tone. And not in Avalon language, but in Japanese.
"Wow, I was surprised. You're the soul that's possessing the king, right?"
"Looks like it. And this king is so worried about his hair loss that he desperately collects his fallen hair to make a wig. Well, to be precise, most of it is hair from his son and grandson. Luckily, there are a lot of people in the royal family with the same hair color."
"Hmm. I think some people can still look good even if they're bald."
"Hey, you're young but have a mature taste."
"Hmm, is that so? By the way, do you realize you're dead?"
"Of course."
"Do you plan to leave the king?"
"Nope. I like this guy."
The king (possessed by the soul) slumped back into his chair, taking a deep breath and getting comfortable.
"So, you mean you like bald guys, right?"
"Not at all. Are you stupid?"
"Well, you chose to possess a bald king. I thought you must like bald old men."
"Why do you only point out the baldness? It's sad, you know. This guy is trying his best. Just pretend you don't notice it."
"You love him after all."
"I told you that's not it. Is your brain rotting or something?"
"I've only dabbled in that genre occasionally. I've never been called a fujoshi or kifujin, though."
"Listen... talking to you is exhausting."
"I think it's the king who's possessed, though?"
"I'm not saying you should come up with clever lines."
Then Gaia, who was sitting next to them, spoke to Sara in a scolding tone.
"Sara, don't press too hard. People are still immature, and there are many who reject minorities. Love and people don't have a fixed form. You shouldn't look at them with prejudice."
"Yes, Goddess Gaia."
"You really don't get it, do you? Just because they're beautiful doesn't mean everything is allowed!"
Sara's eyes filled with tears as she looked at the king with a sad expression.
"But, you're so attached to the king. There's no other way to interpret it. I don't want to do anything that would pull apart souls that are drawn to each other."
"Uh, no, it's not something to cry about, Goddess... and honestly, it's a bit troubling when a kid cries."
"You didn't have to say it so strongly that it would make a child cry."
"──Waah, Goddess Gaia! That person is yelling at me!"
"Okay, okay, stop crying."
Gaia pulled Sara close and patted her head.
"Wait a minute. That kid doesn't look like a child at all. Don't put on a weird act."
"Oh, you caught me."
"I can tell you're not normal since we're having a conversation in Japanese. Are you also possessed that little girl?"
"No. In my case, my soul was reincarnated into this world."
"What do you mean? Is that even possible?"
"I didn't wish for this. I was supposed to be dead from a car accident, but the god of this world just took my soul and made me reincarnate."
"Hmm? Were you the girl who was in the taxi?"
"Yeah, I did die in a car accident while I was in a taxi, but how do you know that?"
"That damn taxi made a crazy right turn right in front of my car. Because of that, my car crashed into it."
"...I can't really remember the details of the accident. I had just returned to the country and I think I was a bit drowsy. So, does that mean you also died in that accident?"
"Yeah. I was looking down at my broken body, and I saw the girl in the back seat of the taxi being taken out. She was a little pretty woman in her thirties wearing a pinstripe pantsuit."
"Ah, I might have been wearing something like that that day. And you don't need to say 'a little' pretty, you know?"
"You're so picky. Okay, okay, you were a beautiful woman. It would have been even better if you weren't covered in blood."
"Thank you very much. So, why did you come to this world?"
"When I was floating around, a rainbow-colored ball came out of your body. I thought it looked beautiful, and just as I reached out to touch it, a big hole opened up in the air, and a really handsome guy appeared."
"Hmm, was that guy's face like this?"
Sara recreated just the head of Marcato like she was making a golem.
"Yeah, this guy. But they didn't have this hairstyle. It looks like the head of a defeated samurai. And it says 'fool' on their forehead. Is this some kind of punishment game?"
"That's right. It's back to normal now, though."
"Why are you so ruthless with hair? Is it really necessary to humiliate them this much?"
"Well, they're the one who kidnapped my soul to this world. Plus, I'm not the only victim!"
"I see. But they were holding that rainbow-colored ball really carefully when they brought it back. That ball is your soul, right?"
"I think so. But no matter how much they treasure it, they're still a kidnapper."
"If the victim thinks that way, then I guess it can't be helped. Well, I came here through the hole they made."
"Huh!? What a useless god. I shouldn't change their hair. So you got caught up in my reincarnation, huh?"
"I thought if we went together, we could go to heaven."
At that moment, Sara remembered that the soul possessing the king was a man with a pretty bad reputation.
"But you call yourself a financial broker, run a pyramid scheme, commit stock fraud, and even secretly run a religious group. Isn't it busy doing all that?"
"I didn't do it all at once. When things got bad, I just ran away and moved on to the next job."
"At that point, it sounds like you're doing special fraud too."
"I have my own principles about that. It's important that it's based on investment consulting."
"But it's still fraud, right?"
"That's a gray area."
"You know you're doing something bad, even if it's not completely black, right?"
"Well, yeah."
"And yet you think you can go to heaven? Isn't that a bit shameless?"
"Well, I thought that since I probably can't go to heaven, if I follow a pretty guy like an angel, maybe I could sneak through the gates of heaven."
"I see, so that was your idea."
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