Vol. 1 Chapter 4.3 – Life in the Underworld
by PinkPanther“Hey. Useless god. Tell me what you want for dinner.”
When Issei spotted Anubis in the workshop, he called out to her like that.
In the Underworld, the sky was always swirling with bizarre patterns, so there was no way to tell what time it was.
When you got hungry, it was mealtime. When you felt sleepy, it was night. And when you woke up, it was morning.
He had been living according to Anubis’s lazy rhythm.
For a genius like Issei, adjusting his internal clock was child’s play. Even when he lived in the real world and flew all over the globe, he had never once suffered from jet lag.
“Hey. You deaf? Useless god.”
“…”
Tsuuun, Anubis turned her face away from him.
She was stirring something messily with a stick in her hand.
“…You just called me a useless god, didn’t you?”
“Ah, well, I just meant a god who’s no good at—”
“I didn’t ask for an explanation!”
“Okay then.”
“I’m mad now. That’s it. I’m cutting ties. I’m not talking to you anymore.”
“Got it.”
“…”
Anubis shut her mouth and went completely silent. Apparently, this was her『cutting ties.』
“So, how long is this『cutting ties』supposed to last?”
“…”
Still silent. No answer from Anubis.
Issei let out a sigh.
Then he glanced over at what Anubis was doing.
She had been working on something for a while now, using a metal rod in her hand.
She was working on a corpse—of course, this was the Underworld, and Anubis was its goddess, so the presence of dead bodies and working with them was nothing unusual. Still, what exactly was she doing?
She was poking a hooked rod into the corpse’s nose and messily stirring it around…
If this wasn’t just playing around, then maybe there was some actual purpose to it?
“What exactly are you doing?”
“Oh? Interested, are you! This is the early stage of mummification—”
“So you’re done with that whole『cutting ties』thing?”
“…”
The moment he pointed it out, Anubis went quiet again.
“You said mummification. It just looks like a hobby, but is that actually your job?”
“It’s both a hobby and my duty. To be mummified by my hand is a tremendous honor, you know.”
“They say in some old texts that you once made the mummy of Osiris.”
“Yes! That’s right! That one was a true masterpiece—yes! Mummies are a form of art!”
“And that’s why you listen to jazz?”
Issei sat down beside her and pulled one of the earphones from her ear, putting it into his own.
As for why there was a MADE IN JAPAN portable audio player here… he decided not to ask for now.
From the earphones, jazz flowed softly.
Because of the limited length of the cord, their bodies had to be close—pressed together, in fact.
“Wha-Wha-Wha…!?”
“Nice song.”
“I-Is that so…? Th-The rhythm works well… when scooping out brain matter…”
Anubis stirred the rod in sync with the jazz rhythm.
Every now and then, her cheek brushed against his—it felt a little warm.
◇
“E-Excuse me…?”
Peeking her head into the hospital room first, Niko cautiously stepped inside.
She looked right, then left, then right again.
Alright. No one else was here.
“Mou, Issei, just how long are you planning to sleep?”
Talking to the still-sleeping Issei, she pulled out a chair and sat down.
Since being moved from the ICU to a regular ward, Issei looked much more normal and peaceful. Only a single IV line and a heart monitor cable were connected to him now.
“Here, today’s printouts.”
Niko pulled out a set of class handouts and placed them on the side table.
Then she took out an apple and a fruit knife and began peeling it with a shorishori sound.
“Look~ It’s a little bunny~”
She brought the bunny-shaped slice of apple up to Issei’s mouth, but of course, with no consciousness, he didn’t open his mouth.
Niko ended up eating the entire bunny apple herself.
“C’mon, if you don’t wake up, I’m gonna mess with you~♡”
She poked his cheek with a fingertip.
Even as his cheek squished in, the unconscious Issei didn’t let out a single complaint.
Tears welled up quietly in Niko’s eyes.
She wiped them away with her finger, trying to put on a brave smile—when suddenly:
“E-Excuse me~…?”
The door creaked open just a bit, and a head peeked inside…
Looking right, then left, then right again, and finally straight ahead—her eyes met Niko’s.
“Ah…”
Matsura Shiori-san.
Niko already knew her well by now. She was an employee at the bookstore Issei often visited. Just like Niko, she would drop by to see him whenever she had free time.
“Um… p-please, come in…”
“Th-Thank you…”
With both of them putting on a solemn face, Niko invited her in.
Looks like they’d both had the same idea.
◇
“Heyyy, get reaaady, get reaaadyyy!”
“What happened to us being no longer friends?”
As he said that to Anubis, who was sticking close to him, Issei walked around the site.
“Oi! That’s different from the design!”
He held up the blueprint to a group of dead souls carrying a giant stone, correcting their mistake.
Since Issei was a genius, memorizing a blueprint was no issue, but to show it to others, a physical copy was still necessary.
“And wear a helmet on-site.”
“I am wearing one, aren’t I?”
“That’s supposed to be a helmet?”
The accessory with dog ears looked like a cosplay item to him…
Leading the dead souls, Issei was progressing with the construction of a monument.
Here in the Underworld, a huge crowd of dead souls had formed a line.
Apparently, in the Underworld, things like food and rest weren’t necessary (although this worthless deity still sleeps a solid 12 hours and wolfs down food like a draft horse three times a day).
To the casual observer, these dead souls just standing around idly could be seen as a vast human resource. It would be wasteful to let them sit around doing nothing. So, he decided to put them to work.
“What exactly are you trying to do using the dead souls?”
“Because you kept nagging about wanting to be praised and exalted.”
They were in the middle of constructing a grand monument that would make the worthless deity tremble with emotion.
It would likely surpass any structure that had ever existed on the surface.
“Since ancient times, gods have always delighted in monumental structures.”
“Hm? Now that you mention it, I did build quite a few things in Egypt a little while ago.”
A few thousand years had become『a little while ago.』The gods’ sense of time was beyond even a genius’s comprehension.
“Temples were built for Osiris, Isis, and Horus—how unfair. Am I that minor of a deity? Everyone dies in the end and ends up embraced in my arms, don’t they?”
“That’s exactly why I’m building one for you.”
“So it’s a gift from you, is it… I shall be looking forward to it.”
Anubis smiled.
Who knows how many thousands of years she had lived, but appearance-wise, Anubis didn’t look much older than Issei—a young girl.
It was a smile fitting her apparent age.
“That aside. Issei. —Hand it back.”
“Hand what back?”
“Playing dumb is useless. I know you took it.”
“I’m asking you—what is it?”
He genuinely didn’t know, so he asked.
“My divine tool. The scale. You probably got jealous of my sacred relic. But that thing means nothing in the hands of a human. —Come on. Return it. If you do it now, I might just forgive you without getting mad.”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
“…Fufufu. Still pretending. Fine. Then I’ll have you make that sweet treat. That thing called a scone.”
“I said I don’t know.”
“You’re still making excuses—”
“I seriously don’t know.”
Issei firmly grasped the accusing index finger pointed at him and said so.
“…”
“…”
The two stared at each other.
Eventually, Anubis began trembling violently.
“T-T-T-Then! Wh-Where is the scale…!?”
“No idea.”
“I-If it’s not with you, th-then where could it be!? Th-This is bad!?”
“Calm down.”
He pulled her trembling shoulders into a firm hug.
“When you lose something, the first rule is to go back and check the last place you remember having it.”
Issei himself, being a genius, had never once lost or forgotten anything.
It was knowledge he had picked up from the many books he devoured during his bookstore visits.
“What about today? Did you have the scale?”
“Umm… today…”
Still panicking, Anubis struggled to recall.
Issei offered a lifeline.
“Did you have it in the morning?”
“Yes. In the morning. You were being so irreverent toward a god, I decided to show you how I judge the dead. So I took the scale and went outside…”
“And then?”
“And then… as usual, I stopped by the『hole.』”
“The hole?”
“The hole that lets me see the surface world. Your world never gets boring. It changes constantly.”
Hmm. So such a place existed.
Also—why didn’t she come straight back?
“Oh, right. Recently, there’s a religion in the surface world that worships me, the Queen of the Underworld. Quite admirable of them.”
“I don’t care about that. …So? When you left that so-called hole, were you still carrying the scale?”
“…”
An unpleasant silence followed.
“…Hey, well?”
“I feel like I… might have had it… or might not have…”
“Which is it?”
“…I think… maybe I didn’t…?”
“That’s a confirmation.”
Issei nodded.
“You dropped the scale into that hole.”
“What…!”
Anubis was once again plunged into shock.
She had low stress tolerance.
“Calm down. If we know where it is, it’s simple. Just go retrieve it.”
“I can’t go!”
“Why not?”
“It’s the rule of the gods… Gods are forbidden from descending to the surface so easily.”
Anubis pressed a hand to her lips and thought for a moment—
“Now that it’s come to this, it can’t be helped. You’ll have to go instead.”
“Why me?”
“Returning a dead soul causes less impact than a god descending directly. And in your case, it’s less like you died and more like—whoops, that part’s a secret.”
Issei rubbed at the bridge of his nose.
Looking at it objectively, this was entirely Anubis’s mistake. Why had it suddenly become his job to fix it?
“Don’t worry. I’ll be watching through the『hole』and supporting you. My voice will reach you, too.”
“I never agreed to this.”
“You don’t have veto rights. This is an order from me! Retrieve the scale!”
“Haa…”
Issei let out a deep sigh.
“Isn’t there something else you should say?”
“Please help me! You’re the only one I can rely on!”
Since she’d asked him, there was no helping it. Issei decided to accept the task.