Natsuka paused again for a moment.
“Oh — I’m a cheater myself, never mind then.”
After updating his ability values, Astraea once more drilled it into him that he absolutely had to take care to rest, and only then took her leave.
Once she had gone far enough away.
Natsuka, alone now, quietly pulled out his phone.
And it was from this very moment.
That his real plan, at long last, was finally about to formally kick off.
The name of this plan, Natsuka had decided on long ago.
[Heroic Spirit Cultivation Plan].
Since the truly heroic souls in the Heavenly Realm were too strong, and the current him simply couldn’t drag them down at all.
Then he’d just change his approach.
Why not first summon ordinary people who possessed enough sense of self, and then, bit by bit, cultivate them into heroes?
After all, the body that descended via his magic was, in essence, much closer to a kind of Heroic-Spirit-ified state.
Even if they died, it’d only be their consciousness returning to their original world — not utter annihilation.
In a certain sense, this could absolutely be used as the basis for a Fourth Calamity setup.
As a longtime bookworm and literary copycat, Natsuka had read no shortage of those Fourth Calamity, junk-tier-game-dev, pseudo-game-stream-style novels.
And the world of DanMachi itself was a near-perfect fit for the classic Western-fantasy RPG framework.
So——
“The overall train of thought is more or less in place.”
Natsuka rubbed the bridge of his nose, lowering his head to stare at his phone.
“The problem is, how on earth am I going to explain to my group buddies the situation I’m in over here right now?”
Even as he pondered, he had already mobilized his mental energy and re-opened the tiny little hole leading through to the [Composite Anime World].
Coordinates: his own home.
The spacetime gate, this time around, was still no bigger than a pinhead.
But compared to the kind of difficulty he had faced when connecting to the Heavenly Realm — the kind that practically wrung him dry — connecting to his original world was clearly far easier and more stable.
If he really pushed himself, he could even, just barely, expand the opening up to about the size of a thumb.
And it was right at this moment that Natsuka faintly sensed something. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
That world itself, it seemed, already had quite a number of similar fissures in existence.
“Looks like my guess wasn’t wrong — turns out my world wasn’t a pure magic-free world to begin with…”
That, on the contrary, meant he had to be even more careful.
Based on what he knew, since there was that world on Kobayashi’s side, then at the very least the system tied to Tohru was, in all likelihood, also connected.
Angels, demons, demon lords, heroes — none of them could be ruled out, in all probability.
Natsuka thought it over, and in the end he still decided to go with the safest option first.
He flipped open his phone and switched it on.
Once the screen lit up, the signal bars climbed up bit by bit, and finally went straight to full strength.
WiFi connected.
With practiced familiarity, he tapped open Penguin, and then opened the chat group.
[Natsuka: “I, Hu Hansan, am back again!”]
The instant the message went out, the group blew up on the spot.
[Blank (lighting incense): “SHOCKING!”]
[Thunder Warhammer Wielder (lighting incense): “The missing person has been resurrected?!”]
[Iwanaga Kotoko (lighting incense): “A ghost?
A yokai?
Or a vengeful spirit?”]
[Guitar Hero (lighting incense): “Wahhhhhh!
Ah-uu-eh-mi-hair!”]
[Natsuka: “What the hell is with you all collectively pulling out the incense-lighting emoji?!”]
Natsuka stared at the screen, his whole self stunned into a daze.
Only then did he notice that practically every single person on the group member list had had their suffix changed to candles and Panda Burning Incense icons.
[Thunder Warhammer Wielder: “Wah, GateMaster, you’ve been out of contact for a whole entire week!
Everyone thought you’d unfortunately fallen in the middle of exploring the Unseen Horizon, death!”]
Clearly, Dekomori really had been frightened — not lightly either — even her usual signature verbal tic was nearly thrown off.
[Chiba’s Fallen Saint Kuroneko: “It matters not — I have long since declared that, should it be necessary, I too shall take up arms.
Even were I to fall into hell, it would be no more than a return to my domain.”]
The editorial department was about to put out a missing-person notice.
Well, since the man himself is fine…
Sonoko told me to ask you while I’m at it — when’s the next volume of Demon Slayer going to be turned in?”]
Natsuka was completely dumbfounded.
I’ve literally transmigrated across worlds, and somebody is still going to chase a manuscript deadline across worlds?
Just what variety of demon are you?!
Who in their right mind transmigrates and still keeps up daily updates as a word-slave, you bastard!
“I hate you, Old Lard Kasumi…”
Feeling the warmth of his group buddies’ enthusiasm pour over him in waves, Natsuka, while genuinely a little moved deep down, hadn’t forgotten his real purpose either.
His magic could only be sustained for a limited time.
He had to act as quickly as possible.
And so he first rapidly scrolled through the chat logs from these past few days, sweeping his eyes over the big events.
At last, one message caught his attention.
[Someone in the group got an SAO closed-beta slot!]
This piece of news had stirred up quite a reaction in the group.
After all, that was the world’s first truly meaningful full-dive game.
A lot of people were quite interested in this thing — only, unfortunately, none of them had snagged a closed-beta slot, and they were all wallowing in tremendous regret.
Seeing this point, Natsuka felt his heart give a little lurch.
This is bad.
Now that even SAO has come out, doesn’t that make the “project” on my end sound even more like the work of a con artist?
Or should I just come clean?
Even as he was thinking, someone in the group had already started pressing him about where on earth he’d run off to for this whole week.
____
👻🔥Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Danmachi: Summoning Ruri Gokou,