763 Spirited Away (1/2)

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.

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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” 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.

”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!