Published: September 10, 2025
This time, the story doesn’t progress. You don’t have to read it, so if it’s not your style, feel free to just go back.
This is Satou. I prefer my grilled meat medium rather than rare. When I was a kid, I thought well-done was the only way to go, but as I’ve grown older, my tastes and ways of thinking have evolved.
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“Here, grilled meat.”
“I got some vegetables too.”
Arisa and Hikaru handed me plates filled with food.
In front of us, at the grilled meat festival venue, Lulu and the other cooking contest participants were competing, grilling meat and vegetables and serving them to everyone.
“Still deciding?”
“About what?”
Arisa and Hikaru exchanged words while sitting on either side of me.
“You know the little loli girl eating meat between Pochi and Tama?”
“Yeah, the one who’s really excited and having fun, right?”
“Exactly. That girl is actually eighty years old.”
“Huh? So?”
Hikaru tilted her head, unsure what the problem was.
“‘Huh?’ You don’t seem impressed even though I’m saying she’s been rejuvenated by over seventy years.”
“Well, if she’s a saintess over level 50, it makes sense that the whole country would be putting effort into extending her life. With her skill set, she probably can use wish-granting magic too.”
Wish-granting magic is a very rare skill that can fulfill almost any wish.
According to Hikaru, there have even been successful cases of resurrecting the dead in the past.
However, whether a god grants a prayer through wish-granting magic depends on fluid criteria—it changes depending on the combination of the praying cleric and the god, as well as the circumstances.
Repeated or selfish wishes are hard to fulfill.
“By effort, do you mean like a ‘rejuvenation potion’?”
“Yeah, exactly. Seribilla hardly has any, but in the Saga Empire’s Bloodsucking Labyrinth, adventurers aiming for Blood Jades bring back a few each month, so it’s not that rare.”
Still, it feels like they don’t circulate much.
When I asked Hikaru about it, she said, “Because each one only subtracts a few years. The Saga Empire’s nobles probably buy them all up.”
Apparently, Hikaru often had conflicts with retainers of the noble families back when she was recklessly hunting rejuvenation potions.
Come to think of it, Pope Zazalis of the Parion Divine Kingdom was 150 years old but looked youthful.
I wonder if he was maintaining his youth with rejuvenation potions and wish-granting magic?
“So, what does that little loli girl’s rejuvenation have to do with you feeling ennui, Satou?”
“Well—”
I stopped Arisa, who was about to answer Hikaru’s question, and spoke to Hikaru myself.
“I brought someone back to life who was supposed to die of old age.”
“Huh? But it was before she actually died, right? Back when the kingdom was founded, they used rejuvenation potions for life extension all the time.”
To Hikaru, it seems no different than healing a sick person with magic potions.
But that’s not the problem.
“The problem is that she had accepted her lifespan, but I selfishly resurrected her against that will.”
Technically, it was before death, but there’s no doubt I twisted the chief shrine maiden’s wishes.
“But…”
Hikaru stroked my head.
Apparently, I had bowed my head, weighed down by guilt without realizing it.
“She seems happy.”
Arisa pressed my head against her flat chest and turned her gaze towards the festival.
In the direction she pointed, the little loli chief shrine maiden was happily running toward a whole roasted long-haired cow with Pochi and Tama.
“Hey, Arisa. I was just about to raise my favorability with her and you stole my thunder.”
“Hehe, come on, first come, first served!”
Favorability, huh…
“Also, Satou seems to hold lifespan as sacred, but isn’t that just Earth’s way of thinking?”
“What do you mean?”
I don’t think I see it as sacred…
“On Earth, lifespan is absolute. No one lives forever; clones or transferring consciousness to computers only happen in sci-fi fiction.”