Cursed 31: The Innate Fount

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Chapter 31:  The Innate Fount

“Mm. But even if they were able to take possession of Kousei-kun’s fount, would it work the way they want it to? A human’s soul isn’t the same shape as a god’s, so what you can do with access to the fount is limited.”

As I’m having a mini panic-attack about a squadron of Oda’s attacking, Inari-sama speaks up suddenly.

That-!

I’m also curious about that. Even if you say I have this fount or whatever… what do I do with it?

Even if you manage to steal whatever this thing is, and however you’d be able to steal it (not that I really want to think about the possible methods), is it really going to be what you expect it to be?

If it was something as convenient as being able to get whatever Blessings you want, I could just go, BAM! Normalcy Blessing – or whatever, right?

If I’ve been trying so damn hard to be ‘normal’ and wanting it so bad, then why don’t I have something like that? It’s not like I’d have to understand how my unknown Blessings work to be able to use them, right?

I mean, I got the Cooking Blessing without knowing what I was doing.

But … hm? No, I fulfilled the criteria for Cooking?

Hm?

So did I get that thanks to this whatever fount, or did I technically get it the normal way that everyone can get it, through the gods?

“That won’t stop people from wanting it. It’s a ‘shoot first, ask later’ impulse, when it comes to humans coveting the ability to freely manipulate Blessings.”

Minerva-sama sighed as she leaned back and crossed her legs.

The two goddesses have grim faces.

“Uh… so, like… even if I have this fount thing… like Inari-sama said, how do I use it?”

Inari-sama just looks at Minerva-sama, like, ‘Hell if I know. You deal with it.’

Minerva-sama chuckled.

“How indeed… It’s true that you aren’t able to create Blessings. You also aren’t able to bestow Blessings on other souls. It can’t be helped. A human’s soul doesn’t have the capacity to do such things. That’s primarily why I assumed you were an other-worlder, rather than some forbidden lab experiment from somewhere attempting to harness the power of Blessings.”

“Ah. Because his soul has remained un-tampered despite having the fount? I get it now. As expected of Minerva-sama.”

Inari-sama sighs and shakes her head in admiration.

Minerva-sama smiles at Inari-sama, then returns her attention to me.

“Honestly, I can only think of it as a soul from a higher-order world being squeezed into the constraints of our world. He’s undoubtedly human, so his soul is 100% human without deviation. But humans in their world had unlimited potential, and thus his innate fount was born. And yet, a human soul is severely limited in using the fount. It’s incompatible. He has nothing that can let him use the fount’s full capacity. I take it, in your world there was nothing like levels, or other things that quantify talent?”

Minerva-sama peered over her glasses at me as she asked so, and I nodded.

Yup. Talent was all relative, y’know?

Conversely, I feel like it’s a little messed up here that people disregard other people’s efforts without a level number and a Blessing title behind it.

But … a higher-order world? I don’t know if I’d go that far to describe my former world compared to this one.

There’s a bit of a silence as Minerva-sama mulls over this information.

I finally can’t resist and ask,

“… So what AM I able to do with this fount?”

They’ve been saying that I can’t use it to its full potential, but… rather than hearing about what I can’t do, I’d rather hear about what I can do. And, like, what IT can do to ME!

“Oh, that’s right. Sorry, I never thought I’d actually be able to meet an other-worlder, so I got a little excited about soul compatibility.”

… I don’t know how to feel about this.

Anyway, Minerva-sama finally gets onto the most important point of the discussion.

“Well, first things first. It seems like god-tier beings aren’t able to bestow or remove Blessings from you.”

Eh… well, there goes the greatest benefit to being acquaintances with the kami.

Inari-sama’s eyes widened and she suddenly says,

“Oh, you’re right. How strange.”

“I’ve already tried several times earlier.”

Ooooi. I’m not a guinea pig! What were you going to do if it actually worked!?

“Don’t worry. In your case, this is a good thing. Curse gods, that is, god-tier beings with more malicious intents, won’t be able to mess with you even if they notice your fount.”

Eh. Minerva-sama, that … that doesn’t really make me feel better about the situation!

Minerva-sama ignores my strained expression and continues.

“You are also capable of gaining any Blessing in current existence. As long as you know the Blessing inside-and-out, that is. For a human, that will take quite the effort, unfortunately.”

“… It’s not that different from my former world, then.”

No talent without hard work, huh?

“That said, you CAN take short cuts. Since you can apparently sense and use the ABF, I mean the Auto-Blessing Formation, you can piggy-back off of it just like you did for the Cooking Blessing.”

I see.

So that was me giving it to myself, but using the gods’ formation… eh?!

“Is that going to be okay? Using something the gods made?!”

Minerva-sama shrugged.

“Well, the settings are made so anyone with access to the Fount can use it, so it should be okay?”

As for Inari-sama,

“Even if it isn’t, if no one talks about it, no one will know.”

Eh…

“If there are any Blessings you want, you can talk to Inari-sama or me to find out more about it. We might be able to add it to the ABF, but even if we can’t, we might be able to help you understand them better.”

Looks like god-acquaintance cheat is still in effect.

“How do I know what kind of Blessings exist?”

Even if I don’t desire to be an OP cheat reincarnator, I can’t deny that there’s an allure to being able to get whatever kind of Blessings I want.

Ah… I think I understand the god-eaters a bit better.

I DEFINITELY can’t let anyone find out about this-!

“You can ask someone with Oracle for a list. But don’t overdo it. You’ll be pretty suspicious if you have a ridiculous amount of Blessings.”

Minerva-sama uses a very stern voice to caution me.

“I know. Anyway, I only have a limited amount of time, so how many Blessings could I fully utilize? It would be a waste to over-load myself with Blessings. But I would like to see a list so I don’t do something stupid while trying to take something to protect myself.”

Honestly, if we don’t talk about my ability to defend myself from youkai, I’m pretty satisfied with my current list of Blessings.

I can coast through school, and I’ve really begun to enjoy cooking, to the degree that I was thinking about making a living out of it.

Although I’m not definite about that.

Anyway, if we’re talking about simple living, I don’t think I NEED anything else.

But the problem is that I won’t be ‘simply’ living.

I’d like SOMETHING for protection!

“It’s true that he’s lacking in Blessings from this side of the Veil.”

Inari-sama said.

Minerva-sama nodded.

“In that case, that brings me to the other effects of your innate fount.”

Why do I feel really nervous all of a sudden? Hopefully it’s due to overreaction.

“Your innate fount – even though it isn’t instantly recognizable as a fount, it has a scent of rich and pure spiritual power. When I first tried to identify it, I honestly thought it was the closest spiritual power to the World’s Origin I had ever seen.”

Another term I don’t understand, but I do understand it means trouble – for me.

“This is what attracts youkai and other beings that can sense spiritual power. Interestingly enough, you can even use it as spiritual power. A side effect of being human but possessing access to – that is, possessing a fount.”

Eh…

So it really was this ‘innate fount’ thing that’s been causing all this trouble-!

“Now that I’ve said this much…”

Minerva-sama has a mysterious look on her face.

“This is what affects these other sub-blessings. Sight, speech… powered by your innate fount, it’s been upgraded to almost god-tier!”

No, don’t clap for that-! This isn’t what I wanted in life!

Minerva-sama stops applauding and continues, poking at the sub-blessings still suspended in the air.

“But it’s this Bestowal that’s more interesting. I told you that you couldn’t bestow Blessings on other souls, remember?”

Uh… right. Wait, by specifying ‘souls’…?

“You mean-?”

“Souls are impossible for a human, but objects on the other hand… it would be good for you to learn about enchanting. Otherwise you’ll be bestowing effects on things willy-nilly.”

“Pft! Most people have to learn enchanting to be able to enchant. You have to learn it to stop enchanting-!”

Inari-sama, this isn’t funny…

“With this kind of ability, being able to bestow effects freely onto objects without being limited by the Enchanting Blessing, you can become a powerful magic tool creator. Honestly, you have so much potential for anything you choose to do, it’s a little envious.”

Minerva-sama sighed, looking back over my list of Blessings.

“…Even so, I’m only a human. You can say potential this or potential that, but there’s no way I can choose more than a few things to be able to focus on.”

Minerva-sama smiled a little at my words.

“Even so, the ability to choose whatever you’d like to do is very much desired among the humans in this world.”

I don’t really think it’s that different.

It’s not like people in this world are fated to have a set of Blessings pre-determined for them ever since they’re born.

If they really wanted something, they can work hard and petition the kami for a Blessing.

It’s not much different than working hard and being able to earn Blessings by yourself.

But I guess the difference of the words ‘by yourself’ is what humans greatly desire.

Even though you know that, by nature, a human can’t live by himself.

I can’t help but feel that the term ‘rebellious’ was made to describe the human nature.

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<a/n: So, now that the world-building is … well, it’s not complete, but now that I’ve gotten to this far, how was it? I usually like to do world-building kind of early in the story and then action, but I flipped it around in this story so that there was a lot of action before the world-building. I didn’t know how it would go, keeping readers ‘in the dark’ through some important events, and for so long.
After this it should proceed more/less normally. I think.

Fluvia 22 up>