Seeing Shiroyasha finally respond, Souta was a little surprised.
Kurumi had tagged her earlier, but she hadn't replied. Souta had assumed she was busy rescuing Canaria.
Souta: "Shiroyasha, you're finally here. Were you busy earlier?"
Great Deity Shiroyasha: "Of course! Unlike you idle folks, I have tons of work to handle every day!"
Souta: "But whenever I see you teasing Black Rabbit, you always seem pretty free."
Great Deity Shiroyasha: "That's a misunderstanding on your part! I have to patrol over 5,000 Boundary Gates weekly, suppress rogue monsters in various Outer Gates, process a massive number of land allocation documents for different communities, and review upgrade applications for many groups. On top of that, I'm constantly invited to gatherings and summits. When I get busy, I barely have time to breathe!"
Tokisaki Kurumi: "Huh, so Shiroyasha is actually this competent? That's... surprising."
Great Deity Shiroyasha: "Hmm? What's with that doubting tone?"
Tokisaki Kurumi: "I can't help it. The impression you give me is... a little peculiar."
Souta: "By the way, Shiroyasha, have you gone to save Canaria yet?"
Great Deity Shiroyasha: "Not yet. I haven't finished reading the novel I downloaded. Once I'm done and have all the details, I'll take action."
Souta: "Wait a second! Aren't you worried that Izayoi might arrive in Little Garden soon and make Canaria's death an observed fact? If that happens, she can't be saved anymore."
In Little Garden, once the Central Network observes the disappearance of a Spirit Rank, it becomes a true death.
If that happened, Little Garden would no longer be able to locate Canaria's existence in any timeline.
Even using a Traversal Card to pinpoint her location wouldn't help—because even if they found her, they wouldn't be able to bring her back to Little Garden.
Since Little Garden had already recorded her as "deceased," forcibly bringing her back might trigger a complete erasure by the Central Network.
This was likely why Indra and the others had later found Canaria's location but ultimately chose not to bring her back.
Great Deity Shiroyasha: "Those three humans won't be arriving anytime soon. Based on my calculations from the novel's timeline, we still have a few months left."
Great Deity Shiroyasha: "Oh, by the way, I skimmed through your chat logs and got the gist of what's going on. Since that little girl Mio Takamiya has such abilities, it makes sense why my Attack Cards didn't work on her. I didn't use much power when creating them, after all."
Souta: "Then how did you subdue her before?"
Great Deity Shiroyasha: "I didn't think she was all that strong back then. She was far from the level you described in your data! And since her ultimate move relies on an 'Angel' and isn't an inherent ability, it means she can't activate it instantly at will. That's why it was easy for me to take her down in a split second."
Great Deity Shiroyasha: "Crap! That annoying store clerk is nagging me to process more documents again! I'll talk later!"
Shiroyasha quickly fell silent again.
At that moment, Souta finally realized—she really was incredibly busy.
Tokisaki Kurumi: "Oh, right, Souta, I forgot to tell you something."
Souta: "Hmm? What is it?"
Tokisaki Kurumi: "Someone turned our timeline-hopping rescue missions into a manga and published it. And the worst part? The three main characters use our real names."
Tokisaki Kurumi: "You, me, and Shiroyasha... and they turned it into some love triangle filled with absurdly dramatic romance."
Souta: "This has Honjo Nia written all over it! Only her 'Angel' could investigate things so thoroughly!"
Honjo Nia's Angel had no combat ability, but its intelligence-gathering capabilities were extremely bizarre.
In terms of information acquisition, it was essentially omniscient.
Of course, this "omniscience" was just a metaphor—it wasn't true omniscience.
After all, true omniscience would mean knowing how to achieve omnipotence.
(And omniscience and omnipotence are considered equivalent concepts.)
If Honjo Nia truly had that kind of power, she wouldn't have been captured and tortured.
Tokisaki Kurumi: "I'm guessing Shiroyasha's habit of dumping tens of thousands of people into the world now and then must have piqued Nia's curiosity. She probably used her 'Angel' to look into the true history."
Souta: "Then she must know you saved her. She'll probably come find you to thank you sooner or later."
Souta: "By the way, is Mio Takamiya still after you?"
Tokisaki Kurumi: "No. I traveled back to five years before the story began, and she was gone again. It seems like she only went after me on a whim."
Souta: "Then let's put Mio Takamiya aside for now. We'll confront her when we're strong enough."
Souta wasn't in a hurry about this at all.
After all, with Kurumi's time-travel abilities, they could always go back in time and change history indefinitely.
Under these conditions, Mio Takamiya would never be able to permanently kill a Spirit and retrieve their Sephira Crystal.
Since the situation wasn't urgent, they could deal with it when they felt like it—
like taking a vacation.
Souta: "Kurumi, are you free these days?"
Tokisaki Kurumi: "Hmm? Why do you ask?"
Souta: "Since I fused with a divine core, I'm planning to collect faith. I've picked out a few suitable worlds to establish followers, but since I'm not very strong yet, I need someone to back me up in case things go wrong."
In terms of power, Souta was probably the weakest member in the chat group.
He couldn't even beat Altair—
(Wait, no. Now that Rin Tohsaka and Illya had joined, Altair wasn't the weakest anymore.)
So now, his power ranking was third from the bottom.
He was pretty sure he could beat Rin and Illya (as long as their Servants weren't involved).
Souta desperately wanted to level up his strength.
Otherwise, he'd keep relying on others to carry him, and that was honestly kind of embarrassing.
Souta: "Kurumi, are you free? If so, help me out. If not, I'll ask Altair."
Shinobu was busy with her mission—otherwise, she would have been a good choice.
Souta was certain that she wouldn't refuse him.
For some reason, he felt a strange sense of closeness to Shinobu.
Maybe it was a lingering effect from their past Master-Servant bond.
Somewhere deep in his subconscious, he still saw Shinobu as family.
Tokisaki Kurumi: "Of course! Souta, come pick me up. Altair is way too busy to help you."
Altair: "Hmm? Actually, I'm not busy. I've already handled Setsuna's identity and housing. Her life is stable now, so I have nothing to do."
Altair: "@Souta. I can back you up. When do we leave?"
Tokisaki Kurumi: "@Altair. No, you're very busy, Altair. I'll go instead."
Altair: "Huh? But I'm not busy."
Tokisaki Kurumi: "You. Are. VERY. Busy!"
Putting his phone down, Souta twitched at the corner of his eye.
He never expected Kurumi to be this assertive.