God Of Crafting

When I first heard and later understood the truth of what it meant to travel to the spiritual world via the bus-glider, I had nothing but doubts and reservations about it.

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But when the trip that could take us maybe one to two hours by plane stretched first into the entire night and then into the early hours of the morning, I grew to actually quite enjoy this long trip.

The biggest point of all was the absolute comfort of the journey, free of even the slightest bit of turbulence that plagued pretty much every plane flight I'd attended thus far.

Then came the pleasant monotony of the drive, with an absolute lack of turns or twists.

In a sense, this was the only big benefit of using the bus-glider over just a normal bus, where the former could ride in a perfectly straight line on the road its inner mechanisms created, while the latter could only follow the existing roads—most of which were destroyed back when the modern world established its independence from its former spiritual overlords.

From a much more mundane perspective, rather than a quick flight that would only make me stressed out about the trouble we inevitably had to face in the spiritual world, by stretching the journey into several hours, I'd pretty much grown bored of those thoughts before they could actually start to stress me out.

Ultimately, however, it all came down to the fact that this trip simply gave me more time to spend with Claire—time that I could dedicate just to cuddling with her while free of the one concern that normally plagued my thoughts: the fear that by spending time with Claire, I wasn't contributing that time to something else that required my attention.

Free of this concern and full of Claire's presence throughout the journey, by the time we reached the direct border of the spiritual world, I couldn't be any more relaxed than I was.

With over ten hours of cuddling, sleeping, and then sleeping some more, by the time a relatively silent and short alarm rang within the bus, I was simply too relaxed to remember all the worries that were supposed to have me stressed out!

"It seems like it's time," Claire muttered when the short alarm woke us up from the state of a half-cuddle, half-slumber we were in.

Feeling how she attempted to rise from the bed, I quickly tightened the hold of my arms over her body, holding her to my chest while refusing to let her move.

"Just five more minutes…" I muttered, too comfortable with my head resting on her bosom to even entertain the idea of moving.

The alarm ringing meant that we now had less than an hour before we would arrive at the reception zone. In other words, we'd officially crossed the border between the two abandoned borderlands, leaving the part of the post-war wasteland under the jurisdiction of the modern world and stepping into the zone of the same wasteland controlled by the spiritualists instead.

"Five minutes is okay, but…" Claire muttered, only to move her hand up and down, gently rustling my head with it as if I were some sort of puppy she held close to her heart.

Claire then moved her right knee up, sliding her thigh up on my hip.

"But if we linger any longer, we'll be really cutting it close, you know?" she pointed out, only to reach down to her hip with her hand before bringing it right back to where we could both easily see the dried-off mix of our sweat and love juices that we never bothered to clean off. "We still need to get ourselves cleaned up, then take the time to get dressed, perfumed, make sure we have all the tools we need, rehearse the whole entrance procedure…"

Hearing Claire go on her short lecture, I closed my eyes and simply… enjoyed the warmth of her voice, even if I couldn't enjoy the content she used her voice to pass on.

"To be frank, I'd love it if we could just leave everything aside and just…"

"Shush," Claire gently pressed down on the back of my head, prompting my chin to go up so my eyes would move from her breasts up to her face. "This kind of life… do you really think you'd be satisfied with it?"

In theory, I could just answer right away. It was a simple yes or no question… but, at the same time, if I were to answer right away, it would only show that I didn't really care about giving a proper, well-thought-out answer.

In reality, however, Claire's question was far from simple.

Was I satisfied just cuddling with her?

Sure, it felt nice and all… But I'd never be satisfied if I couldn't make her satisfied. And that point alone made it impossible for me to say I'd be happy doing nothing but cuddling like we did right now.

Then, if I were to stretch the concept of what we were doing right now into just a casual, simple, worry-free life where we were each other's only focus… As great as it sounded, I could already tell how quickly this kind of life would get boring.

'Humans feel things through change. And just like you don't feel the water is hot if you stay in it for a long time…'

I brought my head down before burying my face back into Claire's chest.

'If my entire life was all about just spending quality time with her… then it would soon turn into a boring norm.'

I waited just a little longer before pushing my head up, unburying my face from Claire's chest as I looked into her eyes.

"No, I wouldn't be satisfied with that kind of life, and I bet neither would you. Which, in all honesty, renders my answer meaningless, for how could I ever be satisfied if you were not?"

Hearing this, Claire's lips trembled before the corners of her mouth moved up, forming a small, affectionate smile.

"It's the same for me. How could I be happy if you wouldn't be? And from what I've seen and learned about you so far, you really need an avenue to explore your creativity to truly shine," she stated while gently running her fingers up and down my cheek. "You sure look happy when we fuck, but… but you really shine when you craft."

Locking my eyes with hers, I ended up taking another huge breath in…

"Okay, let's do this!"

From that point on, we finally got ourselves out of bed. While the temptation to go for just one more round of fun in the bath was great, the time—something we didn't have to worry about for most of the long transit—finally made its return, forcing us to use the bus's small bath in the way it was designed to be used instead.

After taking a quick bath, we moved on to dress ourselves up. This task, however, while not worth mentioning back in the modern world, quickly proved to be something Claire was absolutely right to be concerned about.

And it wasn't because she herself had any issues donning her elaborate, kimono-like dress.

No, the reason dressing ourselves up took nearly half of the remaining time was because she had to help me with pretty much every step on the long list of actions necessary to take the set of seemingly random pieces of material, belts, and small golden chains and put them together into the same elegant yet relatively humble clothing I'd only worn for a few hours before we departed.

"Now you're looking like a proper cultivator," Claire announced while taking a step back to judge her creation, the small, satisfied smile proving whatever magic she cast to make this outfit happen did, indeed, succeed.

From then on, the lazy atmosphere within the bus-glider finally breathed its last, replaced by the re-emerging stress of the coming change to our lives—something that, out of everyone in the bus, only Chihiro had the prior knowledge to fathom.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Claire asked as the bus finally started to slow down, only for a small hatch to suddenly open right in the middle of its corridor, allowing a slightly weary Chihiro to climb out of it.

"Wait, if you're here, then who is…" Looking at the man, my face turned white as I took a step back while my hands rushed to grab Claire, ready to outright jump out of the vehicle the moment I felt it starting to fall.

With Chihiro out of the bus-glider's power system… what was stopping it from ceasing to function and thus putting an end to the magical road it was creating for the bus's wheels to drive on?

"Ah, don't worry," Chihiro quickly noticed the look on my face before putting a huge smile on his. "By now, we've been caught by…" He suddenly brought his eyebrows together, as if struggling to figure out the proper way to put it. "A tractor beam? An imposed autopilot?"

Rather than giving me the proper word, Chihiro just threw some random guesses into the air before shaking his head.

"Either way, it's up to the border guards now to guide the bus-glider. And that means," he announced, only to do away with a smile as he assumed a perfectly dignified, calm, and collected look on his face.

"All you need to do now…" for but a second, Chihiro's smile returned, only to then, once again, vanish into thin air, "…is to get yourself ready for what's about to come."