Chapter 6 – It seems to be the Goddess’ Explanation

 

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“Start over for the time being.”

“Ueeh!?”

Renya had remained silent for a while but, when he suddenly spoke up, he pointed at the room’s entrance door. Being implicitly told to get out and then come back in, Giliel stared at Renya’s face, screaming hysterically.

“Redo it. Go and apologetically enter through the door.”

“Why!?”

“You really want to know?”

Renya glared at Giliel, who couldn’t come to terms with it, with a look that clearly belittled her.

Although Giliel flinched away from Renya’s glare for a moment, she apparently rallied her fighting spirit after remembering her own position and existence, and flared up at Renya while taking on his look from the front.

“Of course. I might look like this, but I’m the supervisor officially managing this world, you know? So why would I need to do that…?” Giliel seemingly wanted to say that she didn’t remember having done anything justifying such a treatment.

She wanted to clearly emphasize that she was different from her predecessors, but Renya had another reason for making her redo her entry from the start.

“Okay then tell me, whose butt am I wiping by doing all this here?”

Being hit by the chilly air accompanying Renya’s words as he asked her with a low, suppressed, and cold voice, Giliel stopped moving as if having frozen on the spot. This stemmed from Giliel ending up thinking, If I’m asked whose mistakes he’s cleaning up here, everything would basically point towards that little goddess, and it doesn’t sound very feasible for me to claim that I’m unrelated to all of it, seeing how I’ve been dispatched to this world as subordinate of that little goddess.

Giliel’s eyes, which had been firmly fixed on Renya until then, began to aimlessly wander around after she realized the truth of the situation. Meanwhile Renya continued while paying attention to keeping his voice as flat as possible, “I was told that it’d be fine for me to come here without having to do anything in particular, but that’s been constantly changing, or rather, you knew that I’d get dragged into this mess from the very start, didn’t you? There’s no way that someone would be able to carefreely spend their time in a world, where things like demon kings exist, is there?”

This didn’t mean that Renya didn’t have the option to feign ignorance about everything and go on with his life without a care just as initially planned, but Renya didn’t possess such an optimistic character that he thought he’d be able to spend his days at his own pace in a world that seemed like it could perish at any moment. It was Renya’s conviction that he should naturally get rid of any such problems, and it was only reasonable that he’d get dragged into the disputes of this world, if he took action in that direction.

Then again, since that little goddess and Giliel had only started to look up information about the man called Renya after he had been sent into this world, they didn’t know about his character and tendencies before sending him in, but Giliel didn’t have the courage to admit that to Renya right now and here.

“T-That’s…umm…I think you could call it an inadequacy in the information transfer…maybe…?”

While sensing how sweat had started to gush out on her forehead and back, Giliel incoherently attempted to bring up some kind of excuse, but with her admitting that there had been an inadequacy, she had basically acknowledged Renya’s point.

Giliel started to emit such a strong aura of having been cornered that it actually kept Shion, Emil, and the three leaders, who had been attentively watching, on tenterhooks, but unexpectedly Renya remained calm as he said to Giliel, “Well, even if we leave my situation out of it, it remains a fact that your blunders have caused great troubles for everyone present here. Isn’t that a reality even a goddess cannot help but to admit?”

“That’s, umm…yes, you’re right. I have no choice but to acknowledge it.”

What insolent and arrogant words of a creation to spout towards its creator? So what if the creator of all beings were to cause trouble for those beneath her? For a faint moment in time, those lofty and very goddess-like lines crossed Giliel’s mind, but she immediately deleted them through sheer will power. She did so because she had decided, This is not because the other party is Renya, but just proof that I won’t do anything as silly as showing everyone here that I’m a foolish being who cannot accept the truth for what it is.

The little goddess said that we are no almighty beings, and since that’s the case, we cannot avoid making mistakes. What’s important is how we patch those mistakes up, Giliel assessed.

“Very well, I’ll start over. Is it fine for me to enter through that door and start off with a jumping dogeza?”

“I haven’t asked you to go that far, but I’m sure…we’d like to see that?” Renya directed the question at the end of his remark at everyone present in the room, but all the others shook their heads, clearly denying Renya’s question.

Even when temporarily leaving the decision whether Giliel was truly a goddess aside, and although not one of them understood what a jumping dogeza entailed, none of them wanted to force a woman with the appearance of a girl into doing what they intuitively grasped as a very likely humiliating act.

While thinking that Frau would have jumped at the opportunity and strongly vouched for being allowed to watch that scene, Renya said to Giliel who was waiting for further instructions, “It looks like everyone’s fine with you entering normally.”

“Understood.”

After nodding, Giliel placed both hands on the wall, and smoothly slipped through it, thus leaving the room. Watching her passing through the wall so easily without any signs of her having used magic arts, everyone except for Renya reconfirmed their perception of Giliel being anything but a normal girl.

And then, after waiting for a short while, “Heyoo, one hot n’ piping serving of ramen for you, dear customer. Sorry for the wait, the streets were packed. Please enjoy it to the fullest!”

While repeatedly bobbing her head up and down while blathering in an idiotic voice, Giliel entered the room with a smile plastered all over her face. The fist of Renya, who had run over like a gale, sank straight into her dumb face. That punch of Renya, which lacked any constraint and mercy, directly hit her middle forehead, including the area between her eyebrows. As bone clashed against bone with flesh stuck in-between, a loud thud echoed through the room.

“Start over! In the first place, why would you bring just one set of ramen!?”

“Renya, that’s not the part you should get angry at…”

Renya shouted at Giliel who was flying away while screaming. In the meantime, Shion retorted Renya’s outcry, despite being aware that it’d likely fall on deaf ears.

“Oh, then she did clear the part about entering apologetically with this, huh?”

“Partner, I think you’re mistaking the part you’re supposed to admire…”

Just when Shion made a retort towards Emil’s remark who was laughing while completely acting like a spectator, Giliel showed up at the door once more while stroking her bright red face. In front of Renya who had put himself on guard in preparation for whatever she was planning to pull off next, Giliel breathed in very deeply, and jumped up with her legs pressed together.

 

 

While drawing a beautiful arc as if just barely avoiding to graze the ceiling, she performed one spin in the air, soundlessly and magnificently landed atop the table in the room’s center, folded her knees, and finished it off with a sliding dogeza.

“I am terribly sorry for having caused thy fine people troubles on this occasion!”

“I told you that a dogeza isn’t necessary, didn’t I!?”

Just as Giliel finished apologizing while rubbing her forehead against the table’s surface, Renya grabbed her head with an iron claw, and pulled it his way.

Giliel, who got dragged across the table with screeching sounds, didn’t give up, and frantically appealed, “Repeatedly telling someone to not do something is a clear sign that it’s expected to be done!”

“What kind of actress are you trying to imitate here!?”

Renya couldn’t deny the feeling that such a convention had certainly existed in his previous world, but even if it was loudly proclaimed here and now, it wouldn’t make much sense to Shion and the others, and Renya himself couldn’t approve of it either.

Smiling brightly and doing a flashy thumb-up, Giliel confidently declared, “I mean, isn’t this part of your former world’s culture, Renya-san?”

“Such culture doesn’t exist anywhere!”

Grabbing the neck of Giliel after having pulled her over, Renya started to put the screws on it, accompanied by grinding sounds. In response, Giliel immediately tapped his arm, signaling him that she was giving up.

The three rulers had been silently watching the antics of those two, but now they exchanged eye signals amongst each other, reaching some kind of understanding about their respective intentions. Stepping forward as their representative, the elven emperor spoke up.

“Goddess…you said you were called Giliel-sama, right? If you trash around in such an outfit, your underwear becomes clearly visible to us. No doubt about it being a sight for sore eyes, but I think it might be better to act a bit more prudent here.”

The elven emperor mentioned something trivial with a dignified tone. While the archduchess and the queen simultaneously let their shoulders drop, Giliel answered after gasping painfully, “Right now…I’ve got other problems! Renya-san, I give up. I give up! You’re strangling me!”

Everyone except for Giliel harbored doubts whether a being calling herself goddess would breathe normally and have blood circulate through her body. From what they could see, Giliel’s facial color turned red after blood rose to her head, and then turned blue as she couldn’t breathe anymore, so it appeared as if her body had some human functions, but since it was also possible that her reactions were actually feigned, they couldn’t make a final decision on whether Giliel was suffering.

Believing that she ought to step in despite that, the archduchess intervened, “Renya-san～, how about we leave the messing around at that～? At this rate we won’t get anywhere with our conversation～”

“Ugh.”

Seemingly considering it a valid argument, Renya groaned shortly and released Giliel. Having been freed, Giliel went down from the table to the floor as if tumbling down, her face bright red, while distancing herself from Renya, panting heavily.

Watching that frantic escape of Giliel, the queen asked her with a tinge of tease in her voice, “In the first place, would a goddess actually die from having her neck strangled?”

“Yes, even gods can die, you know?”

While squatting on the ground with her back leaning against the wall, the voice leaving Giliel’s mouth was cold, calm, and serious, as if everything up until now had been no more than horsing around. “As of today, the dragonoid and elf supervisors, or what you’d call the gods of those two races, have been confirmed to be dead, or it’s very likely that they died.”

“What?”

The elven emperor, whose race had been mentioned here, was about to rise to his feet, but Renya kept him in check with his eyes. It was impossible for him to stay calm when being told that the god of his own race had passed away, but even if he flew into rage and roared in anger, it wouldn’t change reality in any way.

“Currently, this world is being managed and controlled by me, the former human supervisor, and the former beastman supervisor. We confirmed the death of the dragonoid supervisor. As for the elf supervisor, we haven’t visually confirmed his death, but going by the fact that we couldn’t find him even after using this much time to look for him, he’s been deemed to be likewise dead.”

“What problems does that trigger?”

Even after being told that gods had died, Renya didn’t show a single hint of his heart or mind being shaken by that piece of news. Although Renya harbored doubts whether gods really died, he didn’t have the slightest interest in exploring philosophical issues. Since Giliel, whom Renya believed to have been dispatched by the general manager of all those gods, declared the two dead, he simply accepted that to be a fact.

Rather than their deaths, Renya found it far more important to worry about the possibility of their deaths having some kind of influence on the world they were currently living on.

“None in particular, as of now. It’s become necessary to invest more effort into the management compared to the past. The former human supervisor and the former beastman supervisor, whom I had take over the duties of those two supervisors, experienced an increase in their workload. That’s the extent of it.”

Usually, Giliel should have been included in the duty to manage the world, but while she remained in the lower world as support for Renya, the majority of her consciousness was preoccupied with things over here. Given that she had only left behind a part of her consciousness to monitor the supervisor domain, Giliel herself had managed to escape from all the troublesome procedures to control the world.

Of course, there was no guarantee that the two former supervisors, who were in charge of the actual work, wouldn’t take advantage of Giliel not really being present to pull off some conspiracy, but in such a case Giliel intended to beat the shit out of them until they would completely vanish without leaving a single fragment of their existence behind.

“I’m kinda worried that the demon supervisor hasn’t appeared in your story so far.” Emil butted into the conversation between Renya and Giliel with a sharpness and smoothness as quickly stabbing a needle into it.

Just as she said, Giliel’s story so far had only mentioned four supervisors without touching upon the demons who were one of the five races living on this planet.

“Is there possibly no god for us demons?”

While catching sight of the self-deprecating smile revealing itself on Emil’s lips, Giliel clearly shook her head.

“That’s wrong. The demons also have a supervisor who’s in charge of them.”

“What’s the story with that supervisor then?”

“I had planned to tell you about that from now on.”

Giliel stood up from crouching on the floor, pulled over one of the seats around the table, and surveyed everyone else in the room while sitting down on it. Not a fragment of her earlier relaxed attitude was visible on her face anymore.

“I think it’s going to become a rather nasty story, so are you sure you want to hear it? It won’t offend you as long as you don’t know about it.”

Not a single person tried to leave the room when confronted with Giliel’s question which gave them the free choice.

 

◆◇◆

 

“Is it actually okay for someone like me to participate in this conversation?” Shion raised her hand timidly.

Leaving aside the elven emperor, the human archduchess, and the beastman queen, all leaders representing their respective races, it wasn’t as if Shion herself held any position in particular, except maybe that of being the archduchess’s daughter.

Hearing her question, Emil shrugged her shoulders, “Wouldn’t it be kinda questionable for me to sit in on this as well, if we follow that train of thought?”

“If you start saying that, you could also claim that someone like me is just an ordinary swordsman, right? Though I seem to be a noble for whatever it’s worth.”

When Renya brought this up with a tone as if asking the two what they were talking about now of all times, the eyes of everyone present in the room focused on him, and those still seated stood up at once.

“”””””You need to stay, Renya!””””””

“S-Sure?” Renya got totally overpowered by them retorting in beautiful harmony.

While each of them returned to their seats, letting out a barrage of whispered complaints like “Just what the hell is he thinking?” or “What’s the point if you don’t listen to it?”, only Giliel remained standing with her arms folded.

“Well, I’ve decided that it might be good for you to hear this as well, Shion-san, Emil-san. Shion-san, you’re important as Renya-san’s partner, right? And Emil-san, it’s no exaggeration to call you the current representative of the demons.”

The instant she heard Renya-san’s partner, Shion’s face broke into a slovenly smile. For some reason, the archduchess looked at her full of envy, and while Emil clicked her tongue with a sulky face, Renya cast a glare at Giliel while adding a somewhat sharp glint to his eyes.

“This conversation isn’t going anywhere. Get on with the story.”

“Really? Then please tell me from where I should start to explain.”

In response to Giliel’s question, Renya answered while plainly wondering what she was talking about at this point in time, “Everything, from the very start.”

“Everything started 12,000 years ago.”

Due to Giliel starting all too suddenly, Renya looked at her suspiciously while the other attendees stared at her, obviously driven by their curiosity about what outrageous truth they’d get to hear next.

“Only something similar to space existed back then. It was a world with no sky or earth, and even time, life, and death didn’t exist.”

“Wait, wait, is she really going to start to explain from all the way back when heaven and earth were created!?”

“It sounds interesting, so let’s listen for a bit. You don’t often get to hear the story about the world’s creation explained by a goddess, do you?”

Shion soothed Renya who was about to strike Giliel with the mouth of his katana’s sheath. Seemingly afraid of Renya’s katana, Giliel repeatedly glanced at the weapon, but even so, she didn’t stop talking.

“36,000 years ago…ah, no, was it 14,000 years ago? Oh well, whatever. For me it’s just like yesterday, but for you people…”

“Is it just my imagination, or are the numbers somehow not matching up here?”

Everyone except for Giliel quietly nodded when the elven emperor asked this while tilting his head in confusion. More or less perceiving that everyone shared the opinion that it’d be pointless to retort on that part, the elven emperor apparently decided to avoid questioning Giliel about this any further, and let her go on with her story.

“Our Lord visited that world and first created heaven and earth. The ground having ended up completely flat was for her own amusement.”

“I wonder whether you can really explain that away with nothing but amusement?”

It was a justified question, but even the beastman queen’s words were flat out ignored, leaving them hanging unanswered. But, since she couldn’t think of any reason speaking against making the planet flat, she didn’t try to dig any deeper into it. And yet, only Renya alone frowned.

Renya thought that this might be the reason why the climate never changed with the weather being almost always the same on this world, but he lacked the words and the motivation to properly explain the underlying principle of this to everyone present.

“Seeing how the world she had created missed colors, our Lord created plants, and filled the world with water to allow those plants to grow. Since she also wanted something to move around on the world, she created elves, humans, beastmen, dragonoids, and demons. Then she created animals, and because she felt like trying it out, she also added monsters. This is also the reason why the ecosystem of monsters remains half-assed and irrational to this very day,” Giliel laughed, but for the inhabitants of this world, who were being pushed around by monsters because their creator felt like trying it out, it was not all that funny.

Although it didn’t seem to be the responsibility of the goddess who was laughing in front of them, the piety of everyone except for Renya took a rapid nosedive.

Only Renya muttered in admiration, “So she’s doing some good things every once in a while, that little girl.”

“Renya…how is that any good?” Shion asked wearily.

Renya casually answered, “Thanks to monsters acting as common enemies, no big wars among the races have occurred so far in this world, right?”

The leaders groaned at Renya’s comment as they couldn’t find any counter-arguments. Just as Renya had said, no big wars within the races took place throughout the history of this world.

The beastmen’s civil war was a conflict to decide the strongest ruler among the beastmen and to see whether that ruler could unify the race, and thus it was somewhat different from war in its truest sense. And exactly because of that difference, it quickly came to an end as soon as the queen was the last one standing among all rulers.

The exception was the war against the Holy Kingdom which took place because of the dispute between Renya and the hero, but since one could adopt the viewpoint that the threat of Renya was far bigger than that of the monsters, the reasoning that it was a blessing to have monsters in this world probably wasn’t affected by it.

If one considered things like that, the idea that no big wars took place thanks to the existence of monsters could be regarded as reasonable, but the leaders hesitated a bit to honestly admit it.

“Anyway, after my Mistress had created the world in such a way, she finished her work by breathing her power into this world in order to make it move. We call this power <Resources>.”

Renya softly breathed out as the story seemed to finally get closer to the core of the matter. After all, he didn’t know whether her story would have ended before all of them died of old age, if Giliel had added digression upon digression by carefully expanding on the concepts of life, death, and time.

“I’ll omit an explanation about resources. As they don’t concern you, you wouldn’t really understand it either way, so it won’t pose any problem if you consider resources to be a super awesome power.”

“Personally that’s the part I’d like to have an explanation about, though?”

Renya had received a simple explanation before coming to this world, but since this brief summary could never replace a detailed explanation, he didn’t manage to quite grasp the true nature of what he had been burdened with.

He believed that it’d be a huge help if he could get a full explanation since it was a great opportunity. In response, Giliel answered his request with a very serious expression, “Seriously, it’s a super duper awesome power.”

“I’m going to cut you.”

Striking at her with the mouth of his katana’s sheath as he understandably felt offended by her irresponsible answer, Giliel waved her hands at Renya in panic while quickly rattling down, “It’s a power absolutely necessary to keep preserving the existence of the things existing from the boundary area to the physical world, and it’s also a power to determine the rank of an existence. At the same time, it’s a power that’s capable of transforming into all kinds of other powers, but as it’s normal for the aggregate amount of resources in a single world to remain pretty much unchanged, that aggregate amount also serves as a barometer to measure whether a world is still doing fine.”

“…In other words?”

“It’s a super awesome power.”

This time Renya didn’t place his hand on his katana. Giliel’s explanation, which sounded somewhat comprehensible and incomprehensible at the same time, had left the inhabitants of this world completely out of the loop, and even Renya could only understand it indistinctly. If he had to explain resources himself with this kind of vague understanding, he’d likely have no other choice but to call them some kind of amazing power as well.

“Are you fine with that? You are, right? I’ll simply pretend you are. Well then, about those resources…if you leave them to their own devices, they tend to become lopsided in their distribution, and thus my Mistress assigned five supervisors to this world.”

“Supervisors, you say…but weren’t they the supervisors of the world or the races?”

The way Giliel had phrased it just now made it sound as if the resources were the main reason for the installment of the supervisors.

Looking somewhat troubled, Giliel answered Renya, who had asked since the implications were slightly different from his own understanding, “They were supervisors for all kinds of things. It’s difficult to explain their scope of duties by pointing each and every aspect out, though it might have sounded like that due to the current flow of the story.”

“Is it fine～ to understand those five supervisors～ as the gods of the five races～?”

“It’s just as you say, breast woman.”

Being flatly and clearly called like that by Giliel, the archduchess glared at her, but probably because she was a person with a far too soft look to begin with, her glare didn’t even possess the coercive power of a cat’s menace.

“From now on I’m going to talk about the reason behind the current uproar. At first the five supervisors had diligently carried out their job of maintaining the world. But, it looks like 10,000 years were slightly too long for them.”

“You’re surely not telling us that they got tired of it, are you?” The beastman queen asked.

Giliel returned a completely indifferent nod. Without showing an inkling of care about everyone having become speechless over the absurdity that those carrying the title of gods, even if only provisionally, had given up on managing the world, Giliel continued with her explanation.

“Having grown tired of managing the world, the supervisors began to play a game on this world, using the fact of my Mistress not paying much attention to this world.”

“No way, you mean…” Emil started to speak up, apparently having realized something, but got interrupted by Giliel.

“I guess you’ve somehow managed to guess what I’m talking about, Emil-san.”

“I was told that the first demon king appeared among the demons around 2,000 years ago. If I match it with the story you just told us…”

“Yes. The supervisors invented a game to stave off their boredom 2,000 years ago. The demon king was created for this reason, and so were the summoning ritual for the human hero and the conditions for the appearance of the other races’ heroes.”

“D-Don’t screw around!!” The beastman queen jumped up, her face dyed in anger.

Renya restrained her with a look. It was no more than a short glance, but the queen still stopped on the spot, and hatefully glared at Giliel who was standing still while keeping her face expressionless.

“What are you bastards taking us for?”

Although he hadn’t stood up, the elven emperor’s quiet voice was seething with rage.

Giliel’s reply was curt and cold-hearted, “We’re regarding you as a part of our Lord’s creations.”

“You little piece of shit!” The emperor instantly gathered a tremendous amount of mana as befitting of elves who excelled at magic, but before he could use that mana for some kind of spell, it was canceled out by a mana cluster of the same power hurled at it by Renya, and probably because of the recoil, the emperor staggered.

“Renya-dono! Why!?”

“Calm down. It’s not that I don’t understand your anger, but if you pick a fight with her after getting lured into it, it’ll just disgrace your name as emperor, you know?”

“There’s no way that you could understand our feelings since you’re a Lost, right!? What do you think our ancestors felt when they participated in the demon king subjugations up until now!? And…she’s now saying that this was no more than some game!?” Contrary to his usual demeanor, the emperor had raised his voice into yelling.

Although she had been restrained by Renya, the beastman queen also looked at Giliel with an attitude of a huntress who would swoop down on her prey the instant she found the smallest opening.

However, just the archduchess alone didn’t try to move, only looking slightly troubled.

“I won’t say that I understand your feelings, but Giliel, who you’re trying to attack here, came to this world to punish the folks who played that game. It wouldn’t be fair to hit her over something she didn’t do, would it?”

“But!”

“If you say that she shares a part of the responsibility for belonging to the same race of gods, the one responsible would ultimately be her boss, I believe, but it’s not like the leader of an organization can take the blame for all actions carried out by the organization’s members, can they?” At this point, Renya told the queen and emperor with a low voice that contained a faint amount of bloodlust, “Or are you telling me that the emperor and queen are going to take full responsibility for all the actions pertained by those of the elven and beastman race?”

The instant he hissed that, the two leaders obediently sat back on their seats, and simultaneously averted their eyes from Renya, looking into the far distance.

Of course it was impossible for them to do what Renya had suggested, and if they had tried to say they could do it, it would have very likely become their death sentence, if the beastmen and elves had committed some kind of blunder towards Renya in the past. The behavior the two demonstrated followed Renya’s expectation, but even he hadn’t thought that he’d need to be so blunt about it.

“Giliel, you too. Don’t rile them up pointlessly. I fully understand that you’re a masochist.”

“Wait a sec!? Renya-san!? Since it’s impossible to let them hit my Mistress, I thought I should at least sacrifice myself to give them the opportunity to vent their anger. It’s not nice to treat me like a masochist just because of that, okay!?”

“Don’t admit so openly that you’re sacrificing yourself.”

Once Renya snorted at Giliel’s words, the elven emperor and the beastman queen realized that Giliel had deliberately spoken in a way to piss them off in order to try reducing some of their bitterness by having them vent their anger on her, and awkwardly looked at each other.

By the way, even Giliel, who had her little plan thwarted by Renya, looked somewhat embarrassed and thus cleared her throat loudly as if trying to take back control of the conversation.

 

◆◇◆

 

“Now then, this concludes the explanation of the circumstances surrounding you people, or what you call the present state of this world. Do you have any questions up until now?” Giliel asked, letting her eyes wander so as to survey her vicinity.

The one quickly raising her hand, kind of unexpectedly, was the archduchess. After confirming her permission to speak through Giliel’s nod, the archduchess stated her question in her usual, slow way of speaking.

“Considering the situation～ for what it is～, would it be fine～ for us to consider you to be our ally～?”

“Mother, what are you bringing up now after…”

“I’m not your ally.” Giliel interrupted Shion midway.

And it was only Shion alone who looked startled by Giliel’s reply. The three rulers had apparently anticipated that reply in advance, and thus showed no visible change on their faces. Emil’s reaction was limited to a thin smile, and although Renya lightly sighed, not a sliver of surprise could be found on his face.

“Huh? Am I the only one surprised by this?”

Shion demonstrated even further surprise over discovering herself to be the only one startled by this.

“It looks like it. For some reason, I feel like thanking you for your honest reaction.”

Apparently having hoped for a completely different kind of reaction, Giliel appeared to be unhappy that the others didn’t show any of it. She lightly bowed at Shion who was the only person in the room who had reacted just as Giliel had expected.

“It doesn’t really feel like praise.”

“Because it’s not.”

“Shion, we’re talking about this shining rooster, you know?” Renya stated while pointing a finger at Giliel, causing Giliel to immediately complain about the term used for her.

“Rooster!? Why!?”

“In addition to annoyingly cock-a-doodle-doo’ing around, you’ve got white feathers. That defines a rooster, no? When you think of white, noisy birds, most of the times roosters would come up.”

“I am not cock-a-doodle-doo’ing around!”

“Well, chickens lay eggs, so they’re actually more capable.”

“So I just need to show how I lay an egg, right!? Look, I’ll produce a magnificent egg…”

Before Giliel could do anything after quickly climbing atop the table, she got pushed off the table by Renya, and fell on the ground.

While watching her tumble down in amazement, Renya said to Shion, “This thing that failed to become a chicken is ultimately acting as the supervisor of this world, and thus won’t be our ally. She’s probably believing that all will be fine as long as she gets us to somehow do something about the mastermind behind all of this, but that doesn’t mean that she’s going to actively lend us her assistance.”

“No way…I mean, won’t things become dangerous in various ways if that mastermind isn’t handled one way or another?” Shion asked Giliel who was in the process of standing up while stroking her hips and butt as she had apparently taken a blow to those parts when she fell on the ground.

Giliel wiped her eyes which had become teary from the pain, and strangely looked at Shion, “It’s dangerous, but at the same time it’s a danger for you people as inhabitants of this world. I’m in no danger whatsoever.”

“Just a sec, goddess!?”

“The gods say that they’ll save those who help themselves first while actually meaning that they fully intend to remain spectators.” Emil blurted out, obviously being somewhat provocative.

However, no conspicuous change was visible on Giliel’s face when confronted with those words.

“Everyone, I don’t know what you think of me, but the only one whose safety I must take into consideration in this place is Renya-san.”

The eyes of everyone present focused on Renya. Getting stuck with having all attention drawn on himself, Renya shifted around a bit, feeling somehow uncomfortable, but without paying any attention to Renya’s unease, Giliel continued, “Going by how you perceive him, Renya-san is what you call a Lost in this world. You might consider him like that, but it’s actually wrong. Renya-san is someone who came to this world over here in response to my Mistress’s and my insistent request.”

“Is it fine for you to talk about that here?” Renya asked while observing how the faces of everyone except for himself and Giliel got clearly colored by surprise.

Giliel spread her hands and shrugged her shoulders, “It’s not like it’s a secret or anything.”

“Does that mean Renya-san has been…a divine messenger?” The elven emperor asked, apparently trembling in fear.

Giliel and Renya looked both at him at the same time and said while shaking their heads, “”No, not really.””

“Am I wrong then?”

“It’s not like I’m serving the gods.”

“We don’t remember having given Renya-san any orders either.”

“Then, goddess or whatever you are, what for did you ask Renya to come to this world?”

Emil’s question was most reasonable.

Giliel curtly answered, “For no particular reason.”

“Like going for a pleasure trip then?”

“Correct. Our side wanted to stop and somehow alleviate the state of this world losing its aggregate amount of resources, which I explained earlier, for various reasons. As such we infused Renya-san with those resources and had him enter this world. That’s the full scope of what we did in regards to Renya-san.”

“If that’s the case, I can consider all of Renya’s actions up until now as unrelated to the gods, right?” Shion asked with a serious look.

Wondering why she was so curious about it, Giliel, not grasping the true intent behind the question, nodded.

“Then it was mere coincidence for Renya to have met Rona and me in that forest?”

“That part…sorry, but things related to that part are for someone at my level outside jurisdiction since everything that has to do with this particular matter was under the control of my Master.”

Seeing Giliel responding evasively, Renya suspected that there might be some kind of secret to be found there, but right now they weren’t in a situation that allowed them to worry about something like that. Even if there was more to it, it hadn’t caused any particular problems up until today, so he decided to set it aside for the moment as it wasn’t anything overly worrisome either.

“I see… Assuming this had been a divine guidance, it’d have boosted my piety by leaps and bounds, however.”

“What a cheap piety you have…”

“For the time being, my evaluation of you has risen by just having sent Renya into this world.”

For a moment Renya thought that the little goddess likely wouldn’t shout in joy even if her evaluation experienced a rise because of that, but he immediately revised his thinking, If we’re talking about that little goddess, she might be really happy about the worship towards her going up, even if only by a fraction.

“Anyway, for this reason Renya would be the only person I have to protect. As for everyone else, my feelings go as far as me wanting to help you if possible, since I’m tentatively what you call god in this world at present, but I don’t plan to go to the extent of actively lending you my power.”

It was a fairly heartless comment. But, probably because everyone understood that gods were simply such whimsical beings, no one even tried to blame her for it.

If this had been the human continent’s Holy Kingdom, the people over there might have shown a different kind of reaction, but their current location was the Trident Principality, a region exposed to the constant threat of monsters all year long. Since the residents of this land embraced the belief of repelling the monsters with their own strength instead of wasting time on begging the gods for help, even Giliel’s statement just now, which virtually meant nothing other than her forsaking them, didn’t perturb those present in the room as they didn’t have any interest in asking for her assistance in the first place.

The elves weren’t overly religious, and thus they didn’t consider to actively ask their god for help, and the beastmen were a race putting more emphasis on physical strength than faith. As for the demons, they were obviously a race completely detached from religious belief to begin with.

“It’s weird for it to come out of my mouth, but this land is quite difficult to descend upon…”

“As far as I’m concerned, I believe that those begging the gods to do something for them are misguided in the first place.”

“Oh my, that’s a cold-hearted remark.”

“You gods and so on are simply existences where it’s best to pray that you obediently stay wherever you are without doing anything like interfering with our side, aren’t you?”

“No comment. After all, it’d get scary if I made a wrong comment here. Anyway, Renya-san.” Giliel smiled bitterly at Renya’s way of phrasing it, but immediately tightened her expression, and all too suddenly blurted out her next words towards Renya, who had braced himself for whatever she might say next, “For this reason, I can still escort you to a safe location if you wish, but what are going to do?”

“Me alone?”

“Yes, sorry for repeating myself, but you’re the only person I’m concerned about.”

For a short moment Renya put on a troubled expression while scratching his cheek after having been confronted with Giliel’s clear and blunt proposal.

“If I’m gone, what’s going to happen afterwards?”

Shion looked startled by Renya’s question. Emil revealed a similar expression as if having been lured into it by Shion. While stretching her own cheeks in a fluster, she twisted her lips into a forced smile, and pointed at her own face with a somewhat exaggerated gesture, obviously trying to draw Shion’s attention.

Noticing Emil, Shion quickly placed both hands on her cheeks, and by repeatedly massaging her cheeks, she created a fake composed face.

Giliel answered Renya who was looking at the two girls wondering what they were up to, “I don’t know. Going by the flow of events, they’re going to shove the heroes at the front line, carrying out a demon king subjugation, I’d say. At present it’s difficult for me to ascertain whether the result of that is going to tend towards the heroes losing, the demon king’s side waning, or a direction that doesn’t cover either of the first two options.”

“Just for reference, what’s going to happen in case the situation heads in a direction detrimental to the heroes’ side? In short, if I’m gone as a source of resources, the heroes die, and the demon king remains.”

“Nothing you could describe as pleasant. The speed for the world to lose its resources would accelerate, and everything would likely head for destruction without any brakes. However, my Mistress doesn’t desire the destruction of this world itself. The situation has slightly shifted between the time when you were sent into this world, and the present. As a result of that, it’s become slightly easier for my Mistress to directly intervene with this world, so in the end my Mistress will probably start to genuinely intervene at a level that doesn’t pay any heed to the things in this world.”

It meant that the little goddess could have directly interfered if she didn’t consider the damage done to this world before Renya had been sent into this world. Although you might say that the degree of difficulty for that interference had been lowered to some extent, it only amounted to 60% of the continents sinking instead of the 80% before. At the point they allowed a divine intervention, the residents of this world would have no tomorrow anymore.

“You have my gratitude for taking my safety into consideration. But, I must decline. Now that I’ve associated with the people for a reasonably long time, I’ve formed bonds with them and my sentiments have changed as well. I can’t give up on all of this and act completely ignorant.”

“Okay, I figured as much.” Giliel nodded, showing no disappointment over Renya having rejected her proposal. “Well then, here’s my second best plan. Going forward from now on, let’s go with the plan of me telling you what would be best to do, and hope that you can somehow push through with your powers, Renya-san.”

“Now it’s suddenly become salvation by faith, huh?” Renya said while looking astounded, but his eyes weren’t laughing.

Due to Renya looking at her closely as if appraising her, Giliel furrowed her eyebrows, seemingly somewhat upset, and squared her shoulders.

“Even without you being worried, I’m not going to try doing something like making you move to my likings while feeding you big lies. Also, your look is scary…”

“What should we do then, according to you?”

“What you won’t be able to avoid, no matter what, is a subjugation of the demon king. Without making this succeed at all costs, things won’t move forward or backward in any way.”

Giliel swiftly swung her arm through empty space. Just that action alone caused a big, three-dimensional picture to appear where her arm passed through. Renya and the others scrutinized the things depicted in that picture with everyone except for Renya being puzzled.

“Just what～ might that be～?”

“I suppose it’s understandable for you to not know. This is a continental map of this world.”

Renya was able to immediately identify it because he had seen the same map at the place where he met the little goddess before coming to this world.

Even if they might have seen maps depicting the areas where they lived, the archduchess and the others had apparently never caught a glimpse of a global map. It seemed as if curious people, who would go as far as traveling to other continents to draw maps of the other races’ continents, didn’t exist in this world at all.

“There’s no indication of the demon king leaving his own castle. Only monsters affected by the demon king’s miasma are roaming the vicinity of the castle, and I can’t deny the possibility that such beings, despite being small in numbers right now, are going to increase over time to finally spread out in all directions.”

Once Giliel explained this, light dots appeared in the central area of the air map.

“With just that, attacking the demon king’s castle at this location and killing him becomes the minimum requirement. However, it won’t be simple. After all, the demon king this time around has been powered up by the demon supervisor, and he has devoured the majority of the demons, his own people, becoming a special case with a greatly increased power.” Giliel casually reported something outrageous.

In response, Shion became grim-faced, Emil spontaneously pressed her hands against her lips to suppress her voice from leaking out, and the rulers were completely dumbfounded. Meanwhile Renya urged Giliel with his eyes to go on with her explanation.

 

 

 

 

 

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Translation Notes: