By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 13 - Chapter SS

Special: Woes of the Gods and a New Goddess

“Hmm...”

“I’m stumped...”

“What should we do...?”

While Ryoma was praying for the Undead in the watchtower, the nine gods encircled a table, each of them making objects intermittently appear then disappear in their palms. Troubled expressions could be found all around the table; the conversation had plateaued. No one had suggested any tangible solution to their problem. After a long period of stagnation...

“Mm?”

“What, Gain? You got an idea?” Tekun asked.

“No, a message from Meltrize. She wants to talk. Asking where we are,” he answered.

“Oh, okay.” His hope dashed, Tekun’s eyes found the empty air.

The other gods looked disappointed by this, but engaged with the conversation nonetheless.

“A message from Meltrize? She woke up?” Lulutia asked.

“I thought she’d sleep in for another century,” Kufo said.

“She must be up...and it sounded urgent. Something might have happened. I let her know we’re gathered here. She’ll show up soon,” Gain said.

Kiriluel massaged his temples. “Fantastic. Another problem on our plate.”

“We don’t know that,” Wilieris pointed out.

All of the gods, including Serelipta, Grimp, and Tekun, who did not comment on Meltrize’s arrival, all shared the same thought: Why now? My plate’s already full. 

After a few seconds of wishful waiting, a new goddess appeared at the round table. “Good morning... What’s all this?” she sleepily asked. The goddess looked like a little girl with doll-like features down to her blonde hair and blue eyes. She would not have bothered coming to see Gain without good reason, but her expression lacked the weariness present on the other gods’ faces. The gods hadn’t seen Meltrize in some time, and they were relieved to see that she seemed like herself. Even if some problem had arisen, it wasn’t catastrophic.

“Long time no see, Meltrize,” Gain greeted. “We have a little problem on our hands. If our situation didn’t improve in a little while, I was going to wake you anyway.”

“Good timing. Our talk wasn’t going anywhere, anyhow. Let’s take a breather from our problem and see what Meltrize has to say.”

“I second that, Grimp. I’m tired,” Serelipta whined.

The other gods showed their agreement too. Each god’s drink of choice materialized on the round table, easing the tension in the room.

“So... What did you want to talk about, all of a sudden?” Gain asked Meltrize.

“Tell me about the Traveler,” Meltrize said. Her directness was not new, but the other gods seemed a little surprised by her interest in Ryoma.

“What’s up? You’re usually not interested in them, Meltrize,” Kufo remarked.

“Tell me,” she repeated.

“Well, we don’t know where to start unless you tell us what’s going on...” said Kufo.

Meltrize angled her head. “The number of Undead in the outbreak has drastically reduced over the past few days. Because of the Traveler—the one who casts strange spells and tames strange slimes.”

Meltrize was the goddess of death and sleep. Her duties encompassed everything regarding death, including the management of souls that float to the divine realm after death. Meltrize could perform her regular duties while she slept.

Knowing this, the other gods understood that Meltrize had taken notice of the increase in the number of soul fragments released from the Undead by Ryoma’s hands, which had ended up in the divine realm.

“I got the gist, but why would Ryoma do that?” Kufo asked.

“There was an outbreak of Undead, wasn’t there? He probably took on a quest,” suggested Wilieris.

“Hey, did anyone see him...? No, of course not. We were all busy with our own stuff,” grumbled Tekun.

“Look away for a few months and humans are always up to something new,” Serelipta said, watching the events below like a human on Earth scrolling on their phone. “Oh, he’s in the City of Lost Souls right now. That’s why he’s been hunting Undead. Now I get why it caught your attention, but that really made you rush over here? Normal humans hunt the Undead all the time.”

Meltrize added matter-of-factly, “Vanishing Undead, clearing cursed energy, and just a little cleansing of the land all in one move. And the slimes he’s using are weird.”

“He went ahead and took care of some time-consuming stuff. Yeah, I’m curious too,” Serelipta said.

Fernobelia spoke now for the first time since Meltrize’s arrival. “Based on what he remembered of religious practices from his previous life, he constructed a ritualistic spell as a sort of requiem. The spell has a wide-ranging effect because he pooled together bits and pieces of several rituals from Earth. There are rough edges because he improvised. Creation of the spell was almost accidental. It’s an almost haphazard spell, but it works. Any danger the spell poses is so minuscule it can be ignored.” As the god of magic, Fernobelia’s word was law when it came to spellcasting.

“Then there’s no problem,” Wilieris said with a smile.

Grimp mirrored it. “Lots more cursed energy lately, thanks to magic becoming more active... Not that Ryoma would know that, but I appreciate him lending us a hand anyway.”

They both sipped their tea.

“More details on him,” Meltrize demanded.

“Ryoma’s a bit of a complicated subject,” Gain said. “I’ll send you the info.” He closed his eyes in brief concentration. Then, without a word, Meltrize knew everything Gain wanted her to.

Her brows ever so slightly pinched in distaste. “Understood. The current Traveler, Ryoma Takebayashi, is abnormal. I feel outrage at the treatment of souls perpetuated by the gods of Earth.”

“Hm. We share your sentiment about the gods of Earth. But there’s no need to be concerned about Ryoma. He carried some old scars over with him, but he’s a good kid.”

“And we’ve all been a little busy lately, but he comes to see us every now and again. You can talk to him then, or tell him anything you want to tell him,” said Kufo.

Meltrize’s expression went completely neutral once more. “I do not have a bad impression of him. More information is needed before I can judge his character, but I approve of his casting and cleansing.”

She had said that much without a hint of joviality, but the other gods knew after all the years they’d spent together that Meltrize was happy that she was given the information she had requested.

“Let’s return to our agenda, then. We would like your opinion on this, Meltrize,” said Gain.

“Allow me to explain and recap our situation,” Fernobelia cut in.

In short, their problem could be boiled down to the following: the problem was occurring at the Sea of Trees of Syrus, one of the sacred grounds maintained by Fernobelia; one monster was causing this problem; what had once been a normal monster had grown rapidly from the magical energy in the Sea of Trees; and, finally, the monsters had acquired a troublesome ability just the other day.

“This ability is one that binds the souls of the dead to the land,” Fernobelia added.

“Influencing souls is a taboo...even for us,” Meltrize said.

“Exactly. The monster is not terribly powerful yet, but it has the potential to acquire enough strength to do the same thing the gods of Earth are doing now. Even if we knew that it couldn’t, it’s too dangerous to be left alone.”

“The problem is simply the nature of the Sea of Trees of Syrus,” Serelipta said nonchalantly.

A nerve in Fernobelia’s cheek twitched, but he agreed and continued, “Normally, divine beasts are stationed on sacred grounds to guard the land and dispatch intruders. This wasn’t the case for the Sea of Trees of Syrus.”

Divine beasts guarded sacred grounds like well-trained gatekeepers, but they used a lot of magical energy just to sustain themselves. So Fernobelia had experimented with creating harshly competitive ecosystems that would naturally reject foreign monsters and humans.

Meltrize knew this, and tilted her head again as if she didn’t understand how this constituted a problem. “Easy. Remove it.”

“Sure, I could drop a lightning bolt and get rid of the thing,” said Kiriluel. “What we’re concerned with is the production of magical energy. While you were sleeping, the Sea of Trees of Syrus became one of the top producers of magical energy among sacred grounds.”

Despite this particular problem, the ecosystems Fernobelia designed could handle outside factors like foreign species and intrusive humans. In addition to achieving its primary goal of saving on magical energy consumption by not using a divine beast, the ecosystem allowed the sacred ground itself to expand, increasing its production of magical energy as well.

Kiriluel explained this to Meltrize, and she boiled it down to the essentials: “Magical energy miser.”

“That’s right. Whenever we interfere, we tend to destroy the local environment...” Wilieris said.

“Considering we’re barely maintaining the status quo even by striking a bargain with the gods of Earth, we’ve been hesitant to pull the trigger on this one,” Tekun said.

Now that they had uncovered the sinister rule of the gods of Earth, the gods of this world wanted nothing to do with them. But they were too desperate to leave their deal behind. Doing so would lead to them eventually fading away, along with the world—the one they watched over, which existed by feeding on magic and magical energy—and everyone in it.

So they wanted to buy enough time to push back their next bargain and put distance between them and the Earth gods. If possible, they were striving to solve the root cause: the lack of magical energy. And right now, the Sea of Trees was one of the sacred grounds vital to that end.

“So we’ve been struggling to come up with a solution,” Gain finished.

“Understood. One question,” Meltrize said.

“What is it?” Gain urged.

“Does Ryoma Takebayashi know?”

“No. The last time we met, we were still investigating the matter. I’m sure he’ll call on us at least before he goes to the Sea of Trees. We’ll tell him then. Doesn’t seem right to tell him without seeing him face-to-face,” said Gain.

“Out of all places in the Sea of Trees, the monster decided to settle in the ruins of Korumi village, where Ryoma’s headed. He’s bound to run into it,” Kufo added.

“Why don’t we ask Ryoma to handle the monster?” Serelipta casually proposed, earning him ocular daggers from the other gods.

“I thought the same,” Meltrize said. “If we get involved, the results will be catastrophic. If Ryoma Takebayashi works alone, the effect on the sacred ground will be minimal either way. Serelipta’s suggestion may sound impulsive, but there is reason in it. Fighting this monster will require high combat capability and resistance to mental attacks. Otherwise, the battle will be over before it begins. Ryoma Takebayashi meets these conditions. We can wait to see how he fares.”

The gods fell silent. She had a point. Precisely because of their vast power, the gods could not interact with the world below without leaving huge footprints. No matter how they sliced it, many lives would be changed and many would be lost if the gods were to get themselves involved. Hence their hesitation. It was also true that Ryoma could take on the monster with little effect on the world. Of course, it was a highly dangerous task that would need to rest entirely on the boy’s shoulders.

“I object.”

“I expected you to agree, Fernobelia,” Meltrize remarked.

“If I told you that I don’t care for Ryoma, I would be lying. He is one of the very few humans we have truly had a relationship with beyond one-sided oracles. But that isn’t why I object. This is happening in a sacred ground which is under my care. It is our problem to deal with. Neither Ryoma nor any other human should be involved. Life-forms in this world have already left our hands and have begun to live on their own.”

“The conclusion we reached was not to sever our involvement entirely,” Meltrize countered. “If we speak directly to Ryoma Takebayashi, our effect on humanity will be minimal. Also, I question that we should treat him the same as any other human, mostly because he can travel between the divine and human realms. Ordinary humans, even Travelers, require the process of death and birth to make this journey. On the other hand, he has actually come and gone to the divine realm several times, albeit with an invitation-only policy. In my opinion, we should consider him a being that has one foot in the divine realm. Requesting that he defeat the monster is an option we can take.”

“Wait a minute, that’s a leap of logic,” said Kufo. “Sure, we were surprised by how Ryoma could come up here, and we’ve looked into it. That’s why I also know that, no matter how exceptional, he’s still human. There’s no arguing that.”

“What the harm in asking?”

“It’s not as easy as that, Serelipta. You know how people react to oracles. The vast majority of humans can never refuse what we ask of them,” Lulutia says.

“Well, in Ryoma’s case, he’d agree to it just because he’s going that way already... I don’t like this either,” Tekun said.

“I’m leaning towards asking him. Am I happy about it? No. But we can’t leave that monster unchecked, and Ryoma can deal with it without damaging the world. Besides, he’s used to facing danger,” Kiriluel said.

“Still...” Gain began.

The gods debated with increasing passion until their meeting became more like a shouting match. It seemed that it would take the ten divine beings a while longer before they reached a conclusion...