By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 15 - Chapter SS

Special: The Relationship Between Gods and Humans

Just as Ryoma was relieved to have tamed Korumi, the gods sat around their round table, drink in hand, relishing their own relief.

“He pulled it off, somehow...” Tekun muttered, knocking back cold sake.

“That last illusion got me a li’l scared.” Grimp shuddered.

“Illusions don’t leave real scars,” Fernobelia chimed in, “but they can produce real pain and suffering. Most humans would have become immobilized from the imagined death, or they would have really died because their body was convinced they had. In most cases, magic like that means instant death.”

“Leave it to Ryoma to come out unscathed... How’d he block the illusion anyway?” Serelipta asked.

“He didn’t. He merely mitigated its effects through his natural resistance and holding on to the knowledge that it was all an illusion,” Kiriluel explained. “Long story short, he just buckled down and bore it. Like Ryoma said himself, he was ready to risk his life to attack—knowing that striking the heart of the monster would make it difficult for it to maintain its illusions. ‘Kill or be killed,’ don’t they say on Earth? Fighting monsters is always a matter of life or death. In the end, Ryoma settled the matter without any deaths—we should be happy with that.”

“You may be right, but...” Wilieris scowled.

“Aren’t you happy with the results?” Kiriluel countered.

“I am. The monster—Korumi—is no longer a problem, now that his powers are neutralized. The issue was that he had obtained such powers on top of humanlike emotions in the process of coming into this world. Overall, this was the best-case scenario. That being said, and I don’t mean to diminish Ryoma’s hard work, but I don’t think he needed to risk his life as much as he did,” Wilieris said, to the agreement of the others.

“That is true...” Gain said. “This was supposed to be an issue we handled on our own. Was there a need for him to risk his life? I can’t say that there was.”

“I hate to say this after he helped us out of the kindness of his heart, but I’m a little worried...” Lulutia said. “In no way is he like those people in the past who misconstrued our words, but he gets carried away, too eager to do a good job.”

“Ryoma always had a habit of pushing himself too far ever since his life on Earth,” Kufo chimed in. “Whenever his coworkers had dates or anniversaries, he’d offer to stay even later to finish their work for them. He never hesitated to sacrifice himself for others. It’s like...he’s too nice of a person and I’m worried he’s going to burn out.”

“He wants to keep on helping us out, right?” Tekun said. “Are we cool with that?”

“No, we’re not cool with that... It’s unheard of for a single human to deal with a problem that could have easily demanded our direct intervention. This was an absolute exception.”

“Wilieris is right,” Grimp said. “That monster bein’ deep in the forest was the only thing keepin’ this quiet. If the same kind of monster were to pop up in a populated area, there would ’ave been untold casualties. So much so that takin’ care of that alone would ’ave turned Ryoma into a hero of the entire kingdom.”

“It would be one thing if he was striving for fame,” Lulutia muttered. “But he is trying to actively avoid fame and recognition... It’s a serious problem that he’s such a good help to us.”

Fernobelia, still scowling, said, “In this case, we would have had to wipe out the majority of the Sea of Trees if it wasn’t for Ryoma stepping in. If we had wiped out half the forest, the remaining woods would have been polluted by the blast, extinguishing most lives in the forest and ruining its function as sacred grounds. Although I maintained my position that we should not interfere with human affairs, I am forced to acknowledge the usefulness and potential in their ability to make more detailed adjustments to the world that we cannot.”

“How often do you expect something like this to happen?” Kiriluel laughed. “The most Ryoma will do now is to clear out the Undead and cursed energy with his magic—that’s not a big deal.”

“Did you just jinx us?”

“Shut up, Serelipta,” Lulutia chided.

“But he’s been cursed by the demon lord fragment. Before that, he’d been roped into the conflict about the Jamils—I guess you could say he stuck his nose into it. Something tells me he’s going to encounter a lot of once-in-a-life-time events.”

“I hate that I can’t deny it... What do we think?” Tekun asked.

“I understand your concern,” Gain answered. “But there’s no sign that the Earth god had any hand in Ryoma’s destiny in this world, from what I could see when I looked into it after Ryoma told us about his curse. It’s not impossible for the demon lord fragment to call Ryoma to it, but I doubt that sort of power was left in it. Ryoma finding it was a coincidence, no doubt. The fragment was buried shallow enough in a place where humans could access and dig it up with magic—a human finding it was always a possibility. Any one of those knights on regular patrol of the area could have come across it.”

“So that’s Ryoma’s lot in his life, to find himself in the middle of bizarre situations? I’m not even surprised, after he spent his life on Earth being their god’s guinea pig. I feel bad for the kid, but it makes so much sense.”

“Hm... Just to make sure, are there any signs that a new issue of this caliber would start up in Ryoma’s range of activities as of now?” Fernobelia asked.

The gods turned their attention to Gimul, all of Jamil territory, and the entire kingdom of Rifall.

“Let’s see... The demon lord’s curse on him may be the most direct threat to Ryoma. If we’re talking on a bigger scale, that would involve the monsters being more active due to drawing in Earth’s magical energy,” said Lulutia.

“We can’t help the increase in monsters and mutations. When we decided to take in the extra magical energy, we took all that into account. In most cases, humans can handle it on their own with proper preparations. Politics is going to be a bigger problem, won’t it? To be honest, Ryoma’s not going to die in combat. There’s no guarantee or anything, but he’s strong enough to get himself to safety even if he has no chance of winning. What he’d struggle with is fighting political power in human society,” Tekun added.

“He has made quite a name for himself with all of his accomplishments,” Serelipta said. “The duke is backing him up, but that’s also proving how valuable he is. It’s impossible to keep him hidden at this point, so it’s probably best that he has a noble publicly in his corner.”

“Now that the Jamils are aware he’s a child of the gods, let’s trust they’ll do everything to protect him... For now, it doesn’t look like his situation will escalate to a point where we’d need to intervene,” Wilieris said.

“If it did, Ryoma’d have serious bad luck,” Grimp said, drawing a chuckle from the other gods.

Wilieris stood. “There’s no sense in talking about it. Let’s take another look at the world to make sure that a one-in-a-million like that doesn’t happen.”

“You said it,” Grimp added. “We also gotta check if there’s more demon lord fragments lyin’ around.”

“If there are, they’re using their residual power to conceal them from us. Doesn’t hurt to take another look. Now that Ryoma’s safe, let’s get back to work,” Kiriluel said. “Come on, Serelipta!”

“What?! I’ll enjoy my break a little longer, thank you very much. You can go on and—”

“Work while you slack off?! Not today! You’re coming with me, whether you like it or not!”

“Ow, ow, ow, ow...!”

Kiriluel dragged Serelipta by the scruff of his neck, and disappeared.

“He’s always whippin’ up a ruckus, ain’t he?” Grimp said.

“That’s exactly what the moody slacker Serelipta needs. I will see you later.”

Wilieris and Grimp disappeared, just as Fernobelia stood up.

“Are you going too?” Gain asked.

“I’ll prepare Ryoma’s reward. The quest is as good as completed.”

“Oh, I’d forgotten about that,” Gain said. “Knowing Ryoma, he’ll come talk to us from the closest church to the Sea of Trees.”

“Then I’ll help,” Tekun offered. “I better take care of the wrapping.”

“That, indeed, is not my specialty. If you don’t mind.”

“All right, let’s go!” Tekun downed his goblet that had been refilled countless times before he and Fernobelia disappeared.

“And then there were three. Shall we get back to work?” Gain asked.

“Checking on Ryoma is part of our job...” Kufo pointed out.

“Once everyone was here, it was more of a watch party. I’d feel bad to stay after everyone else has left,” Lulutia said.

“It was loud,” a fourth voice said.

The other three gods turned and found a young goddess sleepily sipping on a cup of tea.

“I didn’t realize you were here, Meltrize,” Kufo said.

“Rude.”

“But you’re usually asleep. Even when you’re here, you barely talk or make yourself known,” Kufo added.

“Just recently,” Meltrize added.

“Come to think of it, you used to stay awake longer,” Lulutia said.

Meltrize went on to explain, reminiscing. Years ago, humans were much closer to the gods. The gods taught the humans various skills, and humans used to seek the gods for advice. The gods used to watch over and manage the world while human civilizations were managed by humans under the gods’ advice. Back then, gods and humans coexisted in harmony.

“But I don’t think our current way is wrong,” Meltrize said. “Humans can prosper without our advice. A child will not walk on their own unless their parents let go. After we decided to minimize our interventions, we didn’t need to spend time considering and imparting advice... Less work meant more time to sleep.” Meltrize said this with a straight face, but the irony of how much she’d simplified the history of their existence in this world drew a small laugh from the other gods.

“You are right,” Gain said. “It used to be normal to talk to many humans like we do to Ryoma.”

“The world was less stable, so there were more problems to address,” Kufo added.

“We got together all the time to talk through solutions,” Lulutia said. “Now that you mention it, this is like the old days.”

“Yes. I was surprised when I woke up and realized that,” Meltrize said.

For a moment, the gods each seemed to remember those days from eons ago.

“We have a good thing going,” Gain said.

“We can’t revert everything about how we interact with humans,” Lulutia said, “but having this relationship with Ryoma is nice.”

“If we talk to Ryoma about keeping himself out of danger, we and the people around him can keep an eye out for him—that should help a little bit,” Kufo said.

“We can all talk it over. There’s still plenty of time,” Meltrize said.

The four gods watched over Ryoma as he negotiated with the monster of Korumi. Hopeful that there was a brighter future to come for their world, they all smiled.