In a Different World with a Smartphone (LN) - Volume 30 - Chapter 1.1

Chapter I: A Spectacled Rhapsody

“Is it complete?” asked Scarlet, the wicked devout with the plague mask.

“Affirmative. This is the Cherubim.”

The one to respond was the golden crown. They were currently standing in the hangar of the Ark, and a new gold machine part that looked like a bulky school bag was attached to Gould’s back.

“Awaken.”

The school bag reacted to the mechanical voice, beginning to change shape. Small plates immediately extended out to the sides, granting the Gollem two wings on each side. Floating in the air, this new form—the Cherubim—could serve as an aerial unit as well.

“It’s hard to believe that this used to be that Slime,” Scarlet remarked.

“It was fortuitous that we were able to acquire the Gluttony Slime.”

As Doctor Babylon had surmised, Gould had taken the Gluttony Slime the wicked devout had acquired at the auction in Felsen, turned it into orichalcum, and used it to craft additional gear that could handle a variety of functions. Something that would usually require hundreds and thousands of Slimes could be managed with just a single Gluttony Slime. “Fortuitous” was a fitting adjective.

“Have you also completed your task?” Gould inquired.

“Yes. This is Balor, a new weapon created from the G-Cube and Q-Crystal of the Gigantes in Isengard.”

The man in the plague mask looked up to where a Gollem—smaller than the Gigantes, but still gigantic—quietly sat. It looked almost like a titan encased in golden armor. On its chest and head were eerie red lenses emitting light.

“It has a feature that allows it to take command of Soldats, which means it can have full control of several hundred Kyklops with ease. Additionally, its armor has been enhanced with sealing magic using wicked water. Even Brunhild’s Gollems should struggle to make a dent.”

Upon hearing the words “wicked water,” Gould’s mind went to the core floating in the purple liquid inside one of the labs in the Ark. It was the name of the water that had been contaminated by that core. Filled with a bit of divinity and a powerful curse, the water could be used to acquire various blessings from the wicked god.

Gould was thankful he had discovered that core. With it now in his possession, perhaps his fantasies could become a reality.

There was only one issue left.

“If I could just find a way to gouge out space-time...”

“Hm? Did you say something?”

“No...”

Gould chose to hide his thoughts from Scarlet. He and the wicked devout were not allies—their goals were different. At the moment, they were simply using each other for mutual benefit. They were cooperating right now, but Gould already planned to dispose of them the moment they got in the way of his plan. Until that day came, he would assist them and would ask them for assistance in return.

A dark, dull light resided in Gould’s red camera eye.

◇ ◇ ◇

“Something’s strange about this after all...” the goddess of space-time muttered to herself as she mended a dimensional distortion and returned it to its regular state.

Ordinarily, it was forbidden for gods to do anything on the mortal plane that would greatly influence their world. It was for that reason that Mochizuki Tokie refrained from using her divinity and instead called upon the power of the fairies of time and regular space-time magic to fix such anomalies, but she couldn’t deny that something about these distortions was beginning to seem odd.

At first, Tokie had thought that the timequake had been the cause for the frequent distortions, but she suddenly realized that there was, in fact, some degree of directivity to where they occurred. One’s immediate thought would be that the wicked devout were interfering with time and space in some manner, but the divinity that lingered seemed too strong for that to be the case.

By definition, wicked gods were sacred treasures or divinity-infused objects that had taken in the negative emotions of people over the years and gained their own ego, so a wicked god’s divinity usually wasn’t anything noteworthy. However, since the wicked god of this world had absorbed a servile god—or to be more precise, the servile god himself had been corrupted—he held much more divinity than an average wicked god.

Still, even taking that into account, his divinity was only at the level of an apprentice god. He shouldn’t have been able to make dimensional distortions on such a wide and frequent scale. That conclusion led Tokie to consider that perhaps a different god’s power was being utilized.

“Does that mean one of the gods who have descended to the surface world has been assisting the wicked devout...? No, definitely not. God Almighty has his eye set on this place as a sanctuary for the divine. If a god plotted with the enemy, they would be at risk of having their divine status revoked or, even worse, being completely eliminated...”

Tokie’s face suddenly whipped up as she came to a realization.

“No, it couldn’t be... I better go check this and see.”

In order to dispel the doubts that had begun forming in her mind, Tokie used [Spatial Translocation] to jump back to the Divine Realm.

◇ ◇ ◇

I took out a leather bag from [Storage] and dumped it out on a table in Parent. Ende, who was sitting across from me, looked at both me and the bag in confusion.

“What’s all this?” he asked.

“Quos fragments. Remember how I mentioned defeating a bunch when we found Leylle?”

“I do remember that, but...why are you giving them to me?”

Technically, I was giving them to Leylle, not Ende. According to Doctor Babylon’s analysis, these Quos fragments were almost no different from real gemstones in both structure and characteristics, and that meant they could be sold off as such, so long as we let the buyer know they were fake—the last thing we needed was to become con artists.

Usually, any materials dropped from magic beasts—if you could call them that—belonged to the adventurer who killed them, but Leylle was the one who created these Quos. As I was discussing it with Kuon, he’d mentioned that she should have at least half of the rights to them, so I decided to simply give them back.

“You can put it toward your family’s finances.”

“Do you really think this is gonna make us much...? Not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth, though,” Ende remarked after taking a look at the contents of the bag and then storing it away with his magic.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got a hundred more bags waiting for you.”

“You serious?!”

I hovered my [Storage] above the entrance to Ende’s own and directly dropped the bags inside it. This alone would make them a fortune. Though, given the fact that Ende was a gold-rank adventurer, he could make this by himself easy.

“It’s not as strong a material as phrasium, but you can use them like spellstones, so you might make more money if you market them that way instead of as gemstones.”

“Wait. Do you mean that Leylle can make all the gemstones and spellstones she wants?”

He wasn’t wrong, but those artificial Phrase were born from Leylle; would she really want to mercilessly destroy them just to make a profit?

“...Yeah, no way. I heard she’s already gotten attached to the Phrase that Allis tamed, so I doubt she could bring herself to destroy a life that she herself created. Besides, I don’t think Leylle can even make any Phrase right now.”

“You ‘heard’? Don’t tell me she’s still avoiding you?” I asked, surprised.

Inside Leylle’s mind was the consciousness of the current Sovereign Phrase and Melle’s younger brother, Halle. It wasn’t exactly Halle himself, but more like a transcribed personality. Said transcribed personality held an unnaturally strong hatred for Ende as the man who stole his sister. Whenever Leylle caught sight of Ende, Halle’s personality would forcefully take over.

What was odd was that I had heard that after a lot of intervention from Melle and Allis, Halle no longer immediately attacked the man.

“He doesn’t suddenly attack me anymore, but he still gives me the dirtiest glares, like he’s gonna stab me the second I take my eyes off him... Plus, Leylle’s always with Allis nowadays, so I don’t even get the chance to speak with Allis face-to-face anymore. The calls and emails I get from her are the only thing keeping me sane...” Ende spoke wistfully as he stared out the window with a distant gaze. Honestly, he kind of sounded like a single dad the way he was acting right now.

“It’ll suck if this keeps up all the way until Allis goes back to the future. You’ve got to reconcile with...” I began saying, but Ende’s eyes suddenly widened.

Why are you looking at me like a pigeon that got hit with a slingshot?!

“Go back to the future? Allis?”

“What? Uh, well, yeah, of course.”

What’s he on about? Isn’t that why we’re working so hard right now?

Apparently, that had completely escaped his mind. Actually, what would Leylle do when the kids returned? Would she go back to the future with Allis or would she remain in our time? If she stayed with us, would that make her the big sister instead? Though, given the fact that Leylle didn’t seem to exist in their future, it would make more sense for her to go with them.

As I calmly pondered that question to myself, Ende’s eyes only got progressively wilder.

“Allis is gonna leave! No... What should I do?! Right, right, if I just interfere with Touya’s plans...! I’ll make it so they can’t go back to the futu— Ow!”

In the middle of Ende’s crazy ramblings, a karate chop landed right on the back of his head, hard enough that even I could hear it.

“What are you going on about, you loon?”

I looked up and was greeted by an annoyed-looking Ney, who was standing behind him.

“We knew from the start that Allis would have to return to the future eventually. Lady Melle in the future will remain sad if we don’t return her. Is that what you want?”

“N-No, of course not, but...”

He’d likely been saying those words in his panic, though I was sure he’d end up incredibly depressed when Allis did end up going back home. I doubted I would be much different, though. Allis was around the same age as Kuon, so it would take at least six or seven years before she would be born. In our case, we had older kids, so we wouldn’t have to wait anywhere near as long to see them.

“Hey, at least she shouldn’t be going back for a little while longer, right?” I said in an attempt to console him.

“Don’t tell me someone like you is struggling against those, uhhh...wicker trouts, are you?” Ney remarked.

I frowned and replied, “You mean ‘wicked devout.’ We’re not struggling exactly, but we can’t quite figure out their goal, so we’re being a little cautious in terms of where to begin our assault.”

Assuming their goal was to revive the wicked god, the question then became how. I thought it was possible they’d try to bring the wicked god to our time from the past when he was still alive, but Grandma Tokie said that was impossible.

The fact that wicked vessels remained in the world meant that some semblance of the wicked god’s power had to have remained. Maybe he split himself up before he fought us, and those fragments were doing his work now. Given how much of a sore loser he was despite acting so high-and-mighty, it wasn’t out of the question, especially since it looked as if they were attacking countries all over the world to harvest negative emotions from them. They could maybe try to use those to revive the wicked god, but...something still didn’t sit right with me. It just didn’t feel that simple.

Even the wicked devout didn’t seem like they were unified under the goal of reviving the wicked god. The purple spear wielder looked as if he had nothing but fighting on the brain, and that guy with the meat cleaver was doing nothing but following orders. Even the crazy old goat-skull guy looked like he was just enjoying his messed-up experiments, as if he couldn’t care less about the wicked god.

Despite that, they were all definitely receiving the blessings of the wicked god.

What I was most curious about had to be the golden crown on their side. Something about him didn’t fit in with the rest, like he was entirely unrelated to the wicked god.

Thinking about it wasn’t getting me anywhere, though. We just had to keep at it so our children could go home to the future with smiles on their faces.

“Either way, we’ll make sure to tell you when that time comes. She’s not going to suddenly vanish on you, okay?”

“Indeed. Allis has also matured greatly through her etiquette classes. The future Lady Melle will no doubt be overjoyed when she returns.”

True enough. What parent wouldn’t be happy seeing that their child had grown up while they were away?

The same could be said for future you too, man, so chin up.

Feeling sorry for Ende, who still looked so upset, I decided to speak up.

“Why not make sure that Allis has plenty of stories to tell once she goes back? That’s what we’ve been doing with our kids.”

“R-Right, good idea! I should make more fun memories with her so that she can talk about how much she enjoyed her time here!”

“Though you do have the fact that Leylle is always around Allis to think about...”

“Graaaaaaaaaaaah!” Ende roared, then slumped over the table with a pained expression.

Crap, I didn’t mean to go that far.

“Say, uh...today’s lessons are piano, right? Why don’t we go see how she’s getting on? See how much she’s improved, y’know?”

“Okay!”

Ende shot up from the table again, his face now one of extreme desperation.

Dude, calm down...

It was like he’d gone through a complete personality shift since Allis arrived. I’d heard that people often seem to change after having kids—did that mean I’d changed too? I didn’t feel as if I had, but it was true that before I knew it, I’d started thinking of nothing but them. I wouldn’t shy away from doing anything if it meant making them happy, and I had to assume that Ende was the same.

Leylle tended to remain at home with the Phrase girls on the days that Allis had piano lessons, so he should be able to go see Allis today without incident.

“Let’s go! Right now! C’mon! Touya, teleport us to the castle!”

“Okay, okay! Let go of me first!”

Ende had started yanking on my arm, desperate to get to the castle even one second faster.

No, seriously, calm down! Save your excitement for when we’re actually there!

“What do you want to do, Ney?” I asked.

“Hmm, well, the only reason I’m here is because I was going to buy some cake, but...it’d be a pain if Endymion started causing a ruckus, so I’ll join you.”

“Why not buy a cake for Allis before we go?”

“Perfect idea! Excuse me! We’d like a whole shortcake to go!”

Ende didn’t hesitate to tell a waitress his order the moment I suggested it.

How many times have I gotta tell you to calm down...?

Once we’d received Allis’s beloved shortcake, I teleported us to the castle’s music room. I made sure to teleport us to one of the corners so we didn’t frighten anyone, and then we moved to sit ourselves down in front of the piano where Allis was doing her best to play the piece, even if it was a little stilted.

It turned out the etiquette lessons involved a music performance class. Apparently, a noble lady must be able to play at least one instrument. They weren’t looking for them to be at a professional level; just being able to play some basics was good enough.

Case in point, Yumina, Sue, and Lu could all play their own instruments to some degree. Sakura could sing, but she wasn’t so good at using actual instruments. Hilde was a noble as well—in fact, she was royalty—but Lestia didn’t place much importance on the musical arts, so she gave up on it fairly quickly.

Usually, the instruments they would learn would be ones like the lute, the flute, or the harp, but they decided Allis might as well learn the piano while she was here, since we were the only ones that could make them. It was originally a fake piano that I had made with [Program], but then I gained the assistance of Sousuke and the dwarves to make a real one. Court musicians from around the world still order them from us to this day; no doubt piano music unique to this world would be composed in due time.

The sound of Allis’s piano echoed through the room. Yumina, Sousuke, and Yoshino were giving her guidance. Yumina was there to teach the correct posture for a noble, while Sousuke and Yoshino were purely there to teach her musically. Right now, she was playing a children’s song I had taught them—the one about meeting a bear in the forest.

I’d heard from my piano teacher when I was young that the Japanese lyrics for this were completely different from the original. The Japanese version was much more playful; as a story, it had the weird progression of meeting a bear in the forest, being told to run by said bear, yet the bear chasing after you anyway and then giving you something you dropped.

On the other hand, the original lyrics said that after you met with the bear, it went, “Why don’t you run? I see you ain’t got any gun.” And then you ran, and the bear chased after you, and you managed to survive by climbing up a tree.

To begin with, I had no idea why the bear was the one to tell you to run. My teacher said there were various theories that said originally, it was a little birdie that told you the forest was dangerous so you should run, but that just left me thinking that the Japanese version was too different. Stop beating around the bush and tell the story straight!

The moment Allis managed to play the song to completion, we all gave a round of applause. Allis turned around in surprise.

“Dad? Mom and Your Grace as well. How long have you been standing there?”

“Not for very long,” I told her. “You’ve gotten real good at that.”

“You think? Hehe.”

The girl got all embarrassed after I complimented her.

“Of course she has! My daughter’s a genius, after all!” Ende proudly proclaimed.

“Indeed. I would expect nothing less from our daughter. This is only natural!”

These doting parents, I swear...

“How about taking a break?” I suggested. “Ende bought a cake just for you.”

“Really?! Thanks, dad!”

I could see Ende trying to secretly strike a victory pose. Was that really all it took to make him happy? Just how bad was the communication in his household? It felt like Ende was way more enthusiastic now that Leylle wasn’t present. I didn’t really want to dunk on his happiness, though.

We asked Lapis for some cutlery and tea and settled ourselves down at a table in the corner of the music room before tasting the cake.

Yup, delicious.

I’d been using my brain so much today that something sweet served as the perfect battery.

◇ ◇ ◇

“The hell’s that...?”

In the fishing village of Mariu located in southern Gardio, a man out on a small fishing boat spotted something strange in the far sky over the ocean, his hands pulling in the fishing net coming to a stop. At first, he thought it was a bird, but it seemed far too big for that, and it was sparkling too. In fact, it almost looked as if it had four wings—was it because it was hard to see clearly with the sun at its back? Was it two birds overlapping?

When the man squinted to try to see it better, the glimmering bird let off a bright arrow of light that fired right into the village near the shore, resulting in a massive explosion. The aftershock of the blast created large waves in the sea, throwing the fisherman from his boat.

The sudden explosion had sent the residents of the fishing village into a panic. Watching emotionlessly from above with his camera eye, Gould, with the Cherubim attached, moved to the next step.

“Photon Laser.”

Several balls of light appeared around Gould as he flew with his four wings, before they fired laser beams all at once, piercing through the people running around frantically, ending life after life.

“Stable operation confirmed. No issues detected. Proceeding to the next test: Gluttonic Feather.”

Several gold feathers fired out from two of the mechanical wings. They flew freely through the air at high speeds, attacking villagers both alive and dead.

“Gwah!”

A man’s voice rose in pain as one of those feathers stabbed right into his back. Suddenly, it expanded just like a Slime and consumed the man whole. The gold Slime enveloped the struggling man and progressively became smaller and smaller as its body undulated.

Once the Slime had finished consuming the man, it returned to its feather shape, before leaping back up into the air and settling back into one of Gould’s wings.

Though Gould had been able to refine the Gluttony Slime enough to make the Cherubim, he had been unable to remove the Artificer’s distinct voracious appetite. Not that it was something he ever intended to get rid of—if he did, it would be unable to act as the substitute for the price of a crown skill. Unfortunately, because of that, it became hungry right away, constantly needing sustenance to restore its energy; it wasn’t the most efficient gear.

That was why Gould was now out resupplying its energy reserves while doubling it up as a test run of the Cherubim. If he simply wanted to appease the Gluttony Slime’s appetite, the animals in the forest or fish in the nearby sea would’ve worked perfectly fine. But for the purposes of what Gould was using it for, humans and their myriad emotions were much more suitable for the Slime’s food.

The various negative emotions like fear and despair that were being absorbed would also serve the wicked devout’s goals well. Gould wasn’t particularly invested in the group’s goal, but he found no reason to refuse more manpower.

After feeding the negative emotions into the main body, the feathers shot back out into the village once more. The villagers disappeared one after another, like a field of crops being harvested for the season.

“Test complete. No issues detected. Returning to base.”

Once all of the villagers had been harvested, Gould shot off into the southern sky, content with the results.

Though the fisherman returned to his village with his life still intact, all that awaited him were the houses destroyed by the explosion and the paths empty of all those that he once knew.

◇ ◇ ◇

“So you’re saying that there is a different Gollem that is the same type as the one standing there?”

“Yes, it appears that two golden crowns exist at once. And one of those is on the side of the wicked devout,” I answered the question posed by the emperor of Gardio at the world summit.

What set all of this off was a major incident that occurred in a small fishing village in Gardio. According to the sole survivor, a fisherman of the village, a small gold-winged Gollem suddenly appeared above the village and began completely erasing those who lived there. He had witnessed it all after being flung from his boat and left floating along in the waves. What he reported sounded just like our Gold, and so we ended up holding an international conference to explain.

“All crowns discovered to this point have been unique. We have found no sign of replicas or twin units. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?”

“I don’t know if I can call it evidence, but...” I trailed off as I projected footage taken from one of Val Albus’s unmanned drones of the wicked devout’s gold crown into the air. Next to him was the man with the plague mask, so that should serve as proof that it wasn’t on our side.

This doesn’t prove it’s not our Gold, though...

“We can’t tell the difference between the Gollem in the footage and the one standing here with this alone...” Mismede’s Beastking was moving his gaze between the gold crown in the footage and Gold who had been summoned together with me. I was right to think it wouldn’t be enough.

“If they’re the same type, then that means they must be the same unit, no?”

“But that isn’t really evidence.”

“Looking closely, their eyes appear to be a different color...”

“Really?”

Representatives from the other countries began raising their doubts as well. If I couldn’t supply footage of the two present at once, there was no way to prove that they were different.

“Where were you at the time Mariu was attacked, Gold?” I asked.

“At that time, I was planting flowers with my master in the courtyard.”

And that meant that he had an alibi.

“But you can use teleportation magic, can you not?”

“Right, this also isn’t proof.”

The emperor of Refreese and the king of Belfast were smirking at me as they refuted my argument.

Oh, you assholes! You totally know what you’re doing!

The only choices left to me were to somehow bring both gold crowns to them or to capture footage of them both present at once.

If you wanted to get someone to believe you were a twin, the only choice you had to prove that to them was to either show them your twin directly or show a picture with both of you in it. Or you could also just show your family registry, I supposed.

But even if I was able to prove that another gold crown really did exist, how could I prove that it wasn’t our Gold that attacked Mariu?

“Cease with your tomfoolery, both of you. I can’t say it’s very nice of you.”

“Ha ha ha, sorry, sorry. We don’t often get the chance to see Touya cornered, so we got a little carried away.”

“Indeed. Naturally, we don’t actually suspect you.”

The two apologized easily when the pope of Ramissh scolded them with a sigh.

“Well, I doubt you would do such a thing either,” the emperor of Gardio made clear. I was thankful; building up trust really was important for moments like this.

“I did think you were being framed. Doing such a thing would bring no merit to Brunhild, after all.”

“There is nothing to be gained by annihilating a small village. If you wanted to kidnap someone, you would be craftier about it. You’re good at it, after all.”

I was glad they trusted me, but I really wanted to object to the idea that I was good at kidnappings.

I won’t deny that I am, though!

“Now that we’ve established the Gollem that attacked Mariu was on the side of the wicked devout, what was their objective?”

“Is it not a plot to cast curses on them to turn them into their own soldiers, as they’ve been thus far?”

“What a loathsome bunch! Sneaking around and attacking in our blind spots!”

Most of the countries of this world had fallen victim to the wicked devout’s attacks in some manner. The only one completely free from any such incidents had been Brunhild, which was devoid of a neighboring ocean. Maybe Gandhilis as well, given it had such a rocky coastline and there were very few villages and towns within its borders.

Though they did have part of the Gigantes they’d discovered underground stolen from them, so I guess you could consider them a victim... That was my fault for underestimating the enemy, though.

“Are preparations to take down the wicked devout complete yet?” the mikado of Eashen, Shirahime, asked.

“Almost. If we give them the chance to escape, we’ll be back to square one, so we’re being extra careful to make sure we take them down in one fell swoop.”

“Very good. Haste makes waste, after all. When you strike, you must be fully prepared so you can beat them into submission.”

And that was exactly what we planned to do. We needed to completely eradicate the wicked god’s remains if we wanted to send our children back to the future safely. At least I’d somewhat managed to clear their suspicions surrounding Gold. Not entirely, but enough that he was deemed acquitted for now.

I really needed to make sure Gold was present in the face-off against their gold crown so I could prove for absolute certain that there was an identical unit. I was glad they trusted me, but that didn’t mean they trusted Gold.

After the conference, we had our usual small banquet in the name of furthering friendships, and then we were back to business as usual. I couldn’t help but let out a sigh at the documents piled on top of my office desk. When I glanced out the window, I saw Sue, Steph, and the now-released Gold happily watering the flowers in the garden.

So lucky... I wanna play with the kids too...

This was the duty of a king, though. I couldn’t skimp out on the work. If I worked hard enough, I could maybe put aside some time to play with them in the evening.

Hours into my desperate fight with my papers, when the end was finally in sight, I received a phone call.

From God Almighty? This is unusual.

“Hello?”

“Touya, is that you? Do you think you could come pay me a visit once you get a moment? There’s something I wish to discuss with you.”

As in, go to the Divine Realm? Did something happen?

Given that I was nearing the end of my work, I decided it wouldn’t be a big deal to take a short break, and so I teleported to the Divine Realm with [Gate]. Now in that familiar small tatami space surrounded by the familiar sea of clouds, not just God Almighty, but also Grandma Tokie was sitting around that familiar low table.

“You were called here too, Grandma Tokie?”

“Not quite. In fact, I was the one who told him he should call you here. Do have a seat.”

I did as she said and sat myself down on one of the zabuton cushions. The fact that she called me here instead of coming to me directly must have meant that she wanted God Almighty to be present for our discussion.

“You are correct, dear. This is something that violates the rules of our realm, so it isn’t something I can freely talk about with my own judgment.”

I see, I see. Wait, don’t just read my mind like that!

In other words, some incident had happened that was related to the gods. But why would that result in a lowly god like me getting involved?

“So, uh, what happened, exactly?”

“Y-Yes, well, you see, we...may have made a little mistake that will result in causing you trouble once again. I truly am sorry.”

Grandma Tokie was suddenly apologizing to me now? Was there something new I had to deal with now? My hands were already plenty full dealing with the wicked devout.

“What is this all about? Stop beating around the bush and just tell me.”

“Mngh... I suppose I should. You see...a fallen god has descended to your world. I have no words to express how sorry I am to have not realized until now. I cannot defend myself against any accusations of negligence.”

A fallen god? Not a wicked one? What’s the difference?

“Wicked gods are simply false gods born from the accumulation of negative emotions of the surface realm within sacred treasures or objects imbued with divinity. Though it should, of course, be noted that the specific wicked god that you defeated had fused with a servile god,” God Almighty explained.

Grandma Tokie continued the explanation, guilt clear on her face.

“Fallen gods, on the other hand, are very much gods who have fallen to depravity. They are gods who have had their divine status abolished and are now exiled from the Divine Realm. Under normal circumstances, they would be eternally imprisoned in the frozen hell of Cocytus, which I monitor.”

Cocytus? Is that like a divine prison for gods or something?

“This fallen god in particular gave one last desperate struggle right as we were about to seal him away. The god of destruction should have completely eliminated him then, but...”

The god of destruction can just eliminate a god like that?! Please never let me face him!

“What we failed to notice was that just before he could be completely annihilated, he split off a small part of himself. That is what managed to escape. That fragment is now...”

“Now in this world?”

God Almighty nodded.

“A freshly materialized fragment has no will of its own. It was most likely mindlessly searching for sources of divinity. A fallen god cannot enter the Divine Realm, so it was instead attracted to your world, which is currently the next greatest source of divinity.”

There were over a dozen gods on the surface right now. Unfortunately, the barrier to this world was still broken. A small little fragment like that could easily slip through the cracks.

“Only a small fraction of the god’s power escaped, but divine power is still divine power. We cannot allow it to run free. What is worse, it appears it has been absorbed by the wicked devout.”

“HUH?!”

“I started to feel as if the dimensional distortions weren’t quite as random as we first thought, and so I returned to the Divine Realm to look into it, and it turned out that the divinity of the fallen god that the god of destruction should have completely disposed of remained. Most likely... No, it is almost certain now that the wicked devout have been using that fragment of the fallen god to interfere with space-time.”

Just our luck. Of course such an annoying group managed to pick up such an annoying item. All of this was only going to get worse, wasn’t it?

“Still, this fallen god was only a lesser god, and this is only a fragment of that. It may be even weaker than a servile god as it is.”

Did that mean we didn’t need to be so doom and gloom? It calling through monsters from other time periods was still a bit annoying, though.

“However, this god’s specific power is a little tricky. He ruled over the concept of ‘erosion.’ He was skilled at worming his way inside of anything and everything and eating away at it. There are few limits on what he can interfere with—physical objects, living beings, and even one’s mind.”

“Erosion... A god of erosion, huh?”

“Originally, to be precise. As his divine status was removed from him, all that is left is his power wandering free. That said, if one were to absorb that power, they too could gain some of the properties of the god of erosion...and that is not a power that should be allowed to exist on the surface.”

“So what you’re trying to say is that I need to deal with that?”

“We’re truly sorry,” God Almighty apologized, guiltily bowing his head.

From the perspective of the gods, it shouldn’t be a big deal to destroy our world with the fallen god in it and be done with the whole issue. That way was simpler, and they didn’t need to be held back by unnecessary worries. Were they being polite about it because I was the caretaker of this world? Or was this some kind of newbie training? Like if I couldn’t deal with a problem like this, I had no right to be a caretaker of a world?

You know, maybe that tracks. This must be a divine tribulation!

“No need to overthink it,” Grandma Tokie reassured me. “We simply think it would be a waste if the sanctuary we had built up was to suddenly go poof. Though there were those who supported the idea of simply having the god of destruction clean up for us, since it would be too much of a pain to deal with ourselves...”

And again with reading my thoughts. Maybe it wasn’t a trial, then.

Still, even the gods found it a pain, huh? The wicked devout were still wards of a god—or at least, an imitation of one—so the fragment might have been attracted to that. If the wicked devout hadn’t been around, it might have come to Brunhild instead.

“Is there any chance that I’ve fallen victim to the erosion?”

“Not a chance. You’re my ward; the erosion would bounce right off of your divinity. Your wives are protected by that divinity, and your children, who have your blood, would be the same. The regular humans around you would absolutely have felt the effects, though.”

“What sort of effects?”

“The body of the one who is possessed is eaten away at, and then the minds of those around them are also eroded. It’s a very gradual degradation. Eventually, they become unable to think, their bodies mutate, and they end up mindlessly relying on their instincts. Their eventual end is as a moving corpse. Once their body deteriorates entirely, the fragment will simply find a new host and repeat the process all over again.”

It was like a zombie movie... Maybe it was a good thing it never came to us.

Hang on, does all this not sound familiar?

“Are you telling me that those mutated Fishmen who had received the apparent curse of the wicked god were really...?”

“They were likely affected by not just the wicked god, but also the fallen god, yes. If I were to make a guess, the fallen god’s power is being kept under control through the wicked god’s power. To make an Earth comparison, it’s like a car’s engine and its steering wheel.”

And that was why the wicked vessels the devout held seemed to be so rich in divinity, despite it being leftovers from a dead wannabe god. A lot suddenly made sense. Assuming they had the fallen god of erosion on their side, would our sacred treasure even be effective? Sure, they were fallen, but that didn’t change the fact that they were still originally a god. Would things really work out?

“You don’t need to worry about that. It’s not a god, it’s a fragment of one. It doesn’t have the power to withstand the divinity of a ward of God Almighty. As he said, the real dangerous part is the power of erosion itself. You, your wives, and your children will be fine, but everyone else will be affected in some way.”

And since we...or, well, the girls and I couldn’t take the wicked devout down because of the restrictions set on gods, we had no choice but to rely on our children.

Absolutely nothing about this sounded different from our original issue. Where was the catch?

“The power of erosion does not limit itself to living creatures,” God Almighty said. “Take your metal giants, for instance. I’m sure they would be affected too.”

“You mean our Frame Gears?”

Ugh, seriously?

At least we hadn’t intended for our final confrontation with them to require our Frame Gears. Unless they gigantified in some way, which wasn’t out of the question because Graphite turned into some big spider thing...

“What would happen if a Frame Gear were eroded?” I asked.

“I can’t say for certain, but I assume it would stop functioning and begin to fall apart. In the worst case, it would be taken over by the other side.”

In other words, if they managed to erode a Frame Gear’s chain of command, it could lead to it attacking an ally even if we ordered it to attack the enemy. All of this was an effect of divine power, so none of the scientists would be able to do anything about it. According to God Almighty, we should be fine if we coat the Frame Gears with divinity, but the only one who could do that right now was me. Apparently, if one did happen to get taken over, I could also cleanse it with my own divinity, but...

“That’s such a pain...”

“Indeed. Well, um, I suppose we’re at fault here... I apologize.”

“It isn’t your fault. This is what happens when that naughty god of destruction refuses to do his job properly. The next time I see him, I’ll slap his scruffy face to kingdom come!” Grandma Tokie ended up mad at the god of destruction for God Almighty’s sake. It was true that we wouldn’t be in this mess if the god of destruction had just eliminated that fallen god properly.

I really did hope they wouldn’t take over the Frame Gears, though. Even if Reginleif was fine, if everyone else’s ended up taken over, we’d be in trouble. If the Ortlinde Overlord started going out of control, we’d have a hard time trying to stop it.

“Erosion cannot so easily begin its assault without coming into contact with the object or person in question, so it wouldn’t happen so easily. Still, there is no denying it is a possibility. When it comes time to face whoever is taken over by the fallen god, you’d be best avoiding them.”

Just don’t touch them and we were fine, huh? Right, the only ones who turned into Fishmen that one time were those who were bitten directly. Glad it wasn’t airborne, at least. In that case, I doubt I’d have to worry much.

“Um, the fallen fragment doesn’t have its own will, right?”

“Correct.”

“If a Gollem—an autonomous mechanical puppet—were to be taken over by the fragment, what would happen?”

“Hm? An autonomous mechanical puppet? It would likely just become something that held the power of erosion.”

No way.

Gollems were creations that operated based on the fundamental operations written into their Q-Crystals. Even if it looked like they had their own will, that was purely their programmed conditioned responses. They were simply robots that abided by their master’s orders, never acting on emotion as humans did.

What instantly came to mind was a demo screen of an action game. Even though no one was controlling it, the playable character was running and jumping and killing enemies. It was simply doing as it was programmed to.

But then, what would happen if someone picked up the controller and pressed start? The playable character was no longer a robot—it was the player holding the controller.

What if the gold crown had been eroded by the fallen god? Would it then become a gold crown with the power of erosion? Not a fallen god that had taken over a gold crown?

To begin with, Gollems couldn’t even act independently without a master, so I had thought that one of the wicked devout had filled that role. Maybe that was my biggest mistake.

“This has become such a mess...”

I wasn’t sure how many times I had sighed those words now, and God Almighty apologized once again. I wasn’t blaming him or anything. I was just thinking about how there were so many more unpredictable factors than before that we’d have to look back over our plan. If anything, this was all because of the god of destruction’s oversight. I’d make sure Grandma Tokie beat him up for me as well.

◇ ◇ ◇

“A fallen god, huh? And just when you thought things couldn’t get any messier.”

Gathered under a gazebo in the courtyard, I told the other gods what God Almighty had explained to me, and they all frowned and groaned to themselves.

It was a really crazy sight when I thought about it. Seven gods—the goddess of love, the goddess of swords, the god of agriculture, the goddess of hunting, the god of music, the goddess of alcohol, and the god of combat—had all gathered. Grandma Tokie was absent from this meeting.

Technically, I was a god too, but I really didn’t feel like one—or at least, I didn’t feel like I could walk up to someone and proudly declare that I was a god. Would I start to feel like it in one or two thousand years like God Almighty had said?

“Is it that bad?”

“Kinda, yeah. This isn’t like the case with the servile god; this used to be an actual god’s power. Let your guard down and you’ll get your feet swept out from right under you,” Karina responded with a begrudging smile. Not that I was ever intending to let my guard down in the first place, of course.

“Most of us lesser gods rule over some concept, y’know,” Karen began to explain with a sigh. “For example, I rule over love, Moroha over swordsmanship, Karina over hunting. Because we specialize in those areas, those characteristics are inevitably reflected in our divinity, y’know.”

“The fallen god’s old realm was erosion,” Karina picked back up. “As the name suggests, they had the power to invade and eat away at things. It crawls in and slowly eats away at its surroundings, eventually leading the whole area to decay. It’s a pain, honestly.”

It sounded a little like a cancerous cell. Identify it too late, and there was no way to deal with it. It was all about early detection, early treatment.

“Oooh, so the erosion god shplit himself up and ran awaaay, hic! What a wittle bad boy he ish. Oh, but I guesh he doeshn’t have a mind anymore...” Suika began laughing away to herself, speech slightly slurred.

Hey, you drunk goddess. Where’d you bring that wine bottle from, eh? You didn’t go steal it from the kitchen’s wine cellar again, did you? You know I’m the one Crea will shout at later?

From how she was speaking, was Suika personally acquainted with the erosion god?

“Did you two know each other?” I asked.

“Hm? Jusht a little. He was sooooooooo annoying, hic!”

Certainly didn’t sound like the nicest guy in the world, though given he’d become a fallen god, that wasn’t much of a surprise.

“What kind of crime did he even commit that got him stripped of his rank?”

“Same as the servile god. He tried ta interfere with the surface realm. It was fer a different world than this one, though,” Uncle Kousuke explained between sips of green tea. By that, he meant using divinity to greatly affect the surface, right?

“The world ended up so messed up that the god of destruction had no choice but ta completely wipe it. Many species were goin’ extinct at an unnatural rate, and when we looked into it, it turned out to be the work of the god of erosion. Turned out he had descended to the surface by himself,” he continued.

“Ahhh, that’s bad. He was never getting away with that, riiight?” Suika chuckled away.

I doubt it was very funny to the people whose world got destroyed.

Still, did that mean if they hadn’t looked into it, the god of destruction would’ve exterminated the world and essentially covered up evidence of the god of erosion’s involvement without their knowing?

“Naturally, there was no room to argue for extenuating circumstances, so the guy had his divine status revoked, and he was branded a fallen god. The moment it was decided he would be sent to Cocytus, he went berserk and tried to escape. The god of destruction was present and got rid of him with one strike. Well, I guess he didn’t entirely get rid of him, but you get the idea,” Moroha explained.

It was crazy to think that the god of destruction could eliminate any one of us so easily...

“That is his job. He has the power to destroy any god other than God Almighty. If he really wanted to, he could get rid of all of us in one fell swoop. Though he’d need a justified reason to do so, of course.”

That meant any one of us could be killed if a reason existed. He seemed to be quite extreme from what I’d heard—he wasn’t destroying worlds as he felt like it, was he?

Oh, wait...

“Uh, so, I was actually asked to become the next god of destruction...”

“HUH?!”

Every god present couldn’t hide their surprise. I was pretty sure I heard Sousuke’s voice as well. He was able to speak this whole time?

“Touya as the next god of destruction... Maybe that’d work.”

“Mmm, as his big sister, I say no. I don’t want a violent little brother.”

“I think he’s got the talent for it, though.”

“True. He doesn’t generally like using his abilities, but when he does, he doesn’t hold back.”

“Nyah hah hah, Touya being the destruction god would be shoooooo fun, hic!”

“A destructive power is still one’s own power. We’ll need to make sure ya get in the trainin’ so you can control it, lad.”

Hang on, I’m not actually going to take the job. And Sousuke, quit playing such violent music.

“This aside, make sure you watch out for the fallen god’s power. As the name implies, by the time you start to notice it, it can already be too late, and that would be the worst.”

“I’ll try my best to not let that happen...”

“Even though the kids are going to have to be the ones to deal the killing blow on the fallen and wicked gods, you guys can still support them so long as you don’t use your divinity, y’know?”

With or without Karen’s urging, I fully intended to do just that. In that case, though, couldn’t Moroha and Uncle Takeru help out as well?

“If we dare fight with the wicked devout, they won’t stand a chance whether we use our divinity or not. If we aren’t careful, the fight will be over in a single shot—and that will undoubtedly be considered as us violating the rules.”

“Sorry, man. Adults shouldn’t get involved in a child’s fight. We don’t mind helping take out the rabble, however.”

Ugh, why are the broken characters so useless?!

I had to admit that I doubted the other gods would approve of them beating up the wicked devout first before having us deal the finishing blow. Someone would definitely find some reason or another to put in a complaint.

Nothing was ever easy with these guys, huh? But in all fairness, we were very much in a situation where we were having a blind eye turned to gods getting involved with an issue that should be solved by the surface humans so long as no one used their divinity.

“Plus, this is your job as this world’s caretaker. We can help a little, but if you leave all the work to us, you’ll come across as an incompetent god. Don’t run from trials that will only make you stronger, lad.”

“Ngh...”

Uncle Takeru with the blunt, honest truth... I forgot that this counted as my work as a god.

Isn’t this a bit much for a new employee’s— I mean, new god’s first task?

Not that complaining was going to get me out of it, of course.