Side: Yuki
The first round of talks in the Hiffy Holy State was over, and in the midst of the confusion, we brought the information we had obtained back to Weed and held an emergency meeting.
'Well, I'm not asking for an immediate answer. However, war is inevitable. I will try to persuade Hiffy-dono to delay the start of the war. Please reach a decision in the meantime. Surely, if I tell Hiffy-dono that you are people from my homeland, she will gladly accept you.'
And with that, the recording of our conversation with Motome-san ended.
"...That's a very reasonable argument."
"Indeed..."
"Yes. It seems very logical."
"I thought so as to."
The ones responding were the members of my wives who had originally come from royalty or nobility and understood what power meant. Among all of us in Weed, they were already able to see where things might eventually lead in the future.
Namely: Seraria, Derieu, Rurua, and Sheila.
The other members had conflicted looks on their faces as well.
Even I felt the same way... I couldn't deny Motome-san's methods—If anything, I agreed with it. If it weren't for one particular point.
"But why doesn't Goddess Hiffy use the power of Comet's dungeon master?"
"We wondered about that before as well. Could it be because the Dungeon Master has been revived—or rather, turned into an undead?"
"I think so too. Perhaps her abilities are restricted, or are close to being disabled. Otherwise, she should be able to conquer other countries easily without having to openly raise a banner of war like this."
"How should I put it...? I feel like Yuki-san would have pursued reform in the same way if he hadn't been using Dungeon Master skills. From Motome-san's behavior, if you knew about the convenient power of a dungeon, I don't think you would resort to brute force."
Just as Sheila said, the difference between me and Motome-san was whether or not we had the power of a dungeon at our disposal. Without dungeon powers, even in Weed's continent, I would have had no choice but to pursue the same kind of forceful approach as Motome-san.
"I agree with Sheila's opinion. However, the presence or absence of dungeon skills has nothing to do with Motome-san. It's also possible that Goddess Hiffy is hiding it from him."
"Indeed. That's a possibility. Well, in any case, it would be faster to call out the party involved and ask."
"That's right. Fortunately, we have a high-ranking deity among our acquaintances."
"Indeed. Let's gather information first. It might give us a clue."
...My wives' respect for that being is rapidly fading away.
"""Call the useless goddess."""
The name they call in unison—the one responsible for bringing me to this world.
Luna.
The self-proclaimed high-ranking Goddess.
Lately, she spends her time in the house provided for her in Weed, wearing a tracksuit, eating snacks, and playing video games.
...What an insanely enviable lifestyle.
Well, she disappeared from time to time, so I suppose she was fairly busy with other things as well... but anyone who saw her current state couldn't help but label her a useless goddess.
Even Lilishe, who had spent all this time in Weed watching her superior behave disgracefully, had already reached a state of complete resignation.
Personally, I really didn't want to call her... It felt like every time I called her, trouble multiplied.
However, right now, she was likely the one with the most information regarding Hiffy and the former Dungeon Master. So we decided to summon Luna.
"Ah? What's up? Did a new flavor of potato chips come out?"
...But as expected, the useless goddess was indeed useless.
She hadn't changed at all.
She was wearing a tracksuit, holding a plastic bottle of juice in one hand, while her other hand was shoved inside her tracksuit, scratching her stomach
...This was the truth behind the suspicious religious-saleswoman honey trap who had once appeared wearing a business suit.
A dried-out woman...
"Go buy them yourself!!"
SMACK!
A satisfying sound rang out.
I had reflexively pulled out a paper fan and smacked her.
"Ouch, that hurt!? As usual, you show zero respect for people, don't you?"
"If you want respect, dress appropriately! There's no such thing as an emperor with no clothes!"
"There was, wasn't there? In your world."
"In stories!!"
"Then what about nudist beaches?"
"That's the whole point of it being called a 'nudist beach'!"
Not good.
This useless goddess is exhausting to deal with.
It takes way too long to get to the main topic.
"...Anyway. You already understand why you were called, don't you? You seem to peek in on us from time to time."
"...Tch. Forcing the conversation forward, I see. Fine, then. In a way, this was unexpected for me, but in another sense, it was something bound to happen eventually. All right, I'll explain the circumstances."
With that, the useless goddess sat in a chair in the conference room.
In an instant, she transformed into her suit, and her disheveled hair became neat and tidy.
"Phew. This outfit really strains my shoulders. I hate work clothes. Ah, Killue, can I get some tea? Green tea, please."
"Yes. Right away."
Killue obediently followed her instructions, though I was sure she was insulting the useless goddess in her head.
Otherwise, my feelings as her husband—watching my wife get bossed around—wouldn't be soothed.
"Thank you. Slurp... Hah~ green tea really has to be hot."
After taking a small sip and finishing it, her eyes finally shifted into work mode.
"Now then, where should I begin... There's quite a lot to explain."
"Then start with Hiffy-san."
For us, there was no information about Hiffy other than the fact that she was a goddess.
"Sure. Chronologically, that would make sense."
"Chronologically?"
"Yes. Talking about Hiffy will naturally lead to the rest of the story. But before that, do you remember, Yuki? I mentioned that all the gods and dungeon masters in this world, except for you, were locals—selected from Aroulite."
"Yeah. I remember."
"But there's some information I didn't tell you back then. You've probably already sensed this, but I was only involved with the Dungeon Master issue. In other words, I wasn't the one who selected the gods of this world."
"...What does that mean? Yuki, do you understand?"
Seraria looked at me curiously.
...So it really is like that.
If Luna had total authority from the beginning, she wouldn't have needed to use such a roundabout method.
"Sigh... So basically, it's like you were dumped with managing Aroulite as well, Luna?"
"Bingo~ I came to this world as a successor, just like you, Yuki."
"""WHAT?!"""
My wives were extremely shocked, but the fact that there were ranks such as Lower and Upper Gods already made it obvious that some kind of hierarchical society existed.
Apparently, even those creatures called gods had their own bureaucratic entanglements.
"Let me explain it simply. I was originally the one in charge of Aroulite. In other words, the Intermediate God who managed the gods was killed by humans, and as a result, this world was placed under my jurisdiction as well."
"...Humans killed a god?"
Rurua looked utterly incredulous.
For a human to slay a god, given Aroulite's level of civilization, was not just irreverent—it was outright high treason.
Although on Earth, it happens all the time in stories. In fact, in modern Japan, 'god-slaying' is a common trope...
"From Rurua's perspective, it might sound like something unthinkable, but it happens fairly often. In terms of strength, they're around level 1,000, you know? As I said earlier, Lower Gods are created by elevating natives—people from Aroulite—into gods in order to stabilize the world. So, fundamentally, they're still human on the inside. Of course, they live much longer, so their sense of things gradually drifts away from what it was when they were human. That's why people like me and Lilishe sometimes blend into human society, to correct that sense of distance."
She nonchalantly slipped in an excuse for her lazy lifestyle as if it had a deeper purpose.
When she noticed my glaring eyes, she immediately turned her face away.
...Yep. She definitely included that reasoning on purpose.
"Even with the title of High Goddess, I was originally human too. Now, going into where gods originate from would be a massive pain, so I'll skip that part. The mid-grade god back then was slain by humans, likely because they were engaging in strange interventions. Forgetting that they used to be human themselves, they probably overstepped. So, being slain was their own doing. I have no intention of punishing the people of Aroulite for that."
"""Phew…"""
My wives all breathed sighs of relief.
Zargis and Narjia-san were even rubbing their chests in relief in the same way.
"Yuki. Do you understand? That is how people who show respect behave. Yet you didn't even catch your breath or feel relieved."
"Shut up. I had zero respect for you from the start. Hurry up and continue."
"Well, it's precisely because you have that kind of nerve that bringing you here from another world was worth it. Your wives know that best, don't they?"
My wives nodded in agreement.
"Anyway, back to the topic. As a result, the mid-grade deity and their followers were defeated by those humans. But not all the gods were eliminated. The remaining ones were Hiffy and Lilishe, among others. When I took jurisdiction over this world, there was quite a bit of backlash. You understand, right, Yuki? It's like a branch office suddenly becoming directly managed by headquarters—it causes friction."
Naturally.
Branch offices have their own ways of doing things suited to their local area.
Headquarters intervening creates all kinds of problems.
"Thanks to that, I was overwhelmed with personnel management. For those who didn't like me, I promptly stripped them of their divinity, turned them back into humans, executed them, or pawned them off to acquaintance gods. Those who were willing to listen were kept as they were, and I tasked them with dealing with the mana depletion I had discovered. Hiffy and Lilishe belonged to the latter group. They were willing to listen. Rather, they were on the side that supported me and welcomed me warmly. However, most of them couldn't handle the mana depletion and simply faded away. Gods are essentially concentrated masses of high mana. Normally, as long as they have faith, they don't fade, but with mana depletion occurring, a small amount of faith wasn't enough. So, I moved on to Plan B: installing dungeons as mana circulators."
Right.
The more I listened, the more this sounded like a job that would give anyone a stomachache.
Especially the personnel part. Being thrust into a role out of nowhere and having to fire people who couldn't adapt is not a job anyone would want.
"You know this dungeon plan has two stages, right? Derieu's younger brother, Raie, and Comet, the predecessor of the New Continent, were in stage one. We tried appointing locals as dungeon masters to handle the mana depletion. Honestly, though, they barely functioned. They could barely maintain the mana circulation in their immediate surroundings. It was far from a solution. But among them, Comet, the former dungeon master of the New Continent, achieved relatively good results. Though those results were largely due to establishing a cooperative system with Hiffy. Coincidentally, Comet and Hiffy were on good terms, so I instructed them to handle the problem together as a god and dungeon master team. Ah, they knew nothing about the mana depletion details, so I wasn't lying. Hiffy was serious about it, keeping his status as a god hidden and supporting Comet to address the issue, but..."
The result was as we already knew...
"Before I knew it, Comet was cut down, and Hiffy went completely silent. I assumed it had failed just like the others."
Anyone would think that.
Especially if you'd seen the same thing happen repeatedly.
The scale and severity of problems vary, but everyone experiences something like that—searching for something, not finding it, and then having it pop up out of nowhere one day.
"So, I moved to stage two. You all know what stage two is. It's Yuki here. Given all the results so far, I realized Aroulite couldn't resolve the situation on its own. So I decided to bring someone from another world who had the necessary knowledge and enough free time to actually do something about it."
"Hey."
Who are you calling someone with free time?
I was a busy man who worked diligently at my job, never aimed for troublesome positions, remained a regular employee, and spent my days off playing games!
"Shut up, you shut-in slacker whose main entertainment on days off was gaming. Well, even with a useless guy from Japan on Earth, the results speak for themselves—you've achieved remarkable outcomes. Ah, but we've drifted off topic. Do you understand the situation with Hiffy now?"
"Yuki isn't a useless man, though... Well, I suppose this argument between you two is a race to the bottom, considering you both play games... I understand the situation regarding Hiffy. So, Luna, will you lend us a hand?"
Well, if we started arguing over which of Luna and I was more useless, it would probably turn into a competition over games, so I'd leave that for later.
Does Derieu really think she'll help us, though? I had a feeling I knew exactly how this was going to go.
"Impossible. Judging by the conversation record, Hiffy decided to take matters into her own hands and reform the world herself after my dungeon solution failed. She likely believes that, as a result, it will address the mana depletion. Honestly, if it were just Hiffy and the undead Comet, it might have been manageable, but the real issue is that Motome, who came from World War II-era Japan in another world. Thanks to Motome, Hiffy's actions seem realistic even to me. Think about it. After helping with my proposed dungeon solution, it failed, and now I show up and say, ‘I brought you a new Dungeon Master, so obey him.' Do you really think she'd nod along with that?"
She wouldn't.
After all, Luna's credibility has already hit rock bottom.
"I don't particularly care about that either. In fact, I can't take either side."
"What?"
"In the end, Yuki's reforms aren't entirely bloodless either. That just happened to be more convenient for Yuki's approach, but it doesn't invalidate Hiffy's approach. My sole goal is to prevent the collapse of civilization based on mana and magic due to mana depletion. In the end, there's no guarantee that Yuki's approach won't twist in the distant future and cause massive bloodshed. Lessons without pain carry no weight... well, I won't go that far, but pain certainly aids memory. Hiffy's actions this time serve as a sufficient painful lesson for the empty-headed locals."
Right.
In the end, it's just a difference in approach.
In this situation, Luna couldn't take sides.
"To be completely honest, if Hiffy is still around doing something, Yuki's group is technically intruding on her domain. Strictly speaking, pulling back would be the correct move."
"But doesn't Hiffy bear some responsibility for never contacting us until now?"
"That's true. Hiffy is also at fault for not making contact. That's why I can't force Yuki and the others to back off either. Besides, the reason she didn't reach out was probably that she thought my plan was useless... Sigh, do you have stomach medicine?"
Even I felt like my stomach was starting to hurt just listening to all this... She must already have been suffering terribly from a stomachache herself.
Killue immediately prepared some stomach medicine, which Luna swallowed with her green tea.
...I vaguely remember hearing that taking medicine with green tea was supposedly bad, but before worrying about that, we'd have to consider the more fundamental question of whether stomach medicine even works on a god... Nevermind. Let's stop thinking about it. If she says she wants it, that's fine.
"Besides, Hiffy has already declared war, hasn't she? Even if I persuaded her, how would we settle the situation? As long as her country is attacked, Hiffy will fight with everything she's got."
"""......"""
Luna had a point.
Even if we persuaded her, the problem would be figuring out how to bring things to a settlement afterward.
...Well, it wasn't impossible.
Looking at Mino's report, along with what Zargis and the others gathered from investigating other areas, everything aligns perfectly.
But first, we had to figure out how to persuade Hiffy.
"...It seems you already have a prospect for settling the situation, don't you? As usual, your mind works fast in those areas."
"It's simply because I want to live a peaceful life. But even if I have a post-persuasion resolution plan, it won't mean anything unless we persuade Hiffy first, right? And even if we beat Hiffy into submission, the people of her country aren't going to accept that."
"Exactly~ That's the biggest issue. Beating Hiffy isn't the end of it. In the end, forcing things won't get us out of a state of war. You really need to talk to Hiffy and convince her. Well, it's not as though there's no possible solution..."
When Luna muttered that, my wives looked at her expectantly.
However, I already understood what Luna was getting at, so I had absolutely no expectations.
In fact, from other people's point of view, my eyes might look completely lifeless right now.
"You really are perceptive. I can't take either side. And given that, the only way to convince Hiffy right now is for you to prove through your own actions that your method surpasses Hiffy's. I'll serve as the witness."
"W-Wait a moment, Luna. The way you phrased that..."
Seraria looked at Luna in disbelief and tried to get her to explain exactly what she meant.
"Yes, exactly as you guessed, Seraria. Fight Hiffy and beat her.. I told you before that the timing was just moved up, didn't I? Even on Weed's continent, there's another country ruled by a god just like Hiffy. It's an extremely small nation, though. Of course, it's a nation that hasn't joined the Dungeon Trading Treaty. They don't recognize the dungeon approach either. Eventually, you would have collided with that nation anyway. Just think of it as facing a god a bit earlier than planned."
"T-That's absurd. We've certainly grown stronger under Yuki's guidance, but to that extent..."
"Derieu. If you can't even defeat a rebellious god, how do you expect to solve this world's mana depletion problem moving forward? Are you supposed to be a Demon Lord who spits at the heavens?"
"No, in my case, it was more of an unavoidable circumstance..."
"Humans were the ones who defeated this world's Intermediate god. And if you and Yuki can defeat Hiffy without any help from me this time, then even the half-assed gods who are dealing with the mana depletion problem on their own will be somewhat more willing to listen."
Sigh, as expected, that's how it turns out.
Well, when it came to dealing with the mana depletion problem, I was technically the newest successor.
There was no way the previous Dungeon Masters would simply be happy to see some newcomer like me doing better than them. After all, I was just some ordinary human brought here by their new boss, Luna. I had always figured that sooner or later, I would clash with them over something like this...
"I have high expectations for Yuki's group. I won't force you to fight, though. However, if you choose not to, you'll have to withdraw from the New Continent."
"But if we do that, what about my Jilva, Rhodei, August, and the rest...?"
"Well, given Hiffy's current momentum, none of the existing nations will remain."
At Luna's words, Jessica, Cleana, and Samantha—all natives of the New Continent—were stunned.
"Quit bullying my wives, you useless goddess. Nobody said we weren't going to fight."
"Hah. That's quite a statement from a coward who didn't immediately agree to defeat her."
So, next is a direct showdown with Hiffy, huh...
I wonder if there's any way to talk our way out of this...
