novelA Moment Before the Storm
| ← Ch.43 | Ch.45 → |
The next day, the regrettable Heavenly King became a new victim, and the odd lull in dungeon capturing continued. Of course the normal customers were constantly coming, but special challengers like the Heroes or the Four Heavenly Kings weren't coming. As expected, the difficulty level of this dungeon was apparently too high for normal adventurers, because not a single person made it to the 10th floor.
To begin with, the very first condition of challenging this dungeon is having some way to deal with the miasma, so from that point alone the number of challengers was limited. Apparently dealing with this dungeon's level of miasma is difficult unless you're a fairly experienced cleric.
Although, I can't imagine that the Light God and Dark God will stay quiet like this, so it would probably be better to consider this the calm before the storm.
And since I had some time to relax and calm down... I noticed the problem:
*imouto*
*imouto*
Why on earth am I even having this match?
I had wanted to avoid having all of the Administrator work pushed onto me, but the moment that we agreed that balance was needed, it wouldn't have really been a problem if I had a little bit more work than the others. No, rather, once you consider this country, having more influence would be better, so you could even say it would have benefited me to have a bit more.
But instead, I went too far with reflexively pushing back onto Sophia and Anbaal, and everything got confusing. Thinking about it now, it was just needless effort.
But still, I really would hate having everything pushed onto me, and still want to win if possible. Thinking about it, I might have quite a large side of me that hates losing. At the very least, I still have no intention of giving up my win.
Only, since things have finally calmed down, I decided to deal with a number of things that I'd been neglecting.
*imouto*
First of all, what I wanted to do before anything, was change my clothes.
Even though I finally escaped from the equipment curse, I was told by Leonora that as the symbol of a religion, I shouldn't change my clothing too much. Because of that I've continued to wear the same clothing.
But considering how different Sophia's real clothing is compared to her statue, I started to think that it wouldn't really matter even if I changed, so today I decided to change my clothes.
And while I was at it, since I wasn't using my tantou either, I left it aside and decided to keep something less crazy with me for self-defence.
...I only realised afterwards that after an hour, it would transform from the blessing anyway.
After it was bestowed my divine protection, the clothing changed into a jet black shoulderless dress with black rose decorations; a design that was a little bold and adventurous for me. I had wanted to wear something other than black once in a while, but after the divine protection, it just changed to pitch black again. I'm pretty sure that my clothes would change to black no matter what the original colour was, so I had no choice but to reluctantly give in.
For self-defence, I had chosen a fan to replace the tantou.
"Status."
Name: Anri
Race: Divine Race
Sex: Female
Age: 18
Job: Administrator
Level: 1
Title: Evil God of Fearful Trembling, Dungeon Master, Third Administrator
Mana: 42039845
Skills:
- Evil God Aura (Lv. 5)
- Mystic Eyes of Wicked Authority (Lv. 5)
- Divine Enchantment (Lv. 7)
- Abnormal Status Resistance (Lv. 9)
- Darkness Magic (Lv. 9)
- Item Box (Lv. 9)
- Dungeon Create (Lv. 7)
- Administrator (Lv. 5)
Equipment:
- Fan of Calamity
- Dress of the Black Death Rose
- Babydoll of Depravity
- Scanties of the Succubus
- Pumps of Darkness
Miko:
- Tena
Mn, it properly changed....Mn?
It's been a while since I last looked at my status, but I get the feeling that the mana points have gone up quite a bit. Could it be that a god's mana points rise and fall with their faith? I can't think of anything else that might have caused my mana points to rise, so it's hard to think of it as being anything else.
I'm not going to care about the names of the fan and dress anymore, so I'll leave that alone.
*imouto*
"It matches you, Anri-sama."
"Fumu, not bad."
"It suits you, Anri."
"Anri-sama, so pretty."
Since I finally got to change, I went and showed everyone, and all of the girls gave me a positive reply.
"───────Heh."
As expected, Anbaal looked a certain part, and snorted in ridicule.
I expected as much from him, so I'm not really that angry.
"Oohh, how splendid. We must let the world see your esteemed form. Right, since this is a wonderful occasion, let us construct a statue of you the height of the temple!"
Please don't.
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The second thing that I had wanted to do was change the settings for my 『Authorities』.
Sophia and Anbaal told me before that if I set my 『Authority』 of "fear" correctly, then I could gain faith even if the fear wasn't directed at myself. I'd been busy with various things and never got the chance to try it, but it is something important linked to the fullness of my stomach, so I want to collect faith from as many avenues as possible.
"Administration."
When I activated the skill, the same menu as last time appeared.
Menu: Authority Activation
M*nu: Intelligence Perusal
M*nu: Divine Enchantment
M*nu: Divine Revelation
Thinking "Authority Activation" in my mind, another window appeared.
Main: Fear
Sub: Undefined
Free
In the 『Main Authority』 column it had "Fear", and since I didn't have a 『Sub-Authority』 yet, it was undefined. Since there are a lot of 『Free Authorities』, that's probably why they didn't show it here.
I chose the "Fear" under 『Main Authority』, and the display changed.
Faith Collection: Inactive
Emotion Adjustment
Apparently there were only two things I could do with the "fear" Authority. Speaking of which, I do get the feeling that Sophia mentioned how emotion-type Authorities couldn't do much.
Going by the name "Emotion Adjustment", I suppose I can increase or decrease the "fear" emotion. That's fine in and of itself, but the problem is the range of targets.
If you consider Administrators as the administrators of "the world", then if I stupidly tamper with it there's the chance that I'll mess with the emotions of every living being in the world. Just one mistake could turn the world into a dystopian hell of terror where everyone is controlled by their emotions, so I decided not to mess with it.
Right now the important one is "Faith Collection". Since it's inactive right now, that's probably why I've only been getting the faith from the fear directed at myself.
I changed the status of the Faith Collection.
"...?"
I had expected that I would immediately feel full after changing it, but there was basically no change at all. No, I mean, it does feel like it increased a tiny bit, so I can't imagine that it was a failure. What's going on? Even though I was supposed to be able to collect faith from all the fear in the world, why is there so little cha-... Wai-, it can't be.
No, no, that can't be.
I'm sure there's some mistake.
It can't be that "to begin with, almost all the fear in the world was directed at me" right? That can't be. If it was, then I'm confident that I would feel more depressed than ever since coming to this world.
*imouto*
Well, although I said 'since coming to this world', thinking about it again, I haven't ever been depressed since being tossed into this place. If I had to find something, then basically just the time with Vnee.
Normally you'd want to go home after being forcefully sent to another world, but strangely I never felt homesick. Thinking about it, even before I became a divine, I get the feeling that I almost completely stopped thinking about my old world──
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For some reason thinking about it made my head hurt, so I changed gears, and dealt with the third thing that I had wanted to do.
Number three was dealing with the two gods that had continued to stay in my temple; Sophia and Anbaal. Although I say 'dealing with', I had given up on driving them out on the very first day, and I can't imagine they'd be admirable enough to pay rent either. To begin with, they probably don't even have money. So instead, I decided to make them useful some other way.
The most valuable thing they have is their influence. Because the Light God had revealed to the public the existence of the Dark God, as well as the fact that the Evil God was a completely different being, the headquarters of the Church of Sacred Light, the Luxiria Theocracy, suffered a major blow. What's more, the Origin Faction that originated in the Kingdom of Fortera began to spread through the neighbouring countries as a result. Also, even if Sophia is interested in the prosperity of humanity as a whole, she isn't interested in the disputes within the religious factions, so apparently she wasn't thinking of intervening.
As for how to use their influence in the best way for this country, it would probably be the mediator between the other countries. Even if it's obviously impossible with the Luxiria Theocracy, if it's the Kingdom of Fortera who declared neutrality, even having diplomatic relations would be possible. For the demon side, right now we aren't hostile to each other, and since there's a link thanks to Leonora as well, if the Dark God certified it, then the possibility of dealing with each other normally is high.
"And so, mediate for us."
"I am fine with that, but..."
"So troublesome."
It seemed like Sophia would cooperate, but Anbaal made an unwilling expression. But apparently he just found it plain troublesome, and wasn't against the idea of mediating itself.
"It's the hotel fee for staying here."
"Tsk, aight, aight. I'll tell em."
Alright. Diplomacy GET. At least, that's the plan.
The Human Race and Demon Race are enemies so they can't deal with each other directly, but they might be able to trade through us. There are probably lots of things that you can only get in either territory, and as long as there isn't any hostility, there would probably be merchants who would want to trade too.
We'll probably get a great profit margin as the middleman too.
"Speaking of which, there's something I'd like to ask you, Sophia."
"Ask me? What is it?"
"Would it be possible for you to get rid of Lili's slave status?"
I had thought that perhaps I could get rid of it myself once I had the right 『Authority』, but then I realised that Sophia could do it immediately.
"Release her from her status? As I have the 『Authority』 for the 『Human Race』, it is possible."
"If possible, I'd like you to remove it."
"I see... I understand. Very well. The master does not seem to be anywhere in sight, so this should not trouble anyone, and I like her as well, so I shall do so afterwards."
That's great. I think one of my problems has been solved.
"Yanno, you said that your believers think that you ate this brat, yeah? If they think she's dead, then the master ain't gunna complain. But still..."
"What?"
Anbaal looked my way with a meaningful expression.
"Nah, I was just thinkin' that considering you're a man-eating god to them, it's surprising that your followers haven't run away."
"..."
I can't deny it. Normally people would be scared about being put in the same cage as a man-eating tiger.
But well, the only one who speaks to me directly is the Pope, so maybe the other followers don't really feel a sense of reality about me, so they don't feel the danger.
As for the Merry Pope, far from being scared, I get the feeling that he's say "It would be the acme of honour to be eaten by you, Anri-sama! Please go ahead, and enjoy me from wherever you please!" or something.
I'm not going to eat him, okay.
| ← Ch. 43 | Ch. 45 → |