Chapter 338

I supported Ruben, who had turned as pale as a sheet of white paper, and carefully sat him down.

The group could no longer laugh. Right, seeing as this supposed god looked exceedingly gigantic and great, and was even docile, we mistakenly thought all problems would be solved now. That was not the case. We just… merely came to know.

Knowing that the one who captured them was not some Duke’s son or a few black mages pessimistic about the world, but the doing of some crazy god, made us feel suddenly at a loss.

Did he feel pity for the greatly startled humans?

The god, who was about to leave immediately, stopped and sat back down. Sitting unceremoniously on the floor like us, he swept and bothered the weeds on the floor with his fingertips. To him, do these weeds and we look the same? While I was just blankly looking at him with such a thought, the god, who was quietly observing us, suddenly opened his mouth.

“There was a time when I too initially took care of and cherished humans one by one. After all, they communicate well, they try hard to think, they cry and laugh and do a lot of cute things. I couldn’t help but like them.”

Snap.

A weed, pulled out by the roots, was thrown in front of me.

“But now, honestly, there are too many of you.”

Because it was pulled out insincerely, several roots of the weed were severed. It still has green leaves, but if left like this, it will soon wither and die. I had never meticulously considered the life of a single blade of grass like this. All this time, throughout…

“Imagine if you are raising a rabbit. If it’s one rabbit, you give it a pretty name, sit it on your lap and feed it carrots, and you live carrying it around fussing over whether its fur is glossy today or not.”

“…”

“What if there are seven rabbits? Then well, should I call them Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday? Still, you would remember their names. Sometimes you might get confused whether the guy with brown fur was Wednesday or Thursday, but well, you’d at least know there are seven.”

Ah. Someone sighed. A gasp, the sound of someone blocking their mouth was heard almost simultaneously.

The god continued his words unconcerned.

“But what if there are a billion rabbits. Now I don’t even know what is born and what dies. Are there only rabbits? I raise rabbits, raise chickens, and what else, there are goats too… Anyway, that’s how it is. What can I do? I just think, ‘I guess they’re living well,’ fill up their hay, and make sure their water doesn’t run out.”

The god still had a smiling face. Is it us that those eyes are directly looking at?

What color would our souls that he is looking into be.

“Honestly, I can understand the eldest sister and the youngest cherishing humans the most. First of all, from the first human, second human, third… up to about the hundred and seventieth, those two poured their devotion into them like crazy. So, I think they must cherish even the offspring of the offspring of those bastards.”

“…”

“And I like humans too. But I… don’t want to pour my effort into things that won’t work out like those two. I just want to take good care of one pretty one I like, and if it splits and bursts, I want to hold onto it with my power and live carrying it around for three hundred, four hundred years. Like this.”

When did he bring him over? No, take him.

The god, who had Nadish Haishan sitting on his left thigh, pressed down on his shoulder firmly with his chin. Instead of resisting, Nadish deeply covered his eyes with one hand and let out a heavy sigh.

The god whined in a childish tone.

“Loving humans while leaving them as humans is really something I can’t do.”

“…”

Anew, Nadish Haishan looked unfamiliar.

I have checked his pulse before. I remember the strangely spread corrupted Mana throughout his entire body, yet taking a non-threatening form. And I also recalled his figure going in and out to get rained on, with his fingertips hardening blackly.

Nadish Haishan said he didn’t know how old he was.

Three hundred years, four hundred years.

…Is he even human? Was he ever human? Then what is he now?

The spirits that occasionally burst into laughter also closed their mouths now. It was quiet without a single breeze.

The god continued speaking.

“I can’t snatch away what the youngest gathered little by little while crying and sniveling to return it to you guys. That’s a bit… hard for me too. I can’t do it. It’s not my domain either.”

“…What is this… domain?”

Truly remarkable. Facing such a being and asking necessary questions without fail, Ruben’s voice pierced the black night. The question Ruben spat out as if squeezing it out trembled at the end, but the answer that returned was only refreshing.

“I am the god of the Oasis, right? Humans who earnestly believe in me are mostly nomads. Since you guys are from Cieron, it’s a good excuse to ask my sister instead of me. The First Goddess, the god who protects you.”

“But didn’t you say she is currently north of the Unique Mountain Range?”

“Right? But well, will she live there forever? She’ll return someday.”

He is a god who created this world. He was talking about the very beginning of origins. At the hands of a god who considers our eternity a fleeting moment, hundreds, thousands more people might die. And that too, merely… as sacrifices to steal, for a fleeting and vain reason.

What use is it to resent a god who dutifully returns answers in his own way.

My life was always about conforming. What I could and couldn’t do was determined from birth. From some point in my past life, I always lived like that.

However, Ruber pondered seriously. The child’s black eyes flashed and shone.

With a much firmer voice, the child asked again.

“…Is there no way for humans to save humans, a way to save those who were captured?”

The god of the Oasis adjusted his posture and looked straight at Ruben.

I couldn’t fathom at all what meaning the expression permeating that smooth face held.

*****

From way across the distant desert, dawn was slowly breaking.

Saying it would still be better to rest a bit, the mercenaries laid out a spot next to the Oasis. After picking out the stones on the firm ground, they set up the tents. They hung a pot over firewood and lit a fire. While the smell of boiling stew warmed the surroundings, several spirits who didn’t follow the god peeked around and played pranks.

The stars were so numerous that even in the whitely brightening dawn, the star clusters densely embroidered in the sky twinkled ceaselessly. I sat next to Ruben, who had been sighing deeply since earlier, and swept the small of his back. Every time the child let out a sigh, my heart sank, but I couldn’t show it.

“Aaaah!”

Marianne, who was lying flat on the bare ground glaring at the sky, shouted loudly and suddenly sat up. When everyone looked at her startled, Marianne, panting, plopped back down on the ground again. Benjamin came dragging a blanket flusteredly, but couldn’t cover Marianne with it.

Right, now is not really the time to cover her with a blanket telling her to sleep well.

It seems that guy has gained some tact in the meantime too. Benjamin, who hesitated for a moment, examined my expression once, looked at the still sullen Ruben once, and said in a loud voice as if meant to be heard.

“…Still, it’s a relief our clothes didn’t get wet.”

“Mm?”

“Didn’t Nadish Haishan say something like that. That we could suffer a prank of getting doused in water.”

“…Ah.”

It was an unfunny joke.

Hugh Benson, who walked trudgingly from over there wiping his wet face, replied as if picking a fight.

“Instead, we got completely covered in sand.”

How many times he must have washed his face, he was entirely wet down to his shoulders. Marianne raised her staff to cast magic towards Hugh Benson, but when Hugh shook his head refusing, she left it alone.

We asked the god many things. The god answered everything he knew without hiding anything. The problem lay in the fact that he didn’t know very much.

He could rattle off about the structure of primal magic and the sequence of world creation, but he knew absolutely nothing about human affairs. He said after humans formed forces and prospered, there were so many of them that he didn’t bother to look into them.

When we asked if he perhaps knew the identity of Wesley Kiadris, every time I recalled the god’s voice saying, ‘Who is that?’, a sigh escaped me.

Marianne firmly pushed her staff back into her belt as it originally was and opened her mouth again.

“Are we going to look for them? The divine relics.”

“Why are you asking me that?”

“You’re the captain right now, Senior. You also said things like we should meet other gods too.”

“Finding gods is, fuck, I could at least try dreaming about it. By what means can we find divine relics?”

The methods the god of the Oasis informed us of were three.

Find and plead to the First Goddess, get help from two or more other gods, or gather all six divine relics scattered across this land. He explained that if we do one of the three, we would be able to briefly ‘put the ninth god to sleep’ and sneak out the kidnapped people.

The First Goddess is currently in the Demonic Realm beyond the Unique Mountain Range.

The Mana in the Demonic Realm is thick and noisy, so the prayers of weak humans wouldn’t easily reach her, he said. Still, if we happen to meet the Goddess, he said he would at least pass on the message that humans are looking for her for such and such reasons, so we said fine. However, we didn’t know if we would have to wait decades or hundreds of years.

When saying ‘I can’t do it so find other gods,’ these words followed. ‘Anyway, if there’s a guy who feels more sorry for humans than I do, they might help? But even I don’t know where they are right now.’

The First Goddess and the god of the Oasis tend to cherish and feel sorry for the ninth god a lot, but the other four gods are different, or whatever. But anyway, he acted like it was someone else’s business, saying he had nothing to do with the other gods.

Looking straight at Ruber, the god said, ‘Just comfortably gather the divine relics. [Read on RanaTranslations🌸] Still, divine relics belong to humans, right? If you gather all of those, you can gather about a demigod’s worth of Mana, so even if you can’t kill a god, you can put him to sleep.’

However, gathering six divine relics, he says.

It’s easy to say, but a divine relic was the most important treasure of each kingdom. [Read on RanaTranslations🌸] The god of the Oasis didn’t even know the locations of the divine relics. The words followed that only the First Goddess or the God of Records would know.

Benjamin, who was pondering, said something carefree.

“Still, isn’t it a relief we have the Prince?”

“What’s a relief?”

“Because they say only one inheriting divine blood can distinguish whether a divine relic is genuine or fake.”

“We can’t even get close, close to them. We need to have something first to see it or not.”

Answering in a distressed voice, Hugh Benson buried his face in his two hands once again.

That was right.

No matter if Ruben was the Prince of the Cieron Empire, he couldn’t barge into another kingdom and throw a tantrum demanding them to hand over a treasure he didn’t even know. Furthermore, it hadn’t even been revealed what form a divine relic took, so we couldn’t even steal them.

Marianne, who was watching that sight, tightly grabbed her hair with both hands, pulled it down, and let out a groaning sound. Even Ruben, who rarely showed a weak side in front of others, leaned his head against my embrace with a thud and groaned.

What should we do about this? Embracing and soothing the child in my arms, I too only let out sighs.