141. In the Divine Realm II

"So, this 【Remove Star】 skill—wasn’t it created by Lady Isanamia?" Shiro asked, staring directly at Isanamia.

"…Yes," Isanamia acknowledged.

“Eh! Really? Why’d you go and pick something so dangerous?” Firumia said.

"Ah, senior. You're not just getting forgetful from being swamped with work, are you? And you, Satias Master, too!" Isanamia said, her expression stern and serious.

“Huh? What… what does that even mean…” Firumia stammers, thrown off balance by Isanamia’s unusually serious expression—more so than usual.

"Wait? Me too?" Satias looked equally bewildered.

"Back in the early days of Filidia, when Master Satias and Senior Firumia had been arguing for ages—debating the strength of dragons... didn’t Firumia come up with something she said she’d pass to Satias? Satias, do you remember? She said, ‘Dragons are cool, so we need a powerful ultimate spell, don’t we?’ And then Firumia, she finally gave in, laughing, saying, ‘Yeah, okay, that might actually work, huh?’" — Isanamia.

Both Satias and Firumia stared, their expressions blank with sudden realization, then exclaimed in unison: "Ah!" "Oh!"

"Ah, that argument wasn't just a joke, was it?" Firumia said.

"Was I not serious?" said Satias.

"Well, anyway, the Remove Star skill was created back then. I never thought a dragon would go mad and start executing commands on the World Tree, you know? And even if it wasn't supposed to be usable in the first place—massive miasma required, practically impossible to activate. I mean, I did forget to set the initial limiter on the deletion range. That’s my fault," Isanamia said.

"Originally, you needed to specify targets for deletion, but due to Iberia’s mental state, it ended up affecting everything. Then, with the massive miasma outbreak, a ton of miasma-to-magic conversion viruses activated, flooding the system with enormous magic power—so the skill ended up working," Shiro concluded.

"Ah, one more thing, Lady Isanamia. The update procedure for the magic spirit’s spell formula—didn’t you commit it without testing?"

"Eh? Why bring that up?" Isanamia blinked, surprised.

"...Isanamia, you did it again?" Firumia said, tone dry.

"Well, the procedure’s a goddess-level concern, so it’s fine. The real issue is the code—it’s bugged. This case specifically is about the 'miasma spirit absorption problem' when two monsters kill each other, both infected with Virus H, resulting in mental corruption, and the defeated one enters a temporary death state," Shiro said.

"...How on earth did you even find that edge case?" Isanamia asked.

"...Huh. I guess you’re close enough to a god to design something like that," Firumia mused, impressed.

"Well, I’ve got confidence in debugging. You know, just—*boom*, it clicks," Shiro said, sounding oddly un-engineer-like. Or maybe just… properly engineer-like?

"Ah, just kidding. Truth is, the sheer volume of anomalies from Tractus Lance made sampling a nightmare. And since so many monsters felled by Tractus Lance were stuck impaled on its branches, we happened to find cases where both the lance and the monster were abnormal specimens—perfectly aligned, really."

One Tractus Lance launched a soil spell. Normally, Tractus Lance can't cast magic.

Shiro, puzzled, inspected the lance and spotted a monster impaled on its branch.

The monster was using soil magic.

"So I thought—what if abnormal magic users are picking up skills from other monsters? So I checked both magic spirits. And sure enough, a bug popped up. When transferring experience from one monster to another, normally you can't transfer if the target's in a temporary death state. But with Virus H's status effect 'temporary death,' the system *does* allow the transfer. The code even preserved Isanamia-sama's unique spell array conventions—completely untouched."

"Hah, you said yourself, 'test your code before registering it,' so seriously..." Firumia sighed, exasperated.

"...Sorry, senior. But this case felt like an exception to the exception..." Isanamia gave a look that said, what am I supposed to do about this?

“Honestly, that’s only half the problem. Firumia, there’s no exception handling described for scenarios like ‘mental contamination detected—subject entered temporary death state.’ As a result, unexpected prototype overwrites occur, and acquired skills fail to appear in鉴定. You could call it a bug during temporary multi-soul entity connection.”

Shiro explained.

“…You really dug into that, didn’t you?” Firumia said, half-amused, half-shocked.

“Haha. That’s my specialty,” Shiro said, grinning with genuine pride. Then he continued.

“Well, in the end, the root cause of this whole mess was an unfortunate legacy from the past, an accident by chance, and a few bugs. The gods are to blame for how big it got—but even gods can’t control everything, can they?”

Shiro concluded.

“…That’s true.” “…Yeah.” “Truly, Shiro-kun!” Three different reactions, one sentiment.

“Ah! Incidentally, the vaccine for Virus Type H looks promising. And for Types M and C—by combining them with petrification virus, we’ve developed a new mushroom strain capable of mass mineral production. This could revolutionize magical tool development. So, all in all—great outcome!”

Shiro said.

“Haha, Shiro, you’re something else. The ability to design a world system that even outshines the gods isn’t just a title. And you can play detective too? Not bad. And finally, you tie it all together neatly,” said the cosmic deity Unitya, laughing.

“Now, as for me—Shiro, a reward. I’ve been curious about the cutting-edge world of Filidia for ages, keeping an eye on it all along. A problem even gods couldn’t solve? You’ve fixed it. The reward’s no small thing!” said Unitya.

“Shiro, I’m granting you the status of apprentice deity. Apprentice World Administrator, to be precise. And as a fourth-generation sub-architect, you’ll assist in the joint development with these three deities. Oh, and just so you know—once you complete your apprenticeship, you’ll one day have your own world,” said Unitya.

And then, continuing:

— Mitoka: Humanization magic. Body is an old divine-human form crafted by Firumia, reconfigured to resemble Mitoka. Now capable of using organic bodies too, and able to mix all methods freely. Your designated support angel.

— Shestia: Title of Firumia’s apostle, Shiro’s guardian.

— Kotone: Title of Isanamia’s apostle, Shiro’s guardian.

“Lastly, I’ll grant you permission to synchronize and travel between Filidia and Earth. Enjoy both worlds thoroughly,” concluded Unitya.

“Wait, seriously? It feels like an absurd reward or something…”

“…Senior, are you becoming a god?” Kotone asked, dazed.

“Just as I expected—my Shiro, amazing,” Shestia said, beaming.

“…Why is it only me getting more bodies? I don’t even know why this keeps happening,” Mitoka muttered, smiling despite herself.

“But being able to move between Filidia and Earth? That’s priceless. I’ve made so many friends, and I’ve grown fond of the Filidia world too. There are still plenty of places I haven’t seen,” said Shiro, truly delighted.

"I'll handle the travel arrangements with Isanmia. Once everything's ready, I'll come pick you up. And as for the apprentice priestess—three of us will be guiding her. To have you, the Architecht, involved in both design and implementation? That's more than I could've hoped for!" Firumia said, beaming.

"Shiro, take care!" Isanmia chimed.

"Ah, well, finally—hello there, young one? I'm Satias," Satias offered a handshake.

"Uh, right—Shiro. Nice to meet you," Shiro replied, returning the gesture.

"Then it's settled," Unitya said. "Until next time." With that, everyone vanished back to their original location via teleportation.

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