第３１２堀：駄目神、説明しろ (Part2)
"Bingo. Just like Yuki, I came to this world as a successor."
"!?!"
My wives were incredibly shocked, but the very fact that there are 'lower' and 'higher' tiers implies a hierarchical society. It seems even beings called gods are bound by such red tape.
"Let me explain simply. I’m the original overseer of Aulito. In other words, the intermediate-level god who was supposed to manage the other gods was struck down by humans, so I had to bring this place under my direct jurisdiction."
"...Humans struck down a god?"
Rurua wore an expression of utter disbelief. In Aulito’s current level of civilization, for a human to kill a god would be considered not just insolent, but high treason. Though, on Earth, it’s a dime a dozen. Actually, in modern Japan, 'god-slaying' is a pretty common trope.
"To you, Rurua, it might sound like an act of blasphemy, but it happens often enough. In terms of strength, they’re only around level 1000, after all. As I mentioned earlier, lower-level gods aim to stabilize the world by elevating locals—the people of Aulito—into gods. So, deep down, they’re still human. Well, they live so long that their perspective drifts away from humanity. That’s why people like me and Lilishe live among humans—to keep our perspectives grounded."
She nonchalantly slipped in a justification for her own lazy lifestyle. When she noticed me narrowing my eyes at her, she immediately looked away. She definitely added that part on purpose.
"Even with the title of 'higher-level,' I was human once, too. Anyway, the history of where gods originated is a massive headache, so I’ll skip it. The intermediate god at the time was struck down because they were likely meddling in strange ways. They probably forgot they were once human and started doing all sorts of things. So, getting struck down was their own fault. I have no intention of holding the people of Aulito accountable for that incident."
"Phew..."
My wives let out a collective sigh of relief. Even Zargis and Narjia seemed to be breathing easier.
"Yuki, do you see? This is how those who actually respect me behave. And yet, you don't even bother to let out a sigh or show a shred of relief."
"Shut up. I never had any respect for you to begin with. Just hurry up and finish the story."
"Well, it’s precisely because you have that kind of guts that it was worth dragging you over from another world. You wives know that better than anyone, don't you?"
My wives nodded in unison.
"Anyway, I’ve digressed. As a result, the intermediate god and their cronies were taken out by those humans, but not all the gods were killed. The ones who remained are the likes of Hifie and Lilishe. There are others, of course. When I took over jurisdiction here, there was quite a bit of pushback. You understand, right, Yuki? It’s like a branch office suddenly being turned into a direct-managed store by headquarters—all sorts of friction arises."
That makes sense. Every branch has its own way of doing things that suits the local environment. Headquarters intervening is bound to cause problems.
"Thanks to that, I’ve been swamped with personnel issues. Anyone I didn't like, I stripped of their divinity, turned them back into humans, executed them, or dumped them on gods I know. I kept the ones who were willing to listen to me and tasked them with handling the magic power depletion I’d learned about. Hifie and Lilishe fall into that latter category. They listened. Or rather, they supported me and accepted the task willingly. But most of them couldn't handle the depletion and simply vanished. Gods are essentially lumps of high-density magic, you see. Normally, faith keeps them from fading, but with the magic depletion occurring, a little bit of faith wasn't enough to sustain them. So, I moved to my second plan: installing dungeons as magic circulation devices."
Yeah. The more I hear about this, the more my stomach hurts. Especially the personnel management part. Being suddenly put in charge and having to fire people who don't fit in—that is absolutely not a job I would ever want to do.