By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 6 - Chapter 28

Chapter 4 Episode 28: A Promise At Church

I was called to the divine realm at the church as per usual, where I drank with Gain, Kufo, and Tekun as we discussed recent events.

“You were on the way back from a monster aptitude exam, you say?” Gain asked.

“Yeah, and when I stopped by my store, I found out that someone had come by to sell a stone slime. Not only that, but I heard that something weird was going on with the church’s pet slime, so I came to see it, and it turned out that it evolved into a weed slime. It was a lucky day for me.”

“Those both use camouflage, so they’re pretty hard to find. Not bad,” Kufo said.

“But Ryoma, wasn’t that weed slime a pet for those kids? Did they cry to you about it?” Tekun asked.

“It all worked out somehow. Some of the kids were disappointed, but the weed slime also seemed to have the power to make weeds grow all around it, and it was covering the church garden with weeds. I appraised it and learned that its Split skill was Lv.8, so it would multiply insanely fast. I convinced the nuns to let me take it off their hands, promising to take good care of it, of course.”

“Yeah? Glad there’s not too many hurt feelings over it. Time for another drink, you’re just about out,” Tekun said with a hearty laugh, then pulled a bottle from out of nowhere and poured it. I frantically caught it in my glass and gulped it all down at once. It had a mellow grape flavor. “Anyway, seems like you’ve gotten pretty used to being called to the divine realm.”

“It happens every time you pray at church, after all,” said Kufo.

“You must have met some more gods in the process too,” said Gain.

“You, Kufo, Lulutia, Tekun, and Fernobelia are the only ones I’ve met.”

“What, you haven’t even met half of us?” Tekun asked.

“I know Manoailoa’s name just from the basic knowledge I was given, at least. I haven’t actually met them, though. What is Manoailoa like?”

“That’s not an easy question to answer,” Kufo said.

“You don’t have to answer if it’s too much trouble.”

“No, I wouldn’t say that, but I haven’t seen Manoailoa in years.”

“Same here,” said Tekun.

“Nor have I,” said Gain.

“What?! I assumed all the gods met with each other.”

“Manoailoa tends to wander around a lot. Not outside of the divine realm, but I couldn’t tell you what he’s up to right now.”

“Manoailoa is the god of the arts, and he presents himself in many ways,” said Kufo. “Sometimes he dresses perfectly normally, and sometimes he looks entirely bizarre. He gets bored easily, too. Manoailoa is a weird god.”

“Reminds me of way back when Manoailoa started walking around naked, saying that’s what natural beauty is,” said Tekun.

“Oh, I remember that! Wouldn’t even wear a loincloth. Lulutia and Kiriluel weren’t happy about that.”

Gods were quite a diverse bunch, from the sound of it.

“Where’s Lulutia, by the way?”

“She wanted to have a girls’ day out with just the goddesses, something like that.”

“She got the idea from Earth, apparently,” said Tekun. “I don’t see the point myself.”

“She was bemoaning how few goddesses came,” said Gain. “She should be spending time with a nice and caring goddess right now.”

“Do you mind if I change the subject a bit? There’s something I want to ask you and Kufo.”

“Of course,” said Gain.

“Did something happen?” said Kufo.

“I mentioned how I took the monster aptitude exam before I came here, right? I learned that I’m compatible with monsters that form groups. You’re the ones who gave me my taming knowledge and abilities, so maybe you can explain this. I can also make contracts with an abnormal number of slimes. Is there a reason for that?”

Gain and Kufo thought about it. “We didn’t make your abilities that way on purpose, but I suppose it has something to do with us,” said Gain.

“We decided to give you the ability to use taming magic, but we never had any specifics in mind when it came to what monsters you can make contracts with,” said Kufo. “So we didn’t do anything with your monster aptitude. We just left that to you, I’m pretty sure.”

“So my monster aptitude is just something that was inherent to me from the start?”

“I don’t know, maybe it’s more just something you desired.”

“We gave you abilities that you wanted, that much is true,” said Gain. “Presumably your desires should be reflected in your skill set. That may have had an effect on some things. It’s also why you’re so compatible with slimes, I think.”

“So if I had wanted to make contracts with dragons, would I have higher compatibility with them?”

“If you really wanted to, yes. If it was just a passing fancy, that’s not enough.”

“I guess I wanted slimes, then. That sort of makes sense.”

“Well, your powers were granted to you upon arriving in the Forest of Gana, so that would be when your monster aptitude was determined. If you researched and took an interest in other monsters later, that wouldn’t change your aptitude. Nor are we going to change such things.”

“And if anything were going to change, I doubt it’d be your aptitude for social monsters. Your focus on slimes would be more likely to change than that, probably because of your environment in your past life,” Kufo said.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s hard to explain, but I mean, you lived a pretty lonely life on Earth, right? You were part of a company, so you had coworkers and subordinates, but I feel like you weren’t that close with many people.”

“Well, that’s true.”

“You didn’t go out of your way to join groups, and you were okay on your own, but it’s not like you were uninterested in joining any group. Those desires can sometimes be unconscious, and that may have affected your monster aptitude.”

“Oh, I get it. Wait, that’s depressing!”

It made sense, but hearing it from someone else kind of hurt. Especially coming from a god, about as accurate a source as I could ask for.

“That’s life, kid,” Tekun said with a chuckle. He offered me another drink, which I guzzled down all at once. “Sure it’s depressing, but it means you can make contracts with all kinds of monsters, and huge numbers of them too. Look at the bright side.”

“Fair enough. I can’t say I’m disappointed.” I wasn’t entirely satisfied either, but I couldn’t complain about my monster aptitude. I wanted to change the subject, though. “I heard that Reinbach Jamil has a contract with a divine beast, but what are divine beasts, anyway? From what I was told, they’re monsters that were blessed by the gods and given the duty of protecting some territory, or something.”

“That’s accurate,” Kufo said. “Rifall actually has a human with a contract with one, so it makes sense that they’d know about that.”

“Are the lands they protect important to the gods?”

“Yes, but they are also important to the world and its denizens,” Gain said. “The divine beasts’ turf is also referred to as holy lands. They’re needed for the production of magical energy in this world.”

“Very interesting. Do you mind telling me more about holy lands?”

“I’d be happy to. They have something to do with why you came to this world, actually.”

“They’re something you ought to know about, really,” Kufo said. “You’ll be dealing with them more in the future.”

“I will?”

“Oh, I guess we should explain more about what they are first. Nothing too complicated.” As he tried to think through what he wanted to say, Kufo began to slowly explain. “First off, this world has magical energy. It’s used by both humans and monsters. You already know that much, right?”

“And more is consumed than produced, so you’ve been transferring magical energy from Earth, right? That’s also the reason I came to this world.”

“Correct. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough supply to meet the demand, but our world is still trying to produce as much magical energy as it can. And specifically, magical energy is generated by the natural environment. Plants, rocks, rivers, and valleys all have a lot to do with the production of magical energy. It can happen in ordinary forests, and it even happens to some extent in human cities. But it’s more efficient in places with more nature, so the amount of energy coming out of cities is pretty minor.”

“Magical energy is generated from all places in this world,” Gain continued. “Holy lands produce an especially large quantity, and they’re quite efficient at it. To be a holy land, it must be a place that hasn’t been tampered with by humans, it must be above a certain size, and it must be full of nature.”

“So if humans come upon a holy land, or monsters that aren’t supposed to be there, they can cause trouble. To prevent that, we have had special monsters protect those lands since ancient times.”

That made sense, and I was starting to see how I fit into this. I was about to go to a place full of nature that was hard for humans to tamper with.

“Is the Sea of Trees of Syrus a holy land?”

“The very center of it, yeah. The magical energy from that holy land fills the Sea of Trees with valuable herbs and ore. There’s no divine beast there, though.”

“So not every holy land has a divine beast? Is this one unsafe, then?”

“Humans don’t go anywhere near it, so it’s fine. Just because there’s no divine beast doesn’t mean the place is unprotected. Fernobelia has that taken care of.”

“You sound pretty confident, considering you’re not even protecting it yourself.”

“Well, Fernobelia’s in charge of the Sea of Trees of Syrus. I told him I could put a divine beast there, but he said that would be too easy. He just uses decently powerful monsters and the environment itself to protect the place. What do you think about that?”

“This seems pretty important, but it sounds like he’s looking at it like doing a challenge run on a game.”

“Okay, I know what a game is, but what’s a challenge run?”

“Like, deliberately refusing to use certain tools or placing other limitations on yourself, then trying to win a game like that.”

“Oh, yeah! That’s exactly what it’s like!”

“You agree?!”

“I wouldn’t really say he’s just screwing around, but Fernobelia likes to do things the hard way. He always says that he specializes in highly detailed work, and he thinks the way I handle my holy lands is sloppy.”

It sounded like Kufo had gotten into arguments with Fernobelia about this before. He went on complaining about this until it was time for me to leave. But I learned something about the Sea of Trees of Syrus, so it all worked out.