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By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 9 - Chapter 26




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Chapter 6 Episode 26: Interlude — Trial of the Gods and Serelipta’s True Intentions

Some time after Ryoma’s departure from the village of Sikum, nine gods were congregating in the divine realm. Eight of them sat in a circle, while Serelipta, the odd one out, was sat on a stone seat, confined to it by luminous chains.

“Look, I’m not gonna try and take a powder when I’m surrounded here. Just get me out of these chains, would you? Plus, this seat’s beyond uncomfortable...”

“Well, suck it up! Do you even understand what you’ve done?!”

“Okay, so I broke a rule or two. But isn’t this overkill? We may be two members short, but it’s not like eight of you are going to let me slip away anyway.”

“He’s got a point,” Kiriluel, the goddess of war, remarked.

“Still no excuse to loosen his chains,” Fernobelia, the god of magic and scholarship, countered.

“Are Meltrise and Manolaioa here yet?”

“Hm... I did call for them, but it looks like they’re not coming.”

“Manolaioa can be pretty moody...”

“Not only that, is Meltrise ever not asleep?”

“Well, no point in waffling any further. Let’s get this over with,” Tekun declared.

Gain, the creator, looked from god to god. “It would have been ideal to have everyone present, but we shall begin regardless. We are here, as you are all aware, to deliver a sentence upon Serelipta, who has touched Ryoma’s soul. Wilieris and Grimp have caught him, and Serelipta himself has admitted to doing so. Do I have the details straight?”

“Yes.”

“Of course.”

“That’s right! I admit it, I did it!”

“Good. I must remind you all that interfering with a mortal soul is strictly forbidden. Serelipta will face appropriate measures, but there is room for debate regarding the severity of his punishment. Does anyone have any suggestions? Or words to say in Serelipta’s defense?”

Kiriluel immediately spoke up. “Well, personally, I think we ought to hear him out first. It’s already bizarre enough that Serelipta took the initiative and willingly interacted with a mortal. Surely he must have had a reason.”

“Well? What do you have to say for yourself?” Gain pushed the conversation in its logical direction.

With all eyes fixed on him, Serelipta rolled his eyes at Kiriluel. “Sheesh, I gotta have a reason for everything? You’ve all met Ryoma before. Call it curiosity on my part. I touched his soul to take a peek into him; there was talk of something being off about it. I’m not the type to get curious about travelers from the other world, but what about Fernobelia, then? Is that really so hard to believe?”

“I shan’t deny I do have an interest in him. But do you not believe that you crossed the line when you touched his soul?”

“Well, at first I was just planning on talking to him, reading his mind a bit, y’know? If you want my honest answer, I got the feeling that I misread something. So I can assure you, I do feel quite penitent about this whole thing.”

“Your countenance suggests the exact opposite...though, what do you mean by ‘misread,’ exactly?”

“I’ve told you a million times already, Wilieris. And when I say ‘a million,’ I do mean a million. Like I said, all I was going to do at first was ask him questions and read his mind. Just tried to make it a teeny-tiny bit easier to access his emotions. However... There was a resistance I didn’t expect, and he actually negated most of it... So he found out I was tweaking his mind, and he went on the defensive, not even being aware of what he’d done... I had no choice but to dig directly into his soul.”

The gods’ spectrum of reactions to this ranged from soft chuckling to facepalming, but they all shared a common exasperation over Serelipta’s actions; just as they had expected, he had no redeeming explanation.

But then, Serelipta interjected, “Could any of you resist looking into the soul of a human who can resist and even negate a god’s power?” The gods quietly second-guessed their judgment. It was unthinkable for a human to resist a god’s power at all, let alone negate it.

Serelipta continued. “There has always been some sort of anomaly within the souls of travelers from Earth. And Ryoma is quite an exceptional case, even among them. Now, I get where you’re coming from here and all, but, like... Don’t you think it’s way too dangerous to just ignore a human who can negate our powers?”

“Hm. So you resorted to this unwarranted investigation because you saw a possible threat to us?”

“Just figured it’d help. Better safe than sorry, and all that jazz. Besides, why’s it a taboo in the first place? Because gods like us interfering with mortal souls prevents them from undergoing the natural reincarnation that eventually happens after their death, right? But Ryoma’s soul was already tampered with on his way to this world, so it’s already a done deal that it’ll receive special treatment after he dies. Okay, so I was a bit forceful, and he felt some pain and discomfort. But I tried to make sure there were no lasting effects. And I would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for that kibitzer Wilieris over there.”

“Excuse me?” snarled Wilieris, goddess of the earth.

“Hey, jes’ take it easy...” Grimp, the god of agriculture, stepped in to defuse the potentially dicey situation.

Gain cleared his throat. “So you are saying that you sensed a need for this investigation, and have kept in mind at least the bare minimum of precautions.”

“Sure. I’ll admit I shouldn’t have gone rogue on you all. But, like, we were already on bad enough terms before circumstances forced my hand and all.”

“And you think we would be on better terms if we happened to clue into your unauthorized mind control?”

“Huh...touché. Well, that’s just the way the cookie crumb—”

“So? What are you hiding?”

“Huh?”

The gods stared at Serelipta hard enough to bore holes through him.

“Get real, b’y. How long d’ya think we been acquainted?”

“Much to my infinite embarrassment, we have been acquainted for an immeasurable period of time.”

“You just don’t mince words at all, do you?”

“The thought of an honest apology coming from your lips makes my skin crawl.”

“It’s just not in your design to take things on the chin, is it?”

“Yer too damn spiteful fer that.”

“You always just pass the buck and don’t take accountability for your actions.”

Grimp, Wilieris, Kiriluel, Fernobelia, Lulutia, Tekun, and finally Kufo each gave their scathing assessments of Serelipta, as he wore a bitter expression through it all. “Guys, isn’t this a bit much...?”

“Not if it’s all true.”

“C’mon, just spill your metaphorical guts already.”

“To be fair, I don’t get the feeling he’s lying to us...”

“It is best that we hear the entire story before we make our decision.”

“You better have had a good reason for doing this. If it turns out to be some stupid nonsense, then—”

“All right, all right! I’ll tell you, okay? Sheesh!” Serelipta sighed. “Like it’s gonna change much for me anyway.”

“We shall decide that. Just answer the question.”

“Fernobelia... Where’s this attitude coming from? Like, we’re equals and all, but I am much older than you. This whole holier-than-thou thing you got going on won’t do you any favors without showing some manners.”

“Yet you have broken our divine rules, and are here to be judged for it. Clearly age hasn’t translated into wisdom for you, you senile old—”

“That is quite enough!” Gain scolded the two squabbling gods. “Fernobelia, calm yourself. And Serelipta, stop trying to distract us from the issue at hand.”

“Hmph.”

“Yes, sir, sorry, sir.”

The mere task of keeping the gods in check had evidently taken its toll on Gain, who heaved a sigh. “I wish I could just chill out and watch an idol concert instead...”

His quiet aside went unacknowledged by the other gods.

Serelipta began again. “There’s something I haven’t mentioned about Ryoma, or rather, the Earth god who sent him here. Long story short, he’s kind of a psycho. I found that out when I peeked into Ryoma’s soul.”

“Psycho?”

“Considering what Gain has told us about their actions, that does not sound surprising.”

“Yeah, and I feel like this is kind of related to that... First off, have you all heard of ‘life simulators’? Those are a type of game in Ryoma’s world, where people enter information into a machine so they can grow mock humans, animals, or plants that aren’t actually real to life.”

“It sounds similar to what we are doing; watching humanity and nature evolve.”

“Huh, I guess we see eye-to-eye for once, Wilieris. You’re basically correct there, but there’s a big difference—in these simulations, no lives or souls are involved; they just exist as blocks of information. No matter how real they might seem, not a single one of the subjects are really ‘alive.’ So, the player can treat them as heinously as they wish, and then just hit the reset button. That basically makes it like everything never happened. Of course, such is the difference between games and reality... But I don’t think it makes any difference to the god of Earth.”

“You mean they were playing a game with human lives?” Lulutia’s voice quivered with stifled rage.

Serelipta gently answered, “Well, at least in Ryoma’s case, yeah. You know he has all sorts of talents, Lulutia. After all, it was you who took on his reincarnation.”

“Yes... Although most of those talents were wasted in his previous life.”

“The ones you saw were the tip of the iceberg. Evidently, he’s been given a whole slew of other talents, tucked away deep enough that nobody would figure it out unless they were to directly tap into his soul. A real wolf in sheep’s clothing, you could say.”

“What?!”

“Just to be clear, I’m not lying.”


“Right. I suppose you wouldn’t have any reason to lie to us about this. If Serelipta looked into Ryoma’s soul, we’d see for ourselves...the perfect hiding place. Usually, we don’t directly access a human soul without good reason.”

“I see what you mean, Kufo. What talents did Earth’s god go to all this trouble to hide?”

“Murder.”

Serelipta’s response left the other gods gobsmacked.

“Not to mention robbery, thievery, or pretty much any major crime you could think of, save for sexual violence. Guess that god didn’t find those acts relevant. But yeah, most of the others were along similar lines—murder, genocide, torture. Almost as if it was beneficial for Ryoma to be specialized in the act of killing.”

“Wait a minute! Are you seriously saying that the Earth god wanted to make Ryoma into a serial killer?”

“Um, I’m not finished... I’m getting to that. If you want my presumption, I think it would’ve been easier to make Ryoma into a violent criminal for the sake of the Earth god’s goal. They wanted him to have a miserable life. Just keep all that frustration bottled up, and then one day, snap! You’ve got a killer on your hands. No turning back. Plus, Ryoma’s talent for weapon handling was limited to stuff from yesteryear, like swords, bows and arrows. He couldn’t handle a gun to save his life, but they made sure he’d show at least some interest in them. Maybe they wanted to see whether a master of martial arts and primitive weapons could go up against guns, or see how many people he could kill. Ryoma would have been a wanted man, and he’d keep fighting back to the point that they probably would’ve sicced an army on him eventually. But obviously, that didn’t come to pass.”

Serelipta flippantly rattled off his theory, but once he finished, his expression turned serious. “But I want to be clear about one thing—Ryoma isn’t a bad person.”

“We are well aware of that fact.”

“Indeed. Otherwise, we would have never brought him to this world.”

“I agree, but what I’ve seen just gives me the idea that Earth’s god doesn’t really give a damn, so to speak, about things like that... What’s your take, Fernobelia?”

“I concur. It shouldn’t be too difficult to set a destiny for him and make him live out the life they want him to.”

“But that’s no fun, is it? If that god were to exert their power without limit, then the outcome’s already a done deal. I think they were trying to beat around the bush and provide opportunities for chance, like only giving Ryoma talents and a tough environment, so they couldn’t predict the outcome. Maintaining Ryoma’s humanity was part of that.”

“One could look at it in that light...”

“That’s sickening...”

“At the end of the day, thanks to that game, Ryoma was able to live out his life with his free will intact. He has that ridiculously strong resistance to mind control because he fought against the temptations planted by the god of Earth. So much so that the simulation failed. There were traces of ‘guiding’ Ryoma, so to speak, by adding different criminal talents repeatedly, and there was some forceful destiny manipulation as well. His soul’s been messed with more than a few times.”

“That explains how he developed resistance to it...”

“Of course, the dear test subject has no idea of what the god was doing. He remained completely unaware of his strength, but it’s impressive all the same.”

Then, Grimp spoke up. “So, that’s why ya went ’n said that.”

“Uh... Seriously, Grimp?” Serelipta frowned. “You’re bringing that up now?”

His aversion to whatever Grimp had to say further piqued the curiosity of the gods.

“Quote, ‘I’m hoping you’ll be truly happy, someday. Life’s about to get really hectic for you, so be ready, but do enjoy your peaceful days in the little village until then. And if you really feel like you can’t go on with life anymore... You know where to find me,’ unquote. I ain’t never heard ya’s talkin’ like that before, so it’s been on me mind fer a while.”

Serelipta sighed. “I think there were plenty of times in his previous life when he was frustrated enough with someone that he just wanted to kill them, not to mention the general temptation of crime. Still, he didn’t act on those thoughts... Whether it was for selfish reasons or just all unconscious, he just put up with his lot in life until he shuffled off the mortal coil. It would’ve been one thing for him to just live an ordinary life, but considering how hard he fought back against the divine temptations directed at him, I kinda have to admire him for that.”

“That certainly does sound impressive.”

“I get that this was a game for the god of Earth, but your average mental fortitude wouldn’t hold up to this. It’d take something stronger.”

“Frustrating as it is, I imagine the Earth god is significantly more OP than we are...”

“Luckily for us, the god of Earth couldn’t do anything with Ryoma once his soul reached our world... But his experiences were carved into his soul, and his personality was forged from those experiences. So I’m still worried about something.”

Serelipta’s expression grew even more pained. “If he’s constantly told that he is useless by others, he’ll end up believing it; no different from a child getting told the same by parents or other figures of authority. The god’s little game has greatly warped the formation of Ryoma’s character. Of course, some children can stay strong even as everyone around them tries to beat them down, and Ryoma would probably fit better into that category... Probably because his self-control was too strong, I guess. It must have been a self-defense mechanism to protect himself from the visceral urge to kill, because he always goes overboard when it comes to reprimanding himself or holding himself back.”

“Wait...you’re still talking about Ryoma, right? We’ve seen him taking out bandits like it was nothing.”

“Yeah, and that’s where it gets more complicated... He simply adapted to the law of the land there. He won’t kill without a good reason, but if self-defense or food are at play, then he won’t hesitate much. That tells us something, though. You know how he gets carried away in combat? He doesn’t realize it, but he’s instinctively starting to sense his hidden talents and the danger they pose, and he blames himself for that.”

“Wait!”

“What is it, Kufo?”

“I just remembered. Didn’t Ryoma start training after parting ways with the duke’s family because he went berserk in the mines?”

“Now that you mention it, yeah.”

“I remember that too. But that was all down to that lowlife adventurer who tried to threaten a kid for money. Then he tried to threaten Ryoma...”

“That’s true... But you know how he’s become younger in this world? His mental age also regressed a bit, so that evidently softened his self-control up a little. He almost fell prey to his urges, and now he’s trying to keep them in check. Killing for food when he lived in the forest and fighting bandits would have done that for sure. To be honest, I think it’s pretty normal for any human to contemplate murder out of anger or some sort of grudge. It’s a different story to act on that thought, let alone to feel no emotion from fulfilling it.”

“So basically, Ryoma accepts that killing is sometimes necessary for survival, but he also sees that thought as abnormal and considers himself dangerous. Do we have that straight? Seems pretty contradictory.”

“You’re pretty close there, Fernobelia. Ryoma sees himself as a danger. That might be why he wants to join social circles, but never quite manages to fit in when he does. He feels like an outcast who doesn’t belong, and doesn’t deserve to belong. What’s more, he feels like he has to be forgiving of others and unforgiving towards himself, that he has to always be altruistic and not ask for anything. You could say that otherwise he thinks he’d be unworthy of going on living, I suppose. A pretty strong sentiment for humans, maybe, but Ryoma follows this code too strictly; his self-esteem is just that low. That’s why he accepted being treated unfairly in his previous life, and whenever someone shows him kindness, he’ll try to return the favor at any cost to himself. Again, this is all unconscious.”

Serelipta let out a long sigh at this point, and then started to finalize his thoughts.

“It’s all well and good to be that kind of person, but doing favors for free makes him a prime target in a human society rife with greed. Some might take it as him devaluing his work. What happens when his philosophy causes him to clash with others? He could just double down on the situation, or cut his losses and run, but he’s not the kind of person to do that. He’s more likely to take others’ criticisms deeply to heart, and try to meet a demand of theirs. He won’t change the way he acts until that unconscious chink in the armor of his heart is healed. In due time, he’s going to end up dealing with a lot more people than usual, and if he keeps giving a pass to all this self-inflicted psychic damage, it could very well drive him to madness. That’s where I come in. I’m thinking I can take him to a deserted island, or even give him a more powerful blessing to allow him to live underwater, like the ancestors of mermaids. The farther he moves away from civilization, the easier his life would be, and even in the worst-case scenario, there would still be minimal damage to him. The human world does naturally change over time, after all. But we don’t have to rush things with Ryoma either. I just figure it might be better to put him in a more laid-back area where he can gradually come to terms with himself.”

“I see... You have certainly thought this over.”

The other gods seemed to share Gain’s sentiment as silence filled the air.

“It’s certainly surprising to hear from someone who constantly told Ryoma about how uninteresting he is...”

“I meant that he’s uninteresting to watch in his current circumstances. I never said I hated him, or that I wasn’t interested in him at all. Besides, I try to treat every life equally; I’d do the same for anyone whether I’m interested in them or not.”

Wilieris now felt quite guilty about how hard she had been on Serelipta. She was about to apologize to him, but then...

“And besides... I love humans who endure all kinds of craziness and make it out the other end in one piece.”

Serelipta’s comment drew flabbergasted stares from the other gods, but he continued talking excitedly without noticing.

“Like, you know what I mean, right? Kinda like the fish who gets away when the rest of their school ends up on a plate, or the one ant who gets away from an anteater unscathed. I do so love seeing a life shine brightly when it faces down death and manages to make it...out...alive?”

Serelipta finally clued into how his topic of discussion was not being particularly well-received by his audience.

“Serelipta... I swear, you are such a...”

“Who’s the psycho now, huh?”

“I’d rather not have to criticize someone’s worldview, but come on now.”

“Maybe you could’ve said something more like how it reminds you of the value of life, or how you enjoy watching their valiance to survive, or even that you just enjoy supporting them?”

“And here you had me impressed for a moment.”

“I sure wouldn’t want to catch attention from you.”

“B’y, ya dun goofed. Blurtin’ out that crap won’t do ya no favors.”

“W-Wait, what’s going on?”

“Serelipta.” Wilieris spoke with a completely changed expression from the moment before.

“Wha— You’re freaking me out! Why so angry? Where’d your sad introspection run off to?!”

“Yes, of course... Such a fool I was to think for even a second that you were worthy of reappraisal... Heh, heh heh heh...”

“I thought I was headed for acquittal on all charges for sure...”

“Such was our intention, until a minute ago. You just wanted to cloud the issue of your sentencing by talking about Ryoma so you could get away!”

“Hey, I’m not that insidious! I was just hoping I could get my sentence lessened by telling you all about why I treated Ryoma the way I did and what the Earth god’s intentions were!”

“So you did have an ulterior motive!”

“Great, now she’s going full Karen... Guys, help me out here!” Serelipta called to the room. “This is supposed to be a formal trial, or meeting, or whatever, right? Don’t just let her turn this into a kangaroo court!”

“He has a point... I suggest we discuss this again elsewhere before we make our decision. Wilieris, I shall leave you to deal with Serelipta. Now, we shall take our leave.”

“What?! Hey, Gain! Guys?!”

The gods ignored Serelipta’s call and left one by one, leaving only Serelipta, still tied to his chair, and Wilieris, who was now standing directly in front of him.

“Now it’s just you and I,” she said.

“Uh, yeah...”

“They shall decide your punishment, but before that, you are going to hear me out. I have a lot to say to you, and you’re going to be a good boy and accept every! Single! Word!”

“Ugh... Ryoma, you’ll be the death of me yet...”

After a very long struggle session with Wilieris, the gods eventually returned to find Serelipta slumped over in his chair, utterly devoid of energy...



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