Chapter 350 – G.o.d of Hope (7)
[So what’s your answer?]
“If the price is sufficient.”
I answered the G.o.d of Hope.
If the price was sufficient, I had no reason to refuse to cooperate with the G.o.d of Hope.
It’s only the physiological reluctance to hold hands with the G.o.d of Hope.
In this case, I cannot refuse.
It was in itself dangerous to turn a blind eye to a means that would certainly benefit me because of unfounded embarra.s.sment.
It means that I have neglected to prepare for a crisis in the future, and in the future it could be an excuse to justify my defeat.
You shouldn’t have thoughts such as ‘Ah, I lost because I wasn’t good enough’ or because I didn’t work that much at that time’.
As long as the G.o.d of Hope was showing himself and was giving adequate compensation, I could not reject him recklessly.
It’s a thought I sometimes get after becoming a G.o.d.
I feel that the ident.i.ty I have decided is not binding myself, making me feel like I’m making parts of the world.
There was a time when I thought that the subject, G.o.d, was above the concept of the divinity, and that it dominated the concept.
But in reality, even G.o.d is dominated by his own divinity.
All G.o.ds are.
There aren’t many G.o.ds with extreme penalties like me, but there will be no G.o.d without any penalties.
If you are careful about penalties and limit your actions, all of the G.o.ds’ actions and thoughts will soon become obsessed with one ident.i.ty.
I did not become the G.o.d of that ident.i.ty because I was immersed in an ident.i.ty.
Ident.i.ty is what forces G.o.d to look like that.
Therefore, the more intuitive the G.o.d is, the stronger and greater he is bound to be.
The fact that I remained a G.o.d even with a clear divinity border proved itself.
Slowness, light, commitment, balance, nature, hope.
These are the divinities of the major G.o.ds of the Hundred G.o.ds Temple.
The weight of the word itself was different from the Ruler G.o.ds.
I didn’t even know how restricted such G.o.ds would be.
And what kind of choices have they made to exist for such a long time under these restrictions?
If I have the opportunity, I’ll want to ask them directly about those experiences.
“Prepayment.”
Cooperation versus information, the offer could not be rejected.
However, the offer could be beneficial.
I had to use it.
[Prepayment?]
“Yes, throw out all the information I need.”
[… Then, what if you break your promise?]
“I will keep my promise.”
The G.o.d of Hope looked at me as if it were absurd.
[The words themselves give me disbelief. Did you know that there is no limit to telling lies?]
Oh, I got caught.
After becoming a G.o.d, it was easy to deceive because everyone guessed I couldn’t lie.
The G.o.d of Hope was also a G.o.d who could partially lie, so he did not fall for it.
[Well, good. Not only information but also cooperation will benefit you, but it won’t do me any harm. I will take it as collateral.]
It was a pretty heavy collateral.
It was not known whether the G.o.d of Hope knew this but still said it.
* * *
[Do you know the G.o.d of Order?]
“I know, the outsider G.o.d.”
Looking back on my experience in the tutorial, I did remember seeing messages about the G.o.d of Order a few times.
Three or four times.
Even that was when almost all G.o.ds showed interest.
By himself, he gave no noticeable responses.
He is not interested in me.
He was a G.o.d I didn’t care much about.
In the first place, I didn’t even want to make friends with the G.o.ds who had a strong divinity of order.
[No!]
The G.o.d of Hope sprang up and refuted with a fit of pa.s.sion.
[Go ahead and cancel those words!]
“No, I don’t want to?”
I don’t know what it is, but I refused.
The G.o.d of Hope was resentful for a moment and muttered something, then gave up and said.
[The G.o.d of Order is the most powerful G.o.d at this time.]
“In the Hundred G.o.ds Temple?”
[All over the universe.]
It was unexpected.
He’s a G.o.d that I’ve never thought deeply about.
[What kind of ent.i.ty do you think the G.o.d of Order is?]
Well.
I do not know.
[Think about it.]
Um.
Can’t you just let me know?
Even when I first met the G.o.d of Hope in the past, the G.o.d of Hope asked me the reverse question and made me infer the answer.
At that time, I thought it was to make a desired conversation within a limited amount of information.
But now, I wondered if it was a characteristic of the G.o.d of Hope.
[Ah come on!]
The G.o.d of Hope struck me.
I got up quietly and grabbed the armrests of the chair.
The G.o.d of Hope shouted because he was beaten with the chair earlier.
[Why, why do you have to solve everything that you can figure out with only a little bit of thinking, by using violence!?]
“You just need to tell me. Why would I waste my energy? What is the G.o.d of Order?”
It was like that before.
As long as the information is important, the G.o.d of Hope had to answer my words.
I had asked the G.o.d of Hope’s question without much anxiety.
[… The G.o.d of Order now has the greatest power in the universe and exerts the greatest influence.]
After speaking, the G.o.d of Hope noticed me for a moment.
It seems that he wants me to guess the answer after hearing it, but I have no intention of acting as the G.o.d of Hope had wanted.
I waited for the G.o.d of Hope to give the answer.
[… System. Isn’t it obvious?]
System.
It was an unexpected answer, but it wasn’t surprising.
It was an answer that could be guessed if I had thought as the G.o.d of Hope told me to.
Even the earth, which does not have a mature self, and can’t even be defined as a single creature or individual, has received the faith of people for a long time and made its own voice.
Furthermore, there were some Rulers who were forced to extract the roots and faiths gathered on Earth.
The G.o.ds of the Hundred G.o.ds Temple and Pantheon are under the system.
Divinity acc.u.mulates whenever the G.o.ds recognize the existence of a system that restrains them.
No matter how intangible the system was, it would still have been enough to become a G.o.d.
The faith produced by mortals and the faith produced by beings who set foot in the divine nature are on completely different levels.
Moreover, if the G.o.ds of the Hundred G.o.ds Temple and the Pantheon that gathered all the mighty G.o.ds of the world are indirect believers, it was natural that the system would become the most powerful G.o.d in the universe.
[I am also an apostle of the G.o.d of Order.]
“Ah, I see.”
From the short words of the G.o.d of Hope, I can see how the system’s limitations were avoided.
In the first place, being an apostle itself was intended to allow G.o.ds to exert limited influence outside of their realm, avoiding the limitations of the system.
Something seemed contradictory, but it didn’t seem impossible in theory.
He is an apostle of the G.o.d of Order, which is the system itself, and of the G.o.d of Order, who makes expedients by using the gaps in that system.
There was something to consider before laughing at this though.
There was one thing that caught me.
[Quest Window]
[G.o.d of Order-???]
Description: The G.o.d of Order has nothing to do with you yet.
This is the G.o.d of Order item displayed in the quest window created by Kirikiri.
The G.o.d of Order has nothing for me.
I asked this to the G.o.d of Hope.
[Of course. Tutorials are also part of the system. The other G.o.ds may not know, but the G.o.d of Order will not agree with the transfer of the Tutorial.]
d.a.m.n it.
Things went wrong again.
* * *
The G.o.d of Order is a G.o.d with self and reason.
No matter how little he showed himself through messages, he wasn’t absent.
If the G.o.d of Order is the existence of the system and the Tutorial itself, there is something to point out.
When we cleared the 59th floor, where we first achieved the source of the power.
There was a time when the power of the source collected in the stage was deprived by a certain ent.i.ty.
That’s probably the G.o.d of Order.
d.a.m.n, I have to get that power back someday.
Even when I cleared the 100th floor, I could feel a certain G.o.d watching me.
After all the Tutorial stages were over, the only G.o.d who would directly watch me as I was preparing to go to Earth was the G.o.d of Order no matter how much I thought about it.
If the G.o.d of Order can act and judge like other G.o.ds, it is impossible that it would transfer the Tutorial voluntarily.
The G.o.d of Order will not give me a part of himself.
Never.
I didn’t think I could get all the divine consent through Kirikiri’s quest window.
She thought there must be a G.o.d against it.
And in the case of such G.o.ds, I was thinking of obtaining the consent of the Tutorial transfer through force demonstrations, not quests.
But the case of the G.o.d of Order was a little different.
The Tutorial transfer itself violates the ident.i.ty of the G.o.d of Order, and it will not be possible to obtain consent through appropriate force demonstrations.
There is no other way but to take it by force.
Against the most powerful G.o.d in this universe.
d.a.m.n it.
It was something that I should not have only heard about now.
It was information that I should have known about and prepared for a long time ago.
“The back of my head is tingling.”
Let’s think about what Kirikiri’s purpose was.
She wanted to weaken the system.
She wanted to take advantage of the gaps in the system and impose sanctions on the G.o.d of Hope that would harm him.
The weakening of the system itself, the G.o.d of Order, and the sanctions of the apostle, the G.o.d of Hope.
We can organize it like this.
Kirikiri also cooperated with me until sanctioning the G.o.d of Hope.
What about after that?
Will she cooperate in conflict with the G.o.d of Order?
Kirikiri argued that she should obviously weaken the constraints of the system, while saying she still needed the system.
Perhaps the transfer of the Tutorial is a check against the G.o.d of Order.
Maybe there is a way to hand over the Tutorial to me without conflicting with the G.o.d of Order.
She hasn’t told me yet, but when the time comes, she can give information about the G.o.d of Order and suggest new ways.
Kirikiri has always been like that.
She didn’t give out any information that was not needed right away.
The problem was that the list in the quest window recently changed to question marks, and that Kirikiri was not responding to my contact.
[Adventure and Slowness made everyone stand by for a temporary truce and expelled me, but the G.o.d of Order will be a little different.]
The G.o.d of Hope added words as if he were reading my heart out.
[No matter how much you have touched causality, that alone cannot deal with both Slowness and Adventure. Those who swim forever and those who block their destiny, themselves symbolize a part of causality.]
Then again, the G.o.d of Hope, who changed his tone, began to whisper.
It was a G.o.d of Hope, sitting deep in the back of a chair, but the voice sounded like a whisper in my ear.
The thin eyes, as if they were almost closed, made me feel ominous just by looking at them.
[The two G.o.ds are G.o.ds that collide even though they cooperate. In the meantime, only a few have survived. The few are all imprisoned before the Hundred G.o.ds Temple.]
It was like a snake.
It was a little messy.
As soon as I smelled that confusion, I saw the sudden change in the G.o.d of Hope, and my agitated mind calmed down.
[They said you turned down an offer to join the Hundred G.o.ds Temple?]
The G.o.d of Hope said with a giggle.
It was a disgusting laugh.
It was an evil, mean, and nasty laugh.
The G.o.d of Hope did not hide that point and showed it.
I felt instinctively rejected by that appearance.
I had never felt negative emotions so directly after attaining full G.o.dhood.
It was like when I was human, when I felt disgust or fear that my reason could not handle.
When a frog sees a snake, it’s the kind of primitive feeling that an animal might feel when it faces its natural enemy.
Various negative emotions blended together to create a mixture of pressure and fear.
It was interesting.
I was able to guess how the G.o.d of hope played with the G.o.ds of the Pantheon.
[I will ask again. Now cooperate with me…….]
“Hey.”
[… Huh?]
“Don’t you look tired?”