I mean, that’s not entirely wrong, but you could have worded it better, Jiril!
“I’m fine, i-it’s just—” I stammered.
“Now then, Renge,” Air cut me off. “The Holy Woman will be coming of age next year.”
“Huh? She is?” Renge asked. “So that’s happening next year, then. Time goes by fast.”
“Ahahaha…” I laughed dryly.
Renge kind of sounded like Dad. But I did first meet him when I was a baby. My parents sent me adrift down the river to save me from the war consuming their country. I was picked up by bandits, and that’s when Renge saved me. He knew me since I was a baby, so hearing I’m coming of age would elicit this response. It didn’t change the fact it gave me all sorts of mixed feelings, though.
“Why are you acting like it has nothing to do with you?” Air pressed him. “Once she’s of age, you two can marry. You two are mates and intend to become spouses someday, right? Then why don’t you formalize your wedding once she comes of age?”
“Huh?!” Renge let out a strange yelp.
He hadn’t considered a wedding at all!
“Unless… You aren’t serious about her?” Air asked.
“That’s not it! How could you say that?!” Renge shouted.
“Then you intend on marrying her?” Air pressed.
“I…I am, but—”
Renge trailed off into a long pause. The way Air was pressing him for details was definitely off. Dad and Lico, however, were silently sipping on their drinks and staring fixedly at Renge, demanding an answer.
All my guardians are pretty intimidating…
“I…I do intend to marry her sooner or later, but Tina and I haven’t really done much in the way of being in a relationship,” he said quietly. “I just…think we haven’t considered the prospect of marriage enough yet.”
That logic made sense. I loved Renge enough to think I was willing to marry him, but that didn’t mean I was going to hurry up and do it the moment I could.
“Then I’m allowed to make passes at the Holy Woman until then?” Air asked, a wicked grin turning up the corners of his lips.
Air?! What do you mean, ‘make passes’ at me?! I shot him a dirty look.
“What are you saying? You’ve never been interested in women to begin with,” Renge said.
Maybe he was trying to drum up jealousy in Renge? Because it didn’t feel convincing. I never got the impression Air was a man in the traditional sense, and if anything, he felt like he was on a higher plane of life compared to me. Renge was right—Air never felt like he was interested in women, or reproduction for that matter.
“Do you think I need to be interested in women to reproduce?” Air asked.
“Huh?!”
“It’s one quick way of making a half-deity,” Air said. “Half-deities already partially exceed the boundaries of simple life. That way I’ll be able to create a successor who can deify from scratch, as opposed to going to the trouble of training you. And if it were born from the Holy Woman, all races of the world would accept it.”
“Seriously, what are you saying?!” Renge shouted, looking more belligerent than he was a moment ago. He probably wasn’t taking him seriously, but he was glaring at him angrily just the same.
Is he actually jealous?
I always got the feeling that my attraction to Renge was one-sided, and he wasn’t particularly drawn to me. But maybe this jealousy meant that he was, in fact, attracted to me.
“Stop trying to get Tina involved in your problems,” Renge said. “Even if another world’s god attacks, I’d fight them off.”
“I’m sure you will, but I’d still like to have more defensive and offensive gods. Otherwise, I’d be anxious to leave this world unguarded while I hibernate.”
Air’s hibernation period could potentially be that dangerous, and Air was saying that even with Renge being so powerful, the enemies he could be facing would be too much even for him.
“But if you get married to the Holy Woman and produce offspring, I could train those children. A child that draws on the blood of the Spherit Folk and the Cerberi would have great potential.”
“Air! This is why you’re being so insistent on us getting married?! Do you plan on stealing away our children?!” Renge thundered.
“If that’s what it takes, yes. It could be a child borne from me and the Holy Woman, too. In fact, it’d be faster that way.”
“What?!” I recoiled.
This conversation is going off the rails! And Air’s intentions here are going in unpleasant directions!
“May I ask a question, Air…?” Lico raised her hand.
“Yes?”
I couldn’t tell what she had in mind, but apparently Dad told her about Air, and despite that, she had a question. Her alchemist’s senses spurred her to resolve the problem.
“If you need more gods, why don’t you manifest the Gods of De Marl? Surely you can use your power to manifest the gods of other countries, too.”
“You’re asking why I don’t give form to the gods humans worship? That’s not possible. If you give power to a god borne solely out of faith, it would reflect the desires of humans. They only create gods because it’s a matter of convenience for them, like how the god of Edesa Kura was used as an excuse to justify invasions. Even if humans don’t do it in your era, they will eventually fall back to doing so again.”
They’d simply interpret the gods in a way that suits their goals. People in my past life did that a lot, too. I remember hearing about that in history class. They interpreted religion in ways that justified invasions.