There were over a dozen gods on the surface right now. Unfortunately, the barrier to this world was still broken. A small little fragment like that could easily slip through the cracks.
“Only a small fraction of the god’s power escaped, but divine power is still divine power. We cannot allow it to run free. What is worse, it appears it has been absorbed by the wicked devout.”
“HUH?!”
“I started to feel as if the dimensional distortions weren’t quite as random as we first thought, and so I returned to the Divine Realm to look into it, and it turned out that the divinity of the fallen god that the god of destruction should have completely disposed of remained. Most likely... No, it is almost certain now that the wicked devout have been using that fragment of the fallen god to interfere with space-time.”
Just our luck. Of course such an annoying group managed to pick up such an annoying item. All of this was only going to get worse, wasn’t it?
“Still, this fallen god was only a lesser god, and this is only a fragment of that. It may be even weaker than a servile god as it is.”
Did that mean we didn’t need to be so doom and gloom? It calling through monsters from other time periods was still a bit annoying, though.
“However, this god’s specific power is a little tricky. He ruled over the concept of ‘erosion.’ He was skilled at worming his way inside of anything and everything and eating away at it. There are few limits on what he can interfere with—physical objects, living beings, and even one’s mind.”
“Erosion... A god of erosion, huh?”
“Originally, to be precise. As his divine status was removed from him, all that is left is his power wandering free. That said, if one were to absorb that power, they too could gain some of the properties of the god of erosion...and that is not a power that should be allowed to exist on the surface.”
“So what you’re trying to say is that I need to deal with that?”
“We’re truly sorry,” God Almighty apologized, guiltily bowing his head.
From the perspective of the gods, it shouldn’t be a big deal to destroy our world with the fallen god in it and be done with the whole issue. That way was simpler, and they didn’t need to be held back by unnecessary worries. Were they being polite about it because I was the caretaker of this world? Or was this some kind of newbie training? Like if I couldn’t deal with a problem like this, I had no right to be a caretaker of a world?
You know, maybe that tracks. This must be a divine tribulation!
“No need to overthink it,” Grandma Tokie reassured me. “We simply think it would be a waste if the sanctuary we had built up was to suddenly go poof. Though there were those who supported the idea of simply having the god of destruction clean up for us, since it would be too much of a pain to deal with ourselves...”
And again with reading my thoughts. Maybe it wasn’t a trial, then.
Still, even the gods found it a pain, huh? The wicked devout were still wards of a god—or at least, an imitation of one—so the fragment might have been attracted to that. If the wicked devout hadn’t been around, it might have come to Brunhild instead.
“Is there any chance that I’ve fallen victim to the erosion?”
“Not a chance. You’re my ward; the erosion would bounce right off of your divinity. Your wives are protected by that divinity, and your children, who have your blood, would be the same. The regular humans around you would absolutely have felt the effects, though.”
“What sort of effects?”
“The body of the one who is possessed is eaten away at, and then the minds of those around them are also eroded. It’s a very gradual degradation. Eventually, they become unable to think, their bodies mutate, and they end up mindlessly relying on their instincts. Their eventual end is as a moving corpse. Once their body deteriorates entirely, the fragment will simply find a new host and repeat the process all over again.”
It was like a zombie movie... Maybe it was a good thing it never came to us.
Hang on, does all this not sound familiar?
“Are you telling me that those mutated Fishmen who had received the apparent curse of the wicked god were really...?”
“They were likely affected by not just the wicked god, but also the fallen god, yes. If I were to make a guess, the fallen god’s power is being kept under control through the wicked god’s power. To make an Earth comparison, it’s like a car’s engine and its steering wheel.”
And that was why the wicked vessels the devout held seemed to be so rich in divinity, despite it being leftovers from a dead wannabe god. A lot suddenly made sense. Assuming they had the fallen god of erosion on their side, would our sacred treasure even be effective? Sure, they were fallen, but that didn’t change the fact that they were still originally a god. Would things really work out?
“You don’t need to worry about that. It’s not a god, it’s a fragment of one. It doesn’t have the power to withstand the divinity of a ward of God Almighty. As he said, the real dangerous part is the power of erosion itself. You, your wives, and your children will be fine, but everyone else will be affected in some way.”
And since we...or, well, the girls and I couldn’t take the wicked devout down because of the restrictions set on gods, we had no choice but to rely on our children.
Absolutely nothing about this sounded different from our original issue. Where was the catch?
“The power of erosion does not limit itself to living creatures,” God Almighty said. “Take your metal giants, for instance. I’m sure they would be affected too.”
“You mean our Frame Gears?”
Ugh, seriously?
At least we hadn’t intended for our final confrontation with them to require our Frame Gears. Unless they gigantified in some way, which wasn’t out of the question because Graphite turned into some big spider thing...
“What would happen if a Frame Gear were eroded?” I asked.
“I can’t say for certain, but I assume it would stop functioning and begin to fall apart. In the worst case, it would be taken over by the other side.”
In other words, if they managed to erode a Frame Gear’s chain of command, it could lead to it attacking an ally even if we ordered it to attack the enemy. All of this was an effect of divine power, so none of the scientists would be able to do anything about it. According to God Almighty, we should be fine if we coat the Frame Gears with divinity, but the only one who could do that right now was me. Apparently, if one did happen to get taken over, I could also cleanse it with my own divinity, but...
“That’s such a pain...”
“Indeed. Well, um, I suppose we’re at fault here... I apologize.”
“It isn’t your fault. This is what happens when that naughty god of destruction refuses to do his job properly. The next time I see him, I’ll slap his scruffy face to kingdom come!” Grandma Tokie ended up mad at the god of destruction for God Almighty’s sake. It was true that we wouldn’t be in this mess if the god of destruction had just eliminated that fallen god properly.
I really did hope they wouldn’t take over the Frame Gears, though. Even if Reginleif was fine, if everyone else’s ended up taken over, we’d be in trouble. If the Ortlinde Overlord started going out of control, we’d have a hard time trying to stop it.
“Erosion cannot so easily begin its assault without coming into contact with the object or person in question, so it wouldn’t happen so easily. Still, there is no denying it is a possibility. When it comes time to face whoever is taken over by the fallen god, you’d be best avoiding them.”
Just don’t touch them and we were fine, huh? Right, the only ones who turned into Fishmen that one time were those who were bitten directly. Glad it wasn’t airborne, at least. In that case, I doubt I’d have to worry much.
“Um, the fallen fragment doesn’t have its own will, right?”
“Correct.”
“If a Gollem—an autonomous mechanical puppet—were to be taken over by the fragment, what would happen?”
“Hm? An autonomous mechanical puppet? It would likely just become something that held the power of erosion.”
No way.
Gollems were creations that operated based on the fundamental operations written into their Q-Crystals. Even if it looked like they had their own will, that was purely their programmed conditioned responses. They were simply robots that abided by their master’s orders, never acting on emotion as humans did.
What instantly came to mind was a demo screen of an action game. Even though no one was controlling it, the playable character was running and jumping and killing enemies. It was simply doing as it was programmed to.
But then, what would happen if someone picked up the controller and pressed start? The playable character was no longer a robot—it was the player holding the controller.
What if the gold crown had been eroded by the fallen god? Would it then become a gold crown with the power of erosion? Not a fallen god that had taken over a gold crown?
To begin with, Gollems couldn’t even act independently without a master, so I had thought that one of the wicked devout had filled that role. Maybe that was my biggest mistake.
“This has become such a mess...”
I wasn’t sure how many times I had sighed those words now, and God Almighty apologized once again. I wasn’t blaming him or anything. I was just thinking about how there were so many more unpredictable factors than before that we’d have to look back over our plan. If anything, this was all because of the god of destruction’s oversight. I’d make sure Grandma Tokie beat him up for me as well.