“Really, thank you, from the bottom of my heart.”

Undine lowered her head to me from atop her throne—the mundane one, not the divine artifact—though the superior position her seat granted her made the gesture less than convincing.

Nevertheless, just that little gesture caused a great clamour in the crowd, gathered around.

Of course there was a crowd. After all, that crude fake had been replaced by the real thing.

And clamour… Well, it was to be expected, too.

This was a bona fide goddess, after all. And not even an avatar, summoned through a shrine maiden—no, the goddess herself was right here, under the sea, in front of me, lowering her head.

The smell of sea water penetrated my blessing and overran my nostrils, and her presence dominated my thoughts.

To phrase that differently, her presence ‘merely’ dominated my thoughts.

Unlike that time with Sylph and Salamander, I felt no immediate desire to kneel, nor did I want to shuffle away or anything else. It just made her very hard to ignore.

That did not seem to hold for my entourage.

Asami, with her status as a shrine maiden, was of course on her knees—but so were most of the others I had brought with me, several of them quivering.

A notable exception was Charlotte.

I managed to pull my attention away from Undine and sent Charlotte a questioning gaze.

In response, she looked over the others once, then shook her head.

“ ‘Tis a simple matt’r, Your Highness. There is no way I would kneel t’ anyone but thee, nay?”

A moment of silence, which she seemed to take as an invitation to keep speaking.

“In the first place, ‘twould be blasph’mous o’ me t’ kneel here. Nay, nay, not just that—’tis conceptually abs’rd! When I spend ev’ry mom’nt of ev’ry day with thee, th’ concept o’ kneeling to anoth’r s’mply van’shes from my mind completely! Aye, aye! I exist for thy sake, Your Highness! ‘Twould be strang’r f’r me t’ feel any sort o’ d’sire t’ kneel b’fore any oth’r god! Shall I kneel b’fore thee t’ prove my loy’lty?! Nay, please allow me the hon’r o’ kneeling b’fore thee! I shall prove my loy’lty to thee, so—”

“Charlotte.”

“Aye?!”

“You are too close.”

“Ah…”

There were not three centimetres separating our faces. Since I pointed it out, she realised what she was doing and swiftly separated herself from me.

“M-my apol’gies…”

“You are forgiven, Charlotte.”

But still… All it took her was her mindset? Then perhaps…

For a moment, I closed my eyes.

***

Faith.

From the soul of the demon king, faith overflowed.

He had always had a… certain feeling.

Well, not always.

It had started when he first came to Grand Atlas… No, a few months after that.

After he was killed by an angel, and revived by Entropy.

The feeling that…

Somehow, in some way, this entire mess was his fault to begin with.

Luciel’s Hero summonings, her prior rise to power… Nay, even her existence itself. It felt like he was responsible, somehow.

He had gone along with the true goddess’s proposal on a whim, and a momentary desire for revenge, but as this feeling amplified, a third motivation added itself to his list, one he would never mention to anyone.

Atonement.

A desire to set right a sin he had no evidence he had even committed to begin with.

And now, he managed to give form to that desire.

His soul, swirling with countless, countless lives, only one of which he could remember, accepted that desire, mixed it with his manifold other goals and feelings, and produced one single end product.

Faith.

The desire to be with Her. The desire to pamper Her. The desire to make Her happy. The desire to transcend death itself and be by Her side, forever.

The desire to become a God to do such.

And…

The desire to seize this entire world and give it back to Her.

With overwhelming force. With overflowing charisma. With beguiling words.

Faith overflowed from his soul, permeating every single part of his body. His being was overwhelmed by love.

He loved his goddess, and wanted to be with Her forever.

He loved his children, and wanted to protect them forever.

He loved this world his goddess had created, and wished nothing more than to remove all foreign elements.

The Heroes… Were in a grey zone.

But Luciel was a foreign element, no doubt.

As were those recent invaders…

Certainly, there was the potential for someone under its command to change sides… Nyx was living proof. But any who refused were outsiders.

His faith, radiating from every single part of him, granted him an indescribable sense of majesty.

His absurd, overly heavy feelings somehow managed to become something admirable from the outside.

His majesty outclassed even Undine’s, drawing all the attention in the room to himself.

There was no one who did not watch him pray.

Even at the south border of the Vauxshire Ice Fields, the crusading Saint and the monster stalking her found their attention stolen, for just a moment.

“Ah… Oops~”

The Saint missed an artery as a result, but she finished the sinner’s redemption with the next swipe of her scythe, so there was no problem.

“That presence…”

For the first time since coming to this world, █████ felt that this world, perhaps, possessed her liberation.

Inside the Thousand Throne of Darkness, Entropy, too, found her attention stolen away, though her gaze lingered in the same direction long after. Her face was the same as ever, but her ears wiggled with the same nuance as an embarrassed, blushy smile.

And yet it caught the attention of not just people inside Grand Atlas.

Nay, outside of Grand Atlas, four distinct existences paid note.

Another, of the same sort as Entropy, his proportions the very embodiment of perfection, chuckled—“It appears our gambit has worked out, my friend,” he said, even though she couldn’t possibly hear him.

And then, three ‘somethings’ from a place that didn’t exist.

That which ate.

That which destroyed.

And that which loved.

The latter two felt content to watch for longer, but that which ate let out a bestial roar, for as much as it could, to tell its underling to hurry up.

In response, █████—

“Yes, yes, got it…”

Tore her attention away from the west and continued observing the Saint, who was already back to ‘saving’ sinners.

And that which destroyed and that which loved soon stopped paying attention, too, returning to their eternal activity.

For now, they would just let things play out…

***

I opened my eyes again, and found that everyone was staring at me.

For a moment, I considered that I may have gotten lost in thought and had closed my eyes for longer than anticipated, but…

“Your Highness…”

One look at Charlotte’s starstruck face blew that theory out of the water.

In which case…

“Hmph. Was my praying form so enchanting?”

“Yea, Your Highness!”

I was asking the room in general, but got exactly one response. From Charlotte.

A moment of silence, followed by several more.

I cleared my throat.

“Undine.”

“Ah, yes?”

My carrying on the conversation appeared to snap at least a few people out of their admiring dazes.

“About the matter this time… I do not work for free, you know.”

She froze, then cackled like some sort of old lady.

“Ah… No, of course you don’t~ From the markings on your face, I take it you’d like a divine fragment?”

“Certainly, certainly… But there are a few more things, too.”

“Oh? It’s not good to be too greedy, you know~?”

“I believe you will be on board with these suggestions to begin with. As long as you are in support of defeating Lady Luciel, that is.”

“Let’s hear it.”

In a blink, her sing-songy tone and smirking face were gone.

“Join our Alliance of the Divine Throne… And supply me with Origin Water.”

“Could you explain that in more detail?”

***

“I’m on board.”

The moment I finished my explanation, I got an immediate response.

“Call it a hunch,” she continued, “but it feels like Luciel and that thing that imprisoned me are… related, somehow.”

“Hmm? If you are suggesting that that thing created her, then Cy rather handily refuted that theory…”

“No, no, it didn’t feel like it’d do that at all. But… There was more, out there.”

“ ‘Out there’?”

“The place it imprisoned me, close to itself. I couldn’t tell you what they were, but…”

“Your input is noted, Undine.”

And with that conversation finished…

“Now, then. What in the world do you think you are doing, Mica?”

I could feel my smirk twitch as I turned my gaze down and slightly to the side, where Mica’s face was currently located. As for the rest of her, she had wrapped her arms around my waist and her tail around my legs.

Without even awaiting a response, I reached over and grabbed her face in a claw grip so as to get her off me.

“Tha-tha-tha-tha-tha-that huuuuuurts, Milord! F-for-please forgive me! I’msorryI’msorryI’msorry-”

“Then let me go already.”

Despite her complaints, she was making no attempts to untangle her tail from my legs.

“Do you want me to have Charlotte fillet you?” I asked, strengthening my grip.

“Uguaaaah-!”

She untangled her tail from my legs, and also went limp.

“… Master, you can’t just make a girl faint with a claw grip like that…”

“Oh, shut it, Lilith.”

“Well, now… It was easy to give you the Origin Water, Lord Astaroth, but the fragment’ll be harder… You know that, right~?”

With the Origin Water safely in my [Storage], Undine returned to her sing-songy tone, though it sounded almost forced.

Perhaps she was feeling nervous…

Or maybe she was trying to calm my nerves.

“Aye. This is the fourth element, after all… I do not even wish to imagine.”

“You won’t have to imagine~?”

“Well, I suppose that is true… Very well! Come!”

“Righto~!”

Markedly faster than any of the goddesses had managed so far, she condensed a part of herself into a glowing light and sent it my way.

The ball of light danced, like a forest fairy under the light of the moon, tapping against my nose once, twice—

And then it melded into my breast, joining with my flesh and blood and becoming a part of me.

As always, the process was accompanied by excruciating pain, but for the first time, I could tell why.

The fragment of divinity, its power overwhelming, shone out brilliantly, attempting to colour over my soul in its own colour—and my soul, a raging maelstrom originating from depths I did not know, fought back to subsume the fragment and make it its own.

With each fragment of divinity I gained, my soul grew stronger, so it was only natural that the conflict, too, would grow in scale, and with it the pain.

Despite the pain, I managed to remain standing by borrowing Lilith’s shoulder—no one else came close to being tall enough—and, after a while, managed to stand by my own strength once more.

«You have obtained a fragment of divinity.»

«You have obtained a “fragment of water-attribute divinity”.»

«Your dormant fragment of divinity has awakened.»

«The skill [Fragment of Li▲-Attribute Divinity] has transformed into [Fragment of Light-Attribute Divinity].»

«Through your bond, Goddess of Darkness, Entropy has bestowed upon you from afar a “fragment of darkness-attribute divinity”.»

«Your fragments of earth-attribute, wind-attribute, fire-attribute, water-attribute, light-attribute and darkness-attribute divinity have merged.»

«You now possess the Divinity of Mana. Congratulations. You are now eligible to become a god.»

«The skills [Fragment of Earth-Attribute Divinity], [Fragment of Wind-Attribute Divinity], [Fragment of Fire-Attribute Divinity], [Fragment of Water-Attribute Divinity], [Fragment of Light-Attribute Divinity] and [Fragment of Darkness-Attribute Divinity] have merged into the skill [Divinity of Magic]. As you have not yet become a fully-fledged god, no concrete authority can yet be granted with this divinity.»

All at once, several more magic markings had appeared on my face, and all of the rings had merged into a single ring.

The ring’s effect was… predictable, to say the least. It allowed the casting of any existent low-level spell without using up mana, any existent spell at all if I was willing to expend the mana, and it had a slight commanding influence over the six mortal races, and other creatures that were connected to the gods.

In other words, almost all creatures, probably exempting Heroes.

Meanwhile, the water-attribute divine marking allowed for waterbreathing, the light-attribute divine marking allowed me to discern truth from lie, and the darkness-attribute divine marking allowed me to turn completely invisible, intangible and otherwise undetectable.

“GAME.”

«At your service, god-candidate.»

“What needs be done for me to become a true god?”

«Would you like technical requirements, or a suggested course of action?»

“We shall go with the latter.”

«Understood.

I recommend two tasks.

First, there is the gathering of Goddess of Darkness, Entropy’s lost Aspects. As you already possess five of them, there are only two left.

Second, you must consume a powerful soul.»

“… How powerful?”

«The more powerful, the better.

However, the bare minimum is eighth-grade or equivalent.»

“…”

I probably should not have given away Philia’s soul like that, after all.