In Another World With My Smartphone_Volume 5 Page 9

  “My apologies. Please forgive his rudeness. Just so you are aware, this audience with Your Majesty was based primarily on Nesto’s own initiative, and the pope was not too enthusiastic about it.” Phyllis bowed her head.

  Really? “Having this country adopt the Church of Lars as its state religion would be a great achievement, after all. I believe that that was Nesto’s plan.”

  So he just wanted to get ahead in life, huh? Pretty vulgar for a priest.

  “Anyway, I don’t plan on having a state religion. Tell that to your pope.”

  “Yes. Certainly. By the way, umm... about what you said... Have you perhaps met God in person, your Highness?”

  Oh? Did I say something that gave it away? Man, how should I answer this?

  “I am sorry. This must sound weird... I just... became doubtful about whether God truly exists or not...” Phyllis whispered that and brought her head down.

  You sure you should be saying that? You’re a priestess, aren’t you?

  “This question was always on my mind. People punish evil in the name of justice. While a part of me sees that as a wonderful thing, I can’t help but wonder whether it’s fair to mark someone as evil simply because they’re demonic or born from the dark. Also, can’t we forgive someone who only made a single error? Such questions came one after the other and...” I can somewhat understand her, but is it really okay for her to continue being a priestess while doubting her God so much? Suddenly, the smartphone in my pocket began vibrating.

  Eh? Now, of all times? Since there was only one person who ever called me, I knew exactly who it was.

  I took it out and answered the call.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, it has been a while. I take it you know who this is?”

  Yeah, of course I do. Still, you should say who you are when calling. This timing, though...

  “Were you watching?”

  “Happened to be watching, yes. I must say, having you snap like that was quite satisfying. Thanks for getting mad for my sake.”

  Crap, he saw me. Damn, this is embarrassing. As I was writhing about the stuff I’d said, Phyllis fearfully called out to me.

  “Umm... who are you talking to?”

  “God.”

  “Eh?!” As Phyllis became surprised, I noticed that Kohaku — standing next to me — was in a weird state. The tiger wasn’t moving a muscle.

  Wait, what? Even Kousaka is completely stiff. What the hell?!

  “Oh, I just stopped the time there for a bit. Things could get troublesome if anyone else saw me.”

  “You stopped time?! Wait, did you just say ‘if anyone else saw me’?! Do you mean that...?”

  “I thought that I should answer that young lady’s questions. I’m coming over. She won’t believe you otherwise. All right, then...”

  “Hey...!”

  Seriously? He actually hung up. I moved the smartphone away from my ear and looked at Phyllis.

  “He’s coming over...”

  “‘He’...? Who do you mean?”

  “Well... God.” As Phyllis and I were both in a state of astonishment, God descended before us, surrounded by blinding light. His divine — obviously, considering he was God — aura engulfed us. A single glance was enough to see just how celestial he was. He slowly went down and stood on the same ground we mortals walked on.

  “Yoo-hoo, it is I, your man God.”

  “Be more serious, damn it!” You obviously had more majestic things to say! And stop smiling like that, the situation is ridiculous enough as it is!

  ◇　◇　◇

  Phyllis stood before the merry old man, trembling uncontrollably. After a few seconds, she seemed to lose the ability to stand. She collapsed to the ground, twitching.

  “Hm? Are you quite alright, dear?”

  “Uh, God...” God didn’t seem to understand what was going on, so I called to him.

  “There’s a... force you’re exuding right now, can you maybe turn it off? It’s making it hard for me to even look at you, so I can’t even imagine what it’s doing to her.”

  “Oh? Ah, very well. Goodness me, I forgot I was in the mortal realm. Forgive my carelessness... Divine energy tends to leak right out of me! I didn’t even notice...” Gradually, the golden shine in the room receded back into God’s body. Alongside it, the horrifying feeling of submission and oppression vanished as well. That’s God for ya, I guess.

  “We should be quite fine now, I believe. Are you alright, dear?”

  “Y-Yes...” Despite her words, Phyllis still only really seemed capable of raising her head. That was perfectly understandable, all things considered. Having been shown something like this? She’d have no choice but to admit the truth. I think her earlier question about the validity of my God had been promptly answered. God absolutely existed.

  “We should change venues, I think. Is there another, more comfortable room in the area?”

  “Hm? I mean, I have a meeting room...” I opened up a [Gate] and the three of us went through. Phyllis had trouble standing, so I had to lend her my arm until we reached the couch.

  I went to prepare us all some tea, passing by a frozen Renne and Cecile, who were apparently laughing at something before being paused. I poured out the tea by myself into a big pot, then returned to the room with a few snacks and three teacups.

  When I returned to the room, the two were much like they were when I’d left. God was swaying around a bit, looking about the room like an excited child, while Phyllis was sweating bullets and almost completely immobile. Her eyes, on the other hand, were darting all over the place.

  I poured out the tea into the cups and lined the snacks up. God took the first sip, and I asked my question.

  “I’ve got a question for you, old man.”

  “Mhm? What is it?” God placed his teacup down on the table with a smile, and turned to face me.

  “Do you know of any God of Light named Lars?”

  “That... does not ring a bell. I’ve never heard that name, no. In fact, amongst all journeyman-level Gods, and even trainee Gods... there is no such being as Lars, God of Light.” I didn’t expect him to be that confident. Phyllis looked like she had been punched in the stomach. But that was only natural, the God she had been raised to believe in had just been completely outed as fictional.

  “Well, maybe he isn’t called Lars. Is there a God of Light?”

  “No, there is no such thing as the God of Light. Well, if I were forced to classify a God of Light, that would probably fall under my jurisdiction. I’m the World God, after all. There’s a God of Wind, a God of Fire, a God of Darkness, and so on. For the most part, deities with the ‘God of’ prefix are the most simple and lowest of the Godly hierarchy.” Hm, I wondered if that meant the God of Love was a lower level God, as well. That confused me, because she seemed very friendly with my God, who I figured was pretty much at the tippy-top. I didn’t really know much about the social affairs of the divine realm, nor did I care that much.

  “B-But... if that’s the case, then what about the legendary incident, in which High Light Priest Ramirez called down Lars, God of Light?” Ramirez, the High Light Priest, was the founder of the Ramissh Theocracy. The person who supposedly purified the land by borrowing the light of God.

  “Hm? You say he called upon a God? Even if humans could summon Gods, which I sincerely doubt... it would still be rather rare. Then again, there are some Gods that act upon simple whims, so I could not rule it out entirely.” The irony here was palpable. This God was probably the most whimsical of the lot!

  “Still, as the story goes... I do not believe it was a God. It is more likely that he summoned a spirit. To be more specific, a spirit of light.”

  “That’s a little ambiguous... Is it possible to peep into the past and see what happened?”

  “That is not impossible, but... it would be a bit of a bother. Let me explain in terms you may understand a little better. It is quite easy to pause an episode of something if you watch it on D
VD, yes? But say you recorded television for an entire year, and suddenly needed to find the advertisements of a specific late-night talk show from a year and a half ago. Your recordings are numerous, and you have not indexed them... it would be quite hard to reach that certain point, would it not?” That was a needlessly complicated explanation, but I pretty much understood.

  “But then... what of our teachings? Our doctrine...?” Phyllis looked completely depressed, which was only natural given that God had just shot down her entire life. It was understandable, but even so, I didn’t expect her to get that torn up over it.

  “Do you people need the hand of God to hold yours? Can you not march forward for the sake of your own beliefs? Your own responsibilities? There’s no harm in taking God as a piece of emotional solace, but you must not use religion as a crutch. Your parents, siblings, lovers, friends, you must trust in them, as they trust in you. To be dependent upon us is the greatest mistake you could make. The Gods will do nothing to your world. I can assure you of that. Only you are capable of saving yourselves, or destroying yourselves. You are the ones with the power to change to the world, to create miracles. We above will simply watch down upon you.” God was certainly being thorough, but he still interfered now and then, didn’t he?

  I decided to keep my mouth shut. I didn’t think my commentary would have anything to add. Phyllis seemed pretty sad, anyway, so snarky commentary would just be insensitive.

  “Well, even though I said that, I suppose it was not entirely the case... I typically leave you to your own devices without looking. If young Touya were not sent here, I may not have taken a look at affairs for another ten thousand years or so.” Just like that, he completely ruined the beauty of his message! Even though he had made a point to say the Gods were watching, it felt more like they were neglecting! He probably had a ton of different worlds to manage anyway, so keeping an eye on every one would be a pain. “Is that truly the case?”

  “Indeed. It may sound somewhat cruel, but the world is not my responsibility. No world is. The inhabitants are the ones who decide what happens to their world. The Gods will do nothing, I promise you that. Well, we would interfere if the troubles in the world were caused by us, for example the rare incident of a God turning wicked and laying waste to the world below. We would step in then.” I certainly hoped nothing like that happened to us. Sounded like a bad time for everyone. The rules seemed a little flexible and contradictory there. Gods sure were whimsical.

  “If I were to summarize, I’d say that I want the people of their respective worlds to deal with the problems of their respective worlds. Even if a great Demon Lord appeared and began to wage war upon the world, hoping to crush or dominate it, we Gods would do nothing if the Demon Lord were a natural resident of the world to begin with. That being said, I would elect to grant divine weaponry to mankind and aid their struggle. I do not like worlds in which people suffer heavily, after all.” That made sense enough. I supposed that indirect intervention was also a fair option. It was enough to interfere, but also not be a massive boost. But then again, he said they wouldn’t intervene in the natural order of the world, but they’d still grant some kind of superweapon to use in the case of big events like a Demon Lord uprising? It all sounded a little half-assed to me.

  “There will always be those who depend on their parents forever. But the humans of this world are children no longer, I ask that you walk by yourselves, talk by yourselves. If you do so, you should be able to walk with pride and strength, to clear all obstacles in your path. With that, we Gods will watch over you keenly. Sometimes.” That ‘sometimes’ was a little unnecessary. But I’m sure that someone was always being watched somewhere across all the universes, so it wasn’t like they were slacking.

  “B-But what am I to do...? If Lars, God of Light, doesn’t exist, then... All of his teachings were made by a man, rather than the divine. Does that make it all meaningless? Does that make all I’ve ever done completely meaningless?”

  “It is not meaningless, far from it. I am certain that somewhere, at least once, those teachings have saved someone. It matters not who made them, so long as they do good. Simply look at it as ‘for your fellow man’ rather than ‘for the glory of God’. Cast off the shackles of doctrine, and live by your own strengths.”

  “...Y-Yes...” I didn’t think her mind would be able to change right away. After all, she had been born with a certain mindset, and raised in it. But, little by little, I felt she could be freed from the shackles she was born into.

  “Well then, I believe it’s time for me to leave. It is not proper for time to be put on pause for so long...” We moved back to my throne room, because it would’ve been strange if we suddenly vanished in front of everyone else.

  Kohaku and Kousaka were both as stiff as they had been before. If it weren’t for the unusual circumstances of the situation, I might’ve been inclined to pull a prank on them. It was a tad late for that, though.

  “Well then, my dear. Live strong, live brave. Live in good health.” God bore a beautiful smile, and turned into particles of light.

  After a few moments, Kohaku and the others began to move again. They looked in our general direction, somewhat confused. Since my location was a little bit different to when time had stopped, I think it looked like I had teleported from their perspective.

  “...I-It feels like I just woke from a dream. Did... did that really just happen?”

  “It really did. You met with God, the one and only. Do you believe, now?”

  “...I do.” The girl wore a peaceful smile on her face, and the shine in her eyes seemed calmer, more serene. I hoped that she was able to reconcile things within herself.

  Then, with a quick bow and an apology, she left my throne room.

  So ended my first diplomatic meeting. I was immediately reprimanded by Kousaka. I couldn’t really complain about that, though. I was not exactly good when it came to negotiation.

  In all honesty I was a little concerned, so I dispatched one of Tsubaki’s ninjas to the Theocracy. I summoned a tiny bird and asked him to take it along with him, so that I’d be able to know any news as soon as he got it.

  A few days later, I learned that a priestess of the Ramissh Theocracy, one Phyllis Rugit, had been stripped of her position. She had been charged with high blasphemy, the penalty for which was death.

  ◇　◇　◇

  How could something so foolish have come about? I couldn’t understand why Phyllis had been marked for execution. The world was too cruel a place, to allow this to happen to a girl who was finally able to act on her own thoughts.

  《When is she to die?》

  《Ah, yes... The execution is scheduled for three days from now, early in the morning. The only reason she wasn’t cut down on the spot was because of the presence of a group that protested the order, and they didn’t wish to create civil unrest.》 The agent I had sent to Ramissh was able to instantly report in through a telepathic link I had set up via a summoned bird familiar. From the sounds of things, Phyllis had some allies over there, so that was a small comfort to know. At the very least, I was glad she hadn’t been killed yet.

  《Thank you. Please continue your investigation, and let us know if there are any new major developments.》

  《Very well.》 I cut off the contact. I had to figure out what to do. It was obvious from the outset that I couldn’t leave her to die. I was the one responsible for Phyllis’ new outlook on life, so the execution order was also my responsibility by proxy.

  “Ugh... this is why religion is such a bore, Touya. Religious people are always convinced they’re in the right, and never stop to consider other outlooks!” Elze, leaning her arms on the table at the balcony, failed to hide her irritation. I told everyone about the situation with Phyllis, though I took care to omit the part about us getting a visit from God. I just replaced that part by telling everyone that I had persuaded Phyllis to change her faith, or rather that she had left our meeting with a few things to reflect on and
ponder.

  “So, what will you do?”

  “Well, I figured I’d go there. I have to stop the execution, right?” I gave Linze a simple enough answer. This was one of those situations where the fact that I was a head of state could come in handy. They couldn’t just brush me off, surely. I decided that the best course of action was to directly negotiate with the pope. After all, the life of one former priest wouldn’t be that difficult to negotiate sparing, right?

  “And if they do not stop, if they do not, what will you do then?”

  “Hm... it’ll have to be a prison break, right? I’ll bust in and save her.”

  “A-Are you stupid, Touya?! That’ll cause an international incident!” Yumina didn’t seem to like my response to Yae’s question, but I decided to keep it as a last resort. I didn’t think we needed to rely on Ramissh or anything, so if we ended up souring relations with them it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

  At first, I held back a little. I wasn’t sure if Lars, God of Light, was a real entity, and I didn’t want to meddle in their religious affairs, but after God himself told me that Lars wasn’t real? That changed everything. Ultimately, their religion was irrelevant to me in this matter, what mattered was their diplomatic attitude. Part of me wouldn’t have even minded if diplomatic relations broke down between our two nations. They just sounded more like trouble than anything else to me.

  I shifted my gaze to Kousaka, who was quietly standing nearby.

  “Will there be any issues if I earn the ire of that country?”

  “Currently, I see no major negative repercussions. But they may send their zealots to cause trouble in our country.” Well that sounded a bit irritating. It struck me as odd that a God with teachings of light and justice would have such petulant, hounding followers.

  “They can justify anything if they say it’s in the name of justice... It’s just a convenient excuse for them...” Lu let out a quiet mutter, disgust painted on her face. That reminded me of a saying I’d once heard. So long as everyone tries to be the hero, wars will never end.