The Spirit God spared a glance for the Fairy Queen and gave a slight nod.
"I have explanations to give, but I also had matters to discuss."
With that brief acknowledgement, he left the still-frozen queen behind and turned his attention toward the siblings, Spira and Lowell.
"You siblings have endured much hardship. Yet, you have done well to overcome those tribulations and attain spiritification."
"I... well..."
The hardship he mentioned was likely Spira’s spiritification process. It hadn't gone well initially, leaving her in a half-spirit state and in constant danger of death. Lowell had spent years traveling the world, searching for medicinal ingredients to save her.
That said, neither Spira nor Lowell had likely expected the Spirit God himself to acknowledge their struggle. They looked utterly bewildered, the words failing to come.
Since they were stuck, I decided to ask a question in their place.
"Why does the spiritification of forestfolk even happen?"
"Hmm. So you are Tort."
For some reason, he seemed to know who I was.
"Spirits are beings of circulation. When spirits who have lived for ages meet their end, they are divided into a thousand shards and reborn as countless tiny spirits. The world is sustained by that eternal repetition. However, what lies at the end of a closed cycle is stagnation, and a stagnant world breeds dross. To prevent that, new existences are necessary."
The Spirit God's explanation was high-flown—or maybe just abstract. I couldn't quite wrap my head around it. Based on my vague understanding, I gathered that the world would run into management problems if new spirits weren't born.
"Then why don't you offer more help?" I asked.
"Even gods are not omnipotent. The more subjects one protects, the more one’s power to interfere with individuals is diluted. In the first place, excessive interference with those who have not been granted divine protection is forbidden."
Does that mean it's harder to give someone special treatment if you're watching over too many people? Perhaps that's why Ren-kun doesn't try to proactively increase his number of followers. His connection with the wingfolk already seems quite deep, after all.
"Though I cannot interfere directly, I was concerned about the birth of these new spirits. I never imagined they would be saved by the associates of that fellow. I suppose I owe you my thanks as well."
"Oh... sure."
"That fellow" was almost certainly Ren-kun.
"Now, I must explain the cause of this incident. Though it was not at his request, it is a fact that I was aided by him. Therefore, I attempted to assist him with his work in return, but that led to this accident."
The Spirit God then began to explain the details. To summarize, it went something like this:
Because Ren-kun’s associates—me, Halfa, and Shiroru—had helped Spira with her spiritification, the Spirit God felt indebted to Ren-kun. He decided to return the favor by helping with Ren-kun’s current goal: reducing the malice inside the dungeon. That was the very task Ren-kun had entrusted to me.
As a solution, the Spirit God had connected the Fairy Realm to the dungeon. "Connected" wasn't quite the right word for a physical passage, though; it was more like they were linked through a filter. His goal was to draw malice into the Fairy Realm. Since fairies absorb malice and discharge it as spirit essence, he intended to use the entire realm to purify the dungeon's corruption.
However, from the dungeon's perspective, the Fairy Realm was a foreign body. Normally, such a connection would never hold. To bypass this, the Spirit God had camouflaged the connection to make the realm appear as part of the dungeon from the outside.
Ren-kun had said he couldn't even probe the state of the dungeon, yet the Spirit God was over here forcibly linking spaces and faking identities like it was nothing. I suppose this was the "difference in power" between gods.
Regardless, the trouble started when I used the Attraction Slip right as the connection was established. Due to the camouflage, the dungeon saw the Fairy Realm as just another floor. It misidentified the fairies living there as monsters, and as a result, the slip had snatched up Roro.
"As an apology for the trouble caused, I shall bestow my divine protection. However, I cannot force my protection upon the apostle of that fellow, so it shall go to you two instead."
The "two" were, naturally, Spira and Lowell. The Spirit God paid no mind to their reactions. While Spira and her brother stood dazed by the sudden turn of events, the god clasped his hands together, producing a brilliant light. The glow split in two, flying toward Lowell and Spira respectively. The lights were absorbed into their bodies just above their stomachs.
"There, that is done. Your mission is to cooperate with the apostles of that fellow and put a stop to the Trial God's reckless acts. See that you work hard."
Having finished his unilateral decree, the Spirit God vanished as abruptly as he had appeared.
Left behind, we stood there in a bit of a daze, overwhelmed by the god's sheer "my-pace" attitude. Then again, maybe that's just how gods are supposed to act.
"...Tort, I'm honestly impressed you can behave so normally while talking to a god."
After a moment, Lowell found his voice, sounding more than a little exasperated.
Wait, so they weren't bewildered by the Spirit God's attitude? They were just shocked by me?
Now that he mentioned it, he was a god. Ordinarily, people probably freeze up and find themselves unable to move. The fact that I questioned him without a second thought probably made me look like a total weirdo. But honestly, it felt a little late to start worrying about that now.
"I guess it's just because I'm used to Ren-kun."
"The Destiny God is much easier to talk to, so I feel like that's not quite it..." Halfa murmured softly.
Come to think of it, Halfa had been unusually quiet too. It was true that the Spirit God’s presence was far more overwhelming than Ren-kun’s, but I didn't think he was that hard to talk to. Am I really just that dense? I had just stumbled upon a realization I didn't particularly want to acknowledge. I was the oblivious one.
While I was feeling a bit down, the Fairy Queen let out a heavy sigh.
"He's gone and taken my job, hasn't he? To those who have already received the protection of the Spirit God or the Destiny God, my own protection is hardly necessary at this point... Whatever shall I do?"
Oh, right. The effect of the Invitation was supposed to be the Divine Protection of the Fairy Queen.
Under the circumstances, I wonder what happens now?