Volume 2, 5 - The Meeting Unfolds

Volume 2, Chapter 5 – The Meeting Unfolds

“『Authorities』 are things that we Administrators govern… there are 『Authorities』 for all things, phenomena and concepts. And to us, the 『Authorities』 are our 『power』, 『responsibility』 and 『duty』.”

“Each Administrator has a main 『Authority』 with a bunch of 『Sub-Authorities』, as well as 『Free-Authorities』 that don’t belong to any, so that makes up all three types.”

The gods of Light and Dark explained to me about the 『Authorities』 that were their main reason for visiting me. I wanted to take down notes, but it wasn’t the right atmosphere for that, so I decided to try my best to memorise it.

“An Administrator’s main 『Authority』 can’t be changed ’cause of their attribute. I’m 『Dark』, that overly serious woman over there is 『Light』, and as for you… Seriously? 『Fear』? That’s a pretty nasty one you’ve chosen, ey?”

I didn’t choose it. I didn’t choose it I say.

I can assent to their 『Main Authorities』 being 『Light』 and 『Dark』, but I can’t accept that mine is 『Fear』.

“In exchange for very few being able to choose a emotion-type 『Authority』, they can gain faith through that emotion, you see. It seems that you are only absorbing the fear directed at yourself, though.”

It felt like something from people my followers was flowing into me, but that was the reason? Just exactly how feared am I?

…Mn? There was something concerning in her words just now though.

“Can I absorb fear directed at things besides me too?”

“Obviously. 『Authorities』 are the right to manage the world, yanno. As long as you use their function properly, no matter who it’s directed at, you’ll be able to use it as faith. But well, emotions directed at yourself don’t need any conscious work on your half, so I guess it’s that much more efficient, ey?”

I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I decided not to use my power as an Administrator because I had no idea what might’ve happened, but is that why? As long as it’s linked to ‘gathering faith'[filling my stomach] this is pretty important, so I’ll have a look at it later.

“Anyway, the remaining ones are 『Sub-Authorities』 and 『Free-Authorities』, but they’re decided among fellow Administrators. Mains and subs become the Administrator’s specialty, yanno?”

“A specialised 『Authority』 cannot be used by other Administrators. On the other hand, free 『Authorities』 can be used by all Administrators.”

“Then couldn’t you just leave them all free?”

“If that was all it’d be aight, but you can’t gather faith from free 『Authorities』. And if you can’t distinguish whose responsibility is whose, the response to problems gets slow, and it’s riddled with risk.”

I see. That’s why they’re 『power』, 『responsibility』 and 『duty』, huh?

So in exchange for gaining 『power』, you gain as much responsibility in exchange.

“Having said that, if all 『Authorities』 are specialised, then there would be none remaining for other Administrators to use. As a result, those that have a high degree of risk are used as 『Sub-Authorities』, while the rest are left as free.”

“Anyway, here comes the main topic; up ’til now, all the 『Sub-Authorities』 have been split between me and her, but suddenly this new Administrator pops up. So we need to choose how to divide the 『Sub-Authorities』 again.”

I understand why they came as a pair now. It was to hold an important meeting about how the world would be from now on.

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With the general explanation finished, after brewing some more tea, the meeting resumed. Also, since I would feel bad about calling Tena to such a dangerous place, I steeped the tea myself. The two were making doubtful expressions, but I wouldn’t accept any complaints.

“Well then, guess we’ll quickly get to it. First of all, I’m taking 『Demon Race』. No discussions.”

“I too will not concede 『Human Race』.”

T-, The way this is going is… The so-called ‘taking-all-the-good parts-to-yourself-and-leaving-the-newcomer-with-the-remains-newcomer-bullying-scene’!?

Are they going to say stuff like

“『Goblins』 or 『Vulgarness』 would fit ‘a person of low birth'[an embarrassment to the divines] like you.” or “You ain’t thinking that an accident like you could be on equal terms with us, right?” to me?

They carefully explained various things to me so I let my guard down, but thinking about it, there’s no way that a human that messed up their territory by becoming a divine──although I didn’t wish for it──would be accepted by them.

But I can’t just take things sitting down either.

If I lose this power struggle, then it’ll also mean that this country will be looked down on by its neighbours. It’ll threaten the peaceful lives of Tena and the others too. I don’t want to recklessly abuse my influence, but I need a minimum amount of power as a foothold.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

I need to be stubborn here.

“I won’t accept──”

“Leaving the rest to you.”

“I shall leave the rest up to you.”

*imouto*

*imouto*

*imouto*

──this?

*imouto*

*imouto*

*imouto*

“I do think that it is a difficult task, but I have faith in you.”

“Well, just see this as training.”

*imouto*

*imouto*

*imouto*

T-, These guys… They’re planning on pushing all the work onto me?

Right. Even if I take Leonora’s story with a grain of salt, they were a pair that didn’t care about the details as long as they were loved by their respective races. At the time, the conversation was about the Light God, but from what I can see it applies to the Dark God as well.

The Dark God called her overly serious, but just what part of this is overly serious?

Up until now, they’d be reluctantly working in order to protect their races, but now that there was somebody they could push all the work onto, they were planning to only take responsibility for the things they cared about, and were plotting to push everything else onto me.

This isn’t a joke.

I want the bare minimum power to prevent myself from being invaded, but I don’t want everything pushed onto me. What I want is to relax in peace; there’s no point if my schedule is so busy I’ll die.

I need to be stubborn here.

“I won’t accept this.”

“Ah?”

“Ah?”

I’m being glared at. As I thought, the Light God is scarier. But I can’t give up here.

“If you’re pushing all the other 『Authorities』 onto me, then I can also destroy the humans or the demons with 『Epidemic』. Are you fine with that?”

“─────!”

“─────!”

The moment I said that, the two gods stood straight up. I was being glared at just like before, but the pressure now was on another level.

“You have sure some guts, eh.”

The Dark God was gathering mana in his hands, but the Light God waved him to stop, and spoke to me.

“Did you say, that you would destroy the Human Race?”

“The fact that I’ll be able to is the problem. If one god has all the 『Authorities』, they’ll be unstoppable.”

“I see. So you wanted to say that there is a need for the three of us to be in balance. You have a point. However──”

The Light God stopped her sentence midway, before pulling out a massive sword as tall as she was, and slamming it into the table. A thunderous boom rang out through the room, and the round table was split in half.

“──the next time you speak nonsense like that again, I will destroy you.”

Scary… Yes, I will definitely keep that in mind.

I raised my arms face-height in surrender, before stating my defence.

“It was just an example; I have no intention of doing it.”

“I sincerely hope not.”

It seems that I somehow got her to sheathe her sword.

Of course, I never had any intentions of destroying the humans or the demons to begin with, and it was because there was that risk that I wanted to give an example of why we needed balance, but from now on I’m going to be careful not to say anything stupid about messing with the humans in front of her.

I can sort of understand now why the Dark God calls her “overly serious”. But if she’s going to be serious, then I would’ve preferred her putting that into a different outlet.

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After repairing the bisect table──the one who broke it was the Light God, so why was I…?──we resumed the meeting.

However, the discussion dragged on and we didn’t make progress. Although I prevented everything being pushed onto me, both the Light God and Dark God were trying their best to push things onto somebody else. In the end, it became something like “Even if one of us does something destructive, the other two can just cooperate and stop them.” and we just kept pushing things onto each other.

If I relaxed I would’ve just gotten things pushed onto me instead, so I also objected, but because of that, we eventually fell into a completely unproductive cycle of pushing things onto each other.

The old and new, male god and goddess, positive attributes and negative attributes; a frenzied 2 vs 1 battle that continually changed positions continued on, and along the way we lost track of who was objecting to what anymore.

Because we didn’t need to eat or sleep, it just meant that the argument continued endlessly.

“Hahh… Hahh…”

“Huu… We are not making progress, are we?”

“Seriously, you two are freaking stubborn.”

Even though we didn’t even need to breathe, we glared at each other breathless.

I wanted to tell him that he was just as stubborn as we were, but as the Light God said, we weren’t making any progress.

“Alright. I’ve got an idea that’ll definitely decide things.”

“Hmm, please do say.”

“Or rather, if you had something like that then say it to begin with.”

Dark God. Shut up.

I only just thought of it, so it couldn’t be helped.

“We’ll have a match, and the winner gets to decide on how to divide things. However, with the balance between the three of us kept in mind.”

“Ohh? Ain’t that interesting.”

“I see. Even if we continue the conversation, there does not seem to be an end in sight, so I think that idea is fine too. However, just what kind of match will it be?”

Naturally, I have no plans on simply battling it out. It won’t be a game or anything either. It’s clear that I’d completely lose in both.

*imouto*

*imouto*

*imouto*

“The match will be… a dungeon.”

Precepts for having an efficient meeting; as learned by Anri-san.

1. Decide on the length of the meeting beforehand

“An endless meeting is dangerous.”

2. Make sure to have somebody in charge of the direction of the meeting.

“Without one, everything gets out of control.”

3. Make sure to take minutes

“If everything is recorded, you’ll be self-conscious and pay more attention to what you say… probably.”