Ch.353Chapter 353 – Interesting, isn’t it? Let’s continue.

Everything has a hierarchy.

Even beasts that cannot speak recognize the strongest individual as their leader, so naturally, hierarchies exist among intelligent beings who communicate through language and writing.

There are hierarchies of status such as slaves, serfs, commoners, nobles, and royalty, as well as hierarchies of education like private academies and public academies.

Obviously, even within the same social class, hierarchies differ depending on whether one is a frontier noble or a central noble, a first-generation noble or an inherited noble.

If we can see that such hierarchies exist among beings living on earth, it means that divine beings who rule this world must also have hierarchies.

The assembly of gods who rule this world is called the Pantheon, and even within this Pantheon, a hierarchy exists.

What determines the hierarchy among gods in the Pantheon? It’s simply ‘how many followers they have.’

This is because a god’s power is proportional to the size of their faith.

The more followers who believe in them, the wider their range of intervention in the world becomes.

That’s why the gods of the Pantheon always worked extremely hard to increase their followers.

Why do those called “ability users” exist?

They are simply a means used by gods of the Pantheon to increase their influence on the world.

Ability users know the name of the god who granted them their power.

This is because the gods reveal their names when bestowing abilities upon users.

So whenever ability users accomplish something noteworthy, they mention the name of the god who gave them their power.

Naturally, as the god’s name is mentioned, their influence grows among people.

That’s why when the Demon God became a serious threat, the gods of the Pantheon granted their powers to anyone who showed even a hint of potential, turning them into ability users.

This happened just a few months before Pathos was reincarnated into this world.

Through this, the gods of the Pantheon sought to spread their names widely across the world, secure followers, and strengthen their power.

However, the fact that there is a hierarchy even among the gods of the Pantheon means…

“So everyone was here.”

…that there are beings who rank above the gods of the Pantheon.

Because, after all, everything has a hierarchy.

“What interesting scheme were you all plotting here without me?”

Great Goddess Epitrina, who had appeared in the Pantheon, wore a smile on her lips.

But her eyes were slowly scanning the gods gathered in the Pantheon.

“Tell me. Who started this?”

As soon as Epitrina finished speaking, cold sweat began to form on the foreheads of some gods.

Sweat flowing from the foreheads of beings who, unlike mortal bodies, hardly need physical activity?

This indicated that their current situation was extremely dangerous.

Epitrina, who had come to the Pantheon, was in a very displeased state.

“So you all tried to have some fun while I wasn’t paying attention?”

This was because she had caught the gods of the Pantheon attempting to play a small prank on the world below without her knowledge.

As the highest divine being managing this world, she had tolerated her subordinate gods playing minor pranks on the world.

For divine beings living through infinite time, the finite lives of mortals served as small amusements.

As a high-ranking deity, Epitrina understood the hardships of lower gods, so she deliberately avoided intervening in worldly affairs unless it was a major incident.

But now, winds of division were once again blowing through the human world that had barely regained peace.

The reason was simple.

Gods who were worshipped by powerful religious orders wanted to provide some small “benefits” to gods leading smaller religious orders.

After all, those belonging to the massive community called the Pantheon would have to face each other for eternity unless they chose self-annihilation.

So they planned to cause very minor chaos in the human world to help gods of weaker religious orders attract people’s faith.

However, what the gods considered “minor chaos” was a war between alliances of powerful nations and smaller countries.

Events that bring chaos to the world, like war, relatively weaken people’s reason and strengthen their emotions.

If someone extends a helping hand to people whose lives have been devastated by war…

These people would become followers of the weaker religious orders, becoming sources of faith.

But what these gods hadn’t anticipated was…

‘If you’re watching from above, please don’t let war break out, please…’

None other than Pathos, who was favored by Epitrina, had personally offered a prayer.

From Epitrina’s perspective, just as she was about to rest after the battle with the Demon God, the human she favored was saying, “Please stop the war.”

Now that the Demon God’s interference was gone, a peaceful era should have arrived, and she had just wanted to rest a bit, but suddenly more work appeared—naturally, Epitrina couldn’t help but be furious.

For her, who was already making other preparations for Pathos’s future, this situation was not something she could simply sit back and observe.

Epitrina used her divine power to discover who was trying to start a war on earth and who was instigating them from behind.

So she personally visited the Pantheon, which she rarely frequented, and revealed herself before the conspiring gods.

“Why are you trying to start a war on your own? Hmm?”

“W-well, that’s…”

“Be quiet. Did I ask you to answer?”

“…”

Epitrina’s face was smiling when she appeared in the Pantheon, but her voice was dripping with coldness.

“Who was the first to suggest war? Hmm?”

Epitrina looked around, trying to find who had first proposed such an absurd idea as war.

But because everyone was prostrating themselves at her appearance, she couldn’t tell who the mastermind was.

“Everyone, stand up.”

At Epitrina’s command, all the gods rose from their places at once.

“Point to the mastermind.”

It was a very simple order to reveal the mastermind, but the gods’ fingers moved faster than anyone else’s.

“W-wait! It definitely wasn’t me!”

The being receiving the accusation from numerous gods was the God of War.

When he was pointed out as the one who plotted the war, he showed an expression of injustice.

Epitrina sighed at the gods’ accusation that naturally the God of War must have planned the war.

“Don’t try to frame someone. Answer honestly.”

Epitrina, knowing that the assembled gods were trying to pin the blame on an innocent god, demanded they point again.

Finally, the gods once more pointed their fingers at the masterminds of this incident.

“The God of Mercy, the Goddess of Abundance, and the God of Justice.”

Epitrina recited the names of the three gods accused of masterminding the war.

The three gods, dragged forward, trembled as they looked at Epitrina.

“What were you thinking when you planned this?”

“Well, actually…”

The three gods explained to Epitrina why they had planned to start another war after the period of chaos had ended.

Epitrina’s head throbbed at their extremely god-centric thinking—that they wanted to start a war to give weaker gods a chance to expand their religious influence.

It irritated her to see these beings strutting around calling themselves gods.

If she wished, she could annihilate all the gods gathered here and create new ones, but that would only increase the chaos in the world.

What she wanted was for Pathos to complete his life without any incidents and return to her.

“Sigh, whenever I turn my attention elsewhere for just a moment, you always cause trouble like this, don’t you?”

“We’re sorry…”

The gods, who appeared sacred and noble before their followers, were merely troublemakers caught in the act before the Great Goddess, a divine being far above them.

“All of you, send down divine revelations. Say that in this era, war will not be tolerated under any circumstances, and that those who break the peace will surely be punished.”

“Y-yes, we will!”

Seeing that Epitrina was choosing to prevent war through divine revelations rather than separate punishments, all the gods in the Pantheon immediately sent revelations to their religious orders.

“Hear me, my faithful servants. In this time of peace, those who provoke conflict shall surely face retribution.”

“Divine punishment shall fall upon those who break the peace.”

The gods of the Pantheon had to work their asses off sending divine revelations to somehow prevent another war, and only then could the chaos on earth finally subside.

“Let me say this one last time: don’t even dream of starting a war. Understand? If this happens one more time, I’ll erase all of you. Got it?”

“Yes, Great Goddess!”

Having restored discipline, Epitrina returned to her quarters, and only then could the gods of the Pantheon breathe sighs of relief.

However…

“Because of you, we almost all ended up dead!”

“H-haha. L-let’s talk this out, okay? Let’s use words…”

“No discussion needed!”

It was a secret that the three gods who had instigated the war received a minor “punishment” from the other gods.