Running Away From The Hero! (Remake) Chapter 187

Chapter 187

< Evade the Hero and Flee! 187 #22. Well, this is merely the beginning (2) >

#2 Their circ.u.mstance: the Demon G.o.d’s circ.u.mstance

In the beginning, two Creator G.o.ds created the world and gave birth to two new G.o.ds.

The two Creator G.o.ds then showed the newly-born G.o.ds two continents and asked them.

-Choose the side you find to your liking. And then establish a suitable balance for this world.

Two newly-born G.o.ds might have been born on the same time, same day, but boasted two opposing personalities. As such, they unhesitantly selected different continents from each other.

-These will be the lifeforms you shall now look after.

The Creator G.o.ds began releasing various lifeforms they had formulated throughout the land. Once everything was complete, the two G.o.ds declared thus:

-We have now accomplished everything we set out to do. The rest is now up to you.

At the end of that declaration, the two Creator G.o.ds allowed the newly-born G.o.ds to decide their own beliefs, distributed ‘underling’ deities to serve the two, then left the world.

The two newly-born G.o.ds, named the Good G.o.d and the Demon G.o.d, took the first word in their names and renamed the continents they were in charge of as the Good Continent and the Demon Continent.

And so… time pa.s.sed.

The Good Continent eventually became the human continent, and soon afterwards, a concept the two Creator G.o.ds had never considered appeared – the concept of evil. And then…

That concept, evil, gained divinity and began threatening the world. That forced the Good G.o.d and Demon G.o.d to stop their ongoing conflict to join hands and seal the evil. But then, a certain G.o.d undid that seal on the rest of the world.

The G.o.ddess of Benevolence and Devotion gave up on her G.o.dhood and used herself up as a sacrifice to re-seal the Evil G.o.d. Her selfless sacrifice meant that the world regained its balance, even if it was still unstable.

The remaining G.o.ds worked hard to restore and maintain the world’s balance. And the Demon G.o.d referred to as the top G.o.d among them all was currently…

“Ouch…”

…She was lying on her back, busy clutching her pounding head.

“My head hurts…”

A G.o.d’s job is to watch the world. To keep an eye out on her belief system, her temple(s), and her faithful flock. And that was why the Demon G.o.d was bitterly regretting her short-sightedness right now.

“I should’ve changed the name of my continent, too…”

The Demon G.o.d repeated these exact same words every single day – no, make them as often as three times every minute!

It bears repeating once more: a G.o.d’s job is to watch the world. The belief system, the temple(s), the believers. These three things.

And the Demon G.o.d was the object of wors.h.i.+p for the entire continent.

In other words, the Demon G.o.d was burdened with a ma.s.sive responsibility to watch every single subject on the demon continent!

“Urgh… When that d.a.m.n broad said she’d change the name of her continent, I should’ve noticed the truth…”

The humans’ continent that used to be called the Good Continent, but now simply referred to as the human continent… The master of this domain, the Good G.o.d, willingly gave up on the position of the master and began co-managing the continent along with other G.o.ds.

The Demon G.o.d initially scoffed at that, but when enough time pa.s.sed by for the number of humans and demon races to creep up higher and higher…! She finally learned the true meaning behind that broad’s actions.

-Oh, dear Demon G.o.d! Please bestow your curses to this seditious b.a.s.t.a.r.d!

-Kuwaaaahk! Oh, my Demon G.o.d, please!

-Oh, our great Demon G.o.d, why have you forsaken us…!

-Demon G.o.d, we beg thee!

“Urghhh…”

The non-stop stream of desperate, ardent calling towards her entering her head finally pushed the Demon G.o.d over the edge.

“You b.l.o.o.d.y sons of b*tches, why are you calling out to me when it’s you lot that caused your own problems?!”

Aaaaaaaargh!

The Demon G.o.d yelled like a little kid throwing a tantrum, but unfortunately for her, the world’s rules didn’t want to go easy on her.

“Why don’t you all just disappear…”

You lot, just get wrecked or something!

The Demon G.o.d muttered that half-jokingly, then began pondering something quite seriously.

“Should I just switch off? Like, seriously? But the last time I did that, things went to sh*thouse real quick… Even so, I’m going crazy over here. Why did the children have to go and make so many more children so quickly? Why can’t they just make one kid and focus on raising that one? Aren’t they too loose with their birth policies?!”

The Demon G.o.d honestly began hating the increasing birthrate of the world, or more specifically, the demon race. She was even seriously pondering switching her receiver off and not listening to the voices of the believers.

“Urgh… But if I do that and the seed of evil pops out, then we’ll all be in trouble, so… I mean, one did pop out the last time I tuned myself out, and everyone was slagging me off for it…”

In the past, the Demon G.o.d did switch off the believers’ voices only for a portion of the evil to wake up somewhere in the demon continent. That sure was a huge incident that could’ve caused the utter destruction of the demon continent!

That incident prompted not just the Good G.o.d but also the Demon G.o.d’s subordinate deities to severely criticize her. That’s why she couldn’t dare switch off the believers’ voices.

“Urgh… B-but, wait! Wouldn’t it be okay to switch it off for just a century?! N-no, not even that long. Just a decade! Yes, only a decade!”

Even the dragons that lived for thousands, nay, tens of thousands of years were nothing more than little kiddies to the real G.o.ds. To the Demon G.o.d and the Good G.o.d created first by the Creator G.o.ds, things like a century or a decade were truly a brief wink of time.

“I wonder if it’s fine? No, it should be fine. I mean, will the world really change in only ten years?”

Just as she finished convincing herself of the idea, the Demon G.o.d heard a single voice in her head that stopped her from potentially ruining the entire world.

-Hooray to the Demon G.o.d, hooray to our new demon king!

“Mm? Did that guy, Aggreahrt, finally become the demon king?”

A G.o.d couldn’t arbitrarily interfere in the world of the mortals. Granting some powers to an apostle or a believer was fine, but directly influencing who gets the throne or outright selecting a king was totally out of the question.

Unless, of course, the situation was bad enough to threaten the balance of the world.

For instance, unless things were on the level of humans invading the demon continent, all the Demon G.o.d could do was just watch on.

“Last time I looked, he seemed to be still working extra hard for the throne… Why method did he use, then?”

The Demon G.o.d’s curiosity was aroused, so she temporarily turned off the voices of all the believers except for one and focused her attention on this voice.

-Not yet, huh…

“Mm?”

That voice sounded just a little tired but still flat, composed. But that’s how Aggreahrt usually sounded like, though?

“That’s weird?”

The Demon G.o.d extended her authority and began observing Aggreahrt’s surroundings. He was dealing with a mountain of doc.u.ments on his desk, a look of fatigue staining his face. However, there were no discernible voices praising and exalting Aggreahrt as the next demon king.

“Could it be that some loons are trying to install a new demon king somewhere?”

Something like this happened occasionally: some random idiot would show up from nowhere, claiming that he had survived the Demon G.o.d’s Blessing to become the next demon king.

“Maybe it’s a suicide hopeful? Let’s see…”

The Demon G.o.d stopped paying attention to Aggreahrt, closed her eyes again and focused on the voices she could hear.

“It’s not here, not there… Mm… It’s not here, either…”

Demon king, demon king, demon king!

The Demon G.o.d listened to each voice crying out ‘demon king!’ one at a time, eventually figuring out that all of them were coming from one location.

“H-huh?”

And she was left with no choice but to stand there, mouth agape, at the revelation.

“T-that place… It’s my own temple?”

Feeling fl.u.s.tered now, the Demon G.o.d began to search through her temple more thoroughly next.

“W-what is the meaning of this?!”

Doing so allowed her to finally realise something important.

“I never chose anyone today, though?!”

She realised that someone had withstood the Demon G.o.d’s Blessing… without her even noticing it!

“But how?! I’m supposed to get an automatic notification when a Demon G.o.d’s Blessing ceremony takes place, you know! So why wasn’t there any signs? Could it be a fraud?”

The Demon G.o.d’s Blessing was a ceremony for the Demon G.o.d to ‘select’ the chosen individual as the next ‘demon king’ – more specifically, the brave warrior of the Demon G.o.d. A hero, in other words.

Whenever the demon continent lost the war against the human continent and was threatened with the prospect of losing all of its territories, this ceremony would be performed to give birth to the strongest demon king in existence! The ceremony was meant to grant all of the Demon King’s acc.u.mulated powers to the chosen. Not only that, even the G.o.ds under her borrowed their powers to the recipient, too.

The pa.s.sage of time meant that the demon race’s idea of the ceremony’s purpose had changed somewhat, but regardless of that, this ceremony was never meant to give birth to a new demon king but the hero of the Demon G.o.d. Her direct apostle, if you will.

Being a G.o.d’s apostle was like being a G.o.d’s clone. Obviously, such a being would never be born without the permission of a G.o.d!

“Just what on earth is the problem with… Huh? Ehhh? What is that thing doing in that place?!”

The Demon G.o.d locked eyes with that thing, and her jaw fell all the way to the floor.

She was f*cked.

That thing had b.u.t.ted in now, meaning the Demon G.o.d would not have much of a way to interfere.

“Oh no, this is bad!”

The Demon G.o.d hurriedly left her divine territory and rushed into another deity’s domain.

“Hey, G.o.ddess of Nature!”

“Ah, you’re finally here…”

The domain she rushed to belonged to a subordinate deity to the G.o.d standing on the opposite side to the Demon G.o.d, the Good G.o.d. Yes, it was the domain of the G.o.ddess of Nature.

“W-why is that thing in my…!!!”

“My sincerest apologies.”

“You think your apology is sufficient right now?! In some ways, that thing is far worse than the seed of evil the humans mislabelled as the Demon King!”

“Indeed, you’re correct…”

“You know, yet you let this happen?!”

Griiit!

Even though the Demon G.o.d openly gritted her teeth, the G.o.ddess of Nature didn’t say anything to excuse herself.

“Why did you let it happen, then?”

“Because of the rules, unfortunately.”

“Wha?”

“Since the beginning, any human entering the demon race’s territory cannot receive my powers even if that human happens to be my apostle.”

After the world’s creation, there were times when humans had the ascendency, or the demons held the upper hand. However, a ‘Hero’ would always appear on the losing side to save their continent and re-establish the boundary between the two continents.

“That is the rule.”

Ever since the world’s creation, the boundary between the human side and the demon race side of the continent was fixed, unmoving.

“H-hey, you! Even if that’s the case…”

The Demon G.o.d was rendered speechless, her lips bobbing like a goldfish. But just as she tried to say something…

“The G.o.ddess of Nature is right, Demon G.o.d.”

“…You!”

The G.o.d of Beginning born at the same time as the Demon G.o.d but possessing an opposing nature from the get-go… The G.o.d of all human races, tasked with managing the human continent…!

“The Good G.o.d!”

The Demon G.o.d gritted her teeth while staring at the G.o.ddess that looked exactly the same as her except for the pure-white hair, which was in stark contrast to her black hair.

“How can you be like this? Shouldn’t we work together to deal with that thing?!”

“Since they’ve gone over to the demon side of the continent, we can’t carelessly interfere.”

“Is this how you really want to play?! Is that it?!”

Despite the Demon G.o.d’s pointed glare, the Good G.o.d didn’t avert her gaze. “It’s difficult for us, too.”

“What is?”

“Soon, the Demon King will awaken. This time, on our side of the continent.”

“It’s already that time?” The Demon King’s eyes opened wide.

The Good G.o.d watched her counterpart’s reaction and muttered ‘I knew it’ quietly while nodding her head. “That’s why we’d like you to manage that situation by yourself. I mean, it’s in your side of the pond, after all.”

“T-that, well…” The Demon G.o.d pouted unhappily, but she couldn’t think of a reb.u.t.tal.

“The problem was with you not noticing them crossing over to the demon continent in the first place. Be honest, you weren’t paying attention to your continent because you got annoyed, didn’t you?”

“No, that’s not true!”

Sure, the Demon G.o.d almost nearly did that, but in the end, she hadn’t done it! Of course, she was not stupid enough to mention that out in the open.

“We’ll do our best to eliminate the Demon King on our side. That’s why we want you to deal with the problem by yourself. I mean, it’s still relatively docile right now, no?”

“It being docile is even more terrifying, you know!”

The Demon G.o.d closed her eyes and looked into her temple once more.

There she was, the daughter of the previous demon king, Belegrea. The Demon G.o.d had taken a liking to that girl and Aggreahrt.

And that girl was accompanied by the last surviving descendent of the Succubi race. The Demon G.o.d granted that child a blessing of survival since her race was about to go extinct.

And then…

“Dammit! No wonder I couldn’t notice anything! Even after focusing like crazy, I still get only a blurry image…!”

A human that could faintly be sensed by the Demon G.o.d, but then, those monsters that could not be discerned when using her divine powers…

The Demon G.o.d spat out a lengthy groan after using her powers to borrow the eyes of her apostles and finally take a look at that monstrous group.

-I shall be your demon king from this moment on!

-Hooray, our demon king! Hooray for our Demon G.o.d!

-Glory to all corners of the demon race’s territory!

“No, you’re wrong…!”

The Demon G.o.d gritted her teeth at the birth of a new demon king she didn’t even choose and at her foolish believers happily celebrating it.

“Very well. I shall deal with this mess.”

The Demon G.o.d immediately headed back to her domain, then issued a new oracle.

-Awake, my child.

#3 Their circ.u.mstance: A certain small farmer’s circ.u.mstance

“Urgh!”

Plop!

I wordlessly stared at my farming tool falling to the ground. I was supposed to plough the land but had no energy and couldn’t even do a decent job of that.

“So hungry…”

Today’s breakfast was also potatoes. Lunch, more potatoes. And there’s also a very good chance that supper will be more potatoes, too.

“I’m so sick of potatoes…”

I stretched my limbs grandly, but my head was still filled with the images of potatoes. I was confident of almost never whining about my food, but for the past month or so, 95% of my meals consisted solely of potatoes.

Even someone like me would find it hard to endure in such a case!

“I pray that this year’s harvest will be…”

I looked up at the sky and began praying at the great Demon G.o.d. I prayed for an abundant harvest this year to spare me from the fate of eating nothing but potatoes next yea… Eh?

-Awake, my child.

“I’m sorry?”

Before I could finish, though, someone started talking to me first.

-The child who can hear my voice. You are to immediately head to the Demon G.o.d’s Temple to declare my will. I’m the G.o.d of all demon races, the Demon G.o.d. I command you as your n.o.ble G.o.d. Go and inform them of my will.

“Y-yes, sure…”

I inadvertently ended up swearing an oath to deliver the message. Well, that voice sounded so n.o.ble and divine, you see.

Despite my family trying to stop me, I followed the Demon G.o.d’s will and eventually reached the Demon G.o.d’s Temple. Then, I tried to deliver her n.o.ble will.

-Child, you shall now declare the following. I am none other than…!

“I am none other than!”

-…The great, n.o.ble Demon G.o.d’s apostle, the new demon king!

“The great, n.o.ble Demon G.o.d’s apos… Kkueeewek?!”

In the middle of carrying out the n.o.ble Demon G.o.d’s will, a middle-aged demon suddenly rushed up to me and attacked me. That’s when I finally understood the truth of this world.

…That G.o.ds were dead.

-H-hey, I’m not dead!

No matter how many times the sacred voice ringing in my head proclaimed to be the G.o.d’s will, the violence unleashed onto me right now was simply far scarier!