«Fufufu, you really did it, Chise. You have once again shortened the cultivation time of the «Empty Wilderness»!»
Liliel showed herself in my dream and enthusiastically talked about the changes in the «Empty Wilderness», and beside her was another beauty, Lariel, displaying a joyful smile.
«It's simply unbelievable, I never expected you to not just make the devil, who manifested in the material world, retreat but even dismantle its mana and succeed in devil slaying!»
«Human creativity never ceases to amaze me. It should have been the alternate method due to the lack of mana to create the «Immortal Slayer» sword to purge them completely but even so, you still managed to pull it off to kill the devil.»
Liliel showed her admiration at the method I had found to kill the devil while the one who gave her lavish praise was the ever-lively goddess Lariel.
"It's been a while since I last had a dream oracle. Good evening Liliel, Lariel, I guess."
«Indeed, good evening. You know, your efforts have vastly surpassed my imagination, Chise.»
«That's why I'm saying it's about time for her to help out in the cultivation of my territory.»
Liliel expressed her gratitude while Lariel again requested help with what she had talked about the last time.
*Sigh*
Lariel, assuming that I was going to reject her request when I let out a spiritless sigh, packed even more vigor into her words.
«Come on, Chise! Help me out in the cultivation of the land under me as I had talked about last time! Look, there is no longer any danger of the Evil Cult targeting your daughter so just help me out on this, okay?»
"You're right. ......With Selene's debut in high society, she should be completely acting as royalty from here on out...... In that case, I guess we will also resume our journey.»
The reclamation system of the «Empty Wilderness» has begun to work just fine and, at this point, I really don't need to do anything besides periodically checking on the three points; the reforestation, the world trees, and the barrier.
Any other drastic transformation should be due several decades later.
With everything settled, it should be fine to move to another region and then travel from there to the «Empty Wilderness» for another decade or so just like our current lifestyle of frequenting from here to the royal capital of the Iska Kingdom.
"Ah, it almost slipped out of my mind. I wanted to know what kind of existence the devil is for the gods?"
Spirits and Devils. Then there were also magical lifeforms called angels that existed in this world.
«Spirits govern nature while the angels govern the goodness of the people and the Devils govern the desires of humans and monsters.»
«Well, all of them are just lumps of mana in the end. Although they exist in three different forms, they can separate their ego from their mana when they get tired of their current life, return to the world, and then be reborn as a new magical life form. It's like reincarnation for the magical lifeforms. However, it looks like the reincarnation process isn't working as it should be.»
Liliel gave a concise answer, then Lariel took over the explanation as she let out a sigh in the end.
"What do you mean by that?"
«This is also related to Chise, actually. The earth veins underground of the «Empty Wilderness» are in tatters so the mana isn't flowing there. I mean it's thanks to you that there are signs of them being repaired even if it's just a tiny fraction of it. As long as the mana continues to flow into it little by little, even the land of the «Empty Wilderness» can begin to give birth to spirits or fairies.»
"Mana circles around the atmosphere of the world, after which it returns to the ground and then is released into the atmosphere once again. It's like the breathing of a planet."
Lariel conjured up the image of the planet on her palm where she showed the flow of the mana on the planet's surface, which was similar to the flow of air currents or ocean currents, and then the flow of mana in the ground ー earth veins ー which were like the magnetic lines spread from the north pole to the south pole.
«Mana currently is circling the world like this. But, 2000 years ago ーー»
Flashes like the explosions occurred in various places of the planet, causing the mana which was circling alongside the air current and the ocean current in the world to thin down while also throwing the current flow into disorder.
Thus, those flashes shredded the earth veins which had been flowing like magnetic lines into pieces.
«Mana insufficiency on the planet's surface is being recovered under the management of Chise but the flow of the earth veins is still disarrayed.»
«Natural disasters occur when mana flows inside the chaotic earth veins while mana-clogged places induce various types of mana calamities.»
Those disasters were not simply restricted to earthquakes, tsunamis, or volcanic eruptions, there also happened to be fantasy-esque calamities as well.
Mana calamities that occurred due to the clogged-up mana of earth veins were as followsーー
- Crystallisation of the earth vein's mana into a dungeon core which then gives birth to a dungeon (on this note, a dungeon's depth is based on the amount of mana clogged up).
- Monsters in the ground get stimulated due to the earth vein's mana causing a stampede.
- The earth vein's mana turning into minerals and those peculiar minerals making huge changes in that region (like floating stones flying off the ground, resulting in something like a floating island).
«All of the planet's surface would have flown off and floated into the air, turning it into a place unsuitable for humans to live on if the mana calamities were to be ignored.»
I have seen lots of games or other works with such world settings, I wonder if there's such a reason behind those.
«That's why Gods fiddled with the settings of the world to some extent so that those places with clogged mana will turn into a dungeon instead and try to release that clogged-up mana as the dungeon's monsters or mana stones.»
«Well eventually, the abandoned dungeon causes a stampede, forcefully releasing the clogged-up mana in the ground as monsters and mana stones and we try to adjust it.»
Nevertheless, released mana raises the mana density of the planet's surface temporarily but, in the end, it still returned to its clogged state after circling the planet and that's why it was necessary to increase the mana emitted by the life activities of animals and plants.
How should I say this, I feel like I have touched upon one of the truths of this world.
"Is it really fine for me to hear that?"
"For better or worse, you will have to come into contact with the truth when it will be time to restore the earth veins of the «Empty Wilderness» one day."
To sum it up, there was a mana deficiency in the air at present, and, also, because earth veins were in bad shape, the situation was such that the mana wasn't flowing well.
Eventually, the mana in the air would be refilled and if the mana route in the ground gradually gets repaired, there would be a need to shape it properly.
«And while you're getting the hang of it, come to my region to restore it.»
I created a table with «Creation Magic» in the vacant dream space while listening to what could be called the world's truth (?) or the idle talk (?) of the goddesses, prepared the sweets, and started a small girl's gathering.
And when it was about time to end一
«See you later, I will visit again when I have free time. I'm looking forward to the upcoming development."
After saying that, the girl's gathering with the goddesses was over and I opened my eyes. I decided to laze around that day since my mana was completely dried up due to the dream oracle.
