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Volume 5 Vampire Tea Party Part 7

「A flag with a red branch on it. . .  so that secret information came from one of the 『Ulster’s』 knights?」

「Do correct me if I am wrong, but this is one of the biggest Communities hailing from the Celtic Mythology, right?」

「Yes, that is a correct assessment of them. These particular messages have been delivered to me by a boy named Setanta, but he did not even stay here. Instead, he immediately left, saying that he still has other places to go and messages to deliver, and so he went, running at a truly tremendous speed the entire time. In fact, he was so fast that if I did not see him in person I could have easily mistake him for a gust of wind, or a flash of lightning. I sensed that he has some traces of powerful Divinity inside of him, so he is definitely going to become a very promising warrior in the future. . . .  but I think we are getting a little sidetracked here, so let us go back to the topic at hand. Here are the contents of the messages that I have received. . .  as you can see, if what is written in them turns out to really be true, then it might as well turn out that sooner or later we are going to have a major incident on our hands. . .  because a native Celtic God has actually been destroyed.」

Leticia looked at Carla as if she was doubting if her ears have correctly registered the words that she just said.

In case of the native Gods of any particular land, their power can vary all the way between large and small, and the most typical of them are the ones responsible for controlling either the weather or some element of nature, like the Gods and Spirits of the earth or oceans, but even something as small as a God responsible for watching over a stream is considered to be a native God purely by definition, so it would not be all that strange if one of these smaller Gods suffered from a decline in his Divinity due to the appearance of a Demon Lord on their territory, but even so, was there really a need to be using such strong words as 「Destruction」 in describing what happened to them? Because at least for Leticia, it sounded a little bit too excessive. She was about to voice that opinion to Carla, but when the Head Maid sensed what she wanted to say by reading her facial expression, she stopped her from doing so with a gesture of her hand and proceeded to clear the misconception that Leticia had about this matter.

「Lady Leticia. I know that what I said might be hard to accept, but I assure you, that was not a metaphor. One of the native Gods of the Celtic Pantheon has literally been destroyed. And apparently it was not just one. Gods of Arts and Craft such as blacksmithing, Gods of the Hearth and apparently even the main Gods of the lesser Celtic Mythologies such as Taranis, the Gaelic God of Thunder or Albiorix, the God of War and many other Great Gods have been reported as having been killed and their spirits gone missing.」

「No way. . . . 」

「Impossible! Gods dying is one thing, but for even their spirits to disappear without a trace?!」

*SLAM!!!*

Leticia hit the table with both her hands while raising her voice unnaturally high. Lamia, who was shocked to see her sister, who was usually calm and composed no matter what the situation was act in such an impulsive, emotional way, asked a question that had to be asked, even though its implications were truly terrifying:

「Dear sister. Divine Spirits should be able to keep on living even if their physical bodies get destroyed. But. . .  but maybe if they are killed by a villain. . . . . .  maybe then they can die for real?」

「No, it cannot be! It. . . . . .  something like that should not be possible, because there is a system that ensure that Divine Spirits are always going to be re-summoned to Little Garden in case of their deaths. But in that case, then were they. . . . . . .truly annihilated in such a way that not even their spirits remained? No, that should be absolutely not possible. A Demon Lord with that kind of terrifying power should not exist!」

「No, Your Highness Leticia. Allow me to correct you on that misconception of yours as well. Have you already forgotten that there is one kind of Demon Lords who are holding the extraordinary power that makes them capable of killing Gods. The oldest and nigh-immortal Demon Lords who are still present in Little Garden to this day. . . . those that hold the title of「God Slayers」. 」

Leticia gasped after she finally realized the implications carried by Carla’s words. There are many heroes all across Little Garden who can boast about killing Gods. Some of such heroes gained a new Gift as a boon for their victory while others have earned themselves everlasting fame and a new name by which they would be called and that would be immortalized in stories and songs praising their might, knowledge and courage that allowed them to achieve something that was thought to be impossible to do for ordinary humans, the ones whom most of the Gods have always looked down on as inferior to them since ancient times. But the truth . . . . the truth is that these are all false victories, and the claims for glory advocated by those who managed to achieve those false victories are even bigger falsehoods build upon lies and deceptions, because no matter how hard humans might try and what kind of clever plans and tricks they utilize, all they can ever hope to achieve is to kill the God’s physical bodies. But as long as their spirits remain intact, the Gods will always be able to come back to life, no matter how much time the process of their reincarnation or re-summoning would take. That is why the only beings that Gods are truly afraid of, the only ones capable of attaining the accursed title of 「God Slayers」are the Demon Lords special even among all the other Demon Lords called. . .

「. . . .{Last Embryo’s}, also known as「The Final Trials of Humanity」. So are you saying that this new Demon Lord that appeared in the West Side, this. . . .  Dystopia is actually one of them?」

「That has yet to be determined, but an increasing number of Divine Spirits starts to believe that this might actually be the case, so if it turned out to be true after all, then that would mean that the situation is even more dire than we initially thought. The Celtic land. . . . . .  no, perhaps it might be better to include the entirety of Europe into this. Even though the Paradigm Shift related to the turning point of its history has already occurred there, its effects can still be clearly felt on a large scale even to this day, and this situation even affected the Akashic Records that were nearing their competition, but now they are probably going to have to be rewritten all over again.」

Leticia crossed her arms on her chest and pondered on the exact meaning of Carla’s words. Even though she thought that this entire matter, which she initially assumed to be something light and inconsequential, sounded like more of a diplomatic issue, which is not her field of expertise, she was still willing to hear about the entire situation properly, but the more she listened to Carla’s descriptions, the more she was realizing that this might actually be even more of a catastrophic situation than any of them have dared to imagine. It would have been a different matter entirely if it happened to the humans of the Outer World.