My mind blanked out for a second when I heard those words.
An inexplicable feeling filled me as I stared at him, then the words spilled unwittingly.
“But, the Saintesses were chosen by the oracle..”
The oracles contained the will of deities, handed down to the priests of the Shrine.
Adoracion-sama also said that deities could never be involved with any human except for their saintesses.
That was one of the rules that govern the deities of this world, drawing a line between them and humans.
Deities did not interfere, and humans were not being controlled too much in return — it was a rule set by Grand Verite-sama, according to the founding myth.
That’s the reason the saintesses have such a powerful existence. They listen to the will of the deities, and they were protected and given divine power so that they could save the humans in lieu of the deities.
These women were a special existence for the deities — but not anyone would do. Those who did not have a saintess were inconvenienced, and there were few of them.
Thus, those deities would then make their will known through the oracle.
Their words that didn’t go through the saintesses were considered far more important, and the faith of humans in those words were strong.
‘Supposed to be.’
“You’re too soft, the Shrine will easily swallow you whole.”
The young deity in front of me had a smile dripping in sarcasm — it didn’t match his face, the gap was too huge.
“Who confirmed the contents of the oracle? Who could see through their lies? “
“That’s…isn’t that… a lie?”
“What’s there to lie. Almost all of the Saintesses in this Shrine are fake , you know. Well, some of them are doing a good job, though.”
He clasped his hands behind his head, and laughed drily.
The voice of the girl looking for him was still audible, even if far away.
“Adoracion-sama was the only one who chose his own, and she’s a saintess in the true sense. The rest were just nobody’s pulled out from who knows where.”
The contempt in his voice was plain and clear, even though he was smiling.
He didn’t have an ounce of goodwill towards the girl outside, that’s for sure.
It was very obvious even within a few sentences of talking to him.
‘B, but….!’
“T, then why are you just letting this be? Wouldn’t you normally punish that sinful saintess…..”
“No such thing as punishment….I’ve been thinking about this, but really, humans are insolent creatures, huh.”
“…What?”
‘Insolent?’
I raised my head up, and Lufure-sama also looked down at me, his sharp eyes meeting mine. Those pupils were icy cold.
He’s looking at me, but he didn’t see me.
Not as an individual, but as a cold, grand ‘deity’ looking down on a ‘human’.
“And why did I have to do that for a mere human?”
“For…a human….?”
“[Punishment] is given to reform humans. It wasn’t so bad in the past, but I don’t want to do anything for the humans now. — in short, there’s no more interest.”
‘Interest.’
I repeated Lufure-sama’s words over and over again in my mind.
This country was the most beloved of the deities, so they said.
In this wide, wide world with so many countries, no other country had this huge number of deities gathered within it.
The deities blessed this kingdom abundantly, and there were no monsters, nor severe calamities.
The people revere the deities, who in turn loved and protected them.
This truth had been handed down through generations since the founding of the nation, and it was an eternal truth, never to be changed.
“Where did you lot get that confidence, thinking that we will still mind you forever without you people doing anything. I DID NOT CHOOSE MY SAINTESS. Nor did I gave anyone protection. Hey, I don’t even live in this shrine….. Well, I do drop by once in a while to look at the circumstances, though.”
I was frozen stiff, my mind in chaos.
‘There’s no deity in the Shrine.’
Moreover, this came from the third highest deity, the God of Light.
He was the symbol that shine on our kingdom, and yet he had already alienated himself.
‘When did it start? Then, those rituals that the Shrine had been showing us… Lufure-sama’s protection and divine work… what are they….?’
Unbelievable. It came directly from Lufure-sama’s mouth, but I had difficulty accepting this reality.
I could only stand there dumbstruck, my breath caught in my throat. Lufure-sama smirked as he stared at me.
“I don’t really get what’s going on in the human brains. I’m not as gentle as Adoracion-sama, nor am I as strict as that person is towards humans.”
‘Not gentle, nor strict.’
I could only avert my gaze, my mind trying to reject everything that I heard.
However, now that I knew the true situation of the Shrine — Lufure-sama’s words are somewhat understandable….
‘We’ve been abandoned.’
Lufure-sama didn’t think it’s still worth it to protect the Shrine.
He was not a deity that would mind and protect the humans unconditionally.
All of the deities were not as gentle as Adoracion-sama, nor as strict as Kami-sama…..
….Hm?
“So, that’s it. For that person, I simply —”
“W, wait, please wait!”
Lufure-sama was about to round this conversation up, but I reflexively called out to him.
He scowled, but I couldn’t help voicing out the thing that bothered me.
I didn’t mean to say that Adoracion-sama was not gentle, though —
“That, isn’t that the opposite!?”
Now that I knew Kami-sama’s circumstances — he had been taking the filth of humans onto himself, I was thoroughly convinced that there were no other deities as kind as Kami-sama.
You’re misunderstanding something – I retorted, but Lufure-sama did not rebuke me.
On the other hand, the chilling, intimidating atmosphere since earlier had vanished —
“Hey, you’re bothered by that!?”
He happily snorted.
No, I didn’t mean to, but that’s too bothering!
He didn’t have a speck of strictness, you know!?
Hi everyone, Hanazakura here, thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Releases for I Was Forced by the Saintess to Marry the Ugly God will be <b>every Tuesday</b> and <b>Saturday</b> .
Hungry for more? Great news, page is up! You can now read advance chapters for as low as $1 🙂 I will continue to do my best and strive to provide high quality, manually translated chapters! Thank you very much!
Our Novel Updates page is also up! Sorry for the cover photo, unfortunately, there is none available as of the moment, so I made a temporary one. I’m still on alert just in case the official one becomes available, and will update the page asap.
Please feel free to join us at our discord channel for release updates and more!