All right.
All right.
You're the expert—what can I do?
I'll just sit here and listen.
A professional coach really is different; the efficiency boost is real.
That said—
even without looking, Ren knew his coming days would be more brutal than ever. But in a world where might rules all, if you want to accomplish anything, power is king. Now that Eirin herself was drafting and fine-tuning a plan for him, if he didn't put in the work, he might as well drop dead.
In truth,
the one Ren ought to thank most was Auntie.
Her training was rough-and-ready, sure, but over fifteen years it tempered his mind and will without the slightest fraud—hammering him into something tough enough to bend but not break.
"That said…"
Ren narrowed his eyes. "After Auntie's regimen, my mental grit should pass. But once I step into Eirin's program… I have a bad feeling it won't be enough."
He didn't need to see the schedule. Just hearing the outline—and looking at Eirin—he could picture it fine.
A plan of dying and reviving, and dying again, and coming back half-dead.
"Heh…"
Kaguya covered her lips, unable to hold the laugh in.
She had seen Eirin's training plans before.
Judging by Eirin's tone, Father-sama's plan was outrageous.
Saeko, Rika, Shizuka—
if theirs were Class A,
then Ren's?
SSS-class?
No—
die-and-come-back class.
"Let's table that for now."
Ren rubbed his brow and asked in earnest, "Eirin, what's the situation with the Apocalypse world, exactly?"
Never mind being a city lord—modern-world resources mattered. He'd finally stumbled onto a modern world; its facilities fascinated him. This broken land's tech bored him to tears.
And now he couldn't go back? Of course he wanted a clear answer.
"In the mythic age, this world was not like this,"
Eirin said—not answering directly, but starting from somewhere else.
Ren and Kaguya held their tongues and listened.
"In that era," Eirin continued, "there were many pantheons. The Takamagahara pantheon was not among the strongest. I traveled across many myths back then."
"But."
"Today, apart from Takamagahara's legacy, the others have all vanished without a trace."
"Hm?"
Ren half-closed his eyes. "So the changes in the Apocalypse world tie into that?"
"Maybe."
"Maybe not."
"I can't be sure. Even I can't cross worlds at will."
Ambiguous—
but both father and daughter understood the gist.
The method the Lunar Capital's moon goddess used was unusual—but would other pantheons' moon deities never have thought of it?
So why did it end up in this moon goddess's hands?
Pick at that thread and a dozen questions followed.
"The other myths… split off?" Ren's thoughts moved fast; he'd already arrived at one possibility.
"Correct."
Eirin nodded gravely. "From what I found, almost every pantheon except Takamagahara has separated itself from the world."
"Not a complete severance."
"Some residue remains—but not enough to matter."
"These measures"
"were all to prevent the collapse that followed the end of the divine age."
"It was an upheaval of the world itself—even gods couldn't stop it."
Ren crossed one leg over the other and folded his arms. "So pantheons chose different survival methods—like severing their myth-systems from the world."
"If the end of the divine age was a world-level event, then cutting yourselves free sounds like the simplest path."
"Exactly."
Eirin inclined her head.
"In that case…"
Ren mused, "the upheavals I ran into in the Apocalypse world came from shifts in pantheons that split away?"
"I can't confirm it."
Eirin didn't commit. "I don't know whether pantheons can persist after separating from the world."
"Likewise,"
"I don't know whether equivalents could be born outside the world."
"And even if they survived, whether the entities the Apocalypse world faces are the same pantheons that split from ours—also unknown."
Eirin was not the type to lean on bold conjecture.
She preferred proof—once proven, she'd plant her feet. Until then,
she would speak exactly like this.
"Do you need to go see it yourself?" Ren asked. It felt like something that needed eyes on the ground.
Eirin shook her head. "No. My identity is… complicated. I traveled many pantheons in the mythic age. If I step in casually now, big trouble will follow."
"So…"
Ren's mouth quirked. "Eirin, did you—back then—perhaps 'borrow' a lot of things from a lot of pantheons?"
He wasn't guessing at random.
It was just—
among the eclectic libraries Eirin had sent, plenty of volumes were obviously not Takamagahara artifacts to anyone with half an eye.
Don't tell him she really had… borrowed them all?
(End of Chapter)
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