[Different Degrees of Hatred]

“Kh, this humble Porco has sworn my love to you. Alas, as fate would have it, we are not meant to be with each other—hence I will choke back on my tears, and seek new love in this village!

“Y-yes, please do your best.”

“Yes! Now, if you’ll excuse me!” Porco-san left after bowing to Magmell with agile movements.

I’d like to tell him not to swear his love to another man’s wife arbitrarily, but… well let’s just set that aside for now.

I was worried to leave him to his own devices, but Nazarie-san would accompany him.

So, it’d be fine. Probably.

“A-alright… gefu!? L-leave the reconstruction-gafu!? T-to us-gufu!?

――Thud.

“““……”””

W-well, let’s just put our faith in them…

◇ ◇

Anyway, after leaving the two to reconstruct the minotaur village, we returned to the dwarven village.

According to Shiva-san, it seemed that no town had been attacked yet, so perhaps Elysium was still making pre-war preparations.

After all, if he had the monsters attack humanity just like that, they would only end up being defeated by adventurers from all over the world.

He must still be in the middle of planning out such things as where to concentrate his forces.

“Still, Elysium is now the god of genesis. It’d be more efficient if he himself step in if he wanted to kill all humans, yet why did choose the roundabout way to have the monsters attack in his stead?”

To my question, Arca made a thinking gesture, “Hmm,” and said, “in the first place, why does he bear so much hatred toward humans? Thinking back, the other saints didn’t hate humans as much as he did. Hesperios sought ‘pleasure’, Shangarula ‘excitement’, Canaan ‘sense of superiority’, and Boreios ‘strong opponent’, which was the reason why they followed Elysium. Agartha was the same. He simply sought ‘safety’ for his family.”

“Indeed. Back when I was with them, I did feel that there was a difference in degrees of hatred between Elysium and the other saints,” said Shiva-san.

“Difference in degrees of hatred, huh…”

Given Elysium’s ability to control monsters, the flames of war would envelop the whole world in a blink of an eye once it began.

Even if we split up and spread our forces to various regions, there would still be a limit to the number of lives we could save.

Taking that into account, I thought we should first consider stopping the war itself to minimize the damage.

Even if we somehow managed to defeat Elysium, it wouldn’t necessarily stop the war once it had started, after all.

Why was he so intent on destroying humanity? We needed to find out the reason, be it to persuade or fight him.

Well, the chances were slim, but if we learned of it, we might be able to prevent him from deploying the monsters.

Mm, nodding, I told everyone. “We may find out something related to Elysium if we go to the oni village. So, I’m thinking that we should pay it a visit… what do you say?”

“Mm, I think it’s a good idea. That oni had very sad eyes. I also want to know what happened to him.” Tirna was the first to nod.

Previously, when the saints attacked the dwarven village, she got herself attacked by Elysium after she mentioned that.

It was no wonder that she wanted to know the truth.

“Of course, I agree with your opinion. I’m not particularly interested in that man’s history, but if you have made up your mind, I’ll follow you wherever you go.”

“Thanks.” I thanked Arca with a grin.

Igniver-sama then put her hands on her waist and said with a fearless smile, “Fumu, in that case, we will take the responsibility to house-sit while you are away.”

“Thank you, please do.”

“If so, I’m sitting this one out, too. I’m worried about Iris and the others.”

“Oh, alright. Then, I’m counting on you and the goddesses.”

“Yes, leave it to me.”

After seeing Zana nod, I took the other girls to the oni village with Phinis-sama’s teleportation magic.