“Lo-local specialties?!!” Hearing Tian’el actually refer to the precious souls his fellow gods had carefully collected as “local specialties,” the many subordinate gods present were struck dumb.
“This quantity…
it’s close to a million, isn’t it?
You didn’t just dig out Heaven’s soul pool entirely, did you?” At some point, Hermes had seamlessly blended into the crowd of subordinate gods.
He clicked his tongue in amazement as he swept his gaze across the radiant soul-light that blanketed the area, illuminating everything within several miles.
“As for the exact number, it’s roughly a little over eight hundred thousand.
Compared to the population this planet has produced, that’s far too few.” In contrast to the shock of Ares and the others, Tian’el seemed somewhat dissatisfied.
The land beneath their feet had a surface area not much different from that of Earth.
As for productivity, it presented a rather strange picture.
The lower-class civilians lived no differently from feudal-era farmers, yet the upper-tier adventurers, relying on magic and skills, could accomplish feats that would be considered miraculous even in the twenty-first century.
For example, healing magic could not only restore a dying adventurer’s strength in an instant, but even regenerate severed limbs and restore flesh and blood.
At the same time, there were quite a few familias across the continent devoted to research in cultivation and agriculture.
Take the Demeter Familia, which supplied Orario with grain and owned vast farmland on the city’s outskirts.
They regularly purchased dungeon-native plants and fruits from adventurers, actively attempting to cultivate them above ground.
Many varieties had already been successfully produced—some with high nutritional value, others possessing special effects, and some even refined into tools for adventurers.
It could only be said that magic and skills truly defied reason.
On Earth, agricultural advancements required generations of countless elites working together to achieve tangible results.
In this world, however, a single high-level adventurer could experiment and research on their own.
Thus, this world’s productivity was not actually low.
It was merely uneven and poorly distributed, which was why regions without divine familias were little different from the Western Middle Ages.
Even so, when the nations across the continent were combined, the total population of the lower world had long since exceeded one hundred million.
That was only because monsters occasionally appeared in the wild, keeping population growth from rising any higher.
“Logically speaking, the number of natural deaths in the lower world each year should exceed a million, shouldn’t it?
The dungeon has existed for three thousand years, and the gods have descended for a thousand.
Yet you’ve only collected this few souls?” The Age of Blessings, the Age of Heroes, and even the more ancient eras before the dungeon’s emergence—civilization in the lower world had likely existed for thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands, of years.
And yet the souls accumulated by the gods numbered less than a million.
Tian’el shot them a look that plainly said, “You’re really useless,” leaving Ares and the others wearing helpless, bitter expressions.
“There’s nothing we can do about it.
Without the protection of a physical body, if a soul doesn’t reincarnate quickly, it gradually dissipates over time.” “The radiant souls of heroes and adventurers are indeed more resilient and can last longer, but they can’t be preserved like this forever.
In the end, they still have to be sent back into reincarnation…” Hermes spoke, revealing information that had long been a source of regret among the gods over countless ages.
Perhaps, in the eyes of the children of the lower world, the gods managed the fates of all beings after death and could freely judge and dispose of souls at will.
Whether allowing the dead to live in Heaven, subjecting them to unimaginable torment, or forcing them into endless, meaningless hard labor…
such things seemed effortless.
There were even those curious about the afterlife who believed that once souls ascended from the lower world, they were managed entirely at the gods’ discretion, unrelated to their deeds in life or any notion of good and evil.
Whether one’s fate was fortune or misfortune depended solely on whether a god happened to like them at the time.
“But that isn’t the truth.
The children’s souls actually fall under the jurisdiction of the death gods who preside over the underworld and related concepts.
Not every god can snatch a favored soul from their judgment.” “The number of gods capable of doing that—including Freya—is actually very small.” Though born among the goddesses of beauty, Freya possessed an innate ability to perceive the very essence of souls.
Because of this, she was exceptionally skilled at transporting the deceased of the lower world—especially fallen warriors praised as heroes—into her own mansion built in Heaven.
As for ordinary gods, trying to swiftly locate the particular soul they desired among the countless daily arrivals, while also fending off the wrath of the death gods…
that was no easy task.
One had to remember that the death gods had always been among the busiest in Heaven.
And as many gods abandoned their posts to descend to the lower world for amusement, Heaven was forced to compensate for the sudden shortage of working gods.
Those who remained had to work overtime without rest, becoming increasingly murderous in demeanor.
If provoked, they would not hesitate to send their troublesome brethren straight into a revival cycle.
Thus, the vast majority of souls that returned to Heaven would revert to a pure white state within several decades to a century, forget everything, and then be cast back into the lower world for reincarnation.
“The souls in your possession should all come from Heaven’s soul pool.
That was a public facility constructed jointly by the gods before their descent to the lower world.
Its purpose was to shelter the brilliantly radiant souls of heroes, sages, and adventurers…” Even the death gods responsible for reincarnation were fond of those beautiful, luminous souls and were reluctant to see them lose their color so easily.
On the other hand, the gods also worried that after they descended, if a child from their familia died, their soul might be seized by a rival who remained in Heaven—manipulated or even tormented.
They couldn’t very well abandon the rest of their familia and break their seal to rush back to Heaven every time a child died, just to reclaim a soul.
For these reasons, the gods jointly built the soul pool and agreed upon a rule: ordinary souls would reincarnate as usual, but if a familia in the lower world produced a soul of exceptional brilliance, their brethren in Heaven would place it into the soul pool for nurturing.
Until the familia’s chief god returned, no other god was permitted to seize it without authorization.
“I see.
I was wondering why, in the very center of Heaven, there was such an obvious pool placed right out in the open, filled with so many high-quality souls.
I thought perhaps they were simply unwanted items left by the roadside.” Well, if no one wanted them, then anything he picked up naturally belonged to him.
Hermes could neither laugh nor cry at that explanation.
Were the gods supposed to be grateful that he hadn’t rummaged through their mansions and emptied out their private collections as well?
Still, it was understandable.
Hundreds of thousands of souls placed so openly—what god wouldn’t be tempted to snatch them all in one go and grow rich overnight?
The only reason no one acted was fear of provoking universal outrage and becoming the target of every god.
After all, there were simply too many gods in Heaven.
Even if each one sent him into a single revival period, the fool reckless enough to commit such a theft would still need to sleep for hundreds of millions of years to complete the cycle.
But the Celestial Emperor before them was different.
His fists were big enough to turn his thoughts into action.
“Forgive my boldness, but may I ask—do you have some particular intention in taking these souls?”