Alda, the god of law and fate. The only god of creation still remaining in Lambda excluding the subordinate gods. The god who possessed the most power even including the evil gods.

The source of that power lay in the followers and servants who respected him and, most importantly, the number of believers who offered him their prayers.

He had suffered deep wounds during the battle against the Demon King and the one against Vida who was supposed to be his ally, but even so, Alda's power was vast.

He was depicted as an austere-looking, white-haired old man holding a heavy book, a stern-eyed young man holding a large sickle of judgment in his left hand and a torch in his right, or as a shining moon. All of these were Alda's forms, his symbols.

Alda had been worried about many things in the past few tens of thousands of years. What he was worried about, of course, was the future of the world of Lambda that he loved.

To be more precise, he had always been worrying. He had contemplated, listened to the voices of the people, thinking about how he could keep the world in the light, how to preserve its order, how to bring about and maintain peace, how to spread these ideals to the people and make them understand them. He was always thinking about these.

However, things had not gone favorably in the past few tens of thousands of years.

"I suppose this means it is time to revise the policy that has been in place up until now. It is truly irritating that I have no choice but to agree with the words of that god of reincarnation. However..." Alda whispered to himself, trying to gather his thoughts.

"Please wait," said another voice. Curatos, the God of Records who was a subordinate god of Alda's and his close aide, had appeared at his side.

Curatos was one of the servants (Equivalent to angels on Earth) created by Alda shortly after the birth of the world who had risen to become a god. He did not possess his own divinity; he was merely Alda's close aide and this was symbolized by the book that he was holding in his hand.

"My lord, there is no need to pay any heed to the words of one such as Rodcorte," Curatos advised. "The 'development' he speaks of is merely a pretense."

"Calm yourself, Curatos," said Alda, reassuring his servant. "It is not that I have acknowledged that there is a need for the 'development' of which Rodcorte speaks."

Rodcorte had told Alda and the other gods many times that this world was inferior to other worlds and that 'development' was necessary.

However, these words did not ring true in the hearts of Alda and his companions; it was little more than a vague, meaningless complaint.

The development and passing on of culture and art, the stable continuation of a civilization. These are very wonderful things.

But for Alda and the other gods, these were not the things that needed to be prioritized the most.

For the god of law and fate Alda and his subordinate gods, the gods that supported him such as Yupeon, these were times of war. The Demon King and Vida had been defeated, but the evil gods were still making hidden movements while monsters and the races created by Vida were building their nests.

The first thing that needed to be prioritized was the battle against the evil gods, the monsters and the races created by Vida. What was the use in prioritizing the world's 'development' over that?

And then Alda had realized the true intentions behind the 'development' that Rodcorte wished for. Rodcorte simply desired for the population of this world to increase. Because as the number of souls going around in the cycle of reincarnation increased, that god's power would increase with it.

But in contrast, Alda did not particularly want for the population of people in this world to increase.

If the number of people increased too much, the number of resources required to sustain them would increase, many factions would form and new nations would be established. And then there would be conflict between them, making order more difficult to maintain.

It was already difficult to maintain with the current population of less than one hundred million; if Lambda's total population were to increase to the multiple billions that Rodcorte was requesting, there was no telling what kind of disorder and chaos would be brought about. It was terrifying just to imagine.

"To begin with, 'development' is not needed for the preservation of the world," said Alda. "It is absurd to use other worlds as an example."

He admired science and technology that did not require the use of magic, but was that something that was necessary in Lambda?

Electricity, automobiles, gunpowder and dynamite, aircraft, computers, stock trading. The benefits brought about by these things were surely great, and it would certainly make the lives of the people more rich and convenient. But would this outweigh the disadvantages brought about by the existence of such things?

In fact, the existence of those things caused the destruction of nature for the sake of generating energy. Were they not also the causes of some wars and conflicts?

Automobiles caused tens of thousands of people to die in accidents every year; gunpowder, dynamite and aircraft were utilized in wars. Computers gave rise to new crimes while stock trading caused people to concern themselves over things with no physical form and bring themselves to ruin.

The most foolish thing of all was that in worlds where these things existed, there was still no complete system established to control the people who used them, and the systems that did exist were not followed.

Magic already existed in Lambda. There were drawbacks to its existence; people used it to kill one another.

So why should the seeds of disaster from other worlds be planted in this one to add to that?

That was why Rodcorte's words made little impression on Alda. Alda would simply answer that each world had its own circumstances.

That was the consensus of opinion held by the other gods who supported him as well.

"Then what policy would you be revising?" asked Curatos. "The Demon King's transmigration system and Vida's transmigration system... Without their destruction, this world cannot possibly know peace, my lord."

Alda's objective was to destroy the transmigration systems of this world other than Rodcorte's, bringing ruin to the evil gods, monsters and the races created by Vida.

The transmigration system that Rodcorte had created and was now ruling over, unlike Rodcorte himself, was perfect. However, the other two systems were problematic products.

The transmigration system created by the Demon King was still continuing to spawn monsters in this world. It was even used by the evil gods to willingly reincarnate themselves and be reborn.

It was making some contribution to the people in the form of Dungeons, but that was a matter of a single benefit in exchange for a hundred... no, a thousand disadvantages*. And souls were not needed for merely supplying Dungeons with monsters. It was not impossible for Dungeons to generate and arrange soulless puppets... though this would require Alda to wait for the revival of Ricklent, the genie of time and magic.

TLN*: There is a Japanese phrase that is something along the lines of "A hundred harms and not a single gain" that is something like "All pain, no gain" or "Having no redeeming features" in English. This is a variation of that saying where there is a single gain in exchange for the hundred harms, but then the alteration of "a hundred" to "a thousand" really emphasizes that the disadvantages are very significant.

And the system created by Vida was a very unstable product. As it was merely an imitation of an imitation of the original system, that was to be expected. It seemed that Vida had been thinking of moving the transmigration of every creature in this world to that system one day, but that would have been far too dangerous an endeavor.

Vida had mated with monsters to produce new races in order to stabilize her system and given birth to Vampires partially to have them assist it. Entrusting such an unstable system with the souls of the world's people was unthinkable.

"Many brave souls have fought for your ideals," said Curatos. "For their sake..."

He had 'recorded' all of history up until this point. Therefore, he was someone who used the past as a reference when making decisions on things.

Alda gave Curatos a bitter smile.

"I am certainly not considering giving up on putting an end to Vida's folly," he said. "I am thinking about whether I should revise the way I am doing things."

Curatos let out a sigh of relief. And then he began trying to record Alda's thoughts.

"How are you going to revise your methods?" asked Curatos.

The way Alda had done things up until now was to make his teachings clear and then leave the specific methods of putting them into practice up to the people.

Gods were those who guided the people, not rulers. This fact was one thing that Alda could agree with the gods of other worlds upon.

Alda's teachings stated that the evil gods and members of the races created by Vida were to be exterminated alongside those who didn't follow his doctrine, and that relying on knowledge that originated in other worlds such as the things left behind by Zakkart was forbidden.

He had delivered these teachings through a divine message to the more capable individuals among his believers.

However, the contents of his divine message had been twisted as it spread from those who received it, and there were many cases where they were not putting his teachings into practice correctly.

A recent example of this had occurred in the main Church of Alda in the Amid Empire. The extermination of Vida's races and the knowledge that had been brought from other worlds had been prioritized too much over the extermination of the evil gods and their servants. And the Empire had been utilizing this in their politics too much.

Because of this, Hihiryushukaka, the Evil God of Joyful Life, was being allowed to extend his influence from the shadows.

"I will tell them precisely what needs to be prioritized," said Alda. "Until now, I have been hoping that the people would make the correct decisions on their own, but it seems I have been wishing for things from the past for too long."

"An unavoidable decision," Curatos said in agreement. "Even you are far from omniscient and omnipotent after all, my lord."

"Precisely. Even from this Divine Realm, there are many things I cannot see. That is the reason I had hoped that the people would put my divine message into practice in a way that is suitable for them. However..."

"Then what would you have them prioritize?" Curatos questioned Alda once more. "Should it be the extermination of the races spawned by Vida after all? Or perhaps you would limit their targets to the filthy creatures with monster blood mixed in their veins?"

The influence of the races created by Vida had decreased greatly over the past one hundred thousand years. There were few that possessed their own independent nations, and even those that did exist were on the scale of several thousand citizens. There were exceptions such as the Pure-breed Vampires, but they generally didn't possess much gathered strength. Crushing each race individually to exterminate them all would be relatively simple.

That was likely why Curatos guessed that Alda would prioritize this.

"No, Curatos," said Alda, however. "I am planning to tell the people that the battle against the evil gods should be prioritized."

"My lord! There are still many who have preserved their strength, including the Evil God of Joyful Life. Bellwood-dono is still in a slumber after he and the Evil God of Sinful Chains defeated each other. Is this acceptable?"

As Curatos said, the evil gods had preserved their strength better than the races created by Vida had. Not only were there those such as the Evil God of Joyful Life who had spread their roots into the depths of society, there were those who had established great hordes of monsters who worshipped them and even those that had established their own nations of people who worshipped them on islands separate from the continents.

"I am sure that the battle against the evil gods will be fierce and harsh," said Alda. "However, if the extermination of Vida's races is prioritized, the evil gods will utilize that and take advantage of it. You have recorded the events that befell the Divine Spear of Ice, Mikhail, have you not?"

Mikhail, the Divine Spear of Ice, was a hero who had drawn Alda's attention in recent times. He had been putting Alda's doctrine and the champion* Bellwood's teachings into practice. Alda had been planning to one day welcome him to join him at least as a heroic spirit servant, or depending on his achievements, a heroic god like Bellwood, but...

TLN*: I've just realized I've been translating two different words as "hero". "英雄/eiyuu" refers to mortal heroes such as Mikhail and Borkus, and "勇者/yuusha" refers to the ones who were summoned from other worlds like Zakkart and Bellwood. From now on, the latter will be translated as "champion" (and I've made this change retrospectively to previous chapters as well).

"I have indeed," replied Curatos. "That valuable individual was robbed from us by the darkness."

Mikhail's spirit had been stolen by something. It was likely the doing of the subordinates of the Evil God of Joyful Life or the subordinates of an evil god haunting the region beyond the Boundary Mountain Range.

"Whoever it was, those wicked gods utilized the conflict between Vida and myself in order to benefit from it," said Alda. "With that being the case, the extermination of those gods should be prioritized over exterminating the weakened races created by Vida. Also, there are some among those races who have already established a position for themselves among the people."

Among the races created by Vida, those such as Titans, Beast-men and Dark Elves had already established their existence among the people. Commoners, slaves, laborers, miners, prostitutes, adventurers, craftsmen. Most of them were in the lower positions of society, but there were also nobles and royalty among them.

As they were not evil in nature, there was no small number of countries who had accepted them as a part of their societies.

"Even if I instructed for them to be destroyed unsparingly, my true will would not be conveyed. The people cannot be told about the transmigration systems, after all."

If Alda were to instruct the people to slay their virtuous neighbors simply for being members of races created by Vida, they would criticize him as an unjust god and many would oppose.

Alda expected that his followers would be able to make the other people understand, but it was still not a favorable choice.

"Therefore, the spearhead must be pointed towards the evil gods first," Alda concluded. "During that time, we must support the people and build plans for destroying Vida's races."

"I see," said Curatos. "However, would the people understand your intentions immediately, my lord?"

"That is where the problem lies."

Even if Alda used a divine message to convey his will, he could not meet the people and talk to them directly. Information needed to be reduced so that the people could understand, and even then, his believers who received it would need to translate it into their own words. Only then could the will of a god be conveyed.

If a god's brain was a supercomputer, the brain of an average person was an older-generation handheld console. That was why it was necessary for Alda to choose a powerful individual among the believers when delivering a divine message in order to ensure that he and the believer were on the same wavelength.

If he were to choose an unskillful individual, they might not understand the meaning of the divine message at all and could misinterpret it. In some cases, they might not even realize that they had heard a divine message.

That was why it was correct to send only short, simple-to-understand divine messages to chosen saints.

It would be different if Alda were to descend upon the earth like he did during the age of the gods or welcome the souls of heroes such as Mikhail into the Divine Realm after death.

"Would they accept your will even if it is conveyed?" asked Curatos. "We subordinate gods and servants have been condemning Vida's races as evil up until now, after all."

"As the people could be told about the transmigration system, the extermination of Vida's races was justified as being in the name of great justice, but... it seems that this has backfired."

Alda believed that the races that had been created through breeding with monsters were evil. There might be some good individuals among them, but with modes of life such as that of the Vampires, roots of evil would be left behind in the future. They were destroying much of the world's current order.

The ways Vampires lived, as well as the appearances of Lamias and Scylla, greatly differed from those of the people. Because of this many of the people believed Alda's words and treated them as targets to be exterminated.

However, as Alda had mentioned not long ago, there were some members of Vida's races who had been accepted by society. That was why Curatos and Yupeon, the god of ice, had been declaring that those races were evil in Alda's name – so that they would be destroyed.

Destroying a transmigration system would require the use of an ability to destroy the soul like the Demon King's, or the elimination of the destinations for the reincarnated souls... the killing of every single individual living creature that the souls could reincarnate in. Exceptions could not be made because they were virtuous or because they were a part of society.

"Now then, how should I handle this?" Alda wondered aloud. His thoughts were hectic, but he was truly devoted to his work as a god.

He was spreading across the world of Lambda the light attribute that he ruled over and the life attribute that he had stolen from Vida.

Normally, Lambda would be operating with the support of the eight gods of the attributes and three other gods, Marduke, Zerno and Gangpaplio.

However, as a result of the war against the Demon King and the battle against Vida, Alda was the only one remaining. The flame and wind attributes were functioning through the remaining subordinate gods of Zantark and Shizarion sharing their management.

However, in order to take away Vida and her subordinate gods' divinity and prevent them from being revived, Alda had stolen her authority over the life attribute.

Because of this, Alda now had to manage the life attribute that he was not specialized in. His subordinate gods were assisting him with it, but it was not his specialty, so it would not become a significant asset in battle.

This would be like requesting the members of a professional football team to produce favorable results as sumo wrestlers without any decrease in skill.

Increasing the number of subordinate gods proficient with the life attribute would solve the problem, but those possessing vessels worthy of ascending to godhood did not come by so often, and Alda could not monopolize prodigious individuals for himself. All attributes were suffering, after all.

"A certain solution would be to have Rodcorte manipulate his system and