[ Time until next wave: 3d 12h 58m 01s ]

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Three days have passed since the underground adventure. Tanuki has done a lot of heavy work since then. First off, he barricaded the cave entrance with the help of Maduka. They pulled a large rock in front of it, then surrounded it with trees cut down by Kurohyou.

“Is Nuki sure this will hold off da bugz?”

“Something like that. Even if they can break through this barricade, we’ll hear them from miles away. We’ll be ready for them.”

Maduka wasn’t so sure about being ready for anything. For this exact reason, whenever Tanuki didn’t need her help, she sneaked out into the forest and practiced his spear-fighting skills on imaginary targets.

The blue gibbons also took note of that. They found it ridiculous that someone would be stupid enough to play around, fighting the air. They collected rocks and stoned Maduka whenever they noticed she was practicing.

However, that was only good for Maduka. She didn’t run away but instead tried her best to dodge the incoming attacks.

“Maduka can’t run away. She has to be brave!”

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In the span of three days, her evasion skills have significantly improved, even if every night she returned to the camp with purple and brown marks around her body.

Tanuki wasn’t any less active during these days. The [Missions] menu was upgraded and he could finally accept quests from gods.

The way that worked was nothing like he expected. When he chose to select a god, a catalog appeared before his eyes, full of vastly different gods. He began to scroll through them, observing every deity along the way.

“Muse, God of Inspiration.”

“Inca, God of Eggplants.”

“Von den Saul, the Vampire Lord.”

“Takara, God of Jewelries.”

“Nepomuceno, God of Left-Handed People.”

While Tanuki browsed through the catalog one question lingered in his mind: “What?”

There were so many of them, yet so few seemed to have any actual power or godlike attributes. Every god had a picture of themselves above their name and most of them looked like ordinary dudes or animals.

And while Tanuki thought about this and scrolled further and further down the catalog, he realized… it wasn’t ending.

“Wait… why is there no scroll bar?”

He picked up the pace and began scrolling faster and faster, as swiftly as his fingers allowed, but the list just didn’t seem to end. He’s been at it for minutes and he has passed at least a few thousand gods, but there was no end to their list.

“Alpen, Golem of Mud.”

“Szo, the Wind-bending Tiger.”

“Xer Don, Guardian of Windmills.”

“Tzenset, the Map-Maker Robot.”

“Bob, God of Names.”

A theory began to form in Tanuki’s mind.

Back on Earth, there were around 7 billion people. If these gods were to exist back in that world, there would be way too many of them for each to have at least one unique follower. Even if every man would worship at least two gods, that too wouldn’t make any significant difference.

But what if his current world had such a vast number of living beings, that these gods aren’t all that much?

“But I still don’t get it! If their followers don’t exist yet… If I haven’t placed them yet and there’s no one worshipping these gods… Then what keeps them alive?!”

There was only one explanation for this, though it was one that made him feel even tinier and more insignificant than when viewing the endless list of gods.

Yes. There are people out there who pray to these gods. They are far away on another floating island. They weren’t created by Tanuki, but by someone else.

Someone else, who has their own Gaia Core.