I was Betrayed then Reincarnated as a Kitsune

Side Chapter 23: Meeting of the Gods

On the peak of one of the mountains in Tamamos area in the divine domain a circular table was set up with Tamamo sitting in one of the seats as she waited for the others.  After several minutes, several flashed of light lit the area as the participants of this meeting arrived.

[Tamamo POV]

{Welcome everyone and thank you for coming to this impromptu meeting.}

Ooo.  Its been a while since Ive seen you acting all formal, Tamamo.  Not that I get why youre acting that way since we all know how you usually are. (Atmos)

Atmos, this is the proper way for someone to act when you call people to a meeting like this. (Gear)

Hohoho.  Loosen up, Gear.  You could learn a thing or two from Atmoss always casual attitude. (Crate)

Hmph.  I can say the same about you, brother.  There is a time and place to be casual and this is one of those times where you need to be serious. (Gear)

Can the two of you hold off from having the same argument youve had for who knows how long until later?  Were here to listen to what Tamamo has to say. (Quetz)

Yes.  While its good to see the two of you are still lively, this isnt the time for this. (Java)

Oh, hey Java, its been a while. (Atmos)

Hello Atmos. (Java)

Grey asked me to thank you for your most recent shipment of coffee to him and to say hes sorry he hasnt been able to thank you in person recently.  Hes been busy dealing with the S-rank adventurers that came back from the fiendlands. (Atmos)

Ive told him before that he doesnt need to always thank me in person, but Ill accept his thanks all the same. (Java)

Anyway, shall we get to what we were actually called here for now?  And Tamamo, speak up some or else everyone else will just start doing their own thing and get lost in it. (Quetz)

{I would, but were still missing one person.}

Tch. (Gear)

Gear, stop holding people to your standards, otherwise, youll only ever be disappointed.  Not everyone can be as punctual as you. (Crate)

Ill concede on that point, this time. (Gear)

Hohoho. (Crate)

Everyone then took their seat as they continued to chat.  About ten minutes later another flash of light appeared and a god wearing black pants, a white button-up shirt appeared.  He had grey hair and eyes with a perpetually tired look to them.  He walked over to the last free seat and slumped into it while letting out a long sigh.  Before I had a chance to speak, Java slid over a mug of steaming coffee to the newest arrival.  When the mug stopped in front of him, he perked up enough to drink a few sips.

Thanks Java, I needed this. (Stadia)

Hoh?  Well, well, well, its been a while Stadia.  How has the status system been running? (Crate)

Same as the last time you asked me that.  Though with the update that I pushed a few years ago, Ive actually had some free time here and there.  To think moving to a letter rating scale would make things run so much smoother. (Stadia)

I then cleared my throat and stood from my seat.

{Welcome to my home God of Creation: Crate, God of Time: Gear, Goddess of Fate, Mischief, and Baking: Atmos, God of Statuses: Stadia, Goddess of the Sun, Day, and the West, and God of Coffee: Java.  I, Goddess of the Moon, Night, and Gravity: Tamamo, thank you all for attending this meeting.  Now, with introductions out of the way, I will get straight to the point.  I need help from all of you, though I feel like the one that will actually be able to help with this problem is either Crate or Stadia.  Anyway, the topic of this meeting is my wife and future Goddess of Space, Stars, and Fluff: Luna.  Specifically, her leveling progress.}

Whats wrong with her leveling, young Tamamo? (Crate)

{Its stagnated in a sense.  As you all know, she has my divine protection and that it gives her many benefits with the demerit of making her level slower.  This is the problem.  Before I called this meeting, I asked her what level she was, and she told me she was at level 76.  At this point she basically needs to eradicate either several mythical level monsters or nearly entire ecosystems of monsters to get any meaningful exp.  I know that this sounds like Im making a selfish request out of impatience or something of the like, and I wont deny that that is one of my reasons for calling this meeting, but the bigger issue is that for her to level up to level 100 and ascend, shell need to basically genocide several large ecosystems.  We all know that that is something that cant happen.  I know I dont have the power to change this, so I called a meeting of the top gods in order to get any ideas on what to do or if there is anything I even can do.}

Hmm.  Ill start off with probably the easiest suggestion.  Why not just tell Luna to go dungeon hopping?  Sure, itll slow her down somewhat since shell need to travel to a lot of them at least once, but shell be able to teleport to them after that, and since she is the demigod with the partial Authority of Space, she can easily teleport to the boss floors to kill the dungeon bosses over and over until she levels to the desired level. (Atmos)

{That is an option, but its also boring, and you know that a bored Luna isnt a good thing.  Of course, if there is nothing that can help with this problem, Ill suggest that to her as a last resort.}

What about golden apples?  Doesnt eating one of those give people levels? (Quetz)

They only give one level to one person one time.  If they did any more, then the dragons would rule the world since they are the guardians of the golden apples. (Crate)

Oh.  Guess Ive been running on outdated information. (Quetz)

Have you been too preoccupied studying those ruins you like so much? (Java)

For the most part.  I mean its not like I have that much else to do since my Authorities arent that difficult to maintain. (Quetz)

You should get out more, Quetz.  Come over to my place sometime and share a cup of coffee with me. (Java)

Oh.  A-alright. (Quetz)

{Good for you, Quetz, but can we get back on topic?}

Ah, my apologies, Tamamo.  I should have saved that for after the meeting. (Java)

Hmmm.  I apologize, but I cant think of anything to help here, Tamamo.  Its not like I can do anything with my Authority that wont cause some other problems. (Gear)

{I understand, but thank you for trying to think of something, Gear.}

Mm. (Gear)

I looked at Crate, Java, and Stadia since they havent said anything related to this yet.  Of these three, Java was the first to speak.

Im afraid Im in the same situation as Gear, only my Authority is utterly useless for this type of problem.  Unless you want her to stop sleeping entirely in order to hunt, then I cant really give any good advice. (Java)

{She wouldnt be affected by your coffee anyway.  She like drinking it for the taste though.}

Then, and I dont mean to be disrespectful, why did you even invite me to this meeting? (Java)

{Ive heard from Luna that gathering several people that arent completely related to the problem to have a discussion on said problem can help give more insight into things.}

I see.  Then Im sorry for not being able to do that. (Java)

{No need to apologize for that.}

Before the two of us ended up in an endless loop, Crate spoke up.

Young Tamamo, while I can make several things that can remedy or even eradicate the problem entirely, I want to ask if Young Luna would even accept my help in the first place. (Crate)

{It would take some convincing from me, but eventually she would.  She can be stubborn about the weirdest things, so it would take a little time.}

Crate, hold off for a bit before you do something like that.  I might also have a solution. (Stadia)

{And what would that be?}

I just need to update the system again.  First to accommodate your promotion to a god in the number one position.  That will have some benefits that effect your divine protection.  Like, lessen demerits or something since you are in such a high position or whatever if you want an excuse for it.  Another reason that I can come up with is to speed up her ascension a little bit so that she can take over for the Space spirits.  Ive heard that theyve been almost as overworked as me recently, so the faster she takes over for them, they can finally get a break.  There is also the fact that I can, as the mortal saying goes, open the floodgates for space magic to be more common.  Although I dont like to admit that my system has problems, it makes things run less efficiently when I have to keep tight reigns on certain affinities.  I mean, I cant completely take away the demerit from the system, but I can reduce it from 4x to something like 2x.  And if she is still stubborn about accepting help in this form, then just tell her that it was a decision made by a group vote to speed up the ascension of the Goddess of Space and whatever her other Authorities are. (Stadia)

Hohoho.  Thats a better idea than what I would have done, Young Stadia.  I was just going to make a potion of something that would give her levels or some kind of object that would increase her level when she does a specific thing, or maybe O could have gone with creating some creatures that she could kill that would give her so much exp that it would bypass the demerit with the stipulation that this method could only be used on the full moon when she comes here. (Crate)

Why would you add that stipulation? (Atmos)

Because I can.  Why do you always cause mischief?  Because you like to.  Its as simple as that. (Crate)

{Stadia, how long would this update take to make?}

Not long.  Its something that only changes a part of the system that goes practically unused, so if you give me like, a mortal world week itll be done.  Its not like the last update that affected all living beings on the world. (Stadia)

{Then Ill ask you to go forward with this.  Shall we say I owe you one for this?}

Doesnt matter to me.  Its not like Id ever cash in this favor in the first placeActually, maybe I will.  How about this, if I do this for you, will you get one of those other kitsune goddesses to leave me alone?  Shes always showing up whenever she feels like, lazes around like she owns the place, and leaves hair from her tails all over the place when she leaves.  Ive tried getting her to stop myself, but she refuses to listen to me.  Shes always saying stuff like am I still playing hard to get or whatever!  What does that even mean!?  Just leave me be to do my job!  Im already busy, I cant take the time to talk to you! (Stadia)

Um, didnt you say youve recently had time to take breaks? (Quetz)

I meant that in the sense that I can take at most five minutes to rest my eyes.  After that its right back to work. (Stadia)

{Im starting to pity her even more.  The other three no change, but her specifically yes.}

I think you should talk to Luna about not going forward with the plan in regards to that one specifically.  Like you said, no change for the other three, but she is a separate case. (Atmos)

{Yes.  Ill do that later.}

Well, with that decided, is there anything else that needs to be discussed, or is this meeting adjourned? (Gear)

{Unless anyone else has something to bring up while all of us are present, then thats it.}

I looked around at everyone, but nobody raised their hand.  I stood up again and officially closed the meeting.

{Thank you all for taking the time to come here.  If any of you need anything from me, I will happily accommodate you to the best of my abilities and within reason.}

We all said our goodbyes as the others left.  Once the light from their departure faded, I noticed Atmos was still here.

{Something up, Atmos?}

No.  I just decided to stay for a bit and visit.  Im up to date on what Luna has been up to, but not you.  You dont come to our mutual friends place as much anymore. (Atmos)

{Ive just been preoccupied is all.}

Thats understandableNo, no, no, no.  Ugh, why!?  WHY!?  WHY DO YOU MORTALS ALWAYS HAVE TO MESS WITH STUFF YOU ARENT SUPPOSED TO!?  ITS LIKE YOURE ALL ATTRACTED TO MAKING THINGS DIFFICULT FOR YOURSELVES CONSTANTLY! (Atmos)

{Whats going on!?}

Its the dwarves.  Theyve dug too greedily and too deep.  They better pray that Luna is able to fix this. (Atmos)

{What.  Happened.  Atmos.}

Theyve dug so deep that they freed the only existing Divine Beast. (Atmos)

{IdiotsWait, you mean the Cerberus?}

Yep.  The one and only Divine Beast in this world. (Atmos)

{Im going to go warn Luna now.}

You do that. (Atmos)

Chaos Realm:

Fenrir: Why do mortals have to be so stupid?

Cause they are?  I don't know.

Order: I'm more confused as to why a Divine Beast is in the mortal world.  Isn't that against some rule?

The Cerberus is an anomaly.  It was born from the Ether of this world and has a partial earth Authority.  No, not even partial.  Suffice it to say, it's basically a demigod.  And to answer why nobody has gone to bring it to the divine domain in all the years that it's been alive, they can't.  Even if I allowed someone to descend to do so, they wouldn't be able to bring it back to the divine domain.  It's literally an immovable object.

Order: And why is that?

It's tied to the Ether.  Move the Cerberus and you disrupt the flow of Ether.  It's like...what was it that mortals have?  That thing that gets cut after birth.

Order: Umbilical cord?

That.  Since it was born from Ether, it get's it's vital sustenance from the Ether.  Naturally, it can sever this connection on it's own and we'd be able to bring it to the divine domain, but it's never shown any intention of doing so.

Fenrir: Then why is it bad that the dwarves have found it?

Because it's territorial.  Very territorial.

Order: I'm also assuming that it lives near an Ether source.  Am I correct?

Oh no.  The way it was born is the same way a dungeon is.  Connected to Ether, but nowhere near a source of it.  Hmmm.  Let me put it this way, if a dungeon is has a 99.9% chance of forming, a Divine Beast is that last 0.1%.  Going by the age of this world, it's been very lucky that this is the only Divine Beast to ever come into existence.

Fenrir: Are Divine Beasts such bad things?

Depends on the what it is.  Some are helpful, some are dangerous.  For example, there was a world that had a Divine Beast spawn in the form of a wolf.  That wolf shared the same name as you, Fenrir, and it ended up devouring the entire world it was born on before devouring itself.  And when I say the whole world, I mean pantheon and Ether included.  Though I will say this much, the Cerberus in this world has no such abilities and is actually on the more peaceful side.

Fenrir: Then why is it attacking the dwarves?

Again, it's very territorial and bad in the mornings, like most people are.

Order: So basically it's just half asleep right now.

Pretty much.

Astraea: Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!!

Speaking of grumpy in the morning.  I'll take care of her this time, Order.

Order: Thanks.