「But then, it’s also possible to change the personality, much less the appearance. I guess I won’t really know without seeing for myself. 」

I don’t think they’ll do a weird set-up or something, but then, I don’t really know Sis’s two friends that well.

Sis loves herself too much, so I don’t think she will change that much, but she’ll probably have 【Beauty】or 【Youth】 casted on her. The guy was oozing with self confidence so he wouldn’t become a little girl all of a sudden, right? As for the other girl, she’s the type to refrain from attempting to say a lot of things, so I don’t really know.

「Forget it. I won’t go near them so I will never know. It’s pointless. 」

I turned back to the cards I’m dealing with.

「Names are Haruka, Hisatsugu, Yuka and Jin, apparently. 」

Retze changed his cards.

「Yeah, affirmative, affirmative. 」

A slapdash remark from me while I threw two cards and drew another two.

Will it be fun to start a trend of Texas Holdem? Five cards from the start, kinda like the poker I use to play as a grade schooler? It’s easy to understand, but you have to be lucky or be particularly great at psychological warfare.

Let’s stop. I can only foresee myself losing if it’s strategy-based.

Still, I don’t believe Sis loves me. Oh well, she’s kinda obsessive and possessive about her things.

…Seems like Sis really wanted to transform me into a docile and obedient younger, and it’s disgusting.

「— Four heroes have been summoned, is this true? 」

「Three of them are heroes, I’m just someone dragged here. 」

「Then the abilities should be equal, I presume? 」

Butler exchanged one card.

「Who knows? I just poured everything in making things, and the deities that bestowed the blessings are different, too. 」

「A deity named Riche lived in the Magical Forest before, right…」

Retze stared at me with suspicion.

Riche wasn’t the only one to bestow blessings on me, and the former conditions were also different, you know!

「If they got battle skills then they’d be stronger than you, huh…Won’t it be terrible news if they aren’t defeated before they get used to fighting, and before the deity they’re nurturing becomes stronger? I heard that unless something bad really happens, the heroes will continue protecting that changeling, you know? 」

Dinosso.

「Jean-sama, are you fine with just leaving those heroes alone? 」

Butler.

Is there a rule that we can’t speak if it’s not our turn?

「In the first place, this world is made in a way that it’ll still be fine regardless of whether the heroes self-destruct or become stronger. 」

I’m reading the mood and responding when it’s my turn, see.

「Well, it’ll be worrying if three or four people changed the world. Full house. 」

「Everytime we hear about heroes being summoned to stabilize the world, legends about what happens are bound to be handed down. Four-of-a-kind.」

It’s just as Dinosso said. For example, the library in Telmast was originally the collection of a ruler who was also a book collector maniac, but his country was destroyed the same year the heroes* appeared.

The reason why this world’s civilization didn’t progress was because of the periodic destruction that occurred, destroying the civilization. It’s only because the spirits were long-lived that tales of yore survived.

「It is said that the Wind God Landauro, the Great Deity, vanished. Straight for me. 」

Butler spread his cards with a smile.

Ugh, just why is every single one of these guys so strong!

「So, that ‘stability’ ain’t anything about politics and livelihood, huh. It’s more for the spirits, then. Well, biases of spirits also have an effect on people’s lives, so I guess it’s the same thing. If the number of spirits increases too much, or if the attributes become unbalanced, then the unipolarity will continue on as it is. Those heroes who make the spirits stronger or else wipe them out probably act as ‘ventilation’ before the unipolarity becomes suffocating. Royal flush. 」

Yeah, my win this time around.

「Ugh! You, stop timing your strongest lineup now! And don’t mention ventilation, don’t say that. 」

「But according to what I heard, the air inside the room will turn into something bad for the body if the chimney is blocked… 」

「Noth, don’t you dare start thinking about that seriously now. 」

Dinosso seemed to be struggling on his own.

「Just compare it to something familiar, and you’ll suddenly find that your big deal of an issue will be less of a hurdle now. If you want to be seen as someone strong then you better do something about that. 」

「In short, you’re telling me to be tortuous about it, huh. 」

Alright, let’s take oxygen toxicity as an example. Inhaling very high levels of oxygen at high pressure, or exposure to above-normal oxygen pressure over a long period of time can cause a lot of problems to the body, and it can also cause death in the worst cases. The pressure can be an issue, but regulation to low levels shouldn’t pose any problem.

If we take the world as air, oxygen as the unbalanced spirits, and the pressure as the matter, then…

「Well, it’s something like this. If the increase of attribute spirits is made to happen across the board, and things and stuff also increases, then there shouldn’t be any problem, right? 」

I gave up on giving a tortuous example.

I did mention balancing matter and the spirits, but I don’t see this world achieving that balance as of now. There are more wind and light spirits, and there are far more people who can ‘See’ compared to what I heard.

In order to achieve balance, either the spirits decrease, or the matter increases. The heroes are doing the former, me the latter.

I’m not sure whether what I’m doing is enough for increasing matter, but an empire with buildings shooting up one after another left a long, proud record in history, so I thought that maybe it is.

By the way, a spirit materializes when it becomes exceptionally strong after receiving the power of a hero. The Great Deity of the Wind is no longer in this world, but I found a record that his power had solidified into stone and it was used as a tool for summoning heroes.

In order to prevent the petrification of a spirit, it must be affected by another spirit with a different attribute. However, even if they know that, it’s the spirit’s instinct to absorb power and increase its underlings, so it’s not something it can stop on its own.

As a result of secluding myself in the library and doing a lot of research, I decided to earnestly create things, form contracts with small spirits, and leave the heroes be, and that has been the way it is up to this day.

If matter increases, there’s no need to summon heroes anymore. I just go around doing my own business and trades while ignoring the other (Sis) party with that thought in mind nowadays.

I’ve been making contracts with a lot of small spirits to disperse power, and I’ve been earnestly doing it to prevent polarization of attributes, but I also need to pay attention so that Riche won’t petrify. Well, we’ve been frequently interacting with the different attribute deities in my house, so I guess he’ll be fine.

Three people’s worth of power flows into Lightball, but I wonder if she would eventually be petrified too? Records of what would happen to heroes after the disappearance of the deities that bestowed blessings on them were few and far between, but I can already imagine just what kind of treatment they received from the country. It’s normal for the deeds of the heroes who healed the people and protected them from disasters to be recorded for the rest of their lives, after all!

「Why the long face? 」

「You’re imagining things. 」

Retze still had his eyes fixed on me.

「They’re a nuisance to the locality, but I guess it’s better to just let them be, huh? 」

「Then, based on what we heard so far, it will be best not to be involved with them, as long as no direct harm occurs, is that it? 」

Dinosso sighed, Butler looked discomfited.

「We just went full circle back to Dinosso’s topic earlier. 」

As for me, I’m fine as long as it’s peaceful around me.

「Yeah, we did return to that topic, but did you know that because of you we got to learn a lot of things that we’re better off not knowing? Take this tidbit about the info about the ‘stray hero’ that had been dragged here for example — we might have to buy stomach medicine to swallow this story, you know? Don’t act so nonchalant by yourself! 」

「Ouch ouch ouch ouch 」

Retze pinched my cheeks,but isn’t this too cruel? And don’t you dare call me ‘stray hero’!

________

T/N: It wasn’t specified, but they were probably a different batch of heroes from Jean’s Sis and her gang. Wind God Landauro is finally named in this chap; it’s the spirit who formed a contract with the hero before he died, the one with underlings who continued nurturing the earth even after he (deity) disappeared :). And the cat is out of the bag, just like that XD stray hero Jean, nonchalant to the max XD