Chapter 140

After the hero set off for paradise, the world continued to change at a rapid pace.

There were many changes, but the first thing I should mention… is public safety, perhaps?

The chaos caused by the appearance of monsters was calmed thanks to the hero’s valiant efforts.

You see, humans who had been helplessly falling victim to monsters began to perceive them as creatures that could be hunted after witnessing the hero taking down these beasts.

Well, I didn’t exactly foresee this outcome when I sent the hero on adventures just to fend off some tough monsters…

But hey, if the result is good, isn’t everything fine in the end?

Thus, humans started hunting monsters. For those monsters too powerful for individuals to handle, armies were organized.

To defeat particularly strong monsters, it wasn’t enough to draft farmers into an army—what was needed were soldiers trained professionally for combat. This led to the rise of career soldiers.

These newly trained soldiers not only strengthened the nation’s military power but were also deployed during peacetime to maintain public order.

It wasn’t just temporary guards anymore; we now had professional soldiers trained specifically for security duties.

Sure, the job of guard existed before, but there’s a world of difference between past guards who only managed entry and exit points and the new ones focused on maintaining public safety.

Anyway, with the growing number of such guards, not only were invading monsters repelled from human territories, but more patrols were conducted along major roads.

This greatly improved the safety of roads used by humans.

Previously, pilgrims from the Goddess of Life’s temples would travel around securing the safety of these roads. But honestly, the world is vast, and the number of pilgrims was limited.

Moreover, not all pilgrims are dragons, so human pilgrims often faced dangers themselves.

While even human pilgrims had enough strength to fend off average monsters…

Anyway, by utilizing troops during non-war or monster-hunting times for public safety and road patrols, transportation involving humans and various races began to develop.

In the past, most merchants carried heavy loads on their backs or pulled handcarts, but thanks to better road safety and advancements in animal husbandry, carts pulled by oxen or horses began appearing.

This improved the flow of logistics significantly, and items that previously couldn’t have reached certain places now did.

Among the goods widely distributed, the biggest beneficiaries were the lizardmen who made papyrus, the mages of Procyon who crafted magic scrolls, and the dwarves selling iron goods.

These were mainly regional specialties whose production was limited to specific areas.

As for elves? Well, they mostly worked on leather crafting from hunting, but since that’s something any hunter can do, they couldn’t really claim it as a specialty, so they didn’t make much money off it.

Ahem, let’s move past the elves for now and start with papyrus.

Before papyrus became widespread, people wrote on clay tablets, carved words onto wooden planks, or used expensive parchment. But papyrus changed everything.

Easier to write on than clay tablets, lighter than wooden planks, and cheaper than parchment.

Sure, it was pricier than clay or wood, but those options were far too inconvenient.

Thanks to the impressive production rate of the lizardmen, families with a bit of extra money could afford one or two papyrus scrolls.

Mostly, stories were written on these papyrus sheets.

Stories carved onto clay tablets, tales imagined by people, accounts brought by pilgrims from distant lands.

And the number of copied scrolls, where someone transcribed another person’s work, increased as well.

That’s how papyrus scrolls gradually became primitive books.

However, papyrus had its downsides too.

Its production was limited to certain regions, so it couldn’t spread everywhere.

But after the hero’s deeds improved logistics, the distribution range of papyrus exploded.

People began writing down whatever stories they knew on papyrus.

Real-life events, tales inspired by the hero’s exploits, stories created purely from human imagination, and legends about transcendent beings.

That’s how new myths, different from traditional mythology, started being created.

Of course, the most common stories were about me—the Goddess of Life—and then about the hero.

Perhaps because the pilgrims of the Temple of Life traveled everywhere helping people, faith in me was expressed through these stories.

As my stories multiplied and faith in me grew, I discovered something new.

Through manipulating public opinion among humans, it was possible to artificially create gods.

As a side effect, the perceptions of countless humans could also overlay onto existing divine beings.

And the main target of this… was usually me.

For example:

“The Goddess of Life watches over countless lives with her compassionate heart.”

When such beliefs spread widely, they slightly affected me, changing my nature to make me want to watch over the lives of the world.

Hmm… Now that I think about it, I used to care only a little about life-related matters, but now I feel a significant sense of responsibility towards life. There’s a reason for that.

Of course, if you can create new gods using this method, there’s no law saying it can’t affect existing gods. Look at the Cloud Whale over there—it gained intelligence and became a god through the same process.

But I can’t keep accepting such faith indefinitely.

Not that it’s bad, but I don’t want to keep changing myself. I want to remain myself. If I put on the mask of the Goddess of Life and can never take it off, that’d be troublesome.

Hmm… Mask? That’s right, mask.

Persona, perhaps? The idea of existing as myself while wearing different masks depending on the situation.

Could this allow me to possess multiple deity statuses simultaneously?

Using this approach, could I receive faith while minimizing the changes it causes in me?

I’ll continue pondering this later.

The spread of papyrus resulted in the widespread dissemination of faith and legends.

Next, let’s talk about magic scrolls, crafted by mages.

Controlling mana to produce phenomena was originally the exclusive domain of mages.

Mages who instinctively manipulated mana without fully understanding the principles behind it simply used magic because they could.

To overcome this reality, mages researching to explain the phenomenon of magic succeeded in transferring their spells onto parchment or papyrus, thus creating magic scrolls.

This allowed even non-mages to use magic.

The city of mages, then called Babel, reaped great wealth from this innovation.

Skipping over the subsequent events that caused the Tower of Babel to collapse…

Even after Babel fell and became Procyon, the sale of magic scrolls wasn’t affected.

In fact, thanks to the improved logistics, the mages sold even more scrolls, using the profits to increase production further. They also attracted young mages with money and continued their magical research.

Eventually, they began uncovering ways to use magic without relying on scrolls.

They transformed instinctual magic into knowledge through various theories.

Thus, basic magic started to emerge.

Though it was only basic, it still marked a great first step.

While instinctual magic could create massive fireballs, basic magic could only produce small flames.

Tiny telekinesis to lift objects, creating small glowing orbs, conjuring a single cup of water, or generating wind—these were all minor spells.

But this was a monumental achievement.

The mages took instinctive magic, explained it, established it theoretically, and turned it into knowledge.

Though using it consumed one’s own mana, all living beings naturally possessed some mana, so it wasn’t a huge issue.

Note that this applies to mages’ standards. It’s not about regular people using magic. It’s about a mage who could previously only create fireballs learning to conjure a cup of water through basic magic.

By explaining and establishing unexplained phenomena through theory and turning them into knowledge…

This marked the beginning of magic as used by humans.