This little Lord God was clearly acting strange!
Over the past few hours of interacting with her, Elise had noticed that whenever this girl spoke to her, she was always timid and hesitant, as though she were afraid of something.
What was with that?
Could Elise possibly eat her or something?
Elise pondered for a moment, then suddenly felt that such a development might not be too bad.
"W-What are you trying to do?"
Noticing that Elise was looking at her strangely, the little Lord God immediately took two steps backward and raised her hands protectively in front of herself.
But to Elise, that defense might as well not have existed. She could break through it anytime she wanted.
"Say, Lord God... are you hiding something from me?"
Elise looked at her suspiciously. She couldn't shake the feeling that something was off.
"H-How could that be? Haha..."
Again with those wandering eyes and that unconvincing tone. Even an ordinary person could tell she was lying now.
"Are you sure you won't tell me?" Elise licked the corner of her lips and revealed an extremely seductive smile.
The Lord God Space was a mysterious and powerful place. The more one understood it, the greater one's chances of surviving.
And this little Lord God in front of her was absolutely the breakthrough Elise needed!
If Elise wanted to learn more, she had to conquer her first!
"Ah! Don't come any closer! I'm warning you!"
As Elise approached, the Lord God grew increasingly nervous.
But the more nervous she became, the more obvious it was that she really was hiding something from Elise—and that it definitely wasn't something minor!
After an unknown amount of time...
"I'll talk... I'll tell you everything..."
The little Lord God collapsed limply onto the sofa, as though every ounce of vitality had been drained from her body.
Just moments ago, she had suffered truly inhumane treatment!
"That's all it took? You're the Lord God, aren't you?"
Elise had studied interrogation techniques before, but using them on the Lord God didn't seem particularly appropriate.
So she had chosen a method of interrogation that was effective across countless worlds and incredibly simple...
Tickling the soles of her feet!
Thus, the interrogation ultimately proceeded extremely smoothly. After several minutes of Elise's relentless effort, she finally extracted the secret the little Lord God had been hiding.
And the key to everything was Elise!
...
The reason the Lord God Space had shattered was because it had endured a great war—a war between Reincarnators.
The details of the battle were unknown, but the battlefield itself had been inside the Lord God Space!
Those powerful Reincarnators had made no attempt whatsoever to restrain their overwhelming strength, directly waging a life-and-death battle right there.
Whoever survived to the end would obtain control over the Lord God Space and become the deity who governed the infinite worlds.
Unfortunately, by the end of that great battle, every single Reincarnator had died. They had all taken one another down with them.
As the saying went, watching that bastard make money was even harder to bear than losing money yourself.
The Reincarnators had embraced the spirit of, 'If I can't have it, then none of you are getting it either,' and successfully wiped out every last Reincarnator!
And because the Lord God had lost all its Reincarnators, combined with the damage from the great battle, it successfully shattered as well.
Fortunately, the Lord God Space's final consciousness—the little girl before Elise—had left behind a chance for revival just before it shattered.
Of course, everything came at a price.
Although the little Lord God had exhausted her power to pull in one final Reincarnator, she had lost many things in the process as well.
For example, the interoperability between worlds.
Every world possessed its own rules, but the Lord God Space had once been capable of integrating those rules, removing the barriers between different worlds.
But after losing that function, if a Reincarnator wanted to obtain power, they truly had no choice but to rely on themselves.
Of course, that was far from the most important thing the Lord God Space had lost...
The most important thing she had lost was naturally her chast—Ahem. Of course not. Back then, the Lord God hadn't even transformed into her current little-girl appearance yet.
So the most important thing she had lost was sovereignty over the Lord God Space.
But thinking about it, that really was somewhat ridiculous.
She herself was clearly the consciousness of the Lord God Space, yet she had handed her own sovereignty away...
But if she hadn't done that, the Lord God Space would have shattered long ago.
Which meant Elise had truly become the owner of the Lord God Space, and her status now even exceeded that of the little girl who embodied the Lord God's consciousness.
"So you're saying that if I wanted to do something to you, you really couldn't resist?"
"Of course..."
The little Lord God pouted. Her mood was obviously terrible right now.
She had originally transformed into a little girl specifically to please her master. After all, she had already lost her sovereignty, so perhaps taking this form would at least let her become the mistress of the household.
"Who would've thought my one and only chance would pull in a woman?"
"My entire plan was ruined..."
After hearing the little Lord God's plan, Elise was somewhat speechless too.
How should she put it?
Strictly speaking, the Lord God's plan had actually succeeded, because Elise's soul had originally been male!
It was only the body she received afterward that was female...
If she really had received a male body, then what the Lord God had intended might actually have become reality.
After all, who could possibly refuse a white-haired, red-eyed little girl like this?
However, Elise also learned that although sovereignty over the Lord God Space belonged to her, she had only just reached the necessary threshold, namely an S-rank evaluation by the Lord God Space. Otherwise, she would have remained completely in the dark.
Although the little Lord God had lost sovereignty, she was still the Lord God herself. As long as Elise didn't deny her authority, she still possessed a portion of her power.
When Elise fought the three great Evil Gods in the High School DxD world, the Lord God had also been secretly observing.
Who could have expected Elise to suddenly unleash the equivalent of a Tsar Bomba and take both friend and foe down with her!
If Elise disappeared, then naturally the Lord God Space would disappear too.
The little Lord God had handed over her sovereignty precisely because she wanted to survive. How could she possibly sit there and wait for death?
So she preserved a sliver of Elise's life and, while she was at it, brought the three little ones back to the Lord God Space.
So that was what had happened?
The Holy Mother Goddess hadn't personally witnessed the battlefield, after all. Everything she had told Elise had concerned the aftermath. Only this little Lord God had witnessed the entire sequence of events.
"No matter what, I still have to thank you."
Elise stood up and formally bowed to the Lord God.
"If you hadn't given me all of this, I probably would've died a long time ago, wouldn't I?"
"Hmph! Who helped you? I was only worried that I'd die too. It had nothing to do with you!" Although she said that, pride was written all over her little face.
"So I'll help you too!"
"I'll definitely restore you to an even better state than before!"
"No matter what, I'll help you!"
Repay grudges with vengeance and kindness with gratitude. That was Elise's way of thinking.
The Lord God's contribution to everything Elise had achieved today was unquestionably the greatest of all. Without her, Elise's story wouldn't even have begun.
There was no way Elise would repay such an enormous debt of gratitude with betrayal...
What happened just now didn't count!
Tickling someone's feet was, at most, a prank between good friends. How could that possibly count as repaying kindness with betrayal?
"Hmph! At least you have some conscience!"
Only after hearing Elise's words did the little Lord God finally relax, and her impression of Elise improved somewhat.
"You're really different from those Reincarnators from before..."
At the mention of the previous Reincarnators, even the little Lord God's face couldn't help darkening.
Those bastards had truly been awful!
"But what exactly am I supposed to do?"
Although she said she would help, Elise actually knew nothing about how the Lord God Space operated. In the end, she still had to listen to the little Lord God.
"I left a clue behind a long time ago!"
"Out of all the functions, the only one that remains is the key to my recovery!"
After hearing her explanation, Elise immediately understood.
The Lord God Space had long since lost most of its functions, leaving only a very small number still usable.
One of them was the Lord God Space interface, but there was no way anyone could have figured anything out from that alone.
The second was World Analysis for the infinite worlds.
Back then, that had been one of the only functions available. Elise hadn't really understood what it represented, but she had still tried to raise it whenever possible.
She never expected that it would genuinely be useful, and significantly so.
"So the more worlds there are, and the higher their analysis rates, the faster you'll recover?"
That guess was perfectly reasonable. The little Lord God immediately nodded in agreement and opened Elise's exploration interface.
"Let's see... one world at one hundred percent analysis, and the others are pretty high too. Not bad!"
"But don't get complacent because of that. A high analysis rate isn't enough. It has to reach one hundred percent!"
"So from now on, you'll have to raise the analysis rates of these worlds!"
The little Lord God continued explaining what Elise currently needed to do. The most important thing was still World Analysis, but Elise had plenty of questions.
"Can't you travel to the different worlds yourself?"
After listening to her for so long, it felt as though she had been constantly explaining what Elise needed to do and what Elise needed to accomplish...
"What about you?"
Faced with that question, the little Lord God sighed.
"Of course it would be best if I handled my own recovery myself. I'd love to go explore other worlds with you too..."
"But I can't."
"Because I'm the Lord God, I have to remain here. The moment I leave this place, regardless of how I do it, the Lord God Space will cease to exist."
"..."
At that moment, the atmosphere became somewhat heavy. Elise truly hadn't expected something like that. Didn't that mean...
"You've never left this place before?"
"That's right. I can indirectly influence other worlds, but actually leaving is impossible."
"I understand..."
To change the mood, the little Lord God pointed toward a certain place on the analysis interface—or rather, toward a certain name.
"Then your next world will be this one!"
Her slender finger landed squarely on Asterisk War. Elise had already decided earlier that she would return there when she had time. Otherwise, she might never get another chance.
"The World Analysis for Asterisk War has already exceeded eighty percent. Even while you were away, it continued increasing."
"But this is already its limit. If you want to raise it to one hundred percent, your exploration will be indispensable."
"You'll have to go there personally!"
Regarding this matter, Elise asked something she had wanted to know for a long time.
"What exactly do I need to do?"
"How do I raise the analysis rate?"
Elise had made guesses before, such as participating in major story events or directly interacting with the protagonist. Any of those seemed possible.
But the little Lord God shook her head, rejecting Elise's assumptions.
"Analysis has nothing to do with any of that. The most important factor is time."
"The DanMachi world is a very good example. Its analysis rate reached ninety percent not because you participated in lots of important events, and not because you interacted with lots of major characters. It was simply because..."
"You stayed in that world for a relatively long time."
When the little Lord God revealed the truth, Elise froze outright.
"No way. This is the Lord God Space we're talking about. How can it be that simple?"
In response to Elise's confusion, the little Lord God sneered twice.
"Don't think it's simple. The main reason is that the worlds you've visited haven't been particularly dangerous."
"If you entered a world where you could die at any moment, you wouldn't think that anymore."
"The previous Reincarnators all hated worlds like that. None of them ever raised an analysis rate above forty percent."
Thinking about it carefully, Elise really had prioritized safety and never intended to visit worlds with extremely high danger levels, so naturally she had never encountered such a situation.
But the little Lord God had a point. Worlds like that truly weren't places ordinary people could survive in.
"By the way, what am I supposed to call you? I can't keep calling you Little Lord God forever, can I?"
"If you don't have a name, how about I give you one?"
Hearing that, she froze for a moment before immediately looking away from Elise. But if one watched carefully, it was obvious that she was secretly sneaking glances back at her.
"I don't have a name. All the previous Reincarnators simply called me Lord God..."
"You're the first person who's ever wanted to give me a name."
At this point, the shyness on the little Lord God's face vanished, and she returned to her previously arrogant demeanor.
"So as the Lord God, I'll graciously permit you to give me a pleasant and impressive name!"
"You'd better think carefully. Otherwise, I'll get angry!"
Her tone sounded exactly like a little child acting spoiled toward her mother, making her extraordinarily adorable...
Wait, why is it mother again?
Elise threw those distracting thoughts out of her mind and carefully considered the matter of naming the little Lord God.
Come to think of it, hadn't the Lord God originally been a giant ball of light? Maybe she could start from there?
A ball of light...
Light...
Got it! If it was based on light, then that name really did seem perfect—Hikari!
In Japanese, it meant "light," which was precisely Hikari. There was even Ultraman Hikari!
Why does this feel strangely familiar? Didn't Scaramouche run into something like this too?
Back then, Elise had agonized over it for quite a while before finally managing to accept it.
"Your name will be Hikari!"