In the Name of God - vanish into fiction

It was well and good that I had become the guardian deity of this world and resurrected the dead child by choosing him as my Apostle.

However, even though the child had been resurrected in good health, the surroundings were still filled with hideous monsters. Due to the acts of destruction they committed, there were hardly any intact buildings left.

It was a situation where no one could safely protect the child.

So, out of necessity, I had intended to use my authority to personally provide a residence for him.

The memories following that had been largely gouged out, but moments where the child gradually changed the space I created remained in my head like short video clips.

One scene from those clips was the appearance of the small temple unfolding before my eyes right now.

I wondered if a house where elves or druids of a fantasy world lived would feel like this.

The exterior was one thing, but the interior was a wooden structure where the floors, pillars, and even the ceiling were all fashioned from timber.

I could see that instead of using a single stone, fine-grained woods were interlocked with each other to form a sturdy structure.

Unlike the precise and delicate basic structure, the traces of a young child’s touch remained throughout the pillars supporting the temple.

Lines that looked like height marks made from time to time as he grew, clumsy drawings of someone he repeatedly tried to depict but failed, scribbles with clear traces of things written and then erased…

For a place where monsters had brought us, it was filled with nothing but remnants thick with the scent of humanity.

I looked around at those remnants one by one, and eventually, I gazed at the wooden statue standing in front of me, which was about as tall as I was.

The day after I provided this house for the child.

For me, it was only a short time spent logging out of the game to rest before connecting again, but for the child, it was after a considerable amount of time had passed—enough for the sleeves of the clothes he enjoyed wearing to become frayed.

Back then, the child, waiting for me who might come at any moment, was carving a fairly large piece of wood to contain that longing.

—I made it with the cleanest and best wood among those blessed by God!

—It will be really pretty if I refine it a bit more like this!

At first, it was nothing more than a lumpy, elongated mass. Only after carving it little by little, over and over, did I realize it was a human form.

The wooden statue was certainly not completed by the time the child left this house.

At least, that was how it was in my memory.

However, the wooden statue before my eyes now was as vivid as if a renowned artist had carved it by hand.

The moment I faced that wooden statue up close.

I couldn’t help but gasp.

A man in a magnificent robe with one eye revealed outside of a veil.

A figure stroking the head of a giant dog standing beside him with his left hand, while holding an oddly shaped spear in his right hand as if raising a flag high.

It was such a delicate and precise carving that if color had been applied, one might believe that the “God” of that appearance had actually descended.

Unlike the other teammates who stared at the wooden statue as if possessed, forgetting they had been dragged here as prisoners, I bit my trembling lip hard.

‘How…?’

I am the sole deity and guardian god of this world. Even if I didn’t intend it, there were many who served me; there was an order, and even stone statues existed for the believers to worship.

The faces of those stone statues were all invisible. They either wore veils while holding their hands together as if praying, or they wore elegant robes with hoods pulled down deep while making gestures as if bestowing grace upon all people.

But this wooden statue had “my real face.”

It wasn’t just the face.

The appearance of this wooden statue was as if…

‘It’s as if he truly knows the me of the past.’

While I was glaring at the wooden statue with eyes full of agitation, the monsters that had dragged us here suddenly grabbed each of the teammates. Strangely, they didn’t lay a finger on me.

“Ugh!”

“Wha—what?! Let go!”

The teammates suddenly caught in the monsters’ grip struggled with panicked faces, but they each fell silent at the sharp claws brought to their throats. The two teammates who had been reduced to a wretched state in front of the cave were also struggling to swallow their groans for the time being.

Just as a precarious atmosphere, like walking on thin ice, settled in deeply.

A bizarre voice, sounding as if it were thick with noise, was heard.

“Don’t worry. I won’t kill you.”

Beyond the wooden statue.

A man was seen walking down the stairs from the second floor. He was a man dressed entirely in black, wearing a black veil just like the wooden statue.