Chapter 617

Making a Statue of the Goddess
After talking with Plum and Fanny, I got permission to create a statue of Lady Yggdoria.
However, it seems I can’t let anyone know that it’s *her* statue.

The reason is that Lady Yggdoria appears in many religions as the Supreme Deity, but her actual form has never been defined.
In other words, the Yggdoria we met might very well have been a version of her shaped by “my own image of her”.
And well, anything involving religion tends to catch fire quickly.

So, the statue-making has to be handled in total secrecy.

The statue will be made of wood.
I wanted to use Elder Treant material, but if I did that, people would start poking around trying to figure out which god the statue represented.
So I’ll settle for regular Treant wood.

There’ll be three statues:
one a little taller than me,
one a little shorter than me,
and one about fifty centimeters tall.

The tallest one will go in the Goddess’s hut.
The second one will be placed on an altar in the room where I moved the Kagura stage.
The smallest will go in my room, on a household shrine shelf.

Religious customs of this world?
Yeah, not really my concern!

“I see. So you want me to sculpt a statue based on this design?”

“Yes. Could I ask you to handle it, Hannon?”

“Got it. You’re even bringing the materials yourself, so I’ll make sure it’s finished quickly.”

And that’s how the actual statue-making ended up in Hannon’s hands.
She’s a woodcraft artisan, so it turns out she can make religious statues as well.

Actually, there’s no way I could bring this commission to one of the regular sculptors who usually make divine images.
They’d definitely start asking what kind of god this was supposed to be.
And if *that* happened, well—I can already picture the trouble that would follow.

By the way, the state religion of the McFarlane Dukedom worships the gods of Light and Darkness, Lutaria and Reitaria, as the two Supreme Deities.
They’re considered the highest, but other elemental gods exist alongside them, and above even those are a few Creator Gods such as Lady Yggdoria.

Incidentally, the faith of the “Eight Seats” taught at my school also includes the gods of Light and Darkness among the Eight Elemental Gods, treating all eight as equals.
The Principality’s clergy apparently have mixed feelings about that—
after all, in their own faith, Light and Darkness are supposed to stand above the rest.
But since even their doctrine says that Light and Darkness rule over day and night while the other elemental gods are equally important, they can’t exactly reject the Eight Seats’ teachings without undermining their own.

Besides, the Eight Seats’ teaching basically boils down to:
*“Live purely and righteously so as not to bring shame to the gods of the elements.”*
It’s not exactly a message you can oppose.

If the Eight Seats’ clergy started making demands, things might change, but since the Isles of the Eight Gods don’t ask for anything in particular, well—there’s just no reason to exclude them.

On top of that, ever since I built the school, the local area’s prosperity has improved,
and apparently there’ve been fewer disputes among the residents.
Children attend classes for almost free, and adults pay only a small fee.
In those classes, alongside general education, we’ve made sure to include moral instruction as a required subject.

That alone doesn’t guarantee a better life, of course—
but when people have a bit more peace of mind, they tend to clash less with others.
It seems the results are showing, and that’s good enough for me.

What do you think about this chapter?