After parting ways with the two enthusiastic fellow nerds, Li Li wandered alone through the bustling exhibition hall, pondering his path forward.
The technological level of this world was probably more advanced than twenty-first-century Earth.
If Creator Simulator was any reference, it was probably equivalent to the late game.
Under normal circumstances, by the late game of Creator Simulator, only the two strongest races would remain. The two sides would inevitably wage all-out war until one was slaughtered to extinction.
The peaceful scene before him was most likely the result of some Mod.
"Grrr—"
Before he knew it, Li Li had reached the food court of the convention.
He rubbed his growling stomach, felt around in the pockets of his pajamas, then looked at the golden fried chicken at the stall and sighed helplessly.
It seemed he had been thinking too far ahead.
His top priorities right now were solving his income and identity problems.
Although he possessed the status of the Creator God, his physical abilities were still those of an ordinary person. Before finding a way to harvest Faith Points, he was merely an undocumented person who had suddenly arrived in this world.
For all he knew, he might be scavenging beneath a bridge tonight.
"Grrr—"
As his stomach protested once more, Li Li gave the fried chicken at the stall one final look, then resolutely turned away beneath the owner's expectant gaze.
Only then did Li Li realize that, at some point, a girl had begun following behind him.
She had short reddish-brown hair and wore a classic knight-style leather jacket. Her face was completely expressionless as she stared straight at him.
If not for the grayish-white ears twitching atop her head and the thick tail swaying behind her, she would have had a rather cool and dashing air.
—She looked like she would make a great silent guitarist in a girls' band.
"What is it?" Seeing Li Li look at her, the girl hurried forward and asked with concern, "Is there something you need me to do?"
She was practically pressed up against him, already well within the half-meter limit of normal social distance.
Li Li took half a step back, looked left and right, then glanced behind him at the fried chicken stall owner avidly watching the drama before pointing at himself.
"Were you talking to me?"
The girl nodded slightly, looked toward the fried chicken stall behind Li Li, and asked again.
"Are you hungry?"
"A little." Li Li swallowed. "Um... do we know each other?"
"Yes." The girl rose onto her tiptoes, leaned close, and whispered into Li Li's ear, "I was the one who summoned you here, my lord."
As she spoke, she grabbed the still-dazed Li Li and led him toward the exhibition hall exit beneath the fried chicken owner's hopeful gaze.
"The food here is too expensive. Come home with me first. I'll make you some noodles."
A question:
If a beautiful girl you had known for less than three minutes wanted to take you to her home for noodles,
what should you do?
Of course, run!
However, as the god of this world, the instant the girl grabbed his hand, Li Li sensed that she was a "special unit" that believed in him.
So he followed the girl home.
Inside a studio apartment.
Li Li turned off his phone, pulled open the curtains beside the dining table, glanced at the blood-red eye hanging in the sky, then turned to the girl and asked.
"So while you were working part-time at the convention, you decided on a whim to imitate those cosplayers, and that somehow summoned me?"
The girl nodded without speaking.
She stood in the kitchen by the entryway, wearing an apron printed with a Little Panda design as she attentively watched the spaghetti boiling in the pot.
"So this summoning was purely an accident?" Li Li confirmed again.
The girl nodded once more and lowered her head.
"Grandma told me to abandon my past and live as an ordinary person, but I secretly pray every day, just like I did at the convention earlier."
Her face remained expressionless, and her tone never changed.
She was like a doll incapable of emotion.
Yet the tail swaying behind her still betrayed how she felt at that moment.
"I see..."
Li Li gave a perfunctory response, picked up his phone, and continued searching for information online.
He had roughly guessed that the girl was the product of the replacement Mod, "Beautiful Girl Priestess."
The purpose of this Mod was simple: it replaced the priests who originally wore strange masks with saintesses featuring cute character art.
It did not affect gameplay much; it merely changed the illustrations and models.
Yet its approval rating was overwhelmingly ranked first.
Now, it seemed that top ranking was well deserved.
As for the girl's somewhat airheaded attitude, it was most likely related to her race.
The girl was a member of the Beast-Ear Race.
The Beast-Ear Race was a humanoid race with animal ears and tails. They could sense the hostility of other creatures and possessed extreme personalities.
Simply put, not only was this race absurdly attractive, it also produced extreme personalities that would never exist in reality, such as "Three-No," "Yandere," and "Tsundere."
Naturally, such a blatantly anime-like race had not been made by the official developers who loved political correctness.
It was another race from a Mod.
"It's ready." The girl placed the spaghetti before Li Li, took out some black pepper sauce from the refrigerator, and poured it over the steaming noodles. "This is delicious. It's an offering."
"Thanks. If you hadn't taken me in, I really wouldn't know what I'd do tonight." Li Li smiled and thanked her.
He returned the phone to the girl and, without standing on ceremony, picked up the noodles and began eating while considering the information he had just found online.
The city he was in was Iron Wall City, located at the southernmost edge of the Bountiful Continent. It was also the first line of defense of the Thirteen City Alliance.
As for why it was called a line of defense,
that was because the world beyond Iron Wall City had already been corrupted into a twisted, apocalyptic wasteland.
This world had once possessed all kinds of powerful civilizations. They worshipped their respective gods and wielded power beyond common sense.
Yet regardless of how powerful those civilizations had been, after their gods were successively corrupted by an unknown force, they had all eventually perished.
By now, the Thirteen City Alliance had become the only force remaining to mortals.
Li Li guessed that the reason the Thirteen City Alliance had endured until now was because of a Mod called Imperial Truth.
The effect of this Mod was: as long as nonbelievers within a city accounted for 80% of the population, a barrier capable of isolating divine power would be created.
Although Creator Simulator claimed to simulate the development of civilizations, it was essentially a massive religious battle royale.
That made some players very unhappy.
Thus, all sorts of Mods that abandoned religious gameplay emerged.
Imperial Truth was one of them.
From the moment they became literate, residents of the Thirteen City Alliance learned the principles of divine power and understood the nature of the power of faith.
They defined "gods" as "individuals capable of absorbing spiritual power" and viewed "divine power" as a discipline similar to physics.
In terms of results, the Alliance had produced the blasphemous Artificial Divine Power a thousand years ago. Without the blessing of any god, they had performed some divine arts and successfully Magicalized divine arts.
The birth of this achievement had dealt a devastating blow to the authority of the gods.
The anime mobile game at the convention that turned gods into girls was enough to reveal the Alliance citizens' attitude toward the pantheon.
It could be said that aside from lacking racial purity obsession, the ideals followed by the Alliance were similar to those of a certain large golden guy sitting on a toilet.
They used "the unknown" to define "gods," then used "science" to unravel "the unknown."
And in the end, they became the last surviving Noah's Ark in this twisted world.
Although the mad gods greedily craved their flesh and blood,
this city, as unyielding as an iron wall, had stood firm for a thousand years and prospered to this day.
Li Li suspected that his inability to harvest Faith Points was most likely connected to Iron Wall City's God Banning Barrier.
It seemed he had to make a trip outside the city...
By the time he finished the noodles in his bowl, night had completely fallen.
Li Li set down his bowl and chopsticks, opened his mouth, then suddenly faltered.
He had intended to borrow some money from the girl, find an inn near the city gates for the night, and figure out how to join an expedition beyond the city the next morning.
But before he could speak, he realized that he had not even asked the girl's name yet... That was incredibly awkward.
Fortunately, the girl noticed that something was off with Li Li. As she cleared the table, she asked blandly, "What is it?"
"I read online that illegal immigrants can join exploration teams and collect resources in the wasteland," Li Li said. "As long as they make enough contributions, they can become Alliance citizens. Is that true?"
"You're leaving?"
The girl tilted her head, and her restless tail came to a stop as well.
Li Li gave a hum. "I'm planning to leave the city and see whether I can gather some faith."
He had nothing to hide from his own saintess.
Hearing that, the girl gracefully rose to her feet, placed the dishes in the sink, then walked over to the wardrobe and took out a box sealed with talismans.
She tore off the talismans, opened the box, and handed Li Li the cloaked humanoid stone statue inside.
"What is this?" Li Li took the statue.
The instant he touched it, he could not help but shudder. It felt as though some blocked meridians had suddenly opened, and the comfort nearly made him cry out.
The next moment, Li Li saw a silver-white holy city burning in the sky, a resplendent kingdom sinking beneath the sea, and a fertile oasis rotting amid yellow sand... He became an observer, witnessing one civilization after another perish.
Then the scene changed. Survivors of different races carried his shrine, raised the banner of the Salvation Army high, and followed a young and beautiful saintess as they began migrating into the distance.
They crossed mountains and sailed across oceans. At times, their numbers grew; at times, they dwindled.
Until destruction came.
After who knew how long, Li Li opened his eyes. Feeling the abundant faith within him, he did not know what expression to make.
—This was his statue.
Li Li had always believed religion was not a good thing.
That was why he had planned to stay elsewhere, to avoid changing the girl's original life as much as possible.
He knew the girl liked him, but that affection was not a normal emotion. After all, he knew that even if he suddenly ordered her to kill herself, she would only happily agree.
Yet on the other hand, when people fell into despair, faith could become the hope that allowed them to persevere.
That Salvation Army, carrying his banner, had used his name to gather survivors and lead people in search of a chance at life amid despair.
Suffering bred faith.
As the Creator God who had never revealed himself, Li Li was the only one people could safely pray to after the gods had been corrupted by an unknown entity.
The abundant faith within the statue came from the purest prayers of those displaced people.
"Phew—"
After draining the final trace of faith from the statue, Li Li let out a long breath and cast his consciousness into the sky.
He crossed the city's barrier, broke through the boundary of the clouds, and his vision expanded with it—Iron Wall City, the Bountiful Continent, the Endless Sea...
Until the entire world lay within his sight.
The interface that had originally belonged to the "player's" perspective, the operating interface of the Creator God, had finally returned to his hands!
At this moment,
this world welcomed its master.
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