No sooner had the voice faded than High Priestess Reiko entered. Dressed in a white Hadajuban and Hakama, she wore a grave expression and radiated a sacred aura.
"Why do you all look as though Doomsday is at hand?"
At the sight of High Priestess Reiko, the priests and shrine heads who had been fretting and lamenting inwardly brightened at once.
Following Shinto custom for priests greeting a shrine head, they performed an elaborate set of rites before her.
The rites were tedious and time-consuming, but they were necessary.
Once they were done, Shrine Head Iga hurriedly explained the situation. "High Priestess Reiko, I'm sorry to trouble you again."
The moment he finished, Reiko's expression turned grave. "You mean the Evil God Cthulhu Fhtagn has appeared again?"
Again?
Priest Tomioka froze. Had the Evil God Cthulhu appeared before?
Then it struck him: the Cthulhu Mythos did say that the Elder Gods had once driven away and performed the Sealing of many Evil Gods and Great Old Ones.
It also said that the so-called Elder Gods were the deities humanity worshipped in the myths of Blue Star.
That meant that in a distant age, the great Amenominakanushi had led the Eastern Isles Gods to drive away the Old Ones.
Well, perhaps the Norse Gods and the gods of Egypt had made a tiny contribution too.
As for the passages claiming that the Elder Gods had no interest in humanity and treated humans like ants...
Priest Tomioka decided those novelists had simply made them up.
How could the great and merciful Amenominakanushi, who had protected the people of the Eastern Isles since time immemorial, be a god who treated humanity like ants?
Slander. This was blatant slander.
Shrine Head Iga nodded vigorously, then said respectfully, "High Priestess Reiko, I beg you to