The Hero's party came home.
"At last, we have struck down the foe."
The elf who was the Sage knelt to the ground and reported to her fallen companions of old, asleep in the graveyard.
After reporting to the king, a grand parade was to be held.
"Hurrah for the Hero!"
"Hurrah for the Saint!"
"Hurrah for the Mage!"
"Hurrah for the Sage!"
The Hero's party, showered in blessings. On this day alone, they say, every last resident leaned out from their windows.
Confetti dances over the streets as the carriage rolls on.
The royal palace's musicians, too, joined in to liven things up, unveiling one splendid piece after another.
"Nice, isn't it."
"It is, 'tis."
"Feels like we won't be needing oracles anymore?"
"Well—aye, that's so."
"You look kind of lonely there."
"It's nothing, really."
"This star's their planet now. It's not for us gods to go clumsily meddling with it."
"Hmm."
So then—will a time come when an oracle is needed again?
And will the Church of Aithel still endure until then?
The Hero's party struck down the Demon Lord, and peace came to the world.
It's peace, at any rate.
Though there's a whiff of the empire nursing a grudge over having its pride thoroughly demolished by the kingdom.
"The parade's over, too."
"Yes. Hero, sir."
The Hero has taken the girls for his wives and lives a harem life.
"Good night, Hero, sir."
"Good night."
Every day they exchange their good-nights, and their good-mornings.
Fulfilling, peaceful days. How very precious a thing this is.
Having gathered beautiful girls to his own taste, he seems to be enjoying a fulfilling newlywed life.
And so children are born, and the generations pile up.
The Demon Lord may be subjugated, but the dungeons and monsters still remain.
The dungeons are managed and disgorge the goods adventurers need to make a living.
The monsters of the forests and such likewise had their meat and mana crystals put to good use.
Unlike the world of Earth, this is a world with magic and potions.
Alike, yet different bit by bit.
The development of magic tools, too, has been remarkable of late.
Refrigerators, electric fans, heaters and coolers—said to have been used in the past—were coming into wide use.
And washing machines.
People even asked why on earth they hadn't had them before.
Little by little, ever so little, life grows richer.
The generations pile up, technology advances, and new reforms and revolutions come to pass.
Wars break out, of course.
Ironically, there is technology that developed because of war, too.
Even so, humanity doesn't give up.
Making the world richer, more developed—that is something they can never stop doing, not from here on.
For the sake of the future. For the sake of the children to come.
What is it that we ourselves can do—the trial and error goes on and on.
From here, it's thought, they'll trace a history much like that of Earth's humanity: the Industrial Revolution, radio, television, the IT revolution.
Clusters of reinforced-concrete buildings, high-speed rail, air transport.
They'll plunge into a dizzying age.
Won't the star tear itself apart in war?
That presumably rests on the premise that humanity has self-control—no reckless abuse of nuclear missiles and the like.
"Launch in five, four, three, two, one—liftoff."
Before long, an age comes at last when space rockets leave the planet and fly off.
In the end, as a planet simulator, reaching out to the wider cosmos from space colonies and the like marks one milestone.
As a single star, you could say it has reached a form of completion.
Before that, there are cases where civilization collapses and it all goes back to square one.
Whether it truly develops that far will be a mystery for the days ahead.
"There—turned into a nice little story, didn't it."
"Don't go poking fun there, Lord Lunga."
"Says the one shedding a tear, Aithel."
"I—I am not, 'tis!"
"Ahaha."
What is it we gods can do, I wonder—in a world we no longer interfere with.
Simply watch over it in silence, perhaps?
That, too, might not be so bad.
(The End)