Minor god or demigod or a nameless god, their power usually from people who worship them, so this is like the base of power you need to become one of them.
If it so then, they will meet more of them? It may worth to read the webnovel
"It's not really the author so much as the distributor side that's doing this." ??? That's like saying the author/artist should be blamed less than the distributor, so what's the goal of saying that? Why are you weighing the author and distributor between who's to blame more? We're not shifting the blame onto anyone, we're criticizing the practices used in manga release.
@confusedbeaver Read his profile in his website, he did it because his mom had a sickness so he had to take care his mom while he doing all this job by himself.
In addition, his mom had insomnia too so he cant sleep peacefully if his mom wake up at 3-4 a.m. which will ruin his sleeptime because taking care someone who already had sickness from long time plus insomniac is stressing your body and mind so much that you cant even stand for weeks or even months.
Also its not his fault too, sometimes publisher and distributor also released in parts because either its too long per chapter or release time is monthly or bi-monthly
@Red225: He has auto-defense passive anyway (like when the sempai tried to curse him before and trigger it) even if the fox tried something.
As for why he took the hits, because when he heard 'God' he wasn't sure how strong it is, given that there exists at least one goddess stronger than him.
But after taking some hits he realized how....'weak' this fox is.
For comparison
Take the characters in I'm a Spider, so What?
Kuro is considered a 'God' in his world.
However, in face of D (the self-proclaimed Evil God who reincarnated our titular Kumoko) he's basically NOTHING, she could easily crush him.
Reminder for the people who forgot: The Princess is the HEALER of their Hero/Mage/Cleric party, which by RPG standard (and as she said herself here) makes her weaker compare to fighters in straight combat (not counting the...terrifying tactic of taking hits and just healing it right back)
@confusedbeaver
Are you confused? Sometimes an author has little say on the publisher/distributor side of things. The author didn't decide to release these chapters in parts, the Publisher/Distributor did. Why? Maybe to increase more view weekly over monthly. Ask them. The author/artist simply writes/draws the story as due to their side of the contract. This isn't a self published work after all.