Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? (LN) - Volume 14 - Chapter 6

6 Showdown: Change Meeting

I’m a little worried about Yamada and friends, but before I head over there…

I summon four battle clones and put the puppet spiders on top of them.

That way, if they find themselves in serious trouble, they should be able to get away using the battle clones’ teleportation.

Gotta say, though—the sight of a six-armed girl on top of a battle clone, aka a three-foot-tall spider…

So this is what you’d call creepy-cute!

The puppet spiders dash away gallantly atop their battle clones.

Hmm. They looked kinda pumped up about it, but I’m sure that’s just my imagination.

Anyway, now that I have nothing else to worry about, I’ll head over to see what’s happening with Yamada and the others.

Teleportation, activate!

So, now I’m on the scene and all, and… What exactly is this chaotic situation here?

First of all, Yamada is curled up on the ground clutching his head.

He doesn’t appear to be unconscious, but he’s definitely in serious pain of some kind.

And for some reason, a half-elf is lying next to him.

Umm, what was her name again? Anna?

Then you’ve got Ooshima, who’s sitting close to Yamada and holding him.

Hyrince and Shinohara are standing in front of Yamada, as if to protect him.

Ms. Oka is a little way behind them.

Plus, Tagawa and Kushitani are on the ground, too, totally knocked out.

As if all that wasn’t chaotic enough, Natsume is standing there giving Vampy a total death glare, and Vampy is glaring right back at him, making zero attempt to hide her desire to kill him.

Mr. Oni appears to have no interest in those two; he’s just staring at Yamada, looking bewildered.

Um, hello?

What’s going on here?

Someone explain, please!

But there’s no time to stand around being confused because things are only getting worse.

So I decide to take care of the most immediate danger first: namely, getting between Vampy and Natsume.

Or rather, I teleport behind Natsume, but close enough…

For now, I reach out slowly, careful that he doesn’t notice me.

Then I grab him hard by the back of the head.

…Why couldn’t I have done things more gracefully after reaching out so slowly?

There’s no time for that, fool!

Just like that, I give the order to the spider clone living inside Natsume’s head to put him to sleep for a little while.

While I’m at it, I might as well take back the little parasite spider, too.

The role I needed Natsume to play is pretty much taken care of at this point.

He can do whatever he wants from here on out.

Whatever happens as a result is his own responsibility.

You might think it’s cruel to just abandon him after using him so much, but remember, Natsume was already up to no good before we started taking advantage of him.

So just tell yourself he deserves it, thank you very much!

The tiny clone crawls out from Natsume’s ear, and I take it back.

As I do so, Natsume passes out on the ground.

“Master, could you not interfere, please?”

Vampy stomps over to me, looking blatantly annoyed.

Look, if I didn’t interfere, you totally would’ve killed Natsume, am I right?

I don’t know what happened, but you can’t just go around killing people whenever you get the urge.

You should try getting more calcium.

…That reminds me, apparently the puppet spiders used to feed Vampy bones for a while.

Maybe she’s been so moody because of a bone deficiency?

Aren’t vampires supposed to drink blood, not eat bones?

“It can’t be… But how?”

Oops.

I got so distracted with pointless thoughts that Ms. Oka said something to me.

Or at least, she whispered something to herself about me, anyway.

“Hello again, Ms. Oka.”

I decide to give her a response.

Vampy and Mr. Oni look openly taken aback by my reaction.

L-look, I can greet people if I really want to, okay!

Even if it’s mostly just because it’s Ms. Oka we’re talking about!

“Wakaba…?”

Yamada groans, notices me, and murmurs that name.

Then he passes out, like a marionette whose strings have been cut.

He doesn’t seem to be dead. But judging by the state he was in before he fainted, I can’t assume he’s fine, either.

I’ve got to check on his condition and treat him right away.

So I take a step forward, only to be stopped by someone standing in my way.

It’s Ooshima, looking at me desperately and brandishing a broken sword, trying to protect Yamada.

Look, I’m trying to save him, okay? Don’t give me that “if you want to get near him, you’ll have to kill me first!” kind of look.

I glance over at Hyrince, who’s standing right next to Ooshima, but he has the nerve to ignore my “do something about this!” look.

In fact, he’s blocking my way right alongside Ooshima.

Is he saying that he’s going to keep acting the part of Hyrince here, not Güli-güli?

Hm. Hrmm.

If that’s how Güli-güli’s acting, is it safe to assume that means Yamada’s condition isn’t an emergency?

I guess there’s no need to panic, then.

In that case, I guess my next move is to punish the person who caused all this chaos.

“Why does it seem like you’re giving off an extremely threatening aura right now, Master? Is it just my imagination?”

Oh, it’s extremely real, Vampy my dear.

I know you must’ve made some careless decision that led to all this!

Now spit it out, pronto!

What did you do?!

“Oh, don’t give me that accusatory look. I didn’t do anything, all right? I don’t think it’s very nice that you always assume it’s my fault whenever something like this happens, Master.”

Liar!

“Wakaba…that’s you, right? What’s going on here?! What did you do to Shun?!”

Ooshima is yelling at me, but it’s going to have to wait, because I’m in the middle of interrogating the person I suspect of actually doing something to Shun.

“Ms. White, we really didn’t do anything.”

Just as I’m about to grab Vampy by the scruff of her neck and force her to confess everything, Mr. Oni unexpectedly steps in to defend her!

“Shun did something to that half-elf there and suddenly started writhing in agony. Based on the circumstances, I’m guessing he used some kind of skill and got hit with side effects or something?”

Vampy nods along vigorously to Mr. Oni’s calm appraisal.

“In fact, if anyone did something wrong, it’s me, not Sophia.”

Mr. Oni looks at me apologetically.

Huh? It wasn’t this idiot who keeps nodding with a triumphant grin?

“I cut down that half-elf, and Shun healed her, but in the next instant he was on the ground writhing in pain. At least, that’s what it looked like to me.”

Great analysis, Mr. Oni.

Very concise and easy to understand.

Hmm? Wait, he healed her and then fell over in pain?

“Incidentally, unless I’m sorely mistaken, there was no way he should have been able to heal that half-elf. It was definitely a fatal wound. No matter how good at magic Shun might be, he couldn’t have possibly saved her in time.”

Hmmm?

Wait, what? You’re telling me that the half-elf lying next to Yamada is dead?

But she’s totally breathing… She’s definitely just passed out, right?

Which can only mean… Yamada used his Mercy skill to bring her back to life?

“Did Shun bring her back from the dead somehow? I mean, there’s no way an ability like that would come without a price, right? I don’t know what the consequence is, but it would explain why Shun seems to be in so much pain. So don’t blame that on us, Kanata.”

That last part is directed at Ooshima, who’s still gamely holding up a broken sword.

Ooshima’s eyes are full of confusion, yet there’s also the glimmer of someone trying to assess the situation, desperately looking for a way out of this mess.

But I don’t have time to worry about that right now.

I’m breaking out in a cold sweat over here.

In a way, isn’t it kinda my fault that Yamada went down?

Like, if he used Mercy and then fell over in pain, that’s gotta mean his Taboo maxed out, yeah?

The cost of using Mercy is the Taboo skill leveling up.

That in itself wouldn’t cause any pain…unless it maxed out Taboo.

I experienced that for myself, and let me tell you, I still remember how nauseous I felt whether I want to or not.

Yeah. It’s no wonder he passed out.

That being said, I happen to know that there was a certain mastermind who deliberately dropped dead bodies in front of Yamada to make him raise his Taboo level.

Oops! It was me!

Yep, it’s my fault that Yamada’s Taboo skill maxed out!

Mr. Oni might have given him the final push, but the fact is that I’m the one who set him up for it.

Yikes, I’m in no position to be accusing Vampy…

“Still, Kanata, aren’t you freaking out too much over Shun just passing out?”

While I’m mulling over how to hide this little fact, Mr. Oni conveniently changes the subject.

“Shun is still alive. He’s not dead. And this is a battlefield, where death occurs at a moment’s notice. So why are you getting into such a panic over someone fainting a little? Don’t tell me you’re standing here without being prepared to die, or to lose someone?”

A crackling aura of intimidation surges out from Mr. Oni.

It’s so intense that the imperial and elf armies fighting nearby freeze in their tracks.

Poor Ooshima takes the brunt of it to the face, resulting in a whole lot of shaking and sweat.

Seriously, it’s like someone dumped a bucket of water over the kid, to the point where I’m amazed Ooshima is still standing at all.

“If you’re seriously here with such a half-assed level of resolve, I’m disappointed in you. You don’t know the truth, you’re not prepared to find out, and yet you still waltz in here convinced that you’re the heroes? It’s so stupid it goes past funny to the point of being infuriating. I would hate to think that my former friend is such an idiot now.”

Mr. Oni makes an uncharacteristic show of disgust as he insults his old friend.

He’s glossing over his anger with sheer intimidation, but something about it seems false.

Well, I’m sure he has a lot of mixed feelings since they used to be best friends and all.

As for his unlucky target, Ooshima is just barely conscious from the onslaught of Mr. Oni’s intimidation.

“Kanata. This is your first and only warning. Put down your weapons and surrender. Otherwise, I’m going to cut you down, whether we were friends or not. That’s what real resolve looks like.”

I seriously doubt he intends to do that, but Mr. Oni puts all the force of his intimidation behind the declaration.

That ends up being the final straw.

Ooshima’s legs give way, sending the poor kid slumping to the ground.

I guess sometimes your instincts get ahead of your reason and decide to surrender for you, especially when it’s already so obvious how much stronger your enemy is.

Everybody’s got limits, y’know?

I wonder if the despair Ooshima feels now is similar to how I felt the first time I ran into Araba.

The kind of opponent where you can tell by their presence alone that you don’t stand a chance, that the difference between you is just too insurmountable…

Anyway, Ooshima loses the will to fight and retires from battle.

Yamada, the half-elf, Tagawa, and Kushitani are all down for the count, too.

That just leaves Ms. Oka, Shinohara, and a bonus Hyrince.

“Hey, Wakaba, I thought you were dead.”

One of those survivors, Shinohara, starts talking to me through Telepathy.

From what I’ve gathered, Ms. Oka thought I was dead this whole time.

D told me that Ms. Oka got a unique skill that told her the current state of all the reincarnations, and apparently it said that Wakaba Hiiro was dead.

I’m guessing it’s because I turned into a god and got removed from the system, probably…

Like, the system couldn’t find me anymore, so for the sake of convenience it just displays that I’m dead.

Well…the real Wakaba Hiiro, aka D, never actually got reincarnated into this world in the first place, and her stand-in (me) isn’t dead, which means Ms. Oka’s information is full of holes at this point…

Since Ms. Oka’s eyes are focused on an empty patch of air, I’m guessing she’s checking that unique skill right now.

“…Are you really Wakaba?”

“Yes.”

The real answer is no, but explaining that would take ages, and even the Demon Lord doesn’t know about the real relationship between D and me.

It’s easier just to say yes for now.

“But…”

“Your skill can’t detect me as I am now, Ms. Oka.”

“What?!”

Ms. Oka looks super surprised.

So do Vampy and Mr. Oni, although it’s obviously because they’re watching me hold a proper conversation…

L-look, I can talk to people a little bit if I really try!

UGH!

“I would love to rekindle our relationship and explain all manner of things, but I believe we are both quite preoccupied at the moment. Let us discuss things another time.”

I’m going to have to shut down this conversation for now, even if it is a little rude.

It’s not because I can’t bear to talk for another second, okay?

It’s just that a teeeeny little problem has cropped up elsewhere.

The kind that I’m gonna have to run over and deal with personally.

So I’ll leave this in the capable hands of Vam… Haha, nope, let’s go with Mr. Oni.

“Tell the imperial army and demon army to retreat.”

“Retreat?” Mr. Oni blinks in confusion at my command. “What about the elves?”

“Focus on retreating.”

I would prefer to wipe out the elves completely, but there’s no time for that right now.

As for Yamada and the gang, I’ll let Hyrince take care of that.

I open my eyes for just a moment and give him a meaningful look.

That should convey what I want to say, or at least, I sure hope so…

Basically, I’d like him to convince Ms. Oka and Shinohara to gather the others up and retreat.

Because I’m not sure if I can guarantee that this area will be safe for much longer.

“…All right. Be careful, Ms. White.”

“Hey, wait a minute. I can still fight, you know.”

Vampy looks indignant, but unfortunately, the next stage of this battle while be tough even for her.

She could probably take on a single mega-robot on her own relatively unharmed, but something even worse has just shown up.

I have no time to stand around and convince her, so I’ll just hope that Mr. Oni is up to the task.

For now, I teleport away.

As soon as I arrive at my destination, I feel the very air shaking.

That would be the aftershocks from the most intense battle of the many currently taking place all over the elf village.

On one side is the queen, one of the world’s strongest monsters, commanding the taratect troops.

On the other is the elves’ ultimate weapon.

Yep, they’ve finally busted it out.

A weapon that makes even the mega-robots I fought before look like a child’s playthings.

The mega-robots were more powerful than even a top-class dragon, but it’s obvious at a glance that this thing is even stronger.

The first thing I see when I arrive is the taratect troops getting utterly decimated.

From the smallest spiders that I once started out as, to the bigger spiders that are the grown version of those, to the even bigger spiders that have grown and evolved further—they’re all getting equally crushed without a chance to fight back.

That even includes the queen.

Their enemy is floating in the air.

If I were to describe it in a word or two, I would use sea urchin.

It’s a sphere around thirty feet in diameter.

With countless spikes sticking out of it.

Yep. It’s a sea urchin.

A giant, metal sea urchin.

I don’t know how to react to its physical appearance, but its power is nothing to laugh about.

Every one of its spikes is a gun barrel, carpet-bombing the entire area.

There’s nowhere to run.

A hail of bullets rains down everywhere, scorching the ground into a blackened wasteland.

The forest is being blown away, and so are the taratect troops.

Even the queen can’t escape, the bullets riddling her body with holes.

At her giant size, she’s an easy target for the bombing.

Normally the queen can dodge enemy attacks with her surprising speed, but I guess that won’t work when the bullets are covering far too wide of a range to escape.

The queen taratect is still no slouch, though.

Maintaining the pride of royalty even under fire, she’s still gathering energy in the self-contradictory form of black light in her mouth.

A breath attack.

The full power of a strongest-class monster unleashed in energy form.

A dense black beam flies toward the sea urchin floating in the air.

The beam of light blows away the bullets fired by the sea urchin, surging toward the source to obliterate it and reach all the way to space.

I could easily imagine that happening, it was so powerful.

If it hits, the queen’s full-powered attack boasts enough destructive power to blow away even an entire mountain and change the very landscape.

Surely it would be strong enough to destroy a thirty-foot-wide lump of metal without a trace.

And yet, the sea urchin is intact.

The breath attack definitely hit.

It didn’t even attempt to dodge.

Almost as if to say that it didn’t need to.

The barrier around the sea urchin erased the queen’s breath attack.

Not just blocked—erased.

It wiped out that entire powerful attack, as if it had never been there in the first place.

The mega-robots were equipped with anti-technique barriers, too.

But this one seems to be considerably higher power.

I’m sure the queen’s breath attack could have pierced the mega-robots’ barrier.

Even if it couldn’t destroy them in one blow, it would have at least done considerable damage.

But it didn’t put a scratch on this sea urchin.

If her breath attack doesn’t work on it, there’s nothing the queen can do.

Long-distance attacks get blocked by the sea urchin’s barrier.

That just leaves pure physical attacks, but the nonstop rain of bullets makes that impossible.

The queen tries to use Spatial Maneuvering to get up into the air, but she’s pinned down to the ground by bullets, unable to take a single step.

Each bullet whittles away at her body, and the next one strikes before she can regenerate.

The queen, who’s just as powerful as Mother was, is getting beaten down without a chance to fight back.

What a terrifying weapon Potimas has developed.

Am I crazy, or could a single one of these things take over the entire world?

Though I assume it would be difficult to get enough ammo, or energy for it to run, or something.

That being said, it doesn’t seem to be running low on bullets at all.

There must be a spatial expansion or something inside, with the bullets being stored in another dimension.

Otherwise this wouldn’t make any sense.

Wait, this is no time to stand around casually observing the thing.

At this rate, the queen is going to go down.

Guess I’d better step in before that happens and shoot down the sea urchin myself!

All right, fire a meteor bullet!

The meteor bullet lands a direct hit on the sea urchin!

It’s so loud it practically ruptures my eardrums, to the point where I’d even call it more of a shock wave than a sound.

Gaaaah! My eeeears!

What the hell was that?!

Why’d it make a way bigger boom than when I hit the mega-robots?!

Then the answer becomes painfully clear.

The sea urchin is still intact.

You’ve gotta be kidding me…

How can anything be alive and well after taking a direct hit from a meteor bullet…?

I guess that boom was the sound of the sea urchin blocking it.

Okay, that barrier must have a two-layer structure.

The meteor bullet is too powerful an attack to block with high physical resistance alone.

So the natural conclusion is that the barrier also defends against physical attacks.

I’m guessing the inner layer is the physical-defense barrier, and the outer layer is the anti-technique barrier.

If it were the other way around, the anti-technique barrier would cancel out the other one.

So magical and conjuring attacks are prevented by the anti-technique barrier, while physical attacks are prevented by the physical-defense barrier.

How much energy must it cost to operate a weapon like this…?

Damn you, Potimas! Don’t go using up this world’s valuable energy to make crap like this!

I know complaining to him won’t get me anywhere, but I still wanna say it!

Grrr…

What am I gonna do about this, though…?

I don’t have any method for piercing a two-layer barrier.

I mean, it’s not that I can’t do it, y’know?

But it would mean using up a massive amount of energy myself to do it.

Honestly, that would be a waste.

So I’ll have to try another way.

The truth is, I didn’t really wanna resort to this.

But you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

When I busted out the meteor bullets, I realized that you can’t let the right moment pass you by to use one of your trump cards.

It would be way worse to hold back now and let this sea urchin do whatever it wants.

So I’ll use another one of mine now, too!

I open my eyes.

Focus all my power in my pupils.

Then I set my sights on the sea urchin.

Activate Gluttonous Evil Eye!

This is a new Evil Eye I developed after becoming a god.

Its ability is modeled after the Demon Lord’s Gluttony skill, hence the naming scheme.

Basically, it absorbs energy from the target.

Any conjuring that enters my line of sight can be broken down into energy and absorbed.

Strictly speaking, the anti-technique barrier around the sea urchin is itself a kind of conjuring.

A conjuring that obstructs and dispels other conjurings.

That’s all the barrier really is.

In which case, you just need to develop a conjuring to erase a conjuring…that erases other conjurings.

That got me thinking about the Demon Lord’s Seven Deadly Sins skill, Gluttony.

Gluttony’s ability can convert anything at all into energy, and then consume it.

By analyzing that principle, I figured out a way to focus the energy conversion on conjurings, and repurposed it into this Gluttonous Evil Eye.

It’s one of the trump cards I developed in case I need to fight Güli-güli.

Which is why I didn’t really want him to see it, but oh well.

Since I developed it for use on a literal god like Güli-güli, Gluttonous Evil Eye’s effects are the real deal.

It easily devours the anti-technique barrier, then the physical-defense barrier underneath that, and even the conjuring that keeps the sea urchin floating in the air, sending the thing crashing into the ground.

Where the queen is lying in wait.

The sea urchin tries to defend itself by firing bullets, but now that it’s fallen to the ground without its barriers, it doesn’t stand a chance.

The queen’s giant fangs pierce the metallic sea urchin and tear it into scrap metal.

We’ve won.

Or so I thought—but then the sea urchin explodes.

The queen gets hit with that explosion at point-blank distance.

Her upper body gets blown away without a trace, and the remaining lower body crumples lifeless to the ground.

NO! Dammit!

That crafty bastard, sneaking in an explosion at the very end.

Well, it hurts that I lost the queen and most of the taratect troops, but you could also say it was a small price to pay to destroy the elves’ ultimate weapon.

I’ll just have to tell myself it was a necessary sacrifice.

As that thought crosses my mind, my eyes fall on a sea urchin floating in the sky.

No, not just one—tons of them.

………Huh?

What?

Hmm?

Hmmm?

Hmmmmm?!

Wait just a minute!

Are you serious?!

Whaaat?!

There’s more than one of that sea urchin thing?!

In fact, aren’t there way too many of them?

At a glance, it looks like there’s at least a hundred of them…

And for some reason, there appears to be a pyramid thing even bigger than the sea urchins floating in the center.

Don’t tell me the sea urchins were just another mass-produced weapon…

And the real ultimate weapon is that pyramid in the middle?

First the robots, then the mega-robots, and now this…

Stop reusing the same damn twist!

ARGH!