8 End of Battle: She Who Walks With The Lord
My clone that’s monitoring the system informed me that the slot for Diligence opened up.
I immediately arrange to fill the empty Ruler Privilege slot, careful to adjust so that there’s no effect on the operation of the system.
On top of that, I force myself into the newly opened slot.
Now I only need one more slot.
If the Diligence slot opened, that must mean that Potimas has died.
Or I guess it’s more like he was erased.
What kind of karma is it that Potimas, who continued to live only because he didn’t want to die, met a fate far worse than death in the end?
Honestly, it’s almost too fitting.
But for a guy who committed so many heinous crimes, his end was honestly pretty quick.
When I think about all the things he’s done, I can’t help feeling like the Demon Lord should have tortured him more before hitting him with the Abyss Magic.
I guess maybe she just wanted him gone as soon as possible.
Somehow I get the feeling that’s not really it, but I don’t think anyone but the Demon Lord could understand how she really feels about the whole thing.
Their history was way too deep and complicated.
Even I can’t guess what she must be feeling.
I step into the UFO that I trapped with my threads.
This thing popped out after I brought down the sea urchin swarm and the pyramid.
Based on the timing, I had a feeling this thing was Potimas’s actual final fortress, so I just captured it instead of destroying it. Apparently, that was the right call.
I would honestly be shocked if there was still yet another trick up his sleeve after this.
At that point, I’d have to give Potimas even more credit.
But since the real Potimas is dead now, I guess that must have been the last trick after all.
When I finally reach the end of a pointlessly long corridor, I find the Demon Lord sitting in a chair, messing around with some kind of console in front of her.
“It’s over,” she informs me without turning around.
“I see.”
She’s probably got some serious inner turmoil going on after finally putting an end to such a long struggle.
Judging by her detached tone, I’d be willing to guess that she’s so overcome with different emotions that she can’t even sort out her own feelings.
Sometimes, when you’ve got too many strong feelings, you end up feeling emotionless instead, y’know?
“Look at this.”
The Demon Lord points at the monitor.
Skimming over the text there, I find something pretty unpleasant.
A deification experiment using reincarnations’ souls to become a god, huh?
To sum up the long-winded theory or whatever, the idea is basically to shove the souls of a bunch of reincarnations into a target and see what happens.
Potimas had figured out he couldn’t become a god with the system’s power alone.
No matter how many souls he collected in the form of experience points, he could never break through the limit.
So he decided to try a different kind of experience point grind—namely, the souls of people who came from a different world—and see if that might be able to break through his soul’s limitations.
Talk about stupid.
I’m sorry, but come on.
I hate to say it, but I definitely don’t see that working out well.
You can’t break through the limit by gathering souls from this world.
So let’s just use souls from a different world instead!
…Yeah, if it were that easy to become a god, lots of people would do it.
Although I guess I’m not one to talk, since I became a god by accident…
But this is why he was gathering the reincarnations, huh?
Poor Ms. Oka, who’s been trying so hard for their sake…
“Well, I imagine Potimas didn’t really think this would work to turn him into a god either, y’know? It was just a tiny possibility.”
“But it looks like he put a whole lot of effort into carefully researching the theory and making equipment for it…?”
“That’s just how Potimas does things.”
The text on the screen displays thorough records of machinery in development, equations for the experiments, and so on.
From the looks of it, the reason he made a point of preventing the reincarnations from picking up skills in their everyday life is so their souls wouldn’t adapt to this world and be altered, or something.
I dunno, it seems like a painful amount of effort to put into an experiment with astronomically small chances of succeeding.
Did he really want to be a god that badly?
Yeah, I guess he did…
“We’re lucky he was so extra-cautious that he didn’t actually get around to executing it. If we’d given him another year, he might’ve finished the equipment and thrown all those reincarnations into a blender.”
Please don’t say scary stuff like that.
She’s totally right, though.
This time, it worked out in our favor that Potimas was always so careful.
After all, he does have a track record of actually trying to put the goddess Sariel into a blender and use her for parts.
“There’s tons of records of Potimas’s other experiments here, too.”
“Whoa,” I can’t help but say aloud.
Potimas’s research materials.
I bet there’s all kinds of nasty stuff in there.
“So I’m just gonna take a quick look over everything and then destroy it.”
“Yeah, that’s probably for the best.”
Letting stuff like this stick around would cause nothing but trouble.
If anything, I don’t think there’s even any need for the Demon Lord to check it over first.
“So that’s the deal here, anyway. What about on your end?”
“Who do you think you’re talking to, hmm?”
I totally nailed it, obviously.
I’ve already recovered the remains of the sea urchins, the pyramid, and so on.
I put out the fires so they wouldn’t spread to the rest of the forest, too.
Not to mention I completely blew up the secret base that was hidden underground.
Oh yeah, and…
“Ms. Oka is the only elf left alive.”
All of the elves have been obliterated.
After I captured this UFO in my web, I hunted down the last of the elves with my clones.
There are some half-elves and quarter-elves and so on remaining, but there are no more pureblood elves anywhere in this world.
“Gotcha. So once we get rid of this spaceship, it’s really over, huh?”
“Feeling emotional?”
“A bit.”
That said, looking at her in profile, the Demon Lord looks quieter than usual.
“Oh yeah. Hey, I kept my promise.”
Promise?
Oh, right. I made her promise to stay alive.
“I completed my mission safely, boss.”
The Demon Lord spins around in her chair and throws me a jovial salute.
Safely, huh…?
“Can you really call that safe?”
“Hey, as long as I didn’t die.”
The Demon Lord smiles.
Yeah, right. She’s so close to death, she can’t even get out of that chair.
The Demon Lord has no physical injuries.
But there’s a very deep wound, not on her body, but on her soul.
Her presence used to carry so much weight, but now she seems incredibly frail.
“How bad is it?”
“Hmm. Once I get some rest, I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to get around enough that it won’t hinder my everyday life, anyway. The only reason I can’t move right now is ’cause my magic’s all dried up. Once I recover that, I’ll at least be able to walk again.”
“In other words, you can’t fight.”
“Sure I can, if you don’t mind me shortening my lifespan even further.”
“Demon Lord…”
“C’mon, I’m just kidding. Either way, I don’t have much time left. I’d say maybe a year or so. So I’ll be using the last of my life to see things through with my own eyes.”
Even before this, the Demon Lord’s lifespan was growing short.
But I’m sure she still had a while left to go.
And now, after she shortened it in that battle, she’s only got a year.
“My role ends here. I would’ve liked to keep at it a little longer, but I’ll have to leave the rest to you, White.”
“Got it.”
“So, you’re going to get started, yeah?”
I nod at the Demon Lord’s question.
We’ve taken care of Potimas, the enemy of the world.
The next part of the story is saving the world.
But while I’m going to save the world, I never said I would save the humans.
So from this point on, I’ll be playing the part of the enemy of humanity.
Now, then, time to destroy humanity and save the world and the goddess.
Even if that goes against the goddess’s wishes.
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