4 - Friends
“Oof!”
My perfect roundhouse kick sends Vampy tumbling to the ground, clutching her stomach.
Truly, it was a beautifully crafted kick, designed to deal just enough damage to Vampy without sending her flying in the process.
An admirable effort, if I do say so myself.
“Wh-why…?”
Vampy groans out the word as she rolls around on the ground, but I don’t hear anything. Did you?
I wrap her up in thread and start dragging her along.
Most people would get all scraped up from this kind of treatment, but come on now. Her defense is high enough that it shouldn’t be a problem.
She can keep on kissing the ground, for all I care.
“Miss White! Hang on a second!”
As I’m dragging Vampy along behind me, Mr. Oni grabs my shoulder.
“I know Miss Sophia misspoke, but you’re partially responsible for what happened in there, too. Isn’t this a little overboard?”
Excuse me?
Mr. Oni’s making no sense. I find myself staring intensely into his face.
My ten pupils that are normally hidden behind closed eyelids fix on Mr. Oni’s eyes.
The intensity of my Evil Eyes intimidates Mr. Oni a little, but he still manages to keep talking.
“You should’ve explained things a lot more. We’re used to extrapolating from your short sentences, but even that has its limits. There has to be more synergy here. The reason Miss Sophia made that mistake is because you didn’t explain things clearly enough.”
Sin-ergy?
But sinful energy is what got us into this mess in the first place!
…Okay, yeah, that was corny.
Sooo what are you trying to say?
You’re asking me to explain things better, is that it?
Explain things? ME?!
No waaay.
“Miss White?”
“Helloooo?!”
I ignore Mr. Oni and start walking again; he calls out to me in confusion, while Vampy shrieks in protest.
“Were you listening to me?”
“Yes, exactly! I don’t deserve to be treated like this!”
The two of them keep raising a fuss, but I carry on ignoring them.
Vampy is flailing around in an effort to escape her bonds, which I also ignore.
Does she really think she can break out of my thread that easily?
Haven’t you heard?
There’s no escaping a god.
I keep dragging Vampy toward my destination.
She goes on making a racket the whole time, but Mr. Oni appears to have given up for the time being, following behind us in silence.
I don’t think his silence means he’s satisfied, by any means.
But that silence only lasts until our destination comes into view.
“What the…?”
While Mr. Oni’s mouth drops open, Vampy finally closes hers.
Yeah, it’s a little overwhelming.
Since we’re standing in front of a super-gigantic UFO, after all.
This is where I was trying to take them.
It’s the spaceship that Potimas tried to use to escape from this planet at the very last moment.
Ignoring them as they stare in shock, I walk right into the UFO.
Which means Vampy gets dragged along with me, of course.
Unwilling to be left behind, Mr. Oni hurriedly starts following behind us again.
Both of them stare with wide-eyed curiosity at the inside of the UFO.
It’s so absurdly large that it takes a long time to get around the inside on foot, but there’s certainly no shortage of things to look at.
After all, this UFO was developed with a long journey through space in mind, so it’s got tons of equipment to prepare for that journey.
Just looking around at all that is plenty entertaining.
Although Vampy looks pretty funny gazing around in awe while still being tied up in thread and bent over backward.
I get that it’s the only position that lets her see everything, but I still think it’s rather unladylike.
Hmm?
Who tied her up like that in the first place?
I don’t see how that’s relevant.
The sightseeing tour ends when we reach our ultimate destination.
Namely, the innermost part of the UFO, where the Demon Lord is looking at a monitor, flanked by her three spider puppet guards.
I assume they’re one short because Fiel is out hanging off that geezer again?
“Hmm? Oh, hello there.”
The Demon Lord notices us and waves.
I guess she moved into this UFO while we were talking to the reincarnations.
Although that’s why I came here, too, of course.
“Did you mess something up again, Sophia?”
“What do you mean by ‘again,’ Ms. Ariel? Why, that almost makes it sound as if I’m always messing things up.”
Huh? Is she serious right now?
I dunno how she can be so oblivious.
See? Even the Demon Lord is fighting back a laugh.
“You’ve got to stop picking on her, though, White.”
I’m not picking on herrr.
I’m just educating her, that’s aaaall.
“So, what did she do this time?”
“Well, you see…”
For some reason, the Demon Lord asks Mr. Oni instead of me, and Mr. Oni starts answering her without a moment’s hesitation.
I mean, yeah.
That’s the right call.
But still, it feels like they’re saying they can’t count on me, which is kind of insulting.
I can do it if I really try, you know!
It’s just that I don’t bother trying, ’cause I don’t want to!
You believe me, right?
“Ahh. I getcha.”
Once Mr. Oni fills her in, the Demon Lord winces, looking at Vampy.
“Yeah, Sophia did screw up by letting that slip, but I’d say White’s more to blame for giving a thorough opinion in the first place.”
Objection!
I did nothing wrong!
Don’t blame me!
“Well, what’s the truth? Can they really not go back to Earth?”
The Demon Lord looks at me intently.
“Nope,” I answer right away.
“Okay. If White says no, then I guess it’s no. But why isn’t it possible? Sophia misspoke because you didn’t explain those important details. You understand the importance of information and clear communication better than anyone, don’t you? And since you have all the details, you’re the only person who knows which information matters most. You have to consider things from Sophia’s point of view. She can’t even tell what’s true or not.”
While the Demon Lord lectures me in a gentle tone, it takes most of my energy to keep from pouting.
Who do you think you are, my mom?
Oh, right, you’re my grandma… Sorry.
“You always try to take care of everything by yourself, which means you’re careless when it comes to working with others. You don’t see the point in conversing with other people. Why would you bother when you could do it all on your own if you really felt like it? Basically, you’re a loner to the core.”
Ouch. That’s harsh, but she’s not wrong.
“Although I suppose I can’t really blame you. I was the same way before we met, after all. Maybe that’s what happens when you’re too powerful for your own good.”
Based on stats alone, the Demon Lord was probably the strongest person in the world.
Even her subordinate spider army was created by her Egg-Laying skill, which means they were basically her own clones.
“Still, Sophia and Wrath are your friends and allies. No matter how bad you might be at communicating, you’ve got to stop avoiding it and face them properly, don’t you think?”
Huh?
Friends?
What?
Friends.
Hmm…
Oh, okay.
Vampy and Mr. Oni are my friends, huh?
Is the Demon Lord actually a genius? How’d she notice something crazy like that?
Hang on a second.
Why do I feel so confused right now?
What are “friends,” exactly?
Like people who share your last name?
Hmm. No, I’m pretty sure that’s “family.”
So, what are friends?
People who do things with you.
People in the same position or profession as you.
People who are similar to you.
Those all have slightly different definitions, but they more or less add up.
In other words, people who stand by your side.
Are we standing side by side?
Frankly, they’re nowhere near me in terms of strength.
I’m waaay out front, and they’re waaay in back.
So I couldn’t call them “friends” in that way.
But as far as wanting the same things, you could certainly say we’re side by side.
Does that mean we really are friends, then?
Damn, that’s crazy.
I’ve always been a loner. Who would’ve thought I’d finally make some friends?!
Hmm.
Ummm…?
How are you supposed to interact with friends, exactly?
Teach me, O Great One!
“Uh-oh, White’s down for the count. This is no good. I guess it was too soon to hit her with the concept of friendship. I thought you had enough hard work and victories under your belt, but I guess not…”
“Sorry?”
“Listen, Wrath. Despite all appearances, White is still a babe in the woods when it comes to emotions. Don’t let her looks and attitude fool you. When she does something that seems irrational, most of the time she’s trying to use violence to distract from anything that might look bad for her. See? Pretty childish when you put it that way, isn’t it?”
“Um… right…”
“So when she does something bad, you have to scold her like a child, not voice your opinion like you would with an adult. Otherwise, I don’t think she’ll ever get any better.”
“Scold her? Me?”
“Well, Sophia’s out of the question. You’re the only one I can count on here. Best of luck.”
“Wait a minute! What do you mean I’m out of the question?!”
They’re all being very noisy, which is distracting me from my deep contemplation of this strange human concept called “friendship.”
Uhhh, the only friends I know about are the ones I have in online games!
So just like online gaming friends, you’re nice to them when you feel like it, and you kick them around when they’re bugging you? Got it!
In that case, I figure maybe I’ll pat Vampy’s head to show her some affection, but when I see her hopping around all tied up and shrieking, it kind of pisses me off, so I kick her instead.
“Why did you just kick me?! Seriously! Why?!”
Ugh, pipe down.
That’s just what friends do, right?
“I get the feeling White has come up with some extremely inaccurate understanding of something… Eh, whatever.”
“Miss Ariel, please don’t give up on that so easily.”
“Well, more importantly…”
“More importantly?!”
This exchange between the Demon Lord and Mr. Oni sounds like a comedy routine.
But the Demon Lord’s face looks completely serious.
I guess she really does want to talk about something important.
“White, what do you think about this?”
The Demon Lord jerks her chin toward the monitor.
From her expression, it looks like even Mr. Oni and Vampy can tell that she’s serious.
I look up and focus on the monitor.
…Even though Vampy is still all wrapped up in thread.
“What’s wrong with this, exactly?”
Mr. Oni looks over the words on the screen for a while but doesn’t seem to understand what the Demon Lord is concerned about.
And while Vampy is too stupidly prideful to admit it, her expression clearly indicates that she doesn’t get it, either.
“A lot.”
The Demon Lord stares in deep thought at the screen.
It appears to be Potimas’s diary of sorts.
Since he was such a detail-oriented person, he appears to have kept a record of every day’s events without fail.
Although given that it’s just a businesslike, straightforward list of details, maybe calling it a diary isn’t quite accurate.
There’s not a lot of his opinions or anything.
Maybe the odd observation about his research, but even that is incredibly rare.
In fact, there’s no trace of emotions in any of it. It’s not very diary-like at all.
However, the part the Demon Lord is displaying now is one of the rare instances where you can tell how Potimas was feeling.
The impression I get from it is panic.
And doubt.
[All of a sudden, the aggregate amount of MA energy has drastically decreased. The cause is unknown. There is likely some connection to the dimensional tremors I have been monitoring with my equipment, but at present I cannot say for sure. Something is obviously amiss. I have not seen such an occurrence in all the time that the system has been in place. Has some major failure occurred within the system? Is it safe to remain on this planet? The answer is unclear. Güliedistodiez has forbidden me from leaving this planet, but perhaps I should prepare for escape just in case.]
Ahh.
I get it.
It was the incident with the hero before last and the previous Demon Lord.
They tried to use Dimensional Magic to mess with something and failed, causing a misfire in a classroom in Japan.
This entry is about the incident that ended up getting us reincarnations brought into this world.
Thanks to some major screwups on their part, we got reborn into this world, and the Demon Lord took up her post to run around trying to replenish all the MA energy that was used up in the aftermath.
Vampy and Mr. Oni have heard about this incident, so they’re not surprised when they read this.
That’s probably why they’re confused about what the Demon Lord is worried about.
But there’s a huge problem.
Because Potimas is the one who wrote this.
“What does this mean? That Potimas wasn’t the one who roped the old hero and the previous Demon Lord into doing that?”
Right.
Exactly.
The fact that Potimas was this surprised about the incident caused by the hero before Julius and the previous Demon Lord means that someone else was pulling the strings.
Huh?
Didn’t they just do it of their own accord, you ask?
I don’t see how they could’ve possibly done that without knowing the first thing about how the system works.
There has to be someone who explained to them how the system works.
Otherwise, two people who didn’t know anything couldn’t have possibly sent an attack across time and space to reach D in that classroom.
Even Potimas didn’t seem to know D existed at all.
…In which case, it’s fairly obvious who the culprit must be.
I’m sure the Demon Lord knows it, too.
She just doesn’t want to admit it.
“Precisely. I am responsible for all of that.”
A new voice echoes, one that doesn’t belong to any of us.
The person who teleports into the room is exactly who I expected.
An administrator of this world, who appears to be wearing black armor.
It’s Black, also known as Güliedistodiez.
Now then, good evening, everyone.
We’re here at the fantasy world number-one showdown.
The defending champion is Administrator Güliedistodiez.
Versus our challenger, the Demon Lord.
A god versus a Demon Lord: It’s a tale as old as time, but that’s what makes it so legendary.
Will the god emerge victorious?
Or will the underdog Demon Lord eke out a win?
Either way, we’re in for a great match, folks.
Now, before the starting bell has even rung, the Demon Lord attacks first!
What a dirty move!
But she is a demon, after all.
For her, dirty is a compliment!
The champion takes this surprise attack head-on with some serious force!
A right straight directly to the face!
It makes even the champion stumble back a few steps!
What did you think of that attack, commentator Spider B?
I’ve gotta say, I think the champion took that hit on purpose, announcer Spider A.
What do you mean?
Well, the champion was clearly aware that the Demon Lord’s surprise attack was coming.
But instead of dodging or defending against it, he deliberately took it to the face.
Perhaps that’s how confident he is as the reigning champ.
I see!
So he decided to let the challenger’s first attack hit him to show just how much more powerful he is!
But the Demon Lord doesn’t stop there!
She grabs him by the collar—the collar? Can you call that the collar? Well, anyway, she grabs him by the collar and drags him down to the ground!
Now she’s sitting on top of him!
She’s in mount position!
“What’s going on here?!”
The Demon Lord demands an explanation!
It seems she’s infuriated with the champion for letting her do as she pleases without resistance!
Come on, fight!
Fight me for real, she seems to say!
“…I’m sorry.”
But what’s this!
The champion shows no interest in fighting!
What in the world does this mean?!
Has the reigning champ lost the will to fight?!
The Demon Lord starts beating the champion with her fists!
Whew.
Okay, I’m bored of commentating.
“Miss Ariel! Stop! Don’t do this!”
Mr. Oni grabs the Demon Lord’s arms and pulls her back, stopping her in the middle of striking Black’s face repeatedly.
She struggles in his grip, trying to keep hitting Black, but Mr. Oni’s strength keeps her in place.
After her fight with Potimas, the Demon Lord lost most of her power.
Now she’s no stronger than the little girl she appears to be—maybe even weaker than that.
She can’t even struggle against Mr. Oni holding her back.
Good job, Mr. Oni.
The Demon Lord is basically a retiree who needs ample bed rest at this point.
That kind of violence isn’t good for her health.
Still, I held off on stopping her right away because I figured she had to let off some of her anger before we could get anywhere, and Black needed to take a few punches anyway.
So that was the right time to intervene.
Mr. Oni’s so good at reading the room.
Hmm? Vampy?
She’s still all tied up and looks like she has no idea what’s going on. Why do you ask?
“What’s going on?”
“I’m sorry.”
Even as Mr. Oni holds her back, the Demon Lord keeps demanding an explanation from Black, and all he says is, “I’m sorry.”
Keeping one eye on that situation, I continue reading Potimas’s logs where the Demon Lord left off.
[Güliedistodiez made contact with one of my bodies that I had working on the outside. Things keep getting stranger. He asked if anything unusual had occurred, no doubt referring to the sudden decrease in MA energy and the dimensional tremors that developed at the same time. Of course, I have no intention of sharing any information with him. I attempted to probe him for information instead, but it appears that he himself has no concrete idea of what happened, either. In the end, we parted ways without accomplishing anything. If even he has no knowledge of the situation at hand, I must gather more information.]
[The hero has been replaced. This newly christened hero is Prince Julius, second son of the Analeit Kingdom. This matters little to me in itself, but the fact that there is a new hero must mean that the previous hero, Darresmeig, has died. Given the time line, there must be some connection to the dimensional tremors a few days prior. It would make some degree of sense if Darresmeig was responsible for the tremors. I have not been able to confirm the replacement of the Demon Lord yet, but if they were working together, I imagine he has died as well. And Güliedistodiez yet lives. Which means they must have failed, I suppose. How useless.]
[The individual I arranged to be birthed as my next main body has begun to say strange things to me through Telepathy. A newborn presumed to have no self-awareness using Telepathy is already unthinkable, but the information therein is even more outlandish. Yet what I have gathered is fascinating indeed. It seems there are reincarnations with memories of a different world from this one. I had wondered where the MA energy that vanished in those dimensional tremors went, but I never suspected it would have ended up in a parallel world. I do not know why, when it should have been directed to Güliedistodiez, but the outcome is very intriguing. Reincarnations, with souls from another world, different from ours. If I use those, perhaps they could even lead to a breakthrough in my currently thwarted research? It is certainly worth trying. In which case, I must begin collecting samples at once. Fortunately, the individual who told me of their existence, Filimøs, wishes me to take these reincarnations into my care. Well then, I shall gladly carry out her wish.]
Oof.
Where do I even start with this?
It’s so heinous that just reading it feels like I’m whittling away at my own sanity.
This is the scary thing about people who commit terrible crimes without even feeling that they’re doing anything wrong.
It’s clear even from these short entries that he saw the old hero, the previous Demon Lord, and most of all, Ms. Oka, not as individuals, but as tools for his own use.
I know this is old news by now, but man, P-man was the wooorst!
If I dig through his data some more, I might find some exchanges with the hero before last or the previous Demon Lord, but I don’t think that’s really necessary.
Besides, I don’t really want to read any more of this.
I think I’m getting the picture.
I mean, not that I didn’t know already.
“You know, Gülie… I always thought we were friends, kindred spirits… But was I alone on that? Was I operating under a huge misunderstanding, maybe?”
Uh-oh.
While I left the Demon Lord and Black to their own devices, things took a pretty drastic turn.
The Demon Lord looks like she’s about to cry.
What a horrible man, making a little girl cry like that!
…Okay, just kidding, but I should probably step in.
“Moron.”
Whoops. My bad.
I meant to say something to Black, but I just blurted out my innermost thoughts about him.
Well, whatever.
“She won’t understand if you don’t explain yourself. Quit apologizing and tell the whole thing from the beginning.”
Black, who’s half sitting up on the ground, looks at me with wide eyes.
The Demon Lord turns toward me with a similarly stunned expression.
“…Really? Talk about the pot and the kettle, Master…”
Vampy starts spouting nonsense, so I kick her again.
Once I’ve silenced her, I turn back to getting the whole story out of Black.
It takes a while, since he keeps inserting pointless comments like, “It was all my fault” and “Because of my mistakes” and so on.
But to sum it up in three simple steps:
Black called on the hero and the Demon Lord to make a truce between humans and demons.
The P-man secretly convinced the hero and the Demon Lord that administrators are bad.
So those two decided, “All right, let’s take down an administrator!”
How did they come to that conclusion, exactly?
Well, to get into a little more detail, it went a little something like this:
First, the wear and tear on the souls of this world’s people, especially those of demons, was getting more and more severe, to the point where the demon birth rate was dropping.
Because of that, the demons were in no position to keep fighting a war.
Realizing that the demon race was going to go extinct at this rate, Black suggested the cease-fire to the Demon Lord and the hero.
Now, that’s all well and good.
There’s nothing wrong with Black’s decision there.
I don’t know all the details about that time period, but based on how the likes of Agner and Balto were scrambling to restore the demon race, it’s not hard to imagine that they were in seriously dire straits.
Not to mention, since Black usually just watches from the sidelines without getting proactively involved, you know it must’ve been really bad for him to actually step in.
Hell, if he hadn’t gotten involved and the war kept going, the demons might have even been gone completely by the time we reincarnations came into the picture.
Maybe that’s going too far, but it was definitely still a serious crisis.
But this is where Black made a miscalculation.
Namely, he didn’t realize that P-man had already made contact with the former hero and the previous Demon Lord.
And just like he did with Ms. Oka, he’d convinced them that administrators were the enemy.
Y’know, claiming they were using the hero and the Demon Lord to make the people of this world fight each other, then harvesting their energy after their deaths and all that good stuff.
I mean, that’s all true, but it makes the administrators look bad when you put it that way.
If you knew the whole story, you’d realize they’re doing all this to restore the world.
As far as what the old hero and Demon Lord thought after hearing things from both Black and P-man, nobody else can say.
And since they’re both dead now, we’ll never know for sure.
Whatever their reasons, all we know is that they picked an ill-advised fight with the administrators and wasted a ton of MA energy, to boot.
How did they end up expending such a massive amount of MA energy?
Even if you tried to challenge an administrator, fighting in itself shouldn’t use up MA energy like that.
Unless the hero and the Demon Lord are involved.
Those two roles come with various hidden properties, thanks to a certain evil god who packed them with weird features.
The hero gets stronger against the Demon Lord.
Since demons live longer and are generally stronger than humans, this is a built-in handicap to help the hero stand a fighting chance.
When a hero fights a Demon Lord who’s significantly stronger, the hero expends MA energy to get a temporary power-up of sorts.
But this power-up actually applies to situations other than fighting a Demon Lord, too.
Namely, when the hero fights a god.
Currently, Black is the only proper god in this world.
Sariel can’t move since she’s become the core of the system.
In other words, Black is the only one who can do anything to fight an outside attacker.
Gods are always fighting over territory, stealing planets from one another.
This planet isn’t all that appealing at the moment, since the dragons have abandoned it and it’s on the verge of destruction, meaning it’s not very likely to be targeted.
But still, there’s no guarantee it won’t happen.
It’s still possible that the dragons might return to reclaim it, or some stray god might pop in.
The hero and the Demon Lord are the world’s main defense against such gods.
When either of them challenge a god, they can spend MA energy to power up.
Of course, it won’t be easy to beat a god, and it’s far from safe to cram enough energy to fight one into a single individual, even temporarily.
On top of that, when you’re dealing with a god, the amount of MA energy consumed is far larger than the amount of energy consumed in any fight between a hero and a Demon Lord.
But this feature still exists.
And wouldn’t you know it? The range of applicable targets for the feature somehow includes administrators.
Say what?
I know—it makes no sense.
If this was an online game, it would be like giving players special abilities to fight GMs.
Not to mention that using it could very well kill the whole server.
Basically, it would be a feature so stupid it could overturn the entire foundation of the game.
In fact, at that point I’d call it a bug, not a feature.
But in this case, you better believe it’s an intended function, not a bug.
I mean, think about the evil god who made it.
My guess is that D left it in so that the people of this world would have the option of challenging an administrator.
Although I’m sure if you asked why, the only answer you’d get is “because it seems more entertaining that way.”
An ordinary person, taking on a god.
I don’t know if that would end up changing the world, but I bet D would find an event like that amusing either way, don’t you think?
Yeah.
In other words, the hero before last and the previous Demon Lord challenged a god in the form of an administrator and succeeded in using MA energy to momentarily gain enormous power.
Of course, the cost for this was wasting a massive amount of MA energy and both their lives.
No doubt both of them felt that this sacrifice was worth it.
But in the end, all that it accomplished was throwing away a ton of MA energy and putting the world in an even worse predicament.
As a bonus, they even went out of their way to slaughter a classroom full of reincarnations from another world for no good reason.
Talk about a hot mess.
Now, did you notice anything about this story?
That’s right: Black wasn’t particularly responsible for any of these events.
“From what you’ve said so far, isn’t it mostly Potimas’s fault?”
“No. I am to blame for not clearly explaining things to the hero and the Demon Lord.”
Black stubbornly insists that it’s his fault, in spite of the Demon Lord’s perfectly reasonable observation.
He kept harping on the idea that he was responsible throughout his explanation, too.
Now, it’s true that I can’t say Black was completely 100 percent blameless in this situation.
I don’t know what kind of explanation he gave to the old hero and Demon Lord, but if he had succeeded in winning their trust in the process, none of this would have happened.
Since it seems like they trusted the P-man more than him.
That’s sad, for sure.
But still, obviously P-man is the most at fault here for having tricked the Demon Lord and the hero.
Though judging by P-man’s diary, they didn’t work with him directly, instead acting on their own in a way that promptly blew up in their faces.
Maybe P-man was just half hoping they’d defeat Black for him.
He was always weirdly good at correctly guessing the truth, based on what information he could gather.
Which only made him even more annoying!
“Gülie, what are you hiding?”
“I have nothing to hide. I failed in my duties. That is all.”
Black feigns ignorance at the Demon Lord’s questioning.
But by now, it’s painfully obvious that he is hiding something.
“The tragedy occurred because I foolishly gave them incomplete knowledge about the system. I am to blame for that.”
Hmmm.
I mean, he’s not lying.
He’s leaving out an important detail, though.
It’s true that the former hero and the previous Demon Lord did something stupid.
It’s true that P-man was the one who put them up to it, too.
And that Black was the one who gave them half-baked information about the system.
It all added up in the worst possible way.
You could say that everyone involved was partly responsible for pulling the strings.
But there’s one more culprit who hasn’t been named.
“The Goddess Sariel.”
Black pulls back dramatically at my statement.
His eyes are ordering me not to say another word.
That’s not gonna stop me, though!
“Someone redirected the attack meant for Black toward D. It was Sariel.”
My words elicit a different reaction in everyone.
Black remains expressionless.
The Demon Lord looks like the fight has gone out of her.
Mr. Oni looks like it all makes sense to him now.
Vampy looks like an idiot who doesn’t understand a damn thing.
It’s obvious if you think about it, really.
The old hero and Demon Lord couldn’t have possibly launched an attack at D when even the P-man didn’t know about her existence.
Technically, if you used the system, it might be possible to find its creator and operator, D.
But you’d have to be extremely familiar with the inner workings of the system to do that.
Unless you were an administrator of the system, like Sariel the Goddess.
“Is that true?”
The Demon Lord looks at Black, but his only response is silence.
That in and of itself gives the answer away, though, y’know?
From Black’s point of view, an attack meant for him was somehow blocked by Sariel, and that resulted in the loss of a bunch of MA energy and the arrival of reincarnations and all that. You can see how he would feel guilty for causing such a strange situation.
If he hadn’t met with the hero and Demon Lord, they would never have known to target him with their attack in the first place.
Dimensional Magic isn’t all-powerful.
As the evolved form of the already convenient Spatial Magic, it’s ridiculously useful, of course.
But there are still plenty of things it can’t do.
Although you can also say that about skills on the whole, I guess.
If you want to do something beyond how a skill is designed to function, you’ve got to have an understanding of conjuring, the basis of skills.
There are very few people who can use Spatial Magic in the first place, so the old hero and Demon Lord must have been crazy talented to be able to use Dimensional Magic.
But still, there are things it just can’t do.
Dimensional Magic can’t attack a target you’ve never seen or met before.
Just like with Spatial Magic, the first step of Dimensional Magic is designating a space.
Once you’ve done that, you move on to choosing a spell and setting it in motion, whether that’s teleporting or attacking.
And the only space you can designate in that first step is a place where the user has physically been, or the general vicinity of a person the user has met.
By meeting with the former hero and the previous Demon Lord, he inadvertently became eligible as a possible target of attack.
If he’d been more careful and sent a subordinate instead of going to them himself, they wouldn’t have been able to target him.
Although I’m sure he went himself in order to gain their trust…
That really backfired on him, though.
Then, when they attacked him, Sariel tampered with the system to change the target to D.
Honestly, I couldn’t tell you why.
I’ve got a few theories, but I have no way of confirming any of them, since I don’t know exactly what she was thinking.
Was she just trying to protect Black, did she want to harm D, or was there some other reason?
The only way to find out would be to ask her.
Not that I particularly care to do that.
If I ever met her face-to-face, I’d get pissed off and want to punch her, probably.
Anyway, regardless of her reasons, I’m sure she didn’t mean any ill will.
She was just reacting instinctively to avert a sudden disaster.
Not that she averted it very well…
But if Sariel hadn’t intervened in her weird way, and the hero and Demon Lord actually hit Black with their attack, he would’ve either been dead or severely weakened.
Then I’m sure P-man would’ve noticed and made things even worse.
He might have even eliminated Black and reigned supreme.
Still, then all the MA energy that was used to attack Black could probably have been recovered, so it might’ve been better that way from an MA energy standpoint.
Because if it was used in this world, at least most of that MA energy would’ve gone back into the pool, if not all of it.
Not to mention, Black’s death would probably mean that a considerable amount of MA energy was gained.
Since it’s possible to attack an administrator, I don’t see why there wouldn’t be a feature like that built into the system somewhere, too.
You know, something that absorbs a god to restore more MA energy.
But this is the situation we got instead.
Black is alive and unharmed, but in exchange, the world lost a ton of MA energy.
And the reincarnations came crashing into an age of upheaval.
I guess the situation would’ve been chaotic either way.
But at least we succeeded in eliminating P-man.
That means we rid the world of its worst rot, or cancer, or whatever you want to call the most unhelpful existence around.
Hrm.
When you look at it this way, it’s hard to say which route would’ve been better, since they both have pluses and minuses.
But since it’s impossible to imagine things getting anything but worse if P-man was still alive, I guess you could say this route is the right one, maybe?
Yeah, let’s just go with that.
As inconvenient as it is for all the reincarnations.
Oh, except for me.
I mean, I was just a normal spider before I was reincarnated into this world. I’d probably be long dead by now if I stayed there.
Instead, I somehow wound up becoming a god, so I’m sure glad I got reincarnated.
Hrmm?
In that case, maybe Sariel did a good thing after all?
…Thanks, I guess.
“Gülie. It’s not your fault.”
“No… I still believe it is. Especially after I lived so carelessly all this time, never knowing I had caused all this trouble.”
The Demon Lord appears to have put aside thoughts of Sariel for now to reassure Black.
But he just smiles bitterly.
Riiight.
Black here didn’t know so much MA energy had been consumed, and he figured P-man was to blame for everything.
Once he figured out that he was unwittingly involved, of course this moron would feel responsible.
I’m sure a certain evil god was thoughtful enough to tell him aaall about it.
Otherwise, he would never have known what happened behind the scenes.
And that evil god is the only one who would know the whole story.
Seriously, talk about evil.
Hmm?
Why do I know all this, you ask?
Don’t underestimate my information-gathering skills, thank you very much!
My information-gathering clones have been keeping tabs on things all over the world, while the analysis team’s been hacking into the system and feeding me all the relevant information. Plus, I’ve been occasionally using my Past-Vision Evil Eye.
That’s a new Evil Eye I came up with recently that can show me scenes from the past, letting me gather circumstantial evidence and such to help figure out the truth.
Now I’m basically a super detective who can solve any cold case with ease.
Although I don’t use Past-Vision Evil Eye very much, since it’s far from user-friendly.
“If you feel that bad, just work harder now to make up for it.”
I decide to wrap things up before all this whining and hand wringing gets any more annoying.
“Yes…you’re right. I will.”
Okay, cool.
You do that.
I’ve got a huuuge job for you to handle after this, you know.
The incident the old hero and Demon Lord caused has led to this route, thanks to Sariel’s intervention.
Now, then.
What path will the people of this world choose when faced with the incident I’m about to cause?
Not that their choice is going to affect the outcome, in the end.
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