Epilogue
Beautiful blossoms fill the garden with their enchanting presence.
Two women sit at a table in the center of the garden, enjoying an elegant teatime.
One is D.
The other is a woman wearing a maid outfit with the air of a classic Japanese beauty.
I’ve started calling this mysterious person Ms. Meido.
She’s probably a super-powerful god, too.
“So, I take it you went to the trouble of saving that world?”
“I did.”
“You do love to do things in the most roundabout way, don’t you…?”
Ms. Meido heaves a sigh of exasperation.
“Whatever is the point of providing so much energy to a world like that? You really are terribly wasteful, too…”
“Oh, it wasn’t wasteful.”
Ms. Meido’s phrasing might sound awful to the people who live in that world, but from a god’s perspective, it’s a planet that practically self-destructed.
Only someone with extremely strange taste would bother trying to recycle a place like that.
“I barely provided any energy of my own, after all.”
“…Then where did all that energy come from?”
“Isn’t it obvious? From the dragons who tried to desert the planet, of course.”
“You mean…you killed those dragons back then?”
“Yes.”
Another shocking truth bomb.
D killed all of Black’s former brethren.
So what does that mean?
Was the system made using the energy those dragons tried to steal from the planet in the first place?
Then she basically just put it back the way it was!
“Those dragons made for excellent energy, too.”
Correction.
She put the dragons through the grinder and turned them into energy, too.
It was even worse than I thought.
“That’s all well and good for when you made that so-called system, I suppose. But where did you get the energy you provided them this time?”
“Funny story, actually. It came from that world itself.”
Ms. Meido tilts her head uncertainly.
“That world had a surprising amount of energy stored up. And a whole lot more of it came gushing out of nowhere toward the end.”
“Because of the world quest?”
“Exactly. The fighting frenzy that the world quest brought on resulted in new energy being supplied at an unprecedented rate. Many lives were lost, and everyone was battling desperately, since the fate of the world was on the line, which all seems to have resulted in more energy being produced from their souls.”
So even though D held all the cards in the end, the battle over that world quest wasn’t actually for nothing, I guess.
“Nothing shines brighter than a soul trying to accomplish something even if it means death.”
The fight against D, too, was full of such determination that everyone created a lot of energy in the process.
Souls sure are mysterious, though.
They can produce energy from nothing.
Maybe if Potimas had researched the energy of souls instead of MA energy, it wouldn’t have led to the planet’s destruction.
Then again, if he researched souls, he probably would’ve created freaky super-organisms or something.
Either way, knowing Potimas, it wasn’t gonna end well no matter what.
“That still wasn’t enough, though, was it?”
“Not quite. But it so happens that someone had the rest of the energy set aside. So I decided to step in and lend it on her behalf.”
At this, Ms. Meido’s gaze turns toward me.
In case you were wondering, I’m standing to the side behind D at the moment.
Also, she has me wearing a maid outfit. A maid outfit.
I said it twice ’cause it’s a very important detail.
Seriously, why a maid outfit?
Between this and Ms. Meido, does D have a thing for maids or what?
Then again, I guess maybe it makes sense, since I’m also being forced to do actual maid work by waiting on their little tea party! ARGH!
“You see, by this one’s calculations, between the energy produced by her fight with Güliedistodiez being restored to the system, then squeezing out as much energy from Güliedistodiez as possible without killing him, and finally draining almost all of her own energy, she would’ve been able to restore the planet while still protecting humanity.”
“Were those calculations correct?”
“Yes, indeed.”
Oops, ya got me.
…Yeah, okay, she’s right.
I wasn’t planning on killing half of humanity in the first place.
For one thing, who knows what Goddess Sariel would’ve done if I did that?
Her thought process seems to be totally different from that of the rest of us, and I’m not a big fan of uncertain variables.
If the Demon Lord did all that work for Goddess Sariel, only for the goddess to let it all go to waste or something, wouldn’t that go straight past sad to super pissed off?
Ah, I’m the one who’d be pissed, by the way.
Not for humanity or Sariel or anything like that.
I was just gonna go a little overboard to save humanity for the Demon Lord’s sake, that’s all.
Whew, I gotta admit, I’m a little too attached to my grandmother (if you can call her that) for my own good.
“Incidentally, this one was also planning to play dead after doing all that.”
…Oops, got me again.
“Play dead? Whatever for?”
“To get away from me, of course. She’d make it look like she died so she could make a break for it.”
Umm, is anyone else sweating? Just me?
“This little scamp was plotting to escape from my clutches even though she knew she’d be much weaker after losing most of her energy, if you can believe it. I can’t let that slide, now, can I?”
Uh-oh…
“You’ve got to keep such a badly behaved creature on a tight leash, you see?”
“…So that’s why you’re keeping her close at hand like this.”
Ms. Meido looks at me with an almost pitying expression.
If you feel that bad for me, help me out here!
“Right now she’s still the world’s saddest little sea slug in terms of strength, just absolutely no use at all… But she managed to become a god in record time, so I’m sure she’ll work her way up to the upper echelon in no time. Now there’s a talent worth training, don’t you think? I’ve already planned out a very special crash course so that I can see to her upbringing personally.”
Noooo!
That’s gonna be the training from hell, isn’t it?!
Are you trying to kill me or what?!
“So I couldn’t have her weakening herself like that. It would have hindered my special training plans.”
Yeah, I don’t care!
In fact, it would’ve been better that way!
“At any rate, that’s why I decided to provide energy to that world as a sort of advance payment for this one’s salary.”
“I see. So you consider it the price of purchasing your new toy.”
…So you view me as a toy, too, huh, Ms. Meido? I see how it is.
But since she saw right through my plan to use up my energy and play dead, I doubt I’m gonna be able to get away from her now.
Oh, what fate awaits our beloved heroine, aka me?!
“You seem to have taken quite a liking her.”
“Yes, you might say that.”
“Speaking of which, I still haven’t heard the sordid details of her history. Tell me, what is she exactly?”
Oh, c’mon. You really gotta ask?
So I’m a spider, so what?
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