UFO INFILTRATION MISSION
“Hey, Potimaaas. Isn’t anything going to come out of that new hole of yours? C’mon, like fire or something? Maybe you can cast magic out of your butt! Pfffft!”
Heresy.
There’s a heretic here.
Not that I can talk, since I’m the one who started all this in the first place.
Our latest battle is getting rave reviews from the critics.
And yet, this slacker is still messing around.
Sure, we’re absolutely owning this swarm of robots. These little ones are so weak, I’m practically falling asleep here.
That’s why the Demon Lord has decided to start poking fun at Potimas while we’re fighting.
And then busting out laughing in the middle of her own damn jokes.
Cut it out. Magic’s not gonna come out of his butt.
Actually, maybe it could if he really tried?
Hey, wait a second. The Demon Lord and I are both spider-type creatures, so aren’t we the ones who make magic thread come out of our butts?
Having realized this horrifying truth, I decide to keep quiet.
I guess this is what they call putting your foot in your mouth. Or your butt, in this case.
Anyway, since the Demon Lord seems to be having a grand old time, she’s mowing down the robots like crazy.
Potimas, on the other hand, is silent. He’s completely ignoring the Demon Lord and focusing on fighting the robots.
I thought he was going to turn his arm into a gun or whatever like he did before, but this time he’s just holding a gun and firing it like a normal person.
He’s holding it up with both hands, aiming at the robots, and firing light bullets—but these aren’t like the ones the robots use.
Potimas’s light bullets can pulverize several robots in a single shot.
Is it my imagination, or is this gun just as powerful as those tanks’ main gun?
It might be big, but the tank’s gun was obviously way bigger. Maybe he found a way to shrink that down with technology or something?
Either way, it’s scary.
And yet, the Demon Lord is picking a fight with this guy and his giant gun.
I’m stuck in the middle of them, but of course I’m destroying my share of robots, too.
You know, firing magic, using my Evil Eyes, tying thread to my scythe, and playing with it like a sickle and chain, that kind of thing.
Oh, uh, did I say “playing”? I’m not playing. Of course I’m not.
I’m taking this robot fight very seriously, I swear.
But no matter how many of them we break, more robots just keep coming.
Can you really blame me for wanting to experiment a little and try something new?
By the way, my “giant scythe and chain” is working out great.
Since I have Thread Control, I can move it around however I want.
And my giant scythe cuts through these robots like butter.
It’s not exactly like a real sickle and chain, but I think it’ll be a great close- to midrange-attack method.
Magic and Evil Eyes for long-range.
Thread for midrange.
And my scythe for close-range.
Heh-heh. I’ve got a pretty good strategy, if I do say so myself.
And since I have both a spider brain and a human brain, I can even use both of them at once.
Normally, I could even use my Parallel Minds with both brains to get a double-galaxy brain effect going on, but right now I’ve got Parallel Minds turned off.
I mean, what if I turn it on and they go crazy again?
I don’t really have a choice here.
Still, I’ve gotten pretty strong, if you ask me.
I used to be so weak that any single hit would kill me, but now I’m an all-rounder who can handle close combat and long-distance alike!
There’s hardly anyone who could beat me now!
Although the top two contenders are right here next to me.
The number one threat, also known as the Demon Lord, is cackling away as she destroys more and more robots.
Watching her fight certainly is instructive.
After all, the Demon Lord is an all-rounder who excels at any distance, too.
She can use magic to fire at long distances, attack with thread for middle distances, and any brave soldier who gets through those first two will find Gluttony waiting for them.
Seriously, there’s not a single gap in her defenses.
That last one, Gluttony, is particularly scary.
Whether it’s light bullets or the robots themselves, she can swallow them whole.
All she has to do is open and close her mouth, and the predation is complete.
That’s broken even for one of the Seven Deadly Sins skills.
Even though the robots are giant hunks of metal that would clearly never fit into the Demon Lord’s mouth, all she has to do is one big chomp and they’re gone without a trace.
There must be some kind of spatial shenanigans going on here.
Can you imagine somehow getting past the Demon Lord’s magic attacks and crazy thread moves only to find out that she’s most dangerous of all at close range?
She only has to open and close her mouth, and bam, you’re in her belly!
That’s crazy, man.
Even a close-combat master wouldn’t stand a chance in hell.
I guess that means the Demon Lord is a close-combat master.
How are you supposed to tackle that?
Just fire at her from afar, you say?
Well, bad news. She can swallow those attacks with one bite, too.
There’s really no way around it.
Sounds like cheating to me, don’t you think?
Supposedly, I have cheat skills that are just as good, but they don’t really seem that way, do they?
Pride is a growth cheat that has no effect on actual battle.
Perseverance is a defensive cheat that lets me use MP if I run out of HP.
Sloth is an attack cheat that increases all my damage to my opponents.
Hero is a support cheat that lets my allies heal automatically.
Yep. Gluttony is definitely the best out of all of them, dammit!
Considering how much stronger I’ve gotten because of it, I guess Pride is at least as good or maybe even better, but the other ones, not so much.
Okay, I’ll admit they’ve all helped me in the past, but still!
Yes, there were times when I would’ve died if I didn’t have Perseverance, and without Pride, I wouldn’t have been able to defeat Araba.
And I guess without Hero, I would’ve died in that explosion earlier.
Well, technically, that wasn’t Hero; it was the Miracle Magic skill I got along with Hero.
So I guess I still have Hero to thank, huh.
But Pride doesn’t have any direct effect on battle, and Perseverance is a little irrelevant now that I have Immortality, and Sloth is no help right now because my enemies are machines that don’t have HP.
Huh?
Is it just me, or are my cheat skills not really helping me cheat at all?
Th-that’s not true.
It can’t be true.
I’m telling you, it’s not!
Let’s just say it’s not, okay?!
Ugh, this is all the stupid Demon Lord’s Gluttony skill’s fault!
Gluttony is way too useful!
What the hell kind of skill lets you eat literally anything and turn it into energy?
She can eat your attacks, eat right through your defenses, and it takes only an instant to activate.
It works as offense and defense and even recovers her SP.
That’s way too broken of a cheat.
How could anyone beat this monster?
Is a surprise attack from behind the only way or what?
And even that would be pretty damn near impossible.
Yeah. The more I think about it, the less likely it seems one could kill her, even if her guard was down.
How in the world does Potimas plan to do it?
I glance over at Potimas, who’s silently shooting down the robots.
Considering all that big talk he was doing, does that mean he actually has some kind of method to kill the Demon Lord?
Hrmmm.
What should I do?
I don’t think the Demon Lord’s going to let her guard down in the first place, but if Potimas did try to kill her, what would the right reaction be?
The Demon Lord is a regular pain in my butt—I know that much.
If you think about it, we’ve been clashing ever since I first started fighting against Mother.
She’s the one enemy I never found a way to defeat.
Instead I just kept running away from her, antagonizing her as I went, which finally led to this current cease-fire situation.
And I came up with a system that makes it pretty difficult to kill me and, more importantly, makes the Demon Lord think it’s impossible.
It took all that just to get to a truce.
Actually, beating her would be way beyond my abilities.
That’s the Demon Lord in a nutshell.
She’s like a thorn in my side that I can’t get rid of.
So if I could actually kill the Demon Lord…what would I do?
To be honest, I don’t know what the best answer is anymore.
If I’d found a way to kill her before our truce, I probably would’ve done it without hesitation.
But now, it’s been about two years since we agreed to stop fighting.
We’ve been traveling together all this time, so I’ve gotten a pretty solid grasp of her personality.
And from what I can tell, the Demon Lord is super-freaking-nice!
Seriously, it’s like, the Hero skill would suit her waaay better than me! She’s practically a saint!
Why is she even a demon lord in the first place? It really makes you wonder.
She’s such a good person that Vampy and Mera obviously adore her.
Honestly, I’m starting to feel like I should just accept her already.
The only reason we were enemies in the first place was that I was fighting Mother, her kin.
Now that Mother is gone, there’s no real reason for me to want to fight the Demon Lord.
Sure, she’s still kind of a threat, but I think even the Demon Lord would have a hard time killing me at this point.
When I was fighting Mother, I was struggling just to survive, but now, I don’t need to be so scared of every little thing.
I’m starting to wonder if maybe giving up on that animosity is for the best.
The Demon Lord’s an angel.
If we can just let bygones be bygones, I have a feeling we could actually get along really well.
Except I don’t think that would be so easy.
I mean, the Demon Lord really values her friends and family.
The way she rushed to Sael’s rescue in the ruins just shows how much she cares about protecting the people close to her.
And I’m the one who murdered one of her children—Mother.
I’m sure she doesn’t exactly look fondly on me because of that.
So even if I’m willing to forget the past, would the Demon Lord really feel the same way?
She suggested the truce, since she can’t kill me, but doesn’t that mean she would still want to kill me if she could?
And now that I’ve gone and pissed off Potimas, he’s way more likely to come after me than the Demon Lord.
If he uses his mystery barrier, I don’t know whether my immortality method would work or not.
And if the Demon Lord decided to side with Potimas then?
Ha-ha-ha.
Yikes…
Yeah, I’d totally be dead, probably.
The secret to my ability to never die is the Immortality skill and my egg-revival technique.
As the name implies, the Immortality skill means that you can’t be killed.
Thanks to this skill, I wouldn’t die even if my body was blown to bits.
Although I would certainly be rendered unconscious while my body rebuilt itself with HP Auto-Recovery.
Without HP Auto-Recovery, you’d just be stuck in a state of eternal unconsciousness, which is probably a fate worse than death. So Immortality’s already a pretty defective skill.
Not to mention, there are other ways around this so-called Immortality.
So that makes it an even more defective skill.
The countermeasure I developed for this is something I call “egg revival.”
I use the Egg-Laying skill to make eggs, and then the moment I die, I can transfer my soul into one of those eggs like a pseudo-reincarnation.
The reason this crazy stunt works is because the Egg-Laying skill essentially creates inferior clones of me.
I can even use my Parallel Minds to do other crazy soul stuff, too. Specifically, I sent my Parallel Minds to attack Mother’s soul directly and stuff like that.
Skills are the power of the soul.
Mother was trying to use one of those skills, Kin Control, to manipulate me.
So I used it in reverse and managed to eat away at her soul instead.
It’s thanks to that soul-related know-how that I figured out a way to transfer my own soul into another body.
Since there aren’t any skills for messing with souls like that, I think this is a technique that works outside of the constraints of the system.
So there’s a lot even I don’t know about how it works.
Like whether I can still do it inside Potimas’s barrier or not, for instance.
I definitely don’t want to try it, but if it turns out I can’t do egg revival inside Potimas’s barrier, I really would die.
If Potimas was my only opponent, I might have a chance.
After last time, I made my giant scythe so I’d be prepared.
Since Potimas’s barrier renders most skills ineffective, the best way to combat it is with my own physical strength in a close-combat battle.
That and Warped Evil Eye, the only Evil Eye that works in the barrier.
But Potimas has already seen Warped Evil Eye, so there’s a good chance he’s come up with a way to counter it by now.
That’s what I would do, if I were him.
In which case, close combat using my scythe is the best way to deal with him.
The scythe has surpassed my expectations in the best way possible, becoming crazy strong.
And it was able to slice right through that tank, which used the same kind of defenses, so I think it would work even within Potimas’s barrier.
Potimas doesn’t know that, and even if he did, I seriously doubt he could come up with some way to deal with it in such a short time.
In other words, I do have a method for fighting back against Potimas.
It’s possible that Potimas has also prepared some new weapon or something since our battle, but I still think I’d have the advantage, or at least I hope so.
Honestly, there’s no way of knowing unless we actually come to blows.
But I do think I’d have a chance of winning, even if that’s partially just wishful thinking.
But if the Demon Lord was teaming up against me, too?
Then I’d be totally doomed.
Potimas would be hard enough to fight on his own, so if you add the Demon Lord on top of that—forget it.
Even if I unleashed my Parallel Minds, which I’ve currently got shut off, I wouldn’t stand a chance.
Hrmmm?
We’re still just having a friendly little robot cleanup here, so why do I suddenly feel like my life is in pressing danger?
Q: What am I gonna do, seriously?
A: I’ll just have to make sure I don’t let my guard down.
Uh-huh. Potimas said himself that he’d try to kill us only if we let down our guard, which means if we don’t give him the chance, he won’t make a move.
For the sake of my sanity, let’s just go with that.
Other than that, all I can do is hope that egg revival would work inside that mystery barrier.
If there’s someone out there who can make that wish come true, I’ll happily pray to them, even if it’s a certain self-proclaimed evil god.
Ughhh, now my stomach hurts for some reason.
Guess I’ll just have to take this stress out on the robots!
Keeping an eye on Potimas’s movements, I continue wiping the floor with the machines.
But there are still way too many of them!
No matter how many robots I break, they just keep coming.
Seriously, how many of you are there?
Well, given the nature of this UFO, I guess maybe that’s to be expected.
I mean, it’s basically a flying military base.
The UFO itself isn’t equipped with that many weapons. The main gun was the worst of it, and I destroyed that.
But that’s because its role isn’t attacking; it’s deploying troops.
Yeah. The whole point of its existence is to carry those tanks and fighters and stuff.
Which means there are plenty of spare robots inside the UFO to back up the ones it’s already sent down to the ground.
And we have no way of knowing just how many reserve robots there are.
I’d like to think that there’s less than the number that’s already on the ground, but it’s entirely possible it’s around the same amount.
If it wasn’t sending out too many aircraft at once because of a control issue, then maybe there’s even more robots on here than there are down below.
But that can’t be the case, I’m sure.
Right?
As the waves of robots show no end in sight, I’m starting to get a little worried.
I mean, no matter how many there are, they’re not really a threat to us, but still…
Just as that thought crosses my mind, I see a tank coming up behind the robots.
Yay! Just as I was thinking that these robots are no big deal, this big shot suddenly comes rolling in!
Great timing. You should be an actor!
While I’m distracted by these stupid thoughts, a ball of light fires from the tank’s main gun—headed directly for the Demon Lord.
CHOMP! You can practically see the sound effect as the shot disappears into her mouth.
I’ve heard of omnivores, but this is ridiculous.
The Demon Lord promptly grabs the nearest robot and flings it at the tank with all her might.
As soon as the two collide, they’re both reduced to scrap metal.
Geez. The tank looks like a car that’s been totaled in a nasty traffic accident, and the remains of the robot are just stuck to the front.
Talk about an unholy fusion.
Yep. Not only are the robots no match for us, even a tank doesn’t stand a chance!
As long as we have the Demon Lord on our side, we’ve got nothing to fear!
Bring it on!
Then, as if on cue, a whole bunch of tanks come out at once.
…Seriously, are you guys waiting for the right time to show up or what?
Are you? Huh?
Ughhh, enough already, for real.
If these guys were monsters, that’d be one thing.
I get experience for killing those, and I can eat the bodies.
But since robots are machines and not living things, you don’t get any experience for killing them, and they’re metal, so you can’t eat them, either.
I know I have the title Foul Feeder and all, but even I have my limits.
That’s not exactly the kind of iron that’s good for your body!
The Demon Lord has Gluttony, so she can eat them just fine, but she’s the exception to end all exceptions.
In other words, I have absolutely nothing to gain from this battle.
We have to win or the world’s in big trouble, so obviously I’m gonna make sure we don’t lose, but it feels more like work than anything.
Just thinking about that sorta drains my motivation.
The Demon Lord can probably handle it by herself, so why do I even need to be here?
C’mon—didn’t I already fulfill my role by busting the UFO’s main gun and making a hole for us to enter through?
Why do I have to hang around and fight alongside some crazy elf who’s after my life?
Seriously, how did things end up like this?
It’s all this stupid UFO’s fault!
Ugh, just thinking about it is pissing me off.
As if in response to my anger, the ominous aura around the scythe in my hands gets even more intense.
In fact, it’s sorta starting to look like the white blade is letting off a visible black haze.
Uh, what’s going on here?
I’m not sure, but I get the feeling it’s not anything good.
Right away, I swing my scythe around as if to shake off the black haze.
Just like that, the haze dispels.
However, it has some unexpected consequences.
The black cloud spreads, enveloping all the nearby robots and tanks, and destroys every last one of them.
“……”
Silence falls.
The Demon Lord and I, and even Potimas, are at a loss for words.
It’s like, the robots are one thing.
They don’t have the mystery barrier, so any reasonably powerful wide-range magic could probably have done the same thing.
But that’s not true of the tanks.
Since they’re protected by the mystery barrier, magic doesn’t work on them, so you’re supposed to be able to beat them only with physical attacks.
And yet, the black haze my scythe produced just melted them down to nothing.
Despite the fact that you definitely couldn’t call that a physical attack.
I guess the light bullets used by Potimas and the enemy robots aren’t affected by the barrier, so maybe it’s not that strange, but this is still different.
Because the robots and tanks that were destroyed by the black haze turned into dust.
That’s the telltale sign of the Rot attribute at work.
The power of attributes is connected to the system and therefore shouldn’t work within the barrier.
But that black haze went right through the mystery barrier like it was nothing.
And it was produced by my scythe, which even I don’t really understand.
Potimas and the Demon Lord stare at me with their mouths open.
Uh-oh.
If I let them see that I’m just as shaken as they are, I have no idea what they’ll do.
That’s right. I knew this would happen.
My goal all along was to show Potimas what would happen to him if he messes with me!
Yeah, let’s go with that!
Keeping a straight face, I lower the scythe to its original position.
My heart is pounding, but they don’t need to know that.
Hey, wait a second. My MP went way down.
Um, excuse me?! Why does the scythe I made have so many features I don’t know about?!
It’s pretty useful, but still!
Come on! Can’t I get a user’s manual or something?!
All of this shock is gonna ruin my poker face!
Just as my composure is about to hit its limit, more robots and tanks start showing up.
The Demon Lord and Potimas turn their attention toward them.
Nice timing!
Seriously, these machines always know right when to show up!
“Well, if White’s going to take this so seriously, I guess I’d better do the same.”
A shudder runs across my skin.
The Demon Lord, who was right next to me moments ago, disappears.
Technically, she just moved so fast that it looked like she disappeared into thin air, but it was so sudden that it might have well been magic.
Even I couldn’t follow her movements with my eyes.
The sound and shock waves follow a few seconds later.
My High-Speed Processing skill means that things seem to move more slowly around me, but even then, I can barely follow what’s happening.
The new wave of robots and tanks is turned to scrap in an instant.
Talk about cheating.
Yeah. I knew something seemed off.
The robots and tanks are annoying, but the Demon Lord is obviously way stronger.
She should be able to crush them all easily, no matter how countless they might seem.
The reason the battle was dragging on so much is that the Demon Lord wasn’t going all out.
I suppose I wasn’t going all out, either, but can you blame me?
Both of us were saving our energy in case Potimas tried anything, obviously.
We were both trying to stay on our guard so we could deal with it if Potimas tried anything strange.
That might sound bad in an emergency situation like this, but what was I supposed to do?!
I couldn’t help it, even if it was less than ideal.
But if we keep dragging things out, we won’t be able to resolve this situation.
The longer we take, the more likely it is that the UFO will drop the bomb.
I’m still not sure what exactly would cause that to happen, but obviously it’s safer to take care of things as quickly as possible.
So when I made my move, the Demon Lord took that as a sign to start taking this battle more seriously, too, even if it meant neglecting our caution toward Potimas to focus on destroying these robots and tanks.
What actually happened was that my scythe acted of its own accord, but nobody else needs to know that.
And it seemed to intimidate Potimas a little, so maybe it was for the best?
At any rate, the Demon Lord’s serious battle mode is so intense that this’ll all be over before Potimas can even lift a finger.
Was there really any point in being so cautious in the first place?
Uh… Hmm.
W-well, that’s just because Potimas is the kind of guy you have to be careful around at all times!
In fact, having Potimas nearby is clearly doing far more harm than help, so should we really even be letting him live in the first place?
“That seems to be the last of them. Let’s go.”
As if suspecting my thoughts, Potimas briskly strides forward.
Feeling like I missed my chance, I give up on that line of thinking for now and follow after him.
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