Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? Volume Chapter 16

“Sacrifice your skills! This is the path to salvation!”

As we head into town to buy food and supplies, a voice calls out to us.

“The people of Sariella worship the administrator Sariel as their god. It would be best to avoid engaging with them unless absolutely necessary.”

I agree with Ms. Oka’s whispered advice.

The shouting man doesn’t seem sane.

If this is the work of a so-called administrator, it’s not exactly pleasant.

I still don’t entirely believe everything Ms. Oka told us.

But I have no evidence to disprove it.

Besides, if supernatural beings called administrators really do exist, it would explain a lot about Sophia’s behavior.

Sophia used the word “Master.”

And it seemed like she was acting on orders from whoever that is.

They’d have to be insanely powerful for someone as strong as Sophia to obey their orders.

It would make sense, then, if her “master” is essentially a god of this world.

But if I couldn’t even defeat Sophia, how am I supposed to fight back against something even stronger than she is?

If one of those things is among the forces that attack the elf village…

“What does ‘sacrifice your skills’ mean?”

Trying to drive away my invasive thoughts, I ask Ms. Oka a question.

“It is said to have two meanings. One is to use a skill called Skill Elimination to delete your own skills.”

“Is that possible?”

“Quite so. Skill Elimination can be acquired without any skill points and deletes skills over the course of several days. Once it’s been activated, it won’t stop until it’s deleted all of the user’s skills, so it can’t be used to remove just certain targets. The deleted skills can’t be recovered, either. Unless you train up and acquire them again, of course.”

“What’s the point of that, exactly?”

I don’t understand why a skill like that would exist.

There’s no benefit to losing your skills.

Even if you can get them back by training again, you won’t regain all the time you spent on them before or the skill points you might have spent to get them.

It’s like deliberately throwing your hard work down the drain.

“In other words, it transfers your power to the administrators.”

“Ah.”

So that’s it.

A way for humans to sacrifice their accumulated power to the administrators.

That’s the purpose of Skill Elimination?

“Come to think of it, didn’t you delete Hugo’s skills once, Ms. Oka?”

“Yes, but that was a glitch of sorts, a secret method for deleting another person’s skills by paying a high price. When I use it, I lose several of my own skills, and I also fall into a deep sleep for several days afterward. In the worst-case scenario, it could even kill both the target and the user, so I hope never to use that technique again.”

“I had no idea…”

Thinking back, when the earth wyrm who was Fei’s parent attacked the school, Ms. Oka didn’t participate in the battle.

Most likely, it wasn’t because she didn’t want to but because she couldn’t.

“At the time, I thought it was the best course of action. I truly believed that if he lost all his skills, Hugo’s arrogance would stop growing out of control. I know now that I should have helped him recover his humanity afterward, but I failed to do that, and now this is the result. I’m a failure as a teacher.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

I know that isn’t much help, but it’s all I can say.

Hugo is the one to blame for his actions.

“Thank you. But I know now what I must do. As his teacher, it is my job to correct my former student who has strayed too far from his path.”

Our teacher’s eyes are full of bitter determination.

She intends to kill Hugo.

I have no response for that.

“So what was the second meaning?”

I change the subject.

Despite feeling pathetic for not being able to do anything more.

“I’m not entirely sure. Something about sacrificing skills to bring one closer to godhood.”

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“That certainly sounds very religious.”

“I agree.”

The priest continues to shout on the streets.

As a dark atmosphere settles over us, I can’t help wanting to get out of here as soon as we can.

“Shun, could I speak with you for a moment?”

Just as it’s getting late enough to start preparing for bed, Katia comes to visit my room with Fei in tow.

Ms. Oka is out meeting up with the elves’ allies in town.

I thought that someone should go with her, but she insisted on going alone.

Hyrince said that most likely, the people she’s meeting with are part of this society’s underworld.

By nature, people like that won’t meet with anyone they don’t recognize.

He said that was probably why Ms. Oka was acting alone.

I don’t like the idea of letting our teacher get involved with such a suspicious bunch, but she informed me that sometimes you have to dirty your hands to get things done, and I was forced to reluctantly see her off.

“What is it?”

Since she chose a time to talk while Ms. Oka is absent, I can guess what it’s about.

Most likely, she wants to discuss something she wouldn’t want our teacher to hear.

“Mr. Hyrince, I’m terribly sorry, but could I ask you to step out?”

And it looks like she doesn’t want Hyrince to know about it, either.

“Hrm. All right. I’ll go kill some time at a bar or something.”

“Thank you very much.”

“C’mon, I don’t mind. I’m sure you reincarnations have things you don’t want other folks hearing about, right?”

With that, the ever-considerate Hyrince leaves the room.

“What about Anna?”

“I got her to go wait in the room.”

Once Hyrince leaves, Katia drops the propriety and starts speaking brusquely in Japanese.

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“Man, Hyrince is sooo mature. What a hunk!”

Fei dives onto the bed.

Now that she can turn into human form, she seems quite pleased to be able to sleep in a bed again.

When she was smaller, she would occasionally take over part of my bed, but after she got bigger, she had no choice but to sleep outside.

Being able to sleep in a bed again has put her in a great mood.

However, the one downside she complains about is not being able to roll over properly because of her wings.

“So? What’s this about?”

“The other reincarnations, of course.”

Katia sits down next to Fei with a grave expression.

Looks like she’s expecting this conversation to take a while.

I sit across from her and get ready to listen.

“I didn’t tell you guys at the time, but I asked Ms. Oka about the other reincarnations a few times before. She told me that there are eleven of them being protected in the elf village. She’s succeeded in contacting eight more, including us. The other six people’s whereabouts are apparently unknown.”

I vaguely remember her saying something about this when we first met.

“We know the eight she’s contacted must include us three, plus Hugo and Yuri. I’m not sure about the other three. You with me so far?”

“Sure.”

“The real problem is the last six who are missing. Ms. Oka said that four of them are dead.”

At Katia’s words, my breath catches in my throat for a moment.

It’s not like that hadn’t ever occurred to me, of course.

But hearing it become reality is still a shock.

I often wondered whether all the reincarnations had survived in a world full of threats like demons and monsters.

From what little I’ve been told, I gathered that Ms. Oka went through all kinds of difficulties to gather us reincarnations and keep us safe.

That can only mean that some of us were in enough danger to justify all that.

Which means she couldn’t get to some reincarnations in time to help them?

Now we know the answer, straight from Katia’s mouth.

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“The ones who died are Kouta Hayashi, Naofumi Kogure, Issei Sakurazaki, and Hiiro Wakaba.”

At that last name, Fei sits up with a jolt.

Fei and Wakaba had an intense relationship.

Essentially, Fei did things to Wakaba that bordered on bullying.

In her previous life as Mirei Shinohara, Fei was an eye-catchingly beautiful girl, just as she is in her current human form.

However, the only person whose looks drew more attention than hers was Wakaba.

If that were the whole story, Fei probably wouldn’t have bullied her.

But an upperclassman whom Fei had a crush on at the time apparently liked Wakaba, so she ended up bullying the girl out of a one-sided feeling of envy.

Most of what she did was fairly tame for bullying, like spreading rumors or hiding her things.

And since Wakaba rarely showed much reaction, it never turned into anything more serious.

Still, bullying is bullying.

Fei once told me that she’d come to regret her actions once she was reborn.

I can’t imagine how she feels knowing that the other person involved is dead.

“Oh, sorry. I kinda…can’t quite put it into words…”

Even Fei herself seems unable to express her complicated emotions.

As I keep an eye on her, I look over at Katia as well.

Fei isn’t the only one who had a connection with Wakaba.

Katia once confessed to Wakaba, only to be met with an honorable defeat.

I think Katia half expected this to happen, and after the fact, she just smiled and said, “I got shut down,” so I don’t think it upset her too deeply.

But still, how must Katia feel knowing that someone she used to like is gone now?

“Katia, didn’t you…?”

“Me? I mean, yeah, it’s a shock. But I dunno, it doesn’t really feel real, I guess.”

That makes sense.

We weren’t there to witness the moment of her death or anything.

It was simply relayed as secondhand information from Ms. Oka.

It’s probably natural that it doesn’t feel real.

Besides, we’ve already been in this world almost as long as we were in our previous lives.

To be honest, my memories of my classmates’ faces are starting to get cloudy.

I still remember the friends I was close with pretty well, but other than that, I’m starting to forget people who never left a strong impact on me.

Of the four dead, I wouldn’t say I was close with Wakaba or Sakurazaki, but they left enough of an impression that I still remember them.

However, I can barely even remember Hayashi’s face.

“Kogure, huh? I can only picture him crying.”

Out of those four people, I was closest with Kogure.

He was a crybaby even as a high school student, someone who would freak out over just about anything.

“Oh yeah. Just being called on in class was enough to make him burst into tears, right? That takes me back.”

Like me, Fei probably doesn’t remember much about the classmates she rarely interacted with.

I could never forget Kogure, but Fei probably hadn’t given him much thought until his name came up just now.

I can’t help feeling a little sad about that.

“When do you think he cried the hardest? When he got put in charge of taking care of the animals, maybe?”

“Right, right. He was all, ‘I can’t do iiiit!’ Or maybe that time when the teacher took away his handheld game?”

We took a moment to reminisce about Kogure’s biggest crying episodes.

“Ah…if Icchi were alive, that stupid Natsume probably wouldn’t have gone this far.”

Fei sighs.

“Icchi” is probably Issei Sakurazaki.

He was a childhood friend of Natsume, Hugo’s former self, and tended to keep him in check.

Even in our previous lives, Natsume had a pretty violent personality, but he was never as bad as he is now.

He never caused any major incidents, because Sakurazaki was there to stop him.

If he were by Hugo’s side in this world, too, our future might have been very different.

“D’you think Natsume knows that Icchi’s dead?”

“No idea. I guess it’s possible he found out from Ms. Oka somehow.”

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“Maybe he did, and that’s why he went crazy. Honestly, I’m pretty sure Natsume thought Icchi was his only real friend.”

Fei was quite close to Natsume and Sakurazaki.

She must have some thoughts about the way Natsume is rampaging now.

“I wonder why. How did it come to this? I thought we all got along well enough back in Japan.”

“Being reborn in a different world would change anybody. And Hugo happened to change for the worse. That’s all there is to it.”

“But you haven’t changed, Katia.”

“Do you really believe that?”

Katia’s sudden intense gaze startles me a little.

“Look, how exactly do you see me anyway?”

“How do I see you?”

“I mean, am I Katia in your eyes? Or am I Kanata?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

Katia and Kanata are one and the same.

I don’t know what she’s trying to ask me.

This time Katia sighs. “Oh, forget it. I just don’t know if you really think I haven’t changed or if that’s just what you want to believe.”

“Erm…I’m sorry?”

Katia seems to be in a bad mood now, so I try to make it better.

However, she only looks more annoyed that I apologized without knowing what I did wrong.

Unable to meet her glare any longer, I look away.

Instead, my eyes fall on Fei, who’s clearly stifling a laugh.

“What are you laughing at?”

Katia turns her glower on Fei.

“Oh, nothing! I’m just a spectator in this whole affair.”

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Fei smirks, and Katia’s scowl deepens.

This is getting uncomfortable.

“But…that’s not all you came here to say, right?”

I change the subject, trying to clear the air.

If Katia wanted only to tell us about the four students who died, she wouldn’t have waited until Ms. Oka wasn’t around.

I’m sure there’s something she doesn’t want our teacher to hear.

“Right. How much of Ms. Oka’s story do you guys believe?”

Though she still looks a little frustrated, Katia cuts to the main question.

Is she asking whether we think the administrators are real?

“How much? I don’t think she’s lying to us. She said herself that all the stuff about the administrators is objectively just something that the elves have always believed.”

Ms. Oka asserted that the godlike beings called administrators really do exist.

However, she didn’t seem entirely convinced that they’re using this world to gain power, like the elves believe.

“It definitely sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.”

Fei seems to feel the same way I do.

“You’re saying you believe Ms. Oka but not the elves’ story about the administrators. Right?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

For one thing, if these so-called administrators can steal strength from the dead, I don’t see how the elves can possibly fight back against them.

Elves aren’t that much stronger than humans. If such a godlike power really exists, there’s probably nothing they can do about it.

Sure, elves live longer than humans and are very proficient in magic.

But frankly, that’s the only difference.

They’re not exponentially stronger than humans or anything.

How could they possibly compete with beings so far beyond human comprehension?

“But we do know that there are beings who call themselves ‘administrators.’ Even if they aren’t as all-powerful as the elves say, they’re strong enough to give people a reason to fear them.”

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That’s my conclusion, at least.

Ms. Oka says that they’re real, and then there’s Sophia, who’s apparently one of their underlings.

Sophia’s power is beyond my reckoning.

If there’s something even stronger than she is, that would certainly be something to fear.

“Do you feel the same way as Shun, Fei?”

“Yeah, more or less.”

“I see.”

Katia closes her eyes and thinks for a moment.

As if she’s trying to decide whether to keep going on this subject.

Finally, she seems to make a decision.

“Shun, Fei, do you both trust Ms. Oka?”

“You don’t, Katia?”

Silence.

However, Katia’s complicated expression says more about her inner feelings than any words could.

“Can I ask why?”

I don’t think Katia would distrust Ms. Oka without a good reason.

The look on her face says that this thought has been weighing on her heavily.

I don’t think Katia really wants to be suspicious of our teacher.

There must be some grounds that would motivate her to bring up this topic now.

“Ms. Oka is hiding something. She’s not lying, but she’s not telling us the whole truth, either. That’s the impression I get.”

I was expecting Katia to have a more concrete explanation, but her words are surprisingly vague.

From the tone of her voice, she seems to know that, too.

“What d’you think she’s hiding, then?” Fei presses.

“If I knew that, it wouldn’t be a problem. But I definitely think there’s something that she can’t tell us. I mean, she said she was going to tell us everything, but there’s still so much she hasn’t explained.”

This did occur to me, too.

For instance, she hasn’t said who the reincarnations being protected in the elf village are or what their situations are like.

Or what the other reincarnations she couldn’t shelter in the elf village are doing now.

Ms. Oka has still hardly told us anything about our fellow reincarnations.

“If she’s hiding something from us, of course I want to believe she has a good reason. But facts are facts. We all know that being a fellow reincarnation doesn’t mean someone can be trusted, right?”

I know what Katia’s trying to say.

Hugo and Sophia, for instance, are reincarnations, but they’re working with the enemy.

And it’s possible that Katia is also referring to herself.

Hugo brainwashed Katia in the past.

And turned her against us.

She’s hinting that even people you think you can trust can turn against you.

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t believe her. Just…don’t trust her too much. I think we should be prepared that she might betray us.”

Katia’s words hit me like stones.

Who knew it would hurt this much to have to suspect even the people you thought you could trust?

Even knowing that Hugo was behind it, being attacked by close allies like Sue and Katia was still painful.

Sue and Yuri are still in Hugo’s hands, too.

Just thinking about that is depressing enough. If Ms. Oka betrayed us on top of that…

The only response I can muster to Karnatia’s warning is a heavy sigh and a silent nod.