Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? Volume Chapter 18

The final boss robot moves its multitude of arms, pointing its guns at the intruder.

The intruder in question, Potimas’s hacking cord, continues moving forward anyway, slithering silently along the floor like a snake.

Maybe that made the robot feel threatened, or more likely it was just set to attack anything that entered the room without permission, but either way it began attacking mercilessly.

All the guns unleashed balls of light at the same time.

Each of them was around the size of a cannonball, like the tank’s ammunition, so when all of them fired at once, it was like a blinding flash of light.

And it was clearly powerful enough to hurt a lot more than just my eyes.

A single shot was able to pierce the puppet spiders’ five-digit defenses, so a countless number of them?

If they hit that thin cord, they won’t just break it, they’ll evaporate it into nothing.

The rain of bullets, which is more like a wall of light at this point, zooms toward the cord, until the Demon Lord eats it all up in one bite.

She moved from outside the room to in front of the onslaught in an instant, then used Gluttony to consume the entire attack in order to defend the cord.

…What a cheater.

You really staved that off without a scratch, huh?

Would I have been able to do the same, I wonder?

Defend myself from the light without a scratch… Yeah, I could probably manage that.

But do it while keeping the cord safe, too?

Yeah, I don’t think so.

She definitely chose our roles correctly. I wouldn’t be able to keep that cord intact for very long.

The Demon Lord continues easily gobbling up the bullets that fly toward her and the cord.

It’s a fairly intense barrage, too, probably because the robot is powered by that bomb’s energy.

And yet, the Demon Lord’s not even breaking a sweat.

Wow, she’s amaaaazing.

I can just sit here in safety and watch her.

…Oh, maybe I spoke too soon.

Several of the arms turn their muzzles this way.

There are a whole lot of them.

That means they can shoot at me while still attacking the Demon Lord and the cord at the same time.

And since Potimas is operating the cord, he can’t move.

Light bullets shoot straight toward the immobile Potimas.

This is my chance!

It’s my time to be in the spotlight and the chance for an underutilized skill called Shieldsmanship to make its debut, too!

I spring out in front of Potimas, holding up my shield.

The bullets hit the shield, but since it’s been strengthened with Energy Conferment and Magic Power Conferment, they don’t do a thing!

Huh? Where did I get a shield like that, you ask?

So I just happened to find some convenient materials and repurposed them into a shield, so what?

Specifically, the crazy-sturdy-looking door that was blocking our path into this room before.

Heh, even a door that thick is no match for my special scythe.

But it’s sturdy enough to make an excellent shield.

As you can see by the bullets bouncing right off it!

Not a chance! It’ll never work!

So yeah, I can protect Potimas without a problem over here.

If anything, I’m more worried about the Demon Lord.

She’s having no problem protecting the cord right now, but it needs to make contact with the robot in order to hack it.

And she has to make sure it doesn’t get cut while it’s connected.

I’m sure the boss will put up a fight against the hacking, which could mean big trouble for the cord when it’s physically attached.

What is the Demon Lord going to do about that?

As I watch and worry, the end of the cord finally reaches the boss robot.

It glows for just a second, then plunges right into the robot’s body with brute force.

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I guess that answers my question about how it was going to connect.

The cord makes its way farther into the final boss robot.

The robot tries to fight against it, of course, but its movements are slow.

Because its body is bound by tons of thread.

The Demon Lord’s thread has rendered the robot all but motionless.

Pretty sharp handiwork, if you ask me.

Now the boss robot can barely move at all.

It’s easy to get caught up by the Demon Lord’s Gluttony skill, but she’s got plenty of other overpowered abilities, too.

Our thread-related skills are the same level, but I don’t think I can use them nearly as well as she can.

Tangled up in the thread, the boss robot nevertheless tries to fight back with a barrage of bullets.

But since the arms holding the guns are also tied up in thread, the light bullets go flying in random directions, nowhere near the cord or Potimas.

Yeah, I don’t think it’s getting out of that mess.

Even I probably couldn’t escape unless I used Teleport.

Now we just have to wait for Potimas to finish his hacking.

Hey, this was easier than I thought.

I was expecting a tougher battle, but I guess I worried for nothing!

Like, after all that ominous stuff Potimas said, I gotta admit I was scared about this final boss robot.

But at this rate, it’ll be over before you know it. Kinda makes you wonder why we spent all that time strategizing.

Honestly, it’s a little anticlimactic.

But that’s just because it’s the Demon Lord who ended up taking on the boss robot.

I couldn’t do the same thing all by myself, that’s for sure!

The Demon Lord herself is like a big overpowered cheat, so maybe the boss robot is actually insanely strong, and she’s making it look easy.

The Demon Lord is just a crazy exception. I’m sure the boss robot actually has strength befitting a final boss, probably, maybe.

Yeah. That’s gotta be it!

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For some reason, I’m making excuses for the final boss robot now.

I guess I just relaxed a little because this whole incident wrapped up more easily than I expected.

But I was forgetting something important.

That there’s someone here who’s way more dangerous than any final boss robot.

“White!”

I hear a sudden cry.

But by the time the voice reaches my ears, it’s already begun.

First, I’m getting an intense feeling of discomfort.

Like the world has changed around me or my very senses have been rewritten.

I’ve felt this dreaded sensation once before.

It’s what I felt when I was caught inside Potimas’s barrier.

And behind me is Potimas, the man himself.

The giant door in my hand, which I was using in place of a shield, suddenly feels terribly heavy.

That means my skills and stats have stopped working.

But one of the few that continues working, High-Speed Processing, makes the world around me move as if in slow motion.

Since my stats have gone down, my body won’t move the way I want it to.

I feel sluggish, like I’m trying to move underwater or maybe in a dream.

Even in the slowed-down world, the Demon Lord still moves quickly as she runs toward me.

Behind me, I can tell Potimas is moving.

But my body is frozen in place, unable to react.

Then the Demon Lord crashes into me, and a beam of light pierces her body.

As my eyes take in this unbelievable sight, various thoughts float through my mind.

Like Oh right, Gluttony is a skill, so she can’t use it inside the barrier.

And Shit, I knew Potimas was going to betray us; I shouldn’t have let my guard down.

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And Now you’ve done it, you bastard! I’ll kill you!

But of all the thoughts that circle my brain in that moment, one is far louder than the rest.

She protected me.

She protected me.

She knew I pretty much can’t die, but she protected me.

SHE PROTECTED ME!

“Oh-ho. What a delightful surprise.”

Holding in one hand the gun that just shot the Demon Lord, Potimas stares coldly.

His voice is as cool and emotionless as ever, but I can still detect a little bit of triumph.

Potimas points his gun at the Demon Lord as she falls.

At the same time, the boss robot frees itself from the thread and points its guns at the Demon Lord, too.

Potimas’s goal is deadly clear: He wants to use this opportunity to bury the Demon Lord once and for all.

From the start, he must have been waiting for the moment the hacking succeeded to activate the barrier and shoot me from behind.

But since the Demon Lord unexpectedly protected me and got shot instead, she’s become his primary target.

If she gets wounded any further inside this barrier, even the Demon Lord will die.

She doesn’t have any moves like mine to narrowly escape death.

Potimas was right to prioritize finishing the Demon Lord before me.

Anyone could tell that she’s more dangerous than I am.

This is a one-in-a-million chance to kill the dangerous Demon Lord.

In order to make sure that chance doesn’t slip by, Potimas is pointing both his own gun and the guns of the robot he’s hacked into right at the Demon Lord.

Totally ignoring the fact that I’m even here.

I can’t say that I don’t feel anything about that fact.

But the emotion I’m feeling most strongly is indignation toward the Demon Lord.

Why did she protect me?!

Aren’t we still low-key enemies?!

As far as I know, the Demon Lord doesn’t know the secret to my immortality.

So she would have no way of knowing that I might actually be able to die inside this barrier.

What’s the point in protecting someone you think is immortal?

More importantly, why would she protect me when we’re allies only because we had no other choice?

And yet, she took a bullet for me.

Just like when she rescued Sael from that tank without hesitation.

She protected me without a second thought.

And because of that choice, she’s now in serious trouble.

At this rate, the Demon Lord will die.

No way. I can’t allow that!

Potimas’s gun and those of the final boss robot fire at the same time.

Without a moment’s hesitation, I move to stand above the fallen Demon Lord, warding off both attacks.

I slice through Potimas’s bullet with my scythe and block the barrage from the boss robot with my giant door shield.

Without the strengthening of my skills, the shield starts to buckle with each hit.

C’mooooon!

Let’s see some action, Shieldsmanship!

If you don’t come in handy now, when are you ever going to be useful?!

I keep holding off the boss robot’s merciless barrage with the shield in my left hand, while attacking Potimas on the opposite side with the scythe in my right.

Since most of my skills aren’t working, this is pretty tough.

But I’m no ordinary human, you know!

I’m a half-human, half-spider arachne!

I use my spider legs to grab a certain something.

Since my spider legs end in claws, they’re not exactly dexterous, but if I use more than two, I can still grab things if need be.

And then I give the thing I grabbed a sharp tug—the cord connecting Potimas to the boss robot.

“Wha—?!”

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Potimas gives an exclamation of surprise at my unexpected move.

Yanked along by the cord, Potimas’s body flies through the air above me.

Right into the onslaught of bullets being fired by the boss robot.

On the other side of my shield, I hear the sound of something being smashed.

In the same instant, the discomfort enveloping my body disappears.

Potimas’s barrier has been deactivated!

Time to supply my half-busted shield with energy and magic again!

Still holding the shield in front of me, I push forward.

Soon, I’m charging in a perfect shield bash!

I slam right into the boss robot along with my shield, knocking it over!

The attack sends the giant robot flying right into the wall.

Unfortunately, the attack also crushes my already half-broken shield.

Thank you, door shield. You served me well.

Tossing the broken shield aside, I chase after the boss robot.

As it hits the wall with a dull bang, I swing my scythe down for another attack.

My scythe neatly slices the robot diagonally in two, and its gigantic body disintegrates into dust without a sound.

But for some reason, a round object remains intact in the dust.

It’s a small sphere that could fit in the palm of my hand… Could this be the bomb?

Oh crap.

I got so worked up that I forgot all about the damn bomb.

It’s not gonna explode, is it?

I cautiously lift up the sphere, but it doesn’t seem to be doing anything strange.

Phew. I think we’re okay.

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Putting a hand to my chest with a sigh of relief, I quickly turn around.

There, I see the Demon Lord standing up while clutching her side and the head that’s all that remains of Potimas’s cyborg body.

“Hmph. You got me this time.”

“That’s our line, you bastard.”

The Demon Lord plants her foot on Potimas’s sour-looking head.

Considering that he’s been reduced to a talking head, that was a pretty bland remark.

He shouldn’t even be able to talk without lungs, but I guess cyborgs must have vocal organs that work differently than humans’.

I wonder if I could use a mechanism like that for the puppet spiders… Oops, my mind is wandering a little.

“I thought for sure that plan would work. You ruin everything, don’t you?”

“Too bad for yoooou! Nothing you do can top the power of our friendship!”

The Demon Lord cackles, grinding her foot into Potimas’s head.

Power of friendship, huh…?

That little turn of phrase makes it all too clear why the Demon Lord protected me.

She did it out of pure reflex, without any calculations or ulterior motives.

Like she was protecting a family member.

On the other hand, I protected the wounded Demon Lord because I felt like I should return the favor.

Technically, I could’ve just let her die.

Since I see her as a potential threat, that might have even been the more sensible option.

But at the time, that didn’t even cross my mind for a second.

She protected me, so I had to protect her in return.

That’s all I was thinking at the time.

But I think that’s for the best.

There’s no way I could’ve just let the Demon Lord get killed right in front of me.

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If I let her die without paying her back for protecting me, that would’ve been totally shameless.

So this was for the best.

“Thanks for saving me, White. I would’ve been a goner without you!”

Oh, come on!

You can’t give me such an honest, carefree smile when I’m trying to make up some phony reason for saving your butt back there!

You’re making me look like an idiot for coming up excuses over here!

Ugh, fine! You win!

“Thank you, too.”

When I give a prompt response for once, the Demon Lord stares at me wide-eyed.

D-don’t look at me like that!

It’s embarrassing!

Don’t get the wrong idea, okay?!

I protected you only to return the favor—that’s it!

There weren’t any other gross feelings involved.

Not a single one! I swear!

Ughhh!

“Could we move on already?” Potimas asks coolly.

“Move on? To what?”

“Our next course of action. You two are to take me to the G-Fleet’s control room. There we will seize control of the ship and make an emergency landing.”

…Does this guy switch gears fast or what?

He just tried to kill us, and he’s already giving us orders?

Talk about shameless.

“You win this round. Obviously, I cannot do anything in this form. So now all that is left is to finish resolving this situation, as was the original plan.”

Sensing our disbelief, Potimas explains himself without being asked.

He can actually be pretty good at guessing what people are thinking, but I wish he could find a better use for that ability.

Ugh. Well, I suppose it’s true that Potimas’s top priority from the beginning has been dealing with the UFO and the bomb, and trying to kill us was just a bonus.

Like a side quest he was hoping to maybe complete but didn’t really care if he didn’t.

Although, knowing that my death was just a secondary goal is pretty infuriating.

Anyway, I guess he’s saying that since that’s not possible now, he’s just going to do his best to deal with the UFO situation.

Well, I guess it’s not like he can do much else, since he’s just a head now.

And if we’re going to try to take control of the UFO, I guess having his advice would be useful for that, as annoying as that is to admit.

“I guess that’s fine. But is that thing White’s holding the bomb?”

The Demon Lord points at the sphere in my hand.

“Indeed.”

I knew it. So it really is the bomb.

“Are we sure it’s not gonna explode now?”

“Fear not. I have already locked it.”

Apparently, he was doing his job even as he pointed his gun at the Demon Lord and me.

I guess he hacked the boss robot and even accessed the bomb to prevent it from exploding.

“It would be best to hand that over to Güliedistodiez. He will be able to dispose of it safely.”

Yeah, I guess leaving it to Güli-güli is the safest thing to do.

“You’re being surprisingly cooperative.”

“I told you, did I not? You have won this round. I am simply acknowledging my defeat and yielding to the victors, as is proper in such a situation. If I could have secured the GMA bomb and obtained the energy within, that would have been ideal, but clearly that is beyond my power in this state. I would have liked to seize the G-Fleet itself, too, but I have given up on that now.”

Oh yeah.

This guy sucks, all right.

I’m glad he’s being so gracious and all, but he was seriously planning to steal the UFO itself as well as the bomb?

Talk about greedy.

Ah, no wonder he conveniently had a hacking function!

He probably could’ve pulled it off, too.

If we made one wrong move, the Demon Lord and I would both be dead, and the bomb and UFO would’ve fallen right into this guy’s hands.

Just thinking about that is scary.

“At any rate, first we—?!” Potimas suddenly stops mid-sentence. “Interference from outside? No!”

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For the first time ever, I can hear actual panic in his voice.

But I have no time to be surprised about that.

The bomb in my hand has started glowing.

“Is it going to explode?!” the Demon Lord practically shrieks.

“The G-Fleet is attempting to remotely unlock it. Wait—it’s actually providing it with more energy. Damn it all! It’s going to self-destruct!”

“So what do we do?!”

“It’s no use. We can’t stop it in time.”

My eyes zip back and forth between Potimas and the Demon Lord as I try to wrap my head around the situation.

Okay, uh, the UFO is trying to remotely detonate the bomb, and it’s even pouring its own energy into the damn thing?

The UFO and the bomb aren’t physically connected, but maybe they’re using runes or something?

Wait, that doesn’t matter right now!

Is it gonna explode?!

Seriously?!

Potimas’s hopeless tone sounded way too real.

Dammit.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!

Sometimes, when people panic, they do things so strange that even they don’t know why they did them.

I witnessed that myself on this day.

No, I did it myself.

I don’t know what I was thinking, but as the bomb emitted that suspicious light, I went ahead and swallowed it.

“Wha—?! White, did you just EAT that?!”

The Demon Lord is panicking.

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And so am I.

What the hell did I just do?!

What good is eating it gonna do anyway?!

I acted in a total panic, and now I’m panicking even more about what I just did!

Aaargh! Fine, I’ll just digest the damn bomb before it can explode!

Still in a panic, I come to a ridiculously panicked conclusion.

The Demon Lord’s Gluttony skill comes to mind.

The skill that can swallow up and absorb anything.

With that in mind, I try to imagine myself absorbing the bomb I stupidly ate.

Right after I hear this message, intense pain assaults my body.

For a second, I think the bomb is exploding inside my stomach.

But that’s not it.

It didn’t explode.

So why is my whole body in pain?

It’s so excruciating that I can’t even tell what hurts anymore.

Pain unlike anything in this world runs through me, as if I don’t have the Suffering Nullification skill at all.

This pain is familiar to me.

It’s like how my head felt back when I couldn’t control Detection but forced it to activate anyway.

But even if the nature of the pain is similar, the degree is exponentially worse.

It’s like my whole body is going to break into pieces if I don’t keep it together.

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And my instincts are screaming that that’s exactly what’s happening.

If I can’t handle this pain, I’m going to die.

That much is horribly clear.

Trying to bear it, I tighten my grip on the scythe in my hands.

The pain starts to flow into the scythe, relieving me ever so slightly.

Using that same principle, I try to keep scattering the source of the pain.

I can sense that the pain I’m pushing away is going into some other distant something, but I’m not conscious enough to figure out what that is.

The pain continues to assault my body.

“Better take emergency measures.”

I feel like I hear a voice, but I don’t have the energy to focus on it.

I don’t want to die yet.

I want to keep living.

So I’m not going to lose to this stupid pain!

I try to strengthen my resolve, but the onslaught of pain seems to melt it away.

And my consciousness begins to slip, too…