Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? Volume Chapter 14

It’s been a few days since the elves attacked.

After that spike of excitement, things have been uneventful around here.

Just like the previous two years, at least up until the attack in question.

From the UFO incident two years ago until just recently, Potimas has been alarmingly silent.

Knowing his personality, you’d think he’d come after us the second he spotted a weak point.

Since I became a god, I’ve basically got nothing but weak points, yet there hasn’t even been a peep, never mind an attack.

Frankly, it’s almost a bit of a letdown, but it also makes me even more paranoid.

Like, he’s definitely in the middle of preparing some new evil plot, right?

And yet, when he finally makes a move after two years of silence, it’s just some weak attempt to kidnap the baby bloodsucker via teleportation? That’s kinda small potatoes for Potimas.

Considering how long it’s been since last contact, it seems like a pretty sloppy plan, so I’m kinda confused about why he didn’t try something more impressive.

I mean, sure, using Teleport to kidnap someone is pretty effective.

If you suddenly grabbed someone and disappeared with them to who knows where, we’d have a hard time following up.

There’d be no way of knowing where they teleported, after all, or if it’s even within a distance that we could follow them.

Frankly, teleporting should be against the rules.

There aren’t many mages who can use it in the first place, so I doubt even Potimas has many teleport users on his side, but I can’t rule out the possibility entirely.

Assuming he sent one of his precious teleport users after us, maybe this was meant to be a serious attack? But I don’t know why he would use a little girl for that, so all I can do is scratch my head over here.

Yep, it’s a mystery.

The Demon Lord has been making some troubled expressions lately, so maybe she’s thinking the same thing I am.

Or, I dunno, maybe she’s hiding something from me.

For some reason, it kinda seems like she’s waffling about something or other.

It’s like she wants to say something, but she doesn’t have evidence to back it up, so she’s keeping it to herself.

Of course, knowing her, she keeping quiet for my sake, and she’ll spit it out if the need arises.

Since I’m no use in battle right now, there’s probably nothing I can do to help anyway, so I’ll just trust in the Demon Lord’s plan for now.

And what is her plan, you ask? Operation: Stay Inside!

Yep. We’re just holing up in the inn and going out as little as possible.

This way, we can’t be unexpectedly attacked, and it’s easy to keep our guard up.

What happens if they attack the inn?

Well, I guess that’s the inn’s problem.

Sorry, inn. But if you’re gonna blame anyone, blame the people attacking us.

Besides, if they fought seriously, the Demon Lord or the puppet spiders could level this whole town, never mind the inn.

Fortunately, that hasn’t happened, so everything is peaceful for now.

You got lucky this time, inn.

So what have we been doing while we’re stuck inside, you ask? Well, Professor Demon Lord has been giving us a crash course on skills.

“You there, Jealousy Girl.”

“That’s not very nice, but I suppose you’re not wrong. What is it?”

“Why must you never raise your Jealousy skill level? You have ten seconds to answer, please.”

“Erm… Because the Seven Deadly Sins skills can affect your mind and soul?”

“Is that your final answer?”

“…Yes, it is.”

“Thaaaat’s right!”

Miss Demon Lord, isn’t this comedy routine a little old?

“The Seven Deadly Sins skills influence your thoughts and emotions based on their respective sins, or rather, based on the original holders of each skill. In other words! Since you have the Jealousy skill, Sophia, you’re prone to becoming crazy stalker!”

The Demon Lord points sternly at Vampy.

A crazy stalker, huh…?

Wait. Is it just me, or is it already too late for that?

“Don’t be ridiculous. I wouldn’t be affected by any such thing.”

The baby bloodsucker stares at the Demon Lord with narrowed eyes.

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The Demon Lord and I stare right back.

This is the problem with crazy stalker girls. No self-awareness.

“Wh-why are you looking at me like that?”

“Aaanyway, just make sure you don’t raise your Jealousy skill any more, all right? It’s not good; we’ll leave it at that.”

I guess that’s what the Demon Lord wanted to say.

“Try to avoid the other Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Heavenly Virtues skills, too. The Pride line, the Wrath line, and the Greed line are especially dangerous.”

“What about Gluttony, Lust, and Sloth?”

“You won’t get the Gluttony line as long as you don’t overeat, so you’re probably fine. Besides, even if you do get it, that one doesn’t corrupt your mind too badly. And at your age, you shouldn’t have to worry about Lust, either. Erm, you don’t, right?”

“Why would you phrase that as a question? No, I wouldn’t worry.”

I wonder about that…

“Okay. Let’s just agree not to worry, then. And Sloth barely corrupts your mind at all, so that’s not a problem.”

“Sloth? That sounds like the kind of thing that would cause serious corruption…”

Yeah, really.

It seems like it’d turn you into a lazy good-for-nothing.

“Oh, well, the Sloth line’s special. Like, the original holder of Sloth wanted to slack off but couldn’t and even ended up dying of overwork in the end. See, I know what it sounds like, but it actually just makes your enemy’s SP go down faster. So it really just means that the user works harder while everyone around them loses the ability to work at all.”

Now that she mentions it, I guess it’s true that the effect of Sloth was to make the enemy’s HP, MP, and SP go down more rapidly.

Instead of letting the user rest, it kind of forces the enemy to rest.

“So even if you do get it, it doesn’t have a huge effect on your mind. It is super-bad luck, though.”

Bad luck? But I used to have that skill…

Let’s just not think about that.

“So as for the bad ones, the Pride line of skills makes you gain more experience. That might sound like a good thing, but I can’t say I recommend it.”

Ding-ding-ding!

Hello, I had that skill!

I had Pride!

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“Sure, gaining extra experience might sound like a really good deal in theory, but it’s bad news. For one thing, it seriously messes with your head. You’ll start seeing every living thing as a potential source of experience points. It practically turns you into a berserker.”

Ding-ding-ding!

Are you saying I was that bad?!

The worst part is I can’t say you’re entirely wrong!

“And the skill’s effect comes with a serious pitfall, too. Basically, it forces the holder to keep growing at a rapid pace. And everyone has limits. If you just keep on gaining more and more experience without taking those limits into account, eventually it’ll be your undoing. Like, literally.”

Ding-ding-ding!

Are you saying I was literally doomed?!

Was I, like, just steps away from bursting like a balloon?!

That’s so freaking scary!

“So make sure you don’t pick up the Pride line of skills, all right?”

“Okay.”

The baby bloodsucker nods, probably intimidated by the Demon Lord’s grim face and the terrifying potential of the Pride skills.

It’s fine, though.

I mean, I didn’t explode, and Pride wound up being a huge help to me.

So I don’t regret picking up Pride at all!

Not even a little!

“The Wrath line is almost as scary, but just picking up the skill isn’t too bad. The real problem with Wrath is what happens after you activate it.”

“What do you mean?”

“When you activate a Wrath-line skill, your stats go way up. It doesn’t cost any MP or SP, either. Obviously that makes it sound awesome, but it comes with some serious caveats. Basically, you lose your mind.”

Hoo, boy.

I used to have Anger, the lowest step on the Wrath line of skills.

But I tried it only once, then never used it again.

“When you activate it, you start seeing red. It makes you want to go on a rampage basically. And the more time passes, the worse the effects get, until you don’t even have the presence of mind to turn the skill off anymore. Pride might wrap you into a bit of a berserker, but this one literally makes you go mad.”

“Is there any way to get back to normal?”

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“Nope. You either have to turn off the skill or die. And once your mind has been afflicted by Wrath, it becomes harder to stay in control. So even if you get any Wrath skills, make sure you never, ever activate it.”

Ding-ding-diiing!

I did it only once, but I definitely did activate it!

I turned it off right away, though, ’cause it seemed like bad news.

I didn’t realize how bad, obviously. Yikes, that was close.

“As for the Greed line, well, you can probably see how that would be bad, right? There’s a certain dignity to being poor, you know.”

Even as the Demon Lord says that, she’s stretching her legs out and drinking some pretty expensive alcohol.

What happened to being honorable?

Eventually, after we lived as shut-ins for a while, the path out of town was finally reopened.

Word is they chased away that ogre.

I’m a little concerned that it’s “chased away” and not “killed,” though.

Especially since, as it happens, the army chased the ogre into the Mystic Mountains.

“Well, if that’s not foreshadowing…”

The Demon Lord frowns seriously.

“But the Mystic Mountains is a whole region made up of an enormous mountain range. It’s awfully unlikely that we’d run into it, no?”

Vampy rolls her eyes, but the Demon Lord clicks her tongue.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. So naive. Sophia, you innocent little angel. You’re underestimating our ability to attract trouble like a magnet.”

The Demon Lord looks smug, causing the bloodsucker to roll her eyes even harder.

Sure, if you think about it logically, the odds of us running into one ogre in a big ol’ mountain range are pretty low.

But when you think about all the trouble we’ve gotten caught up in on our journey so far, then yeah, I’m pretty sure we’re gonna run into it!

“Either way, it doesn’t change our plans. We’ll just hope we don’t run into it, but I don’t really care if we do.”

The Demon Lord shrugs off the subject and starts getting ready to depart.

Some random ogre isn’t any threat to the Demon Lord, so what does she care?

It’s probably best for us to head into the mountains before we get mixed up in any more funny business in this town.

From what I’m told, there’s at least one adventurer in this town who thinks we’re a bunch of demons, and they’ve even told the imperial army about their suspicions.

If we hang around here too long, we might get into a scuffle with the army, so we’re heading for the hills before that happens.

“Come back anytime!”

The innkeeper lady smiles brightly as she sees us off on our way out of town.

Since the inn could’ve gotten destroyed because of us if things went south, I guess the Demon Lord paid her a little extra for her trouble.

But from the innkeeper’s perspective, we were just good customers who left a generous tip, so it makes sense for her to treat us so nicely.

Whew. I’m really glad the inn didn’t get destroyed.

Not long after, we make our way to an abandoned village at the foot of the Mystic Mountains without any trouble.

We had no problems getting out of town and none on the way here.

I was afraid we’d have trouble with the army during the former or with the elves during the latter, but it was actually a perfectly peaceful journey.

Maybe too peaceful, in fact?

Honestly, at this point I’m almost a little disappointed that nobody’s coming after us.

But as soon as we arrive in the village, that feeling vanishes.

The state of the abandoned village is…disturbing.

Based on the information we gathered before coming, this place was attacked by someone—most likely that ogre—and got destroyed.

No one has tried to rebuild it since then, so the ruins have just been sitting here abandoned.

Part of the reason is that as soon as the village was built, it was basically treated as a base camp for anyone trying to pass through the Mystic Mountains.

Since this place was destroyed, it was just taken as even more proof that the Mystic Mountains are too difficult to pass, so nobody wanted to fix it up.

We knew all that going in, but even if we hadn’t, it’s not too surprising that there’s no one here.

Most of the houses are run-down, and there are dark-red stains all over the place.

If you think about the reason this village is now abandoned, the identity of those stains becomes all too apparent.

This must have been a horrifically violent tragedy.

Given these conditions, no normal person would want to try to live here again, even if some of the houses were intact.

“Hrm. Guess we’ll stay in one of these houses for the night.”

But I guess you can’t exactly say that any of us is normal in this group.

Leave it to the Demon Lord to want to stay the night in a village that’s almost certainly haunted.

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But yeah, I guess I’m down to stay here, too.

If it’ll keep me out of the wind and rain, I’ll stay in a haunted house or village or whatever else.

I hate sleeping outside in the cold!

“Wait a minute.”

Just then, Vampy starts sniffing the air and making a face and calls out for us to stop.

She’s sniffing all over the place like crazy. Are you a dog or what?

“I smell old blood and fresh blood. Why do you think that is?”

Hrm?

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that a vampire can tell the difference.

Wait, but what does she mean, fresh blood?

The old blood obviously has to be from the villagers who were killed here.

So who does the fresh blood belong to?

Does that mean someone else has died here since the village was abandoned?

“Oh, you noticed? I think it’s the smell of elf blood.”

The Demon Lord sniffs casually as she responds.

Wow, so we’ve got an even bigger blood expert than the vampire here.

So it’s elf blood, huh? Got it.

…Wait, what?

“I bet they were lying in wait here for us. But it seems like someone else attacked and wiped them out. I guess it must’ve been the ogre that was fleeing in this direction, no?”

Oh wow. That’s…uh… Yikes.

Talk about bad luck.

I guess if you’re going to pass through the Mystic Mountains, it’ll almost certainly be by way of this village.

And since there’s no one else around, it’d be easy to attack us and get away with it.

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It’s the perfect spot for an ambush.

But before we got here, the ogre that was being chased down by the imperial army showed up and attacked them instead.

Sucks to be them.

I’d almost feel bad, if they weren’t out to kill us.

“You’re saying they lost to the ogre?”

Vampy sounds surprised.

Hey, that’s a good point, actually.

Those elf bastards got done in by an ogre?

I dunno what kind of forces they brought with them, but if they were planning to take on the Demon Lord, they must have prepared accordingly.

And they still couldn’t beat that ogre?

Uh, maybe this thing is scarier than I thought.

“Yeah.” The Demon Lord nods. “Based on the evidence, that’s the only explanation I can think of.”

Gotcha. So the elves were definitely beaten by that ogre.

If it was an orc, you’d have the makings of some steamy fanfic here.

No, I guess it’d work with an ogre, too.

One pile of elf smut, coming right up.

There might even be some BL potential, since Potimas literally got ripped a new butthole two years ago.

By me, that is.

Why am I letting my mind wander in such a stupid direction? No matter how scary strong that ogre might be, I’m sure there’s no way it’d be a match for the Demon Lord.

She’s easily the strongest being in the world.

The only way to stand a chance of beating the Demon Lord would be to have power outside of the system.

You know, like Güli-güli or Potimas.

But Güli-güli’s a special case, and even Potimas couldn’t necessarily beat her.

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No matter how strong the ogre is, as long as its strength is defined by the system, it doesn’t stand a chance against the Demon Lord.

Otherwise, it’d be a serious problem for me, the Demon Lord’s favorite freeloader!

“Hrmmm.”

The Demon Lord strokes her chin, as if she knows I’ve been silently praising her.

There’s a hint of more complicated emotions in her expression, though.

She’s clearly deep in thought about something.

I don’t want to interrupt her brainstorming session, so I look around at the abandoned village again.

The traces of blood on the walls are fresh, hinting at a brutal massacre.

But now that I think about it, that’s all there is.

If the Demon Lord or the puppet spiders went all-out in battle, the damage would be way worse than this.

Every last house would be demolished without a trace, and there might not even be any blood left at all.

Because when these guys fight, they literally obliterate their enemies.

There wouldn’t even be bodies left to bury.

I should know, since the Demon Lord actually did blow me to bits once.

Man, I seriously thought I was a goner that time. I would have been, too, if I didn’t have the Immortality skill.

Once you’ve seen that kind of insanely destructive power, a situation like this where there’s proof left behind seems totally banal by comparison.

It’s clearly the aftermath of a battle, but one within the scope of human comprehension, at least.

If Potimas had busted out the kind of weapons he used in the battle against the UFO two years ago, the kind he would probably use to deal with the Demon Lord, it wouldn’t look like this.

Those weapons are on the level of insanity, too.

If they’d been used in the battle, I don’t think this village would still be standing.

In fact, no matter how strong the ogre is, I don’t think it would’ve bested the elves if they had those weapons.

Which means that the elves were lying in wait without any fancy weapons.

Hrm? Is it just me, or does something smell fishy here?

Between this and the previous attack, I just can’t figure out what Potimas is trying to do.

For our first contact in two years, it certainly doesn’t seem like Potimas is seriously trying to kill us.

Potimas should know better than most that you can’t beat the Demon Lord with some half-baked plan.

So if he set up an ambush without any weapons, it’s almost like he wasn’t expecting to win.

Like he was just wasting manpower for no reason.

But why would Potimas do something so pointless?

It’s not like I know him that well or anything, but I’ve got a certain sense of his personality.

Based on what I know about him, these actions don’t make any sense.

It’s almost like I’m missing some key piece of the puzzle.

The Demon Lord’s current attitude just adds more credibility to that theory.

Has she noticed something that I haven’t?

As I look at her, she keeps glancing toward me and Vampy, then quickly averting her eyes.

“Well, this means less enemies for us without us having to do any work. Let’s just say it worked out in our favor, hmm?”

What’s up with that?

It’s an awfully vague, half-hearted stance for the Demon Lord to take.

She’s definitely gotta be hiding something.

“It doesn’t seem like there are any elves or ogres around, so this place is probably safe. Let’s spend the night here and start making our way through the Mystic Mountains tomorrow, shall we? This’ll be our last chance to take a nice, long rest for a while, so make sure you really recharge.”

In the end, the Demon Lord doesn’t tell us whatever it is she’s keeping to herself.

Well, if she doesn’t think we need to know, then she’s probably right.

I’m sure there’s nothing I’d be able to do anyway, so it’s probably best not to ask.

It would be some time until I finally found out what the Demon Lord was hiding.

About the despicable plan that Potimas had for the reincarnations.

Was it for the best that I didn’t find out at the time, or was it a terrible mistake?

I still can’t say for sure.