Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? Volume Chapter 1

The scents of richly steeped tea and sweet confections mingle with the aromas from the flowers that decorate my room.

The smells are all wildly different yet somehow harmonize perfectly.

Even that was intentional, I bet.

The folks who run the duke’s mansion are something else.

Right now, we’re having our customary tea party.

The attendees are Vampy; three of the puppet-spider sisters: Sael, Riel, and Fiel; and me.

Also, Mr. Oni, who’s looking very uncomfortable.

Just us six.

The mansion servants scattered as soon as they were done setting things up, as usual.

Well, I guess I can’t blame them, since we generally give off a Don’t mess with us aura to the staff.

Even if that wasn’t the case, they probably couldn’t bear the awkward atmosphere in here.

Yeah. You could cut the tension with a knife, mostly thanks to Vampy, who’s staring daggers at Mr. Oni.

As she continues to glare at him in silence, Mr. Oni looks increasingly bewildered as to what he should do.

I guess these two are never going to get along at this point.

I mean, they’ve already tried to kill each other twice.

Mr. Oni was in a state of insanity thanks to the ultrapowerful Wrath skill and its terrible side effects.

While he was on a rampage, Vampy and I fought him twice, nearly losing our lives both times.

Huh? You’re saying that in the second fight, I totally owned him with a super-cheap strategy?

Doesn’t ring a bell.

Anyway, Mr. Oni and Vampy have a pretty nasty history.

On top of that, Vampy was beaten to a pulp and nearly died the first time, and I interfered the second time, so there hasn’t been a clear winner.

Although I’m pretty sure our little bloodsucker would’ve lost if I hadn’t intervened.

But that reality probably just makes her hate Mr. Oni even more, since she’s a really sore loser.

Which brings us to the current standoff.

Unreal.

If you’re gonna fight, just do it already.

Just don’t ruin my rest-and-relaxation time!

Why do I have to put up with an atmosphere so depressing that I can barely even taste my tea and pastries?

Now that my stomach capacity has shrunk drastically, I only get so many opportunities to enjoy tasty food!

Ughhh, no waaaay.

Mr. Oni seems to be begging for a lifeline with all the desperate looks he’s giving me, but I ignore them.

Our tea parties are typically held in silence.

And thanks to the merciless teachings of the mansion’s Spartan instructor, we now have impeccable manners, which means our eating and drinking are totally silent, too.

Not a word and not a sound. That’s gotta look weird to anybody but us.

But the puppet spiders and I never really talk, so naturally, Vampy also has nothing to say.

Mr. Oni seems to have picked up on this, so he doesn’t try to make conversation, either.

Is it just peer pressure?

We keep drinking tea and eating pastries in tense silence.

Aren’t tea parties supposed to be a little more lighthearted?

Oh, but then again, apparently noble tea parties often include people scheming, thinly veiled threats, information bartering, and so on. Just thinking about it makes my stomach hurt.

So I guess this equally stomachache-inducing atmosphere might be dead-on for a tea party!

Incidentally, that conclusion’s mostly based on my personal views and assumptions, so don’t go taking my word for it, folks!

Ahhh, that’s the ticket. At times like this, you’ve just gotta avoid reality by getting lost in thought.

Until I figure things out, Mr. Oni will have to suffer a little while longer.

That said, it isn’t as if I’m wrestling with the meaning of life or anything.

I’m just deciding what to do next.

Now, that might be a big deal if I was coming up with some crazy future plan, but it’s nothing that deep.

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You know how in Japan, high school second-years get that form to fill out their career prospects and start worrying about their futures? It’s like that.

Once they become third-years, there are college-entrance exams or job hunts or whatever waiting for them, like it or not.

So when second-years start to think about the future, they’ve still got some time to figure things out.

This is basically the same idea. I don’t need to rush to make a decision, but I’m gonna have to face the music eventually.

Maybe I’m biased, but I doubt there are that many second-year high school kids who have a clear vision of their future.

Most of them are probably just thinking, I guess I’ll go to college or whatever and then get a job or whatever, right?

And more often than not, that’s exactly what happens.

It’s just like my current situation.

If things go on the way they are now, my future likely consists of being snatched up by D and turned into some kind of subordinate.

Getting hired straight out of high school! Way to go, me!

Yeah. D seems to really like me, so if I don’t do something soon, she’ll probably slowly but surely turn me into her pet.

It’s not like D has actually said that explicitly, but as far as I can tell, that’s exactly the kind of thing she’d do.

It’s like when you get a job offer thanks to your parents’ connections.

If I stay on this path, I’ll just keep wandering aimlessly through life, get scouted by D, and end up on her payroll.

Is that a bad thing? No, not really.

D is a god who manipulates the incredibly complex magical conjuring known as the “system” without batting an eye, and now that I’ve met her in person, I know for a fact how unfathomable she is.

As I am now—no, no matter how strong I might get going forward—I can’t even imagine a future in which I could possibly beat her.

I don’t know anything about the world of gods, so having one take me under her wing would actually be a pretty sweet situation for me, wouldn’t it?

I am technically a god, after all (LMAO)!

A brand-new god—freshly deified and still wet behind the ears.

And between the system and me swallowing that continent-destroying bomb or whatever, I took a highly irregular route to godhood, so my combat ability is currently weaker than it was before I became a god.

Not that I know what the regular route to godhood is anyway.

But at the very least, I’m guessing it isn’t leveling up a bunch thanks to a gamelike system, then swallowing a continent-destroying bomb.

Anyway.

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I’m technically a god now, but I don’t feel like one in the slightest.

The sheer amount of energy swirling inside me is definitely godlike, though.

As you may have gathered, the energy I absorbed from that continent-destroying bomb is…well, enough to destroy a continent, duh.

So for people in the know, or at least deities in the know, it’s easy to tell that I’m a god.

What would happen if I wandered off to some other planet, then?

Well, I’d get found by the gods of that planet.

Seems inevitable?

Now, if they were happy to just peacefully coexist, that’d be fine and dandy.

But from their perspective, I’m essentially a trespasser, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they attacked me without so much as a hello.

I mean, even when I left the Great Elroe Labyrinth, the Demon Lord attacked me right away.

That’s when I learned exactly how dangerous it is to leave your home turf.

Then again, the Demon Lord was already targeting me personally, so it wasn’t really about me leaving the labyrinth, not exactly.

But still, as long as I stay on this planet, no random unknown god is going to come down from on high to attack me for no reason.

This place is under D’s jurisdiction.

The powerful magic of the system covers the surface of the entire planet, and as you know, the party responsible is none other than D.

That means D literally rules the world.

Even when she’s not actually here, trying to mess with this planet would be the same as picking a fight with her.

So as long as I’m on this planet, I’m automatically borrowing D’s might.

You could even say that I’m under her protection.

So taking a step out from that safety zone requires a lot of courage for a newbie god like me.

I don’t know anything about godhood, so if I was to leave D’s sphere of influence, it’d be like an acrobat doing a crazy trapeze trick without a safety net during their first day on the job.

I could die. Easily.

So currently, I have no plans for leaving this planet, aka D’s area of authority.

Honestly, it makes becoming D’s stay-at-home housewife or whatever all the more tempting, in terms of my personal safety anyway.

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In fact, I don’t think I have any other options at the moment.

Especially considering how bad it would be if I did anything to get on her bad side.

Considering everything that’s happened so far, I have no idea what D might do to me if I tick her off.

I’m scared that it would be worse than anything I could possibly imagine.

It’s just, I dunno…

That’s also the biggest problem with the idea of working for D.

Like, she definitely has a mean streak.

Take, for instance, the way she toys with a certain person’s heart using the system or all the times she’s maliciously meddled with me.

She doesn’t call herself an evil god for nothing.

And when I actually saw D with my own eyes, she was even scarier than my worst fears somehow.

Would I really be all right living and working under someone so impossible to understand?

…I can’t say that I would.

Huh?

Wait, am I screwed no matter what I do?

…No, of course I’m not. I’m not, okay?

Let’s just go with that. Yeah.

Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that there’s nothing I can do right this instant.

I just have to keep doing whatever I can, here on this planet where I can act freely.

Whether I ultimately let D recruit me in the future, or whether I choose to reject her, I’m in no position to make any decisions right now.

I don’t have enough knowledge or power for that.

Which means my first course of action is to acquire more of both.

So basically, the same thing I’ve been doing all along.

I need to regain the strength I enjoyed back to when I still had the support of the system, or ideally get even better.

On paper, my specs are definitely higher now, so I should be able to do everything I did with the system and more.

Honestly, I’m not too worried about that.

I can tell I’m making progress every day, even if it’s happening super-gradually.

Compared to the overwhelming anxiety I felt when I couldn’t even produce thread, with no idea if I’d ever get my powers back, any progress is way better than none at all.

The more time passes, the stronger I’ll get. That much I know for sure.

But that’s not to say that I’ve got no worries whatsoever.

As long as I stay on this planet, I don’t have to fear any unknown gods attacking me, but there are gods I do know that are kinda worrying and other sketchy characters, too.

The god in question is Güli-güli, and the sketchy character is Potimas.

No matter what I do—or don’t do—these guys will probably keep taking actions that affect the course of the entire world.

Right. Even if I just keep living my life normally, the world won’t stop changing.

Even as a god (LOL), there are still ways I can be killed, and not just by other gods.

That Potimas jerk is well aware of that much.

His machine army plays by its own rules, outside the system.

Even I have the rule-breaking art of teleportation under my belt, but I still can’t let my guard down.

Sure, I can use my teleportation to transport enemies into dangerous areas, warp myself to safety, or do all sorts of other stuff.

That’s why I’m almost 100 percent confident I wouldn’t lose to any enemy who operates within the system at this point.

As long as the Demon Lord doesn’t use her crazy speed to land a hit on me before I can react or something like that.

But the mysterious barrier Potimas uses might even be able to stop me from teleporting.

And the only plays I’ve really got right now are that and my thread.

Without teleportation, I’d have virtually no way of winning.

Also, Potimas is the Demon Lord’s sworn enemy, and I’m clearly part of her faction right now.

It’s not like I owe her my firstborn, but the Demon Lord has done a lot for me.

She’s protected and supported me so much, even when I lost my powers.

So I do think I should work for her at least until I repay that debt.

Which means it’s basically a done deal that I’ll end up fighting Potimas eventually, so I gotta come up with some kind of strategy.

Hmm. I mean, I guess it is pretty simple.

That thing is called a “barrier,” so it probably affects a limited space, right?

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In theory, all I really have to do is make sure I’m on the other side of that limit.

In other words, I just have to avoid getting near him.

Gotta stay outside the barrier’s range, attack from a distance, and take him down.

Easy peasy.

And as long as I put my aforementioned mad teleportation skills to use, I can move around as much as I want.

The only problem is that I don’t have a long-range attack right now!

But I’ve got a few ideas, so all I have to do is follow through on at least one of them.

Then I should be able to deal with Potimas…to a certain extent. I hope.

But, like…

Defeating Potimas isn’t the Demon Lord’s goal.

I mean, I’m sure it’s one of them, but her true goal is way grander than that.

She wants to do something about this world that’s teetering on the brink of destruction.

Basically, she wants to save it, I guess.

But that’ll be tough, even for someone like the Demon Lord.

Strong as she might be, she’s not a god.

Güli-güli is an actual god, and even he’s just standing by and watching, so I doubt a non-god like the Demon Lord can do much about it.

And yeah, I guess I’d like to do something about it myself, if I can.

This place is my current safe zone, so I need it to last or I’ll have nowhere to go.

What, Earth?

I mean, yeah, that’s an option, but that’s also where D is.

D’s the kind of person I want to see only once in a while. Once in a very, very loooong while.

If I started seeing her all the time, it’d be bad in more ways than one.

It’s like a black hole, in a way.

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You know it’d be terrible if you got sucked in, but you can’t help being drawn toward it anyway.

No, I gotta make sure I keep some distance between us.

Hmmmm.

At this rate, the Demon Lord might work herself to death before she can accomplish anything. Someone’s gonna have to deal with that.

Ugh. This is tough.

There’s so much stuff I want to do, but there’s only one of me!

Dammit. If only I could make two or three more bodies.

…Huh? Wait, I can do that, can’t I?

If I just use the basic idea of the Egg-Laying skill to make a sort of clone, then use the concept of Parallel Minds to put part of my brain in there…

If anything, I’d just have to make sure I can control it so I don’t have another runaway Parallel Minds incident like before, right?

…Could be worth a try.

All right.

My short-term goal is to figure out how to make clones.

My medium-term goal is to help the Demon Lord.

And my long-term goal is…to get strong enough to escape D.

Yeah. I really should get away from her, I think.

I’ve always done the most to resist anyone who’s tried to exploit me, whether it was Mother or the Demon Lord or anyone else.

The Demon Lord and I are pretty much allies at this point, so it’s not like she’s in charge of me or anything.

But it’s not gonna be that easy with D.

If I go to where she is, I’ll more than likely end up serving under her.

Does that really measure up to the standards I’ve been living by all this time?

My problem is, the more I interact with D, the more I start to think that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

That’s why I need to put some distance between D and me, so I can think things through rationally.

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What really scares me is that at this rate, I might just accept my fate for the simple reason that I know I can’t run away.

So I have to get strong enough that I can run away and figure things out then.

Will I actually run away or not?

Ugh, no, that’s all wrong!

If I’m that wimpy about it now, then when the time comes, I’m totally just gonna be like, Well, I CAN run away now, but I guess I don’t really NEED to.

I’ve gotta be firm here: I WILL get away.

No matter what happens.

I’ll commit everything I’ve got, body and soul, to making sure I escape at any cost.

Okay. I just gotta keep telling myself that if I fail, I’m probably dead.

Just as I’m able to gather my thoughts, the door violently flies open.

There’s only one moron around here who would bust into my room without knocking like that.

“’Scuse me.”

“You are not excused. Please leave.”

Just as I thought, it was Mr. Deadbeat himself.

And Vampy immediately starts picking a fight with him.

Why do these two get along so poorly?

I think Vampy might hate him even more than she hates Mr. Oni.

Well, I mean. I hate Mr. Deadbeat, too, but still.

“How many times do I hafta tell ya? I got no business with you, brat! Besides, this is my damn house! Or do you not remember that, either, birdbrain?!”

“Can you blame me when I always have to deal with an idiot whose brain is even smaller than a bird’s? I have to at least try to sink to your level, or you won’t even understand what I’m saying. It’s not like you can grasp civilized speech.”

“…”

“…”

This is the part where a little girl and a grown-ass man get into a glaring contest.

BOY, SURE IS PEACEFUL AROUND HERE.

“Um, shouldn’t we stop them?” Mr. Oni leans over and whispers to me.

“Hey! Who the hell is that?!”

Mr. Oni’s movements catch Deadbeat’s eye, and he sets his sights on us instead.

“The hell is going on here?! No one told me this guy was gonna be here! This is my house, dammit. Why is some jackass I don’t even know sitting around like he owns the place?! You better tell me quick, or I swear I’ll throw you out myself!”

“Erm…”

Deadbeat closes in on Mr. Oni, who just looks baffled.

Makes sense. Mr. Oni doesn’t speak demon.

He has no idea what Deadbeat is saying.

“He has permission to be here, I’ll have you know. From Miss Ariel and from your elder brother, too, I’d imagine.”

“Huh?”

Deadbeat scowls when Vampy brings up the Demon Lord’s name.

It’s true, though. The Demon Lord met Mr. Oni right after he regained his sanity, and I’m sure the head butler has already informed the master of the house, Deadbeat’s older brother, Balto.

Since the Demon Lord gave permission for him to be here, Balto can’t exactly go against her wishes.

And that being the case, Balto’s deadbeat younger brother certainly doesn’t have the power to kick him out, either.

“Tch! Why doesn’t anyone tell me stuff like this? Dammit!”

Deadbeat smacks the table angrily.

Not hard enough to break it, fortunately, but it does spill some liquid from one of the teacups.

Excuse me. That was my tea.

Does this guy exist only to make my life miserable or what?

“Listen up, you. If you got permission, I ain’t gonna try to kick you out. But I think I at least got the right to know what you’re doing here. So out with it. Who are you, and why are you in my damn house?”

Deadbeat peppers him with questions, but of course Mr. Oni can’t understand a single thing he’s saying.

He looks to Vampy and me helplessly for assistance.

Deadbeat doesn’t seem to like that. He grabs Mr. Oni by the horns, literally.

“What’s with these stupid accessories anyway? You think it makes you look cool? Well, guess what? You just look stupid!”

Uh, those aren’t accessories, buddy.

…Also, are you really one to talk?

“Hmm? He doesn’t look nearly as ridiculous as you, though.”

There goes Vampy, saying things she should be keeping to herself, as usual.

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It must have just been a knee-jerk response. Once she realizes what she said, she claps a hand to her mouth.

The puppet spiders all freeze, and the maids watching from the hallway all gasp.

Look, there are some things in this world that you’re just not supposed to point out, no matter how much you might want to.

Like when your boss is obviously wearing a toupee.

And equally high on that list is Deadbeat’s god-awful fashion sense.

Even Vampy, who’s practically his nemesis, has never gone that far.

Until now.

But now that it’s been said, there’s no going back!

We have to face the facts.

Deadbeat always looks completely ridiculous!

I dunno how to explain it, but none of the clothes he wears ever looks good together, let alone on him.

You might call his fashion “eccentric”—if you were trying to be nice—but the truth is that his outfit choices are usually so bizarre that he always ends up looking really stupid.

I get that you’re trying to pull off a unique look, but it’s just not working for you, sweetie.

“Hmph. A brat like you just doesn’t get how cool this look is!”

…And yet, Deadbeat just seems triumphant after Vampy’s comment.

I’m sorry. I never know what sort of face to make at times like this.

Like, am I allowed to smile?

No, I’m pretty sure that’d be a bad move.

Everyone else seems to feel the same way: They’re all wearing strange expressions.

The puppet spiders have changed from their default expression to a super-serious one.

You guys don’t have to go out of your way to change your faces right now!

I can’t tell from that reaction if you’re trying to be considerate or just being smarmy little jerks!

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“…If you say so. Anyway, he doesn’t understand demon language, so you’re not going to get through to him that way.” Vampy probably sensed that pushing the topic any further would be fruitless, so she forcibly changes the subject back to Mr. Oni. “And I should point out that those horns aren’t accessories, either. He’s a humanoid monster known as an oni.”

“A what?!”

At the word monster, Deadbeat’s hand flies to the hilt of the sword hanging from his waist.

“Were you even listening? Miss Ariel, the Demon Lord, personally approved his staying here. So you understand what would happen if you laid a hand on him, yes?”

“Urgh…,” Deadbeat groans.

He keeps glaring at Mr. Oni for a few more seconds, then reluctantly pulls his hand away from his weapon.

But it’s clear from his grim expression that he still has his guard raised.

“In that case, I really gotta know what’s going on here. I hate to say it, brat, but I need you to translate for me.”

He plops himself down in an empty seat, barking an order at Vampy.

I’ll give him this—it was the right decision not to bother asking me, at least.

But saying it like that to Vampy was a BIG mistake.

“Oh? But he understands human just fine. Why not ask him yourself?”

See? Vampy is already smirking as she launches her counterattack.

There are two major languages in this world: human and demon.

Despite how big the world is, if you master those two languages, you can communicate with just about anyone.

Sure, there are local dialects and expressions and things like that, but it’s sort of like the Kansai dialect in Japanese. As long as you’ve mastered the basic language, you can more or less figure out the rest.

But Deadbeat is asking her to translate.

Demanding, no less.

If you think about it, that can only really mean one thing.

“Go on, then. Why don’t you ask him whatever you want to know? His name? Where he’s from? How he wound up here? You want to know, don’t you? Go ahead and ask. In the human tongue.”

Vampy grins gleefully, the wicked expression of a bully.

Her sadistic streak is showing on her face.

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She’s more of a demon than any demon here.

Well, I guess technically she’s a vampire.

“Grrrgh…!”

Deadbeat turns bright red and grinds his teeth.

Normally he would storm out angrily if he got humiliated this badly, but he’s being weirdly persistent today…

Deadbeat glances at me and then at Mr. Oni.

Hmmmm? What’s the deal?

“I…don’t speak human. Translate for me.”

Shaking with embarrassment, Deadbeat manages to spit out the words through clenched teeth.

Yeah, I figured.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t keep refusing to speak in the face of all that mockery.

“Oh? Oh my, really? Good heavens, but you’re from the noble family of a demon duke! Who would have thought you couldn’t even speak human?! I’m so, so sorry. Never in my wildest dreams would I have guessed such a thing!”

Vampy twists the knife!

It’s super-effective on Deadbeat’s heart!

That’s gotta hurt.

“Just translate already, dammit!”

“Don’t you mean pretty please, with a cherry on top?”

Vampy isn’t letting up!

Deadbeat is no longer breathing!

This is brutal stuff.

“Pretty…please! With… With a cherry on top!”

Yiiiikes.

I’ve never actually seen someone turn red as a lobster from sheer rage and embarrassment before.

Is he gonna be all right?

Hasn’t all the blood rushed to his head by now?

“Well, I suppose if you really insist.”

Evidently satisfied, or perhaps guessing that Deadbeat is going to snap if she pushes him any further, Vampy smiles as brightly as the sun and finally agrees to interpret for him.

At this point, however, Mr. Oni is practically curled up into a ball, looking like he wants to sink into the floor.

He can’t understand their conversation, since they’re speaking demon, but he must have figured out from the atmosphere that he’s somehow responsible.

Mr. Oni might have taken the most damage in this fight.

“Damn, buddy, that’s rough!”

For some reason, Deadbeat is now crying manly tears as he claps Mr. Oni on the shoulder.

Once Vampy agreed to interpret, their conversation went fairly smoothly.

She took her role surprisingly seriously, acting as their go-between without adding a single snide comment of her own.

Maybe she got her fill of picking on Deadbeat for the day.

There are a few parts of the story that have to be omitted: how we went to stop Mr. Oni at the request of the administrator Güli-güli, the valley on the other side of the Mystic Mountains, and stuff like that. But otherwise, the explanation Deadbeat gets is mostly accurate.

The only fabricated bits are that Mr. Oni traveled through the Mystic Mountains on his own and that we took him in once he found his way out and collapsed from exhaustion.

We came up with that cover story together ahead of time, so it’s no problem.

So once he gets the gist of Mr. Oni’s story, this is Deadbeat’s reaction.

“I guess you got no other choice, then. You gotta go eventually, but for now you’re welcome here as long as you need.”

Deadbeat makes a loud, gross sniffling sound, exaggeratedly blowing his nose!

Vampy looks revolted.

Even the puppet spiders are a little disturbed, but obviously the one who’s most uncomfortable is Mr. Oni, who’s experiencing all this up close.

Huh. This is kind of unexpected.

I haven’t known Deadbeat for long, so it’s not like I had a perfect grasp of his personality, but I always kinda had him pegged as a pompous ass who didn’t have much else going on.

Now that he’s reacting like the antihero of a delinquent manga—a big jerk with a heart of gold—I kinda don’t know what to think.

Like, who knew he was that kind of character?

He struck me more as a small-time thug.

But I guess he’s actually a pretty important guy in the demon world, so he’s not really small-time in the first place. In fact, he probably has underlings of his own.

I dunno if those underlings actually respect him, but most of the staff here seems to be fond of him, at the very least.

Yeah, you heard me. Aside from the head butler, the mansion staff are usually plenty willing to help out Deadbeat.

For one thing, he keeps visiting us every damn day, even though the head butler instructed the staff to keep him away.

If Deadbeat was forcing the staff to obey him, they’d probably be reporting it to their boss.

But there hasn’t been a peep from the head butler, so either they’re not tattling on him or the head butler’s in on it, too.

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Either way, someone is definitely helping him behind the scenes.

Which means Deadbeat might actually be surprisingly nice to his underlings.

Not that I care either way.

Yeah. It’s way too late for Deadbeat to improve his standing in my eyes.

“If you got nowhere to go, I can hire you, y’know? You must be pretty strong if you crossed the Mystic Mountains on your own. How ’bout it? Wanna join my army?”

Boy, he sure changed his tune quickly after hearing Mr. Oni’s sob story.

Mr. Oni still seems uncomfortable, but once Vampy translates for him, he responds by requesting some time to think about it.

Yeah, that’s not the kinda thing you can decide right away.

Not to mention, if he’s gonna work for a demon, he’d probably have to learn their language.

He’d have to start there.

“Well, just lemme know if you need anything.”

With that, Deadbeat cheerfully takes his leave.

He’s kinda presenting himself as a big-brother figure.

I, uh. I don’t know how to feel about this.

“What in the world was that?”

Looks like Vampy feels the same way.

At any rate, this means Deadbeat approves of Mr. Oni being here now, so at least he’ll be able to keep staying in the mansion without a problem.

“Where to go from here…?”

After Deadbeat leaves, Mr. Oni murmurs to himself, lost in thought.

I guess I’m not the only one thinking about my next move.

Everyone else has their own future to think about, too.

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“There’s no point worrying about the future, you know.”

Correction. I guess one person isn’t thinking about that stuff at all.

“You never know what’s going to happen next. If you spend all your time worrying about it, you’ll never get anywhere, you know? What matters is how you’re going to live in the present.”

Whoa.

Did Vampy just make a surprisingly deep statement?

Hrmmm. I guess she has a point.

When I lived in the Great Elroe Labyrinth, all I thought about was how to live (or rather survive) from moment to moment, after all.

I mean, I didn’t really have time to think about anything else.

Living in the present is important, but I do think it’s better to have some idea of what you’re going to do once you manage to survive.

Especially for Vampy.

This kid is the only vampire Progenitor in the world, and already crazy powerful at her age.

But she’s still a little girl, so I guess she’s got plenty of time to think about her future.

Although…the world might not stick around long enough for her to get a chance to grow up.

In the end, I guess no matter how thoroughly you plan for the future, you’re still not exempt from the universal rule: Whatever happens, happens.