Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? Volume Chapter 8

Sooo buuusyyyy.

I am sooo, sooo buuuusyyyy.

Buuusy spiiideeeer.

Lyrics by yours truly.

Um, hello? Where are my days off?

My weekends?

Holidays?

What about summer break, winter break, spring break, or Golden Week?!

I’ve been working nonstop for days on end here!

Does the Labor Standards Act not apply to the demon army?!

This is all that stupid pontiff’s fault for being too good at what he does.

In theory, having an exceptionally talented business partner seems great, but not when that means you have to work way faster just to keep up…

Come on. Can nothing be easy?

This just goes to show that dealing with other people never leads to anything good.

That is to say, being a loner shut-in is the ideal lifestyle!

When you get involved with other people’s business, they’ll stick you with a bunch of work, and then you end up busy like me.

So obviously, it’s better to do whatever you want, on your own, at your own pace!

That way, if anything fails, you only have yourself to blame.

And while you can blame yourself, other people aren’t going to blame you.

Self-responsibility.

What a wonderful phrase…

So what am I trying to say, exactly?

Basically, I just don’t wanna screw this up and have the pontiff get mad at me…

Like, all this time, I’ve mostly just been running around doing whatever I want on my own terms, yeah?

So even if I failed, that was no one’s business but my own.

But what will the pontiff think if I fail this time around?

From his perspective, the Demon Lord is the leader of our faction, of course.

So the blame for failure would land squarely on the Demon Lord.

Urgh, my stomach hurts.

Which is exactly why I’ve been busting my hump like crazy around here.

Unlike the teleportation I was planning on, marching through the human territory is going to take a few days. With my teleport magic, it would’ve been instant.

And since it’ll take a few extra days, that means we have to speed things along accordingly.

Plus, we have to secure rations for the trip and stuff.

Well, I’ve got Balto working on that part.

And each individual army is preparing on their own otherwise.

Then what exactly have I been doing, you ask? Well, tons of stuff that no one else but me could do, duuuh.

First, taking care of a few things in the empire.

Since we were planning to travel by teleportation, I didn’t think about going through the empire, which means I haven’t done any setup ahead of time whatsoever.

We told the pontiff that we poached Natsume for our army, so he seems to think that the empire is under our jurisdiction or something.

Which is to say, he told us at the meeting that he’d leave it up to us.

Thanks, but I really wish you wouldn’t…

Natsume’s Lust skill can only provide complete control over a few brainwashed people at a time.

There’s no real limit on the number in theory, but unfortunately, it takes a long time to set everything up for a full brainwash.

It’s definitely not the kind of thing where he snaps his fingers and goes Voila! You are now under my hypnosis!

He has to use it on them repeatedly over time for the effect to really sink in.

If he just uses it once, the effect will expire, and they’ll be back to normal in no time.

And even when they’ve been completely brainwashed, the effect will get weaker over time if it’s not refreshed.

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Although when the brainwashing effect has been applied that many times, it should take an equally long time for the person to come back to their senses. And if someone tries to force them to snap out of it with Healing Magic or something, it’ll be more difficult the longer they’ve been in the brainwashed state.

Unlike me, our pal Natsume only has one body, and even teleporting him around with me to brainwash various people has its limits.

For one thing, Natsume only has so much MP.

Yep, the Lust skill requires MP to use.

And since Natsume’s MP is so limited, we have to carefully pick and choose who we brainwash.

We’ve done it to the most important people in the empire already, mostly to solidify Natsume’s position.

You know, like Natsume’s father, the sword-king of the empire.

Also, super-influential lords and stuff like that.

Mostly just civil officials, though.

Man, I gotta tell ya, the internal affairs of the empire have gotten super corrupted…

Most of ’em were in a nasty all-out political war.

The civil officials were all skimming off the top, dealing out injustices, all that kind of stuff.

Meanwhile, the military generals are so muscle-headed that the officials managed to deceive them into leaving for far-off areas and so on, keeping their power in check.

The sword-king tried to wrangle the military officers under control and restrain the corrupt officials, but the strength-obsessed generals don’t accept the sword-king because they consider him to be too political.

So instead of skillfully handling anyone, the king here is totally isolated.

And now the generals are distancing themselves from the sword-king and refusing to help keep the peace in the capital.

Which means the corrupt civil officials can do whatever they want.

Yeah, the whole thing is pretty hilarious.

I could definitely picture an epic period drama or movie about it with the sword-king as the protagonist.

Anyway, since that’s what was up in the empire, all we had to do was convince those corrupt officials to come over to our side, and everything worked out fine.

We didn’t even have to brainwash all of them—some were willing to do what we asked if we just handed them a bribe.

I mean, that made things easy for me and all, but yikes…

Mr. Sword-King, you can cry if you want to.

You’re being brainwashed by your own son, for one thing.

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Huh? Who made him do that, you ask?

Oh yeah, that was me.

The mysterious woman pulling the strings of a corrupted empire.

You can call me the femme fatale of ruining royal courts if you want, okay?

So yeah, the empire is firmly under our control now, but it’s not exactly airtight.

For instance, we’ve got over half the civil officials on our side, but we left the generals alone.

Most of them have territory that’s either close to or directly on the border with the demon realm.

If we want to get through the empire, we’re going to have to pass through their land one way or another.

So I’m gonna have to do something about that.

Also, we’re going to use a teleport gate to go from the empire to the next human nation.

We’re obviously not gonna march from the demon realm all the way to the elf village across a whole continent.

The empire is big enough that it has multiple teleport gates, but after the big war and all, the waiting list to use them is crazy long.

There are reinforcements sent to the empire from other nations who are now trying to get home, adventurers who enlisted as volunteer soldiers, and so forth and so on.

On top of that, there’s distribution of goods that was halted during the war in favor of the transportation of soldiers.

Basically, since teleport gates are so convenient, they naturally see lots of traffic during emergencies like this one.

Plus, now they also need to be used to teleport Natsume and the imperial army toward the elf village, meaning there’s serious congestion.

And we have to squeeze our way in to use one somehow.

Even though they’re all super booked already.

We need to cut in line in front of all those people waiting to use the teleport gate.

Us, an entire army.

Ha-ha-ha. Yeah, this is gonna require some fancy footwork!

So I’ve had the Tenth Army running around to solve all kinds of problems within the empire.

How did I solve them, exactly? Well, there are some things in this world you’re better off not knowing. That’s all I’m gonna say.

Like why a certain general and his extended family all went mysteriously missing, for instance.

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Look, the literal fate of the world is at stake here—we’ve gotta do whatever it takes.

And there’s no time to waste…

Meaning I can’t be wasting all of it on the empire anyway.

We’re still not done in the Analeit Kingdom, for one thing.

Based on my original plans, I should be focusing on there by now.

But because of a sudden change in plans that came up with that part, I’ve had to divert some resources over there, too.

Basically, I’m now stuck fighting a war on two fronts over here.

No wonder I’m so freakin’ busy!

Anyway, here we are in the Analeit Kingdom.

Specifically, the royal castle where an uprising took place the other day.

It’s late at night, and everyone is sound asleep.

Although that being said, this place is a little too quiet.

After all, it’s a stupidly massive castle, and there’s only a handful of people in it at present.

So the silence is so overwhelming, it’s almost deafening.

Later tonight, Yamada and friends should be breaking into this castle.

I know this because we just announced that the third prince Leston and Ooshima’s duke and duchess parents, who we captured during the uprising, are going to be executed.

Knowing Yamada and Ooshima’s personalities, they’re definitely going to try to launch a rescue.

In fact, my clones that are watching Yamada and friends already saw them leaving their hideout.

So I more or less emptied out the castle to make it easier to greet them.

Why would I go through all that trouble, you ask? Well, I guess you could call it an experiment.

To be totally honest, technically, I don’t really have to do this particular experiment… But it’ll make for useful insurance when I fight Potimas, or rather totally destroy him.

If this experiment succeeds, it’ll open up a new option for me.

Although even if it does succeed, I don’t really wanna take that option if I can help it.

Let’s just say it’s definitely a last resort.

Uh, well, hrmmm…the experiment is definitely reason numero uno, but there are a bunch of other small reasons, too, and they all add up to it making more sense to do than not.

Like, it’ll keep Yamada and friends even more occupied, for instance.

But did I really have to force it into my schedule during this ridiculously busy period? Uh…I almost kinda feel like I didn’t?

…Honestly, I was kinda obsessed with carrying out every single project I had planned, but I probably could’ve put off or postponed a few of the less important ones, huh?

…Okay, maybe. But still!

It was already planned, so I figured I should still do it!

If I put it off or postponed it, my plans would get more messed up down the line!

So in other words, what I’m saying here is that it’s really better if I do it! Yeah!

No doubt about it.

As I nod silently to myself in affirmation, I sense a disturbance in the f—um, in space.

Hrm? Someone’s trying to teleport in here?

If anyone’s gonna show up via teleportation right now, I’d guess it would be Güli-güli?

No, wait, I take it back.

The construction of this teleportation portal is on a lesser skill level from Güli-güli’s.

Frankly, it’s kinda messy.

Besides, if it was Güli-güli, he’d already be here moments after I sensed him coming.

If it’s taking this long for them to show up, it can’t be him.

I guess the construction is half-decent, objectively speaking, but considering that Güli-güli is a literal god, obviously, it’s gonna pale in comparison.

Actually, just the fact that they can use Spatial Magic at all means they’re pretty damn skilled.

Me and Güli-güli are exceptions, but usually, Spatial Magic isn’t the kinda thing you can just use willy-nilly. Only a few people in this world can use it at all.

Even the Demon Lord can only just barely use basic Spatial Magic, y’know?

Anyway, enough defending this unknown user for whatever reason. Who the heck is gonna show up? I brace myself.

And soon, an old man appears.

Ahh, I knew it. This guy.

I’ve seen this old geezer before.

Quite a few times, in fact.

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Apparently, he’s called Ronandt or something.

Well, his name doesn’t really matter, but he is the leading imperial court mage and definitely the strongest guy in the empire.

In fact, as far as magic goes, he’s probably the strongest human of all.

He was also Julius the hero’s magic teacher and has lots of connections besides.

I definitely have him pegged as one of humanity’s major players.

After all, he’s also basically the authority on Spatial Magic, with the highest skill level of any human I’ve ever seen.

So when someone was teleporting here, he was my number one guess.

The question is, why would this geezer show up here at this particular moment?

I thought he was traveling with Natsume and the imperial army.

Since he’s way stronger than Natsume, we couldn’t brainwash him or anything, but it’d be a shame to let his power go to waste, so we just ordered him to join the expedition.

Easy enough to do, since we’ve got the sword-king of the empire in our hands.

And at the moment, the imperial army is supposed to be marching toward the elf village.

Then what exactly is this old man doing here and not with them?

Hrm. Well, I guess the obvious assumption is that he’s here to help Yamada and company, right?

I don’t think he’s actually met Yamada before, but he did teach his older brother.

And he has met Hyrince, who’s traveling with Yamada right now.

…Okay, but would he really teleport here in such a hurry just for that?

It doesn’t quite add up.

Oh well. Throwing one old man into the mix won’t change what I have to do—I guess it’s no big deal.

The only person I really need for this experiment is Yamada anyway.

Frankly, it doesn’t really matter how much power he has on his side.

’Cause this castle is practically empty, remember?

There’s not gonna be a big battle.

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So it doesn’t make a difference if the old man joins them.

Sorry you went to all the trouble, gramps, but there’s nothing for you to do here, okay?

The old man is standing on top of the royal castle.

Taking the utmost care not to be noticed, I hide my presence and watch him.

He doesn’t move, either, probably sensing what’s inside the castle.

Before long, his brow furrows suspiciously.

Well, yeah. The castle is basically empty right now.

If he showed up to save the day only to find the place devoid of enemies, it’s no wonder he’d react to that.

“Eh, it’s fine.”

IS IT, THOUGH?!

I silently scream at the old man’s careless mumbling.

Come on, use your head a little more!

There’s obviously something wrong with the castle being abandoned, right?!

Should you really just leave it at that?!

Come on, let’s see you act like the big shot imperial mage or whatever! Do SOMETHING!

But instead, the old man loses interest in the inside of the castle and starts gazing up at the sky instead.

Oof, this guy’s an oddball all right!

You know the type.

People who march to the beat of their own drum and no one else’s.

Usually, people like that are incapable of working in groups and cooperating with others.

Ugh. Really now, you should try to make peace with others a little more, like me.

So? Is this guy waiting for Yamada and the others to show up?

Maybe he’s planning to meet up with them and break into the castle together.

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Although I doubt whether this guy will actually be able to work together with Yamada and his crew.

They’re definitely gonna have a falling out, if you ask me.

See? Look, Yamada showed up and the old guy’s firing magic at… I’m sorry, what?

Hmm? Hmmmm?

What the hell is this geezer doing?

He’s shooting magic…at Yamada and his friends…? What?

Whaaat?

Unreal.

Why would you even do that?

Like, the old man is flying through the air and just firing off a barrage of magic at them.

Yamada and his group are riding on Shinohara in dragon form, high in the sky.

And now they’re getting laser beams shot at them.

Shinohara is pretty high up there, but the laser’s aim is really accurate.

She’s dodging around like crazy.

Well, I guess that’s some impressive marksmanship, fitting for a big shot imperial mage.

But I probably shouldn’t be admiring that right now, huh?

I don’t know why the old man’s attacking Team Yamada, but at this rate, they might just straight up run away.

He’s definitely keeping them at bay right now.

Shinoda’s trying to close the distance, but getting closer means pushing deeper into the old man’s magic range, making them a target for bigger and stronger spells. Plus, the time from casting to impact is only going to get shorter.

In other words, it’ll make it harder to dodge, and deal more damage if it hits.

Some manga protagonist once said that a knife is faster than a gun in close combat, or something, but that definitely doesn’t equate to guns being totally useless in close quarters.

The phrase point-blank shot exists for a reason.

When you’re fighting a really skilled mage, you’ve gotta get close to them to have a chance at winning, but just getting close isn’t some automatic guarantee of victory.

Will Yamada be able to get close to the old man?

Actually, I kinda need him to get close and win, or it’ll screw up my plans!

Beams of light shoot out of the old man’s cane, and Shinohara dodges them as she presses closer.

But just like I feared, her ability to avoid them reaches a limit as she gets closer, and one of the lasers grazes Yamada’s cheek.

He put up a barrier to protect himself, but it looks like it didn’t fully prevent him from getting hit: Blood starts to trickle down his cheek.

Somehow, that actually seems to boost Shinohara’s determination, and she starts charging ahead.

She gives up on dodging completely and zooms straight toward the old man.

But that’ll just make her the perfect target.

Sure enough, he shoots a laser beam toward Shinohara.

Yamada produces a shield of light to block the laser.

Ah, so they’re planning on blocking like this to close the distance.

A few more laser beams shoot out, and Yamada blocks each of them.

Then, once they’ve gotten close enough, Yamada jumps off Shinohara’s back and swings his sword down at the old man!

Wow. That’s some action movie–level stuff.

But unfortunately, the old man still outclasses him.

Yamada’s sword only cuts through air.

From his point of view, Yamada probably has no clue what happened, but I had a perfectly clear shot of the moment.

It was Short-Range Teleport.

The old man used teleportation to get behind Yamada.

“Hmm. Well, I suppose that earns passing marks.”

Now he’s saying something obnoxious to Yamada.

In the next moment, he fires another barrage of magic at our young hero.

Looks like he’s using low-level magic at rapid-fire speed.

The spells you learn as your magic skills level up are generally more powerful, but they also take more time to invoke.

So instead, the old man is using weaker low-level spells in large quantities and at high speed to turn this into a bullet hell game for Yamada.

For a human, this old guy is pretty damn good.

Yamada uses his sword and those magic light shields from before to block them.

But he can just barely keep up with the defense.

I don’t see him being able to counterattack, and in fact, even his defenses won’t last much longer.

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“Yaaaah!”

The situation changes in the form of Hyrince jumping down from Shinohara’s back.

He brings down his blade toward the old man’s head as he descends.

Just like he did with Yamada moments ago, the old man escapes using Short-Range Teleport.

The geezer teleports behind Yamada.

Hyrince lands, and he and Yamada shift their stances.

They’re trying to reset, I guess.

But now, Shinohara is in the sky above the old man, and Ooshima is on her back, both ready to attack.

One against four.

Even this guy will have trouble dealing with those odds.

And it looks like he realizes it, too.

“Oh dear… This is too much. You got me, you got me. This old man is retreating.”

With that, he teleports away.

A real Teleport this time, not just Short-Range.

Since he was already starting to form the spell for it right after he dodged Hyrince’s attack with Short-Range Teleport…

…He must’ve known at that moment that he couldn’t win.

……So, uh.

What exactly did he come to do in the first place?

The weird old geezer attack aside, Yamada and friends have arrived to rescue their family members from being executed.

I’m sure that old man’s attack caught them off guard. Hell, I wasn’t even expecting it.

Seriously, what was that guy thinking…?

Team Yamada warily searches inside the empty castle.

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They’re proceeding with caution, clearly expecting a trap.

But this isn’t really a trap. Not exactly.

So they reach the throne room without any issues.

There, the first prince Cylis is sitting on the throne, waiting for them.

Lined up in front of him are the people who were announced to be executed: the third prince Leston, the duke and his wife, and some older lady named Klevea.

This Klevea person was originally Yamada’s maid.

She’s a bit too well-built to be a maid, if you ask me, but apparently, she used to be a soldier.

She was captured along with Leston during the uprising, so I threw her in with the rest of the bunch.

The executioners stand behind the four captives.

And as soon as Yamada’s crew enters the room, they swing their swords before anyone can stop them and behead the four victims right before their eyes.

Then Yamada goes running up in a hurry and uses a certain skill.

The resurrection skill: Mercy.

As I watch in secret, the third prince and the other captives are all brought back to life.

Man, that’s way too easy.

We’re talking about people’s lives here.

But divine power can manipulate even life and death.

It’s kind of unsettling, seeing D’s ridiculous power on display like this.

I mean, it’s not like I couldn’t bring back the dead.

But that’s only in this world, where the system exists.

My power is limited, and it only works because the concepts of life and death are different in this world than others.

There’s no way I’d be able to bring back the dead in a world without this system, no matter how hard I tried.

And D built that whole system from scratch.

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Even before I became a god, I could never figure out just how strong D was, but even as a god myself, I have yet to find any limits to D’s power.

It’s seriously terrifying.

Bringing back the dead is literally the work of miracles, but Yamada can do it for only a small cost.

He has no idea just how messed up that is.

A feat like that should cost way more than just raising Taboo’s level a bunch.

Besides, I wouldn’t be so obsessed with staying alive in the first place if it was that easy to bring people back.

Hrm.

I kept it to four people just in case Yamada ran out of MP, but maybe I should’ve thrown in a few more?

From what I can tell, it doesn’t look like his Taboo skill maxed out.

It probably still went up four levels, though, so this whole exercise wasn’t a waste.

Besides, leveling Yamada’s Taboo skill is just a bonus.

This whole thing is just a sideshow, really.

If it failed, it wouldn’t have been that big of a deal.

My experiment is complete anyway.

I take a peek at the revived third prince’s soul.

Yep.

Potimas’s soul has been ripped out of him.

All I really needed to know was if you could get rid of Potimas’s influence by dying once.

That was the main goal of this experiment: What happens if you kill someone who’s got a Potimas parasite, then bring them back to life?

And now we know.

Based on how the system works, I had a hunch that skills wouldn’t continue to affect the soul of someone who’s died, but now I know for sure.

So what does this mean, exactly? If you kill someone and bring them back to life, they can be freed from Potimas’s control.

It’s a pretty violent method, but now I know that if it comes down to it, there’s at least one way to free Ms. Oka from Potimas’s clutches.

…Although since that method would mean killing Ms. Oka, albeit temporarily, I would prefer not to do it, if possible.

Plus, it was humans we used in this experiment, not elves.

Since humans are outside the scope of Potimas’s Kin Control, I imagine it might be harder for him to parasitically control them.

Which means that even if killing them once works for humans, it might not be the same for elves.

So I should probably keep this as an absolute last resort after all.

Well, I’m all good here. Now I just need to make sure Yamada and friends escape safely.

“Shun, go check on the teleport gate, please. I assume it’s broken and won’t work, but just to be sure. I’ll stay here and keep an eye on Leston and the others.”

“All right.”

Sounds like Yamada and his little friends are gonna go check on the teleport gate.

It’s one of the major forms of transportation in this world.

Since you can cross from one continent to another in an instant, it’s definitely very convenient.

If you want to get to the other continent without a teleport gate, you have to either cross an ocean teeming with water dragons or make your way through the Great Elroe Labyrinth.

And the ocean’s basically impossible, leaving the labyrinth as the only real option.

So Yamada goes to check on the teleport gate.

Of course, I already had Natsume destroy it.

I’m not gonna let them cross continents that easily.

But I’m guessing the only reason that guy suggested the check is just to be sure, like he said, and to be able to move a little more freely.

The door to the room I’m in opens.

Without even a knock. Talk about rude.

“That was in poor taste, even for you.”

And that’s the first thing he says when he comes through the door.

You mad?

Oh yeah, he mad.

As further proof, he stomps into the room and sits down in the chair across from me, crassly and violently.

“You pitted Sir Ronandt, Julius’s master, against Julius’s younger brother Shun. I’m sure it made for quite a dramatic show, but consider the feelings of those of us who had to participate. Do you have any idea how Sir Ronandt must have felt when he chose to retreat?”

Well, no, not really.

That guy showed up here of his own accord.

Not my problem. Not my business. Not my fault.

But in order to make it clear that I won’t succumb to pressure, I ignore him and sip my tea.

“That is downright inhuman.”

Uh, yeah. Sorry.

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I’m not a human, and I never was.

But it still doesn’t feel great to be insulted like that.

Even I’m bound to get annoyed with all these false accusations flying.

“And you’re not very godly, Black.”

So I give him a piece of my mind, too.

Because the man called Hyrince who’s sitting in front of me is really a clone of Black, also known as Güli-güli.

“That’s true. I have had the same thought. You are but newly made, yet you are far more godlike than I.” Güli-güli heaves a deep sigh. “And I do know that no matter what I say now, I am just taking it out on you. I understand that the path you have chosen is the best way forward. And yet, even so…I find it difficult to restrain these emotions.”

He’s grieving.

Well, I can’t blame him. He was playing the part of the previous hero Julius’s old friend but had to let him die in front of his eyes, and now Julius’s younger brother is going through all kinds of tough times. I’m sure it must practically unbearable to watch up close.

Again, not really my problem, though.

He’s the one who ran around playing at being a force for good with the hero, despite his real job being to oversee this world.

So I ignore Güli-güli’s feelings and get down to practical business.

“Detachment by way of revival has been confirmed.”

“I see. How fortuitous. If the detachment had failed, we would have had to kill them again.”

He looks truly relieved from the bottom of his heart.

As Hyrince, he’s had a fair amount of interaction with the third prince; I’m sure he was hoping to be able to let him live.

I’m glad about it, too. It’s not like I wanna go around killing people for no reason, either.

I can’t say I agree with his next statement, though.

“If that’s the case, perhaps we should have let him revive the king, too.”

He’s basically saying that he wishes we could have saved everyone.

Even though he knows that’s not part of the plan.

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“I know, I know. You think I am siding with them too much, yes? I have entrusted this matter to you and your side. So I have no intention of questioning your methods.”

“Good.”

Although you already chewed my ear off about it just a minute ago!

But fine, I’ll forget about that.

Be grateful that I’m too nice for my own good.

“The elf village is next, then?”

Yep, yep.

We’re on our way there now.

“Since I know you and Ariel well, I am certainly not concerned. But he has learned many tricks in his long life, too. Be ready for anything.”

A word to the wise, eh?

I’m already well aware of that—don’t worry.

We’re gonna be fully prepared before we challenge him. There isn’t chance in hell we’re gonna lose.

It’s just a matter of whether our casualties will be great or small.

I’m already giving this all I’ve got, you know.

Besides, I’m too scared of what the pontiff will do if I fail.

“Shun will be coming back soon. Excuse me.”

With that, Güli-güli leaves the room.

As long as he’s protecting Yamada and friends, nothing crazy will happen to them.

So I’ve got nothing to worry about.

I know he’d never let Yamada and the others die.

Even if they did, that man could bring them back to life if he really tried, just like I could.

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The man called Hyrince is really Güli-güli’s clone.

More accurately, Güli-güli transferred a portion of his soul into the stillborn son of a noble in the kingdom.

The soul belongs to a god, but since the body is an ordinary human, it grew up normally and has viewable stats.

Although he can technically use some of Güli-güli’s full power through that connection between souls, so if he really wanted to, he’d have the power of a god.

Since the body originally belonged to a human who had nothing to do with Güli-güli, they don’t resemble each other in the slightest.

Apparently, Güli-güli has created duplicates of himself like this to act within human society from time to time.

No idea why, though.

I’m guessing he was just bored, or wanted to be all sentimental by blending in with humans, or some other irrational reason.

I mean, it’s definitely not necessary for managing the world.

So it’s nothing more than a game.

Of course, you can still get emotionally invested in a game.

He was best friends with Julius the hero, and they went through thick and thin together.

And then I killed Julius.

I’m sure Güli-güli must have some complicated feelings about it.

Even if he understands in theory that it was absolutely necessary.

So maybe that’s why he’s so hung up on Yamada.

A sort of atonement or something.

For letting his older brother die.

That’s probably why he’s been so overprotective that he comes and complains to me whenever I let even the tiniest thing happen to Yamada, like just now.

Speaking of human emotions, though…

Did that old man announce that he couldn’t win and flee because it was his pupil’s younger brother?

So even that dinosaur has those kinds of emotions, too, huh?

I see, I see.

…No, but it still doesn’t really make sense, does it?

Why did he randomly show up, randomly start a fight with Yamada, and then randomly get in his feelings about it and run away?

I just don’t get it.

…Seriously, what was that old man doing here?

I guess people’s emotions are still just waaay over my head.