Part 2 of 8
“You know you might die, right?”
“Of course. It’s not like I’ve got much time left to begin with, anyway. If I die here, I won’t have any regrets. Especially since I know that you’d finish Potimas off for me if that happened.”
I can’t believe she can say something along the lines of “if I die, at least Potimas will go down with me” with a straight face.
Ahh…
No waaay.
I heave a long sigh.
How am I supposed to stick to my guns after she says something like that?
The Demon Lord is willing to bet the entirety of her long life on challenging Potimas.
She’s laying her pride on the line.
I can’t exactly take that away from her, can I?
The worst part is, she definitely put it that way knowing full well that I’d have no choice but to back down.
“You’d better not.”
“Huh?”
“You’d better not die. If you die, I’m gonna ditch this whole stupid world without a second thought. You have to promise to stay alive so I won’t have to do anything that irresponsible. All right?”
“…You got it, boss.”
I can’t bear to look at the Demon Lord’s teary-eyed smile as she salutes me, so I turn away.
Luckily, at that moment, I catch sight of a perfectly timed explosion in the distance.
Looks like Kusama succeeded in blowing up the teleport gates, then.
Now I’m free to bust this barrier wide open.
And so, I pull out a certain item that I’ve been keeping in an alternate dimension.
“Wha—?”
The Demon Lord stares at it blankly, a question mark practically hovering above her head.
I can’t say I blame her.
Since what I pulled out is a baseball bat.
It’s one of the gag gifts I picked up when I searched D’s house.
When you swing this bat, you’re guaranteed to hit a home run on any ball.
Which sounds like a vaguely familiar magical effect, but that’s not all this particular bat does.
If you hit a living thing with this bat, you’ll also get a home run.
I know that sounds like nonsense, but basically, it’ll send the target flying.
Like, ridiculously far, against all the laws of physics.
And yet it only causes a tiny bit of damage.
No matter how far they fly, and how hard they hit the ground afterward, it’ll only hurt a tiny little bit.
No matter how tightly you grip the bat and how hard you swing it, the damage doesn’t go past a certain threshold.
Yeah, it doesn’t make any sense.
But as absurd as it is, it really can send things flying like no one’s business.
Gag gift or not, it’s still a genuine god-tier artifact straight from D’s home.
But the effect is extremely limited—it only works on balls and living things.
The ball thing makes sense, but why living things are considered a valid home run target is a total mystery to me…
Either way, it absolutely won’t work on anything else.
So hitting the barrier with this bat won’t do a damn thing.
But! I’ve got a workaround for that!
Next, I produce a giant white scythe, my primary weapon.
My scythe in my right hand. The bat in my left.
I take a deep breath…
“Fusion!”
…and smash the two together!
“Uhhhh…”
Behind me, the Demon Lord utters a groan of disbelief.
Okay, I know it looks like I’m being so stupid that you’re probably tempted to pretend you don’t know me, but this is actually an insanely dangerous thing I’m doing, all right?!
Silly or not, one of these is a godly weapon handmade by D.
And I’m trying to fuse it with my main weapon.
Honestly, the bat is technically a better item than the scythe.
(Even though it’s just a stupid gag gift…)
Which means this particular fusion is actually really, really hard.
Why am I doing it so last-minute? Well, by my calculations, even if I fail, I should at least produce enough power to destroy the barrier.
If that happens, the bat will probably disappear, and my scythe will stay the same, or get weaker in the worst-case scenario.
But it’s still worth a shot.
Because if I succeed, I can make my scythe even stronger!
So c’moooooon!
Please wooooork!
The scythe and bat glow in my hands, and the bat starts getting absorbed by the scythe.
I can tell an insane amount of energy is flooding into my scythe.
All that crazy energy prompts me to hold the still-glowing scythe aloft.
It’s just about time for the imperial army to use their massive magic.
All I have to do is give this thing a good swing at the same time.
All right, then.
White steps up to the batter’s box!
A swing…and a hit!
It’s a home run!
Can you believe it, folks?!
The scythe cut through the barrier like butter and smashed it to bits, no sweat!
…Man, that bat must’ve been ridiculously powerful to destroy that barrier so easily.
I check on the scythe in my hand.
I don’t feel the same amount of enormous energy as before.
Hrmm. It seems like the fusion worked in theory, but maybe it only strengthened it a little bit?
I guess breaking the barrier probably used up most of the energy, and the rest was absorbed by the scythe.
It does seem a little bit stronger than before.
Well, I’d say we can call that a success.
“Uh, White? What was that bat with the extremely threatening aura just now?”
“Don’t you realize there are lots of things in this world you’re better off not knowing, Demon Lord?”
I would prefer that the Demon Lord not ask too many questions about the deus ex machina item D created.
The more useful it is, the more it probably screws you over once you’ve used it.
I mean, this is D we’re talking about, y’know?
Isn’t it terrifyingly likely that it’s super cursed or something?
I did check it over very thoroughly for that kind of thing before I used it, but still.
Knowing D, it wouldn’t be too surprising if she found a way to hide something that I wouldn’t pick up on until it was too late.
But still, I’m not gonna not use it.
It’s just so damn useful!
And if I hadn’t actually used that bat to destroy the barrier, it probably would’ve taken way longer.
Anyway, right now all that matters is taking action.
I use my Panoptic Vision to get a bird’s-eye view of the elf village, where they’re all totally freaking out about the barrier disappearing, while Natsume is triumphantly leading the imperial army to march right in.
Taking a glance at the reincarnations’ area, it doesn’t look like the elves are going to do anything to them, at least not yet.
Hmm, well, I guess I can leave them alone for now.
“All right, let’s go.”
We’d better take care of our business while the elves are distracted by the imperial army.
So it’s time to move.
I take the lead, with the Demon Lord and company following close behind.
If I were on my own, I could teleport all over the place, but the Demon Lord can’t do that.
Besides, I’m pretty sure he’d pick up on the disturbance in space and figure out what we’re up to if I tried teleporting.
It’s possible he’s already on to us anyway, but it’s equally possible that he’s not. We might as well try to be stealthy about it.
We push onward, picking areas without any elves around.
I zip through the forest just slowly enough for the puppet spiders to barely keep up.
At the same time, I focus on searching the entire elf village with Panoptic Vision, but I can’t figure out where Potimas is.
He must be very carefully hidden, then.
It’s typical of him to be so paranoid.
But the fact that I can’t find him still gives me a hint as to where he might be.
If I can’t see him after searching this carefully, that means he’s somewhere I can’t search.
There’s no way he’s not in the village, though.
Potimas would never use such a powerful barrier only to risk leaving his real body outside.
He has to be somewhere inside the safety of the barrier.
And also somehow in a place where I can’t find him.
With that much figured out, I can easily guess where he might be.
Underground.
Since I couldn’t locate him after a thorough search aboveground, he must be below.
So now, we have to find the passage that leads down there.
We won’t have to look very hard, though.
I didn’t see any of the super-advanced robots that Potimas definitely has anywhere aboveground, so they must be underground along with the real Potimas.
There’s no way he’ll be able to withstand this invasion without using them.
He’s bound to send out the robots at some point.
Then we just have to bust into wherever the robots appear from.
That should lead us right to the real Potimas.
Sure enough, the ground suddenly cracks open a few miles ahead of us, and robots start shuffling out one after another.
Wowzers.
These things look like they came straight out of some space-war movie.
Four arms, and four legs.
The four arms all end in guns, too.
These are some super sci-fi robots, sticking out like sore thumbs in this fantasy world.
As soon as the robots emerge, they start gunning straight for us.
Looks like the enemy’s already located our little team, then.
The robots use their four legs skillfully to bound through the forest.
Boy, that’s fast.
In terms of stats, their average is probably around five thousand per unit?
That kind of speed is a fart in the wind to the Demon Lord and me, but it could give the puppet spiders a run for their money, maybe.
The puppet spiders’ stats average over ten thousand, but we don’t know what kind of firepower those robots are loaded with, and more importantly, there’s a bunch of them.
“Incoming,” I tell the Demon Lord shortly. “I’ll deal with it.”
Then I speed ahead, and before the robots even come into visible range, I activate a conjuring.
Black bullets sail straight toward the robot corps.
As soon as they hit, the robots go down, falling apart immediately.
…Huh.
Is that the best Potimas can do?
No, surely not.
I’m sure he’s got more up his sleeve than this fragile junk.
But either way, now we’ve found the entrance to the underground.
I ignore the broken remains of the robots and move forward, arriving at the area the robots emerged from.
The hatch hurriedly tries to slide shut, but I stop it with sheer force.
In fact, I kinda broke the hatch.
Beyond it is a steep downward slope.
Potimas is down here somewhere.
I signal the Demon Lord with my eyes, and she nods silently and heads down.
From here on out, the Demon Lord is on her own.
That’s what she wants, after all.
We won’t interfere.
But I did send a miniscule spider clone after her, just to watch over the battle.
Don’t die on me, Demon Lord.
Meanwhile, it’s time to get down to business.
Infuriatingly enough, the man called Potimas Harrifenas has played an inextricable part in a large portion of my life.
From the moment of my birth to the present day, I’ve always been haunted by that man’s shadow.
The reason is simple, though I am especially loath to acknowledge it: He is my father, if only by blood.
Certainly he has never once treated me as a daughter.
It doesn’t matter now, and I have no way of confirming this anyway, but I suspect he never even recorded my birth in his family register or anything of the sort.
In other words, he refused to acknowledge me.
That goes without saying, since to him I was nothing more than a lab rat for his experiments.
My earliest memory is of lying in a bed in a laboratory, or something of the sort.
Obviously, I don’t remember the details at this point, but I know I was lying in that place for a very long time.
Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that I had no other choice but to lie there.
I was bedridden day and night, without the ability to even sit up.
By the time I had any self-awareness, I was already in that condition.
Fortunately, I naturally picked up the ability to understand language, probably because the television was always on in that room.
Since Potimas generally chose educational programs for me to watch, I picked up a decent amount of knowledge without ever leaving my bed, too.
Although I’m sure that was just part of his experiment, to see if I would develop intelligence at a normal human rate.
Yes, it was all an experiment.
That is the reason I was born.
I never knew my mother.
In fact, I don’t know if I even had one.
Because I am not just an ordinary human.
I am a chimera, the subject Potimas was studying at the time.
A chimera is made when factors from different creatures are combined to create a new species. I am the result of one such experiment.
When I say Potimas is my father, I don’t mean that he impregnated my hypothetical mother, and she later gave birth to me.
I only mean that I am a chimera that was based on Potimas’s genes.
I still don’t know if I was born in a test tube, or if I really did have a mother. At this point, I have no way of finding out.
Though I suspect it is closer to the former. I assume my creation did not involve a mother’s womb.
Based on my physical makeup, I doubt any mother of mine would have survived carrying me to term.
It’s the same reason that I was forcibly confined to a bedridden lifestyle.
Namely: I am venomous.
I was evidently created using DNA from various creatures, with Potimas’s genes as a base, but it seems that the strongest influence of all came from the DNA of a spider.
My body has the ability to produce poison.
There was no way of knowing at the time that this came from the spider; my appearance was completely human, and I didn’t have any other spiderlike traits.
I only learned this much later, when the system was put into place, and many of my skills and titles were spider-related.
In those days, all I knew was that the poison was eating away at my body.
Yes, while my body produced poison, it unfortunately did not have the ability to process that poison.
Thus, my body was constantly being corroded by my own poison, making it impossible for me to live a normal life.
The only way my body could survive at all was to lie in bed and receive nutrients and poison-neutralizing medicine through a constant IV drip.
I wasn’t truly living. I was merely being kept alive.
And I was treated as nothing but a lab rat all the while, occasionally having blood samples taken and such.
Potimas doesn’t have a shred of emotion or empathy. Perhaps he would have eventually euthanized me once he finished collecting data from my body.
Fortunately, I was rescued by Lady Sariel before that happened.
In a rare moment for Potimas, he apparently made some kind of major blunder not long before I was rescued, and the resulting investigation spread worldwide.
Then other chimera children like me who were being used as lab rats were found all over the world, and Lady Sariel led the Sariella Foundation in taking them in.
Because many of the other chimera children had unusual circumstances like me, normal orphanages couldn’t take them in, and medical institutions had to be involved.
At first, society itself was also unsure how to handle chimeras like us, and so there were often fights over citizenship and such, too.
And some of the children had unique traits that could be dangerous, useful, or both, making the handling of chimeras a delicate matter.
Thus, out of all the interested parties, it was the Sariella Foundation that was chosen to handle the affair: a charitable organization that didn’t belong to any particular nation.
The Sariella Foundation had ties both to health care and orphanage administration, and because they had no regional affiliation, they could be completely neutral.
They certainly wouldn’t use the chimeras as living weapons.
It was the perfect organization to entrust with their care.
Some nations tried to keep useful-seeming chimeras for themselves, but since the president of the Foundation, Lady Sariel herself, always showed up on the scene in person, there were few instances of this succeeding.
Of course, it was only after the system was put in place that we discovered that there had been a few exceptions after all.
Even Lady Sariel and the Sariella Foundation couldn’t save all of them.
But even so, Lady Sariel gave it her all to save as many of us as she could, to take us all in.
Even chimeras like me, who were likely on the verge of death.
Both physically and mentally.
It may have ended in tragedy, but the fact remains that Lady Sariel gathered us up and saved us.
The chimera children lived together in a nameless orphanage.
They were my brothers and sisters.
And those days in the orphanage with them were by far the happiest times of my life.
Which is exactly why I can’t let Potimas get away with stealing that precious happiness.
I will destroy him with my own hands.
…No matter the cost.
“How pathetic.”
A deeply unpleasant voice echoes from some hidden speaker.
“Of course that was the best you could do. The only one I need to be cautious of is Güliedistodiez. Did you really think you could defeat me, when I have prepared myself for battle against nothing short of a god? That is why you will never be anything more than a pathetic little girl.”
Is it my imagination, or is he talking more than usual?
Perhaps I should be happy about that, at least.
“Still, we have known each other for so many years now. It would be rude to hold back against you in your final hour. I believe you have earned the right to be defeated by the full extent of my power. So I have deemed you worthy of using this Gloria Type Ω, which I created to fight Güliedistodiez.”
The voice over the speaker coolly gives an assessment I didn’t ask for.
Before my eyes, looking down upon me, is a mechanical weapon.
“What an emotional moment. Our long years together will finally come to an end, here and now. I can finally wipe the slate clean without a trace. Farewell to you, my greatest failure.”
Then the machine swings its sword down at me.
All humans die.
There is no way to change this.
So what can one do to avoid death?
The answer is simple.
One must simply become a being who transcends humanity.
Fortunately, there are creatures called dragons in this world, who are clearly superior to humans.
And from my observations, it seems that members of their race do not expire.
If I could integrate dragon genes into a human…
And so I began to experiment.
Sometimes by creating clones of myself.
Sometimes by using cloning technology to create children with my genetic makeup.
And sometimes with orphans without any relation to me.
But it has yet to succeed.
I am still a fry cry from the eternal life I seek.
But I will continue to experiment as many times as it takes to reach that goal.
Fortunately, I have no shortage of test subjects.
If you’re wondering what happened after that impactful first meeting between Sariel and me, the answer is “not very much.”
I sensed the difference in our strength and surrendered immediately.
The humans who were working to rescue the dragon child happened to succeed at precisely that moment, and so we parted without any further clarification.
I had to collect the child from the human rescuers, and Sariel vanished as soon as she judged that the incident was over.
We had no further communication after that.
And I assumed we would never see each other again.
Sariel and the dragons were essentially in a continuous cold war.
We rarely interacted unless one side deliberately tried to contact the other.
In other words, young dragons such as myself had no official interactions with Sariel.
But unofficially was a different story.
I had never been knocked off my feet by anyone but a fellow dragon, you see.
So I was now very intrigued about Sariel.
I suppose our meeting was just that impactful to me.
Of course, at this stage, I hadn’t yet developed any kind of romantic feelings.
I do not believe that I am the sort of person who would fall in love with someone merely because they punched me, or anything so perverse.
If anything, I imagine it was more out of self-preservation than mere curiosity.
Since I had spent my life in the small community of dragons, the being called Sariel was the first enemy I had met from the outside world.
It is a natural instinct to prepare oneself against enemies, is it not?
And so, I investigated Sariel and began observing her.
Much later, a certain someone shocked me by describing this as “stalker”-like behavior, but in retrospect that memory too makes me smile.
I do not know how long exactly Sariel has been on this planet.
She was here long before dragons came to this land, that much is certain.
Poring over human history, one can find images of a Sariel-like figure here and there.
In other words, she was already here by the time humans began to record their history.
So what is Sariel, exactly?
The answer is that she is an angel.
In fact, she is a lost angel who strayed from the rest of her kind.
What is an angel?
I cannot give a clear answer to that question.
What is a dragon? What is a human?
These answers are just as impossible to define.
If I were to put aside such philosophizing and answer more practically, I suppose I would list the traits of the species known as “angels.”
In short, angels are a race that war against the gods.
For some reason, they consider it their mission to destroy any and all godly beings, and thus they are locked in an endless conflict.
I am told that angels will attack any god, no matter their affiliation.
Though this is only hearsay, as I do not know any angels other than Sariel.
Why do angels view gods with such hostility?
This, too, I cannot say.
In truth, there are many mysteries surrounding the race of angels.
Even the angels themselves do not have all the answers, or so I hear.
It is said that angels suddenly appeared in ancient times, long, long before I was born.
Some even theorize based on this sudden emergence, and their devotion to their mission, that perhaps they were created by some higher being.
Even wilder theories suggest they were made by the universe itself as a sort of antibody, a defense against the gods who, despite existing within the universe, could very well threaten to destroy it.
At any rate, I certainly do not know the truth.
That is all I can say as to the origin of angels. But as far as their specific traits, the most notable by far is their awe-inspiring level of power.
Angels are strong enough that their race persists even after making enemies of gods of all kinds, including dragons.
I am told that even the weakest of angels exist in the territory of gods and attack them in groups.
And Sariel was particularly powerful even for an angel.
In fact, the real reason that the elder dragons who once walked this earth as my superiors chose to live in relative obscurity is so that Sariel would not destroy them.
Evidently Sariel was strong enough that she could have chased all the dragons of this world to extinction.
And her mission was to protect the native species of the planet.
This mission is the sole reason why dragons could not carelessly destroy humanity.
Angels are mysterious beings, who are given missions that drive their existence.
They will go to any lengths necessary to achieve these missions.
Indeed, their every action is so purely devoted to their missions that they can be rather inflexible.
Generally, it seems that most angels complete their missions and move on to a new one, but in some very rare cases an angel will adhere to a single lifelong mission.
In those cases, they may attempt to continue a mission they have already completed or continue fighting for a mission that is no longer possible to achieve, in a way that an outside observer would see as completely fruitless.
And these angels who have strayed from the others and act on their own are known as “lost angels.”
Sariel was one such lost angel.
Her mission was to protect the native species of the planet.
Long ago, a non-native god must have attacked this world and attempted to rule it.
Sariel was dispatched in order to prevent that.
I imagine that once she chased this god away, Sariel’s mission should have been considered complete, and she would have taken on a new mission and moved on to another world.
But something must have gone wrong, because Sariel remained here.
And continued her mission of protecting the native species.
There is very little lateral communication between angels.
One could even say there is none at all.
Thus, if an angel is lost, another angel will not come to collect them.
Even an angel with superior strength like Sariel will simply be left alone.
From the point of view of dragons, who communicate with one another and virtually no one else, this is an almost baffling lack of cooperation between members of the same species.
Although that may sound rich coming from a lost dragon like myself, akin to a lost angel.
At any rate, because of this lack of communication between angels, Sariel was left to her own devices for a long time, while the native humans she was protecting spread their influence far and wide.
It was then that the dragons saw this and quietly migrated.
At this point, there is no way of knowing what the elder dragons were thinking back in those days, but perhaps they were hoping they might get the chance to win Sariel over to their side.
We dragons do think of ourselves as the ultimate life-forms, but we do not necessarily ignore other species.
Because we are confident in our place at the top, we feel that it is our duty to guide those below us.
I am sure this would sound prideful to anyone but a fellow dragon, but dragons are very magnanimous toward anyone under our protection.
We show no mercy toward those who oppose us, but for any we have taken under our wings, we promise them the utmost protection.
And because our lifespans are so long, we sometimes take time to gradually strengthen our control over long periods.
Even here, I am sure there was a plan to gradually win over humanity, spread the rule of dragons, and eventually make it so that dragons commanded all of the native species that Sariel was protecting.
Were that to pass, then Sariel would automatically fall under the command of dragons along with those in her protection.
In reality, we only had control over a very small dominion, so this would be a very ambitious undertaking; but to dragons, whose lifespans are near-infinite from the perspective of humans, it would only seem like a moderate amount of time.
The eras of man come and go so quickly from our point of view.
In just a few short generations, people can transform into something else entirely.
If the present humans dislike dragons, we need only improve their view of us gradually through their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and so on.
Though unfortunately, Potimas turned the world upside-down and ruined everything before we could actually achieve that…
I do think about it sometimes.
What would have happened if Potimas had never changed the way that this world works, and Sariel and the dragons continued their strange equilibrium over time?
Most likely, Sariel would have stayed the same.
I believe a certain someone had high hopes for me in that regard, but I am sure one such as myself could never have caused Sariel to change.
If the world had continued on unchanged all this time, I am sure Sariel too would still be protecting the native species as she always did.
And if that were the case, where would I be?
…I cannot say.
Somehow, it is impossible for me to imagine where such a situation might have led me.
Indeed, had this world not changed so drastically, I would not be who I am today.
It is because of all of those events that my current self took form; had they not occurred, I would be a different person entirely.
Small wonder, then, that I cannot imagine it.
Either way, there is no point contemplating a future that might have come to pass.
In the end, it is only a hypothetical, one that will never occur in reality.
…I seem to have gotten off topic again.
Hmm. Has Dustin’s bad habit rubbed off on me as well?
Well, I suppose that is enough talk of angels, fallen angels, dragons, and the like.
So then, what exactly did Sariel’s protection of the native species look like?
As I mentioned before, depictions of a Sariel-like individual can be found throughout human history, but the details of her arrival and related anecdotes vary greatly.
In some cases, she performs miracles to save people, while in others she is treated as a witch.
Among the earliest of tales, she even warns humans against overhunting animal populations, and eventually punishes them for it.
In these times, Sariel was mindful of the ecosystem balance, keeping an eye on all of the native species equally.
But at some point, her priorities shifted toward favoring humans.
Angels may be devoted to their missions to the point of blindness to all else, but it is not as if they are without their own thoughts and individual selves.
So it is no great surprise that her interest might begin to lean toward humans, who can communicate their thoughts.
Delving further into human history, there are passages that suggest Sariel was trying to determine how best to deal with humans.
Her largest-scale interventions took place primarily in ancient history; over time, these instances became few and far between.
She must have decided that it was more efficient to match her activities to those of humanity rather than use her powers like a god.
By the time I first met Sariel, she was scarcely using her godlike powers in an official capacity at all and had instead formed a charitable organization called the Sariella Foundation, through which she carried out her mission.
The Foundation was active throughout the world, not belonging to any particular nation.
Its activities included general medical care, support for underprivileged regions, establishment of educational institutions, administration of orphanages and nursing homes, and so on and so forth.
The scope of her charity was remarkably broad.
Because the leader of the Foundation sought to protect humans, the dominant native species, she was not interested in profits or anything of the sort.
As a result, the international community as a whole trusted her completely, and because the top brass of a select few nations knew of her true nature, the Sariella Foundation had an enormous presence.
However, even if her goal was not to make a profit, the activities of the Foundation did cost a considerable sum of money.
The funding for their charitable activities was covered by various donations.
And the biggest of those donors was a billionaire by the name of Foduey, feared at the time as the “Demon Lord of the business world.”
Thanks to the vast sums of money he contributed, the Sariella Foundation was able to continue its generally unpaid, essentially volunteer activities.
To the people of the world at that time, I am sure the Sariella Foundation seemed like salvation from a goddess.
Which would not be entirely incorrect, since the organization’s leader Sariel really was a godlike being known as an angel.
Sariel was immensely popular with humanity.
However, at the time, I saw her activities as far too indirect and inefficient.
If she wished to protect humanity, she should have simply ruled over them with brute strength, in my young self’s opinion.
Sariel was powerful enough to do just that, and the Sariella Foundation already had the organizational capability as well.
If a dragon were in a similar position, I am sure they would have enacted such a rule without hesitation. I can say that much for certain, as I too subscribed to the standard thought pattern of dragons at the time.
However, I now realize that such thinking was misguided.
Dragons thought to create peace for lesser races by giving them a life of safety inside of a birdcage; Sariel encouraged humanity to be self-reliant, and only offered a helping hand.
Our fundamental goals were ultimately quite different—perhaps even opposites.
At the time, I failed to understand that.
But even now, I cannot say which goal was correct.
I do not think the dragons’ way of doing things was wrong, even if I have since been estranged from them.
And yet, I do not think Sariel’s approach was wrong, either.
Protection, or independence?
The only answer would lie with the humans of that time, and how they would feel in one position or the other.
But one would likely have to experience both before coming up with a proper answer.
And experiencing both of those opposites would be very difficult.
On top of that, even if one could do so, their ultimate answer would surely vary from one individual to the next.
While humans are all of the same species, their individual thoughts and feelings differ drastically.
Attempting to lump them all together in broad strokes inevitably fails.
I am sure Sariel made that same mistake many times.
For dragons, even if we fail on occasion, we will simply choose to enforce our dominion with sheer strength.
Dragons are soft on those under their protection, but we do not show mercy to those whom we oppose; anyone we have bared our fangs toward even once will never be taken under our wing.
There is a clear line drawn there: dragons are above, and all others are below.
That is the way in which dragons rule.
But Sariel evidently did not approve of such methods.
Rather than oppressing people with her power, she chose to walk alongside them.
Because her goal was to protect the native species, controlling them with force would have seemed a foolish approach.
It would involve cutting off those she was meant to protect, after all.
A politician may have to do just that from time to time, but Sariel’s mission was to protect humans, not to guide them.
Understanding that much explains Sariel’s decisions to a certain degree, even if I cannot agree with all of them.
But unfortunately, I had no way of knowing that at the time, nor did I have any doubt that the way we dragons did things was correct, so Sariel’s methods only frustrated me.
And so, I quite foolishly went to lodge my complaints with her in person.
I suppose this was another mistake of a reckless youth.
But that is how my interactions with Sariel truly began in earnest.
Once the Demon Lord heads into the underground lair, I wonder what to do next.
It isn’t as if I don’t have anything to do—quite the opposite: There’s a lot that I could and should be doing.
In fact, I have so many options that I can’t decide where to start.
First, I decide to assess the battlefield as a whole.
Using Panoptic Vision, I get an aerial view of the elf village.
Near the border, where the barrier once was, the imperial army and the elf army are clashing.
The imperial army seems to be struggling pretty badly.
Naturally, the elves have a serious home field advantage in the middle of the forest.
It’s tough to move freely, which is why we had to chop down trees to march through in the first place.
Once they started fighting, the plants and roots underfoot prevented them from using their full strength.
Since the imperial army usually fights on level ground, I guess they’re not accustomed to this kinda thing.
They can’t even keep their formations up since they’re surrounded by trees and all.
And because of their skill setups, the imperial army soldiers are firmly divided into separate branches.
Swordsmen fight with swords. Shield bearers fight with shields. Mages fight with magic.
They all have their roles, and they fulfill them to the letter.
Normally, they plan their formations accordingly to use each branch to the fullest.
…But that ain’t gonna work out this time, clearly.
The swordsmen can’t get close enough to fight, the shieldsmen’s shields are being avoided by the elves’ arrows and magic, and the imperial army mages are having trouble hitting with their spells because all the trees are in the way.
Meanwhile, the elves are using the trees to their full advantage.
They jump around from branch to branch, easily evading the imperial army.
Then they use their precise arrows and spells to take down their enemies.
They’re used to fighting in the woods.
Actually, judging by their skills, it seems like they actually specialize in that.
Looks like they’re using Spatial Maneuvering to hop around in the trees and utilizing bows or magic to target their enemies without getting too close.
Then they dodge counterattacks or use the trees as a shield.
Even if both sides had roughly the same numbers, it’d be difficult to deal with an opponent who’s optimizing the terrain this thoroughly.
The imperial army is big, but they can’t exactly make use of that in the tight space of the forest, or push their way through with sheer numbers.
What they need, then, is strength that renders the home field advantage moot.
At the moment, the only squadrons that are faring well are the main force led by Natsume, and one that’s led by a familiar-looking old mage.
Looks like the same geezer who was Julius the Hero’s teacher.
You can see why he had that position from the way he’s mowing down the elves with rapid-fire barrages of magic.
The protection of the trees?
That means nothing to this old man!
His spells are piercing straight through them.
From the looks of things, the old man’s still got plenty more where that came from; he could probably reduce the elves—and the entire forest—to ash if he really wanted to.
As long as they don’t bust out the robots or anything, the old man should be fine.
But the rest of the imperial army are getting their butts handed to them.
It does seem like they’ve done a bit of damage to the elves’ side, too, but things aren’t looking awesome.
My initial hope was that the imperial army would deal some serious damage to the elf army, then the demon army would finish them off, but at this rate the elves are gonna take down the imperial army and still manage to put up a fairly serious fight against the demon army.
Admittedly, I wasn’t expecting much out of the imperial army to begin with, but it’s still kind of a bummer that they’re even less useful than I hoped…
Either way, if the robots come out, even our primary forces of the demon army won’t amount to much. I guess the efforts of the imperial army don’t matter either way, then.
But the demon army has Mr. Oni and Mera, and even the imperial army has Vampy and Phelmina.
Even if it ends up being a tougher battle than expected, I doubt we’re going to lose.
That is, as long as the elves keep their primary forces—the robots—off the playing field.
So that’s how the imperial army’s faring. On the other hand, the queen and the taratect swarm are totally crushing their side of the elf army.
I mean, these taratects have been living in the forest this whole time.
Since I was able to climb walls and stuff even before I got the Dimensional Maneuvering skill, it’s obvious that the taratect species fare well in terrain with lots of obstacles.
The more surfaces there are, the easier it is to spin webs, for one thing.
Even if the elves are accustomed to fighting in the forest, they can’t be as good at it as the taratects that make their permanent home there.
Plus, the taratects have the queen, and several other strengths that totally outclass any of the elves.
A group of elves can probably take down a greater, but an arch or anything stronger will be a hell of a lot tougher.
And that’s just if it were one against many.
In this case, there are more taratects than there are elves, which makes for a pretty one-sided slaughter.
The elves are basically getting swallowed up by the wave of spiders without slowing them down in the least.
Gotta say, watching an endless sea of spiders teeming out of the forest is enough to give you goosebumps.
…All righty. No problems there, then.
Next, what’s going on inside the elf village?
First, I take a peek at Yamada and company.
Looks like they were trying to protect the area with the teleport gates.
But Kusama got the jump on them and destroyed the gates.
Realizing that the barrier was about to go down, they all hopped on Shinohara in dragon form and are heading for the border.
Looks like they’re headed toward Natsume’s approximate position.
Meanwhile, Natsume himself is locked in a battle to the death with Ms. Oka.
Vampy’s right there, so I doubt Ms. Oka’s life is in any serious danger.
If it were, I’d go ahead and kill everyone involved, anyway.
If Yamada and friends are heading for Natsume, they’ll have to contend with Vampy, and they won’t be running into the Demon Lord. Should be fine to ignore them.
And the elves inside the village don’t seem to be doing much.
The normal ones, who I’m guessing don’t know about the robots, are holing up in their houses looking freaked out.
Most of the capable fighters are out on the front lines, leaving only minimal security and non-combatants.
No robots to be seen.
Hrmm. Maybe I should jump on this chance?
I could probably wipe out all the elves in the village before the robots come out.
The race of elves are all Potimas’s spawns and underlings.
So all of them have to be killed, with the exception of Ms. Oka.
That’s just a fact.
Non-combatant, child, elderly, or otherwise, we’ve gotta annihilate every last one of them.
And right now, those targets are all hiding out in their homes without any real protection.
Can I really let this opportunity pass me by?
Nope, not a chance.
I know what I’ve got to do, then.
Woo-hoo! It’s hunting time, baybeee!
I head toward the elves’ neighborhood, taking the puppet spider sisters along with me.
With our speed, we can get from the outskirts of the elf village to the residential area in a matter of moments.
Next thing you know, we’ve arrived at our goal.
There’s an elf guard keeping watch, but Ael chops off his head before he can react.
…Is it just me, or did he not even realize what was happening until he was already dead?
They haven’t had much of a chance to shine lately, but the puppet spiders are still monsters with stats in the ten thousands, after all.
And because they haven’t been in the spotlight for so long, they’re totally raring to go.
Even now, Ael looks highly pleased with herself for having beheaded that guard.
It’s cute and all, except for the fact that she did just behead someone.
Well, if they’re so eager to show off, I might as well put these sisters to work.
“Spread out.”
On my order, the four sisters scatter.
It’s better to separate them for maximum efficiency, I think.
Even if any robots show up, I don’t think any of them would lose in a one-on-one fight, and they’re fast enough to flee to safety if they get attacked by a group.
Guess I’d better get to work, too.
I pick a direction opposite the spider sisters and dash in a straight line.
As I go, I pop out a bunch of battle clones all the while.
No matter how strong the puppet spiders are, there’s too few of them to lock down the entire elf village.
So my battle clones start going on a rampage every which way to make up for it.
As long as the robots don’t show up, the elves have no way to defend against the battle clones or the puppet spiders.
The residential area is big, but it shouldn’t take that long to get it under control.
Whether they’re up against a battle clone or a puppet spider, the elves aren’t strong enough to even put up a fight.
It’ll be a slaughter.
And all in a few spare moments between movements, too.
It’s easy enough just to lop off someone’s head as you run by.
Meanwhile, I cut across the residential area toward the center of the elf village.
Here, I’m gonna stop distributing battle clones for now.
I’m headed for the area where the reincarnations are being kept.
If I don’t secure their safety, Potimas might try to do something to them when he gets backed into a corner.
It doesn’t seem like he’s done anything like that yet, but I’ll feel better if I make sure they’re safe before he gets a chance to try.
So I arrive in the area where the reincarnations are being held, and pop them all into a separate dimension without a word.
I’m guessing they’ll have no idea what’s going on.
They didn’t even see my face beforehand.
…What, you think that’s lazy?
Look, we’re in an emergency right now…
And they’ll technically be safest in this alternate dimension, sooo…
It’s definitely not because it’d be a pain to meet the other reincarnations face-to-face or anything silly like that.
It’s not, okay? I swear.
They’re set up with enough food and water and stuff for a few days, and a place to sleep.
Even if I did die somehow, they’d be sent someplace safe in this world, too.
Although I don’t plan on dying, obviously.
Anyway, that takes care of the reincarnations.
Now I can cut loose without anything to worry about.
I turn around and head back to the residential area, where the cleanup is already over.
…Hrmm.
I was so sure that robots were gonna show up before we finished here.
He can’t have run out of robots already, right?
Potimas would never settle for such a teensy amount of backup.
And it’s not like he’s using all his forces to fight the Demon Lord down below, either.
Judging by the view from the super-tiny surveillance spider I sent after the Demon Lord, it definitely didn’t look like she was fighting his entire battalion.
Potimas is still saving some strength somewhere.
…So why hasn’t he sent out anything else yet?
Doubts still lingering, I land in the center of the residential area.
The puppet spider sisters have gathered here, too.
There’s not a mark on them, not even blood splatter from their victims.
In fact, even the swords in their hands don’t have a drop of blood on them—what’s up with that?
Are you telling me they cut ’em too fast for any blood to stick to their blades?
Man, what’s scary is that might actually be true.
Looking around the neighborhood full of elf houses carved out of giant trees, the fairy-tale effect is somewhat ruined by the sea of blood.
Yikes, that’s pretty bad.
We haven’t completely wiped out the area yet, but the handful of elves who’ve survived are being hunted down by my battle clones even now.
At this point, I have to assume that Potimas simply decided to abandon the elves on the surface.
But then, as if to prove me wrong, the path through the residential area suddenly splits open, revealing a hole that leads underground.
And a robot comes crawling out.
I still don’t get why Potimas let us kill all the elves, but it looks like this is where the real battle begins.
The puppet spiders step forward to take on the robot.
Maybe they’re excited to have an actual fight, not just a slaughter, since they haven’t had their fill of showing off yet.
I guess I can let them take care of one measly…robot…
Clamorous clanks echo around the area, and a massive number of robots pour out from the ground.
…Isn’t this a bit much?
And it’s not just this area. Swarms of robots are popping out all over the elf village.
Even with just a glance at my Panoptic Vision, their numbers are easily in the tens of thousands.
…Seriously, isn’t this way too much?
They did seem pretty fragile when I broke some before, but I didn’t realize they were mass-produced.
Seriously, who mass-produces fighting robots?
And come on, this many?!
The puppet spiders look at one another.
Then they promptly take shelter behind me.
…What happened to all that eagerness from a second ago, huh?!
Well, yeah, I guess that’s fair…
These numbers are a bit too much even for them…
They could definitely beat these robots one-on-one, or maybe even one-on-two or -three, I would say.
But this many? No waaay.
Come on, even I wasn’t expecting this!
I can protect the puppet spiders since they’re here with me, but the imperial army and demon army might be in a bit of trouble.
Hell, this could be bad even for Vampy and Mr. Oni…
As my mind races, the robots point their guns toward us.
And then the muzzles all start spouting fire at once.
“Now, on to our next news story.”
The orphanage living room was very large.
Accordingly, it had a very large TV, which I spent a lot of time watching.
Since I had no choice but to use a wheelchair in my everyday life, I couldn’t run around and play like the other kids.
When I was brought to the orphanage, I said goodbye to my bedridden life at last.
But my body didn’t magically heal.
After some examinations, intended for treatment instead of experimentation this time, I was prescribed new medication that allowed me to move up from the bed to a wheelchair.
I could even walk on my own a little if I used a cane.
But I still couldn’t remove the IVs that constantly provided me with medication and nutrients.
Because my body was still constantly producing venom, I needed the antidote and nutritional supplements to keep me alive.
Ironically enough, my body required more nutrients than the average person in order to keep producing that venom.
You might wonder if it would stop making venom if I stopped taking in nutrients, but no: I would still produce poison, and be malnourished on top of it.
It was only through the combination of the IVs and an easy-to-digest liquid diet that my body was able to sustain itself at all.
Unfortunately, that left little nutrition for my body to grow, which is why I am still small even to this day.
Though technically, it isn’t as if I didn’t grow at all.
Once my body developed and I gained a bit more stamina, I was finally able to move on my own, if only for a little while and with the help of a cane.
Even then, I spent the majority of the day in a wheelchair, which inevitably limited my options.
Part 2 of 8