So I’m a Spider, So What?, Vol. 6

by Okina Baba

  Does that mean this war was inevitable, then?

  “What about you? Sure you didn’t wanna give him a piece of your mind?”

  “As I said before, if the young mistress does not wish to speak, then I have nothing to say, either.”

  Merazophis lays me down on the bed as he responds.

  “You should’ve just told him off without worrying about me.”

  My voice through Telepathy is a bit sulky.

  I kept quiet only because I thought Merazophis would do the talking for both of us.

  Still, in the end, maybe things were better off this way.

  I don’t think anything Merazophis said would have gotten through to that old man. Or even if it did, he certainly wouldn’t alter his course of action.

  Ariel’s words confirmed that, but even more convincing was the powerful conviction we sensed from the pontiff himself.

  In the end, Merazophis’s actions were probably for the best, although that doesn’t make me feel any better.

  No matter what happens from now on, I’m sure nothing will completely clear away our anger and grief.

  Even if we killed the pontiff and destroyed the entire Word of God religion, that still wouldn’t change.

  This was for the best.

  But that’s just how I feel about it.

  “Merazophis… From now on, I’d like you to trust your own feelings instead of only prioritizing mine.”

  Earlier, Merazophis was refraining on my behalf. It’s possible that he feels differently, deep down.

  I can’t bear to watch him bottle up all his feelings just to protect me.

  It always ends up making me feel responsible and guilty.

  “I don’t want you to try to be an emotionless puppet for me. You don’t have to put me first. Trust your own feelings and act on them.”

  Merazophis stiffens, looking bewildered by my words.

  I hesitate for a moment, then force myself to push on.

  “Merazophis, if you…if you would prefer to leave me, that’s all right. You can go take your revenge, or forget about everything and start a new life. I don’t want to force you to be tied to me.”

  “Young miss…”

  Of course, the truth is that I don’t want him to leave me.

  Merazophis is the one and only witness to the life I’ve lived in this world so far.

  No, maybe I don’t need to make it sound so complicated.

  There’s no practical reason behind these feelings.

  I just want Merazophis to stay with me.

  But I don’t want to steal away his future for my own selfish desires.

  I’ve already taken his humanity from him.

  I’ve seen firsthand how much he’s worried and suffered over becoming a vampire.

  He seems to have recovered from that now, but I don’t want him to lose anything else because of me.

  If Merazophis wants to leave, I can’t stop him.

  If that really does happen, I’m sure I’ll want to cry and hold him back from leaving.

  And if I do that, I’m sure Merazophis will relent and stay with me out of a sense of obligation.

  But that’s exactly why I have to keep my emotions hidden.

  If he picks up on my feelings even in the slightest, I’m sure he won’t be able to leave me.

  “Young miss. Do you…have no use for me?”

  After I steel myself and bring up the topic, Merazophis looks at me like an abandoned puppy.

  Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

  “That’s ridiculous. Of course I do.”

  I answer immediately.

  Of course.

  I need Merazophis to be with me.

  But I brought this up only because I didn’t want him to feel like he had no other choice but to stay.

  So why is he looking at me like that?

  Confused, I don’t know where to go from there.

  “Young miss, the sole meaning of my life is to serve you. I have no desire to ever leave your side.”

  Merazophis kneels next to the bed.

  “So please, if you will, grant my permission to stay by your side.”

  He reaches his hand out toward me, and I grasp it instinctively.

  As I do so, it’s as if his feelings are transmitted to me through touch, and for reasons I barely understand, I find myself clinging to him.

  When Merazophis embraces me gently in return, I follow my instincts and bite down on his neck.

  “Ah!”

  Merazophis’s body shudders, but he doesn’t resist.

  The taste of blood fills my mouth, and I’m overcome with a deep sense of satisfaction, happiness, and relief.

  At the same time, I’m overwhelmed with the desire to weep, and tears begin to pour down my cheeks.

  “Mmph… Bwaaah…”

  I continue drinking Merazophis’s blood as I cry.

  Merazophis simply stays still, allowing me to do as I wish, holding me all the while.

  Earlier today, we met the pontiff of the Word of God and learned all kinds of things I still don’t quite understand, but right now, I don’t really care anymore.

  As long as Merazophis stays with me, we’ll be fine.

  That’s all that matters.

  I know now.

  This person is mine.

  No matter what anyone says, even if Merazophis himself grows tired of me, I’ll never let him go.

  I keep drinking his blood until all the crying wears me out and I finally fall asleep, still cradled in his arms.

  THE DEMON LORD AND IMMORTALITY

  I quietly leave the room so as not to disturb the pair while they’re embracing each other.

  I guess this means they’ve worked things out?

  This is probably best for both of them right now.

  Although in the future, they’ll probably have to maintain a bit of distance lest they become super-codependent.

  There are still some small kinks to work past, not to mention the big problem of what they’re going to do from now on, but at least mentally they’ve figured it out for now.

  Although it sits a little weird with me that White is the one who helped Merazophis dispel his worries.

  I never expected her to be so sensitive to other people’s feelings.

  Although I guess looking back on her memories, she’s always been weirdly good at guessing what people are thinking and feeling.

  I mean, is she a con man or what?

  She absolutely refuses to communicate most of the time, sometimes misleads people, and yet is also good at figuring out their feelings. It’s a complete mystery.

  When she totally won over the puppet taratects, I seriously didn’t know what I was gonna do.

  Actually, that’s not quite accurate. If anything, that’s the moment I knew I had no choice but to keep trying to reconcile with her.

  At this point, I don’t think I can get rid of White anymore.

  I still don’t understand the root of her immortality, for one thing.

  If I try something without figuring that out and she gets away from me, I don’t think I’ll ever catch her again.

  White has Teleport, after all. It’s a breeze for her to run away from me with a spell that lets her instantly be transported to anywhere she’s been before.

  If she wants to run away from me, I have no way of catching up to her.

  That would be all well and good if she decided to focus only on running away, but knowing her personality, I guarantee she’d launch a counterattack sooner or later.

  Which means she’d probably use that particular guerrilla warfare of hers again to whittle away at my forces.

  I have no way of catching up to her, yet she can launch an attack whenever she wants.

  I still wouldn’t lose to her.

  But I don’t think anyone else stands a chance against something like that.

  If it came down to it, all my forces except for myself would be obliterated.

  I don’t see how th
at’s any different from being defeated.

  As it stands, the puppet taratects are already becoming attached to White.

  If we wound up fighting, I don’t think she could turn them against me, but they’d definitely be reluctant to attack her.

  Seriously, what a dangerous opponent she is.

  That’s why I decided to give up on killing her and take her in as an ally instead.

  She might be a huge nuisance as an enemy, but if she’s on my side, she’ll make an extremely dependable ally.

  That’s why I’ve been trying to win her over and slowly close the distance between us.

  Being nice to the vampire servant-and-master pair is all part of that plan.

  She seems to have taken a liking to them, after all. If I look out for them, hopefully White will start to think better of me, too.

  My kindness might be for a calculated reason, but I think I’ve still managed to be useful to them.

  The rest will depend on what path they choose.

  If they decide to come with me to the demon territory, I’ll keep looking after them, but if not, we’ll say our good-byes on the spot.

  That might seem a little cold, but I have things I need to do. I can’t stick around here forever.

  I keep walking after I leave the room until I end up outside the inn.

  Then I keep retracing my steps until I wind up near the restaurant where we ate earlier.

  Walking a little farther, I reach a tavern and step inside.

  “Were you waiting long?”

  “Not at all.”

  I take a seat at a table, and greet the person sitting across from me.

  The Word of God pontiff, Dustin.

  This wasn’t a planned meeting, but I figured he would be waiting at the nearest tavern, confident that I would come back.

  As proof, there are already drinks for two waiting on the table.

  I pick up one of the glasses as if it’s the natural course of action and down the contents without waiting to clink glasses with him.

  “Wouldn’t you like to have a toast first?”

  “No.”

  Dustin sighs, but I ignore him.

  “We’re not on such friendly terms that we can casually share a toast.”

  “I suppose that’s true.”

  That being said, we’re both talking in a much lighter tone than before.

  We didn’t meet up again like this to keep having tense exchanges, after all. We met up to complain together.

  This man and I share a deep bond.

  After me, he’s spent the longest time dealing with that piece of garbage Potimas.

  However, our relationship isn’t easy to sum up in a word.

  If Potimas is my enemy and Gülie my ally, this man lies somewhere in the middle.

  In some contexts, we share a common goal, but in others, we’re on opposing sides.

  It’s too complicated to say whether he’s an ally or an enemy.

  Given recent events and how they affected the vampire duo, I’d say he’s leaning toward the enemy side.

  But we also share a common enemy in the elves, so on that front, we can sometimes work together.

  In this case, though, I can’t go carelessly revealing information to him.

  Potimas is definitely after the reincarnations.

  If I give this man that information, I’ll also have to explain reincarnations to him.

  And if he learns about reincarnations, he’ll definitely try to use them somehow.

  The man sitting across from me will do whatever it takes to achieve his goal.

  His goal of protecting humanity.

  He created the Word of God religion for the sole purpose of accomplishing that goal—not out of any so-called faith.

  Religion just happens to be the most efficient way to gather a lot of people.

  That’s why he’s out to put an end to the Goddess religion, a rival religion that happens to include a less-than-convenient truth.

  It’s all for the sake of protecting humanity.

  If he has to kill some of those very same humans in the process, he’ll do so without hesitation.

  This man has no problem with sacrificing the few so that the many might live, so if he thinks reincarnations can help protect humanity, he’ll gladly use up as many as he can get his hands on.

  Which is why I won’t be telling him a single thing about reincarnations.

  Knowing him, he’ll figure it out on his own soon enough.

  And once he does, well, there’ll be no saving any reincarnations he finds.

  Yes, I’m keeping quiet on the topic of reincarnations, but I don’t plan to do anything more to help them, either.

  If they happen to be within my reach, then sure, I’ll look after ’em in my spare time, but I have bigger fish to fry.

  I’m not gonna go out of my way to save every last one of them.

  I can’t ignore my duty, which is to lead the demons to attack humanity, of course.

  In that respect, this man is most definitely my enemy, I guess.

  “So, should I take your parting words from earlier as a declaration of war?”

  “Do whatever you want. Either way, the fact is that I’m the Demon Lord now.”

  “So the time has come at last, has it?” Dustin sighs heavily. “A crisis that threatens all humanity.”

  “Yep. Which is why I dunno if you should really be wasting time on the Goddess religion right now, yeah?”

  Quite frankly, I don’t much care what happens to the Goddess religion.

  Whether people want to believe in the Goddess, worship me as a Divine Beast, or forget all of it and just pray aimlessly, it’s no skin off my back.

  You wanna destroy them? Feel free.

  But there is a possibility that the vampire duo is gonna stay in this country.

  If that happens, it’d obviously be better for them if there’s no war.

  Since I’ve looked after them for a while now, I think I’m allowed to put a little pressure on him to avoid that.

  “Indeed. I will need to make preparations. After I have crushed the Goddess religion, of course.”

  Hoo boy. No dice, huh?

  For whatever reason, he seems to be dead set on wiping out that religion no matter what.

  “Ah. Gotcha. Well, good luck with that, then.”

  “Oh? You accepted that rather more readily than I expected.”

  “Yeah, ’cause I don’t really care either way.”

  “It seems to me you might have some emotional attachment there.”

  I snort at that.

  Why should I have any attachment to the Goddess religion?

  The basic premise of their stupid creed is that if they pray hard enough, the Goddess will do something about their problems.

  Send up prayers of gratitude to the Goddess, and she’ll watch over you!

  Give me a break.

  These morons already forced the Goddess to do everything, and now they want to demand even more from her? It pisses me off.

  In that respect, the Word of God religion actually has more going for it.

  And the man before me is at the forefront of that.

  Because he made a religion based on a firm understanding of the system, the secret behind this world.

  Honestly, the claim that raising your skills and levels will let you hear the voice of God more clearly was a pretty genius idea on his part.

  And spreading that word as the basis of a new religion is an even more impressive move.

  Most of humanity knows about the Word of God religion now.

  Even if they aren’t all believers, so many people are aware of it now that it’s basically common knowledge.

  His ability to take a ridiculous claim like that and ingrain it so well that it becomes common knowledge is what’s truly dangerous about Dustin.

  Manipulating the masses.

  He influences people’s thoughts without their even realizing it, guiding them in whatever direction is
most convenient for him.

  It’s not a system-based skill or any kind of external power like that. He’s just naturally a masterful speaker.

  Humanity’s most brilliant invention is language.

  And this man happens to be brilliant at exploiting it.

  All he had to do was raise his voice, address the people, and guide their minds.

  People gathered, drawn in by that voice, and elevated him to ever higher positions.

  Just like that, Dustin gained unparalleled power.

  How is that possible? It’s simple.

  It’s because he’s right.

  Everything he says is overwhelmingly, undeniably right.

  For humans, that is.

  Because his goal is to protect humanity.

  The man is so determined to protect humanity by any means, so unshakably right, that the people he wishes to protect can’t help but admire him.

  If anything, the Goddess religion is strange for continuing to oppose him.

  They’re an outlier from the rest of humanity.

  From Dustin’s point of view, the time to correct that anomaly has come, nothing more.

  But frankly, since I’m not a human, it doesn’t really matter to me what humans do.

  Even if it is a little tragic how many of his own kind this man plans to eliminate in the process of protecting them.

  “Well, you managed, didn’t you?”

  “I suppose. Though it has been a long time since my heart pained me so.”

  Merazophis’s words really did get through to him.

  He might have been prepared to hear angry accusations, maybe even to be killed.

  But I’m sure he never expected to be told that his life is trivial.

  “Trivial, indeed. It seems that somewhere along the way, I’d begun to overvalue myself. Imagining that my single life might be enough to assuage their feelings was hubris of the worst degree.”

  “Yeah, your life’s not worth much. No wonder they noticed that you don’t care if you die.”

  This man is not afraid to die himself.

  Rather, his fear is the collapse of peace among humanity.

  Thinking of humanity as a whole, he feels there are some humans, like the Goddess religion followers, who can be discarded for the greater good.

  And he considers himself among that disposable number.

  His own life is of trivial value to him.

  The life of someone who doesn’t care if they die doesn’t amount to much.