by Okina Baba
“****!”
An explosion.
And a voice that somehow comes through the noise clearly.
As everything erupts into chaos, the calm part of my mind tries to analyze what happened.
Something just appeared here.
It didn’t even teleport. It was just that fast.
The explosive sound was the impact of its arrival.
There was nothing in my range of vision just seconds ago, and now something arrived from outside that range so quickly that it caused a powerful shock wave.
Unbelievable speed.
It appeared right in front of my eyes, so fast that it could easily have leaped straight from the pages of a battle manga.
Yes, right in front of me.
The powerful shock has damaged my body significantly, as if a meteor had landed right next to me.
But the enemy who just appeared is so far out of the ordinary that I have no choice but to ignore that damage.
That’s what happens at first.
However, I try it again, this time adding the power of Wisdom to my Appraisal.
After a bit of resistance, I can feel it break through, and my Appraisal succeeds.
Status: HP: 90,098/90,098 (green)
+99,999 (details)
SP: 89,862/89,862 (yellow) (details)
Average Offensive Ability: 90,021 (details)
Average Magical Ability: 87,504 (details)
Average Speed Ability: 89,518 (details)
MP: 87,655/87,655 (blue) +99,999 (details)
: 89,856/89,856 (red)
+99,567 (details)
Average Defensive Ability: 89,997 (details)
Average Resistance Ability: 87,489 (details)
Skills:
[HP Ultra-Fast Recovery LV 4] [MP Rapid Recovery LV 10] [MP Lessened Consumption LV 10] [Precise Magic Power Operation LV 10]
[Magic Divinity LV 10] [Magic Power Conferment LV 10] [Magic Conferment LV 10] [Magic Power Super-Attack LV 10]
[SP Rapid Recovery LV 10] [SP Minimized Consumption LV 10] [Destruction Super-Enhancement LV 10] [Impact Super-Enhancement LV 10]
[Cutting Super-Enhancement LV 8] [Piercing Super-Enhancement LV 10] [Shock Super-Enhancement LV 10] [Status Condition Super-Enhancement LV 10]
[Battle Divinity LV 10] [Energy Conferment LV 10] [Ability Conferment LV 10] [Energy Super-Attack LV 10]
[Divine Dragon Power LV 10] [Divine Dragon Barrier LV 10] [Deadly Poison Attack LV 10] [Enhanced Paralysis Attack LV 10]
[Poison Synthesis LV 10] [Medicine Synthesis LV 10] [Thread Genius LV 10] [Divine Thread Weaving]
[Thread Control LV 10] [Psychokinesis LV 10] [Throw LV 10] [Expel LV 10]
[Dimensional Maneuvering LV 10] [Cooperation LV 10] [Tactician LV 10] [Fartalk LV 10]
[Kin Control LV 10] [Egg-Laying LV 10] [Summoning LV 10] [Concentration LV 10]
[Thought Super-Acceleration LV 6] [Future Sight LV 6] [Parallel Minds LV 4] [High-Speed Processing LV 10]
[Hit LV 10] [Evasion LV 10] [Probability Super-Correction LV 10] [Stealth LV 10]
[Concealment LV 10] [Silence LV 10] [Odorless LV 10] [Emperor]
[Appraisal LV 10] [Detection LV 10] [Sublimation] [Heretic Magic LV 10]
[Fire Magic LV 8] [Water Magic LV 10] [Flood Magic LV 5] [Wind Magic LV 10]
[Gale Magic LV 10] [Tempest Magic LV 10] [Earth Magic LV 10] [Terrain Magic LV 10]
[Seismic Magic LV 10] [Lightning Magic LV 10] [Bolt Magic LV 8] [Light Magic LV 10]
[Holy Light Magic LV 2] [Shadow Magic LV 10] [Dark Magic LV 10] [Black Magic LV 10]
[Poison Magic LV 10] [Healing Magic LV 10] [Spatial Magic LV 2] [Heavy Magic LV 10]
[Abyss Magic LV 10] [Great Demon Lord LV 10] [Dignity LV 5] [Rage LV 9]
[Gluttony] [Usurp LV 8] [Rest LV 9] [Depraved LV 4]
[Physical Nullification] [Flame Resistance LV 5] [Flood Nullification] [Gale Nullification]
[Terrain Nullification] [Bolt Nullification] [Holy Light Resistance LV 8] [Black Nullification]
[Heavy Nullification] [Status Condition Nullification] [Acid Nullification] [Rot Super-Resistance LV 7]
[Faint Nullification] [Fear Nullification] [Heresy Super-Resistance LV 6] [Pain Nullification]
[Suffering Nullification] [Night Vision LV 10] [Clairvoyance LV 10] [Five Senses Super-Enhancement LV 10]
[Perception Expansion LV 10] [Divinity Expansion LV 3] [Ultimate Life LV 10] [Ultimate Magic LV 10]
[Ultimate Movement LV 10] [Fortune LV 10] [Fortitude LV 10] [Stronghold LV 10]
[Deva LV 10] [Sanctum LV 10] [Skanda LV 10] [Taboo LV 10]
Skill Points: 0
Titles:
[Human Slayer] [Human Slaughterer] [Human Calamity] [Demon Slayer]
[Demon Slaughterer] [Demon Calamity] [Fairy Slayer] [Fairy Slaughterer]
[Fairy Calamity] [Monster Slayer] [Monster Slaughterer] [Monster Calamity]
[Wyrm Slayer] [Wyrm Slaughterer] [Wyrm Calamity] [Dragon Slayer]
[Dragon Slaughterer] [Merciless] [Foul Feeder] [Kin Eater]
[Assassin] [Poison Technique User] [Thread User] [Puppet User]
[Commander] [Champion] [Lord] [Ancient Divine Beast]
[Ruler of Gluttony] [Demon Lord]
>
I’ll be honest. I would have been better off not knowing.
This being with the Demon Lord title.
The girl who appeared before me was a demon lord and the strongest spider of all.
“******, *******!”
This monstrosity in the shape of a young girl speaks to me rather affably.
But of course, I don’t know the language of this world.
So I have no idea what the Demon Lord is saying.
“***********, ****************?”
She’s asking me something.
I can tell that much by her tone, but I don’t understand the question itself.
Anyway, I have to show some kind of reaction, if only to buy time.
I tilt my head, point at my mouth, then wave cautiously.
Hopefully, this will convey that I can’t understand what she’s saying.
It doesn’t look like she’s going to attack me right away.
The fact that she’s trying to communicate is proof of that. Or so I thought.
“***. ***************.”
But apparently she didn’t like my reaction.
The Demon Lord’s stance changes very plainly.
From that of someone chatting to that of someone ready to attack.
Teleport? I won’t make it in time.
If I could’ve bought a little more time with conversation, it might’ve been a different story, but now I’m going to be killed before I can complete the rune.
There’s no point even trying to fight back.
Her stats overshadow even Mother’s.
And almost all of her crazy-long list of skills is maxed out.
Not to mention that resistance.
How could I possibly win when most attacks won’t even work?
I don’t stand a chance.
“***, ***********, ****.”
The Demon Lord waves an arm.
That’s it. Just like that, my body is smashed into splinters.
The main body went down.
At my words, the other Parallel Minds fly into a panic.
Don’t worry. I don’t know what kind of trick she used, but since we haven’t disappeared, that means she’s not dead yet… I think.
To be honest, I don’t really know myself why we haven’t disappeared.
That’s why I had no choice but to be so vague.
It’s not entirely impossible that the main body really is dead, and we just happened to stay alive because we’re half cut off from it.
Does that mean we’re just souls without a body now?
In that case, we could disappear at any moment.
We have no way of knowing how the sys
tem will respond to such an unusual situation, but I doubt that ghosts exist in this world.
What should we do?
This all started right after we lost contact with the main body.
We were concerned about what was going on with our body, but aside from occasionally checking on the status of our connection, all we could do was keep waging our spiritual battle against Mother.
The battle was going pretty well.
Things were starting to turn in our favor, and though it may have just been my imagination, I got the sense that we were getting stronger as we consumed Mother’s spiritual body.
That hypothesis was probably correct.
Mother’s spirit body is essentially her soul.
And it would be no exaggeration to say that the power of stats, skills, and so on in this world is actually the power of the soul.
By eating her soul, not only did we reduce her power, we also absorbed it for ourselves.
Thanks to that, the more time passed, the more we started to gain the upper hand.
But of course, Mother wasn’t just going to take that lying down.
I was the first one to sense it.
Mother was making contact with something.
Just like our contact with the main body, she was using a skill’s connection to communicate with someone.
I didn’t know who it was.
But as soon as I noticed it, I felt an indescribable uneasiness.
And soon, my fears were realized.
I looked through Mother’s eyes and saw that girl.
The second I laid eyes on her, even without Appraisal, I could tell for certain that she was a truly monstrous foe.
Or maybe that conviction came from memories in the portion of Mother’s soul that I’d eaten.
Either way, I knew this girl was more powerful even than Mother.
Then, Mother restored the connection with our main body to figure out where it was.
And now, we’re back to the present.
I think I had the right idea warning the main body.
However, our opponent was just too far out of the norm.
How could I have guessed that she could imitate Teleport just by running?
I knew she was beastly, but this went far beyond my wildest imagination.
I couldn’t even run away from that thing, never mind fight it.
You could say it was inevitable for my main body to be destroyed.
In that moment, I was prepared for death.
But for some reason, we’re not dead yet.
I don’t know whether our body is alive or not, but I have no choice but to hope that it is.
And if our body is still alive, then our job here hasn’t changed.
Actually, it’s just gotten more urgent.
Listen up, everyone.
I gather the other Parallel Minds to tell them my plan.
We’re going to beat Mother. And then we’re going to beat her ruler.
All we can do is keep up our spiritual attack.
Since we’re soul fragments, we’re protected by Heresy Nullification, which cancels out any attacks that directly affect the soul.
Thus, we should be able to beat a far more powerful spiritual opponent.
Even if that opponent is heads and shoulders above us.
Or heads and spiders, I guess.
We don’t know when our main body will recover or if it’ll even recover at all. But that’s why we have to do whatever we can!
Not one of the other Parallel Minds objects to my proposal.
REINCARNATIONS
“Sacrifice your skills! This is the path to salvation!”
As we head into town to buy food and supplies, a voice calls out to us.
“The people of Sariella worship the administrator Sariel as their god. It would be best to avoid engaging with them unless absolutely necessary.”
I agree with Ms. Oka’s whispered advice.
The shouting man doesn’t seem sane.
If this is the work of a so-called administrator, it’s not exactly pleasant.
I still don’t entirely believe everything Ms. Oka told us.
But I have no evidence to disprove it.
Besides, if supernatural beings called administrators really do exist, it would explain a lot about Sophia’s behavior.
Sophia used the word “Master.”
And it seemed like she was acting on orders from whoever that is.
They’d have to be insanely powerful for someone as strong as Sophia to obey their orders.
It would make sense, then, if her “master” is essentially a god of this world.
But if I couldn’t even defeat Sophia, how am I supposed to fight back against something even stronger than she is?
If one of those things is among the forces that attack the elf village…
“What does ‘sacrifice your skills’ mean?”
Trying to drive away my invasive thoughts, I ask Ms. Oka a question.
“It is said to have two meanings. One is to use a skill called Skill Elimination to delete your own skills.”
“Is that possible?”
“Quite so. Skill Elimination can be acquired without any skill points and deletes skills over the course of several days. Once it’s been activated, it won’t stop until it’s deleted all of the user’s skills, so it can’t be used to remove just certain targets. The deleted skills can’t be recovered, either. Unless you train up and acquire them again, of course.”
“What’s the point of that, exactly?”
I don’t understand why a skill like that would exist.
There’s no benefit to losing your skills.
Even if you can get them back by training again, you won’t regain all the time you spent on them before or the skill points you might have spent to get them.
It’s like deliberately throwing your hard work down the drain.
“In other words, it transfers your power to the administrators.”
“Ah.”
So that’s it.
A way for humans to sacrifice their accumulated power to the administrators.
That’s the purpose of Skill Elimination?
“Come to think of it, didn’t you delete Hugo’s skills once, Ms. Oka?”
“Yes, but that was a glitch of sorts, a secret method for deleting another person’s skills by paying a high price. When I use it, I lose several of my own skills, and I also fall into a deep sleep for several days afterward. In the worst-case scenario, it could even kill both the target and the user, so I hope never to use that technique again.”
“I had no idea…”
Thinking back, when the earth wyrm who was Fei’s parent attacked the school, Ms. Oka didn’t participate in the battle.
Most likely, it wasn’t because she didn’t want to but because she couldn’t.
“At the time, I thought it was the best course of action. I truly believed that if he lost all his skills, Hugo’s arrogance would stop growing out of control. I know now that I should have helped him recover his humanity afterward, but I failed to do that, and now this is the result. I’m a failure as a teacher.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
I know that isn’t much help, but it’s all I can say.
Hugo is the one to blame for his actions.
“Thank you. But I know now what I must do. As his teacher, it is my job to correct my former student who has strayed too far from his path.”
Our teacher’s eyes are full of bitter determination.
She intends to kill Hugo.
I have no response for that.
“So what was the second meaning?”
I change the subject.
Despite feeling pathetic for not being able to do anything more.
“I’m not entirely sure. Something about sacrificing skills to bring one closer to godhood.”
“That certainly sounds very religious.”
“I agree.”
The priest continues to shout
on the streets.
As a dark atmosphere settles over us, I can’t help wanting to get out of here as soon as we can.
“Shun, could I speak with you for a moment?”
Just as it’s getting late enough to start preparing for bed, Katia comes to visit my room with Fei in tow.
Ms. Oka is out meeting up with the elves’ allies in town.
I thought that someone should go with her, but she insisted on going alone.
Hyrince said that most likely, the people she’s meeting with are part of this society’s underworld.
By nature, people like that won’t meet with anyone they don’t recognize.
He said that was probably why Ms. Oka was acting alone.
I don’t like the idea of letting our teacher get involved with such a suspicious bunch, but she informed me that sometimes you have to dirty your hands to get things done, and I was forced to reluctantly see her off.
“What is it?”
Since she chose a time to talk while Ms. Oka is absent, I can guess what it’s about.
Most likely, she wants to discuss something she wouldn’t want our teacher to hear.
“Mr. Hyrince, I’m terribly sorry, but could I ask you to step out?”
And it looks like she doesn’t want Hyrince to know about it, either.
“Hrm. All right. I’ll go kill some time at a bar or something.”
“Thank you very much.”
“C’mon, I don’t mind. I’m sure you reincarnations have things you don’t want other folks hearing about, right?”
With that, the ever-considerate Hyrince leaves the room.
“What about Anna?”
“I got her to go wait in the room.”
Once Hyrince leaves, Katia drops the propriety and starts speaking brusquely in Japanese.
“Man, Hyrince is sooo mature. What a hunk!”
Fei dives onto the bed.
Now that she can turn into human form, she seems quite pleased to be able to sleep in a bed again.
When she was smaller, she would occasionally take over part of my bed, but after she got bigger, she had no choice but to sleep outside.
Being able to sleep in a bed again has put her in a great mood.
However, the one downside she complains about is not being able to roll over properly because of her wings.
“So? What’s this about?”
“The other reincarnations, of course.”