by Okina Baba
The Demon Lord was the real origin of this network, but since I was on the fringes, connecting to her via Mother, that means I’m cut off from the Demon Lord now.
The problem is, that means I can’t attack her soul with my Parallel Minds like I did with Mother.
Without a connection, I can’t send Parallel Minds over to her.
Even with my stats and skills raised by absorbing Mother’s power, I’m still far from approaching the Demon Lord’s level.
I mean, her stats averaged around 90,000.
Sure, I got a lot stronger just now, but I’m nowhere near closing that gap.
And that’s definitely not the kind of difference I can make up for with any amount of traps.
I don’t know what the Demon Lord is going to do now that I’ve defeated Mother and so many of her other minions.
If she’s going to keep coming after me, I’ll have to fight her eventually.
To be honest, I’d rather not fight that monstrosity. I kinda wish she’d just leave me alone…
As I mull all this over, former magic brain number one speaks up.
Hey, main body, you got a sec?
Yeah, what’s up?
C’mon. You haven’t noticed yet?
Hmm?
After thinking for a moment, it occurs to me.
The number of Parallel Minds that came back doesn’t add up.
There’s one missing.
See, former body brain kinda, uh…headed out.
Out? To where?
Over to the Demon Lord.
Come again?
I mean, when we still had the connection between Mother and the Demon Lord, body brain decided to use it to go attack her.
Say what?!
Wait, but isn’t my connection to the Demon Lord gone now?
Huh? Is former body brain gonna be able to come back?
Beats me.
Um, I’m pretty sure she can’t, right?
’Cause, like, the connection is gone now.
Yeah, I guess.
…Farewell, former body brain.
I’ll never forget you.
Looks like I’m down one Parallel Mind.
Thanks to Heresy Nullification, I don’t think former body brain will be destroyed.
But I don’t think there’s any way to get her back now that she’s attached to the Demon Lord and cut off from me, either.
Or whether that’ll ever be possible.
I guess maybe she might come back if I defeat the Demon Lord, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Because I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that.
Sorry, former body brain, but when it comes to the Demon Lord, I’m sticking to the tried-and-true strategy of running like hell.
Now that I’ve absorbed all that power from Mother, I could even defeat a puppet spider in a fair fight, no problem. As long as I’m careful about the Demon Lord, I think I’ll be just fine.
But don’t worry—I’m not gonna let my guard down again.
DEMON LORD
A mysterious monster that revived itself even though I was sure I killed it.
The panic of being backed into a corner by a creature that should have been much weaker than I am.
And then…
I awaken from my nap with a start.
Dozing off in a carriage as we march toward the elf village is a pretty nice luxury, if I do say so myself.
Though it’s not exactly a typical carriage.
To be clear, I’m riding in a basket on the back of a giant spider.
My steed of choice is an arch taratect.
Riding around on a monster as powerful as a dragon is yet another perk of being me.
Thanks to this thing, none of the soldiers try to approach me.
In fact, they couldn’t even if they tried.
Demons may have higher stats than humans, but they still know better than to casually approach a dragon-class monster for no good reason.
I’m sure they wouldn’t want to even if they had one.
So I get to enjoy a comfortable journey without being bothered by the outside world.
Little Miss White is in the carriage with me, but as long as I don’t speak to her, she’s not going to say a word. It’s nice and quiet.
I peer at White’s face, directly across from me.
Her eyes are closed, and she’s sitting perfectly still.
Since she has her eyes closed most of the time, I can’t tell if she’s sleeping or not.
She could probably fall asleep standing up and no one would even notice, I think absently.
She might look fragile, but she’s strong enough to kill a hero without breaking a sweat. You can’t judge people by their appearances.
Well, I guess you could say the same thing about me.
I wonder if all these pointless thoughts mean I’m actually nervous for once?
We’ve finally arrived, after all.
Looking out the window, I see a truly ridiculous amount of trees and plants.
This is the Great Garam Forest, the home of the elves.
My army has been marching through it for a while.
Our goal, of course, is the elf village.
The imperial army has already arrived there.
They’re at a standstill right now because of the barrier that protects the village, but soon that barrier will be gone.
And then the imperial army will attack the elf village.
After that, we can take our sweet time showing up.
Once the elves have lost their precious barrier and are flying into a panic as the imperial army attacks them, we’ll slide in from the side and greet them with a finishing blow.
As I imagine it, my lips automatically curl into a smile.
We’ve finally made it.
My longtime wish is going to be fulfilled.
My wish to exterminate the elves once and for all, that is.
Now I can get revenge on them for all the sneaking around they’ve been doing behind the scenes since forever ago.
Once I had my watchful queen taratect help the imperial army’s advance, I put her in position for a pincer attack on the elves.
Soon, they’ll taste the triple threat of the imperial army, the demon army, and the queen taratect all at once.
What will their screaming and crying faces look like?
Just thinking about it gives me a thrill.
“I can’t wait.”
Without meaning to, I murmur my thoughts out loud.
Overhearing this, White turns toward me.
Her eyes are still closed, but I can tell she’s looking at me.
“You can rampage as much as you like this time, okay, White? I’ll definitely be going all out!”
I know it’s childish to get excited, but I can’t help it.
“Demon Lord,” White says quietly.
She sounds a little worried, so I decide to reassure her.
“I told you—it’ll be fine. I’m not going to touch those reincarnations. My only target is the elves, remember? I made sure all the soldiers know that, too. Don’t worry, okay?”
My goal here is to wipe out the elves.
Honestly, I don’t care either way about the reincarnations.
From what I’ve heard, the reincarnation who’s the new hero and his friends have shown up in the village, but they’re all just small fry as far as I’m concerned.
If they get in my way, I’ll just knock them out without killing them, easy.
Their presence doesn’t change a thing.
The elf village is going to be destroyed no matter what those reincarnations do.
And that’s a fact.
“Ahh, I can’t wait…”
Finally, I get to kill you.
Just you wait, Potimas Harrifenas.
CHIEF OF THE ELVES
“Lord Potimas, we’ve confirmed another army approaching behind the imperial army.”
“I know.”
“You were already aware of th
is?”
“Of course. The empire’s little army is nothing but an opening act.”
“Does that mean you know the identity of the other army, Lord Potimas?”
“Yes. It’s the current Demon Lord’s army.”
“The Demon Lord’s army?! Why would they be in human territory?!”
“Why, indeed. It’s likely the work of a certain sly old schemer.”
“Aha…”
“At any rate, please prepare the Gloria.”
“Yes, sir. What operation ratio would you prefer?”
“All of it.”
“Sir?”
“Activate all of it.”
“But, sir, that would be—”
“If they’re attacking us with all their strength, it’s only polite to give them an equal reception. We must not hold anything back. We shall intercept them with the full strength of the elves.”
“You do not think that is excessive?”
“I think it will be just enough.”
“Shall we deploy the Gloria behind the general elf defense force, then?”
“Indeed.”
“What about the hero and the other reincarnations?”
“Let them do as they please. Now that things have come this far, I have no further use for them. It is no business of mine where they choose to die.”
“I’ll relay your commands to the defense force, then.”
“Please do. It’s about time to settle the grudge between that creature and me. It would be foolish of me to miss this chance now that she’s come right to my doorstep. Exterminate them without allowing any chance for escape.”
“Yes, sir. Understood.”
“Come, then, you foolish girl who drew the unfortunate lot of Demon Lord. Perhaps death will prove that you were mistaken in assuming that someone who can only watch in silence as everything they have rots away would be able to challenge the likes of me.”
FIRST ENCOUNTER
After defeating Mother, I’ve been wandering around outside while avoiding the Demon Lord.
I’ve eliminated most of Mother’s spider army in the Great Elroe Labyrinth.
All that remains now is the Demon Lord and her four puppet spiders.
She seems to have judged it too dangerous to let the puppet spiders act on their own. Instead she’s keeping them with her.
Thanks to that, she has to match her speed to the puppet spiders’, making it harder for her to catch up to me.
In fact, it seems like I’ve lost her.
I’ve expanded my range wide enough that there’s not much she can do.
I keep moving farther and farther away from the Demon Lord.
And now I’ve started traveling on a main road.
I’ve been avoiding any human roads, villages, towns, and the like to try to keep from being spotted, but there must be a city close by or something. There are so many roads around now that I can’t avoid them anymore.
I’m just traveling along one of the roads while trying to keep away from human eyes.
If I keep traveling this way, I feel like I’m gonna run into a big town or something, but my only other option is to travel in the direction of the Demon Lord.
And that’s no good.
My only choice is to resign myself to the possibility of being spotted in order to keep traveling farther away from the Demon Lord.
Luckily, there hasn’t been much traffic, letting me travel without being seen by humans for a while, but it looks like I’ve hit the limit on that.
There’s a carriage up ahead.
I’ve finally crossed paths with some humans. Unfortunately.
Also, not that this matters, but regular old horses are drawing along the carriage.
Since this is a fantasy world and all, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see wyrms or something, but this is so ordinary that it’s almost a letdown.
Anyway, as I peek curiously at the carriage, I notice that something seems off.
Hmm? Hmmmm?
What are you guys up to?
Oh, I see.
A robbery.
They’re being attacked, huh?
I knew I’d run into humans sooner or later, but I never would’ve guessed that my first encounter would be the scene of a fight with some robbers.
Some escort-looking people are fighting the robber-looking guys.
There are four escorts and six robbers.
Hmm. In my opinion, both sides seem to be evenly matched, but if we’re going strictly off numbers, then the robbers have the advantage.
Oh, one of the guards went down.
What’s my play here?
I don’t really wanna get involved.
I’m trying to avoid being seen, especially if I want to keep off the Demon Lord’s radar.
Still, if I just ignore people being attacked right before my eyes, I’m gonna feel bad about it later.
I’m not trying to be an ally of justice or whatever; it’s just a matter of not ruining my mood.
I guess maybe I still have a little bit of my basic moral compass from my previous life.
At the same time, though, my heart says the whole thing seems like a pain.
Like, why should I have to save some stupid humans anyway?
Not to mention, even if I save them, I’m still technically a monster.
What if I rescue them and they turn around and try to attack me?
I mean, I’m not gonna let it slide if they pull something like that, but I’m pretty sure that would defeat the purpose of rescuing them in the first place.
Maybe I should just wait till all the carriage people get killed and then go in and kill the thieves?
Like, I’m definitely gonna kill those guys either way.
Humans give a ton of EXP, after all.
I don’t wanna go around massacring civilians or anything, but it’d be a waste to ignore people like robbers who I can totally get away with killing, right?
I get lots of EXP. I’m more than happy.
Civilians don’t have to deal with the robbers anymore. Now they’re happy.
See? Aside from the robbers getting killed, everybody’s happy.
Those robbers are definitely going down.
And then down the hatch and into my belly.
When I ate those bastard knights who burned my home in the labyrinth, I discovered that humans taste different depending on the individual.
Maybe it was just my imagination, but the better-looking ones seemed to taste better, too.
These butt-ugly robbers probably won’t taste great, but they’ll still fill my belly one way or another.
Now it’s just a matter of whether to rescue the people in the carriage or not.
I mean, I dunno.
Is it just me, or is there no advantage at all to helping them?
In fact, there are tons of disadvantages.
If I don’t help them, the advantage is that there won’t be any eyewitnesses to my existence, plus I’ll get more food.
The disadvantage is that I’m probably gonna feel bad about it.
Hmm, hmm, hmm.
Ugh…
Fiiiine.
I don’t really feel like it, but I guess I’ll help them.
Objectively, it’d be more advantageous not to help them, but I gotta follow my heart at times like these.
It’d be annoying to regret it later anyway.
Here we go.
The robbers are so focused on their battle with the guards that they don’t even notice my approach.
Works for me.
The big guy in the middle is probably their leader, I guess.
His stats are the highest, anyway.
I zip around behind him, then stab his wide-open back with one of my scythes.
The scythe runs through his body, skewering his heart.
Oh, and of course I had my deadly poison on it, too. He definitely died instantly.
When I pull the scythe back out, the robber’s body crumples to the ground.
<
br /> The other two are too stunned to figure out what’s happening, so I whip my scythes to either side.
Boom, sliced ’em both in two.
Now only half the robbers are left.
I use Earth Magic to shoot one of the three right in the head.
Y’know, I think I’m pretty well suited to Earth Magic.
I’ve gotten way better at it than Wind Magic, which I picked up at about the same time.
Anyway, four down, two to go.
One of the men tries to run.
Tough luck, pal.
I’ve already got you tied up in my thread.
With the last two thieves immobilized, I turn my Evil Eyes on them.
Their HP, MP, and SP get sucked away in seconds, and down they go.
That’s a wrap, people.
If I were a prince or a knight or whatever, this is the part where I’d go, Are you hurt, milady? and the young lady inside the carriage would be all, Oh, I’m so lucky you just happened to be there when those awful men attacked me! and so on and so forth.
Ew. Gag.
White knights are the worst.
Ugh. All right, enough going off on tangents.
I beat the thieves.
I rescued the carriage.
The guards are pointing their swords at me.
And here we are.
Well, well.
I knew it.
I knew this would happen.
If anything, I guess I’m glad they didn’t just attack me right away.
It’s not that they’re just too scared of me to move.
I’m sure they’re really nice people, so they’re very suspicious but reluctant to attack someone who just saved their lives.
Like I said. It’s not ’cause they’re too scared of me to move.
It’s not, okay?
Hmm?
Well, look at that. The first guy who went down is actually still alive.
Ugh, since I’m in it this far, I guess I might as well help him, too.
I approach the fallen human.
As soon as I move even a little, the other guards make a big deal of backing far away.
…I’m just gonna pretend I didn’t notice that.
Activate Healing Magic.
The collapsed guard’s wounds heal up in an instant.
Okay. With that, he’s probably not gonna die.
Actually, now that I look at him, this guy’s dressed more like a butler than a guard.
You were trying to protect your master even though you’re not trained for combat?
