by Okina Baba
I don’t know if my silent plea got through to her, but the Demon Lord goes back to leading the chorus as if nothing happened.
Whew. That was close.
As you can see, my relationship with the Demon Lord hasn’t changed much.
On the surface, we don’t act like enemies, but sometimes we push each other’s buttons.
That’s the kind of tentative situation we’re in right now.
But it’s not like we’re seriously provoking each other.
Once in a while, I can tell that the Demon Lord is testing the waters, trying to figure out how I’m feeling.
My guess is she’s decided it benefits her more to have me as an ally than to kill me, so she’s trying to close the distance between us little by little.
Although it’s hard to say whether that’s working or not.
I mean, I’m definitely down for whatever if it means I don’t have to pointlessly risk my life fighting her, but that doesn’t mean I can trust her completely.
Basically, I think we both want to find a middle ground, but neither of us can quite commit to getting closer to each other.
Vampy, Mera, the Demon Lord, the puppet spiders.
We’re all traveling together with our own thoughts and feelings.
Overall, the journey’s going pretty well.
We haven’t been attacked by the elves like we feared.
But I know for a fact that Potimas isn’t just sitting around twiddling his thumbs.
“So who exactly is Potimas?”
At some point, Vampy finally asks the Demon Lord the million-dollar question.
“A piece of garbage,” the Demon Lord replies immediately.
Okay, you know that’s not what she was asking. (Everyone else likely had the same internal reaction.)
I’m almost sure the Demon Lord is aware of that, too, though.
Oh, but maybe she wasn’t being sarcastic. Maybe that was actually just the first answer that came to mind.
“That’s not what I’m asking…,” Vampy responds finally.
Her expression is priceless: I know is written all over her face.
I guess she’s well aware that Potimas is scum.
I mean, he did kill both her parents and tried to kill her, too.
It’s only natural that she’d want to know more about him.
To Vampy, Potimas is a mortal enemy who killed her parents and plans to kill her next. She has every right to know who he is.
Still, the Demon Lord doesn’t answer right away.
She stays silent for a while, looking pensive.
How much should I tell her?
I’m sure that’s what the Demon Lord was thinking.
I want to know more about Potimas, too, so I wait for the reply.
Since my Taboo skill is maxed out, I have some idea of what Potimas might be.
The Demon Lord was once worshipped by the Goddess religion as the goddess’s divine beast.
But Potimas knows her and even has the nerve to treat her like a child.
Plus, he had a mechanical body, which absolutely shouldn’t be a thing in this world.
If I put together all the pieces, I can guess what he really is.
Still, I’d rather hear the truth from the Demon Lord, who obviously knows the facts.
“All right. White seems interested, too, so I guess I’ll tell you the whole story.” The Demon Lord glances at me, then sighs. “But there’s no going back once you’ve heard this. That guy’s no ordinary villain. He’s a threat to this entire world, as rich as that sounds coming from a demon lord. Once you find out what he really is, you won’t be able to live peacefully in this world anymore. Well, I guess you could, but I’m sure it would weigh on your heart. Now, I can tell you the basic, most harmless facts about him, but that’s not what you want to know, is it? If you really want to learn everything, make absolutely certain you’re prepared to hear what I have to say.”
The Demon Lord’s serious attitude seems to catch Vampy by surprise.
She didn’t ask about Potimas out of casual curiosity, of course.
But she probably wasn’t expecting to hear that the information would change her worldview, either.
Vampy hesitates for just a moment, looks at Mera, and finally seems to make up her mind.
“Please tell me.”
Seeing her determination, the Demon Lord nods once and begins to speak.
“Potimas Harrifenas. That’s his full name. He’s the patriarch of the elves—the head honcho, basically. Elves are one of the demi-human races in this world… Although the only humanoid races are humans, demons, and elves, so I guess the term demi-human might not be appropriate. Now, what’s special about the elves is that their life spans are ridiculously long. Demons live two or three times longer than humans, but elves live more than ten times longer. They grow a lot slower as a result, about half as quickly as humans do. Once they reach their prime, their bodies stop growing, and after that they slooowly start to age. But the aging process varies among elves: Some get older gradually over the years while others barely change at all, then suddenly age very quickly toward the end of their life spans. But either way, they stick around for a ludicrous amount of time.”
These basic facts about elves might be common knowledge to the Demon Lord and Mera, who are from this world, but they’re new to Vampy and me.
Elves existed only in fiction back on Earth.
“Since they grow more slowly than humans, they tend to compensate for that by learning magic. When a body’s still growing, its physical stats are hard to raise, but magic-related stats have nothing to do with the body, so they can be trained whenever. Oh, but you’re an exception, Sophia. Of course your stats are gonna go up, since you’ve been doing this crazy training as a baby.”
The baby bloodsucker screws up her face, unable to respond.
“Once elves become adults, their physical stats can grow normally like a human’s. But by that point, it’s easier to get strong by focusing on magic stats rather than going out of their way to raise their weak physical attributes, so most elves just stick to magic. That’s why elves are generally thought to be better at magic than humans and demons but physically weaker. Doesn’t mean they’re actually all that weak, though.”
Most elves focus on honing their strengths instead of covering their weaknesses, which was how they got that reputation.
“Most elves sequester themselves in a village located in the Great Garam Forest. That forest is swarming with strong monsters, so no normal human could ever reach the village. Even if they did make it, there’s a powerful barrier around the place, so they wouldn’t be able to get in. That’s why people hardly ever meet elves. There are some elves outside the village, of course, but not many, and they don’t really like interacting with non-elves. Even if you see one, they’d probably never talk to you. Elves look down on both humans and demons, ’cause they’re super-stuck-up.”
To summarize, elves have really long life spans, are good at magic, mostly stay in the forest, and don’t like other races.
In other words, they’re not much different from how elves were usually depicted in pop fiction back on Earth.
Could that really be a coincidence?
“Now, all of that is just society’s common knowledge about elves. The rest is the part you guys probably want to know. I’ll ask again: Are you sure you want to hear it?”
Vampy nods silently.
“All right. I guess I’ll talk about the machines first. The concept is probably already familiar to White and Sophia, but it might not be clear to Merazophis. A machine is the crystallization of highly advanced science and technology… No, you probably don’t understand that, either, so I’ll break it down a little more. Basically, it’s a device that can produce magic-like phenomena without using magic. That’s a machine. Get it?”
That was a pretty rough explanation, all right.
I’m not sure if was enough for Mera to get it, but he doesn’t comment,
although maybe he’s just being polite.
But I guess it’s not weird to have a hard time explaining machines to someone who doesn’t know the first thing about them.
Even if you tried to start with the basics, that would still require some technical knowledge, so it would wind up taking ages to explain.
It’s not really the point of this discussion, so maybe it was actually for the best to just glaze over it as a mystery object that makes magic-like stuff happen without using magic.
“The elves are the only race in this world with access to these machines. They have all the materials, the knowledge, and the techniques.”
Yeah, I figured.
Potimas’s cyborg body made that obvious.
“As for how advanced their engineering is, it’s probably ahead of Earth at this point.”
Vampy’s eyes widen at that.
I can’t say I blame her. Who would guess that super-advanced technology exists in a world that seems so stereotypically fantasy based?
But Vampy saw Potimas’s cyborg body as well as I did. She must have an idea that this might be the case.
Still, I guess hearing it out loud surprised her.
It must be surprising and confusing if you don’t have prior knowledge like I do. Most people would be shocked by the fact that something like that exists in this world.
…Unless the reasoning wasn’t actually as strange as you had been led to believe.
“So Potimas has been using this technology to operate behind the scenes. But to be honest, I don’t know why he’s targeting you specifically, Sophia. From what I’ve heard, he attacked you knowing you’re a reincarnation, so it’s probably got something to do with that. But I have no idea what he stands to gain from killing reincarnations, so I can’t say for sure. In fact, we don’t even know if he really intended to kill you. I got the impression he was planning something else at first.”
Like the Demon Lord, I have some doubts about Potimas’s motives.
If he wanted to kill Vampy, there were plenty of other ways to do that.
He probably could have killed her regardless of my interference, if that was really all he intended to do.
But since that didn’t happen, he must not have planned to kill her at first.
But knowing that doesn’t mean I have any idea what his original goal was. Potimas’s reasons for going after Vampy are still a mystery.
“Um, why do the elves have technology like that?” Vampy asks.
Yeah, that’s a reasonable question.
In this stereotypical fantasy world, the elves’ machines stick out like a sore thumb.
It’s perfectly normal to wonder about it.
“Weird, isn’t it? This world’s civilizations are way less developed than Earth, but the elves have access to technology way more advanced than anything you’d find on Earth. From your point of view, the elves are probably like O-parts, right?”
O-parts… As in, “out-of-place artifacts,” right? What a fitting phrase.
“But it’s actually the opposite.” The Demon Lord shrugs.
Mera and Vampy don’t seem to understand what she means.
“Technology needs a foundation in order to develop. Without someone bringing knowledge from the future or something, it’s impossible for technology to suddenly advance out of nowhere. People make tools out of sticks, then advance to stone tools, then improve even further with bronzeware. Bronze leads to iron, allowing for more complex tools, which leads to gears, then steam engines, then circuits. It all has to happen in order. So the elves’ technology must have developed like that, too, right? But they couldn’t have done all that alone. It’s not entirely impossible, but they hardly ever make contact with other races, and they don’t have enough land and resources. Elves should barely be able to preserve civilization, never mind advance it.”
Civilizations develop over time, by accumulating history.
No genius stuck in the Stone Age is suddenly gonna skip right to inventing the semiconductor.
In fact, it’d be creepy if that did happen. What would be going on in that person’s head?
“What I’m saying is, the elves couldn’t have developed such complex technology by themselves. There would have to be others who had the same technology. At least, under normal circumstances.”
Mera is the first one to give a gasp of realization.
“I see. So that’s why you said it’s the opposite…?” he murmurs.
A question mark practically appears over Vampy’s head.
…She’s a little dumb, isn’t she?
“That’s right. It’s the opposite. The elves haven’t independently created highly advanced technology. It’s simply that everyone else has moved backward. That’s the reality of this world.”
Finally, Vampy finally seems to get it.
“Long, long ago, this world had technology far more advanced than that of Earth. But they made a grave mistake and headed down the path of destruction. In doing so, they lost all their technology in the process, and everyone but the elves went into a cultural backslide.”
It’s not that the elves are advanced. It’s that everyone else has fallen behind.
That’s why the word “opposite” came up.
The Demon Lord has just revealed part of the truth of this world.
ATTACK ON THE ANT HOLE
This so-called fantasy world is actually a postapocalyptic world.
When Vampy realized this, she looked like she finally understood.
It certainly explains a lot.
Really, if you think about it, there were plenty of suspicious signs.
Especially Potimas’s cyborg body.
Mera, on the other hand, seems to be having trouble digesting this information.
Unlike Vampy and me, Mera is originally from this world, so it’s probably hard for him to keep up with all the new concepts like machines and technology, which he can’t even picture.
Seeing is believing, as they say.
Still, he seems to be doing his best to understand the Demon Lord’s words despite having little basis for it, and it’s not necessarily a big deal if he doesn’t fully get it.
We’re talking about the distant past, after all. It doesn’t really affect us in the present.
…At least, that’s what I thought at first.
The Demon Lord party walks through the wasteland in the dead of night.
When I put it that way, it sounds like she’s leading her troops on a march. But in reality, we look more like a bunch of young girls and one guy. Mera looks the oldest of any of us, but of course the Demon Lord is actually the oldest by far.
I guess in terms of appearance, I look the second oldest after him.
That doesn’t mean I look old, though! I just mean in comparison to the bite-size Demon Lord, the puppet spiders, and the baby bloodsucker!
I’ve got the same face I had in my old life, which means I look like a high school student, okay?!
Seriously, you’d be digging your own grave if you ever told a high school girl she looks old.
By the way, despite my looks, my real age in this world is roughly the same as Vampy’s, so I’m still a minor.
Unlike the Demon Lord, who might seem like a kid but she’s gotta be at least a thousand times the legal age of adulthood!
…What was I talking about again? I got a little carried away there.
As my mind wanders, my attention is suddenly drawn back.
Something’s entered the range of my Detection.
I use Panoptic Vision to peek at whatever it is.
At first, it just looks like an ordinary bird, but it can’t fool my Detection skill.
It’s a mechanical surveillance drone in the shape of a bird.
There’s only one person who would use something like that.
It must be a surveillance device sent by Potimas.
I activate Warped Evil Eye through my Panoptic Vision.
The space around the bird-shaped device w
arps, twisting and destroying everything within it. Including the surveillance bird.
The Demon Lord glances over at me as she leads the vampire–spider girl chorus.
I nod silently, and she nods back.
The reason I know Potimas isn’t just sitting around is that these surveillance devices have been showing up periodically.
And that’s been going on since we first started this journey after the Demon Lord defeated Potimas.
Every time I destroy them before they can get close.
Otherwise he’d get information about us.
By destroying them, I’m giving away our approximate location, but that would happen anyway if I simply left the drones alone and let them see us.
It’s better to destroy them and keep the amount of information Potimas gathers as low as possible.
Although the ideal amount would be zero, of course.
We’ve been trying our best to keep it that way, y’know?
That’s why we’re using all these routes so far from civilization, to try to keep out of his sight.
But for Mera to sustain himself, we do need to stop by a town or village once in a while.
It’s inevitable that we can’t quite keep completely out of sight in those situations.
Once in a while Potimas seems to lose track of us, and the surveillance drones will stop showing up for a long period of time. But at that point, he usually resorts to sending drones to anywhere we might possibly be just to find us again.
It’s not only Potimas, either. The Demon Lord said the pontiff of the Word of God religion tracked her down with similar methods.
The moment we decided on making the demon territory our destination, the possible routes we could reasonably take were inevitably limited.
No matter how much we try to avoid being seen, we can manage for only so long.
This latest drone was the first surveillance device that’s found us in a while.
I guess Potimas had this wasteland on his radar. Since we’ve been avoiding populated areas, he probably predicted we might come through here and set up surveillance in advance.
Still, even now that he knows roughly where we are, it’s not like he can act immediately.
