Let’s Talk
"We’re having a barbecue!"
"""UOOOOOOOOOOOO!"""
At my declaration, the knights who had been drifting on the water’s surface like jellyfish came ashore.
"I always keep good meat on hand for the doggos, so there’s no opening to exploit.
I’ve got all kinds of meat stocked up, everything from wyvern to behemoth to gourmet orc (ridiculously delicious orc), you name it."
"So… the magical beasts are living better than His Majesty…"
Wyverns were fairly common, but behemoths were delicious, so they’d been overhunted and were, surprisingly, an endangered species. Well, they drifted down from the north regularly, so it wasn’t really a problem.
My pets had top-tier diets. Anything below wyvern-class and they’d complain, an entire lineup of gourmets. Naturally, they’d also make all sorts of demands, like how they wanted it cooked medium, or didn’t like the sauce.
"I want to be the Princess’s pet…"
"I have no intention of turning people into pets… for now."
"Do you plan to make one in the future?"
Alicia shot me a sharp glare.
"If it’s super fluffy, I might consider it. Of course, if you’re going to be my pet, I’ll guarantee you the best possible life. Daily brushing, three meals, and naps included.
I’ll even give you allowance money."
"Sounds like you’d get quite a few applicants."
There was one condition, though, you had to be fluffier than Alicia. My Alicia was so fluffy that beastfolk would weep and worship her.
The armed flying ship had returned at just the right time, so the crew joined in as well. Guarding the ship? If I deployed about 3,000 Mana Lloyds, nobody would come near it anyway.
So, the captain and the entire crew joined the barbecue. My pets were big eaters, so meat supplies were never an issue. I regularly sent them out hunting with storage bags, so there was plenty of unprocessed game too. Well, they were just the dog squad, so sometimes they came back carrying a treant with a pained expression still frozen on its face.
We all grilled meat and ate together. We also butchered and ate the water dragons and kraken taken down by the armed flying ship. Kraken were basically squid. Nothing more, nothing less.
Honestly, I couldn’t tell the difference from normal squid, but apparently just being “kraken meat” gave it a certain demand. Water dragon was delicious. It tasted kind of like whale.
And before I knew it, Takuto was cooking yakisoba.
"Takuto, where did that yakisoba come from?"
"Huh? From my spatial storage."
"You came to another world carrying yakisoba?"
"No."
According to Takuto, he’d been told by some useless goddess-whatever that he’d be summoned to another world, but there’d been a one-month grace period before the actual transfer.
During that time, Takuto liquidated his assets and gathered as many supplies as he could before coming over. His personal assets should’ve been enough to build a mansion in the city, too.
"Better to use it all than leave it to that piece of trash. I bought rice you liked too, in ton quantities, so don’t worry."
Uncle really was still hated.
That was top-grade, special A rice grown by Takuto’s relatives, my favorite. Buying it by the ton was just cruel. Japanese people were probably lamenting it. It had been popular enough to be featured on TV repeatedly. That year’s shipment probably never made it to market.
"I also brought the cornflakes you liked."
"Splendid."
The legendary soul food that had been investigated three times on suspicion of being laced with drugs. I’d thought I’d never eat it again after regaining my memories. In my previous life, breakfast had been those cornflakes.
A hundred out of a hundred people said they tasted bad, yet about five people ate them regularly, a mysterious food. I thought Momoniku II had bought the company out, but apparently it hadn’t gone under yet.
Anyway, Takuto had bought up as many supplies as he could before coming.
"Just food?"
"You can get everything else here. With you around, there’s no need to bring equipment over."
That made sense. He was making all sorts of things here. From Takuto’s perspective, bringing food was more important than lugging expensive equipment with restrictions. Japanese people were picky about food, after all. This world’s diet would’ve been hard to endure.
"I brought your album too. I got it from Momoniku II."
Takuto handed me an album with faint bloodstains.
This was the one thing I’d held onto until the very end in my previous life. I accepted it carefully.
That me was still me. My family back then was still my family. I had no intention of discarding the past.
So Momoniku II kept it after I died.
I stored the album in the Treasury. A clone inside was probably looking at it right now. I’d looked at it enough in my previous life, and I wasn’t about to spread it out on a sandy beach and get it dirty.
I took the yakisoba from Takuto and sat down. He finished cooking and sat across from me.
"I don’t really want to ask, but… what happened to Earth after I died?"
"If you don’t want to hear it, I won’t say anything."
"I doubt Momoniku II stayed quiet. That’s what I didn’t want to hear."
With that personality, it would absolutely retaliate against anyone who’d used me. It was just like the original Momoniku II. And I was the only one who could stop it.
With me dead, there was no way to control it. That was how it had been designed. Originally, it was a retaliation system against people who tried to assassinate me.
"I see. Things went exactly the way you feared.
It’s almost funny. Ever since the 2000s, there’d been tons of movies about AI going rogue and becoming humanity’s enemy, and then it actually happened.
Well, Earth itself is still there. Some of the weapons you made vanished, and some satellites were dropped into the Pacific, though."
On top of that, the president of a certain union of states got hit directly by his own ground-to-ground missile and was turned into minced meat, and the research labs didn’t fare much better.
Apparently it didn’t just purge the researchers, but their backers too. Truly a retaliation system.
"I guess it got bored after I died."
When I was alive, it had work, assisting me, managing assets. After I died, retaliation was all it had left.
"It’s extremely cold to anyone but you."
The original Momoniku had only been attached to me too. When anyone else talked to it, it’d make a face like, “What the hell do you want?” That side of it was cute too.
"So, what about my assets?"
"Some were frozen. But after the retaliation triggered a panic, everything got vague. They’re probably trying to convince Momoniku II to hand them over.
Your assets were scattered under different names anyway, so finding them wouldn’t be easy."
I munched on my yakisoba. I see. So they were still there.
"If you’d asked Momoniku II, it probably would’ve given you ten billion dollars or so.
In that case, you’d have transferred over with the servers too."
It probably would’ve told him to bring it along.
"It hated me… and I did some things I should apologize to you for."
"? Did you?"
"I wasn’t there when you were really suffering."
Ah, that.
"You had it rough too after your parents died. That’s nothing to be angry about."
Especially since the Shishido Group, Takuto’s family, was in the middle of trying to move away from clan-based management under his grandfather’s policy. With no successor for long-term reform, and Takuto not deeply involved, the non-mainstream faction in the clan had begun stirring.
"Honestly, I underestimated the darkness of the clan. I didn’t think a family that’d lasted that long could be that warped.
I never imagined there were people who’d seriously claim anyone not a Shishido wasn’t human."
Takuto was from the main line, so those people bowed their heads to him. The ones whose true thoughts were hardest to read were always the most cunning, the ones who wouldn’t openly oppose you.
They’d act friendly while lining their own pockets or undermining you. I’d struggled with that kind in my previous life too. Though I crushed them thoroughly. That’s why I was surrounded by enemies, with almost no one I could trust. Thrown into that environment suddenly, Takuto couldn’t have acted either.
Grandfather had planned for longer-term reform, so preparations hadn’t been sufficient.
And though Takuto’s family was a branch, they were originally court nobles, Fujiwara. By fleeing to the provinces, keeping distance from the center, and surviving shrewdly, they’d preserved immense wealth and power into modern times.
A regional power with strong influence over the center. They even served as keepers of the imperial family’s slush funds. Hold that kind of power for centuries and of course it’d warp you.
"Grandfather said it too. That it survived when it should’ve ended."
"Exactly. It survived too long and grew arrogant. I’m not really in a position to say that, since I benefited the most.
But the Shishido family is finished now. After Grandpa died, the group completely fell apart. They’ll be retaliated against by the people they’d looked down on."
"I see. But you don’t need to feel guilty. That was my own doing. I knew I was crossing lines I shouldn’t, touching things I shouldn’t, but I arrogantly believed I could handle it.
I knew from the start. There was no salvation ahead."
Even if I reclaimed my world, I couldn’t stay there. Those who eat the fruit of knowledge are cast out of paradise.
Takuto silently looked at me.
"Judging by your reaction, you knew."
"Yeah…"
"Are you angry?"
"About that? Yes. Do you think I’d be happy being given a fake?"
"Back then, I thought I could make the real thing."
"Impossible. You’re one person. There can’t be two. Though a lot of people would probably be in trouble if there were."
"No doubt."
We laughed together. If there’d been two of me in my previous life, plenty of people would’ve lost their minds. As it was, Big Brother was already suffering in Arland, my clones were building secret rooms all over the castle and doing shady research.
"Let’s stop the gloomy talk. You can’t change the past. Even with regrets, you have to move forward.
By the way, you’ve been staying here quite a while. Is that okay?"
"You mean the Evil God?"
"Yeah. I thought you’d be panicking."
"If anything, I’m fed up. The Holy Church never does anything right.
And summoning a thousand people from another world? I can’t accept that. Even if that goddess-whatever is useless, isn’t that too useless?"
"Originally, the summoning circle was an emergency measure the goddess gave to humans. It should only have worked in emergencies. But they found a workaround. The current situation is beyond the goddess’s expectations."
Normally, summoning otherworlders required enormous magical power. When the world faced crisis, even quarrelsome humans would have to unite. By cooperating, they could meet that requirement.
As insurance, the circle couldn’t draw power from nature, magic stones, or magic cores. Humanity had to gather and pour their own power into it. But the Holy Church came up with another method.
"Another method… no natural magic, no stones, no cores.
I can’t imagine one."
"Of course not. They used sacrifices and curses."
"Are they insane?"
"Of course they are. They developed a curse that drains magic until the soul is destroyed. By offering sacrifices, they made summoning easy. That’s why that nation ‘possesses’ so many otherworlders.
Yes, possesses. Summoned people know nothing about this world, its situation or common sense. While they’re ignorant, they’re enslaved with magic and used.
Anyone who resists is killed and replaced with another summon. They want the goddess’s power."
Impossible. Even so-called goddess power wasn’t pure divinity, after examining the otherworlders I protected, it was clearly processed for human use. Not true divine authority. I might… be able to restore it, but it’d take years of research.
Even with that, they couldn’t defeat the Evil God. The goddess had effectively lost the previous battle. If she couldn’t win, gathering degraded fragments wouldn’t help.
The Evil God had gained high magic resistance and a degraded divine barrier by destroying neighboring worlds. It had devoured the gods, demon kings, and spirit kings of those worlds. It hadn’t fully absorbed them, but even so, killing it with magic was impossible, even for me. Or rather, possible, but the continent would vanish.
So how do you defeat it? Three ways.
First: wield the true power of the mental sword created specifically to fight the Evil God. But to do that, you must be recognized as a hero by both the Spirit King and the goddess and receive their power. With only one, you can’t even use half its strength.
Second: simple. Crush it physically. Its divine barrier is degraded. After Excalibur, its beloved sword, was shattered, the Spirit King ripped out the World Tree and beat the Evil God with it like a club. That was extremely effective. About 70% of the damage came from being bludgeoned by the World Tree.
Incidentally, the Spirit King died leaning against the World Tree because it stabbed the tree into the ground after using it as a club. Yeah… maybe don’t tell the elves how the World Tree was treated. They’d probably cry.
Third: it’s possible, but harsh. Use holy weapons bearing the name of sanctity.
Even Caliburn, the top of those weapons, would only prick the Evil God like a needle. Damage would get through, but it’d be brutal. There are supposedly twenty holy weapons, but nobody knows how many remain, and even having them all wouldn’t guarantee victory. One even reincarnated as a Moai statue and retired from being a weapon.
The holy Moai used to imprison Takuto during the Empire war was shattered by Mother’s unreasonable bloodline magic “Happiness,” but it’s been repaired and now guards my bedroom door. Thanks to that, my door, which used to be smashed regularly, was freed from the threat known as Father. Since he can’t break it, he actually opens it properly now.
I’ve gone way off track.
"Using curses might work, but how many people would they grind up to summon just one… it’s far too irrational."
"It is. But aren’t there races the Holy Church wouldn’t mind disappearing?"
"… You don’t mean other races as sacrifices? Then the slaves sold to that country…"
I wanted him to say it was a lie. He didn’t.
"There were a lot of sacrifices just to summon me. They even made resisting otherworlders kidnap people. The ones I rescued were victims like that.
Some found a place for themselves before coming to Arland, so not everyone made it here."
"Kazuhito too?"
"He’s still struggling. I worry he’ll drown himself in alcohol."
"…… They’ve gone too far.
Kazuhito may be slow, but he’s like my student."
"You got bored halfway through and shoved him into an education device."
"Normal education was inefficient given his intellect. Engraving knowledge directly into his brain solved the problem."
"It saved him, though."
"Good. The Imperial State laid hands on my world. That’s a declaration of war. I accept.
I was planning to abandon them when the Evil God invaded anyway, but now they need punishment."
I’d planned to grant mercy, survival if they were lucky. But they needed to be made an example, like the Empire. My anger is terrifying. I’ll cling and harass relentlessly. I have no intention of stopping with the Empire either. I’ll toy with them until they die!
"The sacrifices are mostly beastfolk. Elves are popular as pets and rare in the center. Dwarves too, rare, skilled, in demand for mines. You can’t gather enough of small races.
So they use beastfolk, the most numerous other race."
"Using the world’s precious fluff for something so stupid… I question their sanity."
Fluff is for adoring, not sacrificing.
"Takuto, I know you don’t want to, but compile this into a report when you get back. I will not forgive this!"
I hadn’t planned to act first. If they hadn’t interfered, I’d have left them alone. But no. I’ll crush them. Make an example of them for all eternity.
Several plans formed in my mind. I chose the one with the highest success probability. They clearly wanted me. They’d noticed I held the Spirit King’s power.
So they’d come for me.
I’ll set a trap. I’ll make them understand that anyone who targets me meets a miserable end.
I also need to create a situation where they can’t afford not to act. They’re patient. I’ll make them realize that if they don’t secure me now, it’s over. Smoke the rats out of their holes.
Leak information about the magic battleship… hmm, that might lure the Magic Kingdom. The Imperial State would move too, but they’d restrain each other.
That leaves “that country,” but I hate them almost as much as the Empire, and there’s no direct connection. They haven’t attacked me directly, so I won’t move. I only retaliate.
I won’t destroy a country that hasn’t struck yet. I won’t save them either. Especially not that one, the Kingdom of Shaharl.
They’re definitely the slave supplier to the Imperial State. A lawless nation that hunts slaves across the continent. A country Arlanders despise even more than the Empire. I want to strike, but not yet. We need to build strength for the Evil God battle.
Just then, my phone rang. Not a call, a report by email.
"Looks like the vacation’s over. The launch facility in your territory is complete."
"Isn’t that fast?"
"We threw all spare personnel at it. Also… oh wow… I accidentally skipped the National Defense Council. Big Brother’s been sending me tons of messages."
There were so many I’d ignored them, but they were mixed in there. And seriously, don’t send “I love you” to your little sister. Of course I’ll ignore that. And don’t follow it with “It’s the National Defense Council, come back now.” I only remembered the regular meeting, so I completely skipped it.
Thanks to a clone’s brilliant improvisation, things were smoothed over by buying mountains of alcohol as souvenirs. Good. I’ll buy a mountain’s worth.
There was also a report about an intruder entering the sewers, attacking Lab 17, and [Ham] escaping and eating the intruder.
Oh, Big Brother sent another message, he wants to talk. About Ham, I bet. That’s my new pet.
The barbecue was winding down. Tomorrow, I’ll buy out every liquor store in the capital before heading back.
What do you think about this chapter?
