Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka?

Chapter 319 - If good intentions could save the world we wouldn’t be suffering

After silencing vampire girl, I listened as Kuro began to explain things once again. Well, since he added feeble comments like “It’s all my fault” and “due to my mistake” and such at every turn, a lot of unnecessary words crept in so it took time simply to listen to it all. But, well, to summarise it all in three sentences it’s like this:

Kuro appealed to the Hero and Demon King for a truce between the humans and demons. Po-no-ji instilled the idea that the administrators were evil into the heads of the Hero and Demon King. The Hero and Demon King went “Okay, let’s attack the administrators!”.

So why did this all happen? Well, to go into detail, the course of events is as follows. Firstly, the souls of the inhabitants of this world, especially the souls of the demons, had become especially degraded and the birth rate of the demons began to decline. Because of that the demons could no longer afford to go to war anymore. Kuro could foresee that the demons would die out at this rate, so he called out to the Hero and Demon King to have them form a truce.

So far so good. Kuro’s judgement wasn’t wrong. I don’t know what the situation was back then, but considering how desperately Argnar and Balto were running around trying to revitalise the demons, it’s not hard to imagine just how desperate they were to resolve it. In the first place, considering the fact that Kuro took action when he’d just basically been a spectator until then and hadn’t proactively taken any action, it’s possible to understand just how bad the situation had gotten. Perhaps if Kuro hadn’t taken action and the wars had continued, then it’s possible that by the time we reincarnators had been born that the demons would have been destroyed. Even if that’s an exaggeration, the situation would have gotten dire for sure.

However, this is where Kuro’s miscalculation occurs. Namely, that Po-no-ji had already gotten into contact with the Hero from two generations ago and the previous generation Demon King. Thus, like he had persuaded sensei as well, he instilled into them the theory that the administrators were evil. The theory that the administrators made use of the inhabitants of the world, such as the Hero and Demon King, forcing them to fight in order to build up power and then to take it from them after their death. That’s practically true, but if that’s all you heard then of course you’d figure that the administrators were evil. Despite the fact that they were actually desperately working to revive the world.

Only the Hero from two generations ago and the previous generation Demon King themselves know what they thought when they heard from both Kuro and Po-no-ji. Both of them are already dead though, so it’s not possible to find out the truth. However, considering the result, they can be seen as idiots who impulsively challenged the administrators to a fight and pointlessly wasted MA Energy.

Why was it possible for the available MA Energy to decrease by such a large amount? It would be impossible to decrease the amount of MA Energy no matter how much one challenged the administrators to a fight. At least if the Hero and Demon King weren’t involved.

There’s various hidden elements within the Hero and Demon King titles. It’s the consequence of that ill-natured evil god cramming in weird stuff. The Hero becomes stronger when facing the Demon King. That’s because the Demon King is born from the long-lived demons and is often far superior to the human Hero, so there’s a preventative measure granted to avoid a one-sided battle. In the case where the Hero and Demon King fight with a large discrepancy in capability, the Hero consumes MA Energy and is able to gain a temporary power-up as a result.

In fact, such a power-up has been provided to a situation other than that of the Hero vs Demon King. That situation being when they face gods. Currently the only proper god on this planet is Kuro. Sariel cannot move herself since she’s a part of the System. In other words, the only one who can take action against outside enemies is Kuro.

The gods are in a territorial battle over the possession of planets. This planet was abandoned by the dragons because there was no profit to be had from a place that was on the verge of ruin, so it would be unlikely to be targeted. However, it can’t be proven that it would never happen. It can’t be proven that the dragons who gave up the place would never return for a start, and perhaps some stray god might unexpectedly turn up. The Hero and Demon King are there as a means to oppose such gods. When the Hero and Demon King challenge a god, they consume MA Energy and are able to get a power-up.

Of course, it’s not like they’d be able to win against a god that easily for a start, and the amount of energy required to be able to contend with a god, even temporarily, is not something that can be safely squeezed into a single person. In addition, since the opponent is a god, the amount of MA Energy consumed is incomparable to a Hero vs Demon King battle. Even so, such a function exists. In addition, to be blunt, this function can also be applied to the administrators.

WTF? Yeah, exactly. If this was an online game, this would be like allowing players to make suicide attacks on the GMs. And on top of that, using it would be capable of bringing down the server. You’d have to be stupid to have a feature that makes it possible to overturn the foundation of the game itself. That’s not a feature, that’s a bug.

However, the answer in this case is “that’s not a bug, that’s a feature”. After all, the one who created it is that evil god you know. I think that D wanted the inhabitants of this world to have the option to also challenge the administrators. If you asked her what’s the point in that, I’m sure she’d simply say that it’s “because it seems more interesting this way”. For mere humans to challenge god. I don’t know if doing that would be able to change this world, but for D wouldn’t the event itself be enjoyable even if it was meaningless?

Yes it would. In other words, the Hero from two generations ago and the previous generation Demon King decided to challenge the gods known as the administrators, consumed MA Energy and were successfully able to gain an enormous amount of power for an instant. As compensation, naturally a large amount of MA Energy was consumed and they lost their lives.

Probably in their own way they thought that they were doing something good I guess. However, the end result was simply that the MA Energy was wastefully consumed and world was put into a predicament. To make things worse, us reincarnators from another world were killed off so fucking unnecessarily. What a bunch of clowns huh.

Now then, I guess you’ve noticed, right? The fact that in the course of events thus far, Kuro isn’t particularly responsible for the mess.

「Based on what you said, doesn’t the fault lie mainly with Potimas?」

「Hardly. It’s my responsibility for failing to explain the situation properly to the Hero and Demon King.」

Against the Demon King’s reasonable opinion, Kuro stubbornly argues that it’s his fault. Even during the middle of his explanation he repeatedly emphasised that it was his fault.

In practice, it can’t be declared that Kuro has no responsibility at all. I don’t know what explanation Kuro gave to the Hero from two generations ago and the previous generation Demon King, but if he had been able to sufficiently gain their trust then all this wouldn’t have happened. Instead they found him less trustworthy than Po-no-ji. How sad.

That being said, it’s obvious that the most fault lies with Po-no-ji who deceived the Hero from two generations ago and the previous generation Demon King. Going by what I’ve seen in Po-no-ji’s diary, Po-no-ji didn’t particularly trust those two and they independently went and self-destructed all on their own, it seems. It’s likely that from Po-no-ji’s point of view, he was aware that he would have simply been lucky if they had defeated Kuro for him. Po-no-ji is just stupidly capable for being able to correctly figure out almost the entire truth from that situation. Which is exactly why he’s so nasty though!

「Gyurie, what are you hiding?」

「I am not hiding anything. I was pathetic. That’s all there is to it.」

The Demon King presses that question to him, but Kuro plays dumb. However, since things have come this far, it’s blatantly obvious that Kuro is hiding something.

「Because I taught them fragmentary knowledge about the System, this tragedy occured. That responsibility is mine.」

Hmm. Kuro isn’t lying. However, he’s simply omitting something crucial. It’s true that what the Hero from two generations ago and the previous generation Demon King did was stupid. It’s also true that Po-no-ji is the person who instigated those two. It’s also true that Kuro is the person who taught those two fragmentary knowledge about the System. Put that all together and the developments went in a bad direction. In terms of who was the mastermind, it could be said that everyone involved was the mastermind. However, there’s one person missing.

「The Goddess Sariel.」

In response to my murmur, Kuro makes an exaggerated reaction. His eyes are practically telling me “Don’t say it!”. But well, I’m going to say it anyway!

「The one who diverted the attack originally meant for Kuro towards D. That person is the Goddess Sariel.」

In response to my words, they all had their own particular reaction. Kuro stayed expressionless. All the life drained from the Demon King’s expression. Oni-kun made an understanding expression. Vampire girl had a dumb expression showing she didn’t get anything.

It’s obvious if you think about it. Since not even Po-no-ji knew about D’s existence, there’s no way that the Hero from two generations ago and the previous generation Demon King would have been able to launch an attack on her. Since the attack more or less went via the System, it wasn’t impossible for it to reach D as the creator of that System. However, there’s nobody with deep enough knowledge of the System to be able to achieve that. With the exception of the Goddess Sariel, an administrator of the System.