Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka?

With this release, now everything originally released up to the end of 2015 has been translated. Though I’ve only contributed a tiny amount of that.

So with that it’s back to the main story. And cliff-hangers.

241 – The clown on stage

I’m listening to Argnar’s report. It regards the investigation on the movements of the elves that I entrusted to him. In practice however, my focus is on another matter.

At the human academy, an excursion is being carried out. It might nominally be called an extracurricular hunt, but from my point of view I can only see it as an excursion with guaranteed safety. Normally this should be a worthless event and there wouldn’t be anything for me to worry about.

However, I have gathered plenty of clones at the small mountain where the extracurricular activities will take place. The reason, is Natsume-kun. That guy seems to be up to something.

Natsume-kun burns with a considerably strong antagonism towards Yamada-kun, something I know all too well from my monitoring. From my monitoring to date, I’ve seen that Natsume-kun has been given considerably favourable treatment due to the status and abilities he got from reincarnation, and has all the indications of having become carried away. But, then appears Yamada-kun.

Basically, Yamada-kun is a cheat existence above Natsume-kun. He has almost equal strength to Natsume-kun, is living diligently and on top of that has a kind and modest nature. In addition, he’s the Hero’s younger brother. Since he’s all that at level 1, his future is promising. Currently they’re equal, but it’s obvious that sooner or later Yamada-kun will leave Natsume-kun behind.

I think Natsume-kun has noticed that as well. That’s why he’s hostile towards Yamada-kun, going so far as to take the extreme course of trying to eliminate him. Until now, everything he needed to go his way has done so. Having been able to get away with anything, Natsume-kun’s groundless prejudices have given rise to violence.

There are assassins lurking on the mountain. There are not many. If I decided to get rid of them it would be easy enough to do so. This time I’ve prepared not just the normal monitoring clones, but also the fully battle orientated clones. However, it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to take action. It’d be for the best if the people themselves can settle the matter.

If there’s a problem, then it’s the monster that the assassins have brought with them I guess. I don’t know how they were able to tame such a thing, but the assassins are accompanied by a single monster.

An Earth Drake.

From what I’ve seen, it’s not risen to a full dragon. But, it’s close, a considerably superior Earth Drake. If I could appraise it I would be able to know the details, but right now I can only roughly estimate its strength. It’s likely that it’s about equal to the Fire Drake that I once fought against in the middle layer of the Elro Great Labyrinth.

Seriously, how were they able to bring it? The Earth Drake is submissively sitting in a cage. However, if it wanted to, it should be strong enough to easily destroy that cage.

Hmm? Some kind of special circumstances perhaps?

Well, whatever. If that Earth Dragon stands in sensei’s way, then I will show no mercy. That’s all.

Then, while I’ve been pondering the situation has changed. Aiming right for the moment when Yamada-kun is alone, Natsume-kun comes swooping down.

Er, what? What’s with that haphazardly sloppy attack? Couldn’t you do something more suitable eh? Instead he actually declares that “This is my world”, all proud. Lost your head much? Ah, no, I’m not questioning it, I’m declaring it. This guy has lost his head.

Ah. Originally his personality was like that, but since he practically had a cheat-like birth as a prince, he’s made a huge misunderstanding in the end and lost the plot. I had this feeling while monitoring him, but he’s lost his head to a completely hopeless extent.

On top of that, he’s weak. He’s singing his own praises like he’s the strongest around or something, but he’s nothing like that strong you know. In that regard, the hero-kun was stronger when I first met him.

Well, I guess if you consider his age then maybe he’s adequately strong, but he has no hope of beating our vampire girl, with just that. Yamada-kun should only be level 1, but he’s still able to fight pretty equally.

The assassins, on the other hand. Yup. Sensei has magnificently turned the tables on them by now. Sensei is strong. Perhaps she could defeat an eel by herself?

The assassins attempted to release the Earth Drake in desperation, but I stealthily prevented that. Even for sensei an Earth Drake would be too much of an opponent. If it comes down to it I can simply intervene myself, but I want to limit myself to stealthily supporting her as much as possible.

Sensei’s magic smacks into Natsume-kun. Natsume-kun goes flying. Undaunted he attempts to fight against sensei, but again he is knocked to the ground with magic. Yup. Kid, you ain’t gonna beat sensei. Her strength and experience are in another league. She doesn’t have experience of war in the demon territory for nothing.

Sensei has been up to various secret maneuvering in the demon territory. Her actions have been dodgy dealings to attempt to stop the demons from going to war. Sometimes contacting demons to persuade them to avoid war, sometimes physical sabotage, all designed to postpone the war preparation of the demons.

That’s all for the sake of vampire girl who is on the demons’ side, to prevent her from being dragged into war, I’d bet. For some reason, she believes that the vampire girl will die if war takes place. I don’t understand why, but sensei is convinced of that. It’s a mystery as to what her conviction and actions are based on, but what’s important is that sensei believes it to be true. Without that, I’m sure she wouldn’t be taking such absurd actions in order to prevent war, just to save a single student. Well, she may also be thinking that students other than the vampire girl could become involved if war occurs though.

For sensei who has been continuously fighting from the shadows like that, there’s no way she’d lose to some child living a life of luxury. Sensei has even been able to trouble me somewhat you know. It’s been hard work to keep sensei safe. By manipulating intelligence through Argnar, slowly but surely I’ve been cornering her. To make sure that she almost can’t take any action in the demon territory, eventually I started spreading around disinformation about unrest occurring in Yamada-kun’s country to force her to focus there, and in the end I was finally able to make her go there. It took a long time. Though it was outside my expectations that she’d come with that Po-bastard though. On top of that it was outside my expectations that she’d actually make a big gathering of reincarnators at the academy though. It was also outside my expectations that every one of those damn reincarnators would be problem children though. Heh, it’s not like that’s troubling me. It’s not, okay!

Besides, it’s time for one of those problem children to fade to black, as it were. Knowing sensei, I doubt she’ll kill him though. But, she should respond appropriately in her own way. No matter how much she dotes on her students, she shouldn’t be able to tolerate the mess that Natsume-kun has made this time.

Now then, what will sensei do I wonder? Rip off an arm or two?

……Huh? What the heck are you doing? Ruler authority? Uh!?

The cup in my hands is smashed. The contents spill over my body, but I don’t give a damn about that.

「There is an urgent matter.」

I say no more than that to Argnar and teleport. I think I did well with that simple refusal. I was too flustered to begrudge more than that. This is way out of the league of my clones. Without the abilities of my main body, this is impossible to deal with.

Thus, I arrive at the destination I teleported to. The lowest layer of the Elro Great Labyrinth. Specifically, to the furthest depths where the Goddess is sealed away.