Side Chapter 50: Reincarnated individuals clash

The ‘Balor’ Johnny Yamaoka convulsed violently and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. Having extracted the information he needed from his brain, Banda snapped his neck and, just for good measure, pierced his heart with his claws before tossing his corpse aside. He then set about quickly burying the corpses beneath the rubble that had been the entrance of the Amemiya residence and the wreckages of the Golems.

Once he was sure that there were no corpses in sight, he used the ‘Deodorization’ spell to erase the smell of blood and gunpowder, then opened up his chest.

Hiroshi, the first to emerge, gasped for air. “That scared me… AAAH!” he shouted at the sight of his house. “The house is in pieces!”

Ulrika was clinging to Banda’s body and sobbing. “No, I don’t want to leave…” she cried.

It seemed that the violent gunfire had triggered her trauma.

“There, there. Everything’s fine. Don’t worry,” said Mei, comforting her.

“It seems that I pushed you a little too hard. Thank you, Ulrika,” Banda said. “Hiroshi, your room should be undamaged, so go and get all the things you want to take with you.”

Banda removed a claw from his left hand and tossed it somewhere with his right hand – and repeated this several times.

“Huh? Are you sure?” said Hiroshi. “Aren’t you supposed to leave anything unnecessary behind at times like this?”

“I won’t tell you to do that. Games, plastic models, stuffed toys, your favorite clothes – let’s take it all with us,” Banda said.

“Alright! I’ll go and get them… By the way, what are you doing? There aren’t any more enemies, right?” Hiroshi asked.

“Not anymore,” said Banda, sensing the life of the enemies at the locations he had thrown his claws – the snipers that had been aiming in this direction and the soldiers that had been confining the neighbors in their homes – vanishing.

While Hiroshi packed, Banda told Ulrika all the information that Johnny had known and discussed what to do next.

“First of all, it’s impossible for you to stay hidden now,” said Ulrika, who had regained her composure, as she looked at the screen of her mobile device.

She had opened a media-sharing website, on which there were already videos of Banda brutally slaughtering Johnny Yamaoka.

It seemed that the battle had been filmed by passers-by who had noticed the noise and the neighbors who Johnny and his men had failed to confine to their homes.

Banda could faintly hear sirens in the distance.

“Even if you make yourself invisible, Banda, the police will take us into custody under the pretense of ‘protecting’ us. I’m sure there are collaborators of Rikudou in this country as well. I’ll be separated from Mei and Hiroshi, and then they’ll try and capture the children after that,” Ulrika said. “Given that they’ve come at us with guns blazing, there’s no doubt that Rikudou is in a hurry as well. I don’t think he’s going to try and take his time.”

“And the other reincarnated individuals are in danger, too. If we wait quietly for Meh-kun’s papa to defeat Rikudou, there are going to be more casualties,” said Banda.

The information Banda had gained from Johnny Yamaoka hadn’t included any information that would be fatal to Rikudou, such as information about Rikudou’s research into the death attribute. However, Banda had learned that while Johnny was attacking the Amemiya residence, Rikudou also planned to eliminate Amemiya Hiroto, Joseph, and the other high-ranking members of the Bravers, as well as everyone else who was a hindrance to him.

“So, I’m thinking of going to help them, but… Mari and Joseph are probably fine,” Banda said.

“What about Amemiya…?” Ulrika asked.

“He probably won’t die, so there’s no need for me to help him.”

Banda knew that the ‘Pluto’ who was currently the leader of the different personalities of the God of Origin had granted its divine protection to Amemiya Hiroto in order to help him stop Rikudou Hijiri. With that being the case, he would probably be able to deal with an ambush.

As for the other reincarnated individuals that were with Amemiya – Unlike Joseph and Ulrika, they were nothing more than people who had been in the same class or school as Vandalieu on Earth.

There was no reason that made it necessary for Banda to proactively go and help them, nor any reason that made him want to.

What he was worried about was that they would encounter Mari and cause harm to her, but… she and the others would probably handle things.

“Then are we going to go and help Joseph and the others?” Ulrika asked.

“No, Joseph and the others will be fine,” Banda said. The ones who are most at risk are Meh-kun’s mama and the people with her, so let’s go to them.”

“Let’s go to where Mama is!” Mei agreed.

“Very well! But how…? Getting to Africa from here would take too long by passenger plane,” Ulrika pointed out. “We won’t make it in time unless we hijack a fighter aircraft or something…”

“Ulrika, humans have two perfectly good legs for a reason. And there are the black cars that Johnny and the others drove here, and I have… wings,” said Banda.

Banda’s black fur cape… or rather, his membrane, spread and transformed into large wings. Ulrika’s eyes became teary, as she was actually also afraid of heights. Mei, realizing that she would be flying for the first time, giggled in excitement. Hiroshi, who had returned after packing clothes into a travel bag for himself, Mei, and his parents, opened his eyes wide in shock.

The passers-by who were hiding nearby, still taking videos, were convinced that Banda was some kind of demon from hell.

By the time the police arrived at the Amemiya residence, Banda, Ulrika, and the children were gone, along with one of the cars.

Amemiya Hiroto, the leader of the Bravers, accompanied by some companions, was headed to a middle-eastern city that had been turned to ruins by conflict.

Their initial objective had been to apprehend a terrorist group that was in hiding, but they had learned that the terrorists had attacked a school and were now on the move with a dozen or so students as hostages.

The mission’s objective had thus changed quickly into rescuing the kidnapped students.

Half of the terrorist group was made of disposable mercenaries. The other half was made of elite soldiers who had received advanced training, and experimental subjects who had been created during research and were able to use limited forms of death-attribute magic, like the members of the Eighth Guidance. And among the student hostages was the ‘Metamorph’ Shihouin Mari… who was now known by a new codename, ‘Black Maria.’

On top of that, one of the reincarnated individuals who had been dispatched for this mission were secretly on Rikudou’s side.

It was truly an unbreakable trap. Even though Amemiya Hiroto was the most powerful of the Bravers, there was no way he could possibly survive this. And even if he did manage to survive by some miracle, he wouldn’t escape unharmed.

The ‘Druid’ Joseph Smith, who was suspected to have made contact with the unknown entity lurking in the Amemiya residence, was on a plane to South America as a part of the guarded escort for one of the leaders of a crime syndicate. The other Bravers who were also suspected to have made contact with the unknown entity were with him as well.

The plan was to have this plane explode in an unfortunate accident – an accident caused by a missile fired by a fighter aircraft piloted by a reincarnated individual on Rikudou’s side.

The ‘Angel’ Amemiya Narumi was conducting rescue work in Africa after an earthquake there. This earthquake had been an ordinary natural disaster, one that wasn’t planned by Rikudou, but… he had made sure to take full advantage of it. She was accompanied by other rescuers and they were under the protection of the local government’s army. Mercenaries that were under Rikudou’s control would attack them, disguised as armed insurgents, and then experimental subjects and other reincarnated individuals would look for a good opportunity to finish her.

“It is perfect. Rikudou-san’s long years of building trust and accomplishments has finally borne fruit,” the ‘Shaman’ Moriya said to himself, gloating in the headquarters of Rikudou’s base.

Rikudou had gained the support of political and business circles and the bosses of crime syndicates all over the world. There was nothing he couldn’t do if he didn’t care about his actions being discovered later.

Staging a terrorist attack on a school and the kidnapping of its students, deploying a fighter aircraft to fire a missile at an escort plane, conducting sabotage all over the world – all of these things were simple for him to do.

Even after seeing the deranged behavior of Rikudou’s body double, ‘Metamorph,’ Amemiya and the others would never suspect Rikudou, who had told everyone that he had made a recovery after taking on less work. The Bravers and the various intelligence agencies around the world weren’t focused solely on Rikudou, after all.

They were under the influence of Rikudou and his collaborators.

There was also the fact that Rikudou had managed to kill off all the reincarnated individuals who would be powerful in a war of information – those such as the ‘Oracle’ Endou Kouya, the ‘Laplace’s Demon’ Machida Aran, the ‘Inspector’ Shimada Izumi, the ‘Urðr’ Kay Mackenzie, the ‘Venus’ Tsuchiya Kanako. Moriya believed that Rikudou had thought ahead and deliberately planned things so that these people would die.

Of course, Rikudou and his collaborators would not be able to escape the consequences if their actions were discovered afterwards. They would not be able to avoid being arrested for their great crimes, including treason… assuming that the world managed to maintain its current order.

“The world will be reborn. It will be a world where Rikudou-san stands at the top as a god who has gained eternal life, and we, the new humanity, will rule over the old humanity!”

Rikudou would acquire death-attribute Mana and become a god who lived forever. Moriya and the other Bravers who had sided with him, as well as the others who had promised him their aid, would evolve to become the new humanity.

Death-attribute magic had already seen applications in the selective breeding of livestock and agricultural products. The research laboratory that had housed the ‘Undead’ had conducted research into doing the same on humans in order to create invincible soldiers – though it seemed that they had failed to produce any results.

But Rikudou would succeed where they had failed. He was on a different level from the fools who had failed to even create limited death-attribute mages like the Eighth Guidance.

But Moriya’s self-satisfaction was broken by an operator’s report.

“One of the Golems has stopped functioning!” the operator shouted.

“What? Which squad was that Golem from?” Moriya demanded.

Cutting-edge military Golems, which looked mostly just like robots, were being used in multiple operations. In addition to the three that Moriya was particularly cautious of – Amemiya Hiroto, Joseph, and Amemiya Narumi – there were squads that had been deployed to stop any potential interference by the other Bravers who weren’t on Rikudou’s side.

There were some Bravers who weren’t currently on Rikudou’s side but weren’t in positions of leadership among the Bravers and didn’t have any particularly threatening abilities. Rikudou wouldn’t go as far as to kill these people; he had planned to scatter them all over the world and then sabotage their communication so they wouldn’t be able to contact each other until everything was already over.

One reason for doing this was that they might accept an invitation to join Rikudou’s side after Amemiya and the others were disposed of. However, the main reason was because there simply weren’t enough resources available.

Through the ‘Chronos’ Murakami Junpei, whom he had ordered to betray the Bravers, he had gained information about the Eighth Guidance. What he had learned through this was that the reincarnated individuals were protected by the fortunes given to them by the god of reincarnation, and they were difficult to kill using ordinary methods. But when there were reincarnated individuals accompanying the side doing the killing, the fortunes canceled each other out, and they would die with surprising ease. Thus, plenty of personnel and backup had been assigned in order to make the plans succeed.

Thus, it wasn’t realistic even for Rikudou to kill every single unimportant reincarnated individual. That was why he had settled for deploying them to remote locations and then sabotaging and destroying their methods of communication and transport.

Moriya calmed himself down, thinking that the destroyed Golem was probably from one of the squads assigned to one of those reincarnated individuals.

“The destroyed Golem belonged to the ‘Balor’ squad that went to abduct Amemiya Mei from the Amemiya residence,” the operator reported.

“What?!” Moriya shouted, panicking at this unexpected development.

The squad led by the ‘Balor’ Johnny Yamaoka had been sent not to kill a reincarnated individual, but to abduct Amemiya Mei.

Plenty of forces had been deployed in order to secure the little girl that was necessary for Rikudou to complete his research. Even though she was located in a high-class residential district that was strictly watched over by the police, military Golems and heavily-armed mercenaries had been assigned there to get the job done by force.

‘Balor,’ who had been assigned as the commander of the squad, was one of the reincarnated individuals who were particularly specialized in combat. His ability was in fact very general-purpose, but he had been born to a military family that wanted him to become a soldier. Wanting to follow the path that was chosen for him, he had received advanced training from a very early age.

His proficiency in the use of heavy firearms and unarmed combat was different from the rest of the Bravers, who had only been trained for less than a year. If the cheat-like abilities were removed from the equation, he was one of the strongest of the Bravers.

It was said that terrorists would lose morale and surrender at the mere sight of him – as if they had seen the demonic eye of the legendary Balor himself.

“Has there been any contact from Yamaoka?!” Moriya asked.

“No. It seems that the Golem that stopped functioning failed to snipe ‘Echo,’” the operator replied.

“‘Echo’… It’s impressive that she was able to notice the sniper. Or was this ‘its’doing?”

Moriya referred to the unknown entity lurking in the Amemiya residence as ‘it.’ Rikudou had been more wary of ‘it’ than ‘Echo,’ the one protecting Amemiya Mei.

But after carrying out analysis, Rikudou and his allies had determined that ‘it’ would be no match for ‘Balor.’

A plan to kidnap Amemiya Mei had been carried out in the past, and ‘it’ was suspected to have interfered with it. After the police seized the truck and the corpses of the criminals, Rikudou’s collaborators had analyzed them and found that the men had been killed and the truck had been destroyed not by magical means, but through tremendous physical strength.

Rikudou had come to the conclusion that ‘it’ was a being that could conceal its presence like Ghost of the Eighth Guidance, and possessed improved physical strength provided by some kind of Magic Item, or perhaps by surgery on its body.

With that being the case, ‘it’ would be no match for Johnny given that he was already aware of its existence.

As for ‘Echo,’ she had shown a dramatic recovery in the past year, but it had been years since she was assigned a mission that involved combat. Her guard would be down, as she would be under the impression that an ally was coming to take over for her. If a sniper took a shot at her, she would be killed without being able to reflect the bullet with her ability. At least, that was what Moriya had expected, but…

“Helping ‘Echo’ means that ‘it’ has a stronger relationship with Joseph and the others than we thought. We were wrong about them merely using each other, like we did when we joined forces with Murakami,” Moriya murmured.

Moriya hadn’t expected this, but even Rikudou had failed to imagine that ‘it’ – Banda – did not have a grudge against Joseph and the others. That he had treated their illnesses not to use them, but out of kindness after encountering them through coincidence. Neither Moriya nor Rikudou would ever have dreamed that they would become open allies that trusted one another.

And that was why Moriya was dumbfounded by what the operator said next.

“‘All Golems in the ‘Balor’ squad have stopped functioning! No vitals from any of the mercenaries, either!”

“What?! That’s impossible!” Moriya shouted.

“Displaying body camera footage now!”

Footage from the body camera of ‘Balor’ played on the headquarters’ screen. And in that footage was… ‘it.’ The one that Moriya had been so wary of.

“W-what is that hideous monstrosity?! Where are ‘Echo’ and Amemiya Mei?! Are they inside that monster?!”

Moriya wasn’t the only one astonished upon seeing Banda for the first time; the operator was making noises of disbelief as well. The monstrosity closed in on ‘Balor’ at a terrifying speed. Despite his physical capabilities that had been enhanced through magic, the monstrosity cut through his arm with ease and struck him with attack after attack.

The monstrosity opened its mouth, which was lined with sharp teeth… and then the footage cut off, as the body camera was destroyed.

“W-what is that? That’s no remnant of the Eighth Guidance. That’s…” Moriya said, in a daze, but then he snapped out of it. “Contact Rikudou-san! It’s an emergency!”

The operator hastily made a report to Rikudou, who was currently making preparations in the research building.

“That’s impossible,” Rikudou said, repeating Moriya’s words as he received his report and watched the video footage attached. “Even after being attacked by assault rifles, heavy machine gun fire from the Golems, flames, and lightning, it’s completely unharmed and the people hiding inside are safe as well… That would be impossible for any metal alloy! And yet, there isn’t even any evidence that it used magic at all. And it’s too fast! Given that ‘Balor’ was killed by this monstrosity so one-sidedly, there’s nobody who can defeat it one on one!” he shouted in disbelief.

But Rodcorte and his familiar spirits, who were watching him, already knew all this.

“That is why I sent you numerous Divine Messages telling you not to get involved with him,” Rodcorte sighed, clutching his head in his hands.

In an unusual move for him, he had persistently sent Rikudou and his subordinates multiple warnings with accurate information. He had even warned ‘Balor’ to stop what he was doing, about five seconds before he and his men opened fire on the Amemiya residence.

To begin with, Rodcorte wanted to stop the research that was being conducted on death-attribute magic. At first, he had let Rikudou be, assuming that he would fail, but after realizing that a certain amount of progress had been made, he had hastily attempted to stop him.

But Rodcorte’s Divine Messages went completely unheard. After all, neither Rikudou nor his subordinates revered or worshiped Rodcorte. The loyalty and worship of ‘Balor’ and the others had been directed at Rikudou, the man they believed would become a god. As for Rikudou himself, he wholeheartedly believed that he was the only person worthy of being a true god.

That was why Rodcorte’s Divine Messages didn’t reach them at all.

The voices of gods could be heard by their devoted and zealous worshipers. They could not be heard by those who had no devotion, or were greatly mistaken in their worship.

The same would likely have been true even if it were the familiar spirits – Machida Aran, Shimada Izumi, or Endou Kouya – who had sent the warnings. It was unlikely that Rikudou and his subordinates had any positive emotions towards their former companions whose deaths they had indirectly caused.

“Is it a remnant of the Eighth Guidance, then?” one of Rikudou’s subordinates suggested in the image being watched by Rodcorte and his familiar spirits.

“That’s not possible,” said Rikudou, flustered by the footage he was watching. “If there was a monstrosity like this among them, even if they kept it from Murakami and the others, it doesn’t make sense that they would save it for this final battle. This monstrosity might have even been able to kill Amemiya Hiroto. Or even if that’s not true, the Eighth Guidance would have been able to kill many more of the Bravers if they used this thing.”

“Then that would mean that it was created by someone afterwards? But who could have created such a monstrosity…?” another subordinate asked.

“Rikudou-san, and the rest of you as well – Determining this monstrosity’s identity can be done later! We must create a new plan of action and decide what to do about this monstrosity and whether we will give up on attaining Amemiya Mei! If we do not act quickly, it will be too late!” said Moriya, pressing Rikudou to make a decision.

Rikudou had believed that everything was in the palm of his hand, but it seemed that his brain had stopped thinking due to the shock of this extremely unexpected development.

“That’s right! Stop trying to do anything related to him, right now! If you do that, your soul will not be at risk of being destroyed!” Rodcorte shouted in agreement, thinking about the danger posed by Banda’s ability to break and devour souls.

But naturally, Rikudou couldn’t hear him.

“I mean, he doesn’t need to break anyone’s soul other than Rikudou’s, does he?” said Aran, looking at the newest arrival in this Divine Realm – the ‘Balor’ Johnny.

“No, no way, I don’t want to be reincarnated in a world where that thing’s main body is. I don’t need my memories, just erase me from existence, erase me…”

The silent combat professional who radiated an overflowing confidence was gone. Instead, there was a man who was curled up into a ball and clutching his head, trembling in fear like a child.

When Banda invaded Johnny’s brain by sending his tongue in through his ear, he had had extended nerves from his tongue to hijack Johnny’s brain. While this had allowed him to extract information, Johnny’s mind had been eroded and eaten away during this process.

Essentially, Banda had done the opposite of the process of healing Joseph and Ulrika. His aim in doing this was likely to make himself feared by the reincarnated individuals that were killed… the ones who would die in the clash between Amemiya and Rikudou.

Given Johnny’s current state, the chances of the reincarnated individuals agreeing to do Rodcorte’s bidding like Murakami were…

“No, I’m not so sure about what will happen to Rikudou,” said Izumi.

“You’re right… I thought that he was a calm and intelligent person, but it seems that I was wrong,” said Kouya.

Truly intelligent people didn’t achieve things that were recorded in history. It wasn’t that they weren’t capable of such things – they chose not to do them.

This was because truly intelligent people knew of the difficulties and dangers that they would need to go through in order to reach that point. And they knew that even if they were to succeed, it wasn’t certain that they would attain anything that would make their efforts worth it.

There had been military commanders who attempted to seize control over the world despite not knowing whether they could achieve that, or what would happen afterwards even if they did. There had been revolutionaries who began revolutions with no guarantee of success. There had been captains who set sail for new continents when there was no evidence that proved that such continents existed.

Rikudou Hijiri would likely be remembered by history as such a person – if the world survived for history to continue being recorded, of course.

As Rodcorte and his familiar spirits continued watching, the panic of Rikudou and his subordinates grew.

“We’ve lost control over ‘Metamorph’… ‘Black Maria!’ We can’t control her! And we can’t control ‘Yukijoro,’ ‘Bokor,’ or ‘Gabriel,’ either!” one of the subordinates shouted.

“What?! What are ‘Artemis’ and ‘Sahadeva’ doing?!” Rikudou demanded.

“We’ve lost contact!”

“Damn it! Quite capable, aren’t you, Amemiya. What about ‘Ares,’ who was sent to his location? Has he been killed as well?”

“No, the signal of ‘Ares’ is still several dozen kilometers away from where the signals of ‘Artemis’ and ‘Sahadeva’ were lost. Amemiya’s group hasn’t arrived yet!”

“W-what did you say?! Then who… The local government troops are under our control. There’s no way troops from other countries would make a move, either. Could it be that this monstrosity has allies elsewhere as well?!”

As Endou Kouya watched Rikudou panic, he had a feeling that the situation might be resolved more easily than expected.

The souls of ‘Artemis’ and ‘Sahadeva’ appeared behind him, and Kouya peeled his eyes away from where the live images of Rikudou and his subordinates were being displayed so that he could explain various things to the new arrivals.

By the time Amemiya Hiroto arrived at the ruins that were supposedly occupied by terrorists, along with several team members including the ‘Ares’ Sugiura Nanaya, everything was already over.

“Long time no see,” said a companion of his he had long thought to be dead… the ‘Metamorph’ Shihouin Mari.

She was standing there with her arms folded behind her back, and three unfamiliar people stood behind her.

“M-Mari! That’s impossible! You’re supposed to be dead!” said the ‘Titan’ Iwao in surprise.

“Iwao, up until this very moment, I thought the same, but… her body was never discovered. Given that the Mari in front of us isn’t an illusion, it’s probably the real one. I can’t explain it, but I can sense it. I can feel that she’s one of us,” Amemiya said calmly as he stared at Mari.

The ‘sense’ that Amemiya spoke of was the fortune that Rodcorte had granted to every reincarnated individual except Vandalieu. He had become able to perceive and understand the phenomenon of his own fortune being canceled out by that of another reincarnated individual as he faced them.

“That’s right, and the fact that you believe that straight away saves me a lot of trouble,” Mari said with a relieved smile. “By the way, I said ‘long time no see’ just a second ago, but I actually saw you guys last year. You know, at Mama’s birthday party.”

She was wearing a dirty military uniform and holding a gun and knife that looked worn out from use.

But Amemiya and the others didn’t immediately understand what she was saying.

The ‘Ares’ Sugiura Nanaya was aware that Mari was an experimental subject of Rikudou’s who had been given the codename ‘Black Maria,’ and the three boys and girls behind her were failed experiments who had been sent here with her to kill Amemiya and his group. He managed to maintain a composed appearance, but his mind was in a state of extreme confusion.

Why the hell are these guys standing here out in the open?! They were supposed to hide among the hostages and look for an opportunity to kill Amemiya and the others! And where the hell is Da, who was supposed to be supervising them?! Where is Katherine, our trump card?! Were there changes to the plan?!

Da Long was the reincarnated individual with the cheat-like ability known as ‘Sahadeva.’ Sahadeva was a god who watched over people over their lives and then informed Yama of their good and bad deeds. As the codename suggested, this ability was one of observation. It planted a familiar into the body of the target, allowing him to see everything they heard and saw and monitor the state of their mind and body.

And although this had been kept a secret from everyone other than Rikudou and his subordinates, he was also capable of communicating telepathically with the target. At close distances, he could even control their bodies.

Not even the most capable of mages would notice the presence of the familiar within them, and the familiars were impossible to extract. The only way to remove them forcibly would be to kill or incapacitate Da, their master.

Katherine Miller possessed the cheat-like ability known as ‘Artemis’… the power of perfect accuracy, which made her this world’s most powerful sniper. Anything she threw or fired would always hit any target she aimed at, as long as it was directly within her field of vision. Whether or not the target was in her line of fire at all, even if the target was in the complete opposite direction from the direction she fired, it would always be hit.

This ability only guaranteed that her attack would hit its target; it didn’t guarantee that the attack would deal damage, like Amemiya’s ‘Ignore Defense.’ The ability didn’t change the speed, sharpness, or weight of the object she threw.

But even Amemiya would certainly be killed if she were to take aim at his head with a sniper rifle.

Da was supposed to be supervising and controlling Mari and the others, while Katherine was supposed to lie in wait as the trump card that would kill Amemiya. There was no sign of either of them… Well, if everything was going according to plan, there wasn’t supposed to be any sign of them, but why was Mari and the three others who were supposed to be disguised as hostages standing here, having a friendly chat?

Had the plan changed? If so, why hadn’t any word of these changes been sent?

Sugiura was bewildered by this, but Amemiya and the others were equally bewildered.

“‘Mama’s birthday party?’” said Amemiya, repeating Mari’s words. “But your mother is already…”

“Yes. Thanks to that bastard, my mother is… The one I am talking about is not my mother, but my Mama,” said Mari. “Well, I’m sure you didn’t recognize me, because I was disguised as Rikudou at the time.”

“Disguised as Rikudou?!”

“Yes, disguised as Rikudou. The explosion you all thought I had been killed by? That murder? Well, I don’t know all the details myself, but I was made to act as Rikudou’s body double after that. Forced to, by drugs and mind control. I was acting strangely at that party, wasn’t I? That was because I was on the verge of regaining my sanity, thanks to Mama and Banda.”

“What are you saying… ‘Banda?’ Are you talking about that Banda? That’s just Mei’s imaginary friend.”

“Yes, that Banda. I’m only able to be here and talk to you like this thanks to Banda and Mama. They taught me how to think and use magic using just my soul, and I was able to use death-attribute magic to disable the controlling devices planted in my body. I got rid of the familiar of ‘Sahadeva,’ too. I created a Mana-absorbing barrier inside my body, and it erased the familiar. So then, I killed ‘Sahadeva’ and used brute force to kill ‘Artemis’ as well. Can you believe how many bullets that woman put in my head? Thirteen! Like, I was kind of worried that I’d actually die.”

“Huh? What? Why are you talking about Da and Katherine like that?”

“That’s because they were allies of Rikudou’s, of course. And they planned to kill all of you except for ‘Ares’ over there. So, we need to go to South America, where Rikudou was researching death-attribute magic –”

“‘Flame Cannonball!’” the ‘Ares’ Sugiura roared, cutting Mari off.

The spell he cast struck Mari’s head directly, easily blowing it to pieces that scattered all over the ground.

“Sugiura?!” Amemiya shouted.

“W-what the hell are you doing?!” Iwao demanded.

Amemiya and the others had been completely bewildered by Mari’s explanation, which seemed to create more questions than it answered. In their confusion, they had been unable to react in time to prevent Sugiura’s act of violence. Even now, they were spreading out to surround him, but they also couldn’t ignore the three unfamiliar people that Mari had brought with her.

“Shit!” spat Sugiura, the confusion in his own mind reaching a peak.

He understood that this had been a bad move, but he had been unable to stop himself from silencing Mari, who had been in the middle of spilling information that would be fatal to Rikudou and his allies.

The realization that he had just made a bad move pressured him even further, causing him to make another desperate move.

“N-now that it’s come to this, I have no choice but to do it myself!” he muttered.

Rather than being attacked while outnumbered by Amemiya and the others, as well as the three people that Mari had brought with her, he would need to kill as many of them as possible before they recovered from their confusion. His cheat-like ability, ‘Double Power,’ was a powerful ability that doubled the power of any weapons he used – including spells and firearms. Weapons whose projectiles were controlled by complicated machinery rather than being under his direct control, like missiles fired from a fighter aircraft or helicopter, were not affected by the ability. But that didn’t matter now.

He would somehow manage with his assault rifle, grenades, and the fire-attribute magic that he had learned, which was powerful to begin with.

But the calculations he had desperately made were proven wrong in the next instant.

“I trust that you believe me now when I say that he’s a traitor?” said the voice of Mari, who had lost her head.

She produced a spare head from behind her back and calmly placed it on her severed neck to attach it.

“I-impossible!” uttered Sugiura.

“With ‘Death Delay’ active, I used ‘Metamorph’ to transform a part of my body into a spare head. It’s the same method I used to kill ‘Artemis.’ So, I’m not immortal, nor am I an Undead. I’m a human with special abilities, just like you,” Mari explained to Sugiura, who was dumbfounded and speechless, and Amemiya, who had frozen in shock again as he had already done several times over the past few minutes.

“D… DAMN IT ALL!” Sugiura screamed, truly desperate this time.

He activated ‘Ares’ to its fullest extent and fired his assault rifle and offensive spells in every direction.

Amemiya and the others were able to react this time, but before they could make a move, the three people Mari had brought with her got there first.

“I will not allow that heat,” said ‘Yukijoro,’ a girl with white hair and skin.

Her limited death-attribute magic turned the heat produced by the gunpowder of Sugiura’s bullets and his fire-attribute spells into cold air.

The waves of tremendously cold air sapped Sugiura’s body heat.

“I deliver a notice of conception,” said ‘Gabriel,’ an androgynous person whose gender was difficult to determine by their appearance.

This notice was delivered to Sugiura, who had dropped his assault rifle.

“I give my blessings to the life that grows within you,” said ‘Bokor,’ a boy with Latin-American-like features in his late teenage years.

Amemiya and the others didn’t know what these actions meant, but to Sugiura, it was the pronouncement of his death.

“Ugh, s-stop, I haven’t done anything to you guys, have I…” Sugiura began to say, but then he suddenly groaned and screamed in agony.

Bugs of unknown species and slime-like creatures burst forth from his body, having eaten their way out from the inside.

“This is… the death-attribute magic of the ‘Undead?!’” shouted an astounded Amemiya.

‘Gabriel’ and ‘Bokor’ explained their limited death-attribute magic.

“That’s right. I, ‘Gabriel,’ deliver a notice of conception to the target, causing abnormal evolutions in the microbes within their body…”

“And I, ‘Bokor,’ make the target’s body produce substances that accelerate the process. The result is as you see. Well, he is still alive.”

Indeed, Sugiura wasn’t dead yet, but he was being eaten alive by his own mutated intestinal bacteria.

“Now then, do you have any more questions? Should I explain everything once more?” she asked, ignoring Sugiura.

“Please do. It would be of great help if you could explain everything in order from the beginning, starting from when your death was faked, and make it as easy to understand as possible,” said Amemiya.

Mari frowned. “I think that will be more difficult than it was to dispose of Katherine and Da, but I’ll make an effort. After all, Banda always says that making an effort is important, and I want Mama to praise me.”

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