Vol 2 Chapter 18 – They Hit My Trump Card’s Weak Spot

Earth’s gods hold a discussion.

《Unbelievable. One of the upper-tier gods among us has been eaten.》

《One was taken out by the Reincarnation God’s interference, and eight minor gods—also captured by the Reincarnation God—were eaten. That makes ten!》

《Who’s the idiot who suggested using a high-ranking god for entertainment?!》

《You agreed too, didn’t you?!》

《The hell I did! This is your—!》

Their “discussion” basically devolves into a pointless blame game.

To begin with, there are simply way too many of them to be managing a single planet called Earth.

《Seriously, why are those reincarnators we gave cheat powers to so weak?》

《Exactly. We gave them our power, and they’re still way too weak!》

《Can’t be helped. They were shut-in deadweights to begin with. Even if you give them a little power and make them “decent,” “decent” is still just decent. A fake can’t beat the real thing.》

《Tch. Useless trash.》

Earth’s gods, putting their own faults neatly on a shelf, proceed to trash-talk the cheat reincarnators.

《But doesn’t this give us a righteous cause? He’s obviously a Demon Lord, and ten of our gods have been eaten!》

《Nine were eaten. One is merely captured by the Reincarnation God. And before that, our own rule-breaking will obviously be seen as the bigger problem. This won’t be a righteous cause.》

《Tch. Damn annoying rules…》

What they’re allowed to manage is limited to the “Earth” jurisdiction, and interfering outside that boundary is a punishable violation of their rules.

They’ve peeked into other worlds and meddled before, but from a god’s perspective it was an extremely small-scale intrusion—barely a gray zone that might or might not cross the line.

If they had a righteous cause, they could meddle openly in another world, but in their case, they poked first and merely got hit back—so it’s nowhere close to a righteous cause.

《Then what’s next? Don’t tell me you’re just going to back off now.》

《As if we’d do something that boring. Of course we continue.》

Well, since they’re peeking into and interfering with another world purely for entertainment, “righteous cause” doesn’t apply—this is nothing but self-inflicted.

《Then what do we do?》

《Hmm. That’s the problem.》

And so the pointless discussion dragged on, until, in the end, they decided to mess with Emilio again.

◇◇◇

It’s painful to let go, but Yumeba’s leave is coming to an end.

This war was basically fought by repelling an invasion from the sea, so the damage outside the navy wasn’t that severe.

Which also means the navy had about half its ships and personnel sink into the ocean.

Rebuilding that will take money and time too, but at least in terms of public order in the Empire, the damage was kept to a minimum.

So once the postwar leave ends, it’s only natural that Yumeba goes back to joining the Imperial Guard Knights’ training.

“Ughh… I don’t wanna go. I don’t wanna gooo~”

Well, Yumeba—who’d been going full lovey-dovey with me up through yesterday—was dragging her feet about it.

Personally, I’m totally in favor of her skipping training and staying here to flirt with me forever, but…

“Okay, okay. Hurry up and go.”

“Ughh…”

The world’s strongest organism isn’t going to allow that.

Today too, I saw Yumeba off with a hug and a kiss, and she headed out while looking back over her shoulder like she couldn’t bear to leave.

With Yumeba gone, I had time on my hands, so I took out the deep-sky god-slaying bullet I’d obtained during the war.

I’d already given the vivid crimson bullet to Yumeba, but I planned to examine the one I still had.

“Hmmm.”

I look at it with my left eye, which can now see divine power, but no divine power is leaking from the deep-sky bullet.

It’s either perfectly sealed… or maybe, since it’s a god-slaying bullet made by devouring a god’s soul, it’s fundamentally different from “divine power” to begin with.

As I observed it from different angles, for some reason Lio II drifted over and started clinging to me like it wanted to sniff the deep-sky bullet.

“Are you interested in this thing?”

Lio II has a piece of my consciousness embedded in it, so I didn’t think it would do anything against my will. I held out the deep-sky bullet—and then the spherical body split open with a pop, top and bottom, like a mouth opening…

“……Huh?”

…and it swallowed the deep-sky bullet I was holding.

“……”

I blanked out for a few seconds, unable to process what I’d just seen.

“H-Hey, wait a second!”

At the very least, I do not remember giving Lio II a function like that.

And anyway, Lio II is built with a layered load-bearing structure—there’s no physical way it should be able to split cleanly in half like that.

I held Lio II in both hands and stared at it, but there wasn’t even a seam where the “mouth” had been.

“What is going on?”

Lio II’s behavior and structure were clearly off.

“Come to think of it… I was going to do maintenance.”

I remember now—I’d felt something off before, and when Lio II started clinging to me, I’d gotten suspicious and planned to do maintenance.

So I started maintenance on Lio II using analysis magic, but…

“No abnormalities?”

I couldn’t find a single abnormality.

“No, no, no.”

After that behavior—and after it swallowed the deep-sky bullet—“no abnormalities” is more suspicious, not less.

But no matter how many times I checked, the result was the same: no abnormalities.

It was so perfectly “normal” that I started wondering if the problem was my analysis magic instead, so I analyzed a bunch of other objects. But my analysis magic was working fine.

“What is going on? And what was it planning to do by eating a god-slaying bullet?”

I still have three normal god-slaying bullets left, so it’s not like I’m immediately screwed, but there’s no question I’d lost the deep-sky bullet I’d planned to keep as a trump card—right after giving Yumeba the vivid crimson one.

“Still… I can’t exactly take it apart, either.”

When I assembled Lio II, I built it up in multiple layers—like peeling an onion in reverse—so disassembling it would be a pain… or rather, I didn’t design it to be disassembled in the first place.

So the moment analysis magic couldn’t find anything, I was basically out of options.

《？》

Meanwhile, Lio II tilted its head in an adorably calculating way, like it was trying to show how harmless it was.

Obviously, I never gave it a function like that, and the piece of my consciousness inside it isn’t the kind of personality that would act like this, either.

“…I don’t know.”

In the end, the only thing I learned was that I had no idea what was happening.

I tried talking it over with Yumeba after she got back from Imperial Guard training, but…

“Yume II doesn’t seem to sense anything abnormal either.”

Yume II, whose main role is supporting Yumeba, was still stuck to Lio II as usual and seemed to feel nothing strange.

“Was it really that weird?”

“At the very least, I didn’t give Lio II any kind of ‘eat things’ function.”

The strangest part was it eating the deep-sky bullet, but after that, I didn’t sense anything else unusual.

“Maybe it was hungry?”

“Uhh…”

That answer makes it hard to argue.

Lio II has my consciousness implanted in it, even if it’s only a part—and it runs on the mysterious force called magic—so it’s entirely possible it could do things beyond what I anticipated.

So even if it really was hungry, and the thing it chose to eat was a god-slaying bullet… I can’t actually tell whether that counts as “abnormal.”

At least, from the perspective of an ex-Japanese guy’s consciousness, it’s definitely abnormal.

But Lio II isn’t exactly a machine, so I can’t judge immediately whether it’s truly abnormal or not.

“I guess we’ll keep an eye on it for now.”

“It’s fine right now, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Right now it’s just… a bit clingy, that’s all.”

Just like before, Lio II keeps sticking to me or climbing onto my head.

If you want to call that weird, it’s weird, but compared to eating a bullet, it looks practically normal.

“Maybe Lio II is evolving day by day?”

“Is it…?”

When Yumeba put it that way, I reluctantly accepted it.

Still… it really didn’t have to eat a god-slaying bullet.

◇◆◇

“Hah… hah… hah…”

Serina could barely keep herself upright as violent heart-pounding and shortness of breath left her body dizzy.

(A-ah… that was close.)

She hadn’t planned to do something like that.

Serina was supposed to be happy just being near Emilio through Lio II’s field of view, but…

(Just seeing that thing in front of me completely blew away my self-control.)

The instant the beautiful blue bullet entered her vision, Serina’s rationality snapped.

It wasn’t that she’d been controlled by something.

It was a very simple matter: the greedy part of Serina was drawn to the deep-sky bullet, and she couldn’t resist it.

From Serina’s point of view, it was something her beloved Emilio had made—and on top of that, she knew the vivid crimson bullet had already gone to Yumeba, who had vivid crimson eyes—so her restraint simply collapsed.

If it was a blue bullet, then someone with blue eyes—herself—was the one who deserved it, and before she knew it, she was already controlling Lio II and pouncing.

Even Serina herself found that behavior suspicious, and worse, her miraculous pseudo-alchemy had backfired in the worst possible way.

Yes. The reason Lio II was able to “prey” on the deep-sky bullet was because Serina had altered Lio II.

After that, Serina had no choice but to pour her entire mental focus into desperately hiding Lio II’s modified parts from Emilio’s analysis magic and making it misread everything as “no abnormalities.”

She knew it was over if she got found out, so she went all out.

As a result, Emilio suspected the hell out of it, but she kept him from getting any evidence and successfully secured a “wait and see” status quo.

(That honestly shaved years off my life.)

Even so, Serina knew her actions had been reckless, and she knew she’d walked a very dangerous tightrope.

(For now… I should go get healed by Lio-sama.)

Of course, since Serina’s “healing” was Emilio, she immediately used Lio II to cling to Emilio and recover her energy.

An extremely eco-friendly Serina—spending her energy because of Emilio, then recharging that energy with Emilio.

◇◇◇

Today was the day I’d been waiting for—Yumeba’s day off.

“…It felt so long.”

“Good work.”

The last few days felt ridiculously long.

Maybe because we’d spent the entire postwar leave together—endlessly lovey-dovey—time away from Yumeba felt way too long.

Well, Yumeba also got bored during training and kept sending messages to my smartphone nonstop, so having to think up replies might be part of why it felt so long too.

Either way, it was Yumeba’s long-awaited day off.

Today we had to refill each other’s “components” to the brim, so we could survive until the next day off.

I mean, Yumeba comes home at night, so we can be lovey-dovey from then until morning, but that still wasn’t nearly enough.

Right now, I’m low on Yumeba, and Yumeba is low on me.

So I decided: today, we’re going all-out on flirting!

“~♪”

First, since we don’t even need to go out, we cuddle and roll around in the room.

We cling together on the bed and rub ourselves against each other.

“Ahh… I’m healed…”

“Honestly, I want to stay like this forever.”

I seriously find myself wishing time would just stop like this.

Not that I can stop time even with spacetime magic, but still.

I mean, I can do things like stopping time inside a dimensional storage item box in a localized way, but controlling time in the real world isn’t realistic.

For example, say I stop time for just one second—where exactly do I stop it? From where to where?

Do I stop time for the entire planet? Stop the solar system around the sun? Or stop the entire galaxy?

No matter which one you pick, it would take a ridiculous amount of energy, and even if you stopped time for just one second, there’s no telling what kind of catastrophe would happen from outside influences pushing into the stopped-time area.

Or fine—say I narrow it down and stop time in a ten-meter radius around me.

In that case, the planet’s rotation and orbit would keep going like normal, so at worst I’d end up thrown into space.

No—at worst, I could get embedded into the ground and burned to death by magma.

Stop time for the planet?

Then you get thrown off the orbital track, and what if the planet drifts endlessly away from the sun… or gets pulled in? What then?

So yeah, even aside from “I don’t have enough energy to stop time,” the downsides are so bad that I can’t bring myself to do it.

Honestly, I don’t think even a god could stop time easily.

With power on the level of the Reincarnation God, I don’t think it would be impossible, but that god values fairness—so I can’t imagine it stopping time for its own convenience, either.

So all I can do is tweak my and Yumeba’s perceived time just a little, so we can enjoy today’s holiday for as long as possible.

You might think, So you’re doing it anyway, but the mana efficiency on this is terrible, so my deep consciousness room ends up with almost no mana stored up.

Yeah. I do it a lot on Yumeba’s days off.

The magic itself is efficient enough that it’s not a problem operationally, but I still want to store at least a little mana in case of emergencies, and yet…

“~♡”

When I see Yumeba in my arms like this, looking so happy, I just end up doing it anyway.

That day, Yumeba and I spent our time rolling around, rubbing against each other, and flirting.

It was a full, satisfying day, and I had an amazing time.

◇◇◇

Because yesterday was so fun, today hurts even more.

“Ughh… just one more day. Just one more day off—can’t I?”

“No.”

The one cutting down Yumeba’s pleading was the world’s strongest organism: Yukina-san.

If she begged me with those eyes, I’d say “Sure” instantly.

I can’t exactly go against Yukina-san, so I racked my brain for how to convince Yumeba today, and then—

“Up!”

The first one to notice, of course, was Yukina-san.

““!””

Just like she said, an impact tore through the area like a meteor had fallen from above, and a massive crater appeared in front of the entrance to the Saionji ducal residence.

I was fine thanks to the Absolute Defense Wall Aegis, but even so, a small fragment must have nicked me—my cheek was slightly cut, and blood ran down.

Even though Absolute Defense Wall Aegis was supposed to have the defensive power to nullify even infinite attacks.

“Ow, ow…”

Ignoring the world’s strongest organism who somehow treats this as “just pain” like it makes any sense, I look for Yumeba.

“Yumeba!”

“…I let my guard down.”

With a bitter expression, Yumeba’s left arm was completely broken, and judging by how she was pressing her side with her right hand, it looked like she’d broken a few ribs too.

“I’ll fix it now!”

This burns a lot of mana, but if a rib is stabbing into an organ, healing magic won’t guarantee a clean fix, so I use spacetime magic and rewind Yumeba back to her healthy state from a few seconds ago!

“Thanks, Lio.”

The spell triggered, and Yumeba returned to perfect condition, but…

《Kihihih! Found you—found youuu!》

《Fuhyahyaa! Power’s overflowing!》

At the same time, the idiots who dropped out of the sky and hurt my Yumeba finally showed themselves.

“Lio. These guys…”

“Yeah. The duo who ended up as Yunix’s hangers-on.”

The last two surviving cheat reincarnators—the black-haired one and the brown-haired one Yunix picked up from somewhere.

After the war, I’d planted a hypnosis suggestion in them, making them misidentify that fake Yunix as the real one and use them like errand boys, but…

“Looks like they’ve been interfered with by Earth’s gods, pumped full of power, lost their egos, and gone berserk.”

When I look with my left eye—my God-Severing Eye, God-Through—an amount of power spills out of their bodies that’s so unnatural it’s ridiculous.

“Well, if you want to call it convenient, it’s convenient.”

Without hesitation, I aim my God-Slaying Weapon 【Lucifer, King of Pride】 and fire two bullets at them—no, at the two beasts.

The bullets hit both targets without missing, and then…

《Igyahhh! It hurts, it hurts, it HURTS!》

《I’m gonna dieee! Die, die, dieee!》

They writhed in pain and rolled around on the ground.

“…Lio?”

But watching that, I couldn’t stop my face from tightening.

Enough that Yumeba noticed instantly.

“Crap. Those Earth gods… they hit the weak point of my God-Slaying Weapon 【Lucifer, King of Pride】.”

“Weak point?”

Sure, the two of them took the god-slaying bullets and were writhing in pain.

But that’s all it did.

My God-Slaying Weapon 【Lucifer, King of Pride】 is a specialized anti-god weapon. It shows its true power when used on gods.

And unfortunately, even though these two had been flooded with divine power, no god was directly possessing them.

Meaning, these two were just humans who happened to have godlike power.

Of course, like how it was overkill against mages, it still has plenty of killing power even if the target isn’t a god—but the weapon’s real effect is to pass judgment on a god, usurp the god’s soul, and convert it into bullets.

Against an opponent who doesn’t have a god’s soul to begin with, God-Slaying Weapon 【Lucifer, King of Pride】 can’t output its maximum effect, and it can’t refill its ammo, either.

And although they’d been rolling around in agony…

《How dare you! How dare you do that!》

《I won’t forgive you! You little insect!》

Whether more divine power was still being poured into them in real time or not, the moment their pain eased, they stood right back up and glared at me.

Looks like I’m going to have to deal with them without relying on my God-Slaying Weapon 【Lucifer, King of Pride】.

And on top of that, because I used spacetime magic to heal Yumeba, I burned through most of my mana—I’m in a situation where I have to start counting how many more spells I can even cast.

(Yeah… this is bad.)

Recognizing the situation for what it was—borderline hopeless—I let out a deep sigh.