side story 26

Naturally, Rodcorte and his familiar spirits, the ‘Calculation’ Machida Aran, the ‘Inspector’ Shimada Izumi and the ‘Oracle’ Endou Kouya were watching the situation unfold as Asagi and Kanako’s groups conversed with Vandalieu.

With that said, Rodcorte’s expectations were different from those of his familiar spirits.

Rodcorte had expected negotiations to break down, battle to break out and Asagi… perhaps not defeating Vandalieu, as that was unlikely, but at least being of use in gathering more information.

His familiar spirits, on the other hand, were afraid of a battle taking place. They didn’t care about what happened to Kanako’s group, but they wanted to avoid the souls of Asagi’s group being destroyed.

“Shouldn’t we tell him to not get involved with Vandalieu anymore?” said Kouya.

“Kouya, do you really think Asagi will listen to that warning?” said Aran.

“… That’d never happen.”

The existence of Asagi, a passionate man with a sense of companionship and a strong sense of self-righteousness, had been very helpful in uniting the Bravers in Origin. There were many among the reincarnated individuals, who had concealed their true identities as they lived in an environment that was different from Earth, who had been saved by the fact that Asagi had interacted with them in the same way as he had on Earth.

… Though there had been some, like Murakami, Kanako and Minuma Hitomi, who hadn’t gotten along with him.

The familiar spirits were certain that Vandalieu was the type who wouldn’t get along with Asagi as well.

They had looked at the memories of their former classmates who had been fortunate enough to survive the ferry sinking, and within them, there were memories of Asagi talking to Vandalieu.

It seemed that Asagi hadn’t realized this, but Vandalieu’s eyes had been clearly dead back then.

“It might even be better for him to be guided by Vandalieu. Not that I think that would happen,” Izumi sighed. “It definitely wouldn’t,” she muttered, denying the possibility completely.

They knew from the precedent of the ‘Perseus’ Samejima Yuri… Sarua Legston, that reincarnated individuals being guided by Vandalieu took a considerable length of time. They wouldn’t be guided just by talking to him a little.

It was very doubtful that the strong-willed Asagi would even be guided by Vandalieu in the first place. It was hard to imagine that Vandalieu would proactively attempt to guide him.

As the familiar spirits watched, their stomachs painful with nervousness despite the fact that they had no physical bodies, Asagi quietly left the scene with Shouko and Tendou following after him.

“How unexpected… I imagined that a battle would develop,” Rodcorte whispered.

The familiar spirits heard him, but they were in agreement. The Asagi of the past that they knew would have continued to stubbornly oppose Vandalieu, eventually causing Vandalieu to reach the limits of his patience.

Incidentally, neither Rodcorte nor his familiar spirits had expected Vandalieu to accept Asagi’s request.

“I hope that he rethinks his opinion on Vandalieu now, but…” Aran muttered.

Rodcorte and his familiar spirits could browse through everything Asagi had seen and heard as records.

But they could only try to predict what he would think and try to do in the future.

In any case, he would be fine for a while now that he had placed some distance between himself and the regions that were under Vandalieu’s influence.

“It might have been for the best that we didn’t tell him about Legion… about Hitomi,” said Izumi.

“Yeah. If he knew about the Eighth Guidance and Hitomi’s current state, he would definitely lose his cool,” Aran agreed.

If Asagi found out that they were no longer people but an enormous, mysterious, spherical life form made of flesh mannequins entwined around each other, he would have certainly become enraged. He would have told Vandalieu that turning humans into such a monster was something that could not be forgiven.

He would have become enraged and likely taken his anger out on Vandalieu.

“I don’t know exactly how they ended up like that, but Vandalieu probably didn’t make them like that on purpose, and from what we saw, they don’t seem to be unhappy about it,” said Kouya.

“It’s probably Rodcorte’s fault. Of course, Vandalieu does things like joining corpses together to make Undead, so I don’t think it can be helped that he’s misunderstood,” said Izumi.

The two of them were in agreement that they should continue to keep this hidden from Asagi. Their interest was shifting away from Kanako’s group, who were still with Vandalieu.

Unlike Asagi’s group that were trying to stop Vandalieu, Rodcorte also had no interest in Kanako’s group who were trying to curry favor with Vandalieu.

It was likely that they would fail, but even if they were killed and their souls were broken, they were reincarnated individuals whose next lives had not been determined, so the circle of transmigration would suffer minimal damage.

If they did succeed, Rodcorte thought that he could likely still use them to gather information for a short while, but they would likely be guided by Vandalieu eventually.

That was why he was surprised when he heard Kanako’s next words.

“I think you should turn us into members of Vida’s races, like Vampires or something!”

“What?” Rodcorte turned towards Kanako’s group in surprise. “Impossible, the knowledge regarding the circle of transmigration should have been erased when she was reincarnated in Lambda… How does she know that they are certain to be moved to Vida’s circle of transmigration system if they become members of Vida’s races? Could it be… Did she use the power I gave her?”

After the ‘Death Scythe’ Konoe Miyaji was destroyed, Rodcorte had allowed the other reincarnated individuals to use their abilities freely inside this Divine Realm.

Whether the abilities could be used effectively inside the Divine Realm depended on the ability, but he had thought that the reincarnated individuals would be in a more similar state to when they were alive if they could use their abilities, allowing them to gather their thoughts more clearly.

He had thought that Kanako’s Venus would be particularly useful, as it allowed her to manipulate memories and emotions.

Since they had no bodies, they would not be able to try and kill each other even if something went wrong, and no problems would occur if he kept watch over them. That was what Rodcorte had thought, but…

“That’s right, I was monitoring the use of their abilities. Then the only possibility is…” Rodcorte cast his gaze towards his familiar spirits, realizing that he had been too reliant on his attentiveness.

But his familiar spirits were surprised by Kanako’s words as well.

“If you think it’s because we told Kanako’s group that it would be easier to be accepted by Vandalieu if they became members of Vida’s races, you’re wrong,” said Aran.

“We’re your familiar spirits; there’s no way we’d be able to send a Divine Message without you knowing, right?” said Izumi.

“We don’t even have any reason to tell them to begin with. They betrayed us, and we haven’t forgiven them. It’s true that they’ve left Murakami, but that doesn’t mean they’re regretting what they did,” said Kouya.

Perhaps convinced particularly by Kouya’s words, Rodcorte turned his attention back to Kanako.

“Which means that it is merely a coincidence? Vandalieu leads Vida’s races, so she happened to think that it would be best for them to become members of Vida’s races as well?” Rodcorte murmured. “Or perhaps… did she somehow outwit me?”

Rodcorte focused on searching Kanako’s records for the reason she had voiced a desire for her group to become members of Vida’s races.

His familiar spirits watched him quietly, feeling shaken.

Rodcorte truly could not be trusted… After finding out that Rodcorte was a god who was willing to abandon the reincarnated individuals and the entire world out of fear for his own existence, they had been trying to think of ways to outwit him.

But before they were able to do so, Kanako had outwitted Rodcorte first. This fact caused the familiar spirits to feel both shock and a sense of defeat.

Aran’s shoulders dropped. “We

were

in charge of the brain work for the Bravers, but… What’s wrong, Izumi?” he asked, seeing that Izumi was looking in an odd direction.

“No, it’s just that I got the feeling that we’re being watched… It was only for a moment, but I think I saw something…?” she whispered.

“You saw something? What was it?”

“It looked like a pair of eyes. Not a person’s, but a beast’s.”

“You’re not just imagining things, huh. You should be able to figure it out with your Inspector power.”

“Yes, that’s why I’m certain I saw something that looked like a pair of eyes, but… Whatever. Let’s not think about this. Speaking of it is forbidden, of course, and we should forget about it as quickly as possible… until something happens,” Izumi said, knowing that Rodcorte could read their thoughts.

Aran and Kouya nodded.

However, the familiar spirits knew that Rodcorte was not constantly monitoring their thoughts with all of his attention.

It was as if their thoughts were being seen by a single surveillance camera, and Rodcorte was sitting in a guard office, looking at the footage from a countless number of surveillance cameras. With this, Rodcorte could indeed monitor their thoughts.

However, while Rodcorte was focused on something else, his focus on their thoughts would slip… perhaps.

In any case, the three of them decided not to let Rodcorte know about the ‘something that resembled a beast’s eyes’ that Izumi had seen for a moment until something further happened.

Around the time when Kanako’s group was living inside Vandalieu’s experimental Dungeon, Asagi’s group returned to the Sauron Duchy’s capital city from the border of the former Scylla territory.

They paid for rooms at a middle-class inn and gathered to sit inside one of them.

“Now that we’ve come this far, there won’t be anyone tailing us. Right, Tendou?” said Asagi.

“Yeah. I’m not completely certain, though,” said Tendou.

With his Clairvoyance ability, he had noticed that they were being followed. That was why they had returned to this city where people’s eyes were watching as quickly as possible.

They hadn’t dared to even think about trying to shake off or fight the ones tailing them. Through experience, they had learned that unlike in Origin, there were beings in this world that they could not compete against.

Of course, it wasn’t as if Asagi, Shouko and Tendou had been unrivaled in Origin. But their enemies had been armies equipped with modern weapons, or multi-millionaires or corrupt politicians who used such armies as their pawns. Their enemies had not been individually strong.

But in Lambda, there were individuals who could overwhelm Asagi’s group armed with what they would consider primitive weapons.

Asagi believed that the ‘head-hunting demon’ was one of them.

“It’s someone that even Tendou’s Clairvoyance couldn’t see directly; I never even noticed them. It wasn’t even detected by Shouko’s thermal sensing. This world is filled with monsters,” Asagi muttered.

“Asagi, I’m sure my thermal sensing couldn’t detect the head-hunting demon because it’s almost certainly an Undead,” Shouko pointed out.

“I’m taking that into account when I say this world is full of monsters,” said Asagi, and then he gave a sigh.

He had experienced numerous defeats since being reincarnated in this world.

The first was when he had tried to stop