Kumo desu ga, Nani ka? 302

Just when you think you’ve seen everything…

302 – Piles of corpses everywhere

There was a mountain of corpses stacked up at the place I went to. No, seriously. This is not a metaphor, this is real.

This mountain of corpses comes from the Imperial Army that invaded the elf village and has since become a shadow of its former self. The Imperial Army that Natsume-kun led came this far, fought with the elves, and then on top of that they were attacked in a pincer movement by the Demon King Army, went through hell and collapsed. Of course there are many survivors, but in military terms given the amount of casualties you could say that they were annihilated. When the number of killed and wounded exceed 30% is that considered be annihilated again? Or was is 40%? Well, either way it’s certain that they took heavy damage.

The unit that was directly with Natsume-kun, all fought with normal opponents such as Yamada-kun’s party and sensei, so they have somewhat less damage. However, the other units got stuck with having to take on Potimas’s secret weapons, so it seems that some of those units were literally annihilated. Talking of the secret weapons though, unlike the sea urchins and so on that I took on, or the Gloria or whatever things that the Demon King took on, those units took on the mass production weapons. The ones that I beat up along the way. Nonetheless, while they might as well have been scrap as far as I was concerned, from the normal standards of the people of this world they were a terrible threat. So consider a weapon so strong that normal humans cannot contend with them, and then consider mass producing them enough that they come out in hordes. Yep. Most people would die from that.

The outcome, is this mountain of corpses here. It appears that the remaining Imperial soldiers and Mera’s subordinates spent the whole night going around the battlefield collecting them. Here I am complaining about not being able to sleep comfortably, while those guys spent the whole night after a battle doing work huh. Umm, sorry about that. Sorry for asking for more than my fair share. Simply being able to sleep was good working conditions. Soldiers in fantasy worlds fight until they die, then the ones who didn’t die are made to spend all night working – the ultimate black business. Hello everyone who yearns for fantasy worlds! Why don’t you become a soldier in a fantasy world as well?

……Somehow, I now really pity them. From the start the soldiers of the Imperial Army were considered to be disposable anyway, so them becoming like this is within that assumption though. They were composed of the soldiers from rotten Imperial nobles that were summoned by Natsume-kun and that would be okay to kill, but even if the leaders are rotten the soldiers themselves committed no sins. I’m sure that some of them simply wanted to slurp up the juicy rewards that were being dangled in front of them though.

Well, they have properly fulfilled their roles now. Thus, I think they should be able to hold an appropriate memorial service in compensation. All the same, they wouldn’t be able to bring these corpses all the way back to the Empire like this, so I guess they’ll take back things that belonged to the deceased, or their remains from cremation. Either way, they gotta be properly buried of course.

In contrast, there’s no elf corpses here. They have all vanished into my stomach. Or to be more precise, they were divided amongst my clones and eaten. Having done so, have I given them a proper burial in my own way? After all, in the natural world it is good manners to eat what you kill, right. Those corpses were eaten by me, and will become my flesh and blood. Ahh, how wonderful. I’m sure that Potimas would cry tears of joy to know that his own relatives would become the flesh and blood of a god.

「Good morning, Shiro-sama.」

While I was gazing at the mountain of corpses, Mera approached and greeted me.

「Have you had breakfast already? If not then it can be prepared for you though.」

He seemed unnaturally keen to invite me to breakfast. Ah, no. Mera is attentive to various details anyway, so normally it wouldn’t feel strange for him to call out to me like this, but right now he has the position of being an army commander. His subordinates are still in the area, and since he and I officially have the same rank it is a bit suspicious of him to be so attentive. Mera is someone who can properly distinguish public and private matters after all. He wouldn’t normally lower himself so blatantly in front of his subordinates. Hey Mera-kun… I certainly hope not, but you better not be worried that I might want to eat these corpses or something, right?

If I opened my eyes to see him properly I’m sure he would be looking at me reproachfully. Perhaps he sensed the mood, as Mera’s eyes began to swim a bit. To an ordinary person it would be too slight to notice, but you can’t fool my eyes. You bastard. Well, whatever. It’s certainly the case that I haven’t had breakfast anyway, so I’ll do as Mera suggests and have them prepare me some. If I don’t at least do that much then I won’t be able to settle down.

「Fwoaaahhhhh!」

Just when I was about to nod in acknowledgement, a strange creature gave off a strange sound while making strange movements towards me. It was so strange that I stopped moving for a bit. But, Mera beside me quickly responded. He chopped the strange creature that was approaching on the head with his hand.

「Gofwah!?」

The strange creature was knocked to the ground by Mera’s relatively serious hand chop, and squatted while vomiting blood, but eh!? Amazingly, the strange creature took yet another strange pose to stop its collapse from Mera’s chop. People call that pose, the dogeza.

「What is the meaning of this?」

Seeming half angry and half bewildered, Mera began to question the strange creature.

「Please, please make me your apprentice!」

This strange creature is saying something strange again. I have no idea what it is saying.

Mera has a bewildered expression saying he has no idea what is going on. Well, of course right? If someone who you’d just riposted suddenly asked to be your apprentice you’d go “huh?” as well right. That request was probably said to me, but since Mera doesn’t know the circumstances of course he’d have no idea what’s going on. Even though I know the circumstances I have no idea what’s going either, okay. This guy gives off such an extreme impression.

Somehow, I feel that I shouldn’t get too involved with this strange creature. My instincts are flashing an emergency signal saying “You must not get involved”. Just what is this. Somehow, yeah, somehow, I can’t put it into words.

Using my threads I bind the strange creature which is still doing a dogeza. Now that it can’t move I speak out to Mera.

「Let’s go.」
「Umm, are you sure?」

I strongly nod in confirmation towards the still bewildered Mera. It’s best to leave this thing alone. Or rather, that’s all I can do!

I leave the strange creature like that, and begin to walk off in order to eat breakfast. While Mera is glancing towards the strange creature, I walk off without hesitation, so Mera quickly runs after me. Behind me I felt like I heard something like “Pl, please wait!”, but I’m sure it’s just my imagination. The strange voice merely passed over my ears as some kind of unintelligible sound. My brain cannot be allowed to recognise that as meaningful words. Before I’ve even met the reincarnators, I somehow feel worn-out. Nai wa.

Translation notes:

“black business” – a black business (or black company) in Japanese terms is one that has terrible working conditions like excessive working hours and poor compensation.

“Dogeza” – the famous prostration on all fours.

“please make me your apprentice” – the speech pattern used here is reminiscent of a strange creature seen for example in chapter 174.