Kumo desu ga, Nani ka? 271

At long last, déjà vu.

271 – The Ominous 10th Army

「Say, goshujin-sama?」

Vampire girl’s lips are trembling, pointing at the 10th Army members who are standing to attention in front of us.

「What, are they?」

Even if you ask me what they are, they’re still the 10th Army though.

「Are my eyes mistaken I wonder? It seems to me that everyone has status values exceeding 1000 though?」

Ah, I see. I can’t use Appraisal anymore so I can’t see their status values etc. Still, 1000 huh. How weak. I thought I had trained them pretty vigorously, but if it’s like this they would even lose one-on-one against a higher ranked drake, huh.

「It’s strange, right? It’s because goshujin-sama’s standard is strange, right?」
「It’s pointless to use words like “standard” and so on with this person.」

To vampire girl’s exclamation, Felmina-chan replies while having eyes like that of a dead fish.

「What the, how did your status values reach around 2500?」
「Heh, heh-heh-heh……」

While vampire girl is in shock, Felmina-chan ignores it with nothing more than a dry laugh. As if guessing something, vampire girl stares at her with a look of pity.

Unlike vampire girl, I couldn’t train Felmina-chan since she was a child, so only this much progress could be made. Even so, she had more time to develop than the average soldier here, so she should be able to fight on a par with a higher ranked drake. Naturally, she’d be no match for a dragon though. Since they’re swaming with them over there, the 9th Army sure is unfair.

「Waldo, are you okay?」
「I’m fine. If it’s for you sake then I shall endure any kind of special training.」

For vampire girl’s reverse harem members, after her Charm was released, the only one who continued to stay with vampire girl like before was Waldo-kun. Since vampire girl was forcibly moved to the 10th Army, Waldo-kun came together with her as well. In addition, with several other graduates from vampire girl’s generation added, the 10th Army has reached the full quota. There will be no further increases until the war starts. Around the time the new recruits get used to the environment of the 10th Army, the preparations for war will truly begin. Saying it the other way, it means I have until then to train the new recruits. I can’t wait to get started!

So, while I was tormenting the 10th Army, a certain incident occurred at the human academy. Maybe it could be called an incident, or maybe something else. Yamada-kun acquired a Ruler skill. It would be a lie to say that I hadn’t expected this, but when he actually acquired it I was surprised. Of course, I shall be making full use of this. The hacking of the System will take a big step forwards with this. Afterwards, if I can do something about Potimas and the pope, I should be able to somehow scrape together the remaining Ruler skills.

Apart from that, there’s been no movement amongst the elves so far. Potimas’s clones are secretly doing things within Yamada-kun’s country, but I plan to use Natsume-kun to make a clean sweep of them later, so there’s no problem. At that time, I shall put imouto-chan to work in a major way.

The humans have at last realised that the demons are going to make a full-blown invasion, so they’re massing troops along the border. Amongst them, is a proper unit from the Divine Word Religion. It appears that the pope has chosen to fight. However, there’s no sign of any of the generals I saw during the conference, so I guess they’re reserving their important troops for the following war.

Which reminds me, I realise that I forgot to tell them to have the Hero participate in this war, but perhaps the Demon King skillfully talked to them about that, since he’s properly participating. The Hero Julius and his comrades have gathered at a fort. So that I can be certain to deal with the Hero, I spoke with the Demon King about having the 10th Army’s target destination be the fort the Hero is at. Naturally, this was easily accomplished. Since the 10th Army has always had fewer personnel than the other armies, they’ve been treated as a reserve corps anyway.

While the other armies were also still preparing for the invasion, the army commanders were called to the Demon King’s castle. It appears that the final conference is about to begin. Well, rather than calling it a conference, it’s just about getting the final confirmations, so it’s basically like a debriefing session I guess.

On entering the conference room, the other commanders were already gathered. When I entered Argnar briefly glanced at me, but showed no other reaction apart from that. Naturally the other commanders don’t know about my connection with him, let alone the Demon King. Mera had a similar reaction to Argnar. Oni-kun made a short bow. Kuro didn’t even glance at me.

The other commanders took their seats in silence. The boobian 2nd Army commander made suggestive glances towards the other commanders, and the idiot giant of the 3rd Army was cowering. Perhaps because the mock-samurai of the 5th army is a Demon King supremacist, he’s keeping an eye out for any commanders being unfavourable towards the Demon King. To put it bluntly, whether you do that or not the Demon King won’t be shaken either way so it’s just a meaningless action. The shota from the 6th Army appears to be composed, but I can tell that he’s nervous inside. The hoodlum of the 7th Army, is noticeably sullen.

The Demon King’s Army, is overly blessed with individuality. Though not a single one of them are talking, the room is noisy.

Even though I want to go back already, I settle down in the empty seat next to Kuro. The gazes from the boobian and the shota are painful.

The ones here who don’t know much about me are, the boobian, the idiot giant, the mock-samurai and the shota. In the meaning that he doesn’t know my true ability, the hoodlum is similar. Amongst the army, I know that there’s rumours that I’m like a tagalong of the Demon King, or that it might be a case of nepotism. Because of which there’s various doubts raised about my ability. As a result, the boobian and the shota are turning their inexpressible grudge from the Demon King and onto me you see. What a pain. There’s been harassment and so on towards the 10th Army, so to avoid that I had to conceal the activities of the 10th Army.

Perhaps it’s due to that, or perhaps it’s a byproduct, but for whatever reason there’s actually rumours going around that the 10th Army is a secret force that is conducting top secret missions for the Demon King. At first glance, we actually are extremely shady. Because our activities are even being hidden from Balto, that lent unnecessary extra credibility to the rumours. Also, because the hoodlum had the misunderstanding that I was an intelligence specialist, it seems that became a contributing factor. All we were doing was just some special training though, okay.

Hey, just when I was thinking back through the strange rumours drifting around the 10th Army, the Demon King enters. That instant, the mood in the room becomes even more tense.

「Then, I shall start the conference. Balto.」
「Yessir.」

With that exchange between the Demon King and Balto, the conference began.

Translation notes:

“Boobian” – the phase that Shiro uses here is “oppai seijin”, which literally means “person from the planet boobies” or alternatively “big-breasted alien”.

“Tagalong” – the literal meaning would be “goldfish droppings”, like how their droppings trail behind them. Fans with long memories might recall Naga from Slayers Special – she is frequently referred to as Lina Inverse’s “tagalong” in this sense.

If it wasn’t obvious by now, the exchange at the end between Ariel and Balto is directly from “B1 – The Demon King’s close aide lets out a sigh at the conference”.