Kumo desu ga, Nani ka? 277

Kids these days, totally clueless about “the pot calling the kettle black”.

277 – Secret manoeuvres restart

Now then, with my mood restored I now have to begin the secret maneuvers again. First of all, I’ve requested the Demon King to requisition some sweets and to set up a conference with the Divine Word Religion. Regarding the sweets, I was given the reassuring words “Leave it to me!”, so I’ll wait with anticipation. For the Divine Word Religion, I expect it’ll mean waiting until they reply. One of the doll spiders is dispatched to the Divine Word Religion currently, so keeping in contact is simple. Since they’ve only just finished with the war as well they might not be in the state to be able to quickly open the conference anyway, so I guess we can just leisurely wait for them. Actually, for us we still have to withdraw the whole army before it can march, so we’re not in a state to be moving yet either.

Therefore, the only ones who can freely move around are pretty much just me, vampire girl and Felmina-chan. While in theory the Demon King could move if she wanted to, naturally the supreme commander can’t just go wandering around of course. Eh? What about the 10th Army? I can just leave it all to Waldo-kun. Compared to me being in command, I’m sure he can move them more accurately instead anyway.

Such being the case, let’s begin with having those who can move do what they can. Firstly, for the clones in charge of the region around the System, they’ll investigate to see if there’s a way to prevent the Goddess from tampering with the System any further. If it seems to be possible then they’ll try to do that. Breaking the Hero System is impossible. Unless I can make use of the tiny gap when the Hero is being substituted, then it’s impossible to destroy the Hero System. Since if I try to force it, it will then have a negative impact on the current Hero. In other words, on Yamada-kun. Even if that wasn’t the case, it would still require consuming a huge amount of energy to destroy the Hero System, making it a situation of putting the cart before the horse, so I’m not going to do it.

So, my main body meets up with vampire girl and Felmina-chan. I collect Potimas’s body, and temporarily store it in another dimension. I’ll analyse it later. For now, first of all I have to start preparations to do something about Yamada-kun’s homeland.

「So in conclusion, go and entice the Empire.」
「I have no idea what you might be concluding though?」

Despite giving out my instructions, vampire girl can’t even comprehend the words. What a useless person. Here you gotta use your feelings to perceive what the other person wants to convey. It’s totally not the case that my words were insufficient. It’s not, okay?

The human higher-ups in Yamada-kun’s homeland have been infected by Potimas. While I don’t know what Potimas is aiming for by doing that, it’s obvious that it won’t be anything good if it’s taken any further, so I gotta do something about it before long. Specifically, secretly maneuver to wipe out Potimas’s clones, by killing everyone who was corrupted by them. Such as the king.

I think to save any of the humans once they’ve been corrupted, is probably not impossible. I think so, but it would require putting in a considerable amount of effort for a start, and it would probably be possible to only save one person. When one is saved the others would surely be killed. In that case, it would be simpler to resign ourselves to losing the whole lot of them from the very start.

So, since it means wiping out the higher ups of the kingdom entirely, it’s unavoidable for it to become a major incident. In addition, since they gotta be wiped out in one fell swoop, I’m sure it would become a considerably blatant incident. If they’re not wiped out in one fell swoop, then Potimas will be able to pick up on it. Accordingly, I’m planning to have Natsume-kun take the role of the principal offender.

I’ve thought of directly doing it myself, but I want to conceal my existence from Potimas as much as possible. While he should have learnt about my existence to some extent with my recent killing of the Hero, he shouldn’t be able to figure out that I’m actually a god. It’s better if Potimas mistakenly considers our greatest fighting force to be the Demon King. I bet Kuro wouldn’t take action what with one thing and another, so he doesn’t count as a fighting force.

Accordingly, the ones I selected were Natsume-kun and imouto-chan. Natsume-kun’s gone berserk in various ways so I intend to use him and then throw him away, and imouto-chan will be made to control him. This way Natsume-kun will be the center of attention, and I’ll avoid it. While at it, it would be good if the Demon King Army’s movements could also be kept hidden.

So, Natsume-kun is the prince of the Empire. In which case, let’s use that connection to the maximum, basically. The amount of troops that Natsume-kun can control with his own authority probably isn’t much, so vampire girl will use her Charm to manipulate the Empire’s higher-ups, and backup Natsume-kun. Natsume-kun himself has the highest rank skill of Charm from Lust as well, so at this stage let’s go overtake the Empire from the inside. In that case, it should become much easier when the time comes for the Demon King Army to depart for the elf village.

Yup. Even if I do say so for myself, it’s a wonderful plan eh. Just rather heretical. It’s a bit too late for anything else though.

With supreme effort I explained all this to vampire girl and Felmina-chan. Phew, that was harder than defeating the Hero you know.

「Got it. Okay then, let’s meet with this “imouto-chan” person.」

I dunno what’s “okay then” though. Hey vampire girl, weren’t you ever taught that when explaining something to someone you need to properly cover everything from A to Z? Use my feelings to make a guess? I’m not an esper you know, so of course I can’t do that. Sheesh, the youth of today are hopeless at using sufficient words. Well, from here on they might be working together anyway, so if she wants to meet then I’ll let her meet.

I take a look at imouto-chan’s situation through a clone. Since her onii-san Yamada-kun suddenly started acting suspiciously in class and then left, she’s quite restless. She’s returned to her own room, but she’s nervously pacing around the room. So you’re worrying about your onii-chan that much huh. I see, I see.

Well then, let’s raid imouto’s dinner. We raid imouto-chan’s room via teleport.

「!?」

Imouto-chan stiffens in shock when we suddenly appear. Vampire girl has fastened her eyes on imouto-chan. Felmina-chan, somehow seems to be looking at imouto-chan with eyes full of pity. Incomprehensible.

「Do you want to know what happened to your onii-san?」

In response to my question, imouto-chan gives a start of surprise. It’s lovely that you’re so easy to understand. Well then, shall we get started on making a deal with the devil, or rather, Evil God.

Translation notes:

“Secret manoeuvres restart” – this title is a reference to chapter 225, “Secret manoeuvres, secretly manoeuvring”.

“So you’re worrying about your onii-chan that much huh” – Shiro specifically changes from “onii-san” to “onii-chan”, perhaps to channel a “dere-dere” feeling (into Sue).

“let’s raid imouto’s dinner” – possibly a reference to a TV program that roughly translates as “Raid! The neighbour’s dinner”

“deal with the devil, or rather, Evil God” – just to be clear, Shiro has previously told Sue that she’s an Evil God, so Shiro is taking the role of the “devil” in this deal.