Kumo desu ga, Nani ka? 284

Time for tea. And a coup.

284 – Downfall of the Kingdom

The pope of the Divine Word Religion has made a personal proclamation. The contents of which are that Prince Yuugo of the Rengzand Empire has been selected as the new Hero.

Almost simultaneously with that proclamation, the finishing touches in the Kingdom are being carried out. Natsume-kun has done a good job. Using brainwashing on the reincarnators, except on Yamada-kun and sensei, he’s taken possession of Ooshima-kun and Hasebe-san, and has already seized part of the Kingdom. Furthermore, by using deceitful words to fool the first prince and the queen who are obsessed with the throne, he’s managed to bring them over to his side. It seems that Potimas had unwittingly induced the current king to have Yamada-kun become the next king. The first prince and the queen were easily won over when it was put to them that if the king’s plans are carried out then they’d never take the throne.

All the preparations are in order. Just in case, vampire girl and I are on standby in the Kingdom, but unless some highly irregular situation occurs then I have no intention of getting involved. Unless it seems like one of the reincarnators is about to die, or something like that, then I’ll simply watch over the developments.

「Muhahah. At last. At last I will be able to scare the hell out of them!」

Natsume-kun, disguised as one of the first prince’s guards, has a wicked smile plastered on his face. Next to him, is imouto-chan with a somewhat vacant expression.

Since half-way through, imouto-chan has been brainwashed by Natsume-kun. While imouto-chan might not have been aware of just how serious the situation was at the start, she gradually became aware that what they were doing was to overthrow her own native country, the Kingdom. Furthermore, completing that would result in the deaths of many people amongst the higher-ups within the Kingdom, including her own father the king. While she might be a yandere with her explosive love for her nii-sama, it’s not like that’s completely blown away all her common sense either. There’s no way that she wouldn’t realise what the effects of everything that’s she’s doing will have on her beloved nii-sama. Therefore, before she fully realised all that, I had Natsume-kun brainwash her. If she had been left fully conscious then there’s no telling when she would get in our way after all.

Besides, this way, even after she’s returned to being fully conscious, the pretense of her being brainwashed has been established. Isn’t this a delicious situation for her where she can even be saved from the evil influence of brainwashing by her nii-sama? How moving that would be. I’ll have nothing to do with what happens after that though. Go have your emotional scars soothed by your beloved nii-sama. Although I might have instigated it, she did half of it by her own will. Afterwards, even if she regrets what she’s done it’s no concern of mine.

「Well then? What should I do?」

Vampire girl, who I brought with me, is showing signs of having too much time on her hands. So far she has contributed by using Charm on the higher-ups within the Empire and also on the soldiers in the Kingdom, but she has nothing to do in the main event. Ah, wait.

「Go kill Potimas.」

Taking advantage of the disturbance, I’ll have her kill Potimas who is in the Kingdom. From what I could see the Potimas here isn’t a cyborg or anything like that anyway, so getting rid of him should be simple. If she has nothing to do, it’s better to have her kill time by killing him.

「Got it.」

Vampire girl acknowledged, and left to kill Potimas. Yeah. Feel free to go wild to your heart’s content.

Vampire girl has been quite lively recently. It seems that she was approached about a deal by the pope from the Divine Word Religion, and since accepting that she’s been having this creepy looking grin on her face from time to time. On top of that, she’s started referring to the pope as “oji-sama” as well, so I’ve become worried that maybe she’s finally gone mental. According to Mera there’s nothing to worry about so I’ve let her be as she is. I was even told that “since you are going to leave ojou-sama behind it is nothing to do with you”, so I was completely denied from getting involved any further. Somehow I’m feeling a little sad.

I saw vampire girl off, and Natsume-kun went away looking euphoric, leaving me to just watch over the sequence of events. I’m in a room inside the castle, elegantly treating myself to some tea. Incidentally, there’s no problem if I intake the caffeine contained within the tea. After I collapsed when drinking coffee previously, I went over to the Earth and tried to investigate, and found that spiders get drunk when they drink coffee. That’s caused by the caffeine contained within the coffee, but in my case it seems that I’m reacting not to the caffeine itself but coffee that contains caffeine. When I timidly drank some decaffeinated coffee nothing happened. Similarly, nothing happens when I drink tea that contains caffeine. It makes me think “what the fuck”, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ve no choice but to give up and just consider it to be part of my specifications.

While thinking about such inconsequential things, using fluoroscopy and my clones I observe the farce that’s unfolding throughout the castle. Yamada-kun and imouto-chan arrive together at the king’s chambers, then imouto-chan murders the king. Picking their moment, the first prince and his guards rush in. Natsume-kun, who was intermingling with those guards, the slashes right at Yamada-kun at the first prince’s orders. Natsume-kun’s sword cuts through Yamada-kun’s sword, then the follow-up strike wounds Yamada-kun. Naturally, the sword that Natsume-kun has is one of oni-kun’s best magic swords. No matter how famous a sword Yamada-kun has, it can’t even defend.

Having sustained a wound and being in a bad state of affairs, Yamada-kun faces a critical moment. Being very pleased about that, Natsume-kun starts revealing everything as a final farewell gift. Though saying that, he doesn’t mention the relationship between me and the Divine Word Religion.

Then, with perfect timing to stop things, sensei bursts in. Yamada-kun is saved by a hair’s breadth, then flees. Naturally, for sensei to be able to save Yamada-kun with such timing, is due to me manipulating things behind the scenes. Sensei doesn’t know about that.

「It’s over.」

Just then, vampire girl returned. In her hand, she’s taken hold of Potimas’s head. Just the head by itself. It seems that he was successfully put to death.

「Thanks for all your hard work.」

When I said so, for some reason the head was presented to me. What? To eat? Well, if you’re giving it to me then I’ll take it though.

「How’s things?」
「The first stage of the farce is over.」

As planned, Yamada-kun has hightailed it out from the castle. There’s now one more stage to clear, which is to have him hightail it out from the royal capital. After that is up to Yamada-kun to decide what to do.

Author’s note: this covers “S20 – Fall”.

Translation notes:

“Oji-sama” – in “Elf Village Battle ⑩”, Sophia refers to the pope as “Dustin-oji-sama”. Shiro refers to him as an “ojii-sama” (grandfather) at times but Sophia uses “oji-sama” (uncle). Maybe Shiro is mentally adding some age to him because he’s a serial reincarnator?

As the author notes, this chapter covers the “behind the scenes” of “S20 – Fall”. The word used for “fall” in S20 is similar to that used in the title of this chapter, so I deliberately used “downfall” to keep it similar in the translation.