Kumo desu ga, Nani ka? Epilogue

The end has come. This is the final chapter in the series.

A little pre-translation note: this chapter contains a lot of back and forth dialogue in a style that’s common to Eastern literature but since it might be hard to follow otherwise, I’ve added the speakers’ names.

Epilogue

Meido:「Well? Was the end result satisfactory for you?」
D:「Hmm, I guess. I would call it passable or so.」

This occurred in a garden dominated by flowers in full bloom. Around a table set in the centre, two women were enjoying a tea party. One was the Evil God D. The other was a Yamato Nadeshiko type woman wearing maid clothes.

D:「And lo the world was saved due to the self-sacrifice of a single god. And they all lived happily ever after.」
M:「There are scars remaining due to the war, but for most it’s a “happy end” huh.」
D:「Certainly.」

M:「However, if both the world and humanity could continue to exist together, surely it would have been better to do that from the start. Then wasn’t it pointless to have started the war at all?」
D:「Oh, that would have been impossible.」
M:「Meaning?」

D:「Before the war there wasn’t enough energy available, so that precondition failed. It was necessary to supplement the missing energy from somewhere in order for both to be achievable. That’s why it was necessary wring the maximum possible amount of energy out from the victims of the war and from Black Dragon Gyuriedistodiez.」
M:「Ah, I see.」
D:「Due to the war occuring and both armies fighting to the death, their skills and status values both improved, and consequently the amount of energy that could be recovered also increased tremendously you see.」

M:「Hmm. Nevertheless, that one was originally trying to achieve the objective without a war occuring, right?」
D:「I think either would have been fine. To that one, whether the planet was saved or whether humanity was saved, was ultimately down to whatever wish Demon King Ariel wanted. Ultimately, that one didn’t care about what happened to either the planet or humanity.」
M:「And so was fine with going ahead with a secret plan that involved half of humanity dying?」
D:「Indeed. I intervened because that wouldn’t have been interesting though.」
M:「You’re as vulgar as ever.」

D:「It’s cruel of you to call someone as compassionate as me vulgar, given that I allowed Demon King Ariel and the Goddess Sariel to have their final farewells.」
M:「Oh, that was arranged well I thought. Surely Demon King Ariel was rewarded by that.」
D:「It had been previously configured that if the Goddess Sariel was ever released from the System then she would die immediately after all. As consideration for her continued support of the System, the least I could do was allow a final farewell as a present.」
M:「That consideration only amounts to a single word each to Demon King Ariel and Black Dragon Gyuriedistodiez, huh? Surely it wouldn’t have hurt to allow a little more?」
D:「There are some things that can be conveyed precisely because it was just one word.」
M:「Is that so?」

D:「That’s one chapter of that world’s story done with. It was enjoyable in it’s own way.」
M:「You really do have bad taste. Isn’t it going to be awful for that world from now on?」
D:「Pretty much. Humanity will have to survive in a world where they have suddenly lost their skills and status values after all. What’s waiting for them is surely an age of turmoil.」
M:「Would the reincarnators be thrown into that age of turmoil as well?」
D:「Well, that’s life. Who knows what will happen after all. Will they successfully navigate the age of turmoil to achieve success, or will they quietly hide away? Will they collapse along the way? I think each person has their own walk in life.」
M:「A hands-off policy then.」
D:「In the first place they’ve been on Easy Street under the protection of that one until now. If we combine their previous life and their current life, they’re past their thirties already, so if they can’t handle their own situation by themselves it’s not interesting for me.」
M:「That’s your real opinion at the end there, right?」
D:「Of course.」

M:「Well, in practice, thanks to that one the reincarnators could remain without having been deprived of their energy. So while they would be lacking compared to the time when they had skills, it’s still the case that they would be stronger than the other rabble.」
D:「Indeed. While it’s unfortunate that Yamada-kun won’t likely be playing much of a role due to having overused his Kindness ability, I can have expectations for the other reincarnators. I hope they’ll continue to entertain me in future, basically.」
M:「Are there actually any reincarnators that are likely to meet your standards?」
D:「At the least I have hopes for Sophia-san, who was the only other survivor in that one’s camp. I’m sure that she’ll get up to something or other in the future.」
M:「……Certainly.」

D:「That being said, the big event is done and dusted. So I don’t intend to stick to spectating as strictly as I have until recently.」
M:「You shouldn’t have the time for that. Get to work.」
D:「……Okay.」
M:「I’ll allow it if you limit it to times like now when you’re on a break.」
D:「……Okay.」

M:「So? What do you intend to do with this one? Like I’ve been saying, you won’t have the time to meddle with her okay?」

The woman in maid clothes slaps an insect cage.

D:「Well, I’ll leave it in the capable hands of someone from my kin. Given how weak she’s gotten, I’m sure it’ll require a lot of effort for her to regain her strength. I won’t be able to keep her under constant surveillance.」
M:「That’s a reasonable decision.」
D:「So, there you have it. Do you understand, Shiraori?」

I don’t understand at allll! Just why am I trapped inside an insect cage!? Yes, I’m inside this insect cage that’s ill suited to being at a tea party. I’m in the form of a spider small enough to fit on your pinky finger too!

At the time when the System collapsed, I was in fact still alive. It wasn’t a lie that I summoned all of my energy. It’s just that the energy in this mini body wasn’t included in that! I completely used up all the energy in my other clones, so they were all truly destroyed apart from this mini body. In addition, the total energy I have remaining is as little as this mini body indicates. I’m so fragile that I could be squashed like a bug between someone’s fingers. However, I actually wanted things this way. After all, going this far was to make D think that I had actually died!

Yep, I attempted to fake my own death. In order to make D think that I had exhausted my strength after having to summon all of my energy during that battle. In fact, I did have to summon all of my energy anyway, so thanks to the unexpected event where my main body was done in by Yamada-kun I was seriously on the verge of death. However, that should have made my death seem all the more real because of that. If I become such a tiny spider, then even D shouldn’t be able to find me after faking my death! At least… that’s what I had thought… So why… am I… caught in this insect cage? Why…? How…?

D:「Seriously. When they would go as far as to fake their own death, how could I possibly allow such an interesting being to get away from me?」

Eeek!? I somehow sense a dreadful obsession. As if confirming that, the woman in maid clothes looks at me with a pitiful expression!

M:「I’m sure we’re going to have a long relationship going forwards, so my best regards, Miss Spider.」

Hah, hahah, hah…. It’s precisely because I was afraid of this happening that I tried to escape by playing dead… It appears that my suffering has only just begun. Ugh! But I’ll never give up! Some day I shall escape from this evil power! In order to do that I first need to gather power! Or rather, I need to recover the power that I lost! My adventures are just getting started!

Translation notes:

D and Meido use “that one” to refer to Shiro for most of the chapter, which implies that she’s not in their immediate vicinity and also leaves the possibility open that they think she’s dead. Changing to “this one” implies she’s close at hand, which turns out to be literally the case the whole time.

My final comments:

And that’s a wrap!

I’d like to thank the author, Baba Okina, for creating this series and making it freely available. It was a fun ride.

I’d also like to thank the translators who came before me and translated a bit over half the series. Without them I’d probably never have gotten interested in this series.

As for what I’m going to do next… For now, I’m just going to relax for a while. There aren’t any other series that I’m particularly interested in that aren’t already being translated – I need a lot of motivation to muster the energy to work on translations, so without a high degree of interest in the series I don’t have the motivation. I might re-translate some older chapters of this series at some point but don’t count on it.

And before you ask, I’m not expecting that any side-story web novels to this series will be released in the future. Who knows what the future will bring, but for now I get the feeling that the author wants to go onto something new.

As for the ending itself, what did I think? I felt that an important part of the story was Shiro trying to find a way to live with pride. It was raised multiple times very bluntly. So to have an ending without any attempt to answer that doesn’t feel satisfying. There’s lots of other unanswered questions but that was the main one for me. I always felt that if Shiro simply tried to escape from D, then it would almost certainly be a “bad end” and that’s what it feels like in practice, though it could have been worse. I’ve not read it yet but as far as I’m aware, the ending in the light novels is approximately the same.