Summary of the previous chapter â Demon King saysăYou guys are friends!ăand Shiro goes (WTF) âS, say whhaAATT!!â (MIND BLOWN)
What are âfriendsâ? Itâs a noun. Yep. Thatâs not really wrong, but thatâs not whatâs being referred to here is it.
What are âfriendsâ? A relationship where you do the same things. A business relationship, where you have the same status. Kindred people with similar tastes. Thereâs slight variations between these examples, but they have similar meanings. In other words, it refers to a group who are similar.
Are we actually similar though? To be blunt, weâre not similar in terms of combat ability. I am outstanding and the others are far behind. It would be hard to say that weâre a group in that regard. However, it can be said that we are a group in the sense that we have the same objective.
That being the case, are we really âfriendsâ? Wouldnât that be incredible. For me, who has always thought of myself as being a loner since my previous life, to have actually made friends already!
Erm. Ermmm. So how exactly do you deal with friends again? Please teach me, o exalted one!
ăShiro-chan isnât recovering from her freeze. This is hopeless. It was too early for Shiro-chan to deal with the concept of friendship. Iâd been sure that sheâd been putting in the effort and had achieved results too.ă
ăWrath-kun. As you can see here, Shiro-chan is a child whose emotions are still highly undeveloped. You mustnât be tricked by her appearance or atmosphere. So when Shiro-chan is about to do something unreasonable, itâs generally because sheâs simply using violence to cover up the fact that something is inconvenient to her. See? Putting it that way, she sure sounds like a child, right?ă
ăBecause of that, when you think sheâs doing something bad, you must deal with her not in the sense of stating an opinion, but in the sense of scolding her. Donât expect her to ever improve if you donât do this.ă
ăSophia-chan is like that, so I can only rely on you.ă
ăHey! What do you mean by âlike thatâ!?ă
Itâs kinda noisy out there, but currently Iâm desperately thinking about pals so I wish theyâd be quiet. Ermm, the friends I know⌠are the party members in the games I played, right! I see, like with party members I can appreciate them when I feel so inclined and when theyâre annoying I can just kick them out! That being the case, I had briefly considered patting vampire girl on the head in appreciation but for some reason when I look at her making a racket while still trussed up like a bagworm, I got annoyed and kicked her.
ăWhy was I kicked just now!? Hey! Why!?ă
Silence. Thatâs just how friends are, right?
ăIt feels to me like Shiro-chan has established a fundamental flaw in her understanding, but well, whatever.ă
ăAriel-san, please donât just give up here.ă
ăPutting that asideâŚă
ăPutting that aside!?ă
The Demon King and oni-kun are having an exchange like something from a comedy skit. However, one of them has a serious expression â the Demon King. It seems to be something important.
ăShiro-chan, what do you think about this?ă
The Demon King gestures with her chin at the monitor while asking me that. Due to her grave expression, it seems that oni-kun and vampire girl realise that this is a serious matter. They focus their attention on whatâs written on the monitorâŚâŚ though vampire-girl is still trussed up like a bagworm.
ăWhere is the problem here?ă
Oni-kun spends some time reading over the article projected onto the monitor, but it seems that he doesnât see the problem that the Demon King spotted. Because vampire girl has uselessly high pride she wonât say that she doesnât understand, but from her expression it seems she doesnât understand either.
ăThis is definitely a problem.ă
The Demon King is gazing at the contents, seemingly confounded. What was written there was a piece of Potimasâs sort-of diary. It seems that because he had a diligent personality he would write about the events of the day in his diary and without missing a single day. Well, since heâs simply just robotically writing down the events of the day in a plain manner, I feel that itâs difficult to call it a diary though. Basically, thereâs almost nothing about his personal impressions. In some places he does write things that feel like his feelings on his research, but thatâs extremely rare. Since the writer almost never conveys his emotions, itâs not really a diary I guess.
However, in the portion that the Demon King is pointing to, Potimasâs emotions can be seen for once in the contents. Whatâs contained within there, is impatience. And suspicion.
ăThe total amount of MA Energy has suddenly deteriorated substantially. The cause is unknown. It likely has a connection with the dimensional quake that was simultaneously observed by our equipment, but at present I cannot say what. This is clearly an abnormal event. Such a thing has not occured once since the System was put into operation. Has a serious defect occured within the System? Is it safe to stay on this planet? It is uncertain. I have been forbidden to depart from this planet by Gyuriedistodiez, but perhaps I should prepare to escape anyway.ă
Yup. Itâs that. That particular incident perpetrated by the Hero from two generations ago and the previous generation Demon King. By meddling with the use of Dimension Magic, they caused an explosion in a classroom in Japan. This is an entry from the time when the event that caused us reincarnators to reincarnate into this world occured. Owing to what was perpetrated by this pair, we reincarnators were born in this world, and also the Demon King became the new generation Demon King in order to desperately secure the MA Energy that had been lost in the aftermath.
Vampire girl and oni-kun have already heard a summary of this incident, so they wouldnât be astonished about reading that aspect. Thatâs probably why theyâre baffled as to what the Demon King is questioning them about. However, this is a big problem. After all, the one who wrote this is Potimas.
ăWhat does this mean? It wasnât Potimas who instigated the Hero and Demon King?ă
Yep. Thatâs the point. With regards to Potimas being the one who induced the Hero from two generations ago and the previous generation Demon King, whatâs astonishing is the fact that the mastermind actually turns out to be someone else. Eh? Itâs possible that those two simply did it by themselves you ask? Thereâs no way that a bunch who didnât even know the first basics about the System would be able to do such a thing you know. There would have had to have been someone who taught them about the System. Without that, ignorant humans couldnât possibly have gone beyond space and time to actually reach D in that classroom. Because even Potimas didnât know about the existence of D it seems.
âŚâŚ.And having concluded that, the culprit is obvious. The Demon King should realise this too. Itâs just that she doesnât want to accept it.
ăThatâs right. Everything is my responsibility.ă
The voice of a third party who wasnât amongst us is heard. The one who had appeared via teleporting through space was the person I had expected. An administrator of this world, wrapped in black full-body armour. That person being Kuro, aka, Gyuriedistodiez.