But Umukahime thought differently. She believed I was supposed to be some kind of savior, come to avenge her master and free the world from the Divine Voice’s influence. There was no small amount of silent strong-arming coming from her corner.
Do not worry.
I just wanted to give you all a chance to rest and relax before we turn to other things.
Surprisingly nice of me, don’t you think?
Suddenly, a short stream of messages began to filter through my head. It was the Divine Voice. It had been silent for a long time, but now it was surprisingly chatty.
It’s important to spend time bonding with your friends.
Outwitting Laplace is far more about fickle things like one’s will and spirit than you may expect.
Like that poor slime child, for example, whose rage brought him past his evolutionary limits.
The Divine Voice’s messages rolled in one after the other. It spoke at length, and more specifically than it ever had before. That did nothing to reassure me, though.
Its ability to pop in whenever it felt like it made it clear that the Divine Voice was spying on this exchange between Umukahime and me—which meant it knew her goals too. It must have decided she wasn’t much of a threat, then. To the Divine Voice, Umukahime, Mia the Hero’s life’s work, and the stone tablet on which she’d written her final wishes were likely not important enough to bother with.
Umukahime, somehow sensing I was getting messages from the Divine Voice, closed her mouth and watched in silence.
Illusia, I have been trying to guide you in a way that prioritizes your own will and spirit. Because of that, I’ve allowed your journey to be a little more enjoyable than most.
The Divine Voice’s stream of messages betrayed a certain level of excitement. It seemed very pleased that I’d defeated Lilyxila and successfully acquired the four Sacred Skills. I hadn’t even replied yet, and it still kept going on and on.
Not that I felt good about receiving its praise, of course. The Divine Voice was looking down on me from up high and insisting that everything I’d experienced up to this point was its doing, and that really rubbed me the wrong way.
I wonder if Lilyxila’s appreciation of you, and her respect for that trivial Holy Knight woman, were also due to my influence? the Divine Voice pondered, as if it was talking about someone else.
True, Lilyxila said I’d reminded her of Alphis in her final moments. Among her subordinates, Alphis was the one who seemed most capable of thinking and acting on her own convictions. When Ruin went on his rampage in the royal capital, Alban, it was Alphis who placed her trust in me—even though I was her enemy—and helped me recover so I could take Ruin out.
I wonder how Lilyxila felt after that, when she sent her Spirit Servant Beelzebub out to kill me? At the time, I’d labeled her as my true enemy and a truly terrible person. But now, I had a hard time believing she sent Beelzebub after me because she herself wanted to.
Perhaps that was the reason why I felt so uncomfortable about the Divine Voice speaking so sagely about Lilyxila. It felt like it was trying to convince me that Lilyxila’s suffering and resolve were at fault for the way she turned out, and that it had simply guided her along that path.
Congratulations, Illusia. An Evil Dragon, ironically granted the name of a famous hero due to the passing whim of a simple village girl.
You have devoured experience points all across this land, defeated your final enemy invader, and finally become the ruler of the surface world.
There is now no equal to you in any corner of the world.
I always had a feeling that you’d be the one crowned victor of this generation.
A stream of messages flowed through my mind all at once.
Not the self-righteous, childish brute who was nothing more than a stepping stone…
Nor the pathetic little villain ruined by the pressure of being hailed a hero from birth…
Nor the faithless little fly who dreamed of freedom but perished as a mere puppet…
Nor the fool who thought too far ahead and lost herself in pursuit of her goals.
The slime, the hero, the Beast King, and the saint; I recognized them all. But the Divine Voice’s dismissive words sent a spike of irritation through me.
‹Don’t you dare talk about them like you knew them,› I snapped, interrupting it.
With the Divine Voice being some sort of supreme being and all, I knew antagonizing it wasn’t the best choice. But I couldn’t suppress my fury any longer. The Divine Voice distorted the stories of the other Sacred Skill holders into caricatures. I didn’t want to hear it talk about Lilyxila, Beelzebub, the slime, or human Illusia that way.
Sure, the slime and Illusia weren’t the most pleasant of folks, to say the least. But I couldn’t stand the arrogance in the Divine Voice’s words when it spoke of them.
No one else is better equipped to evaluate their worth than I.
It was I who deployed them each in carefully calculated circumstances, and it was I who watched over them, counseled them, steered their paths, and looked after them through it all.
Just as I did with you.
You have made many mistakes. The most grievous of which was that you refused to listen to me because you retained your memories from your previous world. But that does not change the fact that I have been watching over you and guiding you every step of the way.
‹That’s not what I mean! You should come down to our level before you say all that garbage!› I added magical force to the telepathic message to make it even sharper. ‹Watch over us? Guide us? It’s more like you’ve been spying on us from your spot up on high and laughing at our misfortune! You’ve got no right to judge how they lived their lives!›
There was enough force behind my words that I surprised myself a little, along with Umukahime, Allo, and the others.
The Divine Voice fell silent, as if it were thinking about something.
“Ulp…” I sucked in a breath. Crap. I need to stay calm. One wrong move, one angry word, and who knows what’ll happen? Lilyxila said I needed to confront it—not snap at it every chance I got!
That…is true.
Perhaps you are right.
The Divine Voice’s response was uncannily honest.
Wh-what the heck? Did the Divine Voice just admit its mistake? What’s it planning?
I immediately went on guard, not trusting the tame response. But then a voice spoke from right behind me.
“Then how’s this?”
The voice had a creepy, childish tone to it, overlaid with an almost robotic, synthesized sound. I spun around in shock.
“Here I am, in the flesh, just like you wanted. Now I have every right to talk about them however I want, don’t I?”
On top of Mia’s stone tablet sat a pale, luminescent human figure. If I had to say what age it looked closest to in human terms, I’d say about fifteen years old. I couldn’t tell if the figure was male or female; it had hair long enough to touch its shoulders, and its body was wrapped in a large, loose piece of cloth. Two wings sprouted from its back. Its eyes were large and round, with long, pretty eyelashes, but they were vacant and dull, and gave off a gloomy air.
Strangest of all, the left half of its body seemed…defective. It reminded me of a glitched three-dimensional model.
N-no way… Is this really the Divine Voice’s physical form? How’d it manage to appear out of nowhere, anyway?
I quickly tried to check its status.
Special Skill “Divine Voice” Lv 8 is unable to provide that explanation.
The humanoid form turned toward me, scrutinizing my bewildered expression with its one normal-looking eye. Then it opened its mouth wide and gave an ominous chuckle.
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