Altea, The Royal Capital, The Royal Castle
That evening, after having dinner, Third Princess Theresia was sitting alone on her bed. She was thought to be sickly, so neither the maids nor the knights who protected her questioned this.
However, she did have a specific reason for being alone now.
Both Altimia and Integra—Altar’s strongest tian and most skilled caster—had left the castle to go to Gideon.
Situations like this were convenient for Theresia in many ways.
“You’re here, aren’t you? Come out.”
She clapped her hands, prompting a man to appear in her room.
For a moment, he looked like a mix between a bat and a person, but he soon took the form of an ordinary human.
His name was Morter Cortana, and he was the former King of Raids, as well as a former Idea working for IF.
And now, he was a Dependent of the current The Evil—Theresia C. Altar.
“Did you finish the job?”
“The scary women leave, and you tell me to bring the info I’ve gathered so far... What’s this about?” Grumbling to his boss, Morter took out an Inventory full of documents and handed it to Theresia. From the outside, it might have looked strange that an adult was being ordered around by a child, but Theresia could actually kill him without breaking a sweat. In fact, she was so much more powerful that she might as well have inhabited a different dimension.
Also, it had been Morter himself who’d chosen to stop being human and obey Theresia to survive—he had no right to complain.
“Thanks. I can now make better future plans and think of something more specific.”
“That so?”
“I could call you here more often if Altimia and Integra weren’t around so much... Can you do something about that?”
“Please. They’re really powerful even by Superior Job standards. The only reason I could come here safely at all is because they’re both in Gideon now... It’s a real pain in the ass that your room is so deep in the castle.”
“Heh heh. Sorry. I’m all sickly and weak, you know?”
“As if. You’re like one of the most overpowered beings in the entire world...” The Dependent wasn’t amused by her joke. “Oh yeah, by the way, I heard in town that there’s been some trouble in Gideon,” he said.
“Oh? Do tell.”
“A Caldinan Superior joined The Tournaments. The gossip’s all about how he’s gonna end up fighting Figaro.”
“I see... I wonder if that’s another one of her plays. With all the scheming she does around me, I can’t help but find her troublesome.”
Theresia let out a sigh as a certain woman came to mind. She didn’t know the woman’s face, but she knew what she was all too well.
“Should I do something?” Morter asked.
“I don’t know what should be done, so no. And if the matches progress as normal, the Over Gladiator will certainly be winning this. Shu has often told me how strong he is. Though, this world is full of things that one simply can’t expect, so I suppose I can’t be too sure about that.”
“...You’re not wrong.” Through involvement with things he didn’t even want to think about, Morter had fallen from grace, become a criminal, been captured, been turned into an Idea, and then become a Dependent of this girl before him.
He was starting to take the unexpected for granted.
“It is quite impressive, though,” said Theresia. “Figaro became the Over Gladiator without taking any other Superior Jobs... All that really did for him was remove his level cap and give him some extra item slots.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Over Gladiator is The Hero’s prototype Superior Job.”
“Prototype?”
“Yes. The prototype for The Hero, who can take lots of jobs and sub-jobs, then use them all together. Similarly, the Over Gladiator can use the skills of multiple Superior Jobs without regard for their groupings.”
The Hero’s “Almighty” skill let him take a hundred high-rank and hundred low-rank jobs, and on top of that, it allowed him to use all of their skills.
The Over Gladiator’s “Complete” skill didn’t add any job slots, but it allowed him to freely use the skills of his subbed Superior Jobs, and anyone could have as many of those as they wanted.
However, Figaro had no other Superior Jobs, so the job’s biggest advantage was not currently active.
“Superior Jobs had prototypes?” Having been King of Raids, Morter was intrigued by this new revelation regarding jobs.
“All Special Superior Jobs have prototypes. No exceptions. For example, the ‘General’ series of jobs—oh, with the exception of Hell General and Heaven General—were all prototypes for Conquest General.”
“No exceptions? Does that include your job?” Morter asked as he looked at the girl—the youngest and most fearsome Special Superior Job of all.
“Yes. My Special Superior Job is the key to The Demise, and my prototypes are the Overlord series of jobs.”
As The Evil, Theresia couldn’t reveal much to other people.
However, that didn’t apply to her Dependents. She could tell Morter the many secrets she knew—and that might’ve been why, when they were alone, they always seemed to have conversations like this.
“The Infinite Jobs—the creators of this world—prepared those jobs to create and individually test the many functions of The Evil. The power to turn inorganic things into monsters that I showed when fighting you is based on Overlord Acedia’s ‘Enthrall,’ while the power that made your body into what it is now is based on Overlord Luxuria’s ‘Progress.’”
“I see...” Morter said as his gaze shifted toward his hand. He currently had the form of a person, but if he wanted, he could become something that was neither human nor monster. And this was made possible by that Overlord’s...and The Evil’s power. “So The Evil has the powers of all seven Overlords...?”
“Yes. Well... Actually, it’s not quite that simple.”
Theresia nodded for a moment, but then seemed to remember something.
“What do you mean?”
“There’s one function that changed between the testing and the implementation, so I have the powers of six Overlords and one power that’s entirely new.”
“So there was one prototype that turned out to be no good?”
“More or less.” If the purpose of a prototype was to pinpoint any problems in a design, then that one was a success in its own way.
“So, which Overlord job had its function replaced?” Morter asked.
Theresia let out a sigh...
“Overlord Invidia.”
...and spoke the title of the very Overlord currently fighting in the depths, ready to use the power of her job.
“Overlord Invidia’s skill is called ‘Paradigm Shift.’ It’s a power that strengthens you the more status effects you have and the more cornered you are. Envy from the depths... It turns all status effects into inverted and empowered buffs.”
It was essentially a direct upgrade to the Flag Halberd’s “Like a Flag Flying the Reversal.”
“I can think of lots of insane uses for that. Why didn’t The Evil get it?”
“Honestly, I wonder about that myself sometimes. If I had it, I probably wouldn’t have gotten kidnapped by Sechs... Though, that’s how I met Shu, so maybe it was for the best.”
As Theresia reminisced, Morter looked at her in shock and thought, The boss of my old group kidnapped...this? Insane.
“Though, the reason I didn’t get it is simply because we’d never get the chance to use it.”
“Never?”
“Things were different when we were younger, but once The Evil has grown enough, it’s pretty hard for us to get status effects. We have really high stats and resistances.”
By the design of the Infinite Jobs that created this world, The Evil and The Demise were a hurdle that those who lived here simply had to overcome. They were the final bosses, after all, and they were not made weak enough to be debuffed and turned into punching bags.
“It would’ve been completely useless as it was. That’s why the Infinite Jobs didn’t use Overlord Invidia’s function and changed it, replacing it with a skill specialized against a status effect so bad not even The Evil could negate it—Death.”
“Ohhh. So that’s why...”
“Yes. That’s why The Evil grows stronger after every death.”
“I see. That sure seems different from the prototype.”
“It is. Though, because of this difference...”
The Evil—the culmination of Overlord skills—looked at her hand...
“...Overlord Invidia is the only Overlord that’s not just a weaker version of me.”
...and spoke of the sole exception.