†
Shinobu Iijima
“What’s with these brats?!”
Five or so reincarnators decorated the ground of the plaza with their immobile bodies. Fifteen more faced us.
“You’ve got some nerve, Iijima. We didn’t expect you to come at us by yourself.”
His words had vigor in them, but his face told a different story. Saito, who had evidently been put in charge of the Crimson Moon Brigade, seemed to have noticed that in just a few days, our positions had flipped.
“Oh, come on. I’m not by myself.”
Raising my right hand, the man next to Saito let out a gross squeal.
Damn, Alice is good.
She was a whole ten kilometers away, yet she’d still pinpointed that guy’s eyeball. He fainted with blood gushing from it, but he wasn’t dead. It was safe to assume that she’d taken half of his vision.
“A sniper?! F-From where?!” Saito’s eyes darted back and forth.
“We didn’t find anyone within the surrounding two kilometers, sir!” his subordinate yelled back.
Yeah, that’s ’cause she’s not two kilometers away. She’s ten.
Her sniping didn’t stop. The screams of men reverberated around the plaza.
“Gah!”
“Ugh!”
“Gwah!”
All of them pressed their hands to their right eyes and fell to their knees.
Beautifully done, Alice.
Every bullet had hit the intended target, every single time.
“What?! What?! What?! Whaaaaaat?!” Saito was bumbling about so much that his underlings only naturally followed suit.
“Gabriel, Tsukuyomi, Cerberus—now! Take ’em down!”
With my sign of approval, the trampling began.
Gabriel relentlessly punched each and every otherworlder, while Tsukuyomi dominated the battlefield with her scythe. Cerberus used all three of his heads to bite three people at a time, looking like he was headbanging.
“Ah, ah, ah, aaaaaaaaaaaah!”
A cacophony of screams and raining blood. The number of able-bodied people decreased, and Alice’s bullets continued to land.
“Wh-Wh-What the hell are these guys?!”
“My attacks won’t hit them!”
“I hit this dog, but it didn’t take any damage?!”
So this is the power of level 125... Even I was taken aback.
Without Release of God’s Might, we probably wouldn’t have won with quite as overwhelming of a margin. But simply getting our levels up and physically punching the enemy really was a solid tactic.
It was easy to tell who was winning. By that point, all of them had either fainted or held their hands raised in defeat.
I walked over to Saito, my steps clacking loud enough to ring around the plaza.
“I told you I’d be back to beat your ass.”
“Iijima... What are you? What on earth are you? What happened to you?”
The only real answer was that I’d leveled up. Though, I guess the EXP grind itself was a bit of a cheat. After being blessed with the chance to level up in Agartha, I was starting to understand why Mikagami called me a cheater. I wouldn’t have been able to do so without the Recovery Orbs, after all.
“D-D-Don’t kill me! Please, don’t kill me!”
I pulled out my knife. He really looked like he was begging for his life as tears streamed down his face.
“But you tried to kill me.”
“I-I’m sorry! I’ll apologize for that! I’ll never attack you again, I promise!”
“Forget about me. You also tried to make Ms. Kaori go through a fate worse than death.”
“M-Mr. Imabayashi was the one who ordered us to do that...”
“Last question: how many people have you killed in this world? Don’t leave out a single person, including both reincarnators...and non-reincarnators.”
He paused after hearing my words. He seemed to be counting in his head. “Uh, uh, um...”
“What’s the matter? How many have you killed?”
“I don’t know, sir. I stopped counting after ten.”
I stabbed him in the neck with my knife.
I must have hit an artery, because his blood spurted out at an intense pressure. His body hit the ground with a thud.
I sighed softly. “You said you’d never attack me again, but sorry, I can’t trust you.”
Pulling out oilpaper, I began wiping the blood off of my knife.
†
Ayumu Imabayashi
The round table room in the imperial palace of the Holy Empire of La Vita.
Sitting around it was Tiger’s Eye, who controlled La Vita Empire’s Imperial Court, Dragon’s Roar, who controlled the Holy Church, Soaring Deities, who controlled the Border Union, and my guild, the Lions of Patriotism, who controlled the Merchants’ Alliance.
The Crimson Moon Brigade was not currently in attendance. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it would never attend again.
“The Crimson Moon Brigade has collapsed,” whispered the guildmaster of Tiger’s Eye. “The boy in question, Shinobu Iijima, was the one to suppress them.”
“Apparently, he invaded the place to save Kaori Shinozuka just as they had begun to fight internally. He is reported to have defeated twenty level 99 reincarnators.” The guildmaster of Dragon’s Roar had fear written all over their face.
“After that,” added the guildmaster of Soaring Deities after a pause, “the newly reformed Crimson Moon Brigade announced their secession from the Council of Gods and accepted Shinobu Iijima as their new member.”
“We’ve discussed him plenty beforehand, but Shinobu Iijima has turned out to be quite the monster rookie right since logging in, hasn’t he? So, what shall we do, Mr. Imabayashi?”
“We’ve finally gotten rid of that woman who was loud and proud about giving the natives rights every single day,” I answered through my teeth. “Isn’t that a good thing?”
“That’s not what I’m referring to. A human has become capable of felling twenty level 99 people at once. Because we’ve been following your lead, we’ve now made that human our enemy.”
The other two guildmasters turned their accusing eyes to me.
Nothing can be done about these fools. You all were the ones who strung up the guildmaster of the Crimson Moon Brigade and framed Shinobu as the enemy of all our guilds just because I said I’d give you paid items. Why would you suddenly turn your backs on me only after finding out that Shinobu is decently strong?
“Why don’t we leave that discussion for after we talk about what to do with the new Crimson Moon Brigade?”
The Brigade didn’t have any able fighters left. What these guildmasters were afraid of was the Brigade threatening our positions with Shinobu in their ranks. So long as they didn’t change their view of him from “something to be wary of” to “an imminent threat,” there wasn’t a need for us to change course.
The guildmaster of Tiger’s Eye spoke up. “But this photo... Is it really your foster daughter?”
Another one spoke. “You said Mikagami told you he ‘recommends living in a way that would fit her eyes,’ but have you had any ideas about that since then?”
The only grand guildmasters whom Mikagami had visited were the Brigade’s and me. The stupid woman went and told these dolts about the photo, so I’d known they were going to bring it up here ever since. There was nothing more aggravating.
Even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell any of you idiots.
I hadn’t told any of them about the “Key to Agartha” that Mikagami had enlightened me about recently either. “I’m not sure what he meant by what he said about my foster daughter, but I’m sure we’ll find out once she logs in. But just as we planned before, bring her to me.”
And so, we moved the topic on to exploiting the natives efficiently and splitting the profits between our guilds.
†
I walked down the hallway with light taps.
We hadn’t discussed anything particularly important, yet the meeting had run on for so long.
I still had to get the low-level battle slaves we’d taken in from the Crimson Moon Brigade up to level 99. As far as our progress through Agartha was going, we still hadn’t figured out how to pass Floor 6 yet. We’d formed suicide corps to tackle it and already had over ten deaths. The horrid monsters in that place... They made my head hurt.
That being said, we still had plenty of slaves left. If we just cycled through trial and error, it would be entirely possible to conquer all thirteen floors.
I was climbing into the carriage waiting outside of the palace when one of my attendants ran over to me.
“Floor 6 of Agartha has reportedly been completed!”
“Who finished it?”
“The level 99s led by Saejima, sir. The ones who you’ve noted to have exceptional battle prowess.”
“Saejima... I see. The foreigners, then. I should’ve seen that one coming.”
“Yes. I still can’t believe that this game was popular among a mercenary group on the way home from France... And, um, I have an important announcement to make.”
“What is it?”
“The level cap was confirmed to have been raised after completing Floor 6.”
“Amazing! Make sure you reward them!”
I’d agreed to give the mercenaries several billion yen from my pockets as their reward. Extremely strong men who would never betray me no matter what... With the level cap increased, we may as well have achieved godly status.
My attendant climbed into the carriage with me, and I lightly pumped my fist in exaltation after overcoming such a difficult hurdle.
†
Megumi Iijima
Where...am I?
That day...
That day, everything had been swallowed up by flames. Shinobu grabbed me and jumped out of the apartment.
What happened after that?
I tried to move my body, but nothing responded.
Everything was dark, either because it was night or because my vision was blurred. The scent of antiseptics wafted by.
I can see a light from a monitor, so...am I in a hospital?
But I still knew that this was a dream, because there was no way a man in a hoodie and jeans would be standing in the middle of a hospital room at night. Besides, this was probably my private room, so a person I didn’t know wouldn’t be allowed in here.
He’s wearing an eye patch, so maybe he can’t see very well?
And his hair...is silver?
Yeah, this must be a dream. A weird one too—why would a guy with a face like a celebrity’s be standing in a random hospital room at night?
The man closed in on my ear and whispered softly.
“Rest easy. Your brother’s doing well. I’m sure he’ll make it back to this world.”
He placed his palm on my forehead. “Now, go back to sleep. I doubt your brother will get swallowed up by Agartha. As an Observer, I can tell.”
Something flowed into my head with a flicker, and I lost consciousness.
The last thing I heard was...
“Thank you for giving me one last chance, Ms. Megumi.”