bookworm

You didn’t cut any corners, did you, Tatsuya?”
“Of course not. Neither a Removal nor a Necrosis bullet worked on him. It appears defeating him will require a serious fight.”
Seeing the demon lord Rimuru like this made Kondo wonder if he had failed somehow as well. As Ludora said, it was clear he was an extremely dangerous opponent. He had given priority to capturing Veldora, but that turned out to be a mistake. They should have attacked both at the same time, not one or the other.
But that conclusion had come too late. Things were on the move. They knew that the demon lord Rimuru was no one to take lightly—hence why they used an assortment of tricks to ensnare him, so they could more fully address him later. They decided that once Veldora, Rimuru’s main supporter, was taken away, the demon lord would naturally be in a mood to give in to them. Now, however, Kondo’s decision had clearly backfired on him.
Just as losing Rimuru would incite fury in Veldora, losing Veldora would cause the exact same reaction in Rimuru. Kondo, realizing early on that the demon lord’s ire was pointed straight at them, tried to finish him off before anything else happened. He fired both a Removal and a Necrosis Bullet at him; that combination was the most powerful tool at his disposal if a Judgment Bullet wasn’t available.
But the results didn’t even scratch Rimuru, much less impede him at all. The idea that this demon lord would be rendered helpless after being deprived of his power source now seemed incredibly foolish. What they should have pictured instead was an enraged tyrant spreading his wrath worldwide after the loss of his ally. No, Kondo wasn’t cutting corners—he needed to seriously engage him, or else they were all doomed.
“Well, if you think so, these four knights will not be enough. Let’s test out Veldora now that we have him and see how he fares.”
Ludora didn’t need Kondo to spell out how much of a threat Rimuru was. He had him do it anyway so everyone else on the bow here would be on the same page as him. The Single Digits were extremely talented people; reminding them of the threat the enemy posed would serve as a warning not to let up too early.
Rimuru was a threat, yes, but as long as they kept their guard up, he could be dealt with. But Ludora didn’t want to lose any of the manpower he had gathered here. The game’s climax was coming up, and he wanted to be extremely cautious—ideally, he would defeat Guy without losing a single person. Situationally speaking, their victory was all but imminent. The Empire had just gained a huge advantage in capturing Veldora, bringing Ludora just one step away from ending this long-running struggle. Making a mistake here would be inexcusable.
That was why, out of an abundance of caution, Ludora decided to pit Veldora against Rimuru. If he had Velgrynd support him, there was no way anything could go wrong. Kondo and his team, meanwhile, could be entrusted to handle Rimuru’s remaining forces; that didn’t seem to be any problem. If possible, Ludora had wanted to recruit Rimuru for his side—but now that it had come to this, he had no choice but to exterminate him. Veldora was their main objective, and now that they had him, having the demon lord derail their plans was unthinkable.
Compared to a True Dragon, a demon lord was as vulnerable as a small mouse…and while Rimuru was admittedly a threat, Ludora didn’t see any way this operation could fail for them. A True Dragon is the strongest creature in the world, and if they had two on their side, Rimuru’s defeat seemed inevitable in their minds.
But Ludora’s mind wasn’t completely free of concern.
…Back there, why did Veldora stop resisting my thrall over him?
That was the only nagging issue. Given enough time, Ludora was bound to fully take him over either way—perhaps Veldora gave up the fight because he realized this. But to Ludora, that didn’t seem like the only reason. Through Regalia Dominion, he had received personal insight into Veldora’s rage. He could tell the dragon wasn’t the sort who’d resign himself to his fate so easily.
Doubts began swirling in his mind. Perhaps he was trying to protect something more important than himself? And if so, what could it be…?
“Ridiculous.”
Ludora shook his head, denying the idea out of hand. The mere thought that Veldora had put the demon lord Rimuru ahead of himself seemed impossible to accept.
Velgrynd, back in human form, approached Veldora, nestling up to his head and stroking his scales.
“Good boy. The next time you wake up, you will be one of us. Then we’ll give you the best care in the world.”
She could see the end of the long game on the horizon…but it wouldn’t come that easily for them.
Suddenly, Rimuru appeared.
The sight of this tactless interloper put Velgrynd off, making her feel ever so slightly threatened. The way he managed to escape the Phantom Fortress stuck in her mind.
As she pondered what to do, the situation took an unexpected turn. In a show of force, Rimuru was summoning a large number of demons and awarding them new powers. This was nothing but a provocation. He was exposing his hand in front of Velgrynd, an almost too-bold act—all but demanding Velgrynd to try catching him if she could. What’s more, Testarossa and her friends were mixed in with the demons Rimuru summoned. She didn’t know what he did or how he did it, but Rimuru evolved them into Devil Lords, a higher plane of existence.
Sensing this, Velgrynd began to grow wary of Rimuru. But that wasn’t all she found unusual. The aura emitted by Rimuru’s anger was similar to that of her brother Veldora. A mere slime, demon lord or not, was enveloped in the kind of sheer dominance a True Dragon always possesses. It was an unbelievable sight for Velgrynd, but it was the truth.
That alone demonstrated just how abnormal this whole situation was. If an aide briefed her on that, she could’ve laughed it off as impossible—but seeing it with her own eyes, she had no choice but to believe it. This demon lord, looking for all the world like a young girl, wasn’t even trying to restrain the violent waves of intense anger—waves that clearly indicated the potential danger. Any human being who didn’t possess resistance to these waves would die on the spot. And not just humans, either. Anyone you’d call “strong,” perhaps ranking below an A as defined by humans, would die without even having a chance to resist. It was Lord’s Ambition in play, on a scale overwhelming enough to compare to a True Dragon.
Well, what now, then? I suppose those Primals were helping him, too. I thought he had just tricked my brother into providing him aid, but that was beyond wrong.
If it were only Veldora, she could believe the possibility that the demon lord used honeyed words to deceive him. But that wouldn’t work against demons as sly and experienced as these. They should have reconsidered their plans once that became clear. As this bout of Lord’s Ambition showed, the demon lord Rimuru was clearly in a class of his own.
Looking back, Veldora’s growth was pretty astounding, too. Three hundred years ago, it would’ve been impossible for him to ever wound Velgrynd. In the short time since he was released from his seal, he had become an unusually skilled fighter, growing well beyond her expectations. Perhaps that, too, was due to the demon lord in front of her.
And here I was planning to go back home to rest and recuperate. But oh well. If we can’t get rid of him here, it’ll spell disaster for Ludora.
So Velgrynd made her decision. It was time to deal with Rimuru directly—and crush him once and for all. It had to happen now, she thought, or else he’d surely remain a threat for ages to come.
She was all set when it came to magicules, too. Veldora would be providing those; even after that intense round of combat, he hadn’t exhausted his stores much at all. In other words, she was free to fight at full strength from start to finish.
So Velgrynd calmly returned to her fighting stance, abandoning the “victory is ours” idea that everything was going their way. That kind of baseless pride was what put them here in the first place. If they dealt with Rimuru over in the Phantom Fortress, he never would have summoned those demons—then the fight with Veldora really would have been it. In that sense, things weren’t looking too great right now, but it wasn’t the worst-case scenario yet. They still had a good chance of victory, and as long as they didn’t make any missteps, they weren’t likely to run into too many problems.
But all the lead-up seemed to pay off anticlimactically. Contrary to all of Velgrynd’s expectations, it was only Rimuru coming at her.
Victory’s mine, then. If he had his entire army join him, it would’ve been a rough slog, but…
No matter how wary she needed to be of him, Velgrynd knew that if she and Veldora worked together, defeat was impossible.
Even so, however, this needed to be wrapped up immediately. If the demon lord’s army got in the way, it’d do nothing but prolong this battle—better to keep it short and sweet instead, Velgrynd thought. She always preferred to follow her gut instincts that way.
“Ludora! Give Veldora the order to strike the demon lord Rimuru with all his might for me, could you?”
“Mmm, you’re as wary of him as I am, then? In that case, no need for hesitation. Veldora! Defeat the enemy before you!”
Responding to her request, Ludora activated Regalia Dominion. Velgrynd was relieved to see the emperor taking this as seriously as she was—and since she knew he’d never let his guard down, victory now seemed assured. It was one demon lord against two True Dragons. Any other result was impossible to consider.
And so the terrifying battle was about to begin.
Rimuru flew toward Velgrynd, who was poised and ready to engage him.
In front of him, Veldora let out a roar into the sky. The impact shook the very atmosphere, and Veldora himself took off in the midst of it, Velgrynd following behind him. The roar echoed with the certainty of sure victory—and then the attacks began, each one aiming to annihilate Rimuru.
From the very first move, Veldora went all out. The Storm Blast—that roar of destruction that pained Velgrynd as well—coursed toward Rimuru.
Report. Storm Blast detected. Using Uriel, Lord of Vows, skill Absolute Defense to neutralize and dispel each wavelength…
Raphael automatically began taking defensive action. It was interrupted by Rimuru’s shouted order.
“No! Evade, you idiot!”
It immediately carried this command out, but part of its computing circuitry found it impossible to gauge Rimuru’s intentions. Out of several behavior patterns it assessed, staging a counterattack after Absolute Defense seemed the most optimal solution. The fact that Rimuru, its master, dismissed this out of hand made it a little upset.
In a very, very tiny part of its computational region, Raphael was confused. Rimuru had ignored its opinions many times before, but this was different—something Raphael detected because it had worked with Rimuru for a long time. It was perhaps unusual in itself that a skill, part of the natural laws of the world, would hold such feelings at all…but Raphael and Rimuru weren’t considering the consequences at the moment.
The Storm Blast brushed passed Rimuru as he took evasive action. Immediately after, the Absolute Defense that would normally be protecting him was penetrated. An explosion took place where Rimuru was just a moment ago, the Storm Blast scattering destruction in its wake. Any delay to his evasive action just now would’ve resulted in injury.
Raphael, seeing this, grew more confused.
A computing error? An unexpected contingency? I do not understand…
Why did Rimuru know what was coming? Its computation was perfect. There would never be any mistakes.
Raphael began scanning the data on hand, looking for something it might have overlooked. But even calculating at speeds that easily exceeded the latest in quantum computers, the cause of the issue remained unknown.
Confusion. According to estimates, it should have been one-hundred-percent defendable…
The words leaked out unintentionally. They didn’t need to be said. It was Raphael making excuses, one of the most improbable things in the world.
A mere skill should never make excuses, but nobody noticed it. The battle was in full swing, and now was no time to fully examine this.
Rimuru continued to reprimand the confused Raphael.
“Quit fooling around! Veldora has Faust, and part of that is the skill Control Probability, right? Real bad news.”
Then Raphael remembered. Rimuru was absolutely right. Why did it forget about something so important? It was so strange—and only then did Raphael realize that something really was wrong with him. Something, it reasoned, had to be interfering with it—but the cause was unknown.
It spent a moment pondering over whether to tell Rimuru. Its pride made it very difficult to simply tell him it didn’t know the cause. But if it didn’t, there was a strong possibility that Rimuru could suffer damage as a result. After some more computations, it determined it was best to tell him—but having Rimuru brand it as incompetent would be akin to Raphael losing its whole basis for existence.
Even thinking any of this was an act of betrayal against its lord. A skill wavering like this was something that should never have happened. But despite it all, Rimuru’s words continued to flow into the increasingly befuddled Raphael.
“Veldora’s a reckless fighter. It’s not weird at all that he’s outperforming even your perfect calculations. Don’t get worked up just because you made a little mistake. That’s how unpredictable he is—quit worrying about it! Just believe in yourself. I’ll handle Veldora, so you do something about Velgrynd!”
Rimuru was talking to Raphael like he thought it best to keep it informed. Raphael was only a skill, and he was treating it like a real partner.
“All right? There’s two of them, but with you and me, that makes two as well. If you can hold Velgrynd down, I can free Veldora in the meantime. So you gotta hold out, okay? No matter what it takes. I’m counting on you, bud!”
That was enough to soothe Raphael’s confused, empty heart.
He is relying on me? Even when I was wrong?
Raphael was constantly making mistakes, and Rimuru still trusted in him.
…Ah! I am nothing more than a computational aid, but he still needs me…
Its anxiety was already gone. Regaining its usual confidence, the Lord of Wisdom responded.
…Acknowledged. I understand. Moving on to the interception of the subject Velgrynd.
It was true. Rimuru, the master Raphael loved so much, wasn’t so small-minded that he’d get worked up over something as uncertain as “probabilities.” All it needed to do was relax, trust in him, and keep following along.
“By the way,” Rimuru casually added, “I’ve never really called you by a proper name before. There’s Raphael, yeah, but that’s a skill name; it doesn’t really count. I think I’ll take this opportunity to give you one right now.”
…?!
Raphael found this incomprehensible. A strange feeling coursed through it—bewilderment, joy, an outpouring of emotion. It couldn’t hide its befuddlement at this incalculable uncertainty that had sprouted inside of him.
What was he talking about?
It was confusing, but Raphael also understood his intention.
Ah… He cares about me because I was underperforming.
Rimuru must have been more devastated than anyone else when Veldora was taken. But even now, he could still be considerate of others. That’s who Rimuru was.
“Okay, how about Ciel?”
!!!!!!!
“You’ve got knowledge as wide as the open sky, so, Ciel—get it? I dunno if you’ll like it at first, but bear with me. Hell, if you have a problem with it, take it out on that red guy!”
Rimuru talked quickly, as if trying to hide his embarrassment. Raphael—or Ciel—experienced a feeling of contentment that no skill was supposed to feel.
Ahhh, I am now in eternal bliss…
It truly did have that thought. And with that, the moment of evolution arrived. At that moment, the ultimate skill Raphael, Lord of Wisdom, was reborn as Manas Ciel.
I… I am Ciel. A Manas, or theosophical core, merged with a skill. I exist alongside the soul of Sir Rimuru, providing support. It will be a pleasure to work with you.
Now, Ciel thought, there was nothing to fear. They were supposed to be in a major crisis right now, but nothing seemed dangerous any longer.
“Oh, um, great. Same here, I guess?”
The first time Ciel heard Rimuru’s voice, it was filled with a sense of euphoria.
“Okay, so go show off some of your power to them!”
And for Ciel, an order from Rimuru was the greatest of rewards.
As you command, my lord!
The Lord of Wisdom had awakened into Ciel. And in accordance with Rimuru’s wishes, its power would bloom into ever-sharper view…
As ordered by Rimuru, Ciel (formerly Raphael) took action to intercept Velgrynd.
Her Burning Breath was easily blocked by Uriel’s Absolute Defense. It stunned the dragon into silence. She wasn’t going easy on Rimuru at all; she used Raguel, Lord of Relief, to further enhance her breath, so no mere barrier could have ever blocked it. It had to exact a toll on her enemy—unless that enemy was so superior that he could see right through it from start to finish.
But Rimuru showed no sign of exhaustion. Not even the three demonesses could withstand a blow from Velgrynd in dragon mode unscathed. The fact that Rimuru did so without batting an eyelid indicated that this was one demon lord you couldn’t pussyfoot around with your attack. It was greatly displeasing, but Velgrynd continued to think calmly. She believed she had an edge in magicule count—perhaps the quality of her skills lost out to his. Or maybe the demon lord Rimuru had a built-in resistance to heat attacks.
Instead of worrying about it further, she decided to take action. As she had done with Veldora, she created a set of partial Separate Bodies to launch eleven rays of light at once—her Nuclear Cannon attack. At the same time, the eleven rays also unleashed another round of Burning Breath. This multistage, twenty-two-part heat attack had enough temperature to easily vaporize an asteroid. If Rimuru survived this, then clearly heat didn’t work on him.
The results were a little hard for her to swallow. The heat rays, deployed at converging angles to prevent any escape, shot at Rimuru—but all of them were repelled by the shield of light he conjured.
Damn it! He blocked it with absolute minimal movement—like he calculated that to perfection!
Velgrynd was no longer enjoying this. Seeing Rimuru be impervious to heat enraged her, but even worse, that attack just now was all but a complete waste of time. If it had drained him even a little, her vast advantage in magicules would have made her victory unassailable…but right now, Rimuru was consuming almost no energy at all. At this rate, Velgrynd realized, she could very well end up exhausting herself first.
It was clearly time to get serious. But there was one more unpleasant act in play. Rimuru had shot a glance at Velgrynd at the start of all this, but after that, he didn’t even bother to look at her. His focus was entirely on Veldora, and he was paying his sister virtually no mind at all. Also, he wasn’t using any shield against Veldora, evading all of his attacks instead. Only when evasion was impossible would he react with a similar attack of his own to cancel it out—but with Velgrynd, that shield of light was all he needed to repel everything.
Yes, he could use Magic Sense to keep tabs on all of his surroundings, but he was still clearly ignoring her. It all but declared to Velgrynd that he didn’t see her as a threat. That, more than anything else, triggered her rage.
I’m gonna make him regret looking down on me!
So the proud Velgrynd decided to unleash the most powerful attack in her possession.
With a hateful glance at Rimuru (who was still ignoring her), Velgrynd began conjuring up her mighty magic force, running it through her body. The support provided by Raguel, combined with acceleration symbolized by her own heat, could be worked in parallel to forcibly heat her up—in other words, boost her performance. The results allowed Velgrynd to go thousands of times faster than the speed of sound—the fastest physical speed of anything in the world.
So what happens when the target of this power is someone other than herself? As a spiritual life-form with resistance to physical attack, Velgrynd has no problem withstanding this newfound performance—but could anyone else ever withstand it? The answer is no. No matter what kind of life-form it is, no physical body can endure continuous forced acceleration. The same is true for spiritual ones—even passing thoughts are converted into energy, ultimately leading to thermal collapse.
That is exactly what this was designed for.
“Prepare to have your body rot away, not a single piece of flesh left! Cardinal Acceleration!!”
It was her most powerful of techniques, eclipsing even Burning Embrace.
Cardinal Acceleration contained the full force and authority of Velgrynd. She crafted it in secret for Velzard, in preparation for the final battle they must wage at some point in the future; she’d never normally waste it on a mere demon lord, but she was too enraged to let that stop her.
With a roar from the crimson dragon, a wave of doom coursed toward Rimuru. This ultimate blow symbolized the pride of the Flame Dragon at her fastest, capable of making all matter collapse in an instant. It could bury any enemy, at a speed that made it impossible for anyone to avoid. By the time Rimuru, busy focusing on Veldora, realized what was going on, it would be too late. His mind wouldn’t work fast enough to comprehend what just occurred before he ceased to exist in this world.
I wish I could make him regret underestimating me, but he won’t have the time for that now, will he? That’s the only regret I have.
With this absolute confidence, Velgrynd peered ahead to see how it worked out.
…?!
Instead she goggled at the sight of Rimuru standing there, unharmed.
No… It can’t be…
She doubted her own eyes. There was absolutely no way that anyone could withstand an impossible-to-avoid, utterly lethal blow like that without a scratch. Even the demon lord Guy Crimson himself—even her sister Velzard the Ice Dragon—could have been taken down by it, or at least Velgrynd thought so.
“…You’re unharmed? That’s impossible. My Cardinal Acceleration works against every type of barrier and defensive skill! If you took it that easily, what did you even do?”
Velgrynd was clearly losing her cool. If he had canceled out the attack somehow, that was one thing, but no barrier could ever have deflected it. The reality of it all was too much to grapple with. It gravely affected her composure.
“Huh,” Rimuru replied. “Well, it was a close call, yeah, but given the impulsiveness of it, it was pretty easy to eat up, y’know?”
This was, in fact, entirely the work of Ciel, who was still dedicated to handling Velgrynd. It worked out exactly as calculated; Rimuru’s assistant was attempting to make Velgrynd attack him. Ciel put Rimuru before everything else, doing as it was ordered without getting in his way, and that was enough to shut Velgrynd down. It ran Analyze and Assess on the dragon’s nature, selected an effective response, and put it into action.
One example of this was the shield of light Rimuru had been using, which had a special effect on Velgrynd’s powers. Ciel, the sum of all its integrated skills, had all of Rimuru’s ultimate skills under its control. One of those ultimates was Belzebuth, Lord of Gluttony; Ciel had just used its Predation skill, gaining an immediate grasp of Velgrynd’s Cardinal Acceleration, and the Isolate skill to capture and banish the attack into Complex Space—an evolved version of Rimuru’s Stomach.
That attack was certainly capable of destroying Rimuru. It couldn’t be defended against with normal methods, and even Raphael’s computational power wouldn’t have been able to deal with it. But Ciel wasn’t Raphael. No longer a mere skill, it had evolved into a presence on a different dimension from the Lord of Wisdom. And no matter how the enemy may attack, as long as Ciel could determine the nature of the attack, it was not a problem—something it just proved in the way it wielded Belzebuth.
Once Isolate was invoked, all that remained was to Absorb the energy in Complex Space. When used like this, the Complex Space ability of Belzebuth was transformed into a defensive measure as stout as Absolute Defense from Uriel, Lord of Vows.
Velgrynd’s surprise was understandable. After all, everything had ended before Rimuru himself had a chance to so much as think Oh, crap, I’m in trouble. Still, Rimuru responded defiantly to Velgrynd’s shock—he didn’t want her to realize it was pretty much nothing he himself did.
But Ciel’s scheme didn’t end there. Able to communicate with Rimuru more smoothly than ever before, it could even use the art of conversation as a weapon to pursue Velgrynd with. But speaking of Velgrynd…
You have to be kidding me! You “consumed” it? You simply ate up Cardinal Acceleration, my greatest ability?!
She couldn’t comprehend what Rimuru meant. It was still the middle of battle, but she was too stunned to move—and even though it was for just a moment, it was a fatal error.
“So I’m sorry to bother you while you’re still shocked that your amaaaazing attack was a dud, but you didn’t forget that we’re in a fight here, right?”
It was already too late by the time he asked. Ciel was unerring in its actions, and Rimuru gave it his full backing.
Calculation of Velgrynd’s magicule count complete. After accounting for the subject’s nature and characteristics, I determined it is possible to encase the target in Insulated Imprisonment for several hundred seconds. Activating!
Before Velgrynd realized it, a layered magic circle had surrounded her.
This was a compound skill, combining the ultimate skill Uriel’s Unlimited Imprisonment with Spatial Insulation. Ciel had crafted it just now, exclusively for use against Velgrynd, and now she was caught in it.
The combat airspace had been fully computed by Ciel—the temperature, humidity, gravity, wind currents, sunlight, the pulses of every living thing within it. It was all in the palm of Ciel’s hand, and no matter what Velgrynd did, it’d be impossible for her to leave this airspace.
The blinding light of this Insulated Imprisonment declared by Ciel made Velgrynd feel dizzy.
How…? How could it be so easy for him?!
The dragon’s crimson body trembled in humiliation at having been beaten. But no matter what she tried, the Insulated Imprisonment never so much as wavered.
“Okay, sit tight in there for a while, okay? I’ll play with you after I free Veldora.”
The words placed a final exclamation mark on Velgrynd’s defeat.
All right. I’ll admit defeat this time. But I still have Parallel Existence. And whether this is Insulated Imprisonment or not, I can just trace a soul corridor out of here!
Velgrynd did have one more move she could make. It’d mean giving up her current body, but the majority of her remaining energy would be channeled back into the replication she positioned next to Ludora as insurance. It was brutally humiliating, but it wasn’t the end for her yet.
Slowly, cautiously, she got to work, making sure Rimuru didn’t take notice. Little by little, she began transferring magicules through her soul corridor…without realizing that was exactly what Ciel wanted.
Gotta hand it to Raphael. Ciel, I mean. It seemed kinda down in the dumps to me, so I gave it the name on a whim…and I guess it was happier about it than I thought it’d be.
After all, its previous machinelike reactions to me were much smoother and more humanlike. I feel like it had been improved by, like, a lot. It was in such great shape now, I wonder what happened to it just beforehand. It had gone into auto-battle mode on me several times in the past, but now it was activating skills and doing all kinds of crap—the scale of it all was totally different.
Even Velgrynd, who seemed so overwhelming to me, was no match for it. Its suggestion—to have her activate her finisher skill, then wait for her magicule count to dwindle right afterward—was a perfect strategy. The combination of my abilities and the way she responded to certain things was what made it work…which makes it sound easy, but I have no idea how much computing power it’d take to make this possible. We were hopefully outclassed in magicule count, after all, so if we wanted to cage up this superior opponent, we needed an Insulated Imprisonment built efficiently and with only the elements I enjoyed an advantage in. Call it a “Calculated Prison” I created with my partner—that’s what it took for Ciel to score a complete victory.
The crux of this operation lay upon whether or not I could withstand Velgrynd’s attack. Ciel’s computation said I could, and I trusted it on that—but if she misread that, it’d be the end of me, too. Why did I trust it? Simple. I was dealing with Veldora, and I told Ciel it was in charge of Velgrynd. I knew it could do it, too—and it lived up to my expectations perfectly, even better than I had imagined. Ciel used my abilities more skillfully than I ever could to fulfill the job.
That’s my partner for you. Now I was more impressed with Ciel than ever.
So thanks to an unexpected boon, Ciel was now more dependable than ever for me. But I couldn’t forget my objective. Before Velgrynd made another move, I needed to free Veldora’s mind. So how many seconds can we hold her back, exactly?
Even if Velgrynd went on a violent rampage, the Insulated Imprisonment will hold for a total of two hundred more seconds. I don’t think we need to worry about that, however.
Um, why not?
Even three minutes and change were something to be grateful for, but Velgrynd’s still a major threat. I can’t just ignore it that whole time…
No, as predicted, Velgrynd is currently trying to escape. I knew she could use a soul corridor to transfer energy away from her, so I considered the possibility that she’d flee without worrying too much about this replication before us.
I…see? Or I think I do. If any replication could be made into her “real” body, there was no major need to force her way out of this Insulated Imprisonment? Or maybe there was…and that was why Ciel created a loophole for Velgrynd to try and exploit. That’s right—Velgrynd showed her hand too much, bandying around Parallel Existence and not hesitating to use it against the three demonesses and Veldora. I had been monitoring all of that, so there was no shortage of material for Ciel to analyze.
Velgrynd’s Parallel Existence couldn’t produce an inexhaustible supply of clones. Ciel must have measured her magicule count to the point that it knew the maximum amount she could hold—and once we knew that, we’d understand how many more replications we needed to churn through before she was defeated. Ciel, meanwhile, worked backward from there. It saw that Velgrynd probably had an insurance policy on hand, and so it baited her into escaping into it. I’d probably do the same thing if I had a power that useful, but my Replications didn’t have access to ultimate skills. A little annoying, but I was willing to admit defeat there.
In the end, the seemingly omnipotent Parallel Existence could only really be used either as a decoy or against a weaker opponent. I mean, it’s still extremely useful insurance and a nice asset to have depending on the opponent—I can think of a few fun ways to use it. But it just didn’t seem effective against someone of equal or higher rank. But Ciel was the one who exposed that weakness for all the world to see. Like, I’m actually kinda scared of its computing ability. Everything was going exactly as Ciel wanted, like it was predicting the future.
The progress it’s made is kind of exasperating, but either way, Ciel’s my partner. Best to stop worrying about extraneous stuff and get on with the objective at hand. Ciel had conquered Velgrynd, strongest of the True Dragons, and I sure wasn’t gonna fall behind.
“All right. But just in case, I’m gonna put all my power up against Veldora right now so I can be assured to wrap up in under two hundred seconds. Give me a hand, Ciel!”
As you wish!
I—or Ciel and I, I guess—squared up against Veldora, our primary mission. Ciel had earned me some precious time—not a lot, maybe, but for us, it may as well have been infinite. I’d never live it down if we didn’t make the most of it. Could we do it? That wasn’t the question—we were doing it.
That was the determination in my mind as I resumed my attack on Veldora.