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A flash burning one’s eyes, and a thunderous roar reverberating in one’s ears, followed by a red flame, seemingly covering the whole sky. A single ray passing through the crimson sheen, plunging onwards while cutting through anything and everything.
A single dragon danced through the sky. Keeping its huge body aloft by powerfully flapping its wings, its appearance as it calmly flies through all this is a sight similar to one you’d find in panoramic paintings. You could truly describe the dragon as a symbol of absolute power in this world.
“Fu-Fueautiful…”
With a running start, I deliver a drop kick at full power against the back of the archangel’s head who’s leaked such a voice with her knees on the ground, obviously overcome with weird emotions. Through my soles I feel how the mighty barrier, usually protecting her body with multiple layers, breaks apart like tissue paper, and I see how she turns my way with her face dyed in surprise and horror, apparently having noticed what I’ve done after having her barrier destroyed.
The soles of my feet, which have been neatly put together, drive directly into her face.
“Hebuuuh!?”
Having faintly bent my knees before kicking her face, I boost the power of my blow by stretching my legs the instant my feet touch her face. What reaches my ears as I jump backwards, using the recoil of my kick, is a scream similar to a bizarre groan. After pulling off a somersault so as to show off my agility, I land splendidly, thrust my left hand out to the front, and clench my right fist.
Adopting a martial arts posture, I see in front of me how the archangel’s figure is blown away while repeatedly bouncing off the ground, just like a stone skipping across a lake’s surface, while her twintails are funnily thrown around as she wasn’t able to defend herself after having been taken completely by surprise. It’s a much more magnificent flying style than I had expected.
Contrary to people, angels have a broader contact area thanks to the wings on their back. I had wondered whether they wouldn’t be perfect for a nice stone skipping performance, but in the first place, the ground over here doesn’t consist of water, and neither is it soil.
Now, if you were to ask what the ground is then, I’d be troubled to give a precise answer.
It’s not that I don’t know what it is to such an extent that I can’t describe it, but rather, I don’t know how best to explain it so that you’d be able to understand. For the time being, it’s not all that wrong for someone with a limited, petty lifetime to think of it as a fantastic god field. Well, then again, it’s not like such a being would be able to tread on this ground.
I take a breath, and release my posture while staying alert.
The body of the archangel has eventually stopped with both knees, both hands, and her forehead on the ground after bouncing 256 times, and then tumbling 1024 times. In the eyes of a human, dying from this would be the foregone conclusion.
However, as might be expected of an archangel, I don’t think this much would be enough to kill her since she frantically healed herself over and over again in the midst of bouncing and tumbling. Probably.
Still, I’m surprised. Not about the way the archangel flew just now. No, wait, I’m slightly surprised about that part as well, but it’s not like that’s anything extraordinary either.
What surprised me is how that wall got destroyed without Renya-san having to step in. That wall was created by using the power stocked up by that idiot…err, the demons’ former supervisor. If you put it in layman terms, it’s a wall formed through divine power. That’s definitely not something that ordinary people should be able to easily break.
Well, of course, it’d be impossible for me to break it with one blow as well. Although that only applies when I’m using a human body as an intermediary, like in this case.
That was a divine art called <God’s Domain>, and it’s actually not something that can be shot so readily. It’s the kind of spell where it’s unclear whether the caster will barely be able to fire it in exchange for their life, and it’s an area of effect divine art that has the potential of annihilating a country in the worst case scenario, if it’s fired by several people coordinating their efforts.
Even if the lack of information about it has become extreme as a result of hearsay being passed on over many, many years, notes stating that this was a dangerous art should still remain. Having carefreely unleashed such an art because she felt like giving it a shot convinced me that the big-boobed, blond priestess must be missing several dozen screws in her head.
But, given that it’s also an issue on the archangel’s side for responding so readily to her overly short chant, which also lacked any kind of ceremony or offerings, it’d be wrong to one-sidedly blame that big-boobed priestess. Still, it has some parts that are a major pain for me, the general administrator.
Nevertheless, because even that one shot had used her human body as an intermediary, the spell didn’t have the firepower to break through that barrier. Even the two attacks launched against the barrier beforehand were at a level that one could call crazy for an elf, and quite well done for the human, even if they also lacked the power to break the barrier. As for the dragon’s breath, you can only describe it as average.
The problem lies with the last attack. What was used there was just a <Lightning> spell, and a mana enhancement skill added on top of it. You can also look at it as a blow to make doubly sure that the attack has enough power to break the barrier.
Certainly, the four attacks before it had probably lowered the barrier’s strength, but there’s definitely no mistake in saying that the slash had cut apart the root of the barrier’s power source. I feel like asking, “Hey, are you really human?” when I get the opportunity to do so.
If I remember correctly, one side was taken care of by a silky. But usually a being like that should be in the range of measurement error, or be slightly inferior to humans.
To be brutally honest here, this result is a lot more fucked up than if the barrier had been cut apart by Renya-san’s special katana. These circumstances were something so extraordinary that they would excuse me from having kicked the archangel’s head that was in front of me with all my power.
But then again, you could say that this is a rather reasonable outcome since it was done by the two people closest to Renya-san who has been in possession of a huge amount of resources, the underlying energy of all creation, and has been scattering them left and right.
It might be indispensable to reconsider various matters once the whole situation has been completely resolved. From the point of view that it’d be for the world’s sake, including Renya’s party.
There’s actually one more matter I ought to reconsider…
“Masteeer…”
My thoughts are interrupted by a somewhat tattered, filthy, and disheveled archangel. For an instant I’ve completely forgotten who this archangel is supposed to be, but then I recall that she’s called Giliel.
“Would it be alright for me to inquire as to the reason why I was kicked by you?”
“Because your head was in front of my eyes at the moment.”
Upon my careless, instant reply, Giliel becomes speechless.
In the first place, I wonder, why do archangels have a head attached to their bodies? I mean, I feel like they don’t need one in the first place since the angels, my personal terminals, only move according to my orders anyway. Wouldn’t it be enough for them to simply possess ears with which to hear my orders and eyes with which to look at things?
However, just when I had started to think that this might actually be a good idea, I immediately discarded it. It’s because that, which I had clearly imagined down to the details within my mind while using my imaginative power as a goddess, couldn’t be regarded as anything but a creature, a so-called abomination, rather than an angel. Conclusion: Angels need a head as well. Well, mainly when considering it from the visual impact side of things.
“What have you been thinking about, master?” Giliel asks me as I’ve been silently brooding.
Given that it’s painfully obvious that she believes that I’m probably thinking about something stupid again, I ponder on whether I should drive another kick into her face, but since she’s right, I make an effort to endure the urge.
Resorting to violence a second time wouldn’t be smart as it’d likely expose the fact that Gilie’s assumption was right. Therefore, let’s talk about the other matter of concern.
“About the barrier breaking just now.”
“That was truly amazing, wasn’t it? It might have been the first time that I’ve witnessed something so awesome in my long life as an angel.”
Although she calls it long, it’s at most a few thousand years. Events like this during my lifetime, which is on a totally different scale…might not have happened very often. No, wait, that’s not what I want to talk about.
I slap Giliel’s head. As I’ve apparently put a bit too much strength into it, Giliel’s head hits the ground like a basketball, and returns to its former position after bouncing once.
“Master…somehow I get the feeling that I’ll be destroyed by you, sooner or later.”
“It’s because you derail the conversation, okay?”
“Haah…so what kind of matter is worrying you, master?”
Going by the way she’s asking, Giliel apparently hasn’t noticed anything. Though I can’t tell whether that’s due to her lacking ability, because she’s simply slow-witted, or her having been so spellbound by the spectacle that she hadn’t paid attention to anything else. I feel like all of the above are correct, and then again not. Though, maybe all of them are actually correct.
“There was a space fluctuation…when the barrier broke.”
“Figures. If they go all out like they did, it’s only natural for a fluctuation to occur.”
“Ah…that’s not what I mean. I’m saying that it felt like a hole to some other world opened up and blended into the fluctuation as the barrier was broken.”
“…Huh?”
While suppressing the urge to tightly wring Giliel’s neck because of her exceedingly dumb reaction, I decide to explain things to her from scratch. It’s something I have to do since I suspect simply telling her to guess is kind of impossible.
“It looks like something was summoned from another world, using the space fluctuation as a cover. I had thought that this barrier was just a wall to protect the demon territory from being invaded, but that might have been a camouflage for its true purpose.”
Maybe he wanted to perform a summoning ritual without being noticed, but the idea of it slipping past me is way too unreasonable. Since Giliel’s eyes are knotholes, she easily missed it, though. While at it, he might have also aimed for the instability of the demon territory’s space caused by Renya’s party trying to take down the barrier.
Once space becomes unstable, it’s easy to open a hole to another world, making it possible to carry out a summoning ritual with little effort.
“Just who would do something like that? And for what reason?”
“Let’s see…if it’s regarding the one responsible, someone like a former supervisor would likely be capable of pulling something like this off, right?”
Actually, it’s hard to imagine someone else being able to do something like this. The hero summoning ritual might have been handed down on the human continent, but the demons have never called upon heroes in the first place.
“That means, the problem would be what was summoned.”
This is something even I don’t know. Even if I can sense the existence of an open dimensional hole in a world, the power I can currently exert on the world isn’t enough to know what might have passed through it. Of course there’s no way I’d fail to notice a being on the level of a different world’s god passing through this hole, but it’d be far too difficult for me to sense a far smaller animal or human.
“If it’s a being so small that you can’t sense it, it won’t pose much of a danger, will it master?”
“I don’t think you can say so with certainty. And even if I’m wrong, that former supervisor is suspected to have embezzled a huge amount of resources. If he boosted whatever passed through that hole, it might grow into a considerable threat, no?”
The former human supervisor’s assumptions have reached my ears as well. Regardless of whether they’re true, it’d be a worst-case scenario. However, it’s quite possible that the former demon supervisor possesses significantly more resources than what Renya-san is retaining at the moment.
“But, Renya-san and the others have already invaded the demon territory, right?”
“I’m sure the former demon supervisor will be able to handle the time issue one way or another. If he accelerates the training time by drawing out the soul from its body, he can easily nurture someone in a month or two, even if it’s an accelerated training method that won’t alter the soul.”
“What am I supposed to do then?” Giliel asks for instructions regarding her future course of action.
Just as I thought, these guys really might not need a head. That thought rears its head in my mind once more.
“You don’t have any other choice but to keep monitoring, do you?”
“It’s going to be a front-row seat, so I’m going to prepare popcorn and cola!”
I headbutt Giliel, who leaned over with sparkling eyes, between her eyebrows, the glabella. With a voice as cold as possible, I tell Giliel, who’s started to writhe in pain without even being able to scream, “You’re Renya-san and his party’s support, aren’t you…? But, if you’ve forgotten, I’ve no problem re-initializing you, and carving it into your brain anew, you know?”
“N-…No, I remember. I remember properly!”
“Then hurry up, and go!” Once I lift my chin a bit, flashing an insincere smile, and obviously looking down on Giliel who panics while holding her glabella, the color of Giliel’s face quickly changes, and she scurries away at full speed.
Given that I’m tracking her anyway, I will bring her to my side and scold her properly if she doesn’t return to her workplace straight away.
“Good grief, just who does she take after…?”
I acutely sense the surrounding angels thinking, “You, right?”, but decide to stubbornly ignore them. Sure, I was the one who set all of Giliel’s parameters, but since I hadn’t tampered with her personality in particular, she should have the usual settings… I want to clearly state that it’s not my fault. I really want to. But, all angels have been created by me. If I’m told that their personalities and actions have traces of my own personality, I won’t be able to deny it.
Considering it like that, it means that you can also say that the actions of the former demon supervisor are partially my responsibility.
“…I sure want to think that it’s not so, though…”
It’s a pain that I can’t fully deny this.
Given that I’ve lived for an infinitely long time, there are some aspects of myself I can’t confidently say I fully understand.
“I sure want to think that it’s not so, though”
Even when I try repeating myself, it’s not like there’s someone who would give me an answer. Since it’s impossible for an existence, who understands me better than I do, to exist, no matter how much I look for them. It is only in these moments that I feel somewhat envious of humans and such, who have people than can understand them since they can understand each other.
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