Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? (LN) - Volume 16: Ch 2 - White 1

“Well, there you have it. Good luck.”
…What?
There I have what, exactly?!
You can’t just tell me that in the middle of a battle and expect my mind to not go blank!
Here I am, in the middle of an ultimate showdown with Black, and D suddenly starts blabbing at me telepathically!
Yeah, I heard the details about the world quest.
I didn’t hear the very first notification, but the ones after Black and I started fighting came through to me.
So I’ve got a handle on the rules to this world quest thing.
I’m sure Black does, too.
He seems to have heard the Demon Lord’s and the pontiff’s speeches as well.
Generally, that sort of notification uses the system to broadcast to the entire world. It’s actually kind of weird that I could hear it, too, since my connection to the system is cut off.
Then again, D is the one who sent out the notification, so, y’know…
I’m sure making it so I could hear the announcement too was child’s play.
Although that also means she must have meddled with me so that I could hear it…
While she didn’t attack me or anything, the fact she was able to easily slip past my defenses and awareness and all that certainly is a painful reminder of how much more powerful she is than I…
Ugh, but enough about D for now. No point in dwelling on it.
At any rate, the long and short of it is that both Black and I were able to hear the Demon Lord’s and the pontiff’s respective speeches.
Which definitely put both of us in a “we gotta do this, let’s go!” mood.
And then, just as we’re both raring to go—a sudden communication from D totally takes the wind out of my sails!
No waaay.
She must have timed it like that on purpose, right?!
Between the world quest and this little extra comment, she sure is interfering a lot for someone who claims to be a passive observer.
Just keep your nose out of it already…
In the midst of all this madness, Black has stopped moving, too.
It’s the perfect chance to attack, except I’m at my wit’s end myself… Let’s just call a temporary cease-fire for now.
“Then again, I suppose that might be difficult to accept right away. I’ll answer any questions you might have.”
D offers a tiny ounce of kindness, probably due to the fact that Black and I have both frozen in place.
I wish she would’ve expressed that kindness by not complicating this whole mess instead.
“You said you distributed Taboo to all of humanity, did you not?”
“I did.”
Ah, Black’s got his face in his palm now.
Can’t say I blame the guy.
Taboo had some pretty upsetting information, even for an outsider like me. Does that mean the rest of the world was a screaming hellscape when it hit?
No, forget the past tense—it might still be a hellscape even now.
“Taboo is technically a skill, though. Where exactly did that energy come from?”
Oh, hey! That’s a good point!
Taboo is a skill of sorts, which means it includes the corresponding amount of energy.
So it must have taken a huge amount of energy to distribute that to all of mankind.
That would be using up way too much of what little this planet has left!
“Not to worry. I provided that out of my own pocket.”
Phew. That’s a relief.
…Relief?
Out of D’s pocket?
You’re telling me D, of all people, put up some of her own energy for this world’s sake?
“Although I will say the energy I provided originally belonged to this world anyway.”
D drops a bombshell that lays waste to my doubts.
Energy that used to belong to this world?
And where did that come from exactly?
“It’s from the explosion that created the reincarnations in the first place.”
…Okay, is she secretly still reading my mind or what?
According to D, she stopped being able to read my thoughts when I became a god, but I dunno…
Well, whatever.
The explanation about this energy is more important right now.
The explosion that created the reincarnations must be the one that happened in the classroom on Earth.
The one that was apparently caused by the previous hero and Demon Lord.
That little number drained a bunch of this world’s energy, and the students who got caught in the blast were reincarnated into this world.
But that attack was intended to kill D, or specifically an administrator.
Wouldn’t the energy have all been expended in the process of the attack?
“Don’t you think that an attack intended to kill an administrator—a god, really—ought to have the power to destroy more than just a single classroom?”
…Well, when you put it that way.
The attack was indeed meant to kill a god.
Now that I think about it, it’s odd that it only had enough juice to blow up one classroom.
An attack like that wouldn’t even kill an Araba-class dragon, never mind a god.
And yet it drained a massive amount of this world’s saved-up energy.
The power of the attack and the amount of energy it consumed don’t add up.
“In other words, I collected the surplus energy and kept it stored away for safekeeping.”
Ah, Black staggered a little.
Can’t blame him for getting a little dizzy, either.
The attack on D was perpetrated by the second-to-last hero and the last Demon Lord before the current ones.
It was originally intended to target Black, except the goddess Sariel forcibly redirected it to D, which led to fun consequences like the reincarnations being born into this world and a massive amount of energy being lost.
And Black has always felt really guilty about how things went down.
So it’s no surprise that he would be distressed to learn that D had secretly pocketed all that energy.
Still, this is actually great news.
It means that some of the lost energy, though I’m sure not all of it, has been restored to this world.
…If you overlook the fact that it was used for Taboo, anyway.
Just then, Black jerks upright, as if he’s just realized something.
“Wait! You said all of humanity?! So if the system was destroyed in the present conditions, what would happen to them?! Taboo is a skill, too, isn’t it?!”
Oh yeah. That’s another good point.
Taboo is a skill all right.
The moment the system is destroyed, all skills will be torn away not just from humanity, but from all living things.
Our estimate is that approximately half of humanity will die of the shock.
Some of them won’t just die, either. Their souls will probably be destroyed.
And the more skills you have, the higher your chances of dying.
Since Taboo is a skill, too, tacking that on to all of humanity must mean…
“Even more humans will die as a result, I’m sure.”
Yep, there it is!
Ah, Black fell to his knees.
Um…yeah, well, y’know. Hang in there, buddy.
“No need to be alarmed. All you have to do is to win and prevent the system from being destroyed, and none of that will matter.”
Wait a sec.
That would mean I lose, though.
You’re just gonna give Black even more motivation!
“Oh, and that reminds me. Even if you do win, I won’t come for revenge or anything, don’t worry.”
Black’s head whips up at that.
“But you said that you would never allow any harm done to your kin.”
“Well, I know I said I was going to make her my kin, but we haven’t officially made any such contract yet. Which means that while I’ve made an unofficial offer, she isn’t technically my kin yet.”
Uh…right.
Yeah, makes sense.
There’s not really any connection between me and D just yet.
“If she falls here, then so it goes. It simply means that she was not worthy to become my kin, that’s all.”
HEY!
…No, listen, okay?
It’s not like I wanted to be D’s kin or anything, y’know? Definitely not, okay? It’s just, when you put it that way, y’know? I can’t help but get a little mad, okay?
Heh. Heh-heh.
Now you’ve gone and said it.
Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha…
In the end, I just can’t afford to lose.
Now both of us have even more reasons that we have to win.
I face off against Black again.
“Now I have nothing more to fear. This is not personal, you understand. In fact, I am more grateful to you than anything. And yet, even so, I must defeat you.”
While Black declares his renewed determination, I simply beckon him in silence.
“Let us begin!”
And so, our battle resumes.
“Be sure to entertain me.”
…With an evil god spectating on the sidelines.
What a pain!
Two shadows leap and bound between tall, futuristic buildings.
One is Black.
The other is me.
My lower half is in spiderlike arachne form, hopping effortlessly from one building to the next.
Arachne form increases my jumping ability, of course, and I can use the eight legs to run up buildings and such, making it ideally suited to this kind of movement.
And if I use my threads on top of that, I can even do tricky maneuvers like changing directions in midair and easily crossing greater distances.
Bweh-heh-heh.
Bet you regret not making our battlefield an empty plain or something!
You’re kidding yourself if you think you can outmatch a spider in an area with tons of obstacles!
While I’m cackling inwardly, I suddenly sense something closing in on me at an alarming speed.
Whaaat? You can really match my speed?
As I turn around in surprise, I see a car flying toward me.
A caaaar?!
I dodge it in a panic.
Whew. That caught me off guard.
I wasn’t expecting a car, of all things…good thing I dodged it on instinct.
This really is a parallel world, huh?
It’s got flying cars and everything.
While I’m thinking such stupid thoughts, things suddenly get darker all around me.
What the—?! I look up and see the sun nearly blocked out by a building flying right at me.
A buildiiiing?!
I make myself scarce, in an even bigger panic, and the building crashes down directly behind me.
There’s a tremor in the ground and a loud crash, followed by a cloud of dust.
Um, excuse me.
Don’t you think this is a little too grandiose?
A car is one thing, but flying buildings?
That’s a parallel world for you.
It totally turns everything I thought I knew upside down.
But y’know, just because this is a parallel world, doesn’t mean you have to go that far.
Isn’t this a little much?
My face twitches a little as I stare upward.
Now there’s a whole bunch of buildings floating in the air.
The same set of buildings I was hopping all over just moments ago.
Well, that’s weird. Why would those be floating in midair? Golly, what a mystery.
…Yeah, there’s no time to react like that!
I start zooming away as fast as I can, at the same moment that the floating buildings start flying toward me.
Each one has an insane amount of mass, and now they’re speeding toward me like bullets.
GAAAAAAH!
Hang in there, leg muscles!
Not that I know whether spider legs actually use muscles to move or not!
Just move as fast as you can, feet!
We’ve gotta get away from these things!
There are intermittent booming sounds from behind me, shaking the ground beneath my feet each time.
Normal buildings would be one thing, but this is a world Black created.
I can’t assume that buildings here are ordinary.
Even I would probably take a lot of damage if I got hit by one of those.
…I mean, not that I wouldn’t take damage f rom an ordinary building, you know?
Seriously, though! What kind of crazy person does something like using buildings as bullets?!
Hmm? Who am I to talk when I used meteors as bullets, you say?
Look, I don’t see what that has to do with it.
Besides, this is Black’s dimension, all right?
And yet here he is pulling up buildings and throwing them around, causing all kinds of environmental destruction—or rather, dimensional destruction. It’s like messing up your home with your own two hands.
I dunno how he can stand it.
I could never do something like that.