Ugh.
Yamada-kun is unreal.
He's way more aggressive than I expected.
I'm shook.
So here's what happened: Yamada-kun's group managed to get ahead of us — the Demon King's army — and reach the
Wait, that doesn't make any sense.
The kingdom Yamada-kun was in is on a completely different continent from the Elf Village, right?
Just the travel alone would take an insane amount of time, and on top of that, Yamada-kun and his crew are currently international fugitives wanted as masterminds of the coup in the kingdom.
Under normal circumstances, they shouldn't have been able to move an inch — yet somehow they up and decided "Let's head to the Elf Village!" like it was nothing.
Isn't that way too much decisiveness?
Also, Kuro — why aren't you stopping him?
That's literally your job — to restrict Yamada-kun's movements, right?
The whole point is to make sure the Hero Yamada-kun never ends up defeating the Demon King, isn't it?
And yet there you are, all chipper, going "Alright, I'm coming too!" and helping them clear the dungeon.
That bastard definitely led Yamada-kun there on purpose. Next time I see him, I'm gonna beat him senseless.
Still, I've got to hand it to them — impressive.
Yamada-kun's divine protection is something else.
Because logically, there's no way they could've made it in time.
They were already short on time, plus they were dealing with constant obstacles — there's no world in which Yamada-kun's party should have been able to reach the Elf Village.
And yet here they are, arriving before us.
That's only possible if they took the absolute shortest and optimal route.
On top of their own abilities, they'd need layer after layer of luck stacked on top of each other.
And being able to pull that off — that's Yamada-kun's divine protection for you.
There genuinely wasn't enough time.
Without teleportation, even at their fastest, it would take Yamada-kun's group well over ten days to reach the Elf Village.
For us — the Demon King's army — and Natsume-kun's Imperial forces to reach the Elf Village, it'd also be around ten days, maybe a touch more.
If everyone moved at maximum speed, they could just barely make it.
But that's only if they moved at maximum speed.
Even a single day's delay in starting would ruin it, and any unexpected delays along the way would be fatal.
It's like shogi — a single mistake and it's game over.
I don't know if Yamada-kun even understood how dire the situation was.
And here's the thing.
If you need to cross from one continent to another, there's one place you absolutely have to pass through.
You guessed it — the Great Ello Dungeon, the largest dungeon in this world and the one I grew up in.
It connects continent to continent, so its scale is incomparable to any regular dungeon.
You'd have to clear the shortest route through that colossal dungeon, so you can imagine just how impossible that sounds.
If they'd chosen not to go through the Great Ello Dungeon, things would've been simple.
The Pope had already shut down all teleportation circles across every country through his channels.
The country where Yamada-kun's half-sister married into had an extra-tight surveillance net set up.
If Yamada-kun's group had gone there, they'd have been caught faster than a moth flying into a flame.
The fact that they chose to dive into the Great Ello Dungeon first — yeah, this guy definitely knew what he was doing.
And on top of that, their guide is something else.
They somehow picked up a nice old man who looked vaguely familiar — I feel like I've seen him somewhere before — and this guy is incredible.
What's incredible about him? His route selection is insane.
He naturally picks the shortest, safest, and most optimal route and powers straight through.
Even with Yamada-kun's divine protection bonuses, you'd still need a genuinely excellent guide to pull off route selection like that.
You'd have to have the entire complex layout of the massive Great Ello Dungeon memorized perfectly to do what he did.
Thanks to the old man's pinpoint guidance, Yamada-kun's group busted through the Great Ello Dungeon without so much as breaking a sweat.
When I think about how much I struggled just to get out of the Great Ello Dungeon… yeah, I'd better stop thinking about it.
If I dwell on it too much, I'll awaken a murderous aura.
There was one incident where an Earth Dragon popped up and they had a real fight, but that was probably Kuro's doing too.
He just casually drops an Earth Dragon at exactly the right difficulty level for Yamada-kun's group to beat — there's no way that wasn't engineered.
Maybe he was trying to help them level up a bit or something.
Well, personally, what surprised me more was what came after — the Babies showing up.
They said some super cryptic stuff that freaked Yamada-kun's group out, but what were they even trying to do?
Even as their parent, I have no idea what they were thinking.
When Yamada-kun's group went straight up to them afterward to ask what they really meant, the Babies came creeping over radiating this massive "praise us, praise us" aura.
Ah, yeah.
When they pull a stunt like that, how am I supposed to just go "What do you think you're doing?!" and chew them out?
So the encounter with the Babies aside, Yamada-kun's group sailed through everything smoothly.
Given their abilities, they cleared the dungeon in the shortest time imaginable.
And they arrived at the Elf Village without a hitch.
It's absurd, isn't it?
Natsume-kun had the Empire set up through his channels, and the Pope had the Divine Word Church set up through theirs — both laying nets specifically to stop Yamada-kun's group — and they blew right past every single one.
When you get ignored that thoroughly, all you can really do is laugh.
Bahahahaha!
Ah, yeah.
I know the best thing would be for me — the one actually watching them — to issue orders directly, but come on, it's me!
Obviously I can't just walk up to strangers and start giving them orders!
Their chain of command goes through Natsume-kun or the Pope, not me.
If I waltzed in and started barking orders, they'd just go "Who the hell are you?"
Enough with the excuses.
The bottom line is you shouldn't talk to strangers.
That's not quite right, but it's not wrong either.
Anyway — here's the thing.
The Great Ello Dungeon that I struggled so hard to escape from… getting cleared this easily leaves me with complicated feelings.
Hmph!
I say "cleared," but Yamada-kun's group only went through the Upper Layer!
I conquered the Middle Layer and the Lower Layer!
"The Upper Layer has fallen," indeed.
But the Upper Layer is the weakest of the Great Ello Dungeon's strata.
To think it got cleared so easily — what a disgrace to the Great Ello Dungeon.
That's what you call it!
If you're going to brag, at least clear the Middle Layer too!
…How hollow.
Nope.
Yeah, nope……
Haa.
Well, they're here now, so it is what it is.
I'll just try to maneuver so I don't end up directly confronting the Demon King.
Honestly, Yamada-kun's group is scary in the sense that they could trigger an unpredictable crisis, but when you look at them as raw combat power alone, they're nothing special.
Natsume-kun would work as a decoy if I threw him at them.
My face-to-face with the Demon King — that will be reserved for one person only.
It'll be the first time since becoming a god that I'll have to get serious.