Recap from last time!
Demon King: "You were all comrades!"
(; ・`д・´) W-WHAT?! (`・д´・ (`・д´・ ;) What is a comrade?
It's a type of surname.
Hmm. That's not wrong, but that's not what it means in this context.
What is a comrade?
People who do the same things. People of the same status or profession. Similar beings of the same kind.
Each definition is slightly different, but they all roughly convey the same meaning.
In other words, it means people who stand on equal footing.
Are we standing on equal footing?
Honestly, when it comes to raw combat power, we're not even close. I'm way out in front while everyone else lags far behind.
In that sense, it's hard to call us comrades.
But in the sense of all striving toward the same thing, we can certainly say we're standing together.
If that's the case... were we really comrades all along?
What an unbelievable realization!
Here I thought I'd been a loner since my previous life, but I apparently already had comrades!
Umm...
Uhhh?
How are you supposed to interact with comrades?
Please teach me, wise person!
--- "Shiro-chan has completely frozen and won't come back. This is bad. The concept of friendship was too advanced for Shiro-chan. She's stacked up plenty of effort and victories, though..."
"Um..."
"Lars-kun, Shiro-chan may look like this, but emotionally she's still very much an undeveloped little kid. Don't be fooled by her appearance and aura. When Shiro-chan does something unreasonable, she's usually just trying to use violence to brush aside something that's inconvenient for her. See? Sounds like a little kid, right?"
"Y-Yes..."
"So when you think she's doing something wrong, you shouldn't try to reason with her — you need to scold her, like you would a child. Otherwise, nothing will ever improve no matter how much time passes."
"Scold her? Me?"
"
"Hey! What do you mean 'the way she is'!?"
There's a bunch of commotion going on, but I'm currently in the middle of intensely contemplating the concept of comrades, so I'd appreciate some quiet.
Umm, the only comrades I know about are the ones from my game's companion list!
Oh right — I can just treat them like game companions! Pet them when I feel like it, and kick them when they annoy me!
With that thought, I considered patting the vampire girl's head to dote on her, but seeing her curled up like a silkworm cocoon and screaming her head off just annoyed me, so I kicked her instead.
"Why did you just kick me?! Hey! Why?!"
So noisy.
That's just how comrades are, right?
"I feel like Shiro-chan has developed a fundamentally wrong understanding of the concept, but oh well."
"
"More importantly—"
"More importantly!?"
The Demon King and the Oni were having a comedy routine back and forth.
But one of them — the Demon King — wore a serious expression.
It seemed like there really was something important to discuss.
"Shiro-chan, what do you think about this?"
The Demon King nodded toward the monitor with her chin and asked me.
Her serious expression clued in both the Oni and the vampire girl that this was a proper discussion.
I steeled myself and directed my gaze toward the monitor.
...The vampire girl was still curled up in her silkworm pose, though.
"What's the problem with this?"
The Oni had been tracing the text on the screen for a while but couldn't figure out what the Demon King found problematic.
The vampire girl was probably too proud to admit she didn't understand, but judging by her face, she clearly had no idea either.
"There are massive problems."
The Demon King gazed at the text with a troubled expression.
What was displayed was something like
Apparently he was the diligent type — he never missed a single day and recorded the day's events in journal form.
Well, it was more like a matter-of-fact, concise account of each day's events, so whether it even qualifies as a diary is debatable.
There weren't many personal reflections.
Here and there he'd write something that felt like research observations, but even those were rare.
Since you couldn't really feel the writer's emotions throughout, maybe that's why it didn't feel diary-like.
However, the section the Demon King had pulled up was one of the rare passages where Potimas's emotions were visible.
What it contained was anxiety.
And doubt.
"The total amount of MA energy has suddenly dropped significantly. The cause is unknown. It likely has some connection to the dimensional quakes observed by our equipment during the same period, but nothing definitive can be said at this point. This is clearly an abnormal situation. No such incident has occurred since the system became operational. Has a critical flaw developed in the system? Is it still safe to remain on this world? Unknown. Although Gyuliedistodie has forbidden departure from this star, it may be wise to prepare an escape route regardless."
Hmm.
That's it.
The incident caused by the Hero two generations back and the Demon King one generation back.
The one where they tried to interfere using dimensional magic, failed, and a classroom in Japan exploded.
This is the diary entry from the incident that became the catalyst for us reincarnators being reincarnated into this world.
Because of what those two pulled off, we reincarnators were born into this world, and the Demon King became the Demon King in order to recover the MA energy that was lost as an aftereffect.
The vampire girl and the Oni already knew the gist of this incident, so reading this didn't surprise them.
That's probably why they were confused about what the Demon King was flagging as a problem.
But it IS a huge problem.
Because this was written by Potimas.
"What do you mean? Wasn't Potimas the one who instigated the Hero and the Demon King?"
Exactly.
That's exactly right.
If Potimas was this shocked about the incident caused by the Hero two generations back and the Demon King one generation back, then that means someone else was pulling the strings.
Huh?
You think the Hero two generations back and the Demon King one generation back did it on their own?
There's no way people who didn't know the first thing about the system could have pulled that off.
Someone who could teach them about the system had to have been involved.
Otherwise, there's absolutely no way completely uninformed people could have traversed space and time all the way to D's classroom.
Even Potimas apparently hadn't been aware of D's existence.
...At this point, the culprit is painfully obvious.
Even the Demon King should know.
She just doesn't want to admit it.
"Yes. Everything is my responsibility."
A voice rang out — someone not among us, a third party who hadn't been here before.
The person who appeared via spatial transfer was exactly who I had expected.
Clad in what appeared to be black armor — the administrator of this world.
Kuro. Gyuliedistodie. That person.