"This is far too slow…"
As Roswaal mowed down the town he was flying over using Goa spells, he realized this was utterly tedious; utterly boring, it was obvious he could increase the efficiency of this, but he had no idea how.
Being an innovator, Roswaal wanted to make the process efficient and easy, so that going forward his objective could be accomplished more smoothly and much faster. So far, many people were escaping him, and he often found himself nearly out of mana in the middle of destroying a town.
The solution he could think of was quite simple but difficult to actually implement. He could already transfer his consciousness to his kin, so in theory, with various clones, which would be counted as his kin due to blood relation, he would be able to make clones of himself en masse.
The plan had only two flaws he could think of.
The first was that it required him to make clones of his soul, which was difficult, to say the least. He was at least aware that the influence of Od Laguna was gone now, so it would be possible, whereas before the laws of the world simply did not allow it. But, where to start was a difficult topic.
The second was that his teacher's body cloning technology was something he barely understood. He knew she had used it to clone Ryuzu, but the actual notes on how it was done were written in the forbidden library, which was at the mansion.
This would not be an issue if not for the fact that it was entirely likely Yogiri Takatou was still there. Roswaal understood that Yogiri probably did not mind that he was getting rid of so many people, but at the same time, the sheer thought of being near that thing and doing anything it would deem bad was so utterly terrifying Roswaal could not even consider it an option right now.
Roswaal had thought non-stop for ages since he had left that sanctuary about how to kill Yogiri. He had nearly spent all of his time doing tedious work like burning villages while thinking of ways to kill Yogiri.
As he understood it, Yogiri could detect danger, and killing intent. Yogiri could also kill anything instantly as long as it could see it. Roswaal had hypothesized that although that thing could instantly kill anyone with direct killing intent toward it, things like killing a source of danger it could not see were beyond the scope of its power.
It went without saying, then, that the idea for clones that Roswaal was working on was not entirely for merely increasing the efficiency of his removal of humanity from the world.
They were also for killing Yogiri Takatou.
Roswaal's plan was simple.
He would make clones of himself, remove their memory of Yogiri Takatou, and tell them all to attack wherever Yogiri was with large area of effect spells like Al Goa from a random direction.
This would then mean that Roswaal had no direct killing intent, and that the danger was coming from places that Yogiri might not even be aware of.
This meant that at least some of the clones would be able to successfully hit Yogiri.
As Roswaal thought about this, he suddenly noticed a large group of villagers fleeing.
They were running through a dirt road coming out of the village, and the women and children were in front, with the men behind using magic and weapons to defend the villagers. Probably, they thought they could defeat Roswaal and defend their wives and children.
Roswaal abruptly cut off his planning, and fired a barrage of spells at the villagers, killing them all.
He had started with the armed ones, as they posed the greatest threat, and then moved the barrage up, carpet bombing them and, eventually leaving only the smoldering corpses of the village men, women, and children in craters.
And then, he sunk back into his mind.
There was one other, more risky option for Roswaal unrelated to cloning.
He could find Yogiri Takatou, erase all of his memory of it, and then implant the strong desire to destroy the area where Yogiri Takatou resided in. In this way, he would have no idea what Yogiri Takatou is, and therefore have no killing intent toward him, but he would still be able to attack and damage Yogiri. The flaw of this plan was that he would have to also erase info like the fact that if he was visible he would die, among other things, which meant that post memory erasure he might just slip up and attack the thing in its full view, and get killed instantly.
As it stood, the risk was simply too great. Instead, Roswaal would go with the cloning operation. His best bet now was simply sneaking into the mansion, and then the great library, and stealing his teacher's notes on cloning.
"I'm almost out of mana. I suppose I should rest before that, then."
Roswaal stopped firing spells at the village and its inhabitants, and flew toward a cave on the side of a mountain.
He did not care much for luxury, and chose to merely rest on the cold hard stone ground.
After all, his plan could not be achieved without a little discomfort. It was all worth it in the grand scheme of things.
The carriage pulled out of the now (mostly) dead and deserted town of Mirula, and toward the exit gate which would lead into the dunes. Their ultimate goal, the endpoint of their journey, and the place where Yogiri would learn how to get back to his world, the Pleiades Watchtower lay at the end of the path from Mirula.
Or so the travelers had thought.
"It appears the trail on the map merely marks a path from here to the watchtower! There is no road!"
Otto opened the window into the box of the carriage, and shouted backward into it. He sat in the driver seat, holding the reins of the ground dragons which pulled the carriage.
The wheels of the carriage itself had sunk into the soft desert sand, stuck and unable to spin. If they were to press on anyway, the carriage would surely break, and the ground dragons would tire easily.
Echidna was the first to speak, "I suppose we made a hasty mistake. The pace of the adventure so far was so fast that we ended up assuming we could just get on with it."
"Now that you mention it, it feels like we were going pretty fast until now…"
Yogiri figured a journey in another world like this would have been a bit longer. They reached the end quite fast. Rather, they had been about to reach the end quite fast.
"Aint that natural? We got a monster who can kill things with his mind, after all. I woulda figured we'd be all the way to the tower in one day, weren't for all the obstacles being thrown our way."
Anastasia yawned a bit, covering her mouth.
"Anyway, y'all're taking too long debatin' the issue. Get a move on 'n fix it already."
"I feel like your accent has only gotten deeper recently, I suppose."
"That so?"
Frederica began to speak, "I am inclined to agree with lady Anastasia on this matter. We must act quickly if we are to get Sir Takatou back to his homeland."
"Fer his sake, is it? I'm just goin' that way to ask the Sage Shaula about Hoshin the Great, but yer doin' this for Mister Takatou's sake?"
"Lord Roswaal has left his standing, and the Kingdom of Lugnica has crumbled. The only ones who remain for me to call 'master' are Beatrice and Sir Takatou. Beatrice and Sir Takatou wish for the same things, so I shall oblige them both and work for their goals moving forward."
"How truly touching. Incidentally, I am only in this to gleam knowledge from the Great Sage, Shaula."
Echidna looked rather proud of herself. Obviously, nobody in the room thought she actually considered Frederica's speech touching.
"Would you idiots shut up and get out of the carriage? It is far too hot out here, and if we do not get a move on the sun may set! At night, I hear, dangerous mabeasts come!"
"It is not as though they could touch us, what with Yogiri being by our side, I suppose."
"...We-well… Anyway, get a move on!"
And so, Yogiri & Co. exited the carriage, and walked facing the sun, toward their destination.
For some reason, many observed, Yogiri was humming some kind of tune, and occasionally singing the words "walk like an Egyptian"
Nobody really knew what an Egyptian was, but they also didn't really feel like asking.
Side by side, facing the sun, the group walked. They walked and walked across the dunes. By this point, most of them were wearing little of the clothing they started with.
The women were all wearing their full and normal clothing. Otto and Yogiri were shirtless and wearing shorts, however.
"Mister Takatou, this truly is painful! Could you perhaps kill the heat, or something?"
"That would be unfair."
"What, so killing your enemies with a thought is fair, but this isn't?!"
"There's a difference there. The heat isn't posing a lethal threat right now. Killing it just for being annoying sets a bad precedent."
Echidna, who was walking ahead of the rest of the group, suddenly stopped.
"Lady Echidna, would you please tell us what has made you stop?"
"Ah, there is a massive hole in the ground here. There are also a great number of humanoid creatures with odd light magic breaking the rock under the ground."
"That sounds like somethin' ya don't see often, I'm gonna take a look!"
Anastasia began running ahead, and the rest followed.
Finally, they reached the point Echidna was at, and looked out at the hole.
The hole in the ground stretched all the way to the horizon in all directions. Its depth was, by Echidna's estimate, ~3,891 people stacked on top of each other. Basically, it was miles deep. A staggering height, which found most of the group suffering from vertigo.
All the way down were several "levels". There were thousands of these "levels" which were all around a person tall. A tall person, though, perhaps 6 feet or so.
Each level had a few thousand people using beams of light to cut through the rock. Their progression was actually incredibly quick, due to their numbers and equipment. Echidna could see, based on the ones nearing the top, that they all had black, dried skin, and were around 6 feet tall. They also looked very weak, and their faces had a sort of intense depression and despair upon them. Spotted easily was one distinct feature. Aside from their total nakedness (don't worry, there was nothing there to show anyway, so it's fine) they were also wearing metal collars, with lights on them. The lights were normally green, but any time one of the workers stopped for even a moment, the lights would turn red and begin blinking. For some reason, this seemed to encourage them to dig even faster.
"Shall we make contact with them?" Echidna asked.
"I don't see any other options here."
Saying that, Yogiri looked all around himself. The width of the hole was such that he did not find it likely they would ever be able to go around.
"In that case, I'll go first."
Echidna jumped down, casting "El Fura" to cancel her momentum before hitting the ground. Had she not done this, her small frame meant she would probably have been injured. Next, Anastasia sat on the ledge, and had Echidna grab her and pull her down. Beatrice walked off the ledge, slowly hovering to the level below. After that was Frederica, who jumped off the ledge and landed on the next level gracefully, with a curtsy. Otto sat down on the ledge and then pushed himself off, landing on his legs, which wobbled a bit and threatened to buckle. Finally, Yogiri did the same as Otto, although his legs did not seem to be as weak as Otto's were.
"What a lame way to get down from there, I suppose."
"Being safe is not lame!"
Otto felt indirectly insulted by Beatrice's comment.
"I agree with Otto."
Yogiri had no interest in hurting himself. He needed to be in good shape for the rest of the trip to go well.
"Little lady's got a point, Mister Takatou, ya could've just went 'die' all cold like 'n done something outrageous like kill yer momentum, right?"
"That wouldn't be necessary. I don't open the Second Gate unless I really need it."
"S-second Gate?! There's more to your outrageous power?!
Beatrice was so scared by the implications she didn't even say "I suppose" or "I wonder".
"I have more Gates."
Beatrice's eyes became dull, and lost their shine. She had heard something even she could not comprehend, and lost her will to think. She was afraid she might end up thinking of some kind of power beyond what Yogiri is already capable of, and become even more terrified.
"We should focus on the task at hand. Sir Takatou, please be the first contact with these humanoids. We will stay behind you."
Frederica said as much, before quickly scooching behind Yogiri. The rest of the group did the same. Although, Frederica had to carry Beatrice by the neck, like a dog might carry its pup, because she could not move.
Yogiri approached one of the black humanoids, and tried to speak to it.
"Hello? Can you understand me?"
The humanoid slowly turned its head while still digging with a light beam.
A dry, raspy voice came out, very difficult to hear.
"Don't… distract… pain drug…"
"Sir Takatou, what did he say?"
"Something about being distracted, and a pain drug."
Echidna suddenly looked like she realized something.
"Ah. I can assume that the beeping of their collar when they stop working means they are making an error, and that the punishment for that is some kind of pain-inducing drug being injected into them. Although, with this many workers, I do not understand why they don't just blow off their head with the collar instead."
"There is no need to detail your ideal scenario!"
"I never said I would do that. Keeping the slave immortal and punishing them with extreme pain sounds much more effective."
"Once again, there is truly no need!"
Yogiri once again began to try to communicate with the humanoid.
"Why are you out here? What are you digging for?"
"Annoying… leave… distraction…"
"We shall give you water and food, if you can answer our questions."
Frederica pulled a basket weave box from under her skirt.
"Where the hell did that come from?!"
"A maid must always be prepared to serve her master."
She opened the box gently, and inside was food, still hot, and cold water filled with ice cubes.
"What the hell?! There are so many questions I want to ask about how that works, but… What the hell?!"
Yogiri took the water cup from the box, and asked the man to open his mouth. He looked at the water, and complied, although opting to still work. Yogiri poured the water into his mouth, about half the cup, before also pouring it on top of the man's head.
"Thank you…"
His voice was still quite parched, but not as bad.
Next, Yogiri grabbed the food out of the box, a Hamburg steak, and, using a knife, cut off small pieces, before feeding them to the man.
"Yogiri, I am quite hungry right now too!" Echidna said, despite having eaten a mere two hours ago.
"If there's anything left, you can have it."
"Geez…"
Echidna didn't know if he was dense or a sadist. She also didn't care.
"Can you tell us why you're here?"
The man turned to Yogiri, and began speaking. His voice was no longer as raspy, but still very raspy.
"We're mining fer the core of this planet, to give ta a collector."
The core of the planet was quite a large thing to mine for, Yogiri thought. He wondered what kind of extravagant would collect planetary cores.
"Who's the collector?"
The man had stopped mining, grabbed Yogiri by the collar, and began whispering.
"They're listening, I can–"
Suddenly, he stopped, jolted backward from Yogiri, and began crying out in pain.
He scrambled for his mining tool.
"You folks stay out of this! Stop distractin' me!"
The man grabbed the mining tool and pointed it toward Yogiri, before moving to flip a switch.
Suddenly, his knees buckled, and he crumpled to the floor.
The collar on his neck was blinking red, and a faint hiss could be heard from it. Within seconds, a purple liquid overflowed from the sides of the collar. Presumably, it was the pain-inducing drug mentioned earlier.
"Is it truly necessary for this to happen every time we meet someone new?!"
"Technically, you're quite new, and were not killed by Yogiri."
"You know what I meant by new!"
"It's not like I want to kill them."
A worker a few feet away looked over at the—now dead—man, and noticed he was not breathing. For some reason, he grinned, he looked overjoyed. The man's face made it look as though this were the happiest day of his entire life.
The other worker dropped his mining tool, and began shambling toward Yogiri. His collar began blinking red as well, and by the time he made it to Yogiri, it was also seeping purple liquid. The man was probably in intense agony.
"He… dead… how?"
"He attacked me, so I killed him."
"But… can't die…"
Otto glared at Echidna, who smirked, and then shrugged.
"Please… kill… us…."
The man fell onto his face, before pressing against the ground with his hands and attempting to rise. He tried three times before finally getting on his knees.
"All of the workers?"
"Yes…"
"I'll do it, but they have to all gather in one place for it to happen. The bottom of the mine should be good."
"I will… radio…"
The man pressed a button on his collar, and began speaking.
"All… units… we can… finally… free… gather… level 0…"
As soon as he said that, the thousands of workers all turned to look at the bottom, and began jumping off their levels onto the one below it, and then the one below that, repeatedly.
"But how are we supposed to get down quickly?!"
"Do not worry, Sir Otto, we will simply have to do it as we did the first time."
"Easy for you to say! All you did was jump! I don't have the stamina for this!"
"You're weak and constantly yelling. Why do we even keep you around, I wonder?"
"Betty's back!"
"Otto's incessant screaming snapped me out of it, I suppose."
"See! I was useful for something!"
"Shut up, or I will pin you to a wall, where you will hang for the entire time we're down there, I suppose."
Beatrice pointed her hand at Otto and formed a Minya crystal at the end of it.
"S-Sorry!"
"Now, now, Beatrice. We should not kill our own comrades."
"Yes, mother."
"Masters, shall we get a move on."
"Let's get to it!"
Roswaal flew down to the ground,
Where once his grand estate stood;
An empty crater was all he found,
And a furious fire rose from his blood.
He took to the sky in a random direction,
To find his nemesis Yogiri and slay;
But the towns he bombed felt his affliction,
So many lives did he take away.
At last, he found a town in the desert sand,
And with violence and fire it prepared to be banned;
But before he could drop his bombs in hand,
He fell, forced at once to land.
When his corpse was found without a sound,
Looted of every relic around;
Cold and naked on the sandy ground,
His life's purpose could not be found.
When the party arrived at the bottom of the quarry, they finally saw the entire group of miners. There were millions, perhaps hundreds of millions of people in this quarry alone. They were all kneeling, their heads bowed.
Yogiri looked around him. He was surrounded by people who were now worshiping him as God. He wasn't sure if he was comfortable with the idea of being a god, although he imagined being treated like a god would be very comfortable. Yogiri's party wasn't kneeling, aside from Reinhard.
Speaking of—
"Reinhard, were you here the whole time?"
"Indeed, Sir Takatou. You all had forgotten me, but it seemed as though you were all having a great time, and I had no intentions of interrupting that."
"Even I can't help feeling a little bad…"
Echidna did not look remorseful at all.
"Ah, this is another moment where the old Reinhard was so noticeable, but now it's impossible. It's like if you wake up in the middle of the night to use the restroom, and the lights are blinding."
Reinhard laughed and rubbed the back of his head.
"I suppose so, yes. Please worry not, I am fine on my own, weak as I am."
Reinhard looked down once more.
Yogiri, and everyone else except Reinhard, turned to look at the massive group of miners.
Yogiri spoke up, loudly, and explained what dying to his power entailed.
"You will die instantly and painlessly, and you will not go to an afterlife at all! You also will not reincarnate! After dying to my powers, you will essentially be put to sleep for an infinite amount of time! If you don't want to die in such a way, please step away from the rest!"
Not a single miner moved. This was despite the fact that they were currently being injected with more pain-inducing medication, due to lack of work. Somehow, they were still able to kneel, and bow to Yogiri. Such was their will to die.
"Then, please find peace!"
The next moment, the entire group, in a synchronized movement, in the exact same manner—they all fell to the side.
On a ship, in a chair, sat a large man with skin made of worms. An immortal. Everytime a worm that made up him was by some way made to be dead, a new one was already spawned to take its place. This would never end, and could never end, unless all of the worms were killed at once, which was absolutely impossible. He had already taken measures against this.
His ship was currently floating in the middle of the Sea. That is, the place where all worlds, known and unknown, existed. Not the universe, the multiverse.
This man was on a very important (at least, to him) mission. He wanted to collect planetary cores. Any kind, but especially unique ones. He had found one such target, a core so unique he could not help but wonder by what means it could even possibly exist.
Compacted, near solid xenon and neon. That was what the core of this planet was.
He wanted it, by any means necessary.
The planet in question was one made of water, excepting one specific island.
It was a very tall, nonsensically shaped island, which looked something like an hourglass structurally. The top was a wide, rectangular continent sized island, on which various life forms lived. There was a constant flow of water falling from the sides of the island, and if one were to look out from the top they would not be able to see anything beyond their little island. Just an infinite waterfall and fog.
However, the truth was that this island was simply too tall for one to see the water surface of the planet.
The island itself functioned much like a fountain, bringing water up from the surface of the planet, and then spitting it back out at the edges of the island, for it to fall back to the surface.
However, digging through water was simply too time consuming. The man wanted his core immediately.
Therefore, he sent off a small detachment of workers, some odd 150 million, to a corner of the island to begin digging down, in an effort to reach the bottom of the island, and peel the planet like an orange from below the water.
Indeed, that was the plan. Every worker was supposed to be mining right now.
So why the hell were they all dead?
All vital signs gone, no movement, the damn pain-inducing drug was running out on all of their collars.
What the hell happened?
The man intended to find out.
Yogiri looked out at the field of corpses. Quite frankly, it was depressing. But, he felt it had been the proper thing to do.
"We've been dragged into another mess…!"
Otto wondered who would show up to be killed by Yogiri this time.
Suddenly, a hole in space opened in front of them. It was as though something had torn open the fabric of reality.
And then, out stepped a man-shaped-creature, made of purple worms, wearing a long coat and a top hat.
Following him were two playing cards. They floated in the air gracefully behind the man, spinning all the while.
The man looked at the field of corpses.
Thus far, he hadn't even spared so much as a glance in Yogiri & Co.'s direction. He hadn't noticed him.
"I truly wonder who did this! They were supposed to be immortal! Oh well, Ytthurn, please incinerate the corpses, they are unneeded!"
The card which was a two of diamonds, presumably Ytthurn, began spewing fire from inside, or perhaps outside, or perhaps on top of, or perhaps behind himself. It wasn't very clear.
The man turned once more to look around, and finally noticed the group who were still alive.
"Ah! Did one of you do this?"
"I did."
"Interesting, you know, I'm a bit unhappy you obstructed my operation here. You see, I'm actually a bit of a hobbyist. I collect planetary cores for fun. If you don't know, every planet has a solid core at the center, and I like taking them from various planets and storing them on my giant spaceship. By the way, it's the size of an entire world. Not, like, a planet, an entire medium sized world. Quite fun stuff collecting them, I have an army of immortal slaves to do my bidding, and they mine for me often. You know, I actually invented the little laser drills—I'm sure you've seen them already—that they use. Very efficient for cutting into any kind of anything. Whoops, a bit off track. I should probably introduce my two friends here—"
He casually pointed to Ytthurn.
"This one is Ytthurn, he's very good with incinerations—"
He then pointed toward the other card, an ace.
"This one is Gtthurn, who specializes in enslaving creatures and bending them to his will. Anyway, really fun, if you want to see my collection time, you probably will. But let's not get into that, it's all business and lame, back to my little hobby, I think the most interesting core I have so far is actually made of solid diamond, but this planet seems to have a much more interesting one, being made of solid xenon and neon. I don't really know how that's possible, but oh well! Ah, I should get to business. How'd you kill my workers like that, Jack?"
"Jack?"
"Right, anyway, how'd you do that?"
"I just kind of made them die."
"Interesting, interesting, but they were immortal, I wonder how that works?"
"Well, to make them die, they need to be dead. If you're immortal, you're not dead, so I guess I made them mortal?"
"That's wild, but can't you die while being immortal? Like a zombie."
"I think that as long as something can move it's alive."
"A zombie is alive, then?"
"Yeah."
"I can see what you mean. Actually, you seem pretty useful. Instead of killing you for trying to ruin my mining operation, I think I'll have Gtthurn enslave you."
He pointed to Gtthurn, and then pointed at Yogiri.
Gtthurn turned in a sort of ethereal floating motion, before immediately falling, and then tilting forward and becoming flat on the ground.
"Hm? Is that how that works, then? Okay, give me one second."
Another tear in space opened, and this time more cards came out. Fifty-two, to be exact.
"Attack this guy. Ytthurn, you too."
The entire army floated forward, likely all planning to attack in the same moment, before simply tilting forward and slowly falling to the ground, as a playing card does.
"I've never really had this happen before, but it doesn't matter. For some reason you won't, or maybe can't, kill me, and I have an infinite army of immortal slaves—by the way, they're all from conquered worlds. How about this, I'll hold you here forever with an infinite, undying army, before eventually killing you, or you can give me something unique and valuable, something I could probably only find in this world."
"Uhhh… Mister Takatou, I'll give 'im somethin'."
Anastasia suddenly stepped forward, toward the man of worms, and began rummaging through her fluffy coat. She pulled out a black book.
"Oh my…"
Echidna looked at least 1% more shocked than her neutral face.
"This here is a gospel, a book that can tell you yer future, 'n how best to go about things later on."
The Big Cheese grabbed the book with a wormy tendril, before opening it.
"Hmm-hmm~ Says here 'ESCAPE OR DIE' repeatedly in big capital letters, on every page. Honestly, I wasn't gonna accept this anyway, because being able to divine your future is a pretty basic skill anywhere. Trash!"
He casually tossed it aside, onto the ground.
"Okay, big army, go!"
A massive tear in space opened, and billions of soldiers began pouring out, only to die immediately.
The hole closed within thirty minutes, cutting the pile of bodies in half.
"Yeah I expected that. I'll just kill you guys!"
He pulled a massive hammer from a tear in space, and prepared to swing it down on the group—
"Die."
Suddenly, the worms making up the man all died and collapsed into a pile with clothes on top. The hammer fell to the ground and stuck deep into it.
"Lady Anastasia, may I inquire as to where you acquired that gospel?"
"I found it on a dead clown out in the desert."
"It appears I was correct, my failed student died."
The group turned toward Reinhard, and noticed he was still kneeling.
"Reinhard, you can stand."
"May I? Although, this feels quite good, like a workout."
"You can."
"How are we to get to the top?"
"Betty will have to carry us, I would imagine."
"I shall pass. Climbing that would be quite a good workout."
"It'll take years! Yogiri, can you do anything?"
"Not really."
The sun was setting, and the hole was already dark.
Suddenly, there was a cyan flash of light, and a large cut was made in the ground. It was less like an actual cut, and more like an entire valley. Nobody saw what made it, or how, but it led out, and seemed to slope in a very easy-to-climb but steep way.
Just missed him.
The massive robot lamented.
Jimmy Ronald was the figurehead of a massive trans-universal corporation, one who collected planet cores, and one who destroyed the robot's world.
Three-hundred years ago, his planet was a flourishing land of steel and light. But Ronald came and destroyed it, without a thought, and greedily took its core.
TND-8914 swore his revenge at that moment.
But Ronald was already dead.
Now what was there for him to do?
Rampage, perhaps.
No, rampage, definitely.
Rage was building. Release or you'll die, that's what he thought.
In a small inn room located in the city of Mirula, sat a man with purple hair and a very regal uniform. A sword was hanging from his hips.
Julius Juukulius was sitting on the low quality bed with a frown.
"Where did they go…?"
He thought back to the previous day. Zombies, Takatou's amazing power, mass death of an entire city, and a literal goddess being smited with a word. It was all so eventful, and in the morning everyone probably wanted to leave immediately.
So why didn't they come get him?
"Lady Anastasia… Why did you leave me?"
Was he no longer needed? He would accept that, but… to not even tell him…
Did they forget about him? No, they couldn't possibly have. How can you forget about an entire person? It didn't make sense.
So why?
Did his place get taken by Takatou?
…
His every connection severed. They might not even return to him.
No.
Don't think like that, Julius. Get it together.
They still remember you, they still like you.
Now what…
Was he to wait like a dog here for them?
Or should he try to catch up?
Yes, that's it. He could probably make it.
Probably.
And so, with a burning ambition to reunite with Anastasia, he left Mirula, and stepped into the searing arid sand. Nothing would get in his way.
I didn't have anyone beta read this. I think it's better than the last chapter, though. I appreciate all the fan support, very nice. Special shoutout to sneed, I like your name. It sounds like some kind of subtle joke, but I don't really get it, sorry.
StarBoundDisaster said "This was... something. Not in a bad way, I enjoyed most of it. Still, even though Yogiri was justified in killing the main cast, it still feels kinda wrong. I don't particularly care much for Emilia, but he didn't even try to reason with her when she was having a mental breakdown. I suppose my main criticism is that Yogiri needs to have a character flaw that counters his overpowered ability. My best guess would have to be granting Yogiri empathy for those he killed and having him be burdened by it as he progressively kills more and more people.
As for my next criticism, it would have to be the destruction of the capital, I get why you did it (Having Yogiri further demonstrate his power by fighting armies from the neighboring countries that would declare war in the face of Lugnica's defenseless state), but I don't understand the necessity behind it, you already demonstrated Yogiri's power with the complete effortless annihilation of the Witch's cult. There is also the fact that there is no path for Emilia to achieve her dream now (which I take is the reason why you had her killed since there is no place for where you can take her character.). Fortunately, this doesn't apply to Reinhard since he seemed loyal to Yogiri after Yogiri freed him from his divine protections.
Regardless it was an interesting take on the Re:Zero AU, so thanks for sharing."
Thank you for the good review, and I appreciate your criticism. Sadly, I need to address a few main points you brought up. Reasoning with Emilia during the mental breakdown was not only not in Yogiri's character, but also not possible because she immediately tried to kill him, as is noted by the dark shadows of danger, which I might have failed to make clear. As for a character flaw, that's not what I'm really going for, and he won't ever have something like that. The point is not Yogiri, this story is not about Yogiri. It is about the world and how it reacts to Yogiri. I don't demonstrate his power, that's not what I'm doing here, I'm just creating interesting situations with it, for character dialogue, development of other characters, and to create a domino effect. The butterfly effect is something I favor a lot, and I think he needs to kill lots of stuff to create interesting effects. He won't be burdened, at most just a little bummed out. As for other people? Who can say how they'll react.
You were partly right about the capital's destruction and why it happened, but I don't want to demonstrate Yogiri's power. I want to demonstrate the massive scale effects on the rest of the world that his power can create by accident. Yeah I killed Emilia for that reason, pretty much. Also because the party was getting too big, which is a problem now too. I'll have to fix it somehow (sorry!). Reinhard was always burdened by his duty to protect others, so having him become a subservient butler seemed like a very happy change for him. I think it would be too sad for something bad to happen to him, but that doesn't mean he's safe :D
Guest said "autor san por favor quiero mas, leer esto me tare grandes cantidades de dopamina !"
I translated it, although I don't know what language it is, and it essentially said that my story gave him a lot of dopamine, and I should continue. Allow me to say that you were my sole inspiration to write another chapter. That being said, I'm sorry. There probably won't be another chapter for a bit. I have to catch up on Re:Zero with a lot of reading, and since they're going to the tower next, I need to get at least Arc 6, to understand how the tower works and what it is, not to mention who Reid, Shaula, and the Divine Dragon are/how they operate.
That being said, I'm writing some other stuff, so assuming all goes well, I'll have a simultaneous release of Chapter 8, and two to three new fics. They'll probably not be exactly like this one, but at least one of them will probably scratch a similar itch to this story, maybe.