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Chapter 138: With great power comes … well, something like responsibility.

The two people sitting in seiza are dressed in cloaks that completely obscure their bodies.

Perielle is standing in front of them, a smile like the smile of death on her face, lecturing them pretty fiercely.

It’s a pretty odd sight.

In front is Perielle, a very normal dark elf for this world.

Although they have more western features, their skin is very dark.

Not quite pitch-black like western drows, but more like native Africans.

Perielle’s hair is a dusty red, also pretty normal for dark elves of this world, as their hair runs the gambit from medium-brown to black, with a coppery or red hue.

In comparison, the two people in front of her are tanned, but more of darkened wheat color.

Their hair is pale blond.

Their ears are also pointy, but stick out a lot more than the ears of the elves of this world.

How to say it…

It … totally feels like a Japanese version of dark elves, with video game elf ears.

… Well, that’s probably what they are.

So basically, there are two fake dark elves sitting in front of a real dark elf – that’s how it feels to Hibiki-chan and me, anyway.

Huddled in the partially destroyed ‘safe’ house is the Extus party, with the absolutely furious noble being questioned by Ragnall and Obero.

It sounds like it’s going about as well as you’d expect, with a pushy noble who believes he’s at absolutely no fault in this conflict and the other party deserves the death sentence.

Which, I suppose is possible since I don’t know much about the situation that we found them in.

I mean, the not being at fault in this conflict, not necessarily the death sentence part.

Although I guess it’s possible for that, too, but maybe it’s just me being partial, but I’m hoping that these two almost-certainly Japanese people didn’t do something that deserves the death sentence.

Speaking of them, they had three other people with them, also dressed in cloaks that covered them up; the only difference is they have hoods covering their heads.

As for why the two ‘dark elves’ don’t have hoods… it’s the ears isn’t it?

It totally is.

The ears would keep the hoods from staying up.

Kchack!

As my mind wanders, I finish absolving the slave collar around Suzako-san’s neck, to the shock of the ‘dark elves’ and their comrades.

It’s pretty nasty~ and I don’t mean that it’s nasty like Hibiki-chan’s collar had been vicious.

It’s nasty in that the collar uses some pretty complex magic circuits and spells.

In fact, it feels like a bastardization of what I’ve seen and learned in Nyl City – like a frankenstein of methods that produced something near impossible to ever release its victims without the proper authorization.

Not that near impossible really detours me.

If someone was able to engineer it, surely it’s possible to reverse-engineer it.

And case in point, the Extus slave collar falls off of Suzako-san’s neck, into her lap, no backlash at alll.

Under the wide, surprised eyes from the other people around us, including Jira from the Scarlet , I can’t help but boast a little.

“No worries, this kind of thing is my specialty.”

Yup, that’s my explanation and I’m sticking to it.

As I twirl the collar by its buckle, showing how it’s completely broken down, Suzako-san touches her neck, dazed.

Yeah, I know, it was something that’s been plaguing you all this time, but the material isn’t that deep iron stuff like Hibiki-chan’s collar had been, and it’s so much simpler to destroy contract magic, no matter how complicated the mages in Extus could make it.

“You’re the only one who would think that, you know? But I guess that’s to be expected of someone who basically lives and breathes Light Magic.”

… Thanks for your input, Derrick.

I guess it’s just me, then.

From what Derrick has been telling me about Light Magic earlier, it’s difficult for most people to alter something like contract magic, which is something like ‘words set in the truth of the world’ once activated, whatever that means.

But since I and the other gamers were made with Light Magic, and I am someone who is practically Light Magic animated, we can manipulate Light Magic on a much more fundamental level than the normal people of this world.

Well, I can, at least.

The other gamers can probably do something like altering the contract or changing the parties involved, but I can literally … manipulate it as I wish.

Rendering it inert is pretty easy for me to do, even with the complications of the multi-layered magic circuits altered with spells developed by Extus.

… I feel like the effort that was put into making these collars apply perfect(ish) obedience and resistance of escape and removal could have been redirected into a much more useful field.

Leaving Suzako-san and Troy-san to Hibiki-chan for the moment, I turn to the more problematic side of things.

The two most-likely Japanese dark elves are looking extremely guilty in front of Perielle-san, and I’d like to know what they were doing and what they were hoping to accomplish.

But Perielle-san has a pretty hard-to-approach aura of fury… so I’m going to divert to Jira-san instead…

“So what’s going on?”

“Ah… well, you get these kind of people all the time, see… They think all Extus citizens and nobles should die, so they hunt them…”

Jira-san has a pretty complicated look on her face.

Wait, so they were basically a hit squad?

… No, if I think about it, people from Extus traveling outside of it tend to have a lot of military strength with them, so wouldn’t the people who hunt them basically act like bandits, lying in wait and picking off the weak?

Not to mention, just what are they expecting to do by hunting them?

I’d understand if it was for revenge, but … …

When I look at the other three people the two ‘dark elves’ had been traveling with, I don’t get that kind of feeling?

Although it’s just my intuition.

I frown.

“… Wait. By whacking off random Extus citizens … it’s not like Extus will care about the lives lost, but they’ll use it as political leverage and an excuse to attack and pillage Unaffiliated towns.”

I still don’t really understand why the other countries in the world would let them, but I do understand that the balance of power in this world is so fragile that everyone’s required to tolerate Extus’ ‘revenge,’ to some extent.

Furthermore, it’s difficult to gather a strong resistance against Extus because, technically, their actions aren’t really that excessive.

They want reparations against the harm done to their traveling citizens, but Unaffiliateds don’t belong to a country, or any ruling body.

So where can they get reparations?

Even if they went to the Guilds, the Adventurer Guilds and the other Guilds don’t technically hold any sway over the other Unaffiliateds.

There’s a reason they’re called ‘Unaffiliateds,’ after all.

And there’s no way the Guilds want to take responsibility from people who don’t answer to them and will endanger the other Unaffiliateds.

So Extus will take their reparations by ‘punishing’ Unaffiliated towns that must have ‘harbored’ their attackers.

It’s all really grey-area, fuzzy-lined stuff that only works because Unaffiliateds don’t really have any solidarity with each other.

Jira-san sighs and shrugs her shoulders.

“It’s not like that lot cares about the lives and fates of other people unrelated to them. Who knows what these so-called vigilantes think.”

“… So did those two attackers know about it?”

I can’t help but ask.

Jira-san raised an eyebrow.

“No-ssu. You guessed it, they didn’t~.”

“So Perielle-san’s preaching is…”

“Explaining the political climate. In. Detail~.”

No wonder those two dark elves look completely miserable.

I don’t know what the rest of their group is thinking, but for kids who grew up in Japan, they should at least know about the concept of noblesse oblige and have a natural tendency to try to take actions that don’t harm the majority, even if they don’t care about trying to benefit the majority.

And even if they didn’t care about any of that, I’m sure it’s unpleasant to feel like they’re being used as attack dogs.

I mean, they weren’t told all the ramifications of the actions they took by the people who are clearly encouraging them to take those actions; what else are they supposed to assume?

Well, I only got lucky that the people who took me in and taught me about the world were the kind people in Nyl City.

Masaki and the others were lucky that they were taken in by Carnus, even though Seimei-san had to deal with some light political intrigue.

I thought that before, when I found out some gamers had been taken in, enslaved, or even died, but I’m thinking it again, with a different sort of feeling, full of gratitude that we met people who didn’t exploit us.

Although I don’t know the details about these ‘dark elves’ and the people they’re with, so maybe I’m just overthinking things.

“… Come to think of it, on top of not having any understanding about how this worlds works, those two stopped when they saw you and Hibiki, and I’ve never seen elves like them before…”

Jira-san pauses, tapping her chin as she looks at me seriously.

“… Yeah, they’re a type of elf that exists in our homeland.”

Kind of.

The Scarlet Torch know a little bit about Hibiki-chan, me, and the other gamers.

Not nearly as much as Ragnall, but they think there was some massive accident that displaced people from our homeland into this world, so it makes sense that Jira-san was able to piece together various bits of information and come up with … an explanation.

Whether it’s the correct explanation… eh…

She continues to tap her chin, saying.

“Hm… if their situation was similar to yours and Hibiki, then the blame is probably on their comrades for not teaching them common sense. I should probably stop Perielle~”

“No, let her lecture them more. They’ve made things seriously difficult for us, after all.”

A lecture is a small price to pay for the mess they made.

After all, the noble from Extus is currently busy, but … … he’ll notice pretty soon that we released Suzako-san from her slave collar.

He probably already noticed that we snuck her out, but he wasn’t paying much attention because he thought her collar couldn’t be undone – I assume.

What a headache… …

“Y’know, we could just rewrite their memories.”

“… What?”

Jira-san raises an eyebrow, watching me curiously as I talk to Derrick.

I’m looking down at him, so there’s no question that I’m talking to Derrick.

I hope.

“Well, I couldn’t do it, but since you’re practically Light Magic incarnate, theoretically you could. I understand the theory, so I could probably coach you through it.”

“… … Wait, I’m going to have to discuss this with everybody else.”

Ragnall had the same impressions I did when he heard what Derrick was suggesting.

He sighed, running a hand down his face like he’s seen ANOTHER ridiculous thing that’s the most ridiculous thing he’s seen in his life.

“I’m uncomfortable with the idea that you can do that.”

“I agree.”

Yup.

It’s a scary thought that someone can go around changing people’s memories.

“But I’m not above using it for this fucking situation.”

“I agree.”

But DAMN if it won’t be extremely useful right now.

… Yeah, so this is going to be a thing, I guess.

It’s just way too easy a ‘fix it’.

—

It took another two hours, Ragnall had to keep knocking the party from Extus out, and I felt like a wrung out dishcloth afterwards, but it worked.

Honestly, I don’t think I could do it again without Derrick directing me, or like I don’t want to do it again anyway.

We’re keeping it a secret that I can manipulate memories, so only Ragnall and I were at the scene when I did it.

“… Fuck, I feel like I’ll die if I have to do any more, what the hell kind of thing could manipulate the memories of every single person in the world?”

I can’t help but mutter as I lay flat on the ground, Ragnall having gone off to bullshit something about using the contract magic off the slave collar to do something about the memories … I dunno.

Something.

Derrick came up with it, so it’s probably fiiiine?

Ugh… I feel like I’m going to diiiiie.

Don’t wanna move…

“It seriously is a concern, isn’t it? I’ve never manipulated memories myself, so although I knew it was difficult, I obviously don’t know how difficult. But seeing how difficult it was for you to just minutely shift the memories of less than ten people, it’s scaring me too. About how this entire world is under something similar.”

Mm…

Derrick sounds serious.

So far he’s had a kind of carefree attitude, if a bit pushy, but from how he sounds right now, it seems like he’s been hit with the weight of knowing just how different the world has become.

What happened in the time between Derrick’s past and him waking up now in the present?

Only us gamers and Derrick can sense the abnormalities.

Even when I try to discuss things with Ragnall, there’s something that seems to be preventing us from being able to tell him that the world’s apparently kind of strange.

Derrick might’ve gone crazy if he woke up in a world where he couldn’t even have a conversation about the oddities with anyone.

Although he’s a dagger, so…

As I lay there in silence, too exhausted to say anything while Derrick’s too… depressed? to say anything else, footsteps sound.

One of the ‘dark elves,’ the girl, has walked over, dragging her large, mutilated sword.

She looks like, well, like she just endured a long lecture from an irate teacher.

Although Perielle-san isn’t technically a teacher.

She stands there above me, hesitating for a second before squatting down.

“My name is Adashino Yuuri. That guy over there is my brother, Adashino Takumi. We’re from Japan, are you as well?”

Way to be subtle about it.

“Imamiya Jun. Yes.”

I may be able to recover quickly, but it’s not instantaneous, so please excuse me for answering sloppily.

There’s a moment of silence as Adashino – san? stays squatting next to me, not saying anything.

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<a/n: No other ‘extra’ story chaps because I need a break…
some new things over at [klinhcomics], but not that much…>