The Death Mage Who Doesn't Want a Fourth Time

Side Story Chapter 21: The reincarnated individuals’ counseling

Following the destruction of the ‘Death Scythe’ Konoe Kyuuji, the reincarnated individuals continued to exchange their arguments and worrying about the future.

However, they could not all come to an agreement. The reason was that Konoe Kyuuji’s words and actions had made it clear that all of the reincarnated individuals thought in a definitively different manner.

And so, Shimada Izumi and Machida Aran, in Rodcorte’s place… forced to take Rodcorte’s place, provided the reincarnated individuals with information, answered their questions and offered their opinions.

“I-in other words, it’s impossible to be reincarnated as a member of a race that he holds dear to him?!” shouted the ‘Marionette’ Inui Hajime, saliva almost flying from his mouth despite him not having a physical body.

“Yes, that’s right,” Izumi said, looking fed up. “… Incidentally, that’s the twelfth time I’ve answered that question.”

“You’re sure, right?!”

“I’m sure. Incidentally, that’s the thirteenth.”

It seemed that even Izumi, who had become a familiar spirit with no physical body and had a different sense of time, felt mental fatigue at having to answer the same question over and over.

“There’s no way we can believe you so easily, right?! You’ve stooped low enough to become minions for that fraud of a god!”

With the people asking the questions taking this kind of attitude, it couldn’t be helped that Izumi felt like it was all pointless.

And Izumi could even tell through her Inspection ability, which could see through all kinds of falsehoods, that she was being genuinely doubted.

“If you can’t trust me, then I don’t think there’s any point in asking me any questions any number of times,” she said.

It was only to be expected that she would say this and leave. Inui was not a precious companion to Izumi. He was a traitor who had sided with Murakami and the others, and Izumi knew that he hadn’t stopped Murakami and the Eighth Guidance from eliminating her and Aran.

She pitied him for the fact that he had later been betrayed by Tsuchiya Kanako, who he had thought was his ally, but she couldn’t consider him an important companion now. He was even genuinely abusing her verbally, so she didn’t want to persuade him gently.

“Damn it! Don’t look down at me! You…” Inui looked outraged for a moment after having Izumi point out something that he knew himself, but his face turned pale and he let out a shriek as he turned around and ran away.

“… This makes it look like I threatened him, doesn’t it?” Izumi muttered.

The truth was that the symptoms of Inui’s gynophobia had shown themselves. Of course, even without that phobia, it was impossible for him to harm the familiar spirit Izumi, as he himself was nothing but a human soul.

“At this rate, I don’t think he’ll think of opposing Vandalieu, so I don’t really care.”

Meanwhile, Machida Aran was answering the questions of the ‘Chronos’ Murakami Junpei and his group with a sullen expression on his face.

“So, in other words, it’s impossible to take the latest weapons from Origin and Earth?” Murakami asked.

“Yeah, it’s the same as when Kaidou Kanata was reincarnated. According to that god, everyone is naked when they’re first born,” Aran said.

“Can’t he do something about it? The chosen heroes are normally supposed to be granted a holy sword by the god, right?”

“Look here… what kind of god would give state-of-the-art weapons including crystals based on modern science and magical knowledge in place of a holy sword?”

Aran answered the questions in an exasperated tone, but Murakami didn’t seem to be satisfied with the answers. Left with no choice, he decided to elaborate. “What would you even do with state-of-the-art weapons? What about the parts needed for maintenance and the fuel needed to power them? Do you intend to make the gunpowder by hand?”

“I don’t really intend to use them multiple times. I just need to use them once. Well, that doesn’t apply for the magical media, though,” said Murakami.

What Murakami and his group wanted was a state-of-the-art stealth fighter like the one that the ‘Noah’ Mao had piloted before her death in Origin, transport helicopters, lightweight missiles that could be used to attack from afar… if possible, nuclear and hydrogen bombs. Not only those, but all kinds of various other things such as magical media that assisted in reciting and casting spells, body suits made of special materials and military-grade knives.

The reason they wanted these was so that they could use them to kill Vandalieu. It seemed that Murakami’s group had decided on becoming assassins to erase Vandalieu.

Indeed, it would be difficult even for Vandalieu to completely block a surprise attack from a tactical nuclear warhead or a hydrogen bomb.

Even without these, Murakami and his group had plenty of chance to win if they could make full use of modern weaponry with their cheat-like abilities.

However, this was a thought that had occurred to everyone. And there was a reason that this idea hadn’t been put into practice yet.

“It would be difficult even to fire these weapons once,” Aran said. “They could even explode the moment they’re brought into Lambda.”

“What?! What do you mean?” Murakami exclaimed in surprise.

Aran continued grimacing as he replied. “You guys might have forgotten this, but it’s a different world, you know? It’s only natural for the laws of physics to be different. Earth, Origin, Lambda. There are differences in the force of gravity, whether magic exists and the number of attributes. The worlds are similar, but they’re like different planets.”

Indeed, the three worlds had different laws of physics. The creation-minded champions led by Zakkart had once tried to recreate Earth’s tactical nuclear weaponry in order to defeat the Demon King. However, the goddess Vida stopped them, saying that modern weaponry designed with Earth’s laws of physics in mind would be unusable or possibly even simply explode if recreated in the exact same way in Lambda.

Even the magical media (what are known as mages’ staves) designed for Origin would have problems because the time attribute, which didn’t exist in Origin, existed in Lambda. Thus, there was no guarantee that they would have the same effect even if they were brought into Lambda exactly as they were.

“The more complicated something is to create, the more dangerous it is. Well, a lightweight missile would simply be a little different in its power and firing range, so those could probably still be used without problems, though,” Aran said.

It was Murakami’s turn to grimace as he pondered this. “What was that god trying to make us do after gathering experience in a world with different laws of physics? Our knowledge and technology aren’t going to be of any use.”

“And from what we saw with Tendou’s Clairvoyance, it looked like Vandalieu has been introducing technology and knowledge from Earth and Origin into Lambda, one after another. If what you say is true, wouldn’t that city be a mountain of rubble by now?” said the ‘Hecatoncheir’ Doug Atlas.

Aran let out a deep sigh.

“Oi, what’s with your attitude?!” Doug demanded.

“I’m tired of how stupid you guys are. What Vandalieu is doing is completely different from what you guys are asking for,” Aran said. “You guys are asking to directly bring in weapons and creations from another world, exactly as they are. On the other hand, Vandalieu was reborn in Lambda and is using resources in Lambda to recreate technology from other worlds. What Vandalieu is doing fits in with Lambda’s laws of physics.”

Even the cooking of a single dish involves all kinds of chemical reactions during the cooking process. It is as a result of these that a dish on Earth is perfected to deliciousness.

So how could the same dishes be created in the foreign world of Lambda? That was because not everything was completely different, just because it was a different world.

Of course, if the chemical reactions were studied in detail, there would certainly be differences between the worlds. However, the differences were too small to take practical notice of.

From the time that Vandalieu was cooking for himself on Earth to the time that he was reborn in Lambda, there had been a twenty-year-long blank space, during which he was able to gather information in Origin but was unable to actually test it and put it into practice. Even if Vandalieu noticed the differences in Lambda, he simply thought it was his imagination.

When the dishes weren’t delicious when cooked with the same recipe as on Earth, he just needed to conduct trial and error until they were.

“Using lye water to make ramen from wheat dough and even making soap, paper, mayonnaise and ketchup were all based on knowledge from Earth and Origin, but he would have performed trial and error to make it work well in Lambda. Hey, Murakami-san, if you manufacture the weapons you want so badly using materials that exist in Lambda and perform a lot of trial-and-error, you should be able to make something that works with Lambda’s laws of physics, you know?”

In other words, Aran was telling Murakami to build them himself after being reincarnated.

Of course, he knew that what he was saying was impossible.

“Look here… you know that we’d have no way to create modern-day weapons on our own using the required parts when we don’t even know the methods needed to make those parts,” said Murakami.

Metal parts could be made to some extent by hiring a blacksmith. But there was no way that Murakami and the others had remembered all of the parts needed for a state-of-the-art stealth fighter or transport helicopters, and the parts were made of alloys rather than iron or copper.

And going from machine-creating to hand-creating the semiconductors needed in the computers controlling the fuselages was definitely impossible.

Did the fuel needed to power these war machines even exist in Lambda?

Even if Murakami and his allies spent years of effort, it was questionable as to whether they could even create a human-powered aircraft that operated by pedaling to turn the propellers.

“Tch, so it would be muskets or cannons that use gunpowder at best, huh,” Murakami muttered.

“Magic would have more power than that, and be easier to use, too,” said Doug.

“Signal flares would probably be useful, but… isn’t it better to not rely on weapons, then?” said the ‘Odin’ Hasamada Aki.

“Ah, really, I wonder how he intended for us to develop the world,” the ‘Venus’ Tsuchiya Kanako sighed.

“I don’t really intend to defend him…” Aran said. “I’ve said it over and over, but there are no problems with using trial-and-error using knowledge from Earth and Origin after being reincarnated in Lambda. And we never heard anything about killing Vandalieu when we were reborn in Origin. He probably wasn’t really hoping that we’d make weapons.”

“But despite that, the creation of gunpowder is apparently forbidden in that ‘Lambda’ world. It’s a world where a god who denies the knowledge of other worlds holds a lot of power, right?” said Murakami.

“About that, the god (Rodcorte himself) thought that we would make things work out with hard work, since we were the ones chosen by him. There are a hundred and one of us, and even if a hundred of us failed, he thought that it would be fine as long as the last one succeeded.”

“… That god is a thorough piece of sheet. I’m starting to wonder whether that’s actually harder than killing Vandalieu.”

The truth was that even if the reincarnated individuals didn’t bring their knowledge from other worlds into Lambda, Rodcorte would have considered it development for the world if they used their magic and cheat-like abilities to exterminate beings that threatened the prosperity of the races he considered to be people, the humans, Elves and Dwarves… while pressing the Dark Elves, Scylla and Vampires to extinction or a near-extinction state.

Now that Murakami finally seemed convinced, Aran asked him a question in return.

“More importantly, I have a question. Why do you trust what I say? You’re the one who killed me, you know, Murakami-san?”

Indeed, Murakami was the criminal who had killed Aran and Izumi. The two of them would certainly feel hatred and a desire for revenge against him.

But Murakami’s face remained the same as he answered, seeming bored. “Yeah, that’s why I asked you in detail. Why we can’t do things, why we can do things, I’ll ask about everything and then ask the god the same thing later. If the god says something different, and what he says is inconvenient to you, then that makes you a liar.”

“Guh, you know all about that idiot!” Aran groaned.

Rodcorte generally did not tell lies. At times where it was inconvenient for him, he would simply say, “I cannot do that,” or, “I cannot say,” but would not give any detailed reasons as to why he could not do or say something.

There were also cases where he never stated his true intentions from the beginning, but he didn’t tell clever lies and was probably incapable of doing so.

This was likely due to his personality rather than some restriction having been placed on him.

Of course, he couldn’t be trusted, since he was always looking down on the reincarnated individuals from above. However, for Murakami, who intended to kill Vandalieu, Rodcorte was more trustworthy than Aran.

“… Though this is an obvious question, why are you guys thinking about killing Vandalieu? You guys are clearly at way too much of a disadvantage,” said Aran. “As Death Scythe showed us before, he won’t be killed just by stopping his heart. Even if you could kill him, he might just turn into an Undead unless that stupid god does something about it. He has over a billion Mana and he’s more of a cheat than us, even though he doesn’t have any cheat-like abilities. There’s even a mountain of enemies willing to protect him. And even after you guys are reincarnated, he won’t stop growing stronger. And the nail in the coffin is that he can break your souls and destroy you in a way that you won’t ever come back.”

Murakami and his companions were certainly strong. Even without their equipment and state-of-the-art weapons from Origin, they would be able to compete with B-class adventurers in Lambda as they were now.

This was especially true for the ‘Odin’ Hasamada Aki, the ‘Hecatoncheir’ Doug Atlas and the ‘Chronos’ Murakami Junpei. These three had possessed some of the greatest fighting strength among the Bravers.

However, Aran couldn’t imagine that they would be able to defeat Vandalieu, even if they combined their strength.

“You’ve been promised a blessed fourth life like Kaidou Kanata, but it’s clearly not worth it, is it?” Aran said.

“Our ways of thinking are different,” Murakami said in response. “I don’t think there’s much of a point in keeping this quiet from you, so I’ll tell you. That guy intends to kill us. He was looking at us when that useless Konoe attacked him. That’s why we have to kill him no matter what, before we get killed. And since there’s a reward that comes with it, there’s nothing more to be said. The choice is obvious.”

“If I were him, I’d try to kill us.”

“I don’t want a life where I’m just trying to hide so that he doesn’t find me.”

“And that god will apparently help us out more than he did with Kanata, so things will probably work out.”

Given the values of Murakami and his companions, it was only natural for them to decide that it was highly likely that Vandalieu would actively try to kill them. With that being the case, it went without saying that they would think of counterattacking rather than simply being killed.

“Oi, according to my Calculation, the probability of him actively trying to kill you guys is -” Aran began.

“At this point, no matter how low that number is, it might suddenly increase later. There’s no point in that calculation,” Murakami Junpei said as he turned his back to Aran and left.

The other reincarnated individuals followed after him. Aran watched them leave with an irritated expression.

Aran didn’t really care whether Murakami and his companions died or not. He probably wouldn’t feel sympathy for them even if their souls were destroyed.

However, they intended to become Vandalieu’s enemies, and if Vandalieu were to see this as all of the reincarnated individuals working together and actively tried to kill Aran’s Braver companions, it would be a serious problem.

“Considering that he has no way of actively finding us, we could hide if we were to be reborn as babies, but since it’s him we’re talking about, there’s no guarantee that he won’t gain some unfair skill like ‘Sense Reincarnators’…” Aran muttered.

“Can I have a word?” said a voice.

“Uwah! … It’s you. What do you want?”

Aran had thought that everyone had left with Murakami, but the ‘Aegis’ Melissa J. Sautome had remained behind.

“I have a question. Origin and Lambda are different worlds, so why can Vandalieu use death-attribute magic in the same way?” she asked.

Aran was confused by Melissa’s question, but he quickly decided that it was fine and gave an answer. “It’s not that he can use it in the same way; it just looks that way. The fine points should be different… I think. To begin with, death-attribute magic is irregular in both worlds. Rules might not be relevant for a previously-undiscovered foreign magic.”

Aran and the others didn’t know this, but the truth was that the Counter ability of Ereshkigal, who had become a part of Legion, could now only counter damage received from the last enemy that had attacked.

Of course, Vandalieu had relearned death-attribute magic on his own from scratch due to the ‘Experience gained in previous life not carried over,’ so he wasn’t aware of any differences from Origin.

“I see… then in the end, it’s likely that he can do the same things. I have another question. Does Vitality in Lambda apply in all cases? Like when someone’s throat is cut by a knife or when they receive an attack that ignores defenses?” Melissa asked.

“Wow, that’s quite a dangerous question… it generally applies,” Aran said. “Of course, the amount of damage increases depending on where the attack hits, so it’s not meaningless to aim for vital spots. But you can consider it impossible for a hero in that world to be caught off-guard and die from a single attack from a regular person.”

On Earth and in Origin, no matter how battle-hardened a hero was, they could die very simply. However, in Lambda, where the rule of Vitality (HP) existed, that would not happen.

Even if a hero’s throat was slit by a regular person or a nameless soldier, even if they were stabbed in the spleen from behind, they would not be fatally wounded. In some cases, they would not even be scratched.

“There are the concepts of attack power, defense power and skills. Defense power is made mostly meaningless if the attack lands through gaps in armor, but those with the Physical Resistance skill have skin that’s like armor,” Aran said.

“So even lightweight missiles wouldn’t cause any problems, even if they landed.”

“… So, you noticed.”

Indeed, beings that could withstand an attack from a lightweight missile were not rare in Lambda. Such missiles would likely defeat Rank 4 monsters such as Orc Soldiers, but even a direct hit would not inflict a fatal wound on a Rank 7 Earth Dragon. Such a hit would feel like nothing more than a somewhat strong punch to a Rock Dragon.

Among Talosheim’s members, the ‘Sword King’ Borkus doesn’t even need to be mentioned; even Miles, who was currently on a business trip with the Sauron Liberation Front, would undoubtedly simply ignore the hit from the missile and go on to kill the person who shot it with his bare hands.

Class adventurers would remain unharmed if they used Shield Technique and Armor Technique skills, and depending on their equipment, even D-class adventurers might get away with minor injuries. Even if they were hit in a bad place, they would not receive a fatal wound.

“Then what about a musket?” Melissa asked.

“Well, it would be impossible to kill a D-class adventurer unless you hit them right in the eye or the mouth. I don’t think the bullet would pierce the skull even if it hit the head. Even normal soldiers wouldn’t die in one shot through their helmets. One shot might kill mages that have low Vitality, though,” Aran said. “As for monsters… it depends on what kind of monsters they are, but you’d get the idea if I tell you that a Rank 3 monster is about the same as a bear, right?”

It was difficult for even a skilled hunter to kill a bear with a single shot. That difficulty wouldn’t be any less if the bear was replaced by a three-meter-long huge boar or a fast-moving carnivorous dinosaur.

And considering a musket’s range, the shooter would normally be counterattacked in Lambda. Even if only melee-range weapons were available, if one was skilled enough, martial skills that released slashes and impacts such as Flying Slash existed.

Well-penetrating, highly lethal sniper rifles, assault rifles with high rates of fire and high-power anti-tank rifles might be different, but it seemed that guns were not very effective weapons in Lambda.

The only difference was Vandalieu’s Cannon Technique, but a cannon using vast quantities of Mana as a propulsion force and projectiles made of a magical metal or fragments of the Demon King that could even slay gods could not be put into the same category as the guns and cannons of Earth and Origin.

“I see. So, what about attacks that ignore defense?” Melissa asked.

“… I don’t want to answer that question,” Aran said. “That’s clearly a question as to how effective Amamiya’s Ignore Defense will be in Lambda, isn’t it?”

“Then you don’t have to answer it. That response gave me a good enough idea.”

The cheat-like ability possessed by Amemiya Hiroto, Ignore Defense, which had its inconveniences but was considered to be overwhelmingly powerful in Origin. However, it seemed that it would not be as much of a threat in Lambda as in Origin, due to the existence of the concept of Vitality.

Having decided this from Aran’s reaction, Melissa asked her next question, not caring about making him give a proper answer.

“Is it possible for us to be reincarnated in Lambda right after we die, like Kanata said?” she asked.

This was the reason Kanata had been destroyed by Vandalieu.

“It’s possible, but difficult,” Aran answered. “It places a burden on the system. Once might be doable, but being reincarnated in an adult’s body the moment after you’re killed is impossible.”

Rodcorte was using a system to conduct reincarnation. That system denied the resurrection of any dead person.

The reincarnated individuals tricked the system by being reborn as babies, but being revived in the same adult body as one possessed before being killed was no different from resurrection.

As a result, it would place a burden on the system.

“So that means we can’t redo things over and over… thanks, that’s all,” Melissa said as she turned her back to Aran.

With this, I’ve decided who I’m going to bet on, she thought.

Meanwhile, Rodcorte was devising a concrete method of destroying Vida’s circle of transmigration system and absorbing the souls of Vida’s races that didn’t originate from monsters… the evil gods who were the remnants of the Demon King’s army, into his own system.

“Vida’s destruction is necessary after all. However, looking at it another way, taking over her system will be simple once Vida is destroyed. The problem is, how will Alda destroy Vida when he is unable to destroy souls…”

If this method became possible, he would not only grant Alda’s request, but also increase the number of souls flowing into Rodcorte’s system, meaning that more of them could be used as fighting strength for erasing Vandalieu.

He had gained information from the memories of the Humans and Dwarves of the Hartner Duchy’s cultivation villages when Vandalieu brought them to Talosheim, though this information was only from the short period from before they were guided to the Demon Path.

Beyond the Boundary Mountain Range, Vandalieu had a nation in the southern region of the Bahn Gaia continent, where the goddess slumbered, and he called himself the ‘Holy Son of Vida.’ With that being the case, he was unlikely to run if Alda’s forces attacked.

And those who worshipped Alda would not ignore a nation that considered monsters such as Undead, Ghouls, Vampires and Lizardmen its citizens and worshipped Vida and the evil gods that had allied themselves with her.

Rodcorte did not exist in Lambda, but Alda did. It would be difficult to stop his forces from labeling Zuruwarn, the god of space and creation, and Ricklent, the genie of time and space, as evil.

“Hmm… if she is attacked with more persistency, her power is decreased and her believers fall sharply in number, she should fall from divinity. I suppose I shall go with this method,” Rodcorte decided.

“Oi, answer my question! Broken souls can’t be fixed, right?!” said the ‘Mage Masher’ Minami Asagi, interrupting Rodcorte’s thoughts.

“… How many times must I answer that for you to understand?” Rodcorte asked him.

“I want to make sure. Because I can’t trust you. I’m asking you the same question over and over to help decide whether you’re lying or not.”

Rodcorte was slightly impressed. There were few humans that acted this arrogantly towards gods.

“… It is not impossible to join the fragments of a broken soul together to recycle it as a different soul,” he said.

“Really?! Then -”

“However, this is different from the resurrection that you are imagining. It would only result in a distorted soul that does not possess the personality or the memories of either Konoe Kyuuji or Kaidou Kanata.”

As Rodcorte said this, he suddenly remembered something. A hundred thousand years ago, he had gathered the soul fragments of Zakkart and Ark and combined them into a single soul to ensure that Vida would not resurrect the dead.

He had watched numerous reincarnations of this soul as it flowed through his system, but it had not shown anything unnatural, so he had left it alone and forgotten about it.

“If you do not trust me, you can simply ask Machida Aran and Shimada Izumi. Why are you asking me?” Rodcorte asked.

To Minami Asagi, the two who had become Rodcorte’s familiar spirits should have been trustworthy companions. Despite that, he was making the effort of questioning Rodcorte, whom he declared untrustworthy, and Rodcorte couldn’t understand this.

Asagi quickly answered this question. “That’s right, but there might be some things that Aran and Izumi don’t know. Even if I asked those two these things directly, something like what happened before might happen again. That’s why I’m going to question you and then have Aran, Kouya and Tendou analyze your answers.”

By ‘something like what happened before,’ he was likely referring to how Aran and Izumi had become unable to move when Konoe Kyuuji had tried to use the ‘Clairvoyance’ Tendou to attack before the others could get a chance.

Humans who had ascended to becoming familiar spirits generally had free wills, but when they directly interfered with the gods they served or clearly violated the rules that had been imposed on them, they became unable to move.

Asagi was likely wary that this could happen if questions that were inconvenient to Rodcorte happened to be asked.

It seemed that there was more thought behind his actions than Rodcorte had thought.

“So then, why is it that you are honestly admitting this to me?” Rodcorte asked.

“You can read what we’re thinking anyway, right? So then, there’s no point in hiding it,” Asagi said.

“Indeed, that is true.”

Realizing that Asagi also possessed the courage and strength of will that he had originally thought, Rodcorte revised his view of him.

On top of being aware that his thoughts were being read, Asagi was acting genuinely arrogant before a being who was absolutely superior to himself. Leaving aside whether that had any meaning or not, it was something that normal humans could not do.

In fact, Rodcorte knew that Asagi’s thoughts were the same as the words he spoke.

“But why would you wish for the resurrection of those two? You people no longer consider them your companions, do you?” Rodcorte asked.

Kaidou Kanata had conducted acts such as abducting female criminals and murdering them after raping them, then concealing their corpses. When another reincarnated individual’s mother in Origin met an accident that left her on the verge of death, he had considered this fortunate and sold her organs after ending her life; he had truly disgraced the Bravers.

Konoe Kyuuji could be considered to be better than him, but he was a traitor who had joined the Eighth Guidance with Murakami Junpei.

Even though they had been destroyed, these two were not people whom Asagi should have been concerned about.

However, it seemed that Asagi had different thoughts.

“It’s true that I can’t consider them to be my companions,” he said. “In fact, I think they deserved to die for the things they did. Aran and the others aren’t worried about those two being destroyed, either. I know that the things Amamiya did were because he had no choice but to protect himself. But if you ask me whether they did something that made them deserve to have their souls broken, then I…”

It seemed that Asagi’s thoughts as an individual were prompting him to investigate whether Kaidou Kanata and Konoe Kyuuji’s souls could be rebuilt.

However -

“That is quite the meaningless thing that you are worrying about,” Rodcorte remarked.

“What?!”

“Ah, my apologies. It seems that I have accidentally spoken my true thoughts out loud.”

“Are you trying to pick a fight with me?!”

“Why would I pick a fight with someone who cannot fight back? You are worrying about a truly meaningless thing, so that is simply what I thought.”

Asagi was enraged.

Rodcorte decided to explain as he took small break. “It seems that you are worrying about whether those two committed acts worthy of having their souls broken, but the fitting punishment for one’s acts will change depending on one’s views. If there are some who say that someone deserves death for his crimes, there will be others saying that death is too harsh a punishment,” he said. “It is a problem to me when any souls are broken, so I can say that those two should not have had their souls broken. That is all.”

“… You don’t understand at all, do you? It makes me feel strange when a god himself says something like that. And aren’t you the one who let Konoe die?” Asagi said.

“Would you like me to explain my reasons for that once more? Based on what I can read of your thoughts, you have quite the complete understanding of them.”

“Sheet, you’re not a god after all!” Asagi spat as he turned his back to Rodcorte and left.

It seemed that today’s questioning would end here.

What support the reincarnated individuals would actually get after being reborn in Lambda, how their previous experience would be reflected in their skills, whether their other memories would remain intact when their memories regarding the circle of reincarnation systems were deleted as they were reborn, whether they could choose their parents if they were reborn as babies, whether they could choose the place they started if they were reborn as adults… Asagi had asked numerous questions, but Rodcorte interpreted this as him thinking more seriously, and held higher expectations of him than he had in Kaidou Kanata.

“Now then, I suppose I will give my response to Alda.”

“In other words, what I felt wasn’t wrong. Amamiya, I’m definitely going to stop you,” Asagi murmured.