Dean F. ($25), Alexander T. ($30), Jacob N.L. ($10), Teresa M. ($10), Johari N. ($20), Ryan H. ($10), Christopher YP. ($20), Marvin L. ($10), Michael G. ($20), Jevin U. ($20), Jacob K. ($10), Zachary Z. ($10), Sandra P. ($10), Charles O. ($20), Nathan Rasheed ($31) are all our wonderful sponsors for this chapter, thank you all very much.
Generally speaking, humans were not considered to have any sub-races. However, there were slight differences in appearance and physique between humans depending on the region in which they were born.
There had apparently once been a time when those born in the north had skin as white as snow, while those born in the south had skin colors that ranged from dark brown to almost completely black, and many of those born in between had more yellow-looking skin. There had even been some differences in their musculature and internal organs.
According to one theory, the descendants of the humans who lived in the south with Zantark, the war-god of fire and destruction, and Botin, mother of the earth and goddess of craftsmanship, were dark-skinned. The descendants of the humans who lived to the north with Peria, the goddess of water and knowledge, and Shizarion, the god of wind and art, were white-skinned. The descendants of the humans living with the rest of the gods were yellow-skinned.
“But after the war against the Demon King Guduranis, the few humans that were left were all gathered in one place. In the process of the population growing to the size that it is now, their genes proceeded to mix. This caused their features to become more standard, to the point that the differences between them were too small to appear on their Statuses. As a result, it is said… or perhaps I should say that it was said, that there are no sub-races of humans,” Luciliano explained calmly.
“I see. This is a different world, so it has its own different history,” said Doug with a stiff look on his face. “So… why have you stripped and taken a pose?” he asked Luciliano. “Depending on your answer, I’m gonna have to punch you in the face.”
“Stripped? I have only taken the clothes off my upper body so far. And if you are going to punch me, I request that you do it with your fist rather than your telekinesis. Your telekinesis might kill me, after all,” said Luciliano.
“Since your race has changed, you’re checking if there has been any change to your body,” said Melissa. “Stuff that you can’t check on your Status, like your skeleton, your muscle structure, the position of your internal organs and how many organs you have.”
“Indeed. Melissa-kun’s insight is very helpful,” said Luciliano.
He had already recorded the changes to his Status, including the fact that he had become a Dark Human. He was now examining his own body to see if there had been any changes that were not displayed on his Status. He was not only palpating the surface of his body, but using spells to examine himself as well.
Luciliano seemed restless at the fact that his own race had changed, but… that seemed to be because of excitement and curiosity.
“I have acquired several Skills including ‘Status Effect Resistance,’ but I wish to see whether this is a racial characteristic of Dark Humans or whether that is due to my own individual qualities. But it would be difficult for you to answer my questions calmly, would it not? That is why I am examining my own body!” Luciliano explained.
The former slave girls were even more excited than he was; some of them had burst into tears of joy. Luciliano considered himself rather considerate for not forcefully investigating their bodies.
“And yet you’re half-naked and standing in a questionable pose in front of those very girls that you say would be unable to answer your questions calmly,” Doug pointed out.
Indeed, what Luciliano considered to be ‘being considerate’ was often meaningless in the eyes of others.
“It’s fine as long as he keeps it limited to just his upper body. There are plenty of Ghouls and Titans that dress that way, after all,” said Melissa, having more pressing matters on her mind. “More importantly, has your examination told you anything more about you guys? It would be troublesome if you’ve become weak to sunlight or your skin gets burned by silver.”
“There is no way to know just yet. For now, we know that our skeletons, our organ positions and organ counts have not changed,” said Luciliano. “I am not sure about sunlight, since we are underground, but… silver should not be a problem. After all, it seems that Doug-kun’s skin is not burning even while being embraced by you while you are wearing a silver pendant.”
Melissa half-closed her eyes, and Doug’s cheeks turned red.
“… Considering that you were on the verge of collapse yourself, you’re pretty observant,” Melissa remarked.
“Indeed. I am a researcher, after all,” said Luciliano. “It seems that the Dwarves and Beast-kin have become races other than Dark Humans, however –”
“I’ve changed from being a wolf-type Beast-kin to a Magic Wolf-type Dark Beast-kin! I’ve learned the ‘Beast Transformation’ Skill!” said a former Beast-kin girl, who had grown a little more fur on her ears and tail.
“We’ve become a race called ‘Dvergr!’ Some of us have turned completely black, and others have turned completely white!” said one of the former Dwarf girls.
As she said, the skin color of the former Dwarves had changed.
Luciliano nodded, then turned around to talk to the pseudo-main-body-type Demon King Familiar. “Well, I shall examine them, investigate what kinds of special characteristics their races have and then report to you later. Is that alright with you, Master?” he asked.
“I don’t mind. It seems that there isn’t anyone whose mutation has caused their Attribute Values to decrease or caused any health problems. I’ll take your report when Melissa returns to the city of Morksi. Also, could you please check on Knochen and Bone Man who are with Kanako and the others? … Those two have absorbed the bones of the Demon King, so there might be some effects on them as well,” said the Demon King Familiar, who had been conducting its own examinations using death-attribute magic. “But before that, please put some clothes on. And please make sure to not take the clothes off the bottom half of your body in front of everyone.”
Meanwhile, in the Commerce Guild in the city of Morksi, Vandalieu described what he had seen through the eyes of the pseudo-main-body-type Demon King Familiar to Darcia.
“I’m glad that everyone has mutated as they wanted and are still okay. I didn’t expect even the Beast-kin to transform as well as the humans and Dwarves, but since I can transform Elves into Chaos Elves as well, the whole world can become members of Vida’s races now,” Darcia said with a smile.
“The Dark Humans and the other new races mutated as a result of drinking my blood and the effects of my ‘Bestower’ Job, so I’m not sure you can call them Vida’s races,” said Vandalieu.
“That’s true. But when human or Dwarf reincarnated individuals want to join us in the future, you can mutate them without having to wait for them to be guided.”
“… That would probably be quite a mental obstacle for the reincarnated individuals in and of itself.”
“And Vandalieu, that Divine Protection’s whole name has finally been displayed! As expected, it’s ‘Vandalieu’s Divine Protection!’” Darcia exclaimed excitedly.
The Divine Protection whose letters had been concealed on people’s Statuses. Its title was clear now, and Darcia lifted Vandalieu into the air in joy.
Even though Vandalieu’s ‘Silence’ spell prevented the receptionist and other Guild employees from hearing their conversation, they were startled by Darcia’s attention-drawing actions. But Darcia didn’t seem to mind.
Vandalieu didn’t really mind either. After all, they were already drawing attention because they were a Dark Elf mother and Dhampir son. And even if they were a little eccentric, it was a small thing in the big scheme of things.
“Hmm, it’s finally been fully revealed… I can’t deny it anymore,” said Vandalieu.
The truth was out… though all of Vandalieu’s companions, including Darcia herself, had long since realized that it was probably Vandalieu’s Divine Protection.
However, Vandalieu hadn’t really wanted to acknowledge this.
“I’m sure it’s because you acquired the ‘Bestower’ Job. I don’t think you’ll be able to prevent a big statue of yourself from being built anymore,” said Darcia.
One of the reasons Vandalieu hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it was because he wanted to prevent Nuaza, who was essentially the leader of the Church of Vida, from erecting statues of him.
Nuaza was always spending his days telling Vandalieu that if he were a being equivalent to a god, capable of granting others a Divine Protection, then he shouldn’t mind having large stone statues of himself erected.
“… It’s not like I gave these Divine Protections on purpose. Of course, I’m glad that it’s of use to everyone,” Vandalieu added.
“Vandalieu-san, your paperwork has been completed. Please come to the front desk,” said the receptionist, calling out to him from the desk.
“Ah, yes,” said Vandalieu.
Still holding him up in the air, Darcia brought him to the front desk. The receptionist was waiting with a sad expression on her face.
“This is your Commerce Guild temporary registration card. Please take care of it, as a fee will be charged for the re-issuing of a new one if it is damaged or lost,” she said.
“Ah… I understand,” said Vandalieu.
“You did it, Vandalieu!” Darcia cheered happily.
Acquiring a Guild registration card in his hands, Vandalieu let out a small breath of wonder.
Temporary registration cards were normally made of the same material as Guild Cards, but it did not have Vandalieu’s name written on it, nor did it have the function of displaying his Status. However, once he had officially passed the trial, the temporary registration card would be processed into an official Guild Card.
And even temporary registration cards could be used as proof of one’s identity, just like official Guild Cards.
“And… I’m sorry, but the location designated for your food cart is the alley on 4th East Street, between the ‘Seven-colored Mist’ and the ‘Evening Mug,’” the receptionist said, looking down and apologizing as she notified Vandalieu of the location for his business.
But this location was a place that Vandalieu had heard of before.
“4th East Street?” Vandalieu repeated, setting his excitement aside, confirming the location.
The receptionist gave a sympathetic look and nodded, not at Vandalieu, but at Darcia. “Yes, 4th East Street. There will be a penalty imposed if we learn that you have set up your food cart in any other location. We do not ordinarily accept location change requests… The Guild Master is away for business; he will be absent from the middle of this month until the beginning of the month after next month. Even if you appealed directly to the Deputy Guild Masters other than Joseph-san…”
“From the sound of it, it seems that this 4th East Street is a very problematic location,” said Chipuras, keeping himself hidden and whispering in a voice that only Vandalieu and Darcia could hear. “Perhaps a slum quarter, or a place with poor public order that guards do not patrol… I did think that it was strange for that small man to back down so quietly after Vandalieu-sama refused his offer, but it seems that his harassment has already begun.”
Judging from the receptionist’s words, Joseph had used his authority as a Deputy Guild Master to harass Vandalieu, just to the extent where it would not yet be illegal.
Harassment that was not against the law was very troublesome. The guards would not respond to any pleas for help, after all.
“I understand how troublesome it is to be on the receiving side of it. Vandalieu-sama, let us brainwash him, make him our puppet and then silence him later,” suggested Chipuras.
“No, it’s not that bad. In fact, it’s rather convenient,” said Vandalieu, replying through telepathy that the living could not hear.
He nodded at the receptionist and turned to walk away from the desk.
“Umm… Please be careful,” said the receptionist. “You too, Ma’am… A man called the ‘Starving Wolf’ Michael arrived recently and took control of the area… He’s apparently a dangerous person.”
“Thank you. I’ll be careful,” Darcia said with a smile.
It seemed that there were some faults in the quality of the Deputy Guild Master as a human, but the receptionist was a good person… though this could have just been because Joseph did terrible things on a daily basis.
“So, Vandalieu, what kind of a place is this 4th East Street?” Darcia asked.
“… It’s the entertainment district, where the base of Eleanora and the others’ criminal organization is. I’m not sure where between the ‘Seven-colored Mist’ and the ‘Evening Mug’ is, though,” said Vandalieu.
Joseph’s harassment ended up being not much of a harassment for Vandalieu after all.
Heinz, the leader of the Five-colored Blades, learned through first-hand experience just what it was like to have one’s soul damaged.
I don’t understand. The state I’m in… I can’t tell whether the things I can’t remember are because of the damage, or because I’d already forgotten them. My emotions… Nothing comes out, not even guilt or sadness. Am I being crushed by my sense of defeat? Or is it because the part of my soul that rules over my emotions is damaged? he wondered.
“Your soul is different from your mind, Heinz,” said Mill, the goddess of slumber, explaining his current state in a gentle voice. “Memories and emotions function normally only when the soul is inside the body. Your soul is currently separated from your body. Your memories and emotions are unclear partially because of that reason.”
The maintenance of memories required the brain, which was a part of the body, and emotions were heavily influenced by the body as well. This was the reason that many Undead had parts of their memories missing and were overwhelmed by their negative emotions.
Then what kind of state am I in now that my soul is damaged? Heinz asked.
“Unfortunately, I do not know,” said Mill.
Heinz’s thoughts froze as he heard her gentle-sounding and yet unsettling answer.
“Heinz, there are things that even gods do not know. Ordinarily, those with souls as damaged as yours would not survive,” Mill continued.
Attacks from weapons made from magical metals such as Orichalcum or great spells cast by elite mages could harm the soul, which was otherwise untouchable.
But such an attack would be fatal to the body of the one who received it, and they would die soon afterwards. No soul had ever been separated from its physical body with only the soul in a damaged state like Heinz’s was now.
“And the souls whose lives have ended return to the circle of transmigration. A very small number of them are invited by the gods to ascend to become familiar spirits, heroic spirits or subordinate gods, but any damage to their souls are repaired before their ascendancy. We do not know exactly what kind of state a human would be in when their soul is damaged but they are still alive,” said Mill. “But we can make conjectures.”
Mill went on to describe these conjectures.
Decreased Attribute Values, lost Skills, lower Skill Levels. Mana not recovering to its maximum amount due to the damage to the soul. And once the soul was returned to the body, there would be times where the limbs and body would become paralyzed or suddenly begin to hurt.
And, as expected, the loss of memories, emotions and senses…
“However, Heinz, your soul is currently receiving treatment in my Divine Realm. Sleeping heals people… Once this treatment is finished and you are returned to your body, you should not be plagued by any heavy symptoms,” said Mill.
Though treatment would have been impossible if the soul had been broken and destroyed, Mill was a goddess whose authority was related to healing; her treatment would heal a wounded soul.
But Heinz was not worried about himself.
But what about my companions? he asked, worried for his allies.
“… Jennifer and Diana have not sustained any soul damage. It seems that the Demon King made no effort to harm their souls. Delizah is also fine. Her wounds are lighter than yours,” Mill replied, giving him a brief overview of their current states. “But Edgar is in a terrible state… It is uncertain what will become of him.”
Heinz was greatly agitated upon hearing the news about Edgar.
“His soul was on the verge of being broken, and in ordinary circumstances, it would have been impossible to prevent his memories and personality from eroding away, causing him to become completely disabled. It would have been impossible for me to treat him,” Mill continued, explaining Edgar’s state in more detail. “He is currently undergoing treatment performed by a god who rules over souls, but… even if the destruction of his soul is prevented, he may not return as the same person,” she said, speaking vaguely of Rodcorte.
Ordinarily, it would not have been a good idea to instill shock in someone who was undergoing treatment, but after the wounds on Heinz’s soul were repaired, he would have to fight against the Demon King… Vandalieu.
Mill could not keep his companions’ state a secret.
The Demon King… That Dhampir boy, Vandalieu. His hatred is directed only towards me, Delizah and Edgar. No, that’s not right. In a five-on-one situation, he possessed enough strength and clarity of will to spare Diana and Jennifer. That’s how it was, said Heinz, feeling a sense of defeat that was like a gaping hole in his chest.
During the battle, Heinz and his companions had been unaware that Vandalieu was capable of breaking and devouring souls, but they had fought with all of their strength. However, Vandalieu had the reasoning capability and, most likely, a conscience that made him narrow down the targets of his revenge. This was why Heinz felt defeated.
“Heinz, you are mistaken. The Demon King did indeed refrain from attacking your two companions’ souls, but that was almost certainly not because the Demon King made an effort to hold his strength back against them,” said Mill.
Even so, Mill, attacking their souls would not have been any burden to him, just as holding himself back wouldn’t have been any burden to him either. The fact that he did not attack their souls means… he really has narrowed down the targets of his revenge, said Heinz, denying Mill’s words.
He went through all of his own memories that he was able to recollect, trying to remember as much about Vandalieu as possible. The way he had fought was something that no ordinary human would be able to replicate.
But it was an undeniable fact that he had not attacked the souls of the two who were uninvolved with his mother’s death, and that he had immediately sacrificed himself to defend his mother even though he knew that it was a fake.
Compared to that, I’m… With this, I’m not sure which of us is the Demon King, said Heinz.
“Heinz, you are mistaken. It is true that he has some valid words and morals. However, there is no mistake that his acts will bring disorder upon the world, and that he will go on to become a calamity to all of humanity –”
That Demon King! The one who made him that Demon King is none other than me! … Because I sold his mother out… he has become so grotesque, and he has become a dreadful being who destroys gods! Heinz shouted, cutting Mill off.
The past incident in which Heinz had received a request at the Adventurers’ Guild in the Mirg shield-nation, captured Darcia and handed her over to High Priest Gordan. Up until his battle against Vandalieu, Heinz had found peace with it, that it was something that could not be helped… or at least, told himself that he had found peace with it.
But even for a Dhampir, Vandalieu’s appearance and the way he fought had been too grotesque, and he possessed enough strength to overwhelm Heinz and his companions. Heinz had witnessed it all. Learning from Mill that Vandalieu possessed a repulsive ability to devour souls that surpassed Guduranis, and having been defeated by Vandalieu in battle, his justifications for his actions in the past had broken down.
He and his companions were the ones who had created the circumstances that had given birth to a being that the gods referred to as the Demon King. He was painfully aware that everything he had said to Vandalieu during the battle had come back to haunt him.
The fate of the Mirg shield-nation’s expedition army and his former companion, the ‘Green Wind Spear’ Riley, and the events that had occurred in the Hartner and Sauron Duchies – Heinz bore responsibility for all of these.
But that was only true if everyone, including Heinz, could have predicted these outcomes.
“Heinz… You are mistaken,” said Mill for a third time. “Even if you had not accepted Earl Thomas Palpapek’s request through the Adventurers’ Guild, eventually, another adventurer or one of Saint Gordan’s apprentices would have captured the Dark Elf, and she would still have been executed.”
At the time of the incident, Darcia was a D-class adventurer at most. From the moment it was known that she was hiding near the town of Evbejia, it was inevitable that she would be captured whether Heinz had accepted the request to capture her or not.
And in the end, Vandalieu would have still aspired to take revenge. The only difference would have been that the Five-colored Blades would not be the target of that revenge.
Even so… If I had taken steps to save her and the baby Vandalieu – Heinz began, believing that this would have changed the outcome of events.
But this time, it was Mill who cut his words off. “That would have been impossible,” she said.
At the time, Heinz had reached B-class despite his youth, but that didn’t change the fact that he was nothing more than a mere adventurer. If he had tried to help Darcia and Vandalieu escape, it would have resulted in him crossing swords with High Priest Gordan, and there was a significant chance that he would have been defeated.
And would it be possible to decide to go against the law of the nation that one was raised in and the teachings of one’s god, throw away all of one’s own past achievements and bear the dishonor of being a criminal? It was doubtful that the Five-colored Blades – Heinz, Delizah, Edgar and the now-deceased Martina – would have been capable of doing that back then.
At the very least, it was certain that persuading Riley to do so would have failed.
I… know that. I am not conceited enough to believe that everything would have been possible for me. But I bear the responsibility for bringing about the events that caused Vandalieu to become the Demon King, said Heinz. I can no longer deny that… I can no longer keep fooling myself into thinking otherwise.
The story known to the public in the Orbaume Kingdom was that Heinz and his companions had gone as far as to sneak into the country in order to leave the Amid Empire after having a change of heart as a result of witnessing the mother of a Dhampir being burned at the stake. The fact that Heinz himself was the one who had captured the woman was not publicly known.
This was not something that Heinz had intended, but… it was a fact that he felt hesitant to make the truth public.
This truth was something that had been left in the records of the Adventurers’ Guild in the Mirg shield-nation, so although it was a secret, it was known in the Orbaume Kingdom among those who possessed information networks and those close to such individuals. However, Heinz was beginning to feel like he couldn’t bear that.
And what exactly is she… What exactly has she become? I thought that my memories were in disorder because of the damage to my soul. But no matter how many times I think back, I remember it clearly in the same way. The person who told me and Delizah that she will not forgive us… Darcia. It was Vandalieu’s mother, the one we captured, the one who was burned at the stake, said Heinz.
Heinz remembered that immediately after the battle against Vandalieu, when he was in a soul-only state, Darcia had appeared and scattered him and Delizah with a swing of her staff.
The dead could not be resurrected. This fact contradicted his memories, causing Heinz to question his memories, and then in the next moment, he began to wonder whether Vandalieu had turned even his own mother into an Undead, but…
That divine presence… I cannot believe that she was an Undead. It was as if she had become a goddess… Is she not a familiar spirit… no, a subordinate god of Vida? If she will not forgive me, then… that must also be Vida’s will. If that’s the case, then I…
Darcia’s appearance had not been that of an Undead; in fact, Heinz even believed that she had become a familiar spirit or subordinate god of Vida.
But if that was the case, Heinz’s actions in the name of Alda’s peaceful faction, with the thought of co-existence between Vida’s races and humans – What had it all been for?
Heinz’s mind suffered from his self-condemnation and self-denial.
Sensing this, Mill decided to remove his sense of self-condemnation by telling him a fact that would surprise Heinz. “Heinz, that Dark Elf Darcia has not become a familiar spirit or subordinate god of Vida. She has returned to life. It is most likely that her resurrection was Vandalieu’s doing,” she said.
Returned to life?! That’s… The resurrection of the dead that is impossible even for the gods, isn’t it?! Heinz exclaimed.
Even gods who possessed immense power could not turn the dead back into the living. They could allow the ascension of the dead to become familiar spirits, heroic spirits or subordinate gods, but that did not change the fact of their deaths in the sense that they would never return to the mortal world again.
This was what was widely known.
The fact that Vida had been unable to bring the champion Zakkart back to life made this clear.
“Yes, it is impossible for us gods. Even for my lord Alda, and even for Vida. However, it is possible with the relics of the champion Zakkart and Vandalieu’s power,” said Mill.
Alda, the god of law and fate, remembered the root of life that Zakkart had created; he knew that Vandalieu had likely acquired it and brought Darcia back to life.
“But she has not merely been resurrected. She has become an incarnation of Vida,” said Mill.
Vida’s Incarnation?! … Now that you mention it, before we entered the Dungeon, we heard that there are whispered rumors that Vida has been resurrected, but… to think that Darcia has become her incarnation…
Heinz had entered Alda’s Dungeon immediately after Vandalieu conquered the Trial of Zakkart, but around that time, a merchant visiting the base he had created in the Devil’s Nest had spoken of such rumors.
But… Doesn’t that mean that the situation is even more serious? Heinz asked.
“Indeed. My followers, Diana and Jennifer, are already aware of this – All of the Five-colored Blades have acquired the ‘Vida’s Mortal Enemy’ Title,” Mill told him.
Heinz was aghast upon learning that a goddess considered him her mortal enemy.
“Heinz, moving forward, you must continue to learn truths that will surprise you. These truths are knowledge that would ordinarily be too much for mortals to know, but you must know them, as you bear the task of stopping the Demon King Vandalieu and saving the world,” Mill continued. “To begin with, Vandalieu’s origins lie in the distant past, long before he became Vandalieu. Back when he was known as Zakkart, Ark, Solder and Hillwillow,” she said.
After leaving the Commerce Guild, Vandalieu and Darcia made preparations to open their food cart right away.
“Your Majesty, are you not going a little too far?” questioned Princess Levia.
“Yeah, you don’t need to go that far to blend in,” said Orbia.
“I understand what you’re trying to say, but I need to blend in to some extent,” said Vandalieu.
He was carrying a bundle of charcoal – the fuel that would be used to grill his skewers.
“Firewood is cheaper, but the food cart’s structure is not suited to using large pieces of firewood for fire, so I suppose it cannot be helped,” Princess Levia said sadly.
“That’s not what I’m talking about… If you’re going to cook with fire, you can just use Levia and the other fire-attribute dead spirits! How can you go out of your way to buy charcoal? You should consider Levia’s feelings!” Orbia said angrily.
“It’s fine, Orbia,” said Princess Levia in a pained voice with tears in her eyes. “If His Majesty insists that charcoal flames are better than me, then I…”
Vandalieu felt as if he’d cheated on her.
Even though he was simply trying to disguise his food cart.
“You know, when I actually cook the meat at my food cart, I’m going to ask Princess Levia to do it,” Vandalieu said.
“What? Really?” said Princess Levia.
“Yes. Controlling the heat of charcoal fire is difficult, after all. If I ask Princess Levia to do it, the fire can be controlled freely.”
Princess Levia was a Satan Prometheus Ghost, a fire-attribute dead spirit. She was capable of controlling the heat of her flames, from temperatures that could melt iron to the temperature of lukewarm water.
On top of that, the only cost of using her flames was Vandalieu’s Mana, unlike charcoal which was more expensive than firewood.
Vandalieu wasn’t obsessed enough with charcoal to choose it over Princess Levia’s flames.
“So why did you buy charcoal, then?” Princess Levia asked.
“For camouflage, of course,” said Vandalieu. “If I don’t buy charcoal or firewood, people will look at me suspiciously and wonder what I’m using for fuel, and the Commerce Guild might think that I’ve forged my ledger,” said Vandalieu.
Many food cart owners in the city used firewood or charcoal as fuel. There were some who had introduced Magic Items such as magical stoves that used Mana as fuel to emit heat, but these were in the minority.
Though magical stoves were considered to be low-class, they were still Magical Items. It required courage for a food cart business to make such a purchase. And the Magic Stones that the magical stoves used as fuel were even more expensive than firewood and charcoal.
“That’s why I’m buying charcoal, but I’m hoping to ask Princess Levia to provide the actual fire,” said Vandalieu.
“I-Is that so…! Oh my, I was certain that… If that’s the case, then you should have said so to begin with,” said Princess Levia, her mood improving again instantly.
Invisible to anyone but Vandalieu and Darcia, she wrapped herself around him as if embracing him.
The other Ghosts seemed to be a little jealous after seeing this.
“… Cooking needs water, right?” said Orbia.
“… I wonder when you’re going to use lightning,” Kimberley sighed.
“… Well, I’m an advisor,” said Chipuras.
“Vandalieu, you should have explained things to Levia-san before buying the charcoal. Let’s do better next time,” said Darcia.
“Yes, Mom,” said Vandalieu. “By the way, what about the real estate agent?”
“There’s no problem with that. There’s just one single-family home with a basement on 4th East Street that can be moved into right away,” said Darcia.
She had met with a real estate agent introduced to her by the Commerce Guild to investigate whether there were any houses that met Vandalieu’s requirements.
“There’s a second floor, and we can move in as long as we clean it. If we’re renting, it’s five hundred Baums a month, and it’s ten thousand to buy it,” Darcia said.
“… It’s strangely cheap. Even considering that it’s cheap for the entertainment district and slum quarter, that’s less than a third of the market value that I was told,” said Vandalieu.
“Hmm, perhaps the previous tenants were murdered? Or perhaps the real estate agent is in desperate need of immediate funds,” Chipuras speculated. “Or perhaps he has an ulterior motive related to Darcia-sama…”
“Chipuras-san, the real-estate agent is a woman, so it’s alright. There’s nothing strange about her,” said Darcia. “But it has a history of tenants dying of disease within a year after moving in.”
“Oh, I see. I apologize for my impolite words,” said Chipuras.
“Well then, let’s go and buy it,” said Vandalieu.
The entertainment district was largely the same as usual that day.
Despite having been a ghost town in the early hours of the morning, people came to life as the sun set. Men and women called out to customers on the streets, visitors wandered about looking for something to catch their interest, and food carts filled people’s stomachs.
Of course, even in the entertainment district, there were stores that offered food and fancy bars. But these were generally expensive, and the food carts’ customer base was largely made up of the many people who worked there and the customers who wanted to enjoy themselves but did not have many spare funds.
Food cart owners using relatively high-class ingredients were enthusiastically calling out to customers at the entrance to the entertainment district.
“We have Orc-meat skewers! Hey Mister, how about getting some energy before you go out to play?”
“We have meat, fish and vegetables! Come and get your hearty sandwiches here!”
Inside the entertainment district, past the entrance, there were food carts scattered in rows, selling low-cost food catered for the district’s workers.
“Three servings of meatballs, here you are. As always, come and return your bowls afterwards.”
“Here’s your sandwich, sorry for the wait!”
And in the alley that connected the entertainment district to the slum quarter, away from the roads, were the food carts that the inhabitants of the slums came to – the ones that had terrible food, but were dirt cheap.
Hard bread was among the higher-quality of the food sold at these food carts, and there was also soup containing mysterious meatballs… ones containing Goblin and Kobold ears, acquired almost for free from the Adventurers’ Guild that had them stockpiled from adventurers bringing them in as proof of exterminating monsters, and unsold meat left over from other food carts.
If someone ever came up with the idea of adding egg or breadcrumbs to the meatballs, they would become patties, however. Perhaps patties in this world would originate from meatball soups sold at food carts in a slum quarter.
… Though they were unlikely to become popular as long as they contained Goblin and Kobold ears.
The owners of such food carts did not promote their businesses; they did their business in whispers with their gloomy customers that came from the slum quarter.
Being amongst these food carts, Vandalieu’s food cart, which was located in an alley between the pub-brothel ‘Seven-colored Mist’ and the ‘Evening Mug’ that offered dancing women, stood out.
“Would you like some grilled skewers?” said Vandalieu, calling out to potential customers.
Not only was he calling out to customers, but the food cart itself was clean, and it was decorated with a heart that was the symbol of Vida, the goddess of life and love.
The entire food cart seemed to be floating above the somewhat gloomy atmosphere of the back alley.
“They’re very delicious, you know,” said Darcia.
She herself was also floating above the back alley’s atmosphere. Her expression and her voice were simply too bright.
Even hoodlums that would normally be pickpocketing or mugging people wandering into the alley were surrounding the food cart at a distance.
Chipuras’s face was twisted in anger at these circumstances that were clearly unfavorable for sales. “… Vandalieu-sama, I believe it is not too late to go and throttle that man named Joseph,” he said.
His anger was understandable. The customers of food carts in this place were largely inhabitants of the slum quarter; people going to enjoy themselves in the entertainment district would not wander here even by accident.
And those who lived in the slum quarter did not have any spare money. In other words, one would not sell anything to them unless they offered very low prices.
But the meat that Vandalieu had acquired from a butcher for the grilled skewers sold at his food cart was cheap, but ordinary meat… the meat of Rank 1 monsters such as Giant Rats and Horn Rabbits, which could be harvested in large quantities. Naturally, this meat was far more expensive than Goblin and Kobold ears that could be acquired almost for free.
“At this rate, our skewers will not sell, and we will be considered to have failed in three months’ time! As the Guild Master and other Deputy Guild Masters are not present, we must have him change our location even if it means strangling him,” Chipuras insisted. “Even if we are in the entertainment district, we must at least be on the main street!”
“It’s alright. It gives me time to prepare mentally, so it’s actually perfect. I’m experienced at cooking, but it’s my first time running a food cart, after all,” said Vandalieu as he grilled his skewers skillfully, causing a hunger-stimulating aroma to spread.
“Chipuras-san, you don’t need to worry so much. The skewers smell very good, so hungry people will come to buy them soon enough,” said Darcia. “It is true that we are more expensive than other food carts, though.”
The slum-quarter-style meatball soup was five Baums per bowl (The food carts refunded three Baums with the return of the bowl that the soup was provided in, so essentially only two Baums). The slum-quarter-style sandwiches, consisting of leftover meat and vegetable scraps stir-fried and put between two pieces of hard brown bread, cost two Baums each. Both options were quite filling; they were enough for all but the biggest eaters.
But the skewers of Vandalieu’s food cart were five Baums each. Each regular barbecue-sized skewer had four or five pieces of appropriately-sized, grilled meat. But one skewer might be a little lacking to be considered a meal.
“The sauce is hand-made, after all. We definitely don’t lose when it comes to flavor,” said Darcia.
Vandalieu did not use particularly high-quality meat, but he was very particular about the sauce that he applied to the meat before grilling it.
The minced herbs and fruits used, combined with Vandalieu’s advanced ‘Cooking’ Skill, resulted in quite the high-quality sauce. It was likely to be popular even in restaurants on the main street, never mind a food cart in a back alley.
“And I’m using herbs and fruits grown inside my own body with the effects of the ‘Plant Binding Technique’ Skill that I gained with the ‘Tree Caster’ Job, so I don’t have to write any cost for the sauce’s ingredients on the ledger,” said Vandalieu.
Indeed, the ingredients for the sauces were free.
In the event that the Commerce Guild were to ask Vandalieu about the sauce, he intended to assert that he had made it by gathering the herbs and blending them himself.
… There were no easily-identifiable spices in the sauce, and even if they investigated the entirety of Morksi, they wouldn’t find any evidence of Vandalieu purchasing ingredients for his sauce, so they would not be able to deny this claim.
“… I see. Things may become troublesome afterwards if we threatened Joseph, so if you insist…” Chipuras mumbled with a nod, falling silent.
Through Chipuras’s transparent form, Vandalieu and Darcia saw a man with a wild-looking face and his hair swept back, leading a group of undesirable-looking men, approaching.
The thugs formed a threatening half-circle around the food cart.
“Is this the new food cart? Hey, who gave you permission to set up shop here?!” one of them demanded.
“This city’s controlled by the ‘Starving Wolf’ Michael-aniki! If you wanna do business here, you gotta pay up!” said another.
It seemed that they had come to demand what was known as a ‘space rent.’
Not wanting to get involved, the slum quarter people who had been watching the food cart from a distance stepped even further away.
“I see. Give me a moment, please. My hands are busy right now,” said Vandalieu.
Naturally, he wasn’t scared by such threats… the thugs were incapable of harming him or Darcia no matter how hard they tried, after all.
“The hell did you say, brat?!” one of the thugs spat.
“You cheeky shit… You know, we don’t mind taking that nee-chan over there in place of your space rent!” said another.
“We’d definitely like to do that!” said a third thug, giving a lecherous gaze towards Darcia, unable to hide his inner desires.
“Well, I wonder what I should do?” said Darcia.
She looked up at the man with the swept-back hair, who was standing in silence with his arms crossed… the ‘Starving Wolf’ Michael.
Michael’s mouth twitched a little, and he unfolded his arms. “Get back to your patrols, you lot. I have something to discuss with this brat,” he said to the thugs.
“Huh? N-no way, Michael-aniki,” one of the thugs pleaded.
“You’re going to have a nice woman like this all to yourself?” another complained.
“If you have the time to be saying such stupid shit, hurry up and get back to your patrols! Or do you want me to kill you with my bare hands?” he shouted, sounding far more menacing than the thugs’ earlier threats to Vandalieu and Darcia.
The thugs gave small, terrified screams and ran away back towards the main road.
Everyone else in the back alley trembled in fear and fled, and the only ones left were the owners of the food carts.
Seeing the now-empty alley, Vandalieu let out a sigh. “You’re disturbing the other food carts’ business, Miles,” he said.
“Oh darn… Sorry about that. I panicked and thought you’d massacre them all, so I went too far, Boss,” said Michael.
This was the man who had become the boss of Morksi’s underworld less than a month after making an appearance in it, the ‘Starving Wolf’ Michael… or rather, the Abyssal Noble-born Vampire Miles who had infiltrated the underworld under that alias.
- Name: Miles Rouge
- Age: Several hundred years old
- Title: Kisser, Starving Wolf
- Rank: 11
- Race: Abyssal Noble-Born Vampire Marquis
- Level: 20
- Job: Dark Night Fighter
- Job level: 91
- Job history: Apprentice Thief, Thief, Mage, Fire-Attribute Mage, Unarmed Fighter, Magic Fighter, Clawed Fanged Warrior, Assassin, Dark Fighter
- Passive skills:
- Dark Vision
- Monstrous Strength: Level 2 (Awakened from Superhuman Strength!)
- Rapid Regeneration: Level 9
- Status Effect Resistance: Level 5
- Mental Corruption: Level 1
- Enhanced Physical Ability (Claws, Fangs): Level 10 (LEVEL UP!)
- Strengthened Attack Power while Unarmed: Very Large (LEVEL UP!)
- Detect Presence: Level 3 (LEVEL UP!)
- Mana Enlargement: Level 2 (LEVEL UP!)
- Self-Enhancement: Guidance: Level 3 (NEW!)
- Active skills:
- Bloodwork: Level 3 (LEVEL UP!)
- High-speed Flight: Level 9 (LEVEL UP!)
- Transcend Limits: Level 3 (LEVEL UP!)
- Trap: Level 4
- Silent Steps: Level 6
- Dagger Technique: Level 4 (LEVEL UP!)
- Unarmed Fighting Technique: Level 10 (LEVEL UP!)
- No-Attribute Magic: Level 1
- Fire-Attribute Magic: Level 6
- Mana Control: Level 3 (LEVEL UP!)
- Magic Fighting Technique: Level 4 (LEVEL UP!)
- Chant Revocation: Level 2 (LEVEL UP!)
- Assassination Technique: Level 4 (LEVEL UP!)
- Armor Technique: Level 1 (NEW!)
- Beast Transformation: Level 1 (NEW!)
- Unique skills:
- Warning
- ■■■ダルー’s Divine Protection (NEW!) [dalieu]
Want to support Yoshi's translations? Head over to the Donations Page
NOVEL DISCUSSION
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Naberisu
I don’t get all this hate on Heinz, his stupidity is annoying but he is helping numerous people, if he didn’t capture Darcia in the beggining his party probably would have become the second most important allies outside of the mountain range, losing only to Storm of Tyranny.
It’s all Alda and Bellwood’s fault.
Ronin
The hate for Heinz stems for his lack of responsibility or how he talks himself out of being responsible. Just as he mentioned he was hiding the fact that he was the one of captured the dark elf. While the public thinks he merely observed it and had nothing to do with it. Even in the fight with Van when the two girls realized they had been killing Vida’s races they felt back about it. Where as Heinze brushed it off like an “oh well we did it too late now.” Add to that is the fact he does nothing but, be a symbol. He takes not actions himself. the Storm of Tyranny use the honorable noble titles to actually protect Vida’s race and hide them away. All Heinz has done is talk about peace without actually protecting them.
Korath
Yeah nothing left to say, just that they also dont defect Alda + pals, who want to obliterate all of Vida’s races instead of integrating them. I hate the Nazi comparisons, but they still fit. Schneider is Schindler, while Heinz is a former SS officer, who goes around pretending to have never been one and be disgusted at their actions.
To be fair I dont know how much he knows about Alda’s real plan, but he is not completely unaware of it (dont want to look up 200+ chapters searching this passage^^ it was the one where he wanted to talk to him about this).
taterskins
It’s really just hate for Alda, Heinz and his pals were just the unlucky schmucks that poked the bear. Mill couldn’t say as such, since obviously Alda is perfect and whatever he desires is the natural and only good state for Lambda
Akachi86
The answer is simple: the gods in Aldiot’s faction don’t really care about humanity, as long as it doesn’t go extinct.
Sailon
“Heinz, you are mistaken. It is true that he has some valid words and morals. However, there is no mistake that his acts will bring disorder upon the world, and that he will go on to become a calamity to all of humanity –”
So do you considered a world full of discrimination and genocide to be in Order, and when Van show to be a calamity to all humanity, the ones intend to go to all out war is Alda faction no Van. And she tslking about Darcia death, did she forget this kinda law are nade by Alda, even if ssy that if not Heiz otger peopke like Gordan would, but this is only the case because Alda incetive this action. Besides who is causin disordem and calamity to Mankind, a faction that hunt vida races and gods of her side or the faction hunted down evil gods and theyr subordinates? Lets not forget without Zatark that they disdains as fallen and crazy god, the devil nest of the demon continent would have expanded even being a treat to baia continent, not to mention the many ebil gods gaining strength there that they deafeat. But during all this did Akda help? When seal loose after he caused solar eclipses he even rejoice over the damage that could cause Zatark forces.
Basicaly Mill saying Van action give strenght to Vida and this is threat to our power and everything agaist our side is equal to world destruction because only Alda is right and everyone ta go agaist him is insane tha would cause the world destruction so kill everyone that whe told to even that someone is doing a better job in deal with evil gods and theyr subordinates than whe ever did, and not worry even if the war weakens the gods of this world that barely able to maint, the ecil gods will not take advantage and caused the world destruction.
Alke
“My followers, Diana and Jennifer, are already aware of this – All of the Five-colored Blades have acquired the ‘Vida’s Mortal Enemy’ Title,” Mill told him.” 👌👌👌💯💯😈😈perfect! And yeah, you’re right asss*hole, all what happened was your fault, don’t delude yourself with the words of a slumber goddess, this b*tch should prepare herself to be sent to an eternal rest 😒😒😒
Vitor
“Heinz, you are mistaken. It is true that he has some valid words and morals. However, there is no mistake that his acts will bring disorder upon the world, and that he will go on to become a calamity to all of humanity –”
Would these “previous order” maniacs, these sorry excuses for gods even reason what they say? Also, love the part of the charcoal and Princess Levia
Randy Rando
Previous Order Maniacs. That has to be the best descriptor I’ve ever heard for them.
NjShade
I wonder if alda want to exterminate all vida race then who gonna keep those powerful dungeon in check if on human side B rank dungeon is rare and A rank is super rare. Than land on other side not that rare and vida race that lot stronger than human the one keep monster in dungeon from overflow. Strongest not enough to keep these many dungeon in check. Look like alda have overseeing these issue even other gods said they cannot stop these dungeon even after Demon King is dead.
Alke
Does he even care? 🤔He just wants to undo what Vida did , probably because she didn’t ask him for permission and because he doesn’t like looks of the pple she created. It didn’t bother him that much last time when he betrayed her and when only 3000 “humans” only survived and he didn’t do much to clean the mana contamination other than ditching the excess in the demon continent 😒😒😒. Does he think that all of that will disappear with the death of vida’s children?! 🤔Does he even THINK to begin with?! 😒😒😒
Zenden1st
MILES!!!
Aathma
Mill Bi*ch: you have defeat this vile demon king and save the world.
*Meanwhile the demon king setup his food cart to sell his skewers.
JKingSniper
Yeah
can’t wait to devour all of Alda’s god and rub in Heinz face
Aathma
I really wanna see this Mill bi*ch’s destruction by the hands of Van. I want to see her despair at the end of destruction. This b*tch is subordinate God of the life attribute but she treats Vida as if some random evil s*ut.
She doesn’t had any idea where her place is. She and the coward nineroad are annoying me to death even more so then Asagi.
Rasho
I really wanna see what lies Mill and the other Alda hounds will say to Heinz and his party, also I wonder when Edgar will come? I wanna know what will happen due to that idiot’s plan of “improving” Edgar’s Soul
Vitor
Something along the lines of Van wanting to massacre all “humans” and ruling a world of undead and Vida’s races ir some shit like that, probably
asdsdsffdhffggkl
I swear to shit, if heinz is forgiven or whatever I’m dropping this crap. I don’t give a fuck if he feels remorse or he was just doing the correct thing according to his god, I want him dead, just because I want him dead lol. someone needs to pay with blood and it has to be him kekeekkekekeke.
Vitor
Obviously, Van already said so, but he isn’t trying to be a saint ir something like that, he will be nice to his friends and those who doesn’t antagonice him, but will be merciless whith those who are his enemies, specially if he hates them, for example, he didn’t really hate Isla, so once she was killed he turned her into an undead… But the 5cb and the pure-breed vampires, he hates them and will destroy their souls
A_wandering_otter
Heinz will never be forgiven it’s just not the way van do things as long as heinz doesn’t succeed in killing everyone associated with van someone will come after him.
Chiu ChunLing
Leaving aside that Heinz is obviously not going to be smart or determined enough to follow through on having been literally hit over the head with the undeniable truth that Alda was wrong from the beginning….
So Joseph has the brilliant plan of trying to make a connection with the leadership of the Alda Reconciliation faction by engaging in an obvious and documented harassment of a Dhampir child and his Dark Elf mother…to a degree that could easily be considered life threatening (or rather, clearly is considered life threatening by his own subordinates).
Yeah, that seems smart. Of course there’s no actual danger or even inconvenience to Van or Darcia, and even if there were they wouldn’t exactly reach out to Heinz’s ilk for help…but does Joseph have any plan for dealing with the outcome if they did?
Meanwhile…
Jubiscleiton
This cap is incredible, while Reis (I forgot how to write the name) and his companions are suffering with chances of permanent damage Van is selling spit near brothel as if nothing happened
Utsuho
its ‘Tomato Ketchup’ Heinz.
Naberisu
Bruh
Baldingere
The slice of life chapters are soothing my soul…
Draggador
> “Despite having been a ghost town in the early hours of the morning, people came to life as the sun set.”
> Feels like an intentional pun.
Zauberbiest
shit just when heinz had started to truly reflect on his choices, his wacky soul made him misinterpret it somewhat
and then proceeded to get brainwashed by hearing only the convenient truths of the whole story and it was straight from the mouth of a god on alda’s side in her divine realm too.
heinz acquired his ”talk with the gods” request in a rather contorted fashion..
welp.
there gos heinz forever
y’all lost ye chance to tell him urself the story, now that he heard it from alda’s perspective its to late, but i suppose van never intended to turn heinz over to his side and making heinz a ally was never something the author intended so that’s how things r in the end
lol no point even hating on him anymore he has become a direct puppet of alda, with the missing strings finally attached directly
also lmao seriously what the heck is alda’s side so hung up about? van is basically doing their job for them by eliminating the remnant evil gods of old demonking’s side along with the evil pure breed vampires.. the same shit they were having trouble with for so long, and how alda was going on about their teachings being taken to far by the people as they hunt a weakened vida rather than going for the demon king remnants, and that’s when van showed up and they forgotten all about the remnants or evil purebreeds lmao,
they didn’t even try to talk to van, even after finding out he is the 4 creation heroes fused soul, also its even more bizarre how for 100thousand years alda never thought of making up with vida. like wtf man pretending as if she is dead,when she was only sleeping away for decades,was that supposed to be some kind of eternal punishment for vida set up by alda? vida is finally fighting back, and they doing the blame game again
even after 100k years alda who supposedly relied on the past to improve the future with curato’s records, alda didn’t rly learn anything, hes just angry his sandbox is being used by someone else
and making more progress than he ever did in such a short time period, also to make it even more pitiful apparently the people living inside the boundary never had the kind of conflicts the humans had outside, gos to show how more civilized vida’s races ended up becoming in a rough comparison , who r the real evil then? humans r basically seeds of all kinds of evil good lust greed etc as they always have been, and alda is not going a good job , all he has done feels like just manipulating the short lived humans before they ever learn both sides
vamptacus
please keep in mind that humans,dwarves and elves do exist behind the mountain range, it’s just the culture and the religion of alda that’s making everyone toxic 🙂 it’s all alda and bellwood’s fault
Zauberbiest
keep what in mind? o.O
Those Three r the ‘only’ accepted races,
that was long since mutualised already by alda himself,
cuz of the respawn box
heck even the elves themselves seem to be racist against their dark variant outside the mountain,
Chiu ChunLing
Keep in mind that the humans, dwarves, and elves living inside the Boundary Mountains happily coexist and intermarry with Vida’s races (which is necessary for several of them to reproduce) and don’t worship Alda or follow his genocidal agenda.
I would add to that Vida’s races without Ranks living outside of the Boundary Mountains seem to have no particular concern about the ill treatment of Vida’s races with Ranks, and even participate in it when they can profit.
Vitor
Alda’s side are just old geezers that doesn’t want change, so they hate him just for being a member of Vida’s races, and then, when this kid they antagoniced suddenly gained the power to break souls, they started to have flashbacks of Vietnam, I mean flashbacks of the Demon Lord, and they panic and want to kill him because they are pissing their pants in fear of retaliation, which is plausible because they spent a hundred thousand years hunting the likes of him and his friends for absolutely no reason
Raidanzoup
Everyone’s a victim of their circumstances to a certain degree, but Heinz has ascended to become a pawn of the gods. I can’t get over how much I love this slow motion tragedy unfolding. He’s just so tortured! And Alda doesn’t give a shit. At this point they’ve ditched the dungeon and gone directly for the “re-education” of their puppets.
WholesomeAF
heinz is being too self conscious MC clearly states with their conversation that even if hid mothee had not died he still have the potential to be a demon king with his death magic
Lucian
Meatballs? If i recall correctly,it was mentioned that minced meat was not invented in Lambda before Van made it in Talosheim. Is this a mistranslation, or just a hiccup on the author’s side?
jacktronsit13
not meat balls but meat in circular shape most likely, but if it is minced meat the reason it is not popular is probably the ingredients used aren’t high quality enough or taste isn’t good enough to spread outside the city or something like that.
polynesianvibez
“That’s not what I’m talking about… If you’re going to cook with fire, you can just use Levia and the other fire-attribute dead spirits! How can you go out of your way to buy charcoal? You should consider Levia’s feelings!” Orbia said angrily.
“It’s fine, Orbia,” said Princess Levia in a pained voice with tears in her eyes. “If His Majesty insists that charcoal flames are better than me, then I…”
Vandalieu felt as if he’d cheated on her.
😂😂😂😂
Can you imagine the amount of headaches he’ll have with all of his harem members together lol
thanks for the chapter
TruePath111
This is getting ridiculous now ^.^
The unreasonableness is real, contradicting what we were told halfway
Brandragoon
Nope, you just haven’t been paying attention.
Vitor
Nothing to be done about it, he only reads enought to start complaining about women not being virgins
Alex-dono
I wonder why van’s name isn’t completely revealed in Miles’ status.
Dtar316
Now that i think of it the only real threat Birkyne has over van is birkyne’s dk part (and i assume demon eyes), other than that hes just another fish in the pond that is van’s enemies and not even one of the bigger fish since most of his enemies are gods and heroic spirits which can easily take birkyne out, if we take his dk part out of the picture a fair amount of van’s friends can at least give him a good fight (since we don’t know the specific part it might be troublesome), whereas a few of em can kill him outright such as borkus and bell.
Haraken
The thing is, I don’t think Birkyne will ever be facing Van’s faction at all himself willingly, he will probably try to play into the manipulator trope, trying to force Heinz, reincarnators or other human factions to fight Van in his stead. Just as he did when he, Gubamon and Ternecia had Heinz, Palpapek and the Alda Zealot guy hunt Darcia and her Dhampir child in their stead.
If anything he will probably try to worsen Van image among every other factions for that to happen.
Valeth
As I recall it was already stated Birkyne was more of a manipulator than a fighter. Sure he rips apart his weak subordinates, that have most likely not lived very long in his fits of Rage. He has also been shown to have very high regenerative powers, but Van can easily negate those.
I believe although I may be mistaken it was also stated that his DK Fragment wasn’t suited to battle. As stated one of Gubamon’s main weaknesses was he had a defensive fragment that he used offensively. Which was a good way to incorporate it, into his style but never really took full advantage of its strengths.
Finally, I never at any point see Birkyne seeking out Van personally. When this showdown begins it will be Van choosing the place and time for it.
Jonathan Hurd
I think what Dtar meant was that Birkyne will probably have one fragment of the DK and a separate Evil Eyes. Not that Birkyne has the Dks evil Eyes. Similar to how Ternecia had Evil Eyes of Petrification and DKs horns.
I think also you might be underestimating Hirushaku. Ravovfard descended in front of Van because he had no info on Van. I think the Evil God of Joyful Life is more likely to flee than fight like Ravaofard. If you ask me I can see Hirushuaku using Vans existence to try and unite the other Evil God’s then infect the alliance and take over similar to what Birknye did.
Hobbes
Guess again friend. The Evil God of Joyful Life and his pawn Birkyne may not underestimate Van like the other enemies, but there is no way in hell that they try to work with others. It goes against the very nature of Hihiryushika or whatever his name is as well as all of his teachings. And if you think the threat of Van devouring their souls will change that, then you need to go back and look at how the other evil gods acting as remnants of the demon king’s army acted when confronted with that same ultimatum.
Jonathan Hurd
I didn’t realize til rereading but Birknye and the other pure breeds with him are all subordinate God’s of Hirushaku.
I will put forward in Ternecia and Gubabamons defense the reason they were such pushovers was because of their complete lack of info. Ternecia was weakened and exhausted by Heinz after having lost all her loyal servants. Gubamon was a bit better to start but he destroyed his own subordinates and made them undead effectively giving Van fighting forces. He also stupidly tried to use the DK fragment against Van limiting his own options and sapping his strength.
Birkyne has learned from the other twos mistakes and is investigating everything about Van. He definitely wouldn’t stand a chance in a one on one or one on many against Van, but he is a schemer. He might be the first one to jump Van instead of the other way around. I wouldn’t completely count Birknye out just yet.
Honestly Birknyes strat might become to wait for Alda to become even more desperate and then offer an alliance between some Evil Gods and Alda. I can imagine him pointing out that they only beat the last DK by combining forces with Evil God’s and the enemy of my enemy might do as a convenient meat shield.
Hobbes
Nope. Birkyne will definitely be a bigger threat because hes a coward and a schemer. He fancies himself as a genius and places an importance on intel that will help him out, however he overestimates himself and his god. Even if the Evil God of Joyful Life descended into the world fully or via his pawn Birkyne, they would fare no better against Van than an ant would against a tsunami (which btw is what’s probably going to happen – all of the DK army remnants think they can be the next DK which is why they misdirect their animosity at the “second-coming of the DK”).
InfernoHomura
THEY JUST GOT BAMBOOZLED!
Paps
HAHAHAHA he has his own personal bodyguard. Thanks for the chapter, I would like to know more about those new races.
Morgan
Merry Christmas! Thanks for the chapter. looking foward to Heinz finally self-reflecting. Though still disappointed Alda’s faction hasn’t figured out that Vandalieu won’t harm the world if he’s left alone
Jonathan Hurd
Merry Christmas to U2.
I think it’s less that Aldas faction hasn’t realized Van isn’t trying to destroy the world and more he is purposely lieing about it. Van has been making great efforts to show he can be reasoned with, but Alda needs an army to kill him. If he doesn’t label Van as Evil and whip his fanatics up people might start questioning why they’re risking their souls to fight a guy who isn’t going to attack them.
Metazoxan
No I think Alda is ignorant.
Remember when he heard about Van making Gun powder? he acted like the end of the world was upon him. To him THAT was more of a problem than bringing the dead back to life, freeing the fragments of the demon king, or bringing back Vida and helping her regain her power.
It’s because despite being a god he let himself get brainwashed but an Eco terrorist and thinks all earth level technology is evil and will destroy the world. He never bothered to even look into it himself so he never noticed that while gun powder can make a strong explosion it ultimately loses to the power of magic pretty fast. Can’s guns could barely hurt C class monsters if I remember right.
But simply because he knows Van made gun powder he now thinks he’s a threat that MUST be stopped no matter the cost.
Jonathan Hurd
Gun powder is definitely at the top of Aldas list of banned materials, but he has been warming up the crusade long before he confirmed Van made gun powder from the fireworks. Pointing at Gun powder as a world ending thing versus the Demon King… The Demon King has a lot more impact. No one in his faction doesn’t fear the Demon King.
I think there are plenty of Aldas worshippers who don’t understand gunpowder or care. Part of this is Aldas fault, no one was allowed to learn about gun powders existence he feared its creation that much. It seems like even Aldas subordinate God’s don’t know about Gun Powder so they rile up with Demon King resurrection.
Metazoxan
I”m not saying the matter of the demon king is meaningless. But what really sent Alda into a panic is realizing that Van was experimenting with Earth technology and bringing things like Gun Powder into the world.
At the very least he fears Gun Poweder just as much if not more than the demon king…. and the stuff can’t even hurt a B class monster unless you used an outrageous amount of the stuff. But even then… magic in this world is stronger so there is no value to Gun powder outside of casual use and maybe letting weak humans kill lesser monsters.
Lord Rin
Yeah Alda is a Xenophobe who has entirely bought into Bellwood’s bullshit. I mean because of Bellwood, Alda has banned soy sauce. Fucking. Soy. Sauce.
Sailon
Alda is agaist change before the gunpowder and discover that Van is a reicarnation he had alredy said that van was a bigger threat that Gurudanis, simple by the fact that van dont rule simple by fear and because he dont desire ddstroy the world the entire world would not unite agaist him and he already started to unite the Vida Races and followers and even change some od Alda followers like Iris so basic van is a great threat to Alda Rule and what he called Order, the gunpowder and his other knowledge of another world only streght this sensebof Van danger for the order he created
Entropy
Alda is not going to try to reason with Vand anymore than he would try to reason with a feral wolf. Alda already decided that anyone not human, elf, or dwarf is not a person, but a monster. As for the army, I doubt Alda will have much trouble getting them ready to fight Vand. Look at how quickly the reincarnated reacted to Vand with the word of a god that they were told not to trust. Either they chose to run and hide or to kill him. What gets me, is that most of these people at least know a little about him from Earth whereas the fanatics know nothing about Vand. Also most of Alda’s followers will view this as a way to grab land, slaves, and other goods like what the Empire and the shield country did. I suspect only the real hardcore believers will try to kill Vand simply on principle. Most of these people will view their attacks as preemptive strikes against an enemy.
Chiu ChunLing
It’s that Alda’s definition of “destroy the world” is “encourage any development away from the state that existed prior to the invasion of the Demon King’s army”, which includes not only all monsters, dungeons, and Vida races, but also all new technology, including new magic.
Of course, it also includes Alda’s own actions, as well as that of everyone in his faction, but they’re ‘justified’ because they eventually plan to wipe out all the things they’ve had to do to ‘win’ even if it takes a million years and the massacre of 99% of the population.
theblasblas
From Alda’s perspective the mere fact that Van is increasing the population of Vida’s races is tantamount to destroying the world as the mere existence of these races spreads corrupted mana which is what spawns the Devil’s Nests.
Chiu ChunLing
Keep in mind, Alda also believes increasing the human population is tantamount to ‘destroying the world’ because it requires increasing the technology level beyond what he was familiar with before the Champions arrived.
Suzuha
That won’t work, Vandalieu’s existence basically trampling on Alda and all of his gods’ belief in a world without other world technology, monsters, dungeons and Vida races, so even if they figured out that Vandalieu wouldn’t destroy the world and just want peace, they still absolutely wouldn’t leave him alone, the world they want is the opposite of the world vandalieu want
Kazza
Don’t usually comment twice, but something came up that I’d like to get some separate opinions on.
So, Mill is now going to explain that Van is the four Creation Champions. However, I’m really curious how she’ll do that, considering it deals heavily with Rodcorte’s system.
The story has stated directly and indirectly that the gods do not want mortals to understand the concept of Reincarnation Circles, so much so that they actually pseudo-lied to Van in order to get him to guide the Boundary Mountain Countries. So, here’s what context Mill would have to give Heinz:
1. Champions got their souls broken however long ago. (Ok, reveals nothing about Rodcorte’s System)
2. They were pasted together in a grotesque form by Rodcorte. (Not ok. Rodcorte is not a Lambdan god to their knowledge. How will they explain another god outside their pantheon being in charge of their reincarnation?)
3. They were reincarnated on other worlds for a couple millennia. (Ok, I guess? Lambda is aware of both reincarnation and other worlds so the fact reincarnated souls can cycle through them should be acceptable.)
4. Rodcorte took his soul and 100 others and recycled them to Origin. (Again, this reveals Rodcorte, but let’s just say that’s ok now.)
5. After an early death, Van was reincarnated to Lambda, where Vida intercepted his soul to put him inside a Dhampir with his memories intact, hence how he escaped pursuit as a baby. (Super Not-ok. Heinz needs to understand how Vida could do that, and if the same could be done to any fallen allies. After all, if she is now free, what stops her from converting any souls into more soldiers, most of which are extremely long lived if not immortal?)
6. Growing up, he somehow developed the ability to perform Death Magic and the ultimately more dangerous Soul Breaking – both of which are heavily linked to ultimate evil douchebag Gudurandis. (Ok, nothing about the circles here except the “True Death” of Soul Breaking.)
7. Now, he’s amassed an army of undead and Vida Races to destroy Alda. (Ok, ignoring context, this doesn’t give anything away of the systems, only the threat he actually poses as he can stop reincarnation – even for gods.)
8. Now, these other dudes are champions from another world with Cheat abilities to help you out. (Right here, if Rodcorte is not acceptable to mention. How can they keep it a secret? Will they just mind wipe all of them to forget Rodcorte, and thus they’ll have no memory of how they came from Origin? But then, how will they keep the experience?)
9. Finally, we gotta kill/seal Van. (The biggest question of them all, here. Sealing Van would appear to be the better option, as what would stop Vida from just grabbing his soul upon death and starting this over again? However, we know that Rodcorte has some method of recalling the soul upon death, and it was only due to his negligence that Vida succeeded the first time. However, this leads to the same problem: How will Heinz understand Vida’s limited capabilities if he can not be told of the circles? To him, he would need to seal Van.)
Maybe I’m just confused. I’m pretty sure that while reincarnation is acceptable for mortals to know, the Circles and the secondary function of Guidance Skills are not. When Kanako was reincarnated, she had to pull a trick just to get the feeling to become a Vida Race, as Rodcorte erased her memories.
So, how is Mill going to pull off the explanation? The Alda faction are hypocrites, sure, but I wouldn’t call them liars. They unintentionally lie due to their own skewed perspective, and there are moles and schemers within, but they think they are too just to just straight up lie.
Oh wait. Heinz is an idiot. He’s not going to ask for any specifics, so Mill can just say he reincarnated as a Dhampir and he’ll accept that. She’ll say he only needs to be killed and he’ll accept that.
Shit. Damn it, Heinz! How have I put more thought into this hypothetical conversation than you have into your whole Peaceful Faction movement!
Sorry if that bored you, reader. Just a thought that evolved and then crashed with four words.
Hobbes
Lol It’s definitely something that requires thought to tiptoe around that topic and those facts in that conversation which is a big part of why the author didn’t bother trying to write out the whole discussion… the other being it would mess up the story and writing flow WAY too much.
Anyhow, Heinz is definitely more of an action first type of person, but he’s smarter than you give him credit for. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be beating himself up so much mentally and blaming himself for the situation with Van.
But the circumstances and intentions of Gods being so cryptic and hard to decipher from the mortal plane is a big part of why so many characters are misguided or seem to be idiotic. I mean most of the Gods themselves, despite all the knowledge, power, and perspectives available to them seem to me to oftentimes be the biggest fools and cowards. How else do you explain that as soon as Van’s ability to break souls manifested, Alda’s gods immediately freaked out and panicked to point of a nervous breakdown. We’ve also seen “evil gods” and gods of Vida’s faction behave irrationally several times.
Jonathan Hurd
I will say I think you’re interpreting the restriction on understanding the reincarnation system a bit harshly. Everyone in Lamda knows there is a circle of Reincarnation. That is accepted as common knowledge. The fact that the ruler of that is Rodcorte is more just not spread because no one likes him less than its taboo. The real taboo is explaining the fact that there are three systems and directly how they work.
I’ll try to answer your questions from Mills point of view…
2. The champions souls were recovered and put together to form one soul by a God who was good with Souls to prevent Vida from resurrecting the dead. (It’s the truth and no mention of the system. This is perfectly okay to say since Vida, her factions God’s and Mill have all told people about this.)
3. The soul was reincarnated for the last hundred thousand years without issue. It shouldn’t have any residual memories or powers from when it was the creation champions. (Still no mention of system and still truth).
4. A Overzealous(idiotic) God wanted to help this world’s progress and decided to send Van and a hundred other individuals to this world to promote progress against Alda samas wishes.
5. While Vans soul was being sent here Vida interfered causing her former champions soul to reincarnate as a Dhampir. Doing this probably took an extreme amount of power and timing. If she wasn’t so familiar with Zakarts soul she probably couldn’t of pulled it off. We have our soul expert ready to once again pick up Vans soul upon death to stop his resurrection by Vida or others. However to assure this never happens again you must put down Vida before she does something like this again leading to a third DK. (They can use this one to force Heinz to fight Vida like Aldas group originally intended.)
6. (Theres no real taboo about soul breaking its just people don’t like telling others that because they want them to fight Van. Fact Van can break your soul might cause people to get cold feet so they leave it out to start.)
8. So two methods for this explanation: The God who caused this mess has realized his mistake and is sending reinforcements to help us fight the new DK. OR Considering how bad the situation has become we are taking a page from history and summoning outside hero’s to fight the DK. (You can make it sound like Rodcortes penance or a brand new idea you guys are doing. All in all doesn’t really matter much.)
9. Destroy the DK Van and also put down Vida so we rid ourselves of the nightmare of the DK forever. (I see this as more a plus for their side than a negative. Gives Aldas group leverage to force Heinz to give up getting along with Vidas followers and actually kill her.)
I hope these responses help resolve some of your worries. In the end you never actually have to say Rodcortes name for any of this. Just keep calling him an outside God, the God of Reincarnation, or a God skilled with Handling Souls. Same goes for the systems of reincarnation. Everyone knows they exist it’s just no one can be told how. If Heinz asked they can just tell him it’s to complex for humans or that it’s a secret of the gods.
If anything I see the conversations main value is to put blame on Vida and argue that if she isn’t destroyed this can repeat.
Dash6217
One thing to remember the only ones that can’t actually kill the gods is Van and the demon King as for others they cannot so the most they can do is reseal her.
Valeth
It is my understanding that if she falls bellow a certain number of worshipers she can die. This was mentioned by Alda earlier as it was the only way he could think of to destroy her reincarnation system.
So continue with the genocide, and eventually she will die….. Kind of a messed up plan if he would stop and think about it for longer than a few seconds, but hey…. that’s Alda for ya.
Chiu ChunLing
No, Alda has the ability to seal her more completely than he managed before she raised the Boundary Mountains and drove him off by cutting off his support, exposing him to retaliation from her remaining forces (including Gufudgarn, which would not have been light).
If Alda makes a major assault and seals Vida completely, her reincarnation cycle can be disrupted by Rotcortex without her being able to do anything about it, the reverse of the situation where her races and Van can steal souls from Rotcortex’s system.
It still requires genocide of the Vida races that have Ranks, and it will still result in Vida ceasing to exist eventually, but it’s not quite as dumb as “just keep doing the same thing and eventually she’ll die”.
Though it does still mean fighting Van, and Alda doesn’t win that one. So still pretty stupid.
Tejing
Van’s soul belongs to Vida’s system now, so now it’s Rodcorte that would need advantageous circumstances to manage to steal his soul before reincarnation, and there’s no way Vida would let that happen, so actually, I think sealing Van is the only viable option for Alda’s side. (Unless they take out Vida first)
She can basically be honest about everything except Rodcorte’s name and the existence of multiple separate cycles of reincarnation. Rodcorte’s name isn’t an issue, she can just be vague about it, and if Heinz persistently asks, she can just say that he doesn’t want his name to be known in Lambda. The multiple cycles thing is trickier, but since the reincarnated individuals will have their memories regarding that fact wiped as well, it’s not hard for the most part, the main thing to explain is the emphasis on sealing rather than killing Van.
Jonathan Hurd
To be honest the whole reason Van had memories was because Rodcorte made it so. Vida isn’t as practiced in handling souls and she has spent most of the last hundred thousand years sleeping so not much chance to practice.
Sure Van can be reborn if he dies, but he would be reborn without his memories most likely and start at level one once again. They would have a good reason to actively hunt all of Vidas races because they could be Van reborn.
Aldas end goal has always been to destroy his sister’s system by toppling her and killing all her children. They needed to convince Heinz to fight Vida and exterminate her races, even though he keeps saying he’s working with her followers. The threat that Van can come back if they do this solves all Aldas issues.
Dtar316
given how much death attribute influences there are in the boundary range, he is most likely maintaining the death attribute, yeah only legion can use it but if we include people that has a relation or some form of it the number increases drastically, hell van is essentially a demi god at this point of the series.
iamleejn
Rodcorte is simply, “the expert on souls currently helping Edgar”.
The 100 reincarnated can be explained away in a couple ways: invaders, reinforcements from the “soul expert”, champions summoned by rogue god(s), etc… None of which are strictly false.
I expect that Mill won’t tell a single lie, but won’t exactly tell the truth either.
DeadReader518
Thank you for the chapter Yoshi! Hope you and everyone on this website have a wonderful Christmas and New Year!
Lord Rin
I was hoping to learn more about those new races Van made.
I also would like to see Alda’s faction’s reaction if they learned that the being they are absolutely terrified of because he can break and eat souls and call Demon King, is just in some random alley in a red-light district selling meat skewers.
Anyways I think that how many letters in Van’s divine protection are uncovered probably has to do with how close the person is to Van. Darcia is the closest to him so it’d make sense for her to be the first to get his complete divine protection. I think Luciliano was the person with the second highest amount of letters uncovered so he might be the next one to get the full divine protection eventually. Also I find it funny that apparently the main reason that Van didn’t want to acknowledge his divinity seems to have more to do with him being embarrassed that Nuaza would use it as an excuse to finally make a giant statue of Van.
Heinz you narcissistic fuck. You claim that it’s entirely because of you that Van is now the Demon King and fighting Alda’s faction. He is entirely ignoring how Van told him directly to his face that even if he didn’t hand over Darcia to be burned at the stake, Van would still eventually absorb the Demon King fragments and side with Vida to fight against Alda’s faction. Heinz should also know that he isn’t the reason Van is called the Demon King. He not only doesn’t have enough influence to make people acknowledge Van as the new Demon King, he didn’t even know until recently that Van even was the Demon King until Alda’s faction told him and that the reason he is the new Demon King is because Alda called him that. Anyways I don’t know why I was expecting Mill to not be another asshole deity siding with Alda. I think maybe I was hoping that Mill would be like the Goddess of Flow that’s a subordinate of Peria who claims to be on Alda’s side but isn’t actually just because Mill is supposed to originally have been a subordinate goddess of Vida if I recall correctly. Anyways I was hoping we’d at least see Heinz’ reaction to being told that Van used to be the 4 previous heroes.
On a completely different note, the heck kind of title is “Kisser”? Do I even want to know how Miles got that title? >_>U Anyways it’s a good thing that Miles is the one in charge of the criminal element in the red-light district. Now Van can have a steady amount of patrons to his food cart since Miles could either send his people to buy food or advertise for him.
Tejing
Mill was never a subordinate goddess of Vida. She is a goddess of the life attribute, but she became a goddess after Vida’s defeat, so her authority was granted to her by Alda from the stolen authority over life. She’s always been on Alda’s side.
Valeth
This is true but, I think most of the gods of creation the big 7 that remain would object to the fact that they no longer control their own aspects. The fact that Alda is controlling essentially 3 of them himself with Light, Life, and Wind.
Then take into account that the gods of space, and time are now more loyal to Alda than the gods who are suppose to rule over them….
Though I suppose the young gods may not notice this, it is going to cause a very serious problem for Alda when his siblings return and their new subordinates are all about him. I mean what if as a council they unanimously decide to punish Alda for the things he did in their absence. Like attacking Vida, and stealing her divine authority.
Will the new gods accept this or side with Alda against them…. Alda has created a serious problem here, and he doesn’t even seam to realize it.
Jonathan Hurd
Alda is only in charge of Life and Light. Nineroad the wind God’s chosen champion took over the wind element for her. I agree with you that I don’t think the other original big Gods would agree with Aldas actions. There are just a few problems with them rising up.
The first is Alda currently has the most power and took the least damage out of the wars. The second problem is Alda has already turned on one of the original God’s declaring them insane because she disagreed with him. It is very likely he will do it again rather than change his actions.
Third and probably biggest issue is Aldas authority. He is able to punish the other God’s of Lamda. We saw how serious Vidas wounds were. The last issue is just how many God’s Alda has on his side. Even if the Original elemental God’s come back there’s no assurances anyone will jump ship from Aldas.
I do think that there is a chance Peria and Botin might be biding their time and laying low. Why pop out now and be forced into Aldas faction or sealed permanently. Better to pop out after the war has heated up more and throw your weight behind a side to tilt the odds.
Haraken
Pretty sure Peria isn’t asleep and is actually bidding her time (probably in order to not be forced to choose on the spot between endorsing Alda or being punished by him as an insane person like everyone else so far that isn’t in his camp), as her subbordinate Pargtarta in an earlier chapter was hinted to be following the will of her mistress, not Alda’s.
Lord Rin
I think they said Botin is asleep to recover from her wounds suffered during the Demon King War. Whether she actually is still asleep is another matter altogether. Probably she and Peria are pretending so they don’t get punished with the Stakes of Law or get forced into joining Alda’s side like Ricklent and Zuruwarn were before they had been forced to reveal their true allegiance earlier than planned so they could help Legion and indirectly tell Van that they’re on his side.
Dash6217
I thought both were asleep affected by the curse of the demon King which only Van can expel
Jonathan Hurd
Peria used to much power and has been sleeping to recuperate. Botin has been sealed by remenants of the Demon Kings army.
The reason some God’s were sleeping wasn’t so much a curse but due to exhaustion.
dkuro
Thanks for the chapter.
The only realistic way I see for Vandalieu to have good and happy childhood would have been that heinz hands over the mother and baby to the Storm of Tyranny.
Is there someone here with enough inspiration to try to make a fan-fiction out of that?
And even with that, it would have been the same in the end. Just with less death on Alda side, and more death people for Vida’s races…
Jonathan Hurd
I think for that fan fic you just replace Seig in this story with Van. Garcia falls in love with Schneider and they raise Van together… so on.
dkuro
Still possible with Schinieder, because he always had multiple one… Even in is party the only two girl are his lovers.
But I agree Zod would have been a great dad to Van.
GashBello
Wow! That’s a big chapter, thanks for all the hard work. I can’t wait to see what happened with que piece of demon king soul
V4NQU1SH
Thank for the chapter~!
Advance Merry Christmas~!
What would be Selen’s reaction to their(Five colored blade) Titles when they reunite. Hmmm
Mr.Darkness
“the whole world can become members of Vida’s races now” Alda’s totally screwed…
“that Divine Protection’s whole name has finally been displayed! As expected, it’s ‘Vandalieu’s Divine Protection!” Mwahahhahahhahahahhahaha! Man! How i wish to see Alda’s face when he discover this! He would probabably scream so out loud that he would be heard in Origin!!! hahahhahahhahahhahha
“it was because he wanted to prevent Nuaza … from erecting statues of him.” There’s no way Van can prevent this anymore… Since many people will receive the complete divine protection, they will totally side with Nuaza.
Jonathan Hurd
What annoys me about Heinz in this chapter is this proves he completely ignored everything Van said to him. Heinz literally asked Van if he took in the pieces of the Demon King because Heinz captured his Mom, but Van responded No. Van told Heinz he would of ended up absorbing the fragments and fighting Alda even if his mom was never killed.
It pisses me off that Heinz’s whole justification for Van being Evil is he’s ugly and fights in weird fashion. Van has proven he is not controlled by the fragments of the Demon King. His fighting style is weird and no one can copy it… so what? I mean most people couldn’t fight like Schneider or the 15 evil breaking blades, that doesn’t make them evil.
Another thing that annoys me is how Mill let’s Heinz off the hook for not trying to save Vans mom and him. Remember Schneider was in the situation of having grown up in the Amid Empire and being a worshipper of Alda. He went on a mission to subjugate some of Vidas races, but he decided to protect them instead.
Even if we say ‘okay Heinz was young he couldn’t of done better back then’, that doesn’t excuse what he has been doing afterwards. Apparently he was killing Ghoul children and mothers even while knowing they were probably members of Vidas races.
In the end the one who created Van the Demon King is none other than Alda, the guy who keeps calling Van Demon King. The fact that Mill calls Gordan the fanatic who killed a new mother and tried to hunt the baby a Saint really says it all.
bk3k
>Mill let’s Heinz off the hook
I think you forget that Mill is a follower of Alda.
Jonathan Hurd
I know Mill is just another one of Aldas lackies but their logic still annoys me.
I think the worst part to me is when I really think about what is eating at Heinz right now. It’s not guilt he killed Darcia, not guilt he left Van to die, not guilt over ignoring the Titans in the Hartner Duchy, and not even guilt over ignoring the Scyllas plight. No the thing he is agonizing over is the economic and civic damage Van has done. Now that Heinz believes he made Van he is now blaming Vans actions of rescuing two large groups of Vidas races as his own.
I notice he never mentioned something like ‘if I just stepped in and helped the Titans in the Hartner Duchy maybe things wouldn’t have come to that.’ He hasn’t actually thought at all why Van had to act he just blames Van for acting and thinks Vidas races should have stayed enslaved. That’s why I find his little pitty party irritating. He hasn’t learned anything he’s just saying the same shit he was when Van fought him while having ignored everything Van said.
Hobbes
I agree with you completely, but to be fair to Heinz, Van didn’t exactly explain all of his motives, actions, and exploits in full. He was just talking as a means to buy time.
He did get the bonus out of their conversation that Alda’s peaceful faction is not worth enough to spare Heinz, Edgar, and Delizah who act as said faction’s symbolic leaders though.
And it’s also somewhat unfair to expect that in this world’s human societies (who are all largely under Alda & Bellwood’s brainwashing) individual adventurers could get a grasp on historical tragedies from a non-biased perspective especially those tragedies that befell members of Vida’s races.
All that said, Heinz and his party are now being raised directly by the gods, in a situation where they can directly ask some questions while they recover, plus they will continue to be in a position of so much power ‘on the ground’ that they can in fact choose to end Alda’s cycle of cruelty to a degree with their upcoming actions.
And I think that position of theirs is what makes it hardest to sympathize with the 5 Colored Blades.
Chiu ChunLing
To be completely fair to Heinz, we have to acknowledge that he doesn’t really care how many problems he causes as long as he can hide his involvement.
Heinz is acutely sensitive to whether or not information makes him look good. And even if it doesn’t, as long as he can bury it he’s okay.
But now that it’s inevitable that everyone’s going to find out that one of the main factors in Van’s life is his desire for revenge on Heinz for killing Darcia, well now Heinz’s image is in trouble.
Chiu ChunLing
Still giving Heinz too much credit, though.
His ‘outrage’ over the economic and civil damage caused by Van was laughably hollow…before he knew that it would become impossible to hide that Heinz’s own actions were among the main causes that provoked Van.
Now that he’s imagining what other people will say when they find out that Van’s journey to becoming the Demon Lord was kicked off by Heinz, oh, that’s really agonizing to him.
Chiu ChunLing
It’s not that Heinz ignored everything Van said…it’s that when Van was saying it he still had confidence that he could kill Van and conceal all of this information from becoming widely known.
He’s freaking out because he realizes that not only does this clearly make him look like the bad guy, but he has no hope of preventing the whole story from coming out, he can’t kill Van and Vida is publicly endorsing Van’s account of events.
It’s just like his reaction to Vida telling him that she would never forgive him. He was upset about that, but he only became aghast at it when Mills told him it was on his Status now.
This is a trait he has in common with El Braver and Kouya, they were both a little upset that they’d overlooked Amamiya Hiroto (because El Braver didn’t want him found and Kouya knew that) and ended up perfidiously killing him (cause El Braver didn’t want to know why showing no hostility would be an effective tactic and Kouya knew that), but they both decided it would be fine as long as nobody else found out.
CCaprice
Why didn’t Rouge’s divine protection clear up like Darcia said at the start of the chapter or was that only some peoples fully cleared etc?
Thanks for the chapter.
Valeth
I noticed this as well, I think as of yet Darcia may be the only one. As none of the others out right brought it up, and I am sure Luciano would have if his had changed.
YohaoShakur
I think his divine protection clear up for people at diferent times, like we have saw that people had diferent letters and diferent number of letter cleared up before. Now it should have cleared up to people who were missing only one letter like Darcia.
Entropy
It might be due to the abyssal vampires not being as different from regular vampires. I think that if enough new races are created as in dark humans then Vand becomes more divine. Another possible reason could be that it depends on how many of specific races view Vand as a god. It might also depend on how Vand views himself with regards to those said races. That is just my wild guess
Jonathan Hurd
If I had to guess the reason I’d say it is time spent with Van and connection to him. Miles is a fairly new subordinate and he even spent a lot of his early recruitment away from Van looking after Iris. Add in that Miles just got Self Enhancement Guidance I think the fact that he has as many letters revealed as he does says a lot.
Kazza
To support this, Darcia is technically the ally he has spent the most time with. We just need to check Bone Man, Knochen, and maybe Sam to see if this checks out.
Dtar316
and not to mention the one van wants to protect the most out of all of his companions to the point if u even scratch her and van learns of it, he would most likely hunt that person down
VEreality
I don’t think that Van has any saying in the fact that he is or isn’t a god. He never wanted to be and neither proclaimed himself as one. And yet here we are. Darcia-mama has his divine protection. The other ones on the other hand play a major role into it.
Jonathan Hurd
I think you guys are overstating Vans dislike towards being a God. He did say right after Vidas revival that he knows he’ll be a subordinate God at least after death. The thing for him is he wants to continue enjoying life. Being a God basically requires leaving the material plane which he is not ready to do.
Lord Rin
I think maybe the order of who gets the full divine protection depends on how close the person is to Van. Darcia is the closest so she got the full divine protection first. Miles isn’t as close to Van so he’d probably get it much later. Luciliano will probably be the next to get the full protection since I think he had the second highest amount of letters uncovered of Van’s divine protection.
NovaPulse235
I still hate it when Mill and the other Gods talk about how Van will bring a “calamity” upon humanity. Like, what has he actually done to humanity that could make them feel that way. Killing the Mirg Shield Nation Expedition force? They attacked Van and the others first. The Hartner dutchy incident? That was to free the spirits and slave titans. The scylla territory fiasco? He was trying to help an oppressed group of people. Not to mention all the human villages and people he’s saved. Alda’s faction commits genocide on multiple races for being different and yet they want to claim that Van is the blood thirsty disaster?
Valeth
Fanatics rarely make sense.
Also it should be noted Mil as a goddess of the Life aspect is suppose to serve Vida, not Alda. Her devotion to him is technically a corruption of the way the world is suppose to work.
Each subordinate god serves the chief god of their aspect, but the younger gods don’t seam to realize that Alda changed this as they all revere and serve him.
NovaPulse235
Not to mention that there were 11 great Gods who were supposed to govern the world together, and Alda now being the sole god in charge of it all goes against that order and has been said to be unnatural. Even more so since he’s living in basically an echo chamber where the only ones aloud to join him were those who literally worshiped him and are now familiar spirits and the gods who revere him. This has caused him to be completely convinced that he is the only one who’s right and everyone else who is against him like Faramuan and the other gods are just insane
Rasho
I have to correct you, Mill was made a God of Life by Alda, he ascended her to Godhood to help home manage what he stole
Entropy
Another possible reason for the gods fear of Vand is that they know almost nothing about him. All of his nation’s people follow vida so all of the information they get is from Vand’s enemies. Since he is unknown, many of the gods fear the worse such as what the emperor theorized such as Vand releasing a disease to wipe out all of alda’s humans, elves, and dwarves. As for the spirits of the titans, many of Alda’s fraction probably view this as desecration of the dead. I do agree Alda and his group are fanatics chasing an impossible dream of a perfect world that never changes. In other words, Alda’s faction fears that Vand is as ruthless and cruel as they are.
Makaayplays
He’s literally acting like an Emperot should when being attacked or provoked. This all stems from the fact that Van can control Demon King fragments. If he couldn’t do that I guarantee he wouldn’t have been called the new Demon king. All we have is a bunch of ignorant gods thinking they know what’s best for humanity just because their gods. Everyone has been perfectly fine since the gods been in their divine realms but Alda thinks that they need to go back to when gods were the central power and roaming the earth. All I see is a guy who needs control over everything to feel better a.k.a. Alda
Jonathan Hurd
I completely agree with you that Alda and his faction are a bunch of hypocrites. They don’t really care about humanity to begin with otherwise they wouldn’t continue calling for war with Vida and her races who have always wanted to just be left alone.
I think among the Alda faction God’s there’s a split between those who truly are stupid enough to think Van is the enemy of the world and those who keep saying that he is because they need an attack force. It was stated a while ago that I think even Alda realizes if you compare Vans actions to Guduranis there is no compare.
Guduranis killed everyone friend or foe. He really was dead set on annihilating all natural life. Time and again Van has spared humans and people. The people he has killed doesn’t even compare to the kings of the Amid Empire or the Orbaume Kingdom. The problem for Alda though is that Van is a powerful ally for Vida and he can tip the scales. So he needs to whip his fanatics into a frenzy saying Vans coming to kill them all so he can force people to risk their souls in a fight against Van so that Alda doesn’t have to risk his own.
no1
It just shows that alda and his side are hypocrites and two faced
bk3k
>Van will bring a “calamity” upon humanity.
Much of it is a self-convenient interpretation of reality. But they do have one legit point. Dampirs normally live about 4000 years assuming they die from natural causes. Certainly Van isn’t normal, but leaving that aside you could predict that some day he does indeed die. He has many undead around him and they are rapidly gaining strength. They’re becoming stronger than undead normally ever would.
The undead around him aren’t a problem today as they behave a lot like the living – entirely due to Van’s existence. What happens one day 4000 years from now when Van disappears from the world? A kingdom of god-tier undead who eventually revert to the normal nature of the undead. At that point it might not be only 1 kingdom, but they might be everywhere. Yes that’s a calamity to say the least. That and in other ways, Van is creating a world that is addicted to his existence. A world that cannot get by without him. And that’s a problem when he’s mortal. A problem that gets more severe the longer it goes on.
But that’s less of a problem when Van is becoming increasingly divine. His nature is becoming increasingly that of a god (though he hates and denies this). And we know he can reverse aging in others, so likely he can do that himself. Alda and his gods don’t know everything.
Plus they’re considering the damage from another full blown war of the gods. Something that’s obviously coming. A certain number of gods need to exist to maintain the world. Van can completely destroy/consume gods. It is also true that breaking too many souls can break the transmigration system itself – the one ran by Rodcorte. That will result in a lifeless world. 3 lifeless worlds in fact (Earth and Origin too).
So in some ways Van really is a threat to the world. Although he doesn’t choose to do so, he could indeed render the world lifeless. Still that’s their perspective. Van is doing good things for the world and Alda’s gods have done immense harm. Naturally they don’t want to accept that.
Jonathan Hurd
You make some good points but I think you’re giving to much credit to Aldas side.
For the Undead reverting, if you have 4 thousand years to come up with a solution you should be able to do something. Vidas races include those who are actually immortal to begin with so Van could probably become one of those. Add in that last time Van died he possessed his own corpse so I don’t think Van moving on is a threat currently.
We’re also assuming the undead will revert. I think if they truly did then even Vidas races would help stop them. Mindless undead are pretty easy to fight so not much worries there.
Another thing is Aldas side has never considered the consequences of a fullblown war. They are the ones who are causing and demanding the war. Their whole goal is the annihalation of the other side no matter the cost. If they truly cared about the world and maintenance they would of buried the hatchet years ago.
Another point towards the fact that Van can crash Rodcorte system. Van has been capable of that for a while but hasn’t done it. Sure there is a threat he could do it. There’s also a threat that Humanity will wipe itself off the face of Lamda through war with itself. Doesn’t mean we should kill all humans to stop that.
Also I find it hard to sympathize with the worry about crashing Rodcortes system while their goal has been to destroy Vidas system for thousands of years.
Another part about crashing Rodcortes system is it’s his own fault. He has looked down on and messed up the two worlds that can blow up the system himself. If he paid more attention and tried the world’s wouldn’t be in these situations and he would be less hated. I honestly don’t understand why anyone would trust Rodcorte and his system over Vida and hers at this point.
I agree with you Van if he put his mind to it could become a disaster, but the ones who are pushing him to fight at every turn have been Alda and his group. Remember the reason Van has developed so much destructive power is because Alda and the rest keep attacking him. Even when he was a powerless baby they tried to kill him. . Pointing at his current power to justify attacking him is a bit pate.
Add in that there are literally hundreds of things in this world with the potential of being disasters themselves, and a lot of those actually are trying to destroy the world with no need for provocation.
Alda and his crew can make all the excuses they want but they brought the fight themselves. They can’t turn around now and claim victim hood now that the people they’ve been mercilessly killing are fighting back.
Kazza
Even if the Youth Transformation can’t be done to yourself, there is also the possibility any of Van’s progeny – of which there will be a guaranteed many – could develop death magic. Mei shows that a fetus drenched in Death Mana will develop an affinity naturally, and there are arguments to be made for both possibilities. Pauvina, for instance, hasn’t developed any death powers, but there could be a myriad of reasons. It could be that Van only really touched the Fetus with death magic, not drenched it. Pauvina could just not have a great affinity for any magic, as most orcs do. Or maybe – because she had not been reincarnated through Rodcorte’s system which would remove then reassign an affinity – her soul actually may have had too much of another attribute for the death mana to ‘eat,’ as it’s shown to be parasitic to a degree.
That last option is mostly fanon, though.
Hobbes
I think the scarier idea would be if Rokudo figured that out rather than Rodcorte. Rodcorte is hopelessly incompetent, but on the other hand Rokudo is cruel and meticulous. I know who I would be more worried about lol
Lord Rin
I think by now, Van is probably already immortal. Dhampir are supposed to get I think it was 4-5 times the lifespan of their non-vampire parent and Van’s race has changed from Dhampir(Dark Elf) to Dhampir(Goddess) to reflect how Darcia is essentially a goddess. Deities already don’t have lifespans so 4 times that would still result in no lifespan and thus immortal.
Tejing
Densuke confirmed this in an answer to a reader question. Van has an unlimited lifespan since his race title changed.
Hobbes
Where and when exactly did he say that?
Chiu ChunLing
In some kind of social media account in Japanese, probably.
It doesn’t actually matter, Van has had an effectively unlimited lifespan ever since he worked out his Youth Transformation Spell. And while resurrecting the dead wasn’t something gods could do, Alda knows damn well that it’s possible to extend lifespans even for gods other than Vida, the Goddess of Life.
Randy Rando
Yeah. They explicitly stated that Alda extended Bellwood’s lifespan. Forget in which chapter tho.
Julian Skilton
At this point, I don’t even think the undead under Van can revert. Borkus already possessed consciousness before Van swayed him, he was only more aggressive then his past self and was dead set in guarding the castle. The higher the undead, the more they keep their minds. Heroic zombie created naturally and not through artificial processes like Gubamon’s most likely are barely damaged. Since all of Van’s undead either exceed that point or aren’t super undead, they probably won’t become a problem. The superior undead will just undergo minor personality changes and the lesser can just be wiped out by the inhabitants if they go rogue. That even depends if Van’s guidance fades. Considering what happened to Bellwood and the fact that his guidance still seems to affect Alda, Van’s guidance will most likely remain.
Chiu ChunLing
That’s quite true, and a point that deserves a lot more attention than it’s getting. Only the low rank Undead that pose little threat even if they revert are in any serious danger of reverting were Van to die naturally even if he didn’t ascend to godhood.
The real problem is not the risk of high rank Undead reverting if Van dies naturally, but of them deciding that a world ruled by gods that murdered Van has no worth and pulling and Eighth Guidance on the entire world.
Van also has this mindset towards those that would wipe out everyone he loves and call it ‘justice’.
But the solution is simple, just stop trying to murder Van and everyone he cares about.
Dash6217
See the points but quite unrealistic I guess more than likely Van will become unaging eventually once he keeps gaining power
Dtar316
damphirs doesn’t live 4000 years, only ones born from a dark elf and a vampire, general rule of thumb is 3-5 times the life expectancy of the non vampire parent. And dark elves lives to 1000 years, nuff said.
Darkhelios
Mill: Back then he was known as Zakkart, Ark, Solder and Hillwillow. Four of the Champions who helped us defeat the first Demon King and save the world. And technically, if we weren’t stubborn back then and if we had accepted to use their plan and “nuke” the Demon King then the world would be in a better state…
However we decided to not do that and, after leaving them to die, we decided to sacrifice most lifeforms, most landscapes in order to defeat the Demon King. But, hey… At least, our plan was better than theirs, right? We managed to protect the world!
And now, Heinz, it’s your turn. You must defeat Vandalieu and save the world. Even if he was four of the Champions. Even if he doesn’t want to destroy anything. Even if things will be peaceful as long as we don’t do something stupid like “killing people for no good reason” like we usually do. Vandalieu is the Demon King. Without any doubt. Want some proof? Just look at him! He’s so creepy…
Meanwhile: After sensing that someone was insulting him, the “Demon King” Vandalieu created several clones to deal with his depression.
NovaPulse235
I love the idea that Vandalieu creates clones of himself to help cheer him up whenever someone calls him the demon king
YohaoShakur
Vandalieu will bring change and that’s what Alda and his faction are against.
OrccatcherEd
I’m glad someone finally said this. The gods in this series are best understood in Dungeons and Dragons terms. The original gods of Lambda were all good. The invading deities were largely evil. Those who weren’t were firmly under the thumb of the Demon King, who was definitely evil. But the other D&D scale, law vs chaos, is critical.
The gods of Vid’s camp originally ranged from chaotic to neutral. This shows even in the lack of structure to their worship. They greatly admired the heroes whose thinking was out of left field, and Vida’s creation of new races was definitely chaotic. It is only natural that they like Vandelieu, with his imported novelties, weird ideas, and tendency to upset the apple cart.
The gods of Lambda’s camp, in contrast, are almost entirely lawful. Alda himself, as the god of order, is close to lawful neutral. He wants to do good, but, in his minds, that is only possible by creating and enforcind order. His ultimate and impossible goal is to restore Lambda to the state it was in before it was invades, and every action he takes is influenced by that goal. From his point of view, anything that moves the world further from that original state is really bad. Vandelieu has already caused unprecedented, permanent, radical changes to Lambda. If these changes were to become permanent, it would indeed be a world scale catastrophe, at least to the gods of Alda’s faction.
Sailon
Only to make clear Lambda gods camp is only alda faction all the surviving great gods until now sided with van peria was not make clear but the fact that her subordinate god talk to her seem like she alredy awake but dont want to show herself this make me think that she is agaist Alda bodim the godness of earth is also a godness of craftsman so i belive she would not sided with alda either, well from the beginning Alda naming himself as the top god alredy make the other great gods unhappy after all before Guradanis the 11 great gods were equal Lambda dint have a top god
Nox
Thanks for the chapter.
Now this is training for Van as he can improve his communication abilities and his godhood as the people from the slums and possibly the red light district will join Talosheim and receive Vans’s guidance. Furthermore will he a earn himself a good position in society which he always wanted in his earlier years. Van will grow. He will.
Jacforce1
I really want to see a title like “abuser of vida’s child” or something similar on Heinz and the others just to hammer in the fact that they’re hypocrites
Entropy
They could probably explain that away with the amount of Vida’s children that they have killed, but perhaps adversary of Vida’s Holy Son would work. It is a pity that no one but them can see the titles.
Jonathan Hurd
I think there are certain ways to see people’s status. Especially on the adventurer cards. Schneider has an item that hides one of his titles showing he is a fake Alda worshipper.
I feel like it’s kind of impossible to proclaim yourself an ally of Vida if she considers you her mortal enemy. Adding more antivida titles wouldn’t help, but probably not to important.
NovaPulse235
The way people can see other’s statuses is only through the guild registration thing where they look at it then register you with the adventurers guild with a guild card. I’m not sure if the guild card can show their statuses on it though and update itself with new titles, so as long as they hide the titles from everyone no one should know
bk3k
I won’t be too specific as not to spoil, but a certain type of magic eye exists which can read others statuses provided they aren’t too much stronger than you – If they are too much stronger than you, then it all reads like gibberish but you can get a sense of how many abilities, titles, etc they have.
And you know Van’s Abyss ability? You get the idea.
NovaPulse235
I think I remember someone talking earlier on in the novel aboutt something called the Demon eyes of Appraisal. I’m going to assume that this is what your talking about and it comes in later in the novel. Also, considering that the only ones we’ve seen with those kinds of eyes have been vampires, I’m gonna guess that they’re Birkyne’s
Jonathan Hurd
I forgot about those nice catch. I think I remember mention of them during when Marshakul was scouting Vans abilities during the Evil Breaking Blades battle.
I will say it isn’t that only Vampires can have Evil eyes it’s that they have lived for hundred thousand years and stole them from others. You know what they say if you’re weak owning a treasure is a crime.
NovaPulse235
Yeah, I only caught that cause I reread that chapter earlier right before he commented that so I was able to draw a few conclusions
Chiu ChunLing
The reason we’ve ‘only’ seen Vampires with them is because those eyes can be stolen and transplanted if the recipient has Rapid Regeneration (or maybe a really skilled healer).
This hasn’t been properly highlighted, but probably none of the Vampires we’ve seen with Demon Eye’s were born with them.
Darcia was ‘born’ with her Demon Eyes, but that’s cause they stole them from Gubamon and tossed them in the Root of Life along with all that other stuff.
Otakukamikazes
I think it was explained that titles can give special benefit and effects, so by having Vida’s Mortal Enemy as a title they might get extra damage and hatred (probably on a subconscious level) from the races of Vida
Jonathan Hurd
Vidas races will probably feel some unconscious animosity towards the Five Colored Blades. I think the title might increase the damage they deal to Vida and vice versa as another part of it.
no1
That title would be most accurate if they got it. I bet if the human populace found out about his group’s “mortal enemy of vida title” that would ruin his credibility or reputation as leader of alda’s peaceful faction for coexistence with vida’s races, hope it does happen 🙂
Entropy
Not to mention the holy mother killer, those two will end his group’s dream. Most people will assume that the five blades killed a religious woman of Vida’s thus earning her mortal enemy title, and if they explain it, even funnier.
Tejing
Glad luc, doug, and the girls are happy, though I’m still waiting to learn more about what’s distinctive about these new races.
As for heinz… he’ll probably become dead set on killing vandalieu now, through some kind of thinking like that he needs to “clean up his own mess.” Goodness, he’s arrogant. The fact is that his causal influence on vandalieu’s current powers, morals, and attitude toward the various races and gods is pretty minimal, but to him its obvious that it’s all his fault. It’s good that he’s recognized that vandalieu is holding himself to a moral standard, but that probably won’t actually sway his thinking in the end.
So the title they got was “vida’s mortal enemy,” huh? Has more kick than just “vida’s enemy” I suppose, though I did kind of expect only heinz, edgar, and delizah to get it, not all 5.
Levia being all depressed over van buying charcoal is cute; I love it.
I wonder what the deal is with the house? It’s not like disease is a threat to van, so it’s fine, but I’m still curious.
The location of his cart seems rather unfortunate, but I’m sure van will make it work.
Jonathan Hurd
My guess with the disease in the house is that there is probably a monster causing the disease and Van will tame it.
Entropy
Could be a poison that takes a while to kill like what almost happened in the cultivation village. My bet is that it is a ghost that uses a disease or poison to kill its victims.
Jonathan Hurd
That is the most obvious answer. I do feel like it ending up like that would be a little boring. Though what would be fun is if we both end up right. It starts off as a normal fungus or something and then Van fills it with Death Attribute mana and turns it into a monster.
Kuro-san
My guess is that it’s some kind of fungus.
Randy Rando
Definitely won’t confirm or deny any of your guesses but I will say that several were really spot on. On a definitely completely unrelated note, anyone remember the first spell Van learned in Lambda? What was it called… Disinfect, was it?
Superboy8338
So Heinz finally realized that his head was so far up his own a$$ that he couldn’t see his own hypocrisy or rather his flawed goals and ideals.
Tejing
Although he still thinks the world revolves around him…
TheDerangedOne
eh, that’s mostly due to the Alda’s faction reinforcing that notion, what with the whole “you’re to save the world” nonsense. Van doesn’t want to destroy the world, he just doesn’t want to die a third time. It’s the other side that actually wants a fight with how things are going.
Jonathan Hurd
It is amazing how much Aldas side cries that they’re the victims now that someone can finally hit back against all their atrocities.
Hobbes
Alas ’tis the nature of abusive hypocrites.
bk3k
Van’s ambitions have grown quite a bit further than merely not dying. He cares about the people around him and is determined to protect them. That in turn ultimately means confronting Alda – since Alda decrees they many of them should not exist.
Self preservation hasn’t been his primary driving force for some time. He has a lot more to care about now.
Randy Rando
Did you forget that he has already died 3 times? Once on earth and twice on Lambda.
Lord Rin
Even after all that, he’ll probably still double down on how Van is evil and needs to be destroyed.
Entropy
Great chapter, find it hilarious that the five blades that are trying to promote living with Vida’s races are now her mortal enemies. That is going to be so much worse than the holy mother killers. I do get the feeling that Joseph is not done tormenting Vand. Something tells me that guard from earlier will make another appearance
Jonathan Hurd
To be fair they weren’t really promoting helping Vidas races all that much. If they were Van might of considered holding in his rage, but they utterly fail at the job and use Van as an excuse it’s pathetic.
bk3k
They promoted not killing the ones who have no rank – the ones they’d consider “people”. The ones with ranks are “monsters” who look like people. And they never promoted equality to those Vida’s races with no rank. Just co-existence.
It is still from the perspective of that world fairly radical, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough. Where as Van will promote equality and not merely to the few who have no rank. Granted Heinz just learned from Van that many he was killing are also people – something really he should have realized himself but didn’t. Zealotry and all that.
Jonathan Hurd
I’d argue that what Heinz was advocating is not the extreme but the most milk toast normal line. The extremists are those trying to kill everyone or no one. Most people even in the Amid Empire allow the non monster types of Vidas races live. They make their lives help and are racist but you can at least kind of love there. That’s part of why Alda has such a headache and why Bellwood fundamentalists were cast out.
Just saying don’t kill them is not really changing anything. Besides no steps have been taken even to try and make sure people don’t kill Vidas non monster races anyways. So all Heinz has done is say the obvious and pat himself on the back for his effort while people are massacred under his nose.
Chiu ChunLing
Not killing the ones with no Rank doesn’t need to be promoted and isn’t radical, it’s deeply unpopular to wantonly kill them even in the Amid Empire, where everyone thinks it’s fine to nab them as slaves.
The entire legitimacy of the Amid Empire is founded on Alda fanaticism, but even there actually killing Vida races with no Rank is what’s considered radical.
And even for the Vida races that do have Ranks, seriously attempting to exterminate them is considered foolish.
Ltshrek
Ketchup did that anyway coz he can’t handle the guilt that’s eating him from the inside
no1
So Mill is finally going to tell Heinz about Vandalieu origins? I wonder what effect that would have on his decision to fight Vandalieu. Also I’m pretty sure its because he lost that only he now feels remorseful about his actions. Also Heinz was extremely arrogant to think that his actions cause Vandalieu to do all the things he did up until now. Also thank you yoshi for another good chapter.
Lord Rin
From how she’s been talking so far I think Mill will tell a bunch of incredibly biased half-truths and outright lies to convince Heinz that Van is the enemy of the world and needs to be put down.
no1
good point
VEreality
The time has come and so have I. Van has finally lost the battle. He shall no longer deny his greatness. Randomly reloading the page was a great idea 😀
As for Heinz……well we can say that the time has come for him as well. It is great to see that the truth is being spread, but it is a ‘too little, too late’ situation.
This is without a doubt a major point for the story line so now is a good moment to think about the future.
Also….holy Darcia! Van is soon going creat just as many races as Vida did after the DK war. Give them two generations and Nuaza’ statues are going to be the last of Van’s worries regarding his god possition.
Thank you for the translation!
XDeath Reaper
The first sentence reminded me of the devil may cry series, and I can’t wait for the gods to fuck up enough for Van to take action again.
Seinvolf
Thank u always for ur great work…
^^…
Kazza
Yes! Already into chapter 3.
I have a feeling we’re going to get a big multi-release as we approach New Year’s. I think that’s what happened last year, anyways.
Ok, so Heinz is finally realizing how much he sucks. I do find it interesting that he refuses to blame any of the gods, Gordan, or even the other Blades for Van’s grudge, only himself. Granted, we’ve been told being soul-only means you’re lacking a lot of cognitive function, but I still think it’s worth looking into. Almost as of he can’t accept he’s another victim of Alda, and of course he should have done something else. The Hero Complex is strong with this one.
Not much to speculate about. I’m curious how Van is going to get his business booming. Granted, he’s got a lot of help in Miles, but it’s not like ‘Michael’ can just force people to buy it. Maybe some free samples?
There’s also the question of the other businesses. Would they just sit still and let this Dhampir take away potential revenue? Would some good old subterfuge occur?
And, possibly most importantly: Where is Aggar, and why is he still alive?
lazygeko
If the food is good, you just need to get the first few to eat it. His stall is actually in a good spot for business, as long as the thugs leave him alone, and he owns the thugs so… As for others, that vice guild leader will probably try stuff when Van’s business takes off but Van can handle him, either by paying him off or other means.
Yoshi
Just so you don’t get your hopes up, it’s unlikely that there will be a multi release this year. I was kind of a loner around this time last year so I just spent my holidays translating, but that won’t be the case this year haha
Kazza
Ah, damn. That’s ok. Thanks for the wonderful job you do regardless.
Dinzu
Have a fun and stress-free end of the year Yoshi. Charge up the batteries and let’s keep the story going next year ♥
Jonathan Hurd
Happy to hear you have people to enjoy the Holidays with Yoshi. Thank you for all the hard work this year and thanks in advance for all the work in the coming year.
unmellow
Fuck you normie! /s
adabana
thank you for the chapter.
get your mystery meat skewer you will surprise when you eat it.
Blackpercher
beast transformation…a vampire? i wonder if he will become a giant bat or something…abyssal bat…
lazygeko
Considering his title, it is probably a wolf.
VEreality
Fun fact, wolves are actually realated to vampires just as much as bats. Most of the people just think that bats are cooler or more memorable.
lazygeko
I did indeed know that. Huge vampire fan. But sparkly vampires are popular these days so I tend to avoid talking too much about Vampire “lore.” I am such a nerd who rages over fan made lore of fictional creatures. 🙂
Jonathan Hurd
It’s pretty cool to see not just the newly transformed Beast Girls got the beast transformation. This probably means there will be other people with transforming abilities.
I just remembered wasn’t it the Black Goblins and Archne/empusas dream to transform themselves into giant Toads to become true Ninja. We might be seeing the first step on the road to do that for them, lol.
Lord Rin
As long as they don’t start wearing orange jumpsuits and doing the Naruto Run…
Azuroth
Mill is getting on my nerves. Just cause someone else would have done something if you hadn’t doesn’t make it right.
Besides that, great chapter!
Thx Yoshi!!
Metazoxan
Yeah like take Hitler for example. The reason he even took power was taking advantage of the terrible condition Germany was in at the time. Even if Hitler wasn’t around someone else probably would have exploited the situation and caused a similar war. Or at least there is a very real possibility.
That doesn’t mean we pat Hitler on the back saying “It’s okay dude someone else would have done it anyway”.
Lucian
Heinz hears the bad news from Mill.
Heinz:”OMG!We’re screwed”
Mill:”Hold tight.This is just the top of the list.”
lordtalon
i was really hoping that they would keep going i wanted to see heinz reaction to vans who was four champions 100,000 years ago
NovaPulse235
Not to mention his reaction of Van’s life in Origin. I would really like to see how it affects his view of Van. He might start thinking that he was wrong and he wasn’t totally at fault for Van becoming the Demon King, which is true, but he still does have a pretty big part to play in that
Jonathan Hurd
I’m not sure they’d really portray Van sympathetically with his time in Origin. Probably skip out on his saving the Eighth Guidance and also how he was killed. Use Vans time as the Undead to say he was already a blood thirsty beast that needs to be put down.
I can’t imagine Heinz changing his view of Van at this point after all the chances he’s gotten. At this point I’m just looking forward to round two and hope Van gets to sample all of Heinzs Soul. Hopefully with some of Mills as a side dish.
bk3k
>I can’t imagine Heinz changing his view of Van
What makes you think he hasn’t already? He’s being told everything Alda’s gods currently know. but of course he needs a little time to process a lot of shocking information all at once. Future chapter will make it clear exactly what Heinz’s views are.
But you can see here that he isn’t instantly agreeing to whatever Mill says is true. For example him realizing the Van spared the souls of those not involved with his mother’s death – something that clearly shows Van is not simply a force of destruction/evil. Clearly that isn’t how those gods wish him to see it.
unmellow
it’s true there’s a chance heinz will see the light but i had hope in him before i’m not about to be fooled twice
Chiu ChunLing
The problem is that Heinz can see the light, but he only cares about whether it makes him look good.
That’s really all he’s stressing out over with Mills too, that all of this makes him look bad.
Correction, Heinz already knew that a goddess considered him her mortal enemy. He’s aghast that this information is now on his Status, along with the fact that he’s a Holy Mother Killer.
That the summary of why he’s upset about all the rest of what Van told him…now he realizes that it’s impossible for him to cover any of it up. He was calm enough discussing all this with Van when he thought he might shut him up by killing him.
Chiu ChunLing
I can’t imagine Mills knows or even cares what happened to Van in Origin or on Earth.
It’s not like Rotcortex is going to tell Alda, and the people Van has told all super hate and despise Alda and his whole faction. So how would Mills find out, and why would she even try?
farmer
Alda’s side would definitely know that Vandallieu is selling meat skewers. The question is, would he announce Vandallieu’s identity and get his follower to mess with the now-confirmed, literal God-Emperor out on his business? I doubt Vandallieu would get the objective of making a trade connection from his Empire to the rest of the world would go undisturbed.
lazygeko
Even though they may know, Alda sides best card; the 5 brown pants blades, are not available. If they were fine and out of the hero trial I think alda may have sent them to the city to try and take him out. All the other hero candidates are immature at this point and would just fail so alda faction may sit this one out. And his religious fanatics have little clout where Van is now. But just because the Alda faction is out doesn’t mean Van’s other enemies can avoid this chance to get the prize.
Jonathan Hurd
From the previous chapter where Alda and the others were talking I don’t think they want to waste anymore fighting forces by throwing them at Van. This current venture is more a trap than Vans concrete goal to connect to the Orbaume Kingdom.
Donny The truth speaker.
Ever imagine if posting signs (advertisement) is allowed, or if he were to go around town and tell people of his food carts location after giving out samples of the sauce? (Like mayonnaise)
lazygeko
His location is perfect for business as long as the gangs don’t mess with him. Red light district has lots of customers that wouldn’t mind a tasty meat skewer. Since he owns the gang, his business will take off soon, I’m sure. Especially if a certain wolf boss guy endorses his stall.
Jonathan Hurd
Honestly best thing you can do is sell to the gang. Whose going to mess with the food stall surrounded constantly by thugs enjoying their meals. You’ve got free security they don’t want to lose their favorite eatery.
lazygeko
So now that Heinz realized the goddess he wanted to reconcile with is now his mortal enemy, in true Heinz fashion, how long till he is convinced to fight and kill said goddess? After all, nothing brings believers together more than wiping out the other side(Holy War). At this point, if he really cared, he would tell the world a bit, and sit out. Just remove himself from the picture. We know he won’t, because if he actually cared in the first place he would have done things differently, you know, not massacring ghouls once he realized they were Vida’s children and all that.
Van laying serious groundwork for his plan. Hoping after its all over he says: “Love it when a plan comes together.”
Thanks for the chapter. This novel is by far my favorite… probably my favorite since I first started reading back when chapter 2 was translated. I was skeptical after the prologue and chapter 1 so was only hooked after chapter 2.
Oshibo
What in the hell are you talking about? they found out ghouls were one of Vida’s races when Van fought them and he still hasn’t recovered from then so he has had absolutely no time to kill ghouls. Though the two new girls have already started to question their beliefs after finding out ghouls are one of Vida’s races, but now that they are Vida’s Mortal Enemy they likely won’t care.
NovaPulse235
Well, considering the fact that Heinz so easily accepted it when Van said Ghouls are children of Vida and even gave his own evidence as to why that’s probably the case, he most likely at least had his suspicions and yet didn’t bother to warn anyone else of it or even investigate
Nobody2
Actually Heinz had guessed it it was the 2 women who were so shocked by it
Lord Rin
It’s been heavily implied that Heinz either already knew or at least had strong suspicions that ghouls and majin were part of Vida’s races and yet he still went on slaughtering them including women and children just because he’d get money and fame for it.
Metazoxan
It’s not THAT bad but the real reason isn’t all that much better.
The implication is that Heinz had guessed it deep down but had intentionally stopped himself from thinking about it because the truth was too inconvenient for him. Unlike the dark elves and other humanoid races that are officially recognized as Vida’s races the Ghouls are almost entirely hostile to outsiders.
Meaning that trying to make peace with them would require careful mediation as well as forgiving the harm done to humans in the past for the sake of peace. But the problem is that Heinz is ultimately a hardcore racist who views Vida’s races as second class citizens.
He still sees them as people but he’ll overlook mass slavery or potential genocide for the sake of not causing damage that raises taxes for humans.So for him to try to help the ghouls was just out of the question.
The other issue is that he’s just a coward who doesn’t want to face his own mistakes. So he’ll run from the truth as much as he can so that he can believe he’s a hero.
Jonathan Hurd
Yeah I’m betting he reunites with the other Five Colored Blades and gives some speech about Vida and Van being insane from grief and so he has to kill them for the ‘greater good’. Also we should hide the fact we’re going to do this because it’d hurt our popularity.
The other one I can imagine is him saying… ‘Well shit has gotten weird so our only hope is waking Bellwood and mindlessly following his orders!’
I think one of those two is coming in the future.
Lord Rin
Maybe both I’d expect.
kazamakj
Starving wolf eh. Van is really prepared for stuff isn’t he.
Doom-sama
PRAISE VAN-SAMA, OUR LORD SAVIOR,OUR CHAMPION, OUR DEATH GOD, AS HE TAKES CONTROL OF THE FOOD INDUSTRY! WATCH AS HIS ENEMIES SHAKE IN FEAR AS THEY LEARN THE TRUTH OF HIS POWER! THE SACRED MESSAGE OF THE DAY IS:
Rule 1 of Business: Always make the first move
JeKeBe
Too many fun things in this chapter, including Heinz realizing just how deep he’s gotten into it.
Thanks for the chapter!
Armorpiercer
I don’t think he know enough, wait until he know how much Van go at such lengths to revenge