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Talosheim, several hours before the battle between Vandalieu and Birkyne.
The Sun Giant Talos was considered to be the most exceptional, powerful and gentle among the Colossi who had survived the war against the Demon King Guduranis.
Having been awakened from his eternal slumber, he gathered his children who carried his blood in the holy grounds of the nation that bore his name… though they were Undead. The important figures were here, including the ‘Sword King’ Borkus, the ‘Saint of Healing’ Jeena and the ‘Tiny Genius’ Zandia.
And he spoke to them.
“I was wondering if you could ask for the name of this nation to be changed to Vandalieuheim or Vandalieuland,” he said with a serious expression.
Borkus and the others had expected to be told of some important prophecy or long-forgotten truth; it took several seconds for them to understand what Talos was saying.
Zandia, the second princess, spoke on behalf of the former king of Talosheim who had never become an Undead and the first princess Levia who was accompanying Vandalieu.
“Umm… Are you serious?” she asked.
“Serious, super serious. I really think that the name of the country should be changed,” said Talos, the ancestor of the Titans whose body was larger than a castle, nodding repeatedly.
“Very well, great father,” said Nuaza, the head of Talosheim’s Church of Vida who would attempt to get permission to build an enormous statue of Vandalieu at every opportunity. “We must tell the Holy Son right away –”
“Hold up,” said Borkus, hastily stopping him.
“It’s too early for that, Nuaza,” said Jeena, who had handed over… or rather, forced, the responsibility of leading the Church onto Nuaza.
“Why would you oppose this?! Borkus-dono, and even you, Jeena-sama! You supported me in the creation of palm-sized statues of the Holy Son!” Nuaza protested loudly.
“Small statues of His-Majesty-kun are cute. But the name of the country doesn’t have much to do with cuteness,” Jeena replied.
“At least tell us your reasons,” Borkus said to Talos, managing to grimace with the half of his face that wasn’t a skull. “Could it be that you really didn’t want your name to be used for the country’s name in the first place?”
Talosheim was the city nation that had been built on the sacred land that Talos had created using the last of his power in order to protect the Titans who had been defeated by Alda and escaped with the goddess.
Thus, Borkus and the rest of the Titans hadn’t had any questions or misgivings about naming the nation after their great father. But perhaps Talos had a far more modest personality than his appearance would suggest and he felt embarrassed to have his name used for the name of the nation.
It was also possible that as one of the gods who ruled over the sun, Talos was discontent with the state of the nation, as there were citizens who were Undead or Vampires, and some other citizens had transformed into new races such as Dark Humans and Dark Dwarves.
Until recently, Talos had been slumbering in order to regain his power. Thus, he had been entirely absent from the former Talosheim’s entire history. It wouldn’t be surprising if he were discontent with how the nation was.
Or so Borkus thought, but Talos let out a sigh.
“It is not that I didn’t want it, but… I feel bad. I mean, I have been asleep until recently, haven’t I? Other than creating the holy grounds in the beginning to ward off monsters, I have not done anything. And over the past hundred thousand years, the holy grounds have shrunk to the point that I could occupy it in its entirety just by sitting in it,” Talos said. “It is… uncomfortable that the name of someone like myself is being used as the name of the nation that leads numerous nations of Vida’s races.”
The reason appeared to be closer to the former, though it didn’t seem that Talos was at all concerned about the fact that the majority of the nation’s inhabitants were beings who were unsuited to being the citizens of a nation of the sun, such as Undead and Vampires.
The Undead Titans suddenly remembered that in the age of myths, Talos had said: ‘The sun’s light shines upon all of creation. It gives only warmth, not distinguishing between good and evil.’
“I see… I understand your reasons. But I think it’ll be a pain in the ass to change the country’s name,” said Borkus.
“Yeah, it’s not just a matter of redrawing the maps,” said Jeena.
“We’ve been calling it ‘Talosheim’ this whole time, so we’re kind of attached to it,” added Zandia.
It may have been simple to rename the Talosheim of the past, as it had not had diplomatic relations with other nations and its population was about five thousand.
But now, it was the main nation in an empire of nations in the Boundary Mountain Range, and it even governed a detached region in the Demon Continent. There was a vast number of documents.
And most importantly, there were already almost a hundred thousand citizens who had grown attached to the name ‘Talosheim.’
“Can’t something be done about that? I tried talking about it with the other gods, but all I got was a lecture from my younger sister that I haven’t seen in a hundred thousand years, and that Xerxes told me that I’m only thinking about useless things because I’ve got too much time on my hands. Fidirg seems to think that I’m too free as well,” Talos muttered, insisting that he wasn’t free since he had joined in on maintaining the barriers around the Boundary Mountain Range from the day when he had regained consciousness.
He was complaining about Xerxes, the god of battle flags who was the guardian deity of the Majin nation, and the dragon god of five sins Fidirg, who protected the Lizardman territory in the marshlands.
“What has Vida-sama said?” asked Borkus.
“She comforts me when we talk about it, but… the topic always quickly changes to our beloved children. She tells hundreds or thousands of stories about our children all at once, so I can barely even nod my head in response,” said Talos.
The gods, especially the great gods, existed in a far higher dimension than mortals. They heard prayers from countless believers and watched over them all. As a Colossus, Talos was among the demigods that were extremely close to being a true god, but it seemed that it was not easy to keep up with Vida’s pace.
“Then doesn’t it mean that the other gods don’t really think that the name needs to be changed either?” said Jeena, trying to convince Talos to not worry about the issue.
“Mmm… Perhaps I am worrying about it needlessly,” said Talos.
His mind seemed to be heading in that direction, and one of the Titans who hadn’t spoken yet came up with an ingenious idea.
Zran, the only Undead Titan to hold the title of ninja, whispered into Borkus’s ear. “Hey, Borkus. Your daughter Gopher seems to have a brilliant idea.”
Borkus turned around in surprise. “What’s wrong, Gopher?! Is something wrong with your stomach?!” he asked his daughter in a whisper.
Gopher, who was normally strong-willed, had her head bowed towards Talos and made no attempt to look up at him.
“Shut up. Unlike you and your friends, I’m a normal person, old man. I’m still not used to this!” Gopher whispered back.
Indeed, she and the other ordinary Titans were being pressured by the aura that Talos was giving off; they were unable to raise their faces to look at him.
Borkus himself had already become close to the realm of godhood himself, and he had seen gods on numerous previous occasions, so he was able to look Talos in the eye and converse normally. But Gopher and the other ordinary Titans could not do this.
After being freed from the slave mine in the Hartner Duchy, Gopher had strived to become a warrior like her father while doing other work on the side such as teaching at a school. However, she had not yet reached the level of being a superhuman.
Talos was the father of the Titan race, and although he consciously suppressed the aura of pressure that he gave off… it was normal for those in his presence to become unable to even speak to him.
“Sorry about that. A hundred thousand years ago, I would teach combat techniques to your ancestors and sing songs with them to get them used to my presence, but I wasn’t able to do that for you,” said Talos. “But in exchange…”
A soft light came from Talos, enveloping Gopher. As it did, she felt the pressure emanating from Talos subsiding.
“This is… a divine protection! Is it really alright to grant divine protections so freely?” Gopher asked.
“In the past, I would grant my divine protection to children who trained in combat and children who sang well. It is nothing to be concerned about,” said Talos. “More importantly, I would like to hear your brilliant idea.”
“Ah, alright. It’s nothing outstanding or anything, but… in human nations, the capital city is often named differently from the nation itself. I just thought that it might be better for Talosheim to be like that as well,” said Gopher.
As all of the nations within the Boundary Mountain Range were city states, the name of the nation and the name of the city were one and the same, and the concept of separating the two didn’t even exist.
However, even though she had been a slave, Gopher had lived in a human nation and knew that human nations contained multiple cities.
“I see… You are suggesting that the city remains as Talosheim, and the nation’s name changes. Could I ask you to request for this to happen?” Talos asked.
“That way, Talosheim would stay as Talosheim, so I think a lot of people would agree…” Zandia said with a nod. “But I think it would depend on the nation’s name for His-Majesty-kun,” she added, knowing that Vandalieu would certainly be opposed to the nation being named something like Vandalieuheim.
“Well, that just needs to be discussed, doesn’t it? Either way, we can’t just change it by ourselves,” said Borkus. “Before we talk to the boy about it, let’s try talking to Chezare and Kurt.”
“O-old man, you’re making the preparations…?!” Gopher murmured in disbelief.
“Next thing, you’ll be telling me that it’s going to snow tomorrow,” Jeena laughed.
And so, the movement to change the name of the Talosheim Empire began.
The news of the destruction of the Pure-breed Vampire Birkyne and Hihiryushukaka, the evil god of joyful life, was instantly known to the Vampires who were a part of the faction that worshiped Hihiryushukaka in the Bahn Gaia continent.
One could describe the chaos that ensued as intense, and also as quiet.
Many Noble-born Vampires in Birkyne’s bases in the Orbaume Kingdom and spread around the regions to manipulate criminal organizations from the shadows had chosen to flee. They were doing their best to survive, abandoning their duties and the organizations they were running along with a few close aides.
The Subordinate Vampires left behind by the Noble-born Vampires had chosen to wait for Vandalieu’s arrival, intending to swear loyalty to him and convert to Vida’s faction like the ones at the tower had done. There were also some who had tried to take over their criminal organizations in the absence of the Noble-born Vampires and others who had continued carrying out their duties, unaware of anything.
Thus, the Orbaume Kingdom would soon become unstable, suffering frequent incidents caused by members of the criminal organizations whose leadership had been lost, or battles against Vampires whose hiding places had been discovered, but… the instability would be a temporary thing, and many of the organizations would be destroyed by the work of soldiers, knights and adventurers.
The fearsome thing about Vampires was that they formed organizations like humans, were highly capable in combat, possessed good equipment and, most importantly, they plotted schemes inside cities rather than Devil’s Nests.
These Vampires abandoned their organizations and began acting on their own or in small groups, and those who were not used to running the organizations had taken over, showing their faults. In other words, they had discarded their strengths and were nothing but prey to the humans.
But in the Amid Empire, there had been almost no chaos among the Vampires who had worshiped Hihiryushukaka. There were some who had planned to flee like the Noble-born Vampires in the Orbaume Kingdom, as well as some who had chosen to kill themselves rather than suffer gruesome fates at the hands of Vandalieu’s subordinates. But the majority of them remained where they were.
This was because many of them believed that Vandalieu would not send people to pursue them all the way in the Amid Empire.
Indeed, Vandalieu had no thoughts of going to the Amid Empire side of the continent. There weren’t any particularly important Vampire-run bases or organizations there, so he had decided that there was no problem with leaving them be.
There were orphanages for gathering children and brothels, but there were none who had been manipulated by the Demon King’s shadow like the children in Morksi’s orphanage.
It seemed that Birkyne had also deemed it unlikely that Vandalieu would appear on the Amid Empire side of the continent.
… Some of those organizations had been destroyed instead by the Storm of Tyranny and their allies who had been informed about the organizations by Vandalieu.
Vandalieu felt no obligation to send forces out to hunt down Vampires scattered over various regions in order to improve the stability of a nation that he did not rule… especially a nation that was his enemy.
That was the job of the lords who ruled those lands and the knights, soldiers and Adventurers’ Guild that fought under their banners.
But Vandalieu had still dealt with the Vampires and places that would be dangerous to leave alone, such as Noble-born Vampire Viscounts that were as powerful as Birkyne’s confidants and the storage facility where Birkyne had kept Subordinate Vampires that he had tortured into becoming murderous puppets for his own amusement.
In the process, Vandalieu had encountered Noble-born Vampires who had remained in the bases to beg for their lives alongside the Subordinate Vampires, so that night had been quite busy.
A Dwarf with a long, braided beard let out a dull scream and clutched his head. “It’s over, it’s hopeless… This is the end!”
The ‘Mage Masher’ Asagi Minami ran into the laboratory, alarmed by the Dwarf’s scream. “W-what’s wrong, Zean-san?” he asked.
“A-Ah, Asagi-kun! Listen to me! The experiment has proven that my hypothesis was wrong!” said the Dwarf named Zean.
The blood drained from Asagi’s face as he prepared himself for the worst.
“But don’t worry. I’ve created a new hypothesis from these results!” the Dwarf said.
“Really?!” Asagi exclaimed.
“Yes; it is still too early to give up. The research has been a series of failures. According to my new hypothesis –”
The blood returned to Asagi’s face as he listened to Zean’s hypothesis. The ‘Ifrit’ Shouko Akagi and the ‘Clairvoyance’ Tatsuya Tendou, who had entered the laboratory behind Asagi, watched with complicated expressions.
“… How many hypotheses does this make now?” Shouko muttered.
“Who knows. I stopped counting after a hundred,” said Tatsuya.
Asagi’s group saw Vandalieu as a threat, so they had been researching ways to combat the Demon King’s fragments. They wanted to discover knowledge and technology that could stand up against Vandalieu, and spread it to every nation. They believed that this would allow the nations to gain some power, deterring Vandalieu from taking future large-scale military actions such as declaring war.
But the research was difficult.
This was only to be expected. Rodcorte considered Lambda to be inferior to other worlds, but even so, Asagi and his companions were trying to develop knowledge and technology that this world’s inhabitants had not managed to do so in over a hundred thousand years.
The three of them had not completely immersed themselves in their combat training and battles against terrorists during their previous lives. All of them had graduated university, and they possessed far deeper knowledge regarding magic than the average person. Tatsuya in particular had acquired much specialist knowledge, as he had put his ‘Clairvoyance’ to use in bomb disposal and the field of medicine.
However, they were researching the Demon King’s fragments. These had not existed in Origin, and they had not even originated in Lambda; they were the transformed flesh fragments of the Demon King Guduranis, an invader from yet another world. They were clearly impossible to explain using Origin’s scientific knowledge and magic system. Asagi’s group had known from the very beginning that this research would be difficult.
That was why they had searched for someone to help with the research. Someone well-versed in this world’s myths, legends, magic and alchemy.
The person they had encountered was Zean, the one who was explaining his hypothesis to Asagi now. He was an eccentric mage who worked in a useless post at the Mages’ Guild. He would repeatedly come up with strange and novel theories, then set about disproving them.
Up until now, it was commonly accepted knowledge that Orichalcum was the only effective tool against the Demon King’s fragments. Despite that, Zean had promised to cooperate with the strange trio who wished to research other effective ways to deal with the fragments.
“… He is a brilliant person, though. He gets inspirations, doesn’t slack off in experimenting and quickly admits his mistakes. I think it’s pretty impressive that he’s managed to come up with over a hundred convincing theories and still keep going,” said Tatsuya.
Indeed, Zean was a genius in a way. Through the verification and rejection of hypotheses, considerable gains had been made.
“But I wish he’d stop screaming like the world is ending every time his hypothesis is wrong,” Shouko sighed.
The two of them felt a sense of futility every time they heard Zean’s scream, knowing that it meant that his hypothesis had been wrong.
This was likely why Zean had been placed in a useless position in the Mages’ Guild. Due to his behavior, nobody had noticed that he was a very exceptional individual.
But for some reason, it seemed that he and Asagi got along. It was likely that their overbearing stubbornness to continue on towards their goal without giving up was what they had in common.
“Come to think of it, how is the ‘sponsor’ these days?” asked Shouko.
“There’s been no real change. He’s just regularly getting reports about the state of the research,” said Tatsuya.
This research into the Demon King fragments was being carried out with the support of Duke Birgitt’s family, who ruled over this duchy… and their surveillance.
After all, the target of research was a fragment of the Demon King. If it were mishandled, a researcher could become infested by the fragment and run amok, destroying the city.
Ordinarily, adventurers like Asagi’s group would never be allowed to carry out such research, but as they had successfully sealed away a rampaging fragment of the Demon King with the advice of Aran and the other reincarnated individuals in Rodcorte’s Divine Realm, the duke had allowed it… though a large part of the reason was that the duke had mistakenly thought that Asagi’s group were among the heroes who had recently emerged all over the continent with the divine protections of the gods.
They had received a god’s divine protection (Rodcorte’s), so it was an easy mistake to make.
And so, Asagi’s group had received considerable support, but they had come under the supervision of the duke’s family in exchange. Tatsuya had examined this surveillance with his ‘Clairvoyance’ and was also keeping an eye out for anything strange, but there had been nothing particularly out of the ordinary.
“The duke is probably going to get another report because of the scream just now, so I’ll have a look, but… it’ll probably be the same as usual,” said Tatsuya, assuming that the person doing the surveillance and reporting worked for the Birgitt family.
The group’s goal hadn’t changed, so they didn’t see this as a problem.
But the Pure-breed Vampire Birkyne’s will existed among the vassals serving the duke’s family that was funding the research and the Mages’ Guild employees introduced to the group by Zean.
None of the group were aware, as Birkyne was manipulating them in such a way that the vassals and employees themselves were unaware of it.
Aran and the other familiar spirits in Rodcorte’s Divine Realm were capable of seeing information regarding the humans whose souls belonged to Rodcorte’s circle of transmigration system. However, this was the Birgitt Duchy, whose duke was a Beast-kin. There were more members of Vida’s races here than in other duchies, so the information available was limited.
“But have a look just in case. Asagi and I will probably be busy acquiring materials and things needed for experiments to test the next new hypothesis,” said Shouko.
“Alright… Let’s pray that the duke’s family doesn’t cut off their support,” said Tatsuya.
The two of them had not been involved in researching Zean’s hypotheses for a while; they were hunting as adventurers. The incidents caused by the chaos within Hihiryushukaka’s Vampires after the loss of Birkyne had occurred all over the Birgitt Duchy as well.
The duke’s family could not simply ignore Asagi’s group’s achievement of successfully sealing a Demon King fragment, and they could not refuse his requests, as he was their sponsor.
And from their successful exterminations of multiple Noble-born Vampires, Asagi and his companions went through a promotion examination for formality’s sake, and became B-class adventurers.
Incidentally, Vandalieu did not appear in their laboratory through teleportation. Their research was inconvenient for Vandalieu, but as there were Demon King fragments not absorbed by him still running loose, he had apparently decided that their research was necessary.
Several days after the destruction of Birkyne and Hihiryushukaka, the evil god of joyful life, in Itobam, a city on the opposite side of the Devil’s Nest that had been ruled by the Minotaur King from Morksi.
The members of the Flame Blades, an adventurer party that worked in the Adventurers’ Guild of this city, were busy hunting in the Devil’s Nest.
One of them, a male Titan shield-bearer, angrily kicked away a monster corpse whose materials he had finished collecting. “Shit… How the hell can we pay a hundred thousand Baums!” he cursed. “A hundred thousand! How many years is it going to take to earn that?! Are they trying to tell us to hunt Minotaurs or something?! We’re D-class!”
“We can’t pay it even if we hunt ten Minotaurs. It’s a hundred thousand Baums each,” one of his companions, a female human scout, reminded him.
“There’s five of us, so five hundred thousand in total… We wouldn’t be able to pay it off by killing a single Minotaur unless it were the Minotaur King,” said a young, male, half-Elf mage.
“Calm down. The hundred thousand Baums each isn’t final yet,” said a human male swordsman, the leader of the party.
“That’s right. A hundred thousand is the worst possible scenario, and the Guild told us that it’s likely that the punishment will be lighter than that,” said a female wolf-type Beast-kin archer.
The Flame Blades had committed the crime of using Natania, who had joined their party, as bait to escape from Minotaurs. This crime was currently being investigated by the Guild.
Having sacrificed Natania and escaped, they had returned to the city of Itobam and reported to the Guild that there was a large horde of Minotaurs in the Devil’s Nest.
Back then, they had received sympathetic looks. The Guild and the other adventurers had felt pity at the fact that one of their companions had been unable to be saved, and praised them for making it back to the Guild with this important information.
Naturally, none of the Flame Blades had told anyone that they had thrown a knife at Natania’s leg. They had reported to the Guild that they had been ambushed, and had no choice but to leave the wounded Natania behind.
That was why no nasty words had been spoken to them even when the Guild began taking steps to deal with the Minotaur horde.
As even the weakest Minotaurs were at least Rank 5, the five members of the Flame Blades together would barely be able to stand up against a single Minotaur. Thus, adventurers who were far more capable than them were to be the ones to battle the Minotaurs directly. However, they had been assigned to other important, non-combat-related duties such as guiding the other adventurers to the place where they had been attacked as well as transporting and guarding the supplies.
The Guild had done so because they had believed that the Flame Blades were dependable adventurers who had been able to maintain their composure despite the tragedy of losing one of their companions.
The Flame Blades had been enthusiastic to use this task as a step towards their promotion to C-class.
But in the end, the team built to eradicate the Minotaur horde had never moved out. Before they could, there had been a report from the city of Morksi that the Minotaur horde had already been destroyed.
The one who had written the report was Natania, the one who had been abandoned by the Flame Blades. In addition to reporting about the Minotaur horde, she had also reported her betrayal at the Flame Blades’ hands, and the Guild had begun an investigation.
Each of the Flame Blades’ members had been questioned separately regarding the situation in which Natania was left behind, and small differences in each of their testimonies had revealed holes in their story, causing them to confess to their evil deed.
People’s opinions about them reversed in an instant, and the Flame Blades had gone from being an excellent adventurer party to being looked upon with scorn as a group of fiends who would sacrifice their own companions to save themselves.
The ‘one hundred thousand Baums each’ that they had just been talking about was the amount that they were to pay to Natania.
“They said that the fact that we were being chased by Minotaurs is the truth, and that it was understandable for us to be tempted to do what we did,” said the party’s leader. “We were able to make it back with important information, and it was possible that they could take the extenuating circumstances into account –”
“It’s obvious that they only said that because they’d be screwed if we were to hang ourselves in despair!” the Titan shouted angrily.
“The amount that we have to pay will be paid to her as reparations, after all. If we don’t pay enough, the amount would have to come out of the budget of the Adventurers’ Guild’s Itobam branch,” said the half-Elf mage.
“But still, they should cut it down by some amount… though it would be tough for us even if they halved it,” the scout sighed.
The Titan clicked his tongue in frustration. “The damn Guild, dragging up things from the past…”
The truth was that the incident with Natania was not the first time that the Flame Blades had survived a Minotaur horde attack by sacrificing their companions. In the fifth year since the party formed, they had sacrificed three others.
Like Natania, all of them had been the party’s ‘sixth member.’
The five of them trusted each other, having been together since they had first become adventurers, while the sixth member had joined them later on. In situations when one member needed to be sacrificed, it was out of the question to sacrifice anyone other than that sixth member.
Despite having done that, the Flame Blades had never drawn suspicion from the Guild. However, considering this past, it was easy to guess the truth.
The Guild’s investigators had an extremely bad impression of them.
“But something is a little strange. Normally, they would take more time with the investigation… and compared to similar cases in the past, a hundred thousand Baums each is a higher amount for reparations. Why?” the half-Elf mage questioned.
The Titan sighed in frustration. “I’m sure she’s sucked up to some important person in Morksi and told him to get us to pay this much!” he spat.
The party did not know how Natania had been rescued or the circumstances she was in now.
… Naturally, they were unaware that she had been rescued along with the duke’s younger sister who was a knight, by an adventurer who appeared to be Randolf ‘the True’ who had acted on the duke’s orders. Nor did they know that she was under Vandalieu’s protection and had become acquainted with Earl Morksi.
But the Guild did know these things. Though the Flame Blades were unaware, Natania and her guardian had become very important people. The speedy investigation and heavy punishment were a result of steps taken in consideration for them.
“I was against letting that cat bitch into our party in the first place!” the Titan shouted.
“You were against it? I wonder who it was that made a move on her and got rejected?” the scout said angrily.
“There’s no point talking about all of this now! We can’t do anything about it, so we have no choice but to earn as much as we can and finish paying the reparation amount off as quickly as possible!” the leader said, stopping the argument between his companions.
But even he was aware just how difficult it would be to pay a hundred thousand Baums each for D-class adventurers like themselves.
Even if they were to cut down on their living expenses, their profession was one whose capital was paid by their bodies. They couldn’t cut down on their food too much because it would affect their stamina. They couldn’t be stingy with the arms that were the tools of their trade, either.
And respectable merchants would avoid hiring the Flame Blades, as they were now infamous for killing their companions, nor would other adventurers want to work with them.
Thus, they couldn’t get any relatively good commissions, and it was difficult to group up with other adventurers to take down big monsters or bandit groups.
How many years it would take to pay the reparations would depend on the finalized amount…
“I think the gods are our only hope…” the Titan muttered.
Suddenly, an unfamiliar voice spoke to the party.
“You are the Flame Blades, I presume?”
The party turned around to see that a man had appeared there.
It was a man with his hair standing on end, a face that could be described as both masculine and ill-looking, and worn out leather armor that looked as if it could fall apart at any moment. The Flame Blades looked closely to see that he was still of an age where he could be called a boy, but the bright, hazy light coming from his eyes canceled out his young appearance.
“You pitiful dogs who abandoned your companion and now have to pay a large sum in reparations. It seems that you admired the Five-colored Blades, but at this rate, it seems likely that you’ll push yourselves too hard and die before you can pay off your debt,” the man said in a ridiculing tone.
The Titan shield-bearer stepped forward. “You bastard! I don’t know your face. Who the hell are you! Don’t think you can get away with making fools of us!” he shouted angrily.
The man’s mouth formed a crescent-shaped smile. “My name is Hajime Inui. I am the great hero of Fitun, the god of thunderclouds. Rejoice! I’ll make you heroes like the Five-colored Blades with the power of a god, just as you hoped for!”
As Hajime made this loud declaration, a soft light came from his body.
The Flame Blades’ screams echoed across the Devil’s Nest, but nobody heard them… and they became ‘heroes.’
In a certain room in a certain house, in the high-class residential area in a certain country in Origin, a small boy was groaning in frustration.
There was a small ball made of sponge in front of him, and there was a target printed on paper attached to the wall.
It seemed that the boy was attempting to throw the sponge ball at the target with a method other than using his hands or feet.
As Origin was a world in which magic existed, it was possible to send the ball flying with wind-attribute magic, but… the method the boy wanted to use wasn’t magic.
There was a book behind the boy, and it was titled ‘Mysterious Power Handbook.’
“… ‘A hundred simply-explained methods to train your powers. Join the Bravers.’ Even in a world where magic exists, I’m surprised that there are these kinds of books,” Banda murmured to himself.
It seemed that the book was about what were known as ‘superpowers’ on Earth.
“The Bravers exist, and they’re a group of people who have special abilities that aren’t magic, so it isn’t strange for such books to be written… or is it?” Banda wondered. “It looks like a book written for children, and I don’t think young people would really think that they could actually gain some kind of power.”
The book’s contents were vague. Phrases like ‘concentrate your mind’ and ‘imagination training’ were frequently used, but there were no specifically-described training methods.
If people could gain abilities with books like these, the whole world would be able to become Bravers.
Sure enough, it seemed that the boy failed at his goal.
“Ugh… It’s impossible!” he said with a sigh of frustration. “I guess I really don’t have powers like Mom and Dad… No, I’m not done yet! I still haven’t tried the other ways of training!”
Repairing his own almost-broken will, he began looking through the book for the next thing to try.
“Huh? This isn’t the page I was looking at. Maybe the wind turned the pages?” the boy wondered in confusion.
But without putting too much thought into it, he began reading.
“The warm air from the air conditioner doesn’t reach the book over here, though,” Banda whispered, knowing that the boy… Amemiya Hiroshi, couldn’t hear him.
It seemed that Hiroshi was concerned about the fact that he did not have any special abilities like his parents. This was to be expected, as his parents, Amemiya Hiroto and Narumi, were leaders of the Bravers and world-famous heroes.
“Maybe he’s being teased at school. It could become a deeply-rooted complex in the future. And his younger sister Meh-kun has me residing in her, so she could be considered special in a way… He might end up feeling alienated because he’s the only one who isn’t special,” Banda murmured.
He passed through the wall of the children’s room, returning to Meh-kun… Amemiya Mei, who was in the living room watching a children’s television program with the female babysitter. He couldn’t be more than fifty meters away from her, but he was free to walk around the house and the neighborhood.
“Banda, frog, frog,” Mei giggled.
“Mei-chan, you like frogs, don’t you?” said the babysitter, thinking that she was referring to the frog that was extending its tongue on the television screen, which appeared to be an LCD.
But the truth was a little different.
When Mei said ‘frog,’ she meant, ‘Stick your tongue out like a frog.’
“Look, I’m a frog,” said Banda, extending his tongue out back and forth.
Very excited by this, Mei attempted to reach out and grab his tongue.
“But you’re not very good at drawing pictures, are you? It’s not unusual, since you’re not even two years old yet, but… I wonder if this is really a frog,” the babysitter said, giving a puzzled look at the drawing on the drawing paper that had been left out on the floor.
There was a ‘strange thing’ drawn on the paper.
If one were to describe it, it would be a monster with shrimp-like antennae extending from its head, four eyes and a crescent-moon-shaped smile that stretched from ear to ear, from which a tongue hung out all the way to his feet.
At first, the babysitter had thought that Mei had drawn a monster that had appeared to her in a scary dream, but it seemed that she had taken a liking to this monster. “Banda,” she had said with a smile after drawing it.
“Ah, you drew a portrait of me. Thank you, Meh-kun,” said Banda.
If the babysitter were to see Banda, she would completely change her mind about Mei’s drawing skills. For a two-year-old, she was quite the prodigy.
“Now then, I wonder what I should do about your Onii-san?” Banda wondered.
His top priority was Mei. Even if that weren’t the case, Hiroshi was the son of Amemiya Hiroto and Narumi… two of the people who had ended Vandalieu’s previous life.
Banda had felt unpleasant feelings upon learning that their son had clearly been named after his own previous name, ‘Amamiya Hiroto.’
But that wasn’t Hiroshi’s fault at all, and he bore no responsibility for his own name.
“It’s not unusual for children to act out during puberty because of a complex they feel due to their families, but I want to avoid Meh-kun’s home environment deteriorating as a result of that,” Banda murmured. “I want him to be a good older brother for Meh-kun, too.”
Banda thought that Hiroshi, who was currently in the other room, had done nothing wrong as Mei’s older brother so far. He took care of her and played with her. Banda wouldn’t have described him as the ideal brother, but he was a relatively good older brother for his age.
“But unlike my main self, I’m not able to give him special powers… This is quite troubling, Meh-kun,” Banda said.
“Trabbing?” Mei said, attempting to repeat Vandalieu’s words.
“What is it, Mei-chan? Are you talking about the sloth?” asked the babysitter.
TLN: ‘Troubling’ is 悩ましい/nayamashii and ‘sloth’ is ナマケモノ/namakemono; they sound… somewhat similar.
Unlike his main self, Banda was spending his time peacefully, but things were quite troublesome for him as well.
In fact, Banda had not yet realized that this house was under surveillance from a place that was over fifty meters away.
“There’s nobody in the house except for the brats and the babysitting woman. We can do it if we move now,” one man murmured.
“Don’t be ridiculous; it’s different from a robbery where you’re done after you take the goods. We won’t get paid if we don’t hand the kids over safe and sound after we kidnap them!” said another.
“But it’s Amemiya Hiroto’s brats!” said the first man.
“You don’t need to tell me that! I know that you have a grudge against him, but I won’t let you move on your own. If you disobey me, I’ll dispose of you before the brats,” warned the second.
“… Fine. But how long do we have to wait?”
“We’re waiting for the go signal from the client. If you understand me, shut up and get back to surveillance.”
Just like the sloth on the television screen, Banda’s time of peacefulness was limited.
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NOVEL DISCUSSION
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Hobbes
Guardian Demon Banda-kun it’s time for ACTION!
Winter
Unfortunately the kidnappers weren’t aware of the friendly guardian demon, who happens to be there 😛
I’m curious and excited to see how Van’s or rather Banda’s powers will manifest in Origin, when he actually fights.
Alke
The Amemiya children are in danger! Gambaru Banda, you’re in charge of that little girl! Fighting, “stand-kun” 💪😜 (Hijiri being yoshikage Kira). Funny how I came to forgive and even sort of… like ? (well not that much) these people just because they have a cute child who is protected by Banda😅. Mei is really really cute
Eru
The research on the demon king and his fragments…won’t it be useless? It is supposed de seal Guduranis not Vandalieu… And it is supposed to seal a part of it not the fragment that Vandalieu have…. The entire body …
Hmmmm
Hence why Van isn’t really stopping it, he’s the type of person who wants them all sealed and unable to harm anyone until he takes them, but orichalcum is just too rare to get to every fragment. That’s why Van wants the research to succeed so that the rest of the fragments can be safely sealed faster and Van can collect big batches of the fragments by raiding the holy grounds.
NjShade
And the current way of sealing demon king fragments is useless on Van who have complete body if demon king
Alke
Yeah but Thalos is not a god yet 😔. It is said that he is what is the closest thing to a true god. Will it be sufficient? Besides he has not entirely recovered yet I think. Anyway, what would be perfect is that they strip this b*stard Alda of his powers, and those that he stole from Vida and to give them to Vida and Thalos. That would be the only way for it to work. But I don’t know who is able to do such a thing. Alda did that before but I think it’s because he has the authority over punishment, as a god of law. The only other god of judgement is Niltark, but let us be realistic, he would never do that even over his diying soul
Vitor
“I was wondering if you could ask for the name of this nation to be changed to Vandalieuheim or Vandalieuland,” he said with a serious expression.
I can sense Vandalieu cringing even from Earth
Zenden1st
Feeling like Meh-Kun and Banda should do a Jojo pose
Vitor
It’s kind of ironic, considering that JoJo’s starts as the battle of the Joestar family against the Vampire Dio
JKingSniper
Lol your research will be futile in the end
submit and surrender
Chiu ChunLing
It seems like Van is leaving them alone for now precisely because the research might prove useful…at least to him. On the other hand, if they do something like taking it to the Amid Empire to use against Van, then he’ll need to make an example of them too.
OrccatcherEd
I haven’t read all the comments yet, but am I the only one who thinks that, now that Talos is active again, we no longer need Alda to mainain the sun? Also, that Alda’s actions against Vida are problematic for a god of law/order? To the extent that the world might be better off without one? In other words, hasn’t he become… redundant?
Baldingere
I want Avalon’s schemes to explode in his face! Like at a big meeting of the bravers, with friends and family, sponsors and politicians, entertainment stars and fashion idols, some kind of network gala that some tv channels film. Suddenly, Mari transforms to herself. She finally regained her sense of self and planned this. She explains what happened to her. Avalon tries to get rid of her but tada! Banda intervenes, protects Mari, and gets the whole family out of there. Avalon tries to bomb the whole venue so nothing gets out. The media are under his control. Hiroto and the bravers that stayed on his side discover the truth but all the big organisations and states are with Avalon. He turns public opinion against Hiroto and his daughter, saying that Pluto took control of her. The bravers are chased like criminals. Banda makes himself known to Hiroto and co. Hiroto and Narumi are afraid but soon realise that he’s Meh-kun’s godfather. The bravers accept him because Druider, Mari and co worship him. They get in contact with eight guidance members and create a truce the time to save the victims of Avalon’s illegal experiments and make the truth known. Zuruwarn learns of the situation through Rodcortes familiar spirits. Van gets in Origin thanks to Gufadgarn/Zuruwarn. Rodcorte realises that things got messy, but between stopping Avalon and getting a chance to kill Van, he tried to kill Van. He gives Avalon information about them, after failing to persuade the bravers to kill Van. Origin’s gods intervene, fearing the destruction of the world and fairly pissed off by Rodiot. Origins falls into a worldwide guerilla war. The bravers familes are evacuated to Talosheim for a short time. Alda thinks Rodiot stopped cooperating and raids his divine realm.
And I wonder what comes next lol.
Ereshkigal
I get the feeling that this is a future chapter from the raw novel….
unwanted child
hope banda teaches Hiroshi no attribute magic
UnveilingSage
Thank you for the chapter! I’m super happy we get another Mei chapter! Does anyone know when the next one is coming? Also does anyone wanna see Mei watching scary movies with eldritch abominations with friend, and them all being scared shit-less and her just being like, “Hey! It looks like Banda!” Or like “Eh. I’ve seen scarrier. Heck. I’ve lived with scarrier.”
Flesh Sculptor
Would not she consider eldritch monstrosities to be cute? I mean, she lived with one of these hanging around her since before she was properly self conscious.
unwanted child
F̸̢̨̛̙͙̖͎̲̣͙̟̘͒̄̀̔̆̑̈̑̈́́̋̏̐̇͐͜͝ͅl̵̛̦̥̥͉̼̱̹̯̻͚̲̠͎͓͈̼͇̘̳̆̄̔̔̑̈́̔͛́̄̄̓̒̏͌̾̂̋̋̓̅̑͒̀̀̾̊̎̐̊̀̆̎̓͂̓̃̃̌̽̋̽̊̈̈́̀̏̋͊͊̓̑̒́̕̕͘͠͝ë̸̢̛̛̛̝̮̰̳̘͙̠̺̘̮̞̣̫̺̰̜̟͔͉͓̠͚͖͔̟̖̬̖͓̞̜̗̤̱̩̯̯͖̟̅̾̇̿̎̎͛̽̆̀̊̈́̓̈́͑̊̐̇͌̽̕͝ͅş̶̨̨͙̤̣̝̬͈͍̹̝̦͈̘͓̥̦̻̥̖̻͕̘͚̬̤̮̖̦͓͓̊̋̿́̊͛̋̓̌̎́͛ͅḩ̷̡̛̛̛̛̯̥̯̻̥̗͕̟̯̘̼̯̬͉͉̉̎̀̈̊͑͐͌͋̌̏̋͂́̓͊̿́̋̄̑̓͂͂̋͂͗̆͌̐̔͑̀́̌̓͐͐͋͂͛̓͂́̅͆̃͗̓̔͘̕̚̚͝͝ ̵̧̢̜͚̫̳̪̺͎͔̥̩̤͎͖̠̥̈̏͛͗̐͐͂̈́̓̊͒̈́̈̌̀͜͜Ş̸̢̨̢̧̧̧̢̞̘̦͚͔̗̭̝̤̟̤̳̺͍̞̪̥͔̞̟̫̗̹̙̬̻͔̘̑̈́͑̃̓̊̇̑͑́̌̊͊̈̄̀̿͊̎͒͆́̅̔̌͆̔̂̽͊́̈̾́́̾̍̀͐̀͊̃͆̀̊̓͗̚͘̚̕͠ĉ̵̛̟̗̹͉̩͇͖͇̰̘̞̠͓̖̳̦̹̺͙̫̠͓̭͉̮̝̹̥͇̱̭̲̲̱̞͍̮̂͛̃̿̆͊̿́̂̔͌̎̌̑̌͂̋̆͑͌͘̕̚͠͝͝ͅͅų̸̨̨̨̣͔̞͓͚͓͉̥̟̲͖̖͕̼̻̣̦͎̰͍̯̝̲̺̟̮̦̣͍̺͍͇̣͈͓̜̘͖̘͎̑̉̆̂̂̌̓̒͂́̽̔̅̇̈́͂̾̔͂̽̎͑̓͒̓̽͆͗̃̾̐͑̅̉͗̄̒͛͒̌̒̿̐̆̏̋̾͑̚̚͜͠͠͠͠͝ͅl̶̢̢̢̛̹̻̰̥͓̳͖̗͍̩̟͔̠̖̜̝̮̒̀̏̈́̌̈́͌͆̀̏͒͆͌̉͋̂͂͑̈́͘͜͝͝͝͠p̵̨̛̥̗͕̬̅̐̂̈́̊̽̂̀͐́̈̈́̂͆̎͆̃̈͑͒́͋͊̔͛̇̽̌̾̓̏͘̕͘͝ṱ̸̢̛͖̪̹̳̱͔͖͇͉̠͕̺̟̥̣̐́̎̃̉ǒ̸̫̲̦̂̍̑̉̓̾̐͊͒̏͒̑̀̈́̇̈́͆͐͋̀̇͊̀̋̈́̎̈̄̽͊̈́̀͛̓̌̔̓̂͒̈̃̕̕̕̚͝͝͝r̵̲̈́͑̒̒̆̅̀́͛̌̏̀̎͌̈́̌̍̉̒́͛̓͆̔̍͆͛̓͊͆̌̌̅͑̒̒̕͝͝͝
Zing
Did donation notifications bellow chapter 190 disappear?
no1
Is this series really just a web novel? I know there is a manga adaptation, but is there an actual hard copy light novel? Also is there ever going to be English publishing company whose going to officially translate this if there is a light novel? I would buy it if there was a light novel.
TankHunter678
There is a light novel but no english publisher has picked it up.
Irazori
What’s the difference between Light novel and Web novel? Is Light novel just another word for hard copy?
Raidanzoup
A light novel is just a lighter, more easily read novel. As in the writing itself isn’t necessarily on a technically high level. They’re also often serialized a lot more compared to regular novels. I suspect one could find a way to divide each LOTR book into three books for a total of nine, but that’s nothing compared to LNs with 40+ volumes out.
That said, LNs are just that, books. On the other hand webnovels are published online, often by amateur/hobbyist writers. I haven’t looked it up, but I bet Syosetsu making it easy for everyone to upload their works to one website made it extremely easy for publishers to pick up popular stories for physical print copies.
Of course, as many of the author’s are amateurs waiting for fun (or for the sake of becoming the next big thing), there will often be people rewriting their stories for the physical copies so webnovels often end up as more of a first draft kind of thing.
Tongyanyao
Light novels are the edited and to be sold in hard copy version of Web novels. So you could say that Web novels usually come first then if it’s popular enough, it gets serialised, edited and sold as light novels in physical books.
And if it gets manga and anime adaptations, usually they are based off the LN instead of the WN.
Irazori
Same manga versions are slow for certain series. But then again they’re trying to make images that match the awesomeness of the series.
hungsayori
Alda’s faction and Asagi’s group seeing Vandalieu as the second coming of Demon King, a menace to world peace – ಠ_ಠ
ರ╭╮ರ ಠ益ಠ （╬ಠ益ಠ）
Vandalieu trying to become be an honorary nobleman – ( ✿. ❛ ᴗ ❛.)
Irazori
That’s because those two groups are a bunch of self-righteous retards just jumping to their own convenient conclusions, especially when they don’t know shit about their supposed enemy.
Gunkaiser00
Asagi’s such pain in the arse (due to his undying presistent cling to his belief when he was still an earthlings. *C’MON MOVE ON DUDE!!)
but luckily, Asagi haven’t join to any side. so there’s a room for vandalieu to open a negotiation with asagi (tho it’s mentally exhausting)
Chiu ChunLing
But why?
Van doesn’t need him, and he can easily kill him if Asagi decides to become actively hostile, so why go out of his way to deal with him?
Chiu ChunLing
The issue is that Alda defines “the world” as “how things were before the invasion of Guduranis’ Demon Army.”
That means anything that would lead to the abandonment of the project of totally eliminating everything introduced by or as a result of the invasion is a dire threat to “the world”. Obviously allowing any Evil God to continue to exist just because they defected and fought against Guduranis is unacceptable, as is the continued existence of Dungeons and Devil’s Nest’s. But also the survival of Vida’s races, especially the ones that could not have existed without the involvement of Evil Gods or their methods (leading to those races having Ranks like monsters), as well as any technology brought from Earth or other worlds.
These things can’t be eliminated right away, so tolerance of them is temporarily necessary, but accepting any of them permanently is an existential threat to “the world”, meaning the dream of returning to the ‘perfect’ state before the invasion by Guduranis.
DarthJawa
Mei is basically a stand user at this point lol.
Also, despite only having 2 of them so far, the Banda sections are the best part of this book and I want a full spinoff of Banda being a braver with Mei as soon as possible
Ehsan
Same here bro. Although it is mak8ng me curious if anyone other than mei will ever know about banda, and if mei will tell anyone when she grows up, cause banda is probably not gonna think much about that and tell her anything beforehand
coolalex2k
Shouldn’t it be chapter 225 no 32?
Zalpete908
I think it glitch
Tejing
If you pay any attention to chapter titles at all, you should have noticed by now that side chapters have their own numbering…
no1
For the Wiki of death mage, people have been updating the stats of the characters from future volumes that Yoshi hasn’t translated for us yet. Does anyone else think that is a spoiler or is it just me?
Lord Rin
Not really? It’s a wiki. Generally those things are filled with nothing but spoilers.
Tejing
The wiki has spoilers and downright misinformation as well… We recommend avoiding it.
no1
The death mage wiki page wasn’t like that at first, it actually kept pace with Yoshi’s translations
Blue
Banda is the best friend (horrifying abomination) that we all want (to run away from)! 😀
LethalDose
I wonder if banda is ever going to van again also i think it’s funny how banda has become mie’s stand
Wsteven7o7
I won’t like it because it would be quite fun having. A alien looking stand.
I go to Halloween with wires and bottoms making it seem i can control his movements but we just gona be trolling people and scaring kids.
Specially my brother but only once because he would hate me.
Well he does already every time i scare him Lol 😂
Tau Dvore
So al this time I’ve been reading it Talo-sheim when it’s meant to be pronounced Talos-heim.
Jonathan Hurd
Huh. I was also reading it as Talo-sheim. I’m not sure I want to mentally call it Talos-heim. Makes it sound like Talos is a princess in my head, lol.
Madness
The first time i saw Talosheim i remembered Talos the god from skyrim so i never had a problem like yours
Zauberbiest
lol i was reading it as tayoshim
Black Gorgon
Thanks a lot for the new chapter
But man we all feel this jojo stand thing reference in the back of our heads and its funny, also just imagining about the robbery and Banda materializing just to kill those dudes got me goosebups.
Ozarazil
Yoshi is on fire huh? Thanks.
Vandalheim doesn’t sound so bad, it sounds kind of dangerous, but not bad.
Is it even worth it worrying about Asahi? I mean look at what happened to Birkyne, compared with how the fights with Ternecia and Gubamon were Birkyne showed almost no resistance and even after Hihiryushkaka descended they still were heavily outmatched not only by Van but by his companions as well.
Even if they found a countermeasure for Guduranis’s fragments they wouldn’t stand a chance against people like Darcia or Borkus. They may have their cheating abilities but their levels and stats are still too low, at this point in the story Vandal could K.O or even kill them with one punch. They also lack intell about Vandal’s fragments Wich would turn a battle against him a total leap of faith.
And when Amamiya Hiroto finally manages to reincarnate into Lambda Vandal would’ve already become a god at the pace he goes…
GLWD
Hang on, it kind of got glossed over, but did Hiroshi accidently turn the page of his book while trying to move the sponge?
When Banda commented, I was expecting “Try this page instead, here THIS one” but there was nothig like that, so now it almost reads more like ” You did it kid, you just missed your target, figure it out!”
But Banda then says it’s a FACT Hiroshi has no power, so why did the pages move? DOES Hiroshi have powers, or is Banda aimlessly flipping pages to screw with him?
EDIT: I do realize this would be out of character for Banda, that’s the main reason the page flipping stands out to me.
Jonathan Hurd
I think Banda was flipping through the book to read the methods to get powers. I do think you could potentially be right and he might have a power but I do somewhat doubt it. As Vida once said the powers they gave are usually not hereditary. I don’t think Rodcorte planned to make the reincarnators children inherit the powers.
I will say though I suspect what might happen is if Banda reconnects with Van then maybe Mutation Induction will happen and Hiroshima will get a power.
Valeth
The Mutation Induction isn’t something I considered…. I figured Van would teach him and his sister No-Attribute Magic and or Spirit Magic/Dead Spirit Magic eventually.
While Van does not actually know Spirit Magic, if he could help him learn to sense spirits.. I figure Dead Spirit was eventually a given, but he doesn’t want Hiroshi to feel worse when his sister turns out to be special as well.
Jonathan Hurd
I hadn’t thought about dead spirit magic. The only problem with learning that in Origin is that Vans Dead Spirit magic relies on special elemental ghosts to activate. Origin might have some like those too, but not sure how easily two children will find them.
Another problem is Mei and Banda don’t seem to have Death Attribute charm. So even if they find the ghosts they would need to figure out how to make them submit. Still an interesting idea over all.
I think Teaching Neutral magic could be the tamest method Banda could take. It would definitely feel like a special power and it does have similarities to Doug’s Hecotonier. It would allow Hiroshi to use telekinesis which seemed to be his goal here.
Lord Rin
I think Banda was just flipping through the book to read and that’s when Hiroshi saw the page had moved but since Banda still hasn’t revealed himself to anybody apart from Mei yet, he can’t just materialize and explain what really happened.
GLWD
So my culprit is boredom? Oh well – I’d assumed Banda’d already gone through anything in the house he was interested in already as he’s basically a ghost (until he – or Mei? – decides otherwise presumably) and I don’t THINK the Demon Lord based familiars need to sleep. Hopefully he found some sort of hobby in his downtime.
havok038
Fitun seems to be up to mischief, I suspect he means to use these demi-human Flame Blades band in some sort of false flag ops. Make the Alda extremists have their fears proven real.
VEreality
No. Zuruwarn is the one who is always up to some mischief. Fitun is up to some BS that is going to go wrong before it even starts.
Jonathan Hurd
That sounds to round about for Fitun honestly. He wants to savor his battle with Van not pass it off to Alda extremists. Anyways I don’t think anyone has to do anything for Van to invoke the Alda extremists wrath at this point.
I think what Fitun is up to is he needs more pawns to back him up to fight Van and is using Marionette to manipulate them. The reason he choose this group was probably to make it look more natural that they’re attacking Van. Nobody would doubt them attacking because of a grudge. So it hides Hajimes ability and the thought he’s manipulating them.
Add in that they’re basically criminal slaves at this point and it’s obvious no one would miss them. Perfect cannon fodder.
Ozarazil
Mithology has tought (my English sucks) us that there was nothing more dangerous than a bored god…
Jonathan Hurd
That is definitely true. Especially if that bored God doesn’t care at all about his worshippers and only for his own amusement.
McDeathTheReapr
yay! we finally got some Banda after all this time. But I want MOAR
Azure
Fun isn’t something one considers when dealing with trash. But, this will put a smile on my face.
V4NQU1SH
Rest in Pieces, Fools!
Thanks for the chapter~!
ValiantHex
Saying it now Van-Halla
Absolute Zer0
Van didn’t even try to stop Asagi and his group’s research. Well, their research is futile in more than one meaning anyway. Research on Demon King fragment will lead to nothing. They will never find a way to seal Death attribute magic since seal itself can’t last forever and ‘Die’ after sometime. Even if did they seal it will be short time at best. And now their research being under Van’s watch gives him chance to find counter-measure.
As for Amemiya family i’m dissapointed in parents. If you can’t even be good parent then there is no meaning to be ‘Hero’. And they can’t even play their pathetic Hero-play properly. If they were MCs of comics then that comics will be collecting dust in corner of store for years. I just hope their children will be guided properly and live life with no regret before coming to their GOD-father’s side.
Superboy8338
What makes you think the kids will reincarnate to Lambda like their parents?
Azure
There is a strong Chance that Mei will be due to the simple fact that she has been guided by Van. As for the son that has yet to be seen.
Jonathan Hurd
There is Rodidiot to also think about. He’s already willing to use everything and anything to fight Van. He might hold Hiroshis soul hostage to force Hiroto to fight Van. He could also do it because he sees Banda save him.
Overall though I believe Mei has been confirmed to have had her soul moved to Visas system officially. So after she dies she’ll end up in Lambda is some form.
Ozarazil
The same as Legion Mei’s connection to Van will pull her to lambda. I hope I’m wrong but she might reincarnate pretty soon since it seems.some bastards are trying to kidnap them and something might go wrong.
Vastorn
But Legion wasn’t bought to Lambda due to their connection with Van, Rickled/Zuruwarn (I don’t remember who it was) snatched their souls from Rodcorde and due to some complications in that, they became Legion instead of reincarnating normally.
Lord Rin
Heh you make it sound like a football play. All that’s missing is spiking the souls into Lump-of-Flesh-chan like a football and Zuruwarn doing a touchdown dance.
Lord Rin
I have to agree with Jeena and the others, Vandalieuheim or Vandalieuland are not cute names and too much of a mouthful. Keeping Talosheim as the name of the capital and naming all the other nations as being under one empire as city-states is better. Now to just figure out a name for the empire.
Yeeeaaahhh… I don’t think Asagi and the others will ever accomplish anything. This Zean guy sounds more like a quack than a genius. 100 hypothesis he’s made and not one of them have produced any results. Van’s got nothing to worry about with them. Well unless Asagi fucks up and accidentally releases a Demon King fragment that then goes on a rampage.
I guess Fitun is going to make the Flame Blades his pawns. Going by the screams, it does not sound like a painless procedure. I do want to know why would he pick the Flame Blades as pawns though? They’re only D-ranks. Fitun is a god of war that is prayed to by a large amount of people which probably also include many people from Vida’s races in the Orbaume Kingdom. Surely Fitun could find stronger people to be his pawns. The only reason I can think of why Fitun would pick these guys is because of their relation to Natania who is being trained by Van but Van doesn’t personally know them so he shouldn’t really feel too much hate for them.
Now that Van has the Demiurge job and is a demigod, maybe it’ll have an effect on Banda and he’ll be able to give Hiroshi his divine protection and/or a mini-Van as a familiar spirit. Anyways I guess those kidnappers are either people who Amemiya Hiroto has previously sent to jail or has incarcerated/killed their terrorist comrades or they are instead just thugs that Rikudou hired as sacrificial pawns to manipulate Hiroto in some way. I mean there are a lot of people that hate Hiroto’s guts both inside and outside of the Bravers and would be convinced to try to kidnap his kids as revenge or they would think up that kind of plan themselves.
zarroc
Have to disagree with you about Zean. Science is all about finding the one success in thousands of failures. When dealing with a hostile non-native entity like the DK fragments, failure is to be expected, especially in a progressively backward world like lambda. Ridiculing Zean as a quack just shows your own ignorance. Not to say that he’ll actually achieve anything.
Ozarazil
Well the problem is that they live Ina world that has been stagnated for over 100.000 years by God’s will and “science” must be in an infant state as a discipline (if not totally inexistent)
In fact in this world the only excisting scientist would be Luciliano since the church of Alda severily punishes anyone that dares to do science.
And add to that that Guduranis was a being from another world. Asagi and the others use their knowledge from origin in a world that already works under other rules that make no sense since everything works thanks to Devine decrees and laws… except for the demon king fragments that would be akin to the body parts of a lovecraftian deity.
It’d be possible… in Origin that is, but in this world with it’s current development I’d say It is pretty unlikely that they’ll come with a way to seal the death magic (that is as foreign as Guduranis and his fragments).
Entropy
Well Zean is studying something from another world that has been around for 100000 years and if it ever touches him, he will be destroyed. Besides look at Edison and the lightbulb. Personally I suspect the empire will be named after vida or zakkart since they are a little shorter and are related to Vand. I don’t know if Fitun picked the fire blades because of Natania, since Vand is probably hidden from him now that he kind of a human. I suspect he picked them because they are desperate and will agree to being vessels for his fellow gods in order to be heroes. I am going off of supernatural logic in that I suspect a god’s vessel must be willing, have some faith, and be compatible. I suspect that if the vessel was unwilling the end result would be a constant struggle for dominance. Before you mention Birkyne or that noble orc, both were willing to gain benefits from their evil gods. Sounds like Fitun will torture hosts until they agree to be vessels or he might use the Marionette ability to make them agree. Either way sounds like the gods are becoming parasites and I strongly suspect that Alda won’t approve of this plan.
Ozarazil
Actually the name should be Vandalheim. As far as I remember there was a confusion with Van’s name, in Japanese it is written to sound like “Vandaru” Wich they translated to “Vandalieu” but the “ru” at the end is in fact an L, they keep calling him Vandalieu because they realised this pretty late to changed it, like in volume 8 or something hahaha so he stayed Vandalieu (well I remember something like that happened)
Tejing
Actually, Van’s name is spelled ‘ヴァンダルー’, which is ‘vu-a-n-da-ru-(vowel extension)’. the ‘vu-a’ is the standard way to make a ‘va’ sound, due to a peculiarity of the japanese syllable system which doesn’t have a ‘va’ character, so that’s normal, but ‘Vandal’ would have been written ‘ヴァンダル’. That final dash-like symbol means that the ‘u’ sound at the end is lengthened and emphasized, so ‘Vandalieu’ is a very accurate transliteration, as well as being easily parsed by a native english speaker (unlike ‘Vandaloo’ which would also get the right sounds through, but looks odd).
Ozarazil
Really? But I remember that in one chapter they said something along the lines. Dude but Vandalieu sounds so weird haha
slifting
Now I’m wondering how Banda will deal with the kidnappers. How he deals with it will have several effects. If he deals with them in a way that no one is the wiser than the threat is unknown to others but no trauma to the kids and babysitter.
I’m mainly wondering if he will be able to deal with them without freaking out the babysitter.
Azure
well, let’s see he does have his limitations and memory removal would cause more problems in the long term. If he becomes aware of them fast enough he could simply just put them to death. I guess my only question is why have none of the spirits of the dead warned him or anything? Granted this is just a spirit clone ofc I could be missing on the fact of why this version can’t also talk to the dead. Overall death or mental scarring will be the end result. As long as he can protect Mei he probably won’t care what methods he uses in the end if he deems it so.
Tejing
Banda can talk to the dead if they happen to be around, but they aren’t drawn to him like they are to the main body, so it’s not surprising they haven’t warned him.
CCaprice
Thanks for the chapter. Poor Hiroshi, with Banda it will look like Mei has superpowers and he doesn’t.
browngravy
In a way she kinda does have superpowers as Banda is connected to Mei via her soul.
Superboy8338
Also, Mei is a death mage.
browngravy
Right, as Pluto exposed her to the death attribute in the womb. I’m really curious as to how the author will move forward with Mei. If you hypothetically remove Banda from the equation, will her death attribute work exactly as Van’s or be more specific like Pluto’s? Will she die and be reincarnated in Lambda? If so, how will she make it past Rodcorte? Or will she stay in Origin and be forced to clean up the shit storm that’s brewing there? Questions, questions, and more questions.
Lord Rin
Mei has already been guided to Vida’s circle of reincarnation. Rodcorte’s familiar spirits have already found out about it and are keeping it secret from Rodcorte. Once she dies, she’ll automatically go to Lambda and Rodcorte can’t do anything about it.
Matchu
If Mei gets reincarnated shes in Vidas system so not a lot of trouble unless rodcorte notices that she is not in his system and trys to snatch her like Vida taking Van out of rodcortes system
ZeroX1
*If one were to describe it, it would be a monster with shrimp-like antennae extending from its head, four eyes and a crescent-moon-shaped smile that stretched from ear to ear, from which a tongue hung out all the way to his feet.*
so she drew a slender man with a creep smile D:
Azure
huh, at least we have a better picture of the clone’s stature.
VEreality
I like to think he looks something like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/DeathMage/comments/dybt2y/is_fanart_allowed_curious_about_how_my_banda/
Found this online and it got me convinced.
VEreality
Nevermind. I just found another fanart(I think it’s more recent), but I will not post the link because it might be considered spoiler.
iamleejn
It’s a good thing that Van’s friend’s aren’t familiar with Earth’s Norse Mythology; if they were, the “Empire of Vanaheim” would have been declared there and then.
Straingeguy1
I’m 95% sure it won’t go that way, but I like how you think and wish it did
Jonathan Hurd
Ditto. I kind of wish it turns out to be Vanaheim now. To be fair Valkyrie seemed to style her self after Norse a lot and Van uses a lot of English and German words for naming. So maybe there is a chance.
Easykiln
Eclipse Emperor -> Eclipse Empire.
Paps
Thanks for the chapter, I am excited to see how Banda will handle those kidnappers, and if he will come up with a way to train ‘older brother-dono’.
veradux1223
I’m calling it, when the kidnappers come Banda will be exposed to the brother
Jonathan Hurd
I’m thinking he doesn’t visually reveal himself, but he throws the kidnappers around and makes it look like Hiroshi unlocked a secret power. He can solve a few problems in one go with that. He stops the kidnappers, helps Mei, helps Hiroshi’s self esteem issues, and throws people off thinking Mei is the special one.
Lord Rin
Wouldn’t that create other problems though? It might make Rikudou take a greater interest in Mei under the belief that it had something to do with the death attribute since he already has a slight interest in her because of the slight chance that she does have the death attribute and while it might help Hiroshi’s self esteem, it wouldn’t solve the underlying problem which is that he wants something to make him special.
Azure
Agreed, unless Van wants to make some power plays or something. He needs to limit himself as much as possible(The clone I mean). Now, let’s think about what possible options does he have? The clone cans till talk to the dead no?
serapheid
Looks like a bunch of fools have chosen death.
mexgema
Ohhhh SHittt! We finally get to see more of Banda! I’m fucking excited!!
mexgema
Bruh moment.
Ltshrek
That’s sad
Superboy8338
What’s sad?
Jonathan Hurd
And all the hype comes crashing back down, lol!
Kidd
Thank you, thank you for the chapter!
Hmm, Vandelheim sounds like a pretty good close-ish name to Van’s for the nation to me. Also, looks like the next Origin chapter is gonna be lit, can’t wait!
Darkhelios
I tried to imagine Banda saving Meh-kun and her brother from the two kidnappers… and I thought about Death Stranding: Dark mark of hands appearing on the ground following the kidnappers, scaring them… and catching up with them… and the words “I SEE YOU” appearing on the windshield of their vehicle before making them disappear as if they never existed in the first place…
But well… I guess Banda won’t even need to “catch up with them”… After all: If they take Meh-kun, they will bring him as well as he can’t be more than fifty meters away from her.
Kazza
I think you’re giving them to much credit, as if they’ll manage to reach the house itself…
VEreality
I would die just to see Banda acting like a horror movie monster/demon/ghost. At least from the perspective of the bad guys. It would be awesome.
Question: can Banda create a dungeon in Origin? *insert scenes from horror movies where the chambers change/the walls melt/unholy creatures come to life from the floor and anguish screams in the background* You know. To make a really big doll house for little Mei
Kazza
I don’t see why not. He had the Labyrinth Construction Skill before he met Mei, so Banda should have it and skills/spells aren’t impossible to use in Origin. The only limitation is mana (and I’ve forgotten how much it takes to build even a single-floor dungeon), so if he has enough, there you go.
VEreality
Then I will be disappointed if he doesn’t.
As I wrote this I had a sudden realization. He can make a whole army of followers and train them in the dungeon. Even as fragment of his true power, Banda is still Final Boss tier from every angle.
Jonathan Hurd
While I would also love Banda to make a demon kings dungeon in Origin I kind of doubt he will. The problem is less of him being able to and more in the fact that he can’t destroy it. It would make sense as a kind of bombshelter, but I feel like it’ll attract to much attention if someone stumbled upon it.
He can’t leave Meh-kun and there is no way the high class area the Bravers leader lives limits it’s security to 50 feet around the house. If a cave or weird tunnel appeared in the Bravers house it would get noticed and draw to much attention.
Ltshrek
As if they could take her
Kazza
Darn, this was a great side chapter! So many cliffhangers, so little time…
And so much to talk about, hope there isn’t a character limit on comments…
So, Asagi’s making “progress” on counteracting the DK Fragments. I wish they’d actually detail what Zean’s hypotheses were, because it’s honestly a bit of a tell-not-show. He’s apparently come up with “hundreds of convincing theories,” but if they all failed, is it really genius as much as throwing-shit-to-the-wall-and-seeing-what-sticks?
I’ll admit I’m not a scientist, so I have only a basic understanding of the scientific method. I also understand that our own great minds didn’t just wake up with unstanding. Einstein didn’t just wake up and go “Y’know what? RELATIVITY! BLAM!”
But as someone who loves watching psychics get debunked, failures do mean something if they’re numerous enough. That’s more why I want to know what exactly these hypotheses are. Maybe he could be researching that “Holy Element” Bellwood’s weapons give off, or something similar.
Or maybe it’s just confirmation bias on Asagi’s part. Wouldn’t exactly be out of character for him to think that because Zean thinks like he does Zean must be a genius. He thinks this plan to seal Van’s Fragments is apparently genius and a great deterrent to war, when in actuality it only gives Van reason to invade other countries to destroy this threat to his power and people. In fact, when you think about it, that’s basically Asagi’s MO – seal his opponent and enforce his views now that they’re weakened.
Only, it’s already been shown that it doesn’t work that way in Lambda. He lost to both Martial Arts and Non-Attribute Magic because when you take away his power, it shows how little he actually has… both of which are arts Van has not only mastered, but transcended.
Huh. I honestly only just thought about that.
Anyways, seems Inui is close to getting competent possessed, but apparently retains enough “self” to identify as Hajime. I’m curious what exactly he did to the Flame Blades to make them “Heroes”. Sounds painful and body-horrory, but he wouldn’t use a DK Fragment because that’s only putting them in Van’s hands. Maybe something with the “Marionette” ability to anime-logic them? Like, activating the part in their brains that produce adrenaline and get himself some Hulks? Honestly have no idea.
Finally back with Mei! I had my fingers crossed when I saw side chapter. Dear Vida, I hope the next chapters Origin focused. I assume this “client” the two are talking about is either Rikudou or a subordinate (given he suspected Mei may have Death Magic), but that doesn’t explain why they need to wait. If Hiroto and Narumi aren’t there, then the two main obstacles to getting her are gone, leaving only a babysitter that might or might not be a threat. I’d assume two heroes who are pretty likely rich wouldn’t hire the nice girl down the block.
Maybe he wants to frame the other Bravers somehow, so Hiroto trusts him and gives him free reign over “protecting” Mei.
Anyways, that book’s got me thinking more than I suspect Densuke intended. I’m honestly curious who wrote it. The fact that it promises people the ability to manifest Braver powers implies a third party wrote it, but it’s tagine of “Join the Bravers” implies Hiroto wrote it, as he the leader would be the only one to decide that. Especially since it seems to be aimed at kids, which Hiroto would probably write given his naievete mixed with being a pure super-sentai black/white Justice guy.
But if he didn’t write it, how did Hiroshi get ahold of it? He’s like, what? 5-ish? Could he have gone to the store and bought it without parental approval? And Hiroto or Narumi never came across it? Maybe it’s different in Japan, but it seems more likely to me that Hiroto gave it to him. But if that’s the case, that’s beyond fucking cruel.
Like, Hiroto knows that no matter what Hiroshi does, he’ll never get a power like his parents. He’s doomed his own kid to think he’s defective and is actively encouraging it (albeit unintentionally) by allowing him to think he has the possibility. Furthermore, if Mei didn’t have Death Magic, that’d be two kids crushed by the weight of their parents legacy.
Dann, Hiroto. I know you always make stupid decisions, but that’s beyond stupid. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you hated your kids and wanted them to fail to live up to you.
He doesn’t even need to tell the truth about his powers, a simple lie about being born under the right star or something would give him closure. Just telling him he loves him regardless of whether or not he can become powerful would be preferable to letting him read that book and constantly thinking he’s not good enough.
I mean, I’m not a parent, so I don’t know too much about child raising, but is this behavior awful to any actual parents reading this? I guess the closest analogy would be like an athlete who has a kid with a heart disease. But even then wouldn’t the athlete try to prove to them that it didn’t matter if they couldn’t continue the legacy and they love them unconditionally?
Again, maybe I’m reading too much into this, but even if Hiroto didn’t know about the book, doesn’t that show horrendous neglect of his own children at best?
I know Hiroto is technically an antagonist in the story, but holy shit that’s some unintentional evil if I’ve ever seen it in a story with pretty gray morality…
Kazza
Tank, I’m honestly not trying to accuse you off spoiling, but why are you pretending to speculate? You’ve already read ahead, haven’t you? You did the same in the chapter before the shadow was revealed.
I mean, you are usually very cautious of not revealing spoilers, including using spoiler tags, but if you tell me what’s going to happen while only changing one or two words you’re basically spoiling it anyways.
I don’t know for certain what you’ve said will happen,
but since I know you’ve read ahead, and have done this before, what reason do I have to doubt you just spoiled an aspect of the Fitun fight?
I’m just confused on your reasoning. Please explain.
Kazza
You… didn’t answer my actual question. I don’t mean your reasoning for your conclusion.
Yes, those details you’ve provided are excellent and convincing. I believe even more now that you are correct in your conclusion. You’ve scored 100% on your test.
But am I supposed to be impressed you scored 100% when you’ve read the answer sheet?
Why are you trying to pass it off as otherwise? You’re just spoiling what happens and pretending you’ve made an educated guess. But when you explicitly give spoilers, you use spoiler tags. Why the difference? That’s my question.
Kazza
That’s fair enough, but I think you’re unfortunately falling victim to Hindsight Bias. For instance, in that earlier comment your logic depends on things like heroic-spirit artifacts, of which only two have appeared and had minimal screen time overall. Compounding this, those events were also spread out over chapters long before this one, of which you have to consider each chapter between then and now may have had up to a week or two of translating before release.
So, if you did read that these heroic artifacts were a significant part of the Fitun fight, to you that’s an interesting point of discussion because you can cross-reference it to what’s already been learned. But to someone like me, who doesn’t remember the finer details like that, it just comes off as a seemingly random comment that implies that’s exactly what’s going to happen because why else would you mention it?
That’s just an example, and I honestly don’t think you’re trying to spoil, and you’re just trying to join the conversation. I really do. But you have to consider that you know contextually more than a lot of us, so what may seem common sense to you is a surprising revelation based on forgotten information to the rest of us. That’s where it becomes a spoiler, regardless of your intention.
So, I would just suggest taking some time to think about your argument and whether or not you’re unintentionally spoiling future chapters before you post. That’s all.
Lord Rin
I think they’re waiting for an opportunity because it is the home of the leader of the Bravers. It must have a lot of hidden security measures or scanners that would alert guards that could rush in on they asses before they can kidnap anybody. It’s better to wait and follow them until the kids leave the house to go to school or a store with the babysitter. Security would be less tight during those times.
As for the book, it’s probably something Hiroshi got from a friend or secretly bought when no one was looking and since both his parents are often away from the house on assignments, they probably just have’t found the book yet. Anyways the book is clearly schlock made by unscrupulous people meant to ripoff people. Like how in the real world there are books for sale that promise to teach you how to unlock psychic powers or whatever.
Kazza
The only problem with that is the fact that the Bravers actually exist. They are an actual organization with a public presence and legal representation. I doubt any publisher would risk facing legal repercussions for libel. Because keep in mind, this is a book, even if it’s apparently a children’s book, not some magazine you can get at a grocery store checkout.
And no offense, but I think you’re vastly overestimating how good a 5-year-old is at keeping secrets. He’s not doing this at night, when the babysitter would presumably be asleep. He’s doing this in the middle of the day with the babysitter in the other room. If she wanted to check in on him and figure out what he’s doing, it wouldn’t be hard. And if you think kids are any better at lying…
So, either the two know, or they and the babysitter are neglectful of their son to an insane degree. Neither looks good, which is why I really want more concrete information on that book that I have a suspicious feeling we’re not going to get.
Jonathan Hurd
I have a few issues with what you said Kazza. The first is about the bravers and libel. I will preface this with I dont know Japanese law, but in the US being a public company means proving Libel is a pain in the butt. To do it you have to prove the writer knowingly printed lies when he printed it. This is why we have so many tabloid magazines making outrageous claims about celebrities.
A way to get around the law as well is to make your writing imply association but never actually say it. I mean the book just says gain super powers. Never said specifically ‘like the bravers’ or ‘ this is how the braver did it’. The author knows the reader would associate Bravers and super powers but you can’t prove he does in a court of law and it’s not worth the effort to try.
The Bravers image hasn’t been good for quite some time anyways. After Gungnirs crimes were outed and he was killed by Mari.
I believe there were papers printing ‘The fallen Hero’ mentioned in the story. The Bravers have been constantly under fire from citizen groups and countries especially after Murakamis group joining terrorists and how terribly they took down the Eighth Guidance. They can’t be randomly silencing dissent either because that would make matters worse.
All on all it shouldn’t be hard to find a random how to get super powers book in a comics store or other place. I mean we have those and we don’t even have magic or people with powers. There is a great market for these books thanks to the Bravers and people happy to con kids out of their pocket money. I think you’re making a way bigger deal about this books existence than needs to be.
For Hiroshis age I believe the chapter says pubescent boy so I think he ‘s older than five and closer to eight or nine. I agree kids aren’t great liars, but the babysitter is looking after a two year old. That probably takes most of her attention. Add in mom and dad have full time intense jobs and I think a few things will have slipped by them. He doesn’t have to have bought it. We know from the first Banda and Mei chapter that Hiroshi goes and hangs out at a friend’s house sometimes. He could have gotten the book there like Lord Ron said.
For Hiroto and Naruse’s part in this I think they will have already suspected Hiroshi wants a superpower. Problem is how do you sit your son down and explain you met God and were reincarnated. I can’t see a good outcome from that. Worst case he might attempt suicide to meet said God. That’s a scary thought, he could also think you’re mocking him. He could think you’ve gone insane. I mean even in the best case where he believes you and accepts he can’t be special the best you’ve done is crushed his dreams. Can you see why as a parent you might be struggling to have this conversation with your kid?
Kazza
Fair enough, but I think you’re underplaying how the book specifically mentions “Join the Bravers.”
I don’t know anything about Japanese copyright law either, but that basically sounds to me like an equivalent to “Join the Avengers” to you or me. Now, obviously the Avengers are fictional, and so their name can’t be used by anyone but Marvel (or whatever the movies do, I know even less about those). However, I would think that any book which features them (we don’t know if that line is throwaway or tantamount to the entire book) would need to be passed through Marvel first to give their OK. For the Bravers, I would imagine even more so, especially with all the bad press you’ve mentioned they’re going through. Hell, Rikudou is actually going to charity drives and public speaking places to garnet public support, and if that book does come from a reputable publisher, I think he’d at least want to have a look at what it says.
But you’re probably right, it could be that Densuke wasn’t really thinking too hard about it and was instead focused on setting up this inferiority complex subplot. But I won’t budge on the fact that Hiroto and Narumi should know.
I can actually defend (not necessarily prove) that Hiroshima closer to 5 than 8-9. Remember, Hiroshi is named after Van’s pre-previous name, which is Amemiya’s way of atoning for murdering Van (I was gonna say accidently, but…) unjustly. He named Mei after Pluto for similar-ish reasons.
Now, keep in mind, he didn’t know he did this until the Oracle told him so, which in turn occurred after Gungnir’s death and Murakami betrayal. And since you wouldn’t change a baby’s name after they’ve already been born, this means Hiroshi was born around or slightly after this time.
Now, since Mei isn’t yet two, we can roughly estimate the time from the Eighth Guidance Assault, since Narumi was faintly pregnant, giving a maximum of nine additional months. So, about 2-1/2 to 3 years.
Now, we don’t know how long it took from Murakami betrayal to the Assault, but in order for him to be 8-9 it would have to have been at the minimum of five years. Now, that could be the case, and I don’t remember Van’s age in those two arcs for reference, but I think that’s way too long. I’m willing to put more stock in 2-3. But we can meet in the middle and say he’s 6-7, if you want.
But even then, I have to disagree on his ability to hide. I mean, he literally has a book, sponge ball and target in plain view. If the babysitter enters the room, how is he going to hide everything in time? And even if he tries lying his way out of it (as I said, kids are about as good at lying as they are hiding secrets), any babysitter worth her salt would at least mention what he’s been doing to his parents, which would allow them to connect the dots provided they stop and think for a few seconds. I’ll give you that Amemiya hasn’t shown great talent in that area, but even so this crosses from missing some details to actively ignoring the fact you have a son.
And I have to take umbrage with your last point. It seems like jumping to the extreme, like how people were worried metal music and D&D were secretly converting kids to Satanism. Or like the abstinence thing, where they try to steer kids away from sex instead of teaching them safe ways to do so. Ultimately, things built on lies have a much weaker track record, because lies aren’t satisfying, and people will always want to know more.
The truth hurts, yes, but it’s miles better than setting your son up with a lie that’ll easily blow up in his face down the road. And it’s not like this is some unexpected result, I compared it to an athlete’s child having some kind of heart issue because its pretty much the same. Hiroshi, no matter how much he tries, will never get the powers he thinks he should have. So if either of them utters “Wow, who could’ve saw this coming?,” they’re past the point of delusional and into straight repressed cruelty towards their son.
And even then, they don’t have to tell the whole truth. They could remove some details (maybe make it so that they just met Rodcorte in a shared collective dream with the other Bravers, no death involved), or just make up an arbitrary reason why he won’t develop any. Granted, that would blow up in his face when Mei starts Death Maging it up, but we can’t hold that against them.
Again, I’m not a parent and I didn’t experience this myself when I was a kid. I don’t know how realistic this actually is. But even so, I think just letting him go on trying only to always fail is so unbelievably cruel, and not something I expect from the Golden Duo. They make mistakes, sure, but have a clear moral compass. Even if the reason is they’re not taking enough time to understand their son… that’s no better. That’s neglect, which is just another form of abuse.
Jonathan Hurd
I understand where your coming from, but a few things to consider. Narumi and Hiroto could know their son has this inferiority issue and are discussing among themselves what to do about it. I don’t think Narumi would want to take a Solo stand and jump her husband and she probably isn’t certain the right way to go forward herself. As for Hiroto hes still piecing the Bravers back together at this point so he is probably too busy to deal with family issues right now. So they may just be putting it off for now.
For the Book having direct links to the Braver’s I still greatly doubt that. I think the important part of the book mentioning joining the Braver’s versus the Avengers is to do with the fact that the Braver’s are a real organization. For Marvel they are selling intellectual property. I don’t think the same restrictions apply for real life places. For instance there are tons of books which say they hold the secret to get you into the NBA or be a Movie Star.
At the end of the day I think the reason the book is published and not banned is its not worth the effort on the Braver’s part. For Marvel they would fight it because at least in the US how copyright law works is if you don’t fight it you lose the right to do so after a while. That is why some companies are particularly harsh in their crackdowns. Of course some are just jerks but that’s a different discussion.
Another thing is this is the first we’re hearing about the book the son is using. For all we know he could of gotten it yesterday and is just trying it out. I have no clue. His inferiority complex has definitely been stewing for a while, but that is just how kids are. Especially if you’re a celebrities kid like the Son of the leaders of the Bravers.
I will say I get my predictions are pretty apocalyptic, but then again consider if a pro athletes father told his kids “I don’t have these skills because I worked hard and am good at it. I met God after dying and he gave them to me”. What do you say in response to that, lol. Talking about Gods in Lambda is easy since they have such a direct impact on the world. People have no clue about gods in Origin so that makes the discussion way harder.
If you ask me the right approach for his parents is to sit him down and tell him. “Look son, no one knows why we have these powers. There is no assurance you will or should get them too. Even if you don’t we will always love you and you are important to us just the way you are. There are ways to succeed and be special even without skills like ours.”
Convincing him of this is easier said than done of course, but I believe that is the approach most would probably feel like taking.
Kazza
Yes! That’s exactly what I feel they should say as well. Regardless of whether or not the book is authored by Hiroto or not, I think the actual cruel thing they would be doing is letting him believe he can when he can’t. That’s more my issue, as even though Hiroto’s murdered at least two people I like, I still think he and Narumi are “good” people, more or less, who wouldn’t do that to their son. The book is just background information I’m using to try and figure out if they’re aware of the complex or not.
Kiryl
“Hiroshi is named after Van’s pre-previous name, which is Amemiya’s way of atoning for murdering Van”
He could have been named after Van for another reason than this. Van did mean a lot (kinda) to Hiroshi’s mom after all. I’m actually nearly sure this is the case, because it is in the last chapter of volume 4 he find out about Van being the undead, and in the character summary in that book it says that he has a child.
Also remember that Hiroshi was reading the book himself, but children doesn’t start in school in japan before they are 6 years old. (it is of course only a guess that this would be the same for origin)
Chiu ChunLing
I wouldn’t guess that El Braver wrote the book or particularly approves of it, but he’d have to be a complete moron to not know that such books exist and he is indeed a failure as a parent for not proactively dealing with it.
But I’m not too surprised since he’s a utter failure in every other moral dimension too.
El Braver‘s main talent is lying to himself to support his own ego. His secondary talent is lying to everyone who trusts him to cover up the lies he’s telling himself.
That doesn’t make for a great father.
Apokryphos
“Many Noble-born Vampires in Birkyne’s bases in the Orbaume Kingdom and spread around the regions to manipulate criminal organizations from the shadows had chosen to flee.”..
Is it only me, or does something feel weird in this sentence?
no1
Thank you for another chapter Yoshi, these quick releases are nice. So a lot has happened in the side chapter to catch up to the main story. Talos woke up and Taloshiem will have the nation renamed, but keep its captial city named as Taloshiem, wonder what the nation’s new name will be. Asagi group is researching how to deter the demon king fragments. They are stupid, if they, by some miracle, manage to find a way to stop the demon king fragments and give that to the other nations. The other nations will feel emboldened to challenge Van, which could lead to war. Also the flame blades group members suck, their personality reminds me little bit Gungir and Riley’s personality, now that they met Hajime, they will most likely become Fitun’s pawns as well. Lastly, Banda spending time with Mei is cute, wonder what the kidnappers at the end of the chapter will react if they run into Banda. Thank you for this chapter again Yoshi, hope to see what happens next soon.
Lord Rin
I think I recall Van mentioning once that he’s aware of what Asagi’s group is doing and he’s allowing it to continue because he thinks it might prove helpful in dealing with rampaging Demon King fragments that he is unable to get to in time to deal with.
Jonathan Hurd
Considering Asagi’s personality i highly doubt he really cares about the victims of the DK fragments. He’s more likely to just think ‘its to late for them now!’ And then shoot them in the head.
I think the point of the research is to make the fragments less threatening by spreading a safer easier way of suppressing them. Currently the only real method is overpower the host, weaken/kill them, then seal the fragment when it jumps out. Problem with this method is it takes basically A rank adventurers at a minimum to execute. If Asagi can mass produce a simpler and more accessible method then fear and threat of Vandaleui would go down.
He’s basically hoping to turn Vans situation into more of a cold war. He seems to think that humans will only be hostile against Van because he has the fragments. Take that out and they won’t have a reason to mess with him and they will become too much of a threat for Van to fight.
Pretty simple thinking that completely ignores people like Alda and Rodcorte who are actively aiming to kill Van, but I guess this is better than Asagi just yelling he’d reform Van.
InfernoHomura
Oh boy, I guess a hard booty spanking is needed for these kidnappers or whoever they are
Nox
Thanks for the chapter.
Bands is going to get all the knowledge from Origin and when he is back to his main body… Alda is definitely going to have a heart attack as technology will spread.
Phantom Knight
Hoho, so demigods already exist in Lambda as a normal thing? If so, this means that Vandalieu-sama is on the same level as Talos and other Collosi now.
Morgan
Not Talos, or his sister, as they are both gods. but he’s probably on the same level as Talos’ 1st gen children. atleast, as far as godly ranks go. power wise, he’s probably 50 Taloses
Nobody2
Didn’t it say this chapter that talos was a demigod
Wyverius
Pretty sure Schneider is at the top end of S-Rank. At the very least, we’ve not seen anyone decisively over him. Maybe Randalf, but I don’t think that’s been stated yet.
Jonathan Hurd
Basically Demigod mostly refers to those who have taken the first step into Divinity but still have at least a foot in being a mortal. It seems to have less to do with power and more the physical body considering that Vans mana eclipses lesser God’s like Fiderg and Zozogante.
For the most part it seems like becoming a Demigod involves some physical changes. That is why most of the pier classified as such are monsters or people with Ranks. Schneider seems to fit in to the classification too since he bathed in the blood of an Elder Dragon.
Entropy
Thanks for the chapter. Makes me wonder about what happened to the fire blades. Hopefully they are suffering, leaving one member to die is bad enough, but knowing that they pulled the same trick four times already, means that it was premeditated. I wonder what it means for them to become heroes. I suppose that they could become vessels for gods like what happened with Birkyne, but aren’t Alda’s faction supposed to be good. Taking over your followers’ bodies and destroying their minds is something an evil god would do, although I suppose Fitun was already going to do that. It does sound like Asagi and company will attack Vand, so much for him claiming not wanting to pick a fight with Vand. I wonder what became of that other group of reincarnators that is trying to kill Vand. Great chapter, answered a few questions but raised several more.
Skarbrand
Asagi does not want to attack Van, but he believes Van is trying to take over the world, so he wants to give the human nations a fighting chance. It’s going to backfire since humans will just use Asagi’s findings to wage war with Van, but Alda is planning on doing that anyway. As for the Flame Blades, I could see them being used as part of some ritual to bring Fitun down to Lambda. Fitun wants to fight Van in order to make his life more interesting, so going down to the mortal world is probably the first step.
Entropy
I thought the main problem Asagi had was the death magic. I suppose to Asagi, Vand is a natural disaster that Vand or governments using him could destroy the world. I still find his hypocrisy annoying, he reminds me a lot of Heinz. I suspect Fitun is using the bodies as vehicles for like-minded gods. Ones that don’t care if they live or die, as long as they get to fight a good fight. The flame blades are probably puppets like how the noble orc and Birykne were turned into. The only problem I see is that if the host is unwilling or not a follower, then some of the their fighting power might decrease. Plus I doubt Alda will be happy with this plan.
browngravy
Im curious as to how Van devouring the souls of other reincarnated individuals is going to work. So far, we’ve seen him break their souls but not devour them. I wonder if he will be able to get their abilities as well since it is tied to their souls.
Tejing
Yeah, I’ve wondered the same thing. I expect we’ll find out the answer pretty soon.
Entropy
Valid point, still makes me wonder about the so called differences between evil gods and regular gods. I can actually see heroic spirits using their followers in a hit and run strategy, but I would think most would be afraid of risking oblivion by Vand since he will probably destroy/devour their souls. I doubt he would be compassionate towards those who would use their allies like that. I do have to ask though, don’t most gods need their vessels to be prepared in order to mesh well with the host as seen with those two evil gods that took control of their victims’ vessels. A quick job of taking over a body will probably mean that the host and god might have problems fighting. Sounds like the fire blades got the reward that they deserved if I am right about Fitun’s plan. I do wonder if the god needs the host permission first. Something tells me a few more gods are going to die soon.
Cr1m50nR3ap3r
The difference between evil gods and the regular gods is their overwhelming desire just like vida desire for the propagation of life with the other gods to create the races now whereas alda sees this as a taboo thing but from vida view point it was the right thing to do as the majority of the lifeforms was killed off by demon king gurandas. So you can say it comes down to desire and people’s viewpoint
Chase Eldredge
In Lambda “Evil God” just refers to an entity from the Demon Kings world that has achieved godhood, it has nothing to do with their actual behavior or beliefs. Luvesfol betrayed Lambda to join the DK army but he still call the “Raging Evil Dragon God” not the “Evil God of Raging Dragons” (bad example but makes more sense in Japanese) and Gufedgarn is still called the “Evil God of Labyrinths” not “The God of Labyrinths” despite leaving the DK army to join Lambda (Vida faction specifically). Merebevell was able to change her name and appearance but it was stated the human equivalent of what she did was like extensive full body surgery to remodel yourself into a non-humanoid form. My assumption has been that Vida faction Evil Gods are still called that since changing that title would be like asking your friend to have their eyes surgically replaced because you found the color of their current ones weird.
Jonathan Hurd
For Aldas side he probably made sure to keep calling all of them Evil God’s to try and make sure everyone just lumps them all together. It’s more convenient for Alda who wants to kill them all if people don’t realize some of Gudas old army don’t want to fight and hurt people.
Jonathan Hurd
I think Fitun might be trying to skip over the compatibility issue by using Marionette to override their minds. Basically he’ll erase their minds making them empty Vessels. The big point of comparability is mostly for fine tuning the body to accept the soul like with Hihis case on Birknye, and trying to protect and synchronize the minds like Darcia and Vida.
Considering how Fitun works and that he choose a bunch of D class adventurers I don’t think he needs anything from them. Any of his Heroic Spirits will have better combat skills and strategy. He will also fill them with his own power and change them from within to make them decent vessels for his Heroic Spirits.
Part of the reason the tuning phase took so long with Darcia was because Vida cared about her health. As for Birknye it took a while because Hihi didn’t want him to figure out what was happening. If you don’t care about either I think you can accomplish it much faster.
jmoreno126
I just love how few comments there are. People really are not expecting a chapter to come out today.
Seinvolf
Thank u always for ur great work…
^^…
GashBello
Wow! A chapter a day? That’s really nice. Thank you very much, you make my days a lot better!
SuicidalSkeletin
ALL HAIL YOSHI SAMA!!!!
Sturmi
“Talosheim Empire” hope they will officialy change it to eclipse empire
Jonathan Hurd
I like that. It truly does relate to Van who ruled over all of them whether they be creatures of the day or the night. Add in that it was once said that the sun never set on the Roman Empire because it was so large. It’d be funny if people said the Sun and Moon are always smiling down at the Eclipse Kings Empire.
Tejing
Talos, you’re worrying about something kinda silly, but as long as the new name isn’t something stupid, I don’t mind.
Asagi’s group is chugging along, no major developments there, though the fact that they’re in the same duchy as Heinz and the Trial of Bellwood might indicate that that duchy is going to become a center for the anti-Vandalieu faction.
I wonder what Hajime/Fitun did to the Flame Blades? I’m guessing he intends to control them and use them as pawns against Van somehow, but it’s unclear what the details of that kind of plan might be.
Mei is cute as always, and I’m sure she’s safe in Banda’s hands. Hiroshi as well, most likely, since he’d want to save Mei from losing her brother. I am worried this will expose Banda to the parents, though, which could have some bad consequences depending on how they react.
Who’s the guy with a grudge against Amemiya Hiroto? It could be someone we haven’t heard about before, but I’ve been trying to think if anyone we already know about might fit. It doesn’t sound like they know each other personally, so I don’t think it’s one of the Bravers who resents him for forcing them all into it, and though the client is probably Avalon, I doubt these bozos have much to do with him directly. They’re probably disposable pawns with no idea who they’re even working for. Could they be 8th guidance followers who resent him for killing ‘The Undead’? That would leave a bad taste, so I hope not, but I don’t really have any more convincing ideas.
no1
Probably the kidnappers are related to one of the terrorist groups that the bravers took down. And yeah, maybe the kidnappers are pawns of Avalon
Tejing
Arg, my stupid brain. Thanks for correcting me on the duchies. And I agree the kidnappers are probably just people connected to the terrorists that the Bravers have taken down.
Though I have to say your speculation on why Rikudou would hire them is really pretty groundless. Plausible, but hardly “most likely” from the perspective of the currently available information. Is that a spoiler masquerading as speculation?
Jonathan Hurd
I will just say I think there is a chance Rikudo contracted out this kidnapping. I mean if it really is a terrorist group out for revenge why not kill the kids? It is so much harder and more dangerous to personally kidnap them because the job isn’t over til you hand them over and there is a high likelihood of being caught.
This honestly smells like Rikudo testing the waters. He definitely has no direct connection to this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a surrogate order it. Maybe he used Mari to set it up.
Blackpercher
sign amazing…
Shank Mugen
I really like moments with Banda and Mei,
Thanks for the Chapter!
Triduo
*In Origin*
Kidnappers : Let’s take the kids away ! They’re still brats so it’ll be a cinch !
Banda : ‘Sup ?
Kidnappers : HOLY SH-T, LET’S RUN !!!
Banda : I can’t let you do that, can I ? *Proceeds to the killing of the kidnappers*
Renrobt
No no no. Banda is trying to set a good example here and killing wouldn’t be nice.
Especially since Mei will be able to see the ghosts and the like he can’t risk killing people casually and breaking souls would be excessive for Van’s perspective so far.
Doesnt mean Banda won’t break the souls, considering his(?) goal is to protect and nurture Mei, especially in a happy environment, so kidnappers are absolute enemies to this goal.
But my guess would be Mind encroachment and make them more docile/friendly and just have them go away.
Nobody2
Except Banda is setting a good example by his standards and by his standards killing enemies who seek to harm you and your family is a good act so I wouldn’t say no killing for sure
Jonathan Hurd
I agree with Nobody2, this is a copy of Van we’re talking about. He doesn’t let those who seek to harm him or those close to him go. He will probably torture out information about who hired them before killing them. God help them if they scared Meh Kun lol. Their deaths will not be swift or clean.
Lord Rin
Banda could just make them go to sleep. He has the Demon King’s Scent Glands and with the Disease Demon job Van previously had, it shouldn’t be too hard to make a sleeping drug and release it into the air. Once they’re asleep, it’s Murder Time. He probably wouldn’t break their souls though because that might alert Rodcorte of his presence on Origin.
Morgan
Kidnapper: “What is that I feel crawling on my back?”
Banda: “It’s your sins.”
no1
That would be a most probably outcome. Can’t wait to see what actually happens
Triduo
Noctyrannus : The worst nightmare of self-conceited kidnappers acting on orders from the underling of the strongest hero of their world : Failure.
Jonathan Hurd
Kidnapper driver starts to hear…. “Party, party, party. I want to have a party…”
VEreality
I see you are a man of culture
VEreality
Yoshi-sama you are spoiling us!
All hail randomly refreshing the page and Yoshi-sama!
Talos is an adorable goofball who can cave your skull in with no problem. Chage my mind.
A lot of movement from the reincarnated individuals. Also, the flame blades suck.
MEI AND BANDA OMG! YES! Yes we needed this! I needed this! I am so looking forward to this. And Hiroshi seems ok so far. Hope he doesn’t turn into a brat.
Morgan
well he is a normal kid, so it’s mostly fine if he becomes a brat. But I’m hoping that this upcoming kidnapping incident might awaken a superpower for him. Or maybe Mei will have the ability to make with a limited death mage? Anything to make him not get an inferiority complex.
JohnGuerin
Don’t forget that Banda was cut from the source(main body) and I don’t remember clearly if he was already a dream guider when he traveled to Origin… So maybe the dream guider power is impossible to be used from the other world\by other body disconnected from the source…
JohnGuerin
But maybe with a little help from Zuruwarn…
Tejing
He wasn’t a dream guider yet when he split off Banda.
Chase Eldredge
This was an idea I had, mana pools increase when you deplete then refill them, no-attribute magic is versatile but inefficient, martial skills wont work (maybe, at least cant be taught) in Origin but Banda still has Vands memories of intensive training. Mental encroachment+mana transfer while Hiroshi is asleep have him no-attribute boost his strength and recovery till him mana is empty refill and repeat while also downloading martial arts data base (maybe not the tongue based ones) and no-attribute usage (maybe setup subconscious usage so he cant teach others and thinks its just his own superpower) then bam Hiroshi wakes up with a massive mana pool, the ability to temporarily become super strong, an “innate” near super human skill level in martial arts, and if appraisal works then he could mimic a near photographic memory with it. Actually that could take a few nights so maybe, and since no-attribute magic would still need a chant (unless im forgettign something) which would give away that its magic just stick with abnormally large mana pool and superhuman skill in martial arts (at some point is was said around level 5 in a skill would be near superhuman proficiency in that field by Earth standards and vand is 10+). Though that may lead to another Avalon complex… well fuck… anyone have any better ideas?
WizziBot
It’s tough, if I was in his position I would be a lot worse, he is handling it pretty well.