This chapter was sponsored generously by: David R. ($5), Michael G. ($20), Marvin T. ($10), Andrew C. ($65)
At the feet of a creature, so enormous and grotesque that it was difficult to recognize that it was a living being, were two silhouettes.
“I’m going,” said one of them, which barely had a vaguely humanoid shape that was just as grotesque as the enormous creature.
“’ai-’ai,” said the other silhouette, a black, human one of a size somewhere between a baby and a toddler.
The grotesque silhouette being waved goodbye then walked straight ahead, approaching the enormous grotesque creature… and silently melted into it to become one.
But a moment later, another grotesque figure emerged from the enormous one and split away from it.
“Banda, big Banda, li’l Banda,” said the small silhouette.
“I’m back, Meh-kun. I suppose you’re talking about the large me and me?” said the smaller grotesque figure that had newly come into existence. “So then, do you need an explanation, me?” it said, turning back towards the larger one.
Silence.
“It seems not. Both of you are me, and a single moment of reconnection is enough to update my memories and abilities with no problems.”
More silence.
“But I suppose creating one more of me and giving it to him is impossible. Well, it cannot be helped.”
“Nii-nii,” said the small silhouette.
The enormous creature remained silent.
“… Well then, let’s do that. It seems that I just happen to have a strange little something that I have no use for. Whether he can make use of it is up to him.”
At the beginning of that dream, Hiroshi thought it was the same scary dream that he had been having a lot recently – the same nightmare that he’d been having ever since that incident, a nightmare in which he was suddenly captured by villains, tormented and then killed.
In reality, Hiroshi and the other two kidnapped people hadn’t been killed. Hiroshi had lost consciousness partway during the incident, and the next time he opened his eyes, he had been in a hospital bed and the incident had been resolved.
He had told his parents that he was fine, and pretended to be strong in front of his friends at school, saying that he hadn’t been scared at all. But in truth, he had been completely terrified. And as if to punish him for lying, he was now haunted by this repeated dream of a version of the incident that was even more cruel than what had actually taken place.
Tonight, Hiroshi found himself surrounded by darkness as always, captured and unable to move. He thought that the dream was about to begin once more.
However, he was only surrounded by the darkness for a moment.
“… Huh? Is this an ocean?” he murmured as he suddenly found himself in a strange space.
It was like a bright seabed, covered in countless faintly-glowing, colorful corals and sea anemones, with seaweed-like objects billowing and dancing among them.
Hiroshi swam there, not drowning.
“Don’t you want power?” a voice called out to him suddenly.
It was a mysterious figure in a black robe with four eyes and a tear-like mouth that stretched from ear to ear.
Hiroshi thought that it was a monster. But he did not feel any fear towards it – perhaps because he remembered that his younger sister Mei had made countless scribbles of this monster, or perhaps because he had faint memories of being protected by it, or perhaps because he knew that this was only a dream. He himself did not know which was the real reason for his lack of fear.
“I do, I do want it, but… I don’t have any special powers like Mom or Dad,” he replied to the monster’s question.
Hiroshi wanted a special power like the ones his parents possessed. He wanted to become special. That was what he wished for. He was quite brilliant when compared to the children of his own age – not only in his studies and in sports, but he had also inherited his parents’ inherent qualities for magic.
But the only thing he was missing was a cheat-like ability. His parents, being reincarnated individuals who were aware that the cheat-like abilities were something that had been granted to them by Rodcorte, didn’t think anything strange of this and simply accepted the fact.
However, only the reincarnated individuals themselves knew that they had been reincarnated from another world. The adults around them, the children at Hiroshi’s school and Hiroshi himself – they were all unaware of this fact.
“I see,” the monster murmured. “If you wish, I will give you a source of the power that you long for. And I will teach you how to use a special kind of magic.”
“Really?!” Hiroshi said excitedly.
“Yes, really. First of all, eat this,” the monster said, holding out something that resembled a fresh internal organ towards Hiroshi.
Hiroshi’s face turned pale. “W-what is that?! It looks all slimy and it’s moving! It’s some dangerous stuff, isn’t it?!”
“It’s fine, it’s fine. It has no artificial coloring or additives; it’s a completely naturally-derived… thing,” said the monster.
“Thing?! I’m definitely not eating something suspicious like that!” Hiroshi protested.
“Hmm, you have a very healthy sense of judgment… Now that things have come to this, I have no choice.”
The monster took the organ back and produced a pot from inside its pocket. And right before Hiroshi’s eyes, it began cooking something.
It started a fire with the seaweed-like plants, then plucked one of the sea-anemone-like things growing nearby and squeezed a crimson liquid out of it, filling the pot. It then cut the organ-like object into suitably-sized pieces and added them to the liquid.
Soon, the pot was bubbling and boiling.
Hiroshi stared in bewilderment. “U-uh…”
The monster continued its cooking, its efficient movements making it seem like it was strangely used to doing this.
“Now that I think about it, it wouldn’t be good to teach a child to simply accept a raw item from someone they’ve never met before and eat it,” the monster said.
“Umm… Banda, right? Is it normal to give raw meat and guts to each other in the world of monsters?” Hiroshi asked.
“I’m surprised you know my name,” said the monster… Banda.
“Huh? Yeah, Mei keeps drawing pictures of you and calling you Banda, so I figured that’s your name,” said Hiroshi.
“I see. Well anyway, this is finished,” said Banda, producing a plate from somewhere and placing the pot’s contents on it.
Considering the strange ingredients that had been used to make it, it now resembled a slightly overly-red beef stew.
And despite the fact that this was a dream, Hiroshi could smell it for some reason.
“I-it looks delicious!” said Hiroshi in astonishment, as if unable to believe his eyes.
Banda held out a spoon and beckoned Hiroshi to eat once more. “Eat this if you want a special power. And if you want even more, I will teach you how to use a special kind of magic. No-attribute magic, whose existence isn’t known to anyone else in this world.”
Hiroshi woke up several minutes before his alarm was set to go off.
“… Huh, it was just a dream,” he murmured.
“I forgot to mention something,” a voice said suddenly.
Hiroshi turned around to look back to his pillow in shock, and found that Banda was there, staring at him with his four eyes and his fangs protruding from the mouth that stretched from ear to ear.
“Everything you saw in your dream is a secret. You must not use the magic I taught you in front of others, not even your parents. Do you understand?” Banda asked.
Hiroshi nodded, and Banda silently began to disappear.
“W-wait,” said Hiroshi. “Are you that ‘Eighth Guidance’ thing? Did you save us when we were kidnapped?!”
Banda stood still, and his head began turning on his neck. “Unfortunately, I can’t talk about that now.”
“W-why not?!”
“Because it is a long story, and you will be late for school if I were to tell all of it.”
Unfortunately for Hiroshi, today was a weekday.
Over a month had passed since the kidnapping and subsequent rescue of the ‘Braver’ Amemiya Hiroto and the ‘Angel’ Narumi’s two children.
The police responding to the anonymous report had found the kidnapped children, the bodyguard and the babysitter, safe and sound. They had also found the criminals; all but one of them had been killed in a gruesome manner.
And the other thing they had found was the Eighth Guidance’s symbol.
The investigating authorities had immediately ordered a media blackout on the incident, called the ‘Bravers’ including the Amemiya couple to a meeting, and provided information to authorities in another nation in exchange for help with the investigation.
“… And yet, the authorities that offered their cooperation are only focused on investigating the survivors of the Eighth Guidance. The masterminds who ordered Hiroshi and Mei’s kidnapping are being left to do as they please,” Narumi murmured.
Indeed, the investigation efforts were being directed entirely at the Eighth Guidance rather than the kidnappers.
After all, the kidnappers were still humans despite being criminals, and it wasn’t wrong to chase the suspect that had slaughtered them in cold blood, but… the investigation was clearly doing more than merely chasing the perpetrator.
“You’re right. Saying that the kidnappers were just members of a foreign criminal group trying to extort money and calling it a day is overdoing it. There’s no way a group of ex-soldiers and mercenaries would prepare guns and a truck then attempt a kidnapping for monetary purposes in a foreign country,” said the ‘Titan’ Iwao Kazuki. “Well, don’t worry so much. They can chase the Eighth Guidance all they want, but we won’t let them get in our way. We’re doing everything we can to look into the information we got from the kidnappers’ driver, the guy called Woo.”
“And Narumi, it is not wrong to investigate the Eighth Guidance,” Amemiya Hiroto added. “Whether there really are survivors from their group, and with what purpose they saved Mei and the others… We need answers to these questions.”
Indeed, on the surface, it appeared that Mei and the others had been saved by someone who had left the Eighth Guidance’s symbol behind. But the motive behind doing that was unclear.
Nobody knew if they could simply be thankful for saving the children. Pluto had once tried to kill Narumi, but stopped upon realizing that there was a small life within her. The fact that that small life had been Mei was not information that had been made known to the public.
Other than the ‘Bravers’ that had been a part of the operation that had taken place back then, this fact was known only to people belonging to various investigating authorities around the world, and even then, to only a limited number of individuals authorized to access that information.
Had the members of the Eighth Guidance whose corpses were never found actually escaped and survived? Or were there unknown members still remaining? Or had someone used the Eighth Guidance’s symbol to interfere with the investigation?
“And the others are just ‘cooperating’ with us; they’re not under our command or under the command of the police. We’ll just have to investigate the mastermind behind the kidnapping ourselves. Let’s let them chase whoever saved the kids and disappeared right afterwards,” said Hiroto. “We have more important questions to answer, though.”
“You’re right. It seems that Mei doesn’t remember anything, but it also seems that Hiroshi still sees it in his dreams,” said Narumi.
“He spoke to the kidnappers, after all. Even if he didn’t actually see them die, I’m sure it wasn’t a fun experience,” Iwao agreed.
Hiroshi had put on a brave face, but Narumi knew even without using ‘Angel’ that scars had been left upon his mind. Even an adult would be traumatized by what he had gone through. Simple nightmares could be considered to still be a minor way in which that trauma manifested itself.
“If only I had the power to heal people’s minds…” Narumi murmured.
‘Angel’ allowed her to link her senses with those of others and have telepathic conversations with them. However, it did not allow her to directly heal mental wounds.
Hiroto placed a hand on her shoulder to cheer her up. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. Hiroshi doesn’t seem to be disturbed by those nightmares anymore these days. When I saw his face just earlier -”
Hiroto suddenly stopped mid-sentence and stood up out of his chair, then headed for the second floor where the children were sleeping.
“What’s the matter?!” Iwao whispered.
“I feel a strange kind of Mana. On the second floor…?!” Hiroto whispered back.
He stopped at the top of the stairs and looked around the second floor, but he couldn’t see anything happening.
“What now?!” Iwao asked.
“The Mana – it’s disappeared,” Hiroto replied. “Was I just imagining it?!”
He looked into the children’s room and saw that Hiroshi and Mei were asleep, then checked if there was anything strange with the guards, whose numbers had been increased following the incident. But he, Narumi and Iwao didn’t notice anything.
“Honey, the security system detected some suspicious Mana, just for a moment,” said Narumi, examining the security system. “This is… What could this be? Wind-attribute and light-attribute Magic appeared for just a second, and then it suddenly disappeared…”
It seemed that it wasn’t just Hiroto’s imagination. The security system had indeed detected the presence of Mana.
“It doesn’t seem like you were just being too nervous about things,” said Iwao. “But for Mana to appear and then disappear for no reason… Could it be that Hiroshi is only pretending to sleep and is using magic to play pranks on us?
“No,” said Narumi, shaking her head. “It seems that he’s been practicing magic really hard in secret, but he’s still a child. He shouldn’t be able to produce such a large amount of Mana.”
The Amemiya residence was equipped with a sensor that could detect Mana of the seven attributes – earth, water, fire, wind, light, life and space. The time attribute didn’t exist, and no-attribute Mana had yet to be discovered. The death attribute was difficult to detect in nature to begin with, and since there were no living sources of it currently in existence, sensors for it could not be easily made.
Given these circumstances in Origin, this security system was more than adequate.
But even that system did not know what had happened.
“If I remember correctly, Rikudou and Moriya were knowledgeable about things like this. Moriya should be arriving tomorrow, so do you want to try asking him then?” Iwao suggested.
Ever since Hiroshi and Mei’s kidnapping, members of the Bravers had been rotating shifts to protect the Amemiya residence as bodyguards. That was why Iwao was here today.
“… Yeah. But just in case, let’s try negotiating to see if we can be supplied with a sensor that can detect death-attribute Mana. Maybe there really are survivors from the Eighth Guidance,” said Hiroto.
The three of them spent a sleepless night deep in discussion, but early in the morning, a message arrived from the ‘Shaman’ Moriya – one saying that a mission had come up, and he was unable to go to the Amemiya residence that day.
Meanwhile, during Hiroto, Narumi and Iwao’s discussion, Banda was in Mei’s room, confused by what had just happened.
“What were those strange things?” he murmured to himself.
He had no need for sleep, so he had simply been loitering around the Amemiya residence when he noticed the presence of two masses of Mana that could not be detected by the naked eye, similar to himself.
They had slipped through the walls like ghosts, approaching the children’s room. But they were clearly not ghosts. Banda recognized that they were something like familiars, made of masses of Mana.
He had then attacked and defeated those familiars in an instant. He had simply stayed invisible and struck them with his body that was made of Demon King fragments, breaking the familiars and causing them to crumble apart with ease.
This had caused the Mana to scatter into the air, and he got a fright when Amemiya Hiroto noticed this, but he had stayed invisible and Hiroto had not noticed him.
“Either Rikudou is trying something, or a different group… Could they have been secret guards sent by the investigating authorities? If so, I might have been too hasty. Hiroshi-kun seems to have absorbed the part that didn’t quite fit in with me. Will they try something serious before he learns how to use no-attribute magic?” Banda murmured to himself.
When Vandalieu devoured the reincarnated individuals’ souls, there had been a part that he had not been able to absorb, so Banda had turned that into a stew and given it to Hiroshi.
It was an ability that regenerated Mana, but it seemed that Vandalieu had been unable to find a use for it as the regeneration it provided was so insignificant to him.
And now that it had been transferred to Hiroshi, its regeneration had decreased even beyond the original amount. However, to a child in Origin, it was equivalent to having acquired a source of endless Mana.
The Mana it provided would certainly decrease the amount of time Hiroshi needed to acquire ‘No-Attribute Magic.’
Banda had asked the main Vandalieu to give him an appearance that would give Hiroshi the best first impression when he appeared in a dream, and made it as fun a dream as possible. He had succeeded; although Hiroshi had been a little suspicious of Banda at first, he had followed his instructions.
Banda had turned horns and bones into coral with the Demon King’s luminescent organs and ink sacs, made his tentacles resemble sea anemones, and made his body hair wave around like seaweed. Taking the improvised cooking into account as well, Banda had to say, he had put on a pretty good act.
Since it had gone so well, he wanted Hiroshi to successfully learn ‘No-Attribute Magic’ as well.
“It does help me out that they made a convenient misunderstanding, though,” Banda murmured to himself.
A sleepy noise came from Mei’s bed.
“Ah, I’ve gone and woken you up, Meh-kun. Here, wriggle-wriggle,” said Banda, extending a tentacle of the Demon King towards her.
“Wriggle-wriggle!” Mei giggled happily.
Banda kept her entertained until she fell asleep once more.
Meanwhile, far away from the Amemiya residence, the ‘Shaman’ Moriya Kousuke’s face was pale with shock.
“Both of the artificial spirits I created were extinguished in an instant?!” he muttered to himself.
Moriya Kousuke’s ability, ‘Shaman,’ was an ability that allowed him to create artificial spirits with his own Mana and control them like familiars.
In Origin, spirits consisted of Mana of a single attribute that had gathered into a mass. They moved as if with an intelligence and emotions of their own. They were not living creatures; they were considered to be a kind of natural phenomenon.
Moriya was capable of creating spirits with his own will and Mana, and control them more precisely than other familiars.
This made it easy for him to break through modern security systems and wiretap, take secret pictures of or monitor targets. He had intended to use this ability to probe into the Amemiya residence – especially around the children. However… this attempt had broken into pieces, along with Moriya’s pride.
“How in the world were my spirits detected?” Moriya wondered. “It’s not Amemiya Hiroto or Narumi, and Iwao is out of the question. Could it be that there really is a survivor of the Eighth Guidance lurking around the children? Even if that’s the case, is it even possible for them to attack and destroy both of my spirits before being seen by them? … Or perhaps the enemy has an ability of a similar type to mine!”
There were old stories of warlocks that were capable of controlling evil spirits that were visible to the naked eye. There was a type of death-attribute magic that was extremely similar to the warlocks of these legends, and perhaps one of the members of the Eighth Guidance was capable of using it.
“If that’s the case… It would be bad for me to go near the Amemiya residence. If the enemy is controlling an artificial evil spirit that is similar to the spirits I create except far more powerful, then they might consider me to be an intruder and attack me. Whether I would be able to defend myself against that is… In any case, I must decline to act as the Amemiya family’s guard for today, even if it causes some suspicion. I’ll let Rikudou decide what to do.”
Just as Banda wished, Moriya had made a convenient misunderstanding. And so, the peaceful image of the Amemiya residence was preserved for now.
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NOVEL DISCUSSION
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Chiu ChunLing
The essential problem with El Braver, Heinz, Asagi, Alda, Bellwood, etc. is that they all define “trustworthy” as “tells me what I want to hear” especially when they know it’s NOT true.
That’s why El Braver trusts Avalon so much…Avalon always just tells him what he wants to hear.
And what El Braver, Heinz, Asagi, Alda, Bellwood, and so on ALL want to hear is “I’m the main character and anyone who points out (let alone demonstrates) my faults is obviously evil and needs to be destroyed.”
El Braver has the advantage of being the most skilled of all of them at lying to himself. Heinz has the advantage of being the most skilled at lying to everyone else. Asagi has the advantage of being the stupidest when it comes to noticing his own faults and thus when they’re being highlighted.
But they still all have in common that they define “honesty” as “telling me the outrageous lies I most want to hear.”
That doesn’t make them innocent of ‘trusting’ liars that they only ‘trust’ specifically because they KNOW they’re willing to lie to them.
Kerlark Dgrayman
“Nii-nii, said the small silhouette”
Overflow intensifies.
Dust
Would Banda get new parts after updating if Van gains a new fragment? If so, he’s creating a world-ending monster, imagine a ghost made up of pure demon king/demon god parts just vibing within a world like Origin
Dr. Steel
Sometimes I look through the comments and start wondering why people are so poisonous to Amemiya and Heinz, it makes you wonder if they are actually reading everything the author is writing, or if they are like Kouki(Arifureta) and making convient interpretations or just ignoring evidence that doesn’t support them. Yes they have faults (Heinz especially so), but they also have circumstances, and what they don’t have is the perspective of a reader. Especially everyone dissing on Amemiya for being a muscle-head, justice-freak, and for trusting Avalon.
Firstly, the Bravers weren’t a “we have power, it’s our responsibility to help people!” or a “playing hero”, it was a self defense mechanism against the governments that were already suspecting the reincarnators for having unexplainable powers, by gathering them, revealing info to counteract paranoia, and then provide a useful service that gives them both the protection of the people and makes the governments hesitant to mess with them and thus lose their help. This shows he is an intelligent individual, and not some justice meathead.
Onto the Avalon matter, firstly, he is hiding it skillfully and pulling off the act as Amemiya’s friend and consultant. The trust there is deep, and it would take conclusive evidence to overturn that, something on the scale of Avalon personally kidnapping Mei. That is supported even more by the start of the crumbling of the Bravers, he has a worn out heart and needs to be able to rely on someone. We wouldn’t be suspecting Avalon if we didn’t have the perspective and information hand-fed to us as readers. It would be on the level of Amemiya suddenly thinking Narumi is trying to kill him. That’s not noticing something is wrong, that’s paranoia.
Chiu ChunLing
The fact that Heinz and El Braver have convenient excuses for their behavior doesn’t mean those excuses match the facts.
El Braver didn’t make the Bravers to protect anyone other than his own ego. There was no need for him to out the great majority of the reincarnated individuals who weren’t using their abilities to commit crimes worthy of serious investigation. He really is just playing hero, and the consequences have been extremely tragic. He also didn’t honestly believe that it would be impossible to find the man Narumi admired for saving her life. He just believes it’s possible to keep hiding the truth from Narumi.
Heinz is also lying about his ‘innocence’. That’s demonstrated rather dramatically by his attitude towards the possibility of certain undeniable facts becoming public knowledge. Heinz is bothered by things like having participated in the brutal murder of Darcia and how that is connected with Van…but he could keep his composure about those truths till it became clear he no longer had the ability to hide them.
El Braver and Heinz both operate under the principle of “what nobody else knows won’t hurt us”.
Avalon is the same…he’s just more honest with himself about it.
Meth
thank
CESRA
I REALLY want to see the moment when Narumi realizes that she married an imposter and that she actually killed the real Amemiya Hiroto (Van).
The impostor is going to look like an idiot, everyone is going to hate him and maybe thanks to that he will start to hate Van? That guy is the most troublesome of all.
Meh (Mei) kun is more Van’s daughter than Hiroto’s (the impostor) hahaha.
Doc
Narumi is already aware that the Amemiya Hiroto she met is not the one that tried to save her life. She married him even knowing that. Hiroto also never claimed to be that guy,so it’s not like their marriage is based on a lie. I also believe they are already aware that the Undead was also a reincarnator, or at least strongly suspect that to be the case.
So there is unlikely to be some big reveal that you’re thinking of. More likely what is to happen is Narumi will discover Banda and Banda will explain that he’s a part of what they knew as the “undead” and that his main body lives on in another world called Lambda, but this piece of him is tied to Mei and therefore he protects her. He may tell her his Earth identity at that point, but really Van doesn’t seem to care about that identity or the memories from Earth or Origin anymore. Lambda is his home now.
Lord Rin
Yeah from what I remember, Narumi did initially approach Hiroto because she thought he was Van and wanted to thank him for trying to save her -honestly it sounded like she wanted to make it a rescue romance- but then she found out he wasn’t who she thought he was and they got into an argument but worked it out and began a relationship afterwards.
As for being aware of who the Undead was, only Hiroto, the Oracle guy whose name I forgot and Rikudou learned that he was a reincarnator and was Van. Nobody else knows anything about the Undead and both Hiroto and Rikudou are keeping it secret for different reasons and the Oracle is dead.
Doc
I thought Oracle had told a few of the bravers his suspicions about the Undead being a reincarnator but even if only Hiroto is aware that’s fine. My point was simply I don’t think Banda’s identity as the undead would be that shocking of a reveal. I think the focus would be more on how he’s connected to Mei.
Cydean
Yus! More Banda! Glad Hiroshi didn’t freak about Banda, and now we get someone else for Banda to interact with. I’m hoping for some fun banter between the prodigal son and eldritch spirit-clone from another dimension.
Clearly not the most significant thing in this side chapter, but did Banda/Silent Van just create a pseudo or full-on divine realm? I know it was a dream and those bits seem more like props added to the usual “between” space Van usually crawls about to pass out divine protections, but Van’s influence on these areas has suddenly spiked.
One more side note, anyone else concerned that the big Van remained silent? He hasn’t ever not responded to other versions of himself before, or at least he passes the conversation around. Banda says that he asked Van for something and Van provided so I don’t think Van was unaware of the contact. Either Banda’s requests took a lot more out of Van than expected or traversing the divide between worlds is a lot harder than it looks. : /
Anyhow, thank you for the fun chapter and keep up the fantastic work!
Zenden1st
Shit, I Caught up…
gomezseba37
No atribute magic would be op in origin. speciali with enhanced mana regen
dicloniuslord
GIB MOAR BANDA
Chadd
Getting offered somebody offers you power and you accept without questioning it is a cliché that Hiroshi should know better then to accept; not that Van will do anything bad to him. Small update to the abilities list below. Just wish the newer site formatted this better.
-Souls Destroyed (6)-
Kaidou Kanata (M/Gungnir) – Ex-Bravers – Ignore interference
Konoe Miyaji (M/Death Scythe) – Murakami (Betrayed) – Spends mana to paralyze parts of the body after seeing his victim’s face.
Misa Anderson (F/Sylphid/Elf) – Hostile Faction (Rodcorte) – Turn body into gas
Murakami Junpei (M/Chronos/Human) – Hostile Faction (Rodcorte) – Spell/Skill Delay + Broken Gungnir + Broken Death Scythe
Hasamada Aki (M/Odin/Human) – Hostile Faction (Rodcorte) – See few seconds into future
Inui Hajime (M/Marionette/Human) – Hostile Faction (Fitun) – Body Manipulation
-Lamba (13) –
Vandalieu [Amamiya Hiroto] (M/Undead/Dhampir) – Vandalieu Faction – None (Death Magic)
Minuma Hitomi (F?/Gazer/Legion) – Vandalieu Faction – Future Sight
Tsuchiya Kanako (F/Venus/Chaos Elf) – Vandalieu Faction – Copy and Paste
Melissa J. Sautome (F/Aegis/Chaos Elf) – Vandalieu Faction – Barrier
Doug Atlas (M/Hecatoncheir/Dark Human) – Vandalieu Faction – Telekinesis, Omnidirectional Perception, Force Vision
Asagi Minami (M/Mage Masher) – Sealing Van Faction – Magic Canceler
Shouko Akaki (F/Ifrit) – Sealing Van Faction – Heat/Flame manipulation
Tendou Tatsuya (M/Clairvoyance) – Sealing Van Faction – Vision related abilities
Mao Smith (F/Noah/Dwarf) – Neutral Faction – Storage space
Mackenzie (F/Urðr/Baby) – Neutral Faction – See into past
Sarua Legston [Sameshima Yuuri] (M/Perseus/Baby) – Neutral Faction – Halt movement of target
Sieg [Tanaka] (M/Skanda/Baby) – Neutral Faction – Speed Boost
Gotouta Kaori (F/Super Sense/Elf) – Neutral Faction – Enhance 5 senses
-Origin (79)-
Amemiya Hiroto (M/Braver) – Bravers – All Attributes Affinity(Not Including Death Attribute or Time while on Origin), Chant Revocation, Multi-Cast, Ignore Defense (4 others)
Amemiya Narumi (F/Angel) – Bravers – Telepathy, Joint Sensation
Iwao Kazuki (M/Titan) – Bravers – Gravity
???? Baker (?/Hermes) – Bravers – Object Creation
Joseph Smith (M/Druid) – Bravers – ???
Rikudou Hajiri (M/Avalon) – Avalon – (Fake Bravers) – Learning Speed, Unlimited Development
Moriya Kousuke (M/Shaman) – Avalon – Artificial Spirit creation
Shihouin Mari (F/Metamorph) – (Brainwashed by Avalon) – ShapeShifting
And 71 others
-Purgatory (3) –
Rodcorte Angels:
Shimada Izumi (F/Inspector) – Former Braver – See through lies
Machida Aran (M/Laplace’s Demon) – Former Braver – Calculation/Predictive Analysis (Based on known facts)
Endou Kouya (M/Oracle) – Former Braver – Predictive Analysis (Based on information known by souls in Rodcorte’s system)
CyberDre
Well he IS dreaming tho , yeah it’s a lucid dream but IT is still a dream from his POV, the fact he didn’t immediately stuff the “Thing” into his mouth is enough self awareness that a child his age wouldn’t normally have, in a dream for that matter.
Besides he recognizes Banda from meh-kun’s drawing, add with the fact she always seems cheerful when mentioning Banda, his sub councious mind saw Banda in a more favourable light(the tune up to his looks also helped)
It’s a cliche, but a well played one.
Absolute Zer0
Hope Author-sama makes JoJo reference. Example:
Rikidou: Hand over the Death attribute magic!
Mei: So, you are going to use it to advance humanity to next level?
Rikidou: Yes! You will be recorded in history! Anecdotes about you will pass down the generations!
Mei: Dagakotowaru!!!
×××××××
Mei: So you are approaching me? Instead of running away, you are approaching this Mei-sama?
Amemiya Hiroto: I can’t preach my useless ideologies without approaching you after all!
Mei: Then come closer as your wish!
××××××××
Banda(monotone voice):MUDA! MUDA! MUDA! MUDA! MUDA! MUDA! MUDA!
Who Cares
People seem to be missing something.
Van copied what Rodiot did. He not only copied that action but improved on it.
He took a skill from someone that died and grafted it onto another person.
And the improvement was that the person the broken skill was grafted onto was still alive instead of just a soul.
Dr. Steel
Actually, Rodcorte gave the abilities but slightly worse, same as Van, and Van didn’t break the soul, so it wasn’t like he was working with fragments of the ability.
Dr. Steel
Oops nevermind, I misread your comment, it was an improvement that the skill was added when he was still alive
Triger
How old is mei at this point
Jonathan Hurd
I think they said she’s three. She can’t be much older than that.
Triger
Thanks
Lord Rin
I wasn’t expecting a new chapter so soon. That it happens to be about everybody’s favorite buddy cop duo Banda and Meh-kun makes me very happy.
Beep boop. Looks like Banda has finally reconnected with Van and gotten a patch update and is now Banda 1.01. I assume that the connection with Van is because of either Van’s Dream Guider or Demiurge jobs.
I think Van enjoyed the Maou act he gave to all the kids at the orphanage in Morksi too much and now he has decided to do a similar act with Hiroshi with the whole, “Do you want power?” bit. Anyways so now we know what happened to Murakami’s mana regen cheat: it wasn’t useful to Van so it was recycled and given to Hiroshi. He has ended up fulfilling Hiroshi’s wish of wanting a cheat skill. Sure the cheat has degraded after giving it to Hiroshi but it still is good enough to produce infinite mana for an Origin mage. Also Banda is gonna teach Hiroshi no-attribute magic and coupled with an infinite mana supply I wonder what Hiroshi will be able to do? Since Origin doesn’t have skills that can be awakened and magic works differently there I wonder if Hollow King magic could be replicated?
It was kinda funny how Banda wasn’t going to tell Hiroshi stuff not because it’s some important secret that can’t be revealed but rather it’s because it’ll take too long and Banda doesn’t want Hiroshi to be late for school. Banda’s like the responsible big brother for both Mei and Hiroshi now.
Of course the Amemiya’s have no idea what’s going on. It’s a combination of many things: the group in charge of logistics and information gathering being assassinated, Rikudou manipulating information and acting like a good guy, Amemiya Hiroto being a horrible judge of character who only sees the good in everyone even when there isn’t actually any, the truth about Mei possessing the death attribute being unknown to anybody and Banda actively spreading disinformation. I would hope that the destruction of Moriya’s familiars would make Hiroto more wary at least but there’s really not much he can do. Well at least Banda’s action will either make Rikudou more cautious and wait as he gathers information before making a move or Rikudou will get spooked and try something rash which could given Banda an opportunity to eliminate him then and there.
Dr. Steel
People keep missing this, it isn’t infinite mana for an Origin mage, for a normal child who’s mana pool is still developing, it might as well be infinite mana
Lord Rin
It’s still a cheat so even if degraded, it should still be more than enough mana regen for any mage in Origin. Also some cheats can be improved with training even in Origin. Doug’s Hecatoncheir was a cheat that didn’t have fine control originally but he trained and improved it in Origin to be able to do precise tasks with it like knitting. Hiroshi could possible train to improve his mana regen cheat to either regen mana faster or regen more at once thus making it effectively an infinite mana source.
Dr. Steel
That’s a fair point. But at least call it near-infinite
Kiriaru
The 8th guidance still lives! Praise Death!
Vastorn
Evil spirit… so Meh-kun is really kind of a stand user
Target_Prac114
If this keeps up I’m wondering if people in Origin are going to end up with Van’s divine protection, or is Banda going to be the next to be raised to mythological status.
Dr. Steel
More like Banda will be recognized as the evolved/phase 2 Undead and the Undead will be worshipped. Wonder how that would effect Origin’s god. Would Origin’s god then link with Vandalieu?
Clyde
Love this side story, favorite aspect of the novel!
ravelphenex
did hiroshi get his own exclusive banda or meh-kun’s banda is now babysitting 2 children?
Eddy
Mei’s Band takes care of both of them, it seems that the connection was not strong enough to send another Band and even if they did it seems that joining it would be difficult, so Banda also takes care of Hiroshi, but the main body is still Mei
Doc
Which likely means for Hiroshi to see him, Banda needs to materialize his form. Unlike for Mei, who can always see Banda.
The exception obviously is in dreams.
Dr. Steel
Mei can see him more likely because she can see spirits in general. I think even if their connection helps, it would be impossible if she couldn’t see spirits originally.
Doc
I believe you got it backwards. Mei can see spirits because she’s connected to Banda, not the other way around. Her connection to Banda is Mei’s “power”. As such Banda’s passive abilities like spirits appearing to him are accessible to her.
Dr. Steel
There is no evidence of her manifesting Banda’s powers/passive skills/passive “abilities” like that anywhere so far. Just seeing spirits, which is something, presumably, any death mage can do.
Mei can see spirits because she was exposed to Pluto’s death attribute mana and is highly likely to have the ability to use death magic when she grows up. Or it could be like the Eighth Guidance where they can use one spell/ability, and hers is seeing spirits. After all, when they teased her death attribute ties it was her eyes turning black.
Doc
You misunderstood what I meant. It’s not Mei having passive abilities that only exist in Lambda. Spirits appearing for Banda is Van’s passive ability as it is a part of his death attribute magic. She sees the spirits BECAUSE Banda sees them. Again, her power is her connection to Banda, not separate from him.
Put another way, Banda is Mei’s death magic power.
Also, I don’t believe it is a skill all death magic users share. I don’t recall Legion saying they could see the spirits swirling around Van. Each of them had one specific aspect under death magic, much like how Mei’s one thing is her connection to Banda. In practice that means she technically has many powers as Banda has multiple things he can do.
Dr. Steel
“Also, I don’t believe it is a skill all death magic users share.” Maybe limited to full death-mages, someone who can use one death attribute spell is NOT a death-attribute magician.
Also, Mei had death attribute before Banda joined her, it is what led Van to her(or vice versa) and it was teased in a side chapter after Eighth Guidance died but before Banda came over that when she was alone Mei’s eyes turned pure black before returning to normal. So either she has the potential to be a full death mage, or her one death attribute spell is vision related and lets her see spirits (and maybe other things, it’s too early to know).
And where does it even say she can see them because Banda can see them? That’s just your inference. You can go back and re-read the Banda chapters. If you can find a quote that says she can only see spirits because of her connection to Banda and not through her own powers, I’d love to see it.
Doc
“someone who can use one death attribute spell is NOT a death-attribute magician.”
I mean by that definition than Van is the only death-attribute magician as every member of Legion can only use one thing (except the girl with the future sight ability that was never a death magic experiment that’s also part of Legion)
Regarding Mei seeing spirits, that’s not actually clear. So the relevant chapters are 198, SS26, and SS28. In SS26 is the black eye moment you allude to and it’s said she’s less than 1 at that time. The inference here is she has the death-attribute affinity as that was the topic of conversation between Avalon and Hiroto. However that’s not proof of any particular powers that she has. In chapter 198, Van goes on his dream tour and that’s when he meets Mei who’s at least old enough to talk. So possibly a year and change old. In SS28 is when Banda tries out his powers and its explained that Mei is a year and a half old, but it’s not clear if this is the next day from Banda’s creation and attachment to Mei or if some time has passed since that dream, considering Mei seemed pretty used to Banda’s existence already.
Anyway, the point is we’re given no information about Mei’s death magic before her link to Banda other than the vague, black eyes moment, and the next moment we have with her, Banda is a part of her. So I guess I can’t say for certain that she couldn’t see spirits before Banda was linked with her but she could definitely see them afterwards.
Dr. Steel
Yes I can agree with that. We simply don’t have enough information. I just thought that with that limited information it would be foolish to make that assumption.
Doc
Interesting. I didn’t realize Banda had the ability to communicate with Lambda Van, or to update his powers with the reincarnated souls. I thought once Banda split off Van it severed their connection. Good to know. That means Van should have up to date information on the Braver’s in Origin (well, whatever information Banda can glean from being near Mei).
Dr. Steel
I was reminded by another comment, but their connection wasn’t cut, it was just faint because the gap between even adjacent worlds is large
Dr. Steel
So that’s what happened to the mana regen ability. Pretty good way to put it to use though.
hidefreek
I wish nyoro-nyoro.
Dr. Steel
I was waiting for this! And it’s even better than I imagined!
ExplodingPenguinDood
Someone with a vore fetish reading this ss 👌👌
Banda is Meh-kun’s stand 😂😂 took too long to realize.
Poor Hiroshi the pressure must be insane for him, hopefully Banda will ease his worries
Sinfulmass
I’d still read if only Banda and Mei kun were the main characters. That whole dynamic would be cool to explore. It could serve as a way to really add to Origin; which in my opinion was always lacking. I’m just saying a tie in series wouldn’t hurt my feelings. Anyone else want to see the Adventures of Mei and Banda? With that little lore addition about evil spirits. It’s not impossible that there are or have been people that do have some sort of death magic in Origin. A toddler taking down a secret death cult that’s been acting behind the scenes like the supposed illuminati with the help of an unseen Eldritch Horror could be something special. It would be funny, light and hell even cute at times but then Banda would do some Quentin Tarantino shit.
Sinfulmass
Seeing it’s another side chapter.
(╯°Д°)╯ ┻━┻
Banda shows up.
┬─┬ノ( º _ ºノ)
Eddy
“Ah, I’ve gone and woken you up, Meh-kun. Here, wriggle-wriggle,” said Banda, extending a tentacle of the Demon King towards her.
“Wriggle-wriggle!” Mei giggled happily.
Banda kept her entertained until she fell asleep once more.
I’m just telling you, this scene will bring serious consequences, Listen, it will bring consequences
Triduo
Noctyrannus : It’s too early to lewd the baby girl. (-O_O)
Paradoxe : What about the big boy ? -__-
Noctyrannus : He’s already the lewd one. (-O_O)b
no1
Thanks for the chapter yoshi, chapters with banda and mei are cute. Banda and Hiroshi finally meet and Banda gave him something to eat. Mei and Hiroshi’s parents are still clueless. And apparently another guy named Moriya is working with Rikudou. Also I thought that Banda could not communicated with Van in Lambda. Guess that changed and Banda can access skills that Van had devoured from the reincarnated individuals, cool. Hope the next chapter comes soon
Dr. Steel
He for the most part can’t connect with Van, Van’s soul would have to travel to Origin, probably in his sleep, so it’s more like he can occasionally check in.
nadirku
There was a reddit thread about what people like about this series, and I think this chapter is a great example of one aspect, how the series can troll it’s characters:
I am just imagining one of those one page omake images you see between chapters in some manga tankobans, or the chibi-style omake scenes some anime have, depicting Hiroshi trying to have a normal day at school after this just happened, knowing what he will learn once he gets back home…
Reiji
Oh, it’s a new chapter.
Thank you very much.
What comes after?
Maybe Van or Banda will come in with a clutch.
Is this Origin Arc?
Will it be Dark?
How long will it last?
I’m sure I’ll have a blast!
Stay safe
Take care
I ran out of ideas for rhymes
So I guess this is the part where I say bye
BobsYourUncle
thanks for the chapter.
small error in: “ There were old stories of warlocks that were capable of controlling evil spirits that were visible to the naked eye. ”
it should be “invisible” not “visible”.
bk3k
Banda: system update received
CyberDre
The Banda and meh-kun chapters always give me energy , there’s something about a girl and her eldritch horror, guardian demon that warms the soul😄
Jokes apart, is *Hiroto* gonna find out soon about the fact his kids are being haunted?
Dyneamaeus
Funny part is that reveal is pretty much guaranteed. It’s only a matter of time until Narumi uses ‘Angel’ on one of them. My money is on it being, Hiroshi since he’s the older one and you’d definitely want your kids to be used to your telepathy in case of emergencies.
Jonathan Hurd
I kind of feel like she might connect to Mei first. Just because Mei’s behavior is a lot more suspicious and I think she would want to respect her son’s privacy. Narumi seems like the type to refuse to connect to others if it’s not an emergency so I think it will probably be a bit longer.
Gotta say though looking forward to Narumi and Hiroto first contact with Banda, lol. My money is on Hiroto blowing a few holes in some walls. Would also be hilarious if they try to grab Mei and run. Banda trying to be considerate tries to keep his distance, but he physically can’t move more than a hundred yards from Mei so it looks like he’s chasing her.
Renrobt
I wouldn’t say Mei’s behavior is suspicious. She is a not even 3 yet. At that age there are many kids prone to seemingly random outbursts and actions. She seems to be a calm child little obsessed with drawing a weird creature she calls Banda, and prone to ask and laugh with her “imaginary” friend.
On the other hand Hiroto went through trauma which even they knew was obviously haunting him, but couldn’t do anything to help, yet suddenly he overcame it just suddenly overnight?
But aside suspicions, I personally think its going to be more of an accidental discovery, like the kids getting lost and Narumi trying to use angel to find them. Mei can directly see Banda so when they share senses Narumi would also be able to see him, but even when it comes to Hiroto just him thinking about Banda at an inopportune moment will at least rise questions. And unlike the Bravers he didn’t train to be able to separate what he is thinking and what he is sending over on Angel, so anything that just prompts him to think about it would likely reveal it.
I am personally looking forward to the family intervention when they sit down with Banda. I find it unlikely that it will happen like that, but the image of having a full family meeting with an eldritch horror is just too good.
Jonathan Hurd
From what this chapter said I think its been a month since Hiroshi stopped having nightmares and Narumi hadn’t realized it. Hiroto seemed to have noticed he’s calmer though. I think they’ll probably just be happy he seems happier and not try to dig deeper for fear of bringing up old wounds/trauma.
If you ask me they should of had a sit down with their son a long time ago and explained its okay to be afraid, but if that was going to happen it would of happened a long time ago.
I agree with you that she is probably going to link with the kids during some kind of emergency. I think rather than them being lost I feel like it will be at some point when Hijiri gets really desperate. He might decide to kidnap the kids and kill Narumi all in one at that point. Narumi and the kids are undersiege so she connects to both of them with Angel to keep an eye on them and BAM there’s Banda, lol.
Renrobt
Yeah, I agree that the discovery of Banda will likely be during a high stress time. Poor Narumi might even think that the situation is worse than it is and be the one causing issues due to the misunderstanding.
Personally I would find it hilarious if it was discovered during a peaceful time, seeing how the Amemiya household panicking and trying to exorcise Banda.
Well it could also happen that due to something Banda decides that he should reveal himself, tho even that would be a rather interesting affair, since its likely a serious situation that would force him to reveal himself.
Dr. Steel
wasn’t it 50 meters?
Morgan
I was gonna ask how Banda gained that fragment or connected to Vandalieu. Then I realised that the ability could have transferred since they are technically the same soul. And with it, Vandalieu and Banda could talk for a bit.
Jonathan Hurd
I believe in the first Banda chapter it said they were still connected but the connection was very weak. I think now that Van is a Dream Guided he has an easier time traversing dimensions in dreams. So he sent his soul over to Banda and gave him a quick update.
Baldingere
My wish got granted!
It’s great that Banda can reconnect to Vandalieu. He can now begin bringing people to his system!
Thanks for the chapter !
Jonathan Hurd
I do think Banda might bring those he directly connects with over, but I think being a Spirit Clone Banda lacks the direct Guidance capabilities. Even if he has a connection I don’t think he can Guide unless Van takes over for a bit. Still Banda can spread the good word of Van to all the lost sheep!
Dr. Steel
I don’t think him being a Spirit Clone would make him lose/weaken his Guidance. Would a God’s spirit clone be unable to guide people about their teachings? Or gather faith and prayer?
Jonathan Hurd
Part of the reason I say I don’t think his Guidance works with Banda is because the Death Attribute Charm doesn’t seem to work for Banda currently. Now I think he could work to lead people closer to the path, but I think it might need direct interference from Van to guide them.
Dr. Steel
There is a difference between his guidance and his enticement. He probably has to directly guide people in their dreams and stuff
unmellow
Banda is made out of pieces removed from his own soul
it operates independently of the main body also the
skills don’t exist in origin eg he is still great at hand to hand
combat but he can’t use active skills nor does he get passive
buffs in origion
Jonathan Hurd
Banda can use his Active skills. That’s how he can affect the material world the skill Materialize. He also gets the passive bonuses that’s why he so outclassed the kidnappers.
Origin admittedly doesn’t have the skill system, but Banda kept all the benefits of it. I think the reason is because Banda is an off shoot of Van. So Banda can’t really increase the skills levels, but he can benefit from Vans efforts.
Baldingere
I agree, now that he reconnected, he can use the skills Van gained during their time apart. And he can for sure guide his new disciple (it’s so funny how he accumulates disciples and one of them being Hiroshi is incredible! Hiroshi doesn’t even know he has three seniors haha!) since he gave him a part of him to eat.
Dr. Steel
Yes, like we saw him using Venom Secretion to take care of the maids, which is definitely not something he can do without skills. The difference between Passive and Active skills is just whether the system thinks it is an automatic thing versus something you think about doing (i.e. difference between heart beating and moving your arm).
Dr. Steel
Also in the kidnapping chapter he uses Artillery Technique with the parasitized kidnapper’s gun. That’s an active skill.
Seinvolf
Thank u always for ur great work…
^^…
— It started a fire with the seaweed-like plants, then plucked one of the sea-anemone-like things growing nearby and squeezed a crimson liquid out of it, filling the pot. It then cut the organ-like object into suitably-sized pieces and added them to the liquid.
Read this part while eating, I got a SUPER mixed feeling here…
-.-…
nadirku
there are definitely parts of this series I read while envisioning some kind of spoof of Shokugeki no Soma (Food Wars)…
Seinvolf
Well yeah, but not the grotesque part while in the middle of meal…
-.-a…
Jonathan Hurd
It would freaking hilarious if they had the food orgasm scene like in Shokugeki, but instead of something like Angels coming down it was little Banda’s with Batwings. That would be amazing.
InfernoHomura
I like the way you’re thinking
YohaoShakur
Demon King’s soup to the child hope he doesn’t develop horns or something lol
Eddy
Nah though I might start to see in complete darkness
Dr. Steel
Oh, if Van’s guidance can give him the Darkvision skill he can call that one of his “Braver” powers, after all it is similar to Clairvoyance’s powers, and if Banda could somehow give him chant revocation then he could have one of his father’s powers. All depends on if Van can give skills or teach someone skills in Origin
Mossy Stone
One Banda’s trash is another brat’s treasure!
Curious as to how the connection was made?
It feels so satisfying when Rikudou and Rodidiot experience frustrations. Those artificial spirits were pretty pathetic by Lamda standards.
Amemiyas are a little disappointing …c’mon, suspect your fellow Bravers more! What happened to Narumi’s unease with Rikudou? Gotta admire Shaman a little …he had enough sense not to tackle Banda …not that that sense will last.
ObserverBias
Rikudou isn’t “openly” tied to any part of the ongoing situation, besides arranging which Braver is in attendance to keep watch, no? And none of the other Bravers have their own (known) reason to target their household, nor use Eight Guidance as a scapegoat to excuse ‘heroic’ actions. In this, Titan and Shaman exposed a lack of general knowledge towards the Amamiya household security functions, and while the latter :might: have been specifically searching for something suspicious before he took watch (without informing the parents), he’s probably not going to tell the right people about it.
Jonathan Hurd
Shaman is part of the suspicious activity team to be reported on, lol. He was sending those familiars to bypass the Amemeyias security system. He didn’t know about the Banda security though that’s what messed him up.
I believe the reason Shamans familiars were noticed by Hiroto was because they exploded mana upon death. If Banda hadn’t attacked them I think they’d stay invisible.
Superboy8338
You forget the part where Hiroto Amemiya is a delusional idiot who never once thought he would be betrayed by other Bravers because of justice and friendship is magic.
Jonathan Hurd
While I understand and share your frustration with the Amemeyias trusting Hijiri. A big thing to remember is just how few people they have to rely on. Basically every government in the world looks at those two as potential weapons of mass destruction or something to be studied and used.
Hijiri has also targeted and killed just about everyone that could be a confidant or sniff him out. Add in the deaths of close friends like Asagi and Mao. As well as the hidden pasts of people like Murakami and Gungnir. It’s not hard to understand why Hiroto would desperately not want to suspect the one remaining confidant and friend he has left.
To also be fair if Hiroto was good at seeing people’s worst sides we wouldn’t be here in the end, lol. He would of noticed how the Eighth Guidance was being treated, the atrocities multiple Bravers were doing, and the cracks his desperate forcing together of the reincarnated had from the start.
Superboy8338
But still, the fact that he didn’t even consider that some of his allies would turn bad or were bad from the very beginning is foolish.
Jonathan Hurd
Oh don’t get me wrong I completely agree that Hiroto was and still is an idiot who has no understanding of the big picture. I’m merely saying why he wouldn’t want to suspect someone he has considered a close friend from the beginning.
With how many betrayals that have happened it would be stupid to blindly believe anyone. The big problem then is who do you trust to help look after your family? The world governments are actively and openly trying to use you, and they prioritize Death Attribute over all else.
Since the government’s aren’t trust worthy then just about any human is untrustworthy. Everybody has a price and I wouldn’t put it past some shadier governments to hold friends and family hostage so the people you hire to protect your family betray you. Basically the only people you can kind of rely on are people in a similar boat as you. The other Bravers but even that trust has spoiled thanks to Gungnir and Murakami to say the least.
You really gotta pity Hiroto at this point. There is no one left to really trust. Hijiri killed everyone who could verify backgrounds who was trustworthy. So Hiroto is just surrounded by enemies open and non who don’t care at all for what he thinks and understand his weak point. At this point I think the reason Hiroto isn’t doubting Hijiri is because if he does he’s going to start doubting everyone. He’s already being crushed by guilt over all the mistakes he’s made. I don’t think mentally he could survive giving into paranoia.
Rollrock
“He would of noticed how the Eighth Guidance was being treated”
He was perfectly aware of how the Eighth Guidance were being treated and that all of the original members of the group were escaped Death Attribute lab experiments from the same laboratory that housed “The Undead”. All of the Bravers knew that the escapees were recaptured and experimented upon again, they all knew the reason behind the foundation of the Eight Guidance, the story makes explicit mentions of this, but like the typical “It cannot be helped” Japanese trash human beings, despite being endowed with powers to defy the world and transform it for the better, they choose to prioritize the peace of mind of many over the suffering of the few. Because being an actual hero is inconvenient.
Jonathan Hurd
From what the story said during the Eighth Guidance chapters I believe the course of events was:
1) Undead killed.
2) The other people experimented on and then helped by the Undead are found by the Bravers.
3) Braver’s hand these people over to the government who promises they’ll ‘help’ the poor victims.
4) Eighth Guidance is now put in a new lab to be experimented on.
5) Eighth Guidance escapes using the powers the Undead gave them and become a teriorist group.
6) The Braver’s learn what happened.
I believe in a previous chapter Hiroto admits feeling guilty about his naivety leading to the Eighth Guidance once again becoming victims to the Oracle. I don’t think Hiroto condones or accepts human experimentation. The problem was more that he was to lazy to bother following through with helping them. He ‘saved’ them and then forgot about them immediately afterwards.
Its been made fairly clear especially in the battle against the Eighth Guidance that Hiroto believes Death Magic shouldn’t exist. He seems to think on similar lines as Asagi. He is opposed to it fundamentally based on personal/religious beliefs rather than reason.
To me the way I see it, Hiroto is doing something similar to Heinz. Basically both of them made some pretty terrible mistakes early in their lives. They realize they messed up, but instead of admitting and apologizing for those errors they decided to blame the victims of their mistakes. I find it kind of funny that both blame the victims of society while trying to extol the authorities who are causing real suffering to those people.
Hiroto has decided Death Magic is evil and wrong not realizing that everyone in Origin who has owned Death Attribute mana has only ever wanted to be left alone. It is the governments that force them to fight and have been causing numerous atrocities.
Heinz does a similar thing. He blames Van for chaos in places like the Hartner and Sauron Duchy, but he ignores all the shady and terrible actions the governing bodies did to force Van’s hands. Hartner Duchy was literally using innocent people as slaves and trying to frame them for crimes they didn’t commit. The Sauron Duchy on the otherhand was trying to assassinate the ones who liberated the place to steal the credit for their efforts.
Neither Hiroto nor Heinz seem to have the guts to fight against the true corruption. They just assume that if they destroy the thing those corrupt officials are fighting over things will naturally work out. To me I can only see the corrupt officials naturally moving to fight over a new thing even if they lose their current target of interest.
Rollrock
Indeed, your summary is in point, both Heinz and Hiroto are “heroes of convenience”. Unlike Scheinder, they care too much for how the society they inhabit perceives them to commit what the authorities would portray as “random acts of wanton violence”, even though the actions in reality were aimed towards destruction of evil that hid behind money or laws. He is a true hero, they are not. He would fight to do the right thing no matter the circumstances, they would fight to do the right thing only so long as it did not clash against the established order that presides over them which would ultimately lead to real evil prevailing, because it doesn’t care for limitations of society or economics. Every system of laws, social, financial or economic can be bypassed, exploited and then after being bypassed and exploited, be reformed so that it would benefit those that exploit them. Without going against the grain it is impossible to overthrow such systems and without overthrowing Alda and his pantheon it’d be impossible to bring lasting positive change to Lambda.
Rollrock
And found the explicit mention I referenced in Volume Six, Chapter 16: Preliminary Encounter (Origin)
“All of the Bravers, including Minami Asagi, knew that all of the members of the Eighth Guidance had been victims of death-attribute research and then been handed over to another research institution while under the Bravers’ protection.
Indeed, if the Bravers had acted properly back then, it was possible that these victims wouldn’t have become terrorists.”
Jonathan Hurd
It does really annoy me that Asagi and the rest know they screwed up and the Eighth Guidance were forced to become terrorists because of them. Then they decide its okay to murder those same people because they lash out at the Bravers who put them in this terrible situation to begin with.
To me the Braver’s treat being a Hero too much like a game. They swoop in and ‘rescue’ people, but don’t bother following through. When their victims then understandably are angry at them and try to hurt them they decide its okay to murder the bunch.
Jonathan Hurd
I really do love the difference between how Schneider acts and Heinz. I think the biggest difference for me is how each person acted upon first meeting Van.
Heinz’s first reaction was to try and deflect his involvement in Van’s moms death or justify it. He never owns up to the fact instead trying to emphasize how legally it was okay.
Schneider and his party on the other hand upfront apologized. They make no excuses. They don’t try to escape the blame. They lowered their heads and confessed that they should of been there and they weren’t and they are sorry.
Another big aspect was Schneider and his team were willing to accept any punishment or resentment Van might have for them. Even knowing that Van can destroy souls. Add in the fact that the reason Schneider wasn’t there to save Van and his mom was because they were off saving other mom’s and children.
Compare that to Heinz who not only helped in Darcia’s death. Took no responsibility for that fact, but then he turned around and used that sin for marketing. Worst of all even after all of that he still hasn’t helped anyone of Vida’s factions. Its honestly insulting how he keeps going on about how he’s helping Vida’s races while he doesn’t do anything different from a normal adventurer.
Doc
I think that’s a bit of an unfair take on Heinz actions after killing Darcia. Considering being a part of that scheme shocked him to the point of leaving the empire he and his team were based in. And while it’s true he hadn’t done as much as Schneider in actively putting himself in danger to save Vida races, by preaching a more tolerant approach for Alda worshippers to accept Vida races, he was at least diminishing the stigma Vida races felt in human cities to some degree. Remember, the American Civil rights Era needed both a Martin Luther King Jr talking about civil disobedience AND a Malcolm X preaching more direct actions to achieve true equality. Change in a systemic system doesn’t happen from just one kind of approach at change. Schneider is secretly helping Vida races, but publicly he’s supposed to be a pro Alda, empire adventurerer. You mock marketing, but marketing has reach and can impart societal change on a larger scale than secret actions can. Also Heinz really did save a Dhamphir girl.
The point here is that Heinz certainly made a mistake. And Van has every right to want to kill him. Van even said that his reason is not strictly logical and it doesn’t matter what good intentions or positive growth Heinz has went through as a person. He still wants to kill him. But, outside from Van’s perspective, Heinz is not that bad. I feel like you’re being overly critical given little evidence.
Rollrock
“But, outside from Van’s perspective, Heinz is not that bad”
No, he is every bit as bad as people make him out to be, even if you only consider all the ghoul extermination commissions he and his company had undertaken. Women and children and all. Heinz is a hundred times a murderer Van had ever been. And I’d also thank you not to bring real life examples to this discussion because this isn’t an issue of different races of the same hominid species, but an issue of completely different biological creatures separated not only by ethnic, racial, relicious and economic creeds, but also from a purely biological standpoint. It makes it a false equivalence.
Whatever marketing Heinz had done, it won’t return the lives he had taken in service of Alda or the lives he had continued taking, more often than not, innocent lives. He never bothered investigating who was guilty and who wasn’t, unlike Vandalieu, he simply went ahead and killed all of Vida’s races that make him feel uncomfortable.
Doc
Couple things. First off, regarding Heinz taking Ghoul extermination commissions. Again, that isn’t fair. Humans during this age are not aware that ghouls are a Vida race. To them they are simply monsters. So while we know they are a Vida race, and we’ve come to know several ghouls, thus knowing they are a sentient, intelligent race of people deserving of respect, that’s not how the majority of humans in Lambda view them, so it’s unfair to hold Heinz to a standard no other human would reasonably be expected to have.
Secondly, regarding my comparison, it was in how change to an oppressive system is conducted. To that end there is nothing wrong with what I said, and if you have a knee jerk reaction just to the mention of civil rights movement activists then maybe civil discussion is not for you. Considering this very topic is about the rights of a people to be treated equally, why you think it’s offensive to even hint at a comparison is beyond me. Not everything is racist simply because you mention topics dealing with race.
Again, let me reiterate what I said earlier because I feel like you’re taking my defense of Heinz as me saying he’s like a saint or that he did nothing wrong. No. He definitely was in the wrong and his views on death magic are very short sighted. I’m not suggesting Heinz is a good person. What I’m simply saying is he isn’t that bad either. He’s got an above average morality for your normal human in Lambda. There are people in this story far worse morally than Heinz is.
Rollrock
“Humans during this age are not aware that ghouls are a Vida race.”
Humans may not be, but Heinz was, nothing stopped him from blowing the truth wide open, nothing but his own cowardice that is. If he really wanted to help the Vidas races that is.
I never said anything about it being offensive, nor do I understand where from did come the interpretations of me being offended by anything. I said that your comparison is erroneous, because there is no civil rights movement in place and no civil rights movement could happen or be established because in the eyes of recognized governments the races in question have no rights or civilizations to speak of, they are not even recognized as sentient beings in vast majority of the cases. It makes the comparison erroneous and improper. This wasn’t even about the rights of the races to be treated equally, it is about the rights of the races not to be massacred on sight so that their bodies could be butchered and sold off as alchemical compounds and even asking for that much is asking too much if you ask Heinz, the champion.
” I’m not suggesting Heinz is a good person. What I’m simply saying is he isn’t that bad either.”
And I am saying he is, because the mark of a good person is to not suffer evil and not to commit it even if it is convenient. Heinz chose the convenient path every step of the way even though he knows full well that he is serving the deity that is essentially a genocidal murderer in the name of his own ideology. He chose to continue killing when he could have advocated for an actual peaceful path, he chose to engage in murder when he could have negotiated as his power afforded him the opportunity, he could have chosen to wield his influence as a hero to change opinions of the small folk and force the more important and influential figures to readjust their views in accordance with the actual truth, at sword point if need be. He did none of those things, he found a dhampir girl to parade around as a sign of his “supportive activities” and to placate his own guilty conscience. In fact, him having a guilty conscience makes it even worse as he knows that what he is doing is wrong, but keeps doing it regardless. I would have detested Heinz far less if he were a mindless fanatic like Gordan. At least those have convictions, even if they are false or destructive.
Doc
“And I’d also thank you not to bring real life examples to this discussion”
How am I to interpret this statement but as you taking offense of my use of comparison to two well known civil rights activists. You’re directly requesting I not make an argument regardless of how pertinent it is simply because this story is fictional yet the activists are real people. That argument ignores fiction is not made in a vacuum. Japanese light novels frequently use race allegory in these fantasy stories for very real elements of racism that Japan had gone through in the past. So it’s not inherently wrong to compare real life examples to a fictional work. And like I said before, the comparison being made is how change can be conducted in different ways. The two people mentioned were just to illustrate the two very different ways both men went about bringing change to a system. You among others are arguing the only way for Heinz to change the system is to take radical, extreme measures, and because he hasn’t done those extreme measures, he’s a garbage person, while I’m saying that’s not the only way change happens.
“Humans may not be, but Heinz was”.. No, he did not. Him suspecting in a corner of his mind that it might be the case is not absolute certainty. His and his teammates livelihood depended on him taking guild commissions/quests. I suspect all sorts of things about the world around me. Doesn’t mean I act on those suspicions. That’s not how proper reasoning works. You could say, “well, he didn’t take any initiative to challenge confirm his suspicions, therefore his ignorance is not an excuse” but that’s making two assumptions. First off that he interacted with ghouls enough for that to even be a reasonable expectation to have. We have no idea how many Ghoul extermination quests he’s taken. For all we know it could be one, or many. We don’t have the information to say. Unless you’re suggesting that he should have known before accepting the commission thus having knowledge there’s no way he would have. The second assumption is that he ever had a responsibility to help ghouls in the first place. He doesn’t. He wasn’t fully aware they were a Vida race and once he had that fact spelled out to him by Van, we have not been told his team have hunted ghouls since. But even knowing they are a Vida race, Heinz “peaceful” Alda faction just means acknowledgement as people. That’s where his obligation end under his own code that the author established for him. It’s you who are trying to hold him to a higher standard and getting mad at him for not meeting it when Heinz never took on that standard to begin with.
Rollrock
Even when Vandalieu spelled it out for him, Heinz continued to insist that despite being a killer of women and children, he still is a a “Part of Alda’s peaceful faction”.Just because Heinz stifled his doubts about what is going on doesn’t make his beliefs ethical or grant him a blanket justification of his actions. There is such a thing as “duty of inquiry”. If the beliefs an individual holds are attained through evasion of reality and suppression of doubt and critical thinking, they are unethical beliefs that can and will lead towards disaster.
While the fiction might not exist in vacuum, the fictional scenarios we are discussing should be discussed and interpreted only within the scope and while maintaining awareness of the fictional world and its contents. Your comparisons were erroneous because the events you were referring to were occurring for different reasons, in a different world that was neither magical nor had undergone apocalyptic events that had depopulated it and a subsequent emergence of until then unseen living creatures.If one allow things to be stretched that far I could simply start bringing up definitions and systems from other stories and books and basing my arguments about Death Mage on them instead of what is actually being written in Death Mage, but then we wouldn’t have a conversation that makes sense.. And what is written in Death Mage and what makes sense to me, leads me to believe that drastic actions are necessary for the races of Vida to have a foothold of any kind in the world as the world is predominantly ruled and dominated by the followers of Alda’s creed and they are not willing to give up their dominance willingly which they have repeatedly demonstrated and which their own god himself had claimed.
Using your own system of argumentation, I could easily point out that feudalism and slavery weren’t dismantled because people suffering under their yoke asked those that enslaved them nicely for some rights and liberties.
Last but not least, the “Alda’s peaceful faction” only means to acknowledge humanoid races such as dark elves as “human”, the same does not extend to species such majin, empusae or arachne and scylla and many other half-monster beings that do possess cultures and civilizations, sentience, capacity for self awareness, speech and other wonderful things that enable them to sit down and have a conversation. A fact that I find is extremely telling about the true nature of their movement: a temporary reprieve in a chaotic world to get some more bodies to throw at their troubles only to dispose of them later when it is no longer convenient to have them around.
Doc
“Heinz continued to insist that despite being a killer of women and children, he still is a a “Part of Alda’s peaceful faction””
Gotta love the completely biased way of phrasing that.
If you killed a bunch of bugs you found while walking outside one day, only to be told later those bugs were a sentient, intelligent, species and that you specifically squashed a bunch of women and children, would you phrase your actions at the time as “women / child murder”? No, you’d say you didn’t know at the time. And apparently in your view he’s not allowed to be remorseful of his actions. He’s just bad because he did a bad thing in the past while harboring some level of doubt but still doing the bad thing. The black/white morality you seem to believe in is not realistic of how real people function.
“There is such a thing as “duty of inquiry”” And again we arrive at a standard we hold one character to that doesn’t exist for any other. So because Heinz doesn’t go against his job description to scour the world for information on ghouls being Vida races, he must not be trying hard enough to care right? Oh but why doesn’t he just simply ask the ghouls in question? You mean the ones that are already wary of adventurers and are more likely to attack his team on sight than to discuss their culture to him? They live in the “Devil’s nests” which are monster breeding grounds. Not exactly the easiest places to approach for fact finding missions ya know?
“Your comparisons were erroneous because the events you were referring to were occurring for different reasons” If that’s what you think than you didn’t understand the comparisons at all despite me clarifying them numerous times. The differences in the examples I gave with the story we’re talking about don’t matter. I’m not talking about MLK Jr or Malcome X in the context of 1960’s America. Their lives, what led them to make the choices they did, the environment around them. None of that is meaningful for what I was saying, which to repeat for now the third time, is how different kinds of CHANGE are carried out. One through more direct, physical action. One through more subtle, “peaceful” ways. You do not need to consider every possible thing around a person used for a comparison, just the thing being compared. It would be “erroneous” only if my example of change wasn’t relevant to this story. Which isn’t the case. I’m trying to point out to you that, Heinz simply advocating for Vida races to obtain work and to not be hunted is a form of change. You seem to be of the mind that unless he’s using his adventurer rank to be directly killing bad people and saving Vida races (like Schneider) than he might as well be doing nothing at all. That’s the extremes you’re presenting here.
Rollrock
“If you killed a bunch of bugs you found while walking outside one day.”
That’s another false equivalence, comparing humanoids that bleed and birth children and use spoken language or advanced tactics in combat to bugs.
“And again we arrive at a standard we hold one character to that doesn’t exist for any other.”
That standard exists for practically any other character but Heinz, in fact, the only other character that never doubted his actions or acknowledge their consequences openly with a considerable degree of self reflection was Rodcorte. Even Alda knows that what he is doing will lead to death of the living on a mass scale, he just doesn’t care as in his mind his goals take precedence.
“You seem to be of the mind that unless he’s using his adventurer rank to be directly killing bad people and saving Vida races (like Schneider) than he might as well be doing nothing at all. “
But that does seem to be the case, the story itself showed it. Without a powerful benefactor to rally behind that intends to truly champion their cause, the races of Vida are doomed to oppression and eventual extinction once Alda raises enough champions to cleanse them all since that is his direct intention. What Heinz thinks or feels at this point is really irrelevant because so long as he follows Alda, all his actions will be for naught and he calls himself the part of “Alda’s peaceful faction”, while going around killing Vida’s races, that makes the moniker rather silly and hypocritical. What will the peaceful faction do in the event of Alda firing off the inevitable divine message of “cleanse them all?” Say “no” to their god? The only reason he hasn’t been able to do so just yet was Vandalieu’s meddling that incidentally threw a massive spanner into his works.
Dr. Steel
It is not a false equivalence, but simply using and extreme comparison to make the point clearer
Rollrock
It was already clear enough that the point was incredibly poorly presented, because it’s not as easy to make an inference about insect sized living beings possessing sentience and intelligence as opposed to beings that walk upright, look like humans except with a different skin tone, use a spoken language that humans can understand and use tools and clothing.It is nonsensical to assume the former to possess sentience, but it is very reasonable to assume such a thing about the latter. It makes it a poor comparison that does nothing to illustrate the point.
Doc
I feel like you’re not really understanding how comparison or inference works in an argument. In the context of my comparison, the “bugs” in question are sentient, intelligent life. Because such beings don’t actually exist doesn’t matter for the sake of this argument. I presented you a near identical scenario as people in this fictitious world would be presented when told a lifeform they believed to be man eating monsters without much intelligence and your response to me was to say, “well the bugs clearly don’t look like humanoids, so it’s a fallacious argument and false equivalency” as if what that intelligent life “looks like” has anything to do with the comparison being made. That’s also kinda offensive to potential alien life we might discover in the future if you think only things that look like human beings are allowed to be cared about as living things.
I realize hypotheticals require a little imagination but it always frustrates me when people bring in irrelevant information into whether a comparison is valid simply because of some outside context that doesn’t matter.
I’m going to stop with metaphor or making comparative arguments with you because you seem incapable of accepting them. Anything that is outside this specific work of fiction you think is some false equivalency because anything outside of this fiction doesn’t operate under the same rules of this story even though that doesn’t matter.
Whatever, I can make the exact same arguments using this world. Instead of “bugs” I could use the lizard people monsters. Nobody would argue they are not a Vida race. They were a species of monster that became more docile after worshipping a dragon god and then an evil dragon God. But there’s no way you would know those details and the lizard people certainly couldn’t explain that to you. So if you, as an adventurer took commissions to hunt some of them down, would you claim it “women / child murder” when you found out later they were an intelligent species of monster? My guess is no. Your argument is entirely predicated on the fact that ghouls “look” more human and “act” more human, therefore nothing more needs to be considered. It’s an incredibly shallow way of looking at the situation that ignores the reality that the world isn’t so black/white as that. We know the ghouls are good people because Van met them and had no issues with them. An adventurer who lost friends from being attacked by ghouls would disagree if they are good people.
Anyway, the point of all these comparisons is to point out to you that it was not some obviously wrong thing Heinz did. People knew that Ghoul women looked similar to humans and that ghouls for the most part kept to themselves in their Devil’s Nests yet that doesn’t make their attacks less damaging or the people they killed less upset. Alda worshipping people in Lambda simply believe monsters are evil and should be killed. We might disagree with that view but that’s the standing belief Heinz and everybody he’s ever worked with believes. The “peaceful” Alda faction btw mostly petitions for the Vida races that were made from the original races, not any of the monsters brought in from the former demon king. Which would invalidate ghouls as deserving his protection anyway, even being told they are a Vida race. The fact that he was deeply unsettled when he was told they were a Vida race by Van still demonstrates that Heinz is remorseful even if he wasn’t at fault at the time.
Dr. Steel
“No, he is every bit as bad as people make him out to be, even if you only consider all the ghoul extermination commissions he and his company had undertaken. Women and children and all. Heinz is a hundred times a murderer Van had ever been.”
If you were transported to another world, say, Goblin Slayer, and became an adventurer, would you not make sure to kill the children that would grow up to be just as bad if not worse than their parents? Ghouls are considered monsters, just like goblins.
And considering the long-standing relationship between adventurers and ghouls, not to mention many ghouls don’t even know they are a race of Vida, do you think there would be a chance for them to sit down and talk and for Heinz to discover that they are a member of Vida’s races?
We all agree Heinz isn’t especially intelligent, so what gives him out of anyone else the chance to realize that what is considered common sense, ghouls=monsters, is wrong?
Rollrock
“If you were transported to another world, say, Goblin Slayer, and became an adventurer, would you not make sure to kill the children”
You’ve gone and done exactly the thing I said shouldn’t be done – bringing examples from other stories and fictional universes for the purposes of basing your argument about the existing story, which is fallacious.
It is true that Ghouls frequently fought adventurers and other monsters alike, however it had been pointed out that more often than not, Ghouls refrain from attacking adventurers or humans in general due to retaliation it invites. Their own lack of knowledge about their ancestry should have no bearing on the fact that they aren’t undead because undead cannot reproduce biologically, that fact alone should have made it immediately apparent that they are not undead. They are considered monsters not due to practical reasons or their innate monstrosity, but due to the monkey ladder experiment levels of propaganda where after Alda’s clergy had repeated it enough times it became the truth that no one questioned. And why does a hero like Heinz get to use ignorance as his defense? He’s been on a great number of journeys and fought many opponents, he’s seen many things, terrible and awe-inspiring that should have challenged his preconceived notions and invited him to investigate his suspicions. He’s not a farmer living in the middle of nowhere whose kids got carried away by ghouls, he’s an educated, experienced individual, endowed with numerous divine blessings.
Jonathan Hurd
To me the problem isn’t really that Heinz isn’t that bad, the problem is that he’s not that good. I do understand your point that sweeping changes are harder to get, but what kind of changes is Heinz really aiming for? Having it so people don’t exclude Dhamphirs and the non monster races from getting basic jobs? He ignored the people being exploited unfairly. He ignored the seedy underbelly because he doesn’t care to change the system itself. Basically Heinz is effectively is a white guy who doesn’t want things to really change but is doing enough to make himself feel better.
I think Van has honestly been more than fair in his assessment with Heinz. Van always has and always will want to kill Heinz, but he forced himself to have a conversation. He answered Heinzs questions and attempted to figure out Heinzs decision making and goals. What he got in return were no answers and just excuses about how it is wrong to free slaves and challenge a corrupt government.
In the end I agree with Vans conclusions of Heinzs actions. The Alda pacifist faction has no interest in really helping Vidas races or seeing them as equals. It only intends to boost them up to the point of not being a burden on society. They have no intention of affecting real change or helping the victims suffering the worst of the abuse.
For Marketing I will just say I’m not against it in principle. To get anything done you need support and to spread a message. Both of the people l like in the story Van and Schneider have been doing their own marketing as well. The difference to me between them and Heinz is the thing Van and Schneider did to spread their names was saving victims not exploiting them.
Van is famous now for helping the down trodden and poor. Not for killing a homeless man and then selecting a new slum kid to put on a pedestal. He saw a problem and started to help by making a self sustaining system that could support them.
For Schneider he saw the errors of Aldas ways, and instead of turning away from that truth or ignoring it like Heinz he decided to help. Schneider purposely stayed in the Amid Empire risking it all because he knew Vidas races needed an ally there most of all. Schneider amusingly has built a reputation built on killing unjust nobles and helping the downtrodden.
The funniest thing to me is if we’re being honest the one with the most power to change things is actually Heinz. Schneider needs to hide his true motives because he’s in an Alda extremists nation. Van is just a ten year old Dhamphir boy who nobody knows or cares about. Heinz on the other hand is in a country that actually has some acceptance of Vida. So unlike Schneider he doesn’t have to hide helping them, and unlike Van he’s an S class adventurer so his name has clout.
Heinz could do some real good and help change things for the better, but instead he does the bare minimum while lapping up praise all around about how great he is. Unlike Van and Schneider he’s not really risking anything or standing up to the unjust systems. He’s helping to reinforce them.
Doc
I feel like you’re conflating personal opinion with what we’re actually told in the story. First off, what change do you think Heinz can realistically do? He’s an up and coming team leader of an adventurer group who just recently reached A rank. He’s not a king or nobleman. His power is only his fame from his adventuring rank. He has no authority. Schneider at the very least was given territory and a court rank.
Secondly, Van is an outsider to this system in two ways. Being a reincarnator who didn’t know about any of these fantasy races before being reborn in Lambda. And being a Vida race that was hunted to begin with. Meaning it was easy for Van to see the problems in a system that was oppressing him and other Vida races.
Meanwhile Heinz grew up in the Amid Empire, a staunch Alda worshipping nation. He was taught all his life that Vida had made a mistake and that her races were against Alda and the other gods’ will. Him changing course from that strict belief that Vida’s races deserve to live is already a major step forward for a lot of humans even if you think it’s the bare minimum.
You say Heinz ignored the plight of Vida’s races but ignoring implies conscious intent. Heinz has only taken this softer path since Darcia’s initial death and ignorance toward ghouls or other Vida races does not count as “ignoring” them. As I said to Rollrock, it’s unfair to hold Heinz to a standard no other human is expected to have. Schneider is like the only human fighting for Vida races that we know of but despite how long Schneider has been at it (and far longer than Heinz mind you) has any meaningful change happened due to Schneider’s actions? Even Schneider himself lemented that he wasn’t doing enough and that there would always be another child or mother he couldn’t save. You’re holding Heinz up on this pedestal in comparing him to Van and Schneider when you really should be comparing him to your average human in this world. And by that metric, like I’ve said before, he’s really not that bad.
I said this to Rollrock as well. I’m not saying Heinz is a good person or that he doesn’t deserve what Van wants to do with him. I just think you’re being a little unreasonable toward the guy by blaming him for knowledge he doesn’t have and acting like he has some authority/responsibility to change society that also he doesn’t have.
Doc
Also, while Van did hear Heinz out in the dungeon, he never had any intention to not kill him. So I think using Van’s perspective here is flawed. Van is emotionally compromised when it comes to his mother.
So anything Van said to Heinz must be viewed from that context.
CyberDre
Okay let me put my two cents on the whole Heinz discussion, personally, when he and Van first met in the Hartner duchy , when we learnt of Selen and of the Alda peaceful faction, I had high hopes for him , I thought it would be similar with Saul the persecutor from the bible , I thought he wouldn’t just preach about tolerating Vida’s races or be content with people simply not killing them , I thought he would go out of his way to investigate cases where Vida’s races were persecuted, where they were turned to slaves , I thought he would reach out to them , talk to them , work alongside them , I thought he question why Vida , the Goddess of”life” and love creating them is seen as a sin to Alda and Bellwood (well to be fair he always wanted to ask that question) I thought he would question why hunting Vida is top priority over evil gods, I thought he question whether or not Alda’s dream is actually possible, which is to reverse everything to pre Guduranis (let’s call it Eden period for now)
I mean to realistically do that , all dungeons would need to be destroyed (something only Van can do) simultaneously destroy all monsters (impossible) , destroy all of Vida’s races as well as the goddess herself (basically the apocalypse) , Heinz might not be all knowing not is anyone in the story , but he is self aware enough to doubt , he has been many times to doubt Alda , that’s one of the reasons he joined the peaceful faction in the first place, yet why doesn’t he actually think about these things more ? Why doesn’t doubt himself or his actions more ? Why doesn’t he question the supposed enemy more ?
I think most of all…… Why didn’t he apologise to Van ? When they met in the dungeon, their talk , at least for Heinz is probably the most important discussion he’d have next to Alda or Bellwood, after he confirmed that Van was indeed the DK , why was his first thought not to earnestly apologise or show Van he would make other efforts to help Vida’s races ? That entire section was terrible , the only sensible things he or the rest of his party mentioned was how Dangerous undead or DK fragments, everything else was loopholes on how Van’s actions were bad and how it affected Taxes of the unjust aggressors in the situations ?
As for the ghouls , Heinz, Edgar and Delizah suspected , suspected they might have been Vida’s races , they suspected that things might not have been as the humans claimed….. They killed them all anyways …. I would have given them benefit of the doubt if they were completely oblivious but the fact they had doubt but still chose to kill them, 🤢, I felt disgusted men , I really did , as for the majin, IDK what to say , not much was implied that they were at least aware of their heritage so I’ll give them a pass there.
I guess the reason why Heinz is this way is he loves being seen as a hero in the eyes of society and who is the greatest hero he knows of ? Bellwood and we all know exactly how “heroic” he was, 🤢, I guess by the time Heinz finally wants to make amends, he would still mess up somehow and that’s really tragic, but I hope he does, I felt pity for him pre-succesor of Bellwood, but post all I felt was disgust.
Welp that was more than two cents😅, but I guess that’s why some people can’t stand Heinz anymore or at least why I can’t.
CyberDre
Don’t get me wrong, his preaching helped the “human-like” races of vida a little in getting employment, the Dark elves , the Titans and beast kin, but only the lowest of positions though, nothing to really improve their overall lifestyle or social standing or even give a bright future for them, that’s something that even an ordinary citizen can see 🙈, in the grand scheme of things at beast they would be second class citizens without the rights that come with it but hey at least they won’t be killed? 🤷🏾♂️
Doc
“yet why doesn’t he actually think about these things more ? Why doesn’t doubt himself or his actions more ? Why doesn’t he question the supposed enemy more ?”
We don’t know that he doesn’t have those thoughts. Heinz is not the main character of this story, Van is. We are only told what Heinz is thinking through brief moments in the story and mostly through his conversations with his teammates and with Van. And considering his soul healing was taking far longer than it should have, it’s clear Heinz actually was having a lot of doubt over his decisions.
The context with his conversation with Van is that the god of records was making Heinz fight Van and his companions over and over again. Without context to who those people were, of course you’d come to the conclusion that they were enemies.
Also at the time, Van took over the fake projection Van but still fought Heinz. Their conversation was WHILE FIGHTING TO THE DEATH. Using that conversation as deep insight into Heinz character is flawed because again, the protagonist is Van. We’re supposed to emphasize with Van and understand things from Van’s point of view. And to Van, Heinz helped kill his mother.
Regarding the ghouls, again, suspecting them to be a Vida race and knowing are two different things. No other human on this planet thinks they are a Vida race. Van points it out to Heinz and that makes him and his team reevaluate what they’ve done. They certainly haven’t hunted ghouls since learning that fact yet you’re condemning him for taking the same actions any other human would take due to their lack of knowledge which is unfair.
You and Jonathan seem to have this belief that Heinz has some duty to protect Vida races if he truly wants to call himself a hero. First off, when did Heinz ever believe himself to be a hero? Alda is grooming him for that purpose, but Heinz himself is just an adventurer and has never spoken about wanting to right injustice. He helped create the Alda peaceful faction due to his dissatisfaction over his involvement in killing Dacia. You say he should be more involved in helping Vida races but why? Why is that his responsibility? He’s not claiming to be a Vida fundamentalist or that he will save all Vida races. If he did than I would understand your ire towards him because then he would be knowingly harming a cause he took up. But he never took up that cause to begin with. You’re forcing a cause on him and holding him up against that standard unreasonably. Heinz simply wants to help the Vida races that he is aware of in the areas he can see and where he has a say, as atonement for his previous actions. That help doesn’t have to be anything more than simply standing up for them and saying they deserve to live just like any other race for that help to be meaningful. Sure, it’s not as directly beneficial as what Van is doing or what Schneider is doing behind the scenes, but again, why does it have to be? Moving progress forward, even by a step, is more helpful than not moving at all.
I believe the author understood this as well since in that conversation between Heinz and Van, pointing out the hypocrisy in Heinz beliefs toward Vida was only meant to unsettle him. The thing the author was focusing on was Heinz refusal to accept Van’s use of death magic to bring back loved ones from death as zombies or ghosts. That is where Heinz draws the fundamental line and why he chooses to fight Van. Not because he disagrees over who is a Vida race or that he wasn’t doing enough for them.
CyberDre
You’re right that cause is to help the vida races he can , you’re right in saying we’re supposed to be sympathetic to Van as he is the MC , you’re also right that we don’t know what Heinz is thinking all the time, but I don’t believe I’ve put him in any position he isn’t capable of doing, his aim is to help those he can reach right? Then doesn’t he IDK , reach out ? He doesn’t have or need to be a Vida fundamentalist to make her races have better social standing in society, he was dissatisfied with how he was used to kill Darcia, but that only happened because the system as a whole was against her races at a fundamental level, coexistence isn’t enough to help them , changing some laws however are, giving someone an opportunity to have employment is very good , infact do that in our modern day and you’re a hero , but our modern day has stuff like civil and human rights, something fundamental that all humans have upon birth, Vida’s aren’t considered human , thus they have no rights, even if they are given work , it’s meaningless if their employer still at a fundamental level doesn’t consider them human, thus potential conflict could arise if the employer or co-worker decides to neglect a member of Vida’s races , there’s always gonna be a Joseph or Aggar or even Gordon in the workplace, guys who oppress others cuz they can, Laws need to be made so the minorities can and will be protected, I’m not asking for something crazy for Heinz to do , I’m asking him to use his influence and standing as a honorary noble to help in the development of new laws to do these things, it’s something that he can do , it would take some time but it’s very much possible especially given he is in nations that tolerate Vida’s races to begin with.
As for the ghouls he didn’t know but it was heavily implied suspected , he even mentions to Diane and Jennifer that he suspected this , meaning Dialogue could have been possible, blood could not have been drawn , he could have simply attempted to confirm whether they can be reasoned with by actually reasoning with them , he knew this much and yet he still killed them , that’s the part that irks me , again if he didn’t suspect this at all , I would have let it go , but he did so I can’t, I can’t because it’s no different from what he did to Darcia , a bunch of humans said something was evil so you just killed it, you didn’t investigate though your gut suspected something was off , you went ahead anyways and I’m not supposed to be irked by this ? Yeah you could say even some ghouls don’t know that they are Vida’s races , but proper investigation isn’t terrible thing to do, especially if your goal is to help Vida’s races get better standing , if your gut tells you this entity might be one of those, investigate first
In order for Heinz to help those he can “reach” he needs to expand his way of reaching out, he is doing good with marketing now, he has a message to preach, he needs politics too, he has an adorable mascot in selen , what he needs to do now is a way people would follow up with the message and that isn’t something that can be handled by good faith alone , the law needs to also support your cause in order for it to be followed down to the letter.
I don’t hate Heinz cuz he killed Darcia or a bunch of ghouls or because he isn’t freeing slaves and babies , or because Van hates him, I hate him because he could’ve done something special with what he was preaching, he wanted to make a world where people like Selen wouldn’t be needlessly hunted , but would instead have opportunity given to them , to protect that idea , again one needs to create laws to do that , this was not as far as I’ve seen in story beyond his power.
As for the hero part, he never explicitly says he wants be a hero , but he does say multiple times wants to be Bellwood’s successor, that’s as good as him saying “Kazoku o ni ore wa naru” or ” I want to be the hokage” , what was Bellwood? A hero , not just any hero , but one who saved Lambda , it doesn’t take a genius to figure out being a hero is still part of his goal. I mean that’s like someone from our world saying, they want to be Michael Jackson’s successor but being a Musician, which was Jackson’s whole deal isn’t part of their plan.
Doc
“but I don’t believe I’ve put him in any position he isn’t capable of doing, his aim is to help those he can reach right? Then doesn’t he IDK , reach out ?”
Just because someone has the capability to do something doesn’t mean they have the responsibility to do it. If I studied martial arts all my life and knew how to defend myself in a fight I’d certainly have the capability to protect a person being attacked on the street. However, I wouldn’t have a responsibility to protect that person. If I instead called the police, I would still be doing something positive toward the situation even if I’m not directly intervening to solve the problem. Even though stepping in would have been the fastest method involved so solve the problem.
I asked this of Jonathan, and I’ll ask you. What change do you think Heinz can do to the system. He is not nobleman nor is he the leader of a country. He has zero authority to pass laws or even suggest them. This is not a democratic society. An adventurer, no matter how strong, cannot just demand laws and expect them to be enacted. What Heinz can do is what he is doing. He’s preaching acceptance. You might not consider it enough but again, this is a person who grew up in a very pro Alda environment, and the Orbaume Kingdom is still pretty Alda centric, so even that level of messaging is important to shift deeply seeded beliefs.
You seem to be fixated on Heinz “suspecting” ghouls were a Vida race as hard proof that he’s some dispicable person. Think about this from his perspective. His job as an adventurer requires him to take commissions from the guild. As far as adventurers are aware, ghouls attack and eat people. They may look humanoid but if they act no differently than monsters that nobody else have an issue hunting, then why should Heinz turn down work, his and his team’s livelihood, because of a suspicion? And again, he doesn’t still hunt ghouls since learning the truth.
You keep condemning him for not taking more actions than he is obligated to take. Could he have gone further in helping Vida’s races? Of course. But hating the guy because he gave 50% instead of 100% isn’t fair. It’s like hating a person who gave you socks for Christmas instead of the gift you really wanted. You still got something and something is better than nothing. It’s not Heinz responsibility to fix all Vida racism in the world nor does Heinz even have the power to do that. Van can do it and Van has personal a personal stake in doing that. Heinz does not. He feels bad about Darcia, that’s his only reason why he’s doing any of what he’s doing.
Also, he took part in the Trial of Zakkart because he incorrectly believed he would become Bellwood’s successor if he passed it but that doesn’t mean he had the same beliefs of Bellwood.
I don’t know, maybe because I don’t get emotionally connected to characters in stories that I’m able to objectively view things from all perspectives but I’m just not seeing the logic being made against Heinz. To me he’s just seems like a dude who means well. He was used in a scheme from actual evil people to kill Darcia. Then he gets used again by Alda as a means to fight Van all without actually knowing the truth of the world. He’s constantly acting from a position of partial knowledge while still helping how he thinks he can help best. From an outside perspective, it certainly seems like he could be doing more but I get being frustrated that he isn’t, but that frustration is not because it’s Heinz fault. That’s just the character we’re given.
CyberDre
Technically speaking a gangster, a teacher, a salesman, a mechanic, a tailor or anyone one who isn’t a politician doesn’t have any say in lawmaking, but if said person has a certain amount of influence as well as a sizeable amount of people who also share a similar idealogy , they can demand for it , if enough pressure is put , it can happen (tho most of the time I admit it leads to civil war) , as for responsibility, that would fine IF he didn’t make himself the face of a Peaceful faction but he did meaning he does have responsibility, it’s a class rep , who nominates himself to lead the class gets the job annnnndddd , he does about 25% of the actual work , but on a much larger scale.
He’s handling a very important subject matter , in any world, be it fiction or our real world , preaching, especially when it comes to matter of races or sexes , is not enough , actions in the form of laws are needed to enforce these ideals , saying “please don’t fight someone” or “please don’t oppress someone” isn’t enough, you need to establish a way of punishment so no one would ever have the audacity to go against the message you preach.
If you recognize the problem is within the system , and what you’re preaching to bear fruit requires you and the system to cooperate, Don’t you think you should do that ? Heinz might not always been shown to be self aware a lotta the times we encounter him, but this is something that everyone in Lambda knows , there are almost no laws protecting any race of vida .
You say Heinz is more of a dude who learned martial art to defend himself but still chooses a roundabout method like calling the police to help a victim of assault? He’s more of a dude who did this while becoming the head of a neighborhood watch, in that he put himself in a position where he is responsible for directly and indirectly helping people out in a situation like that.
As for the ghouls , you say suspicion isn’t that strong and you’re right , that’s why you investigate further to see whether that suspicion is correct or not, knowing there’s a possibility to handle things without needless death and still not doing it, is cold , too cold , especially when you want to help these races . Okay , you say , after they learned that Ghouls are races of Vida , they stopped hunting them down, but they haven’t left the “Successor of Bellwood” yet , they’re just simply aware that Ghouls are races of Vida now , when they leave , the common sense thing would be to reevaluate everything they’ve done look for patterns to know how to identify a race of vida , as well as let the guild know which are her races and which are actually monsters , that takes work admittedly, but work is needed in anything you persue in life isn’t it? Even learning to fight or cook takes a lotta work, preaching acceptance is no different.
You’re saying he’s constantly acting from a position of partial knowledge, then gather info , as much as possible for God’s sake , you can’t do anything reasonable if you don’t have enough info , it’s common sense, 😅 , yeah it’s more of the type of character he is , but I get touchy on subject matter of race or sex and I get irritated when people be them in fiction or real life preach about it , but make no serious attempt to help enforce it in any meaningful way.
Doc
You keep making the same flawed argument. Faulting him for something that is not his responsibility. Why must he “do more”? Because you say so? Why is what he has done not good enough? Because you don’t think things have changed enough? Who determined that? You see what I’m getting at? You seem to be of the mind that unless Heinz personally fixes systemic racism, or put all of his energy into doing so, then he’s literally done nothing of merit.
You say that because he’s the face of the peaceful Alda faction that he’s like a class representative, therefore it is his responsibility but again, why? Where did the author state that the goal of the peaceful faction was to save all Vida races and end racism? As far as I’m aware he simply wants to make life easier for Selen, the Dhampir girl he rescued. Believing that Alda doesn’t want to wipe out Vida races (which he actually really does) and that (non-monster based) races should be able to get jobs is pretty much the only platform he’s preaching. Therefore, the responsibility he has is simply in keeping to that platform. If a politician says their platform includes 10 things, you don’t then hold that politician accountable for things not in their stated goals.
“preaching, especially when it comes to matter of races or sexes , is not enough , actions in the form of laws are needed to enforce these ideals ,” Why is it not enough? Do you think advocacy groups in real life are pointless existences? Also you’re wrong if you think Heinz hadn’t pushed for any laws. He’s the reason Van was even able to submit his name as an adventurer in the Hartner Dutchy. Because Heinz pushed for Dhampirs and other Vida races below a certain age to be allowed to apply by themselves. He tried to help Van when Van was about to be turned away (which resulted in Van having a panic attack and creating a dungeon, but that’s beside the point). Anyway, Heinz is using the platform he had to try to make life easier for Vida races (at least the main ones he was aware of).
You could argue he’s only doing it to make himself feel better, but come on. Nobody does kind acts for purely self-less reasons. Everybody expects to be thanked for their efforts and given some amount of recognition of their generosity.
I will reiterate here my opinion of Heinz because yall keep making me defend a character I don’t even particularly like, all because the arguments being made against him don’t line up with the character we’re given.
My opinion is that Heinz means well but has a fundamental misunderstanding of the world. He’s not morally evil like the pure breed vampires under the evil god. He’s not as morally good as Schneider is.
For the record, the reason why I don’t particularly like Heinz has nothing to do with unreasonable expectations I have of him. It’s simply that he’s kind of a nothing character. He only exists to act as a motivation for Van. Heinz has little agency as a character. I feel like the author is aware of how blasé Heinz is as well as I feel like the author is foreshadowing Bellwood will take over Heinz body at some point.
CyberDre
I’m not mad at his actions of the past , I’m mad at his inaction in the present, other than being Bellwood’s successor and questioning Alda , he made preaching tolerance for races of Vida to be his goals , even if it’s for self satisfaction or for the sake of o e little girl, do a good enough job that in the long run , it’s beneficial, you’re under the misconception that I hate Heinz because Van hates him , that’s far from it , I see things this way , there are times in story where he overlooks things consciously, whether it was slavery or oppression or a general misunderstanding of a particular side , he knows this , he knows something might be wrong somewhere but he doesn’t act on these Intuition, he rather continues things the same way that led to him causing someone like Darcia’s death.
As someone who is seeing things objectively, he put himself in a position where he could have made a real change but did just enough for one side to be useful and the other to be satisfied, it’s not really enough dude , that one aside , getting back to the Van matter , I think the only thing that surprises me about Heinz and Van’s talk is , he didn’t apologize, he didn’t make any attempt to do so, he only tried to confirm Van’s identity which surprised since the 11 years was about him feeling remorseful about causing her death, even going so far as using her story to inspire his faction, yet he didn’t do something as simple as an apology, you could state your claim that Van took the lead in the conversation or Edgar tried justifying it but for 11 years this man reflected it , mulled over it and built a faction over that one mistake and when confronted with the victim’s child you’d think that would be the first thing he would say…..
Well as you said he’s probably just gonna be a vessel for Bellwood and be done with it , so no use sweating over the small stuff, I hoped since penance was part of his charater’s goal he’d be more than what we got , but at least his confrontation with Van would help him think deeply even if a little. I find his character very interesting cuz well , if this story was told from his or Hiroto’s POV , we would route for him until we see the bigger picture or notice some painfully obvious flaws . Well I’m happy his character makes me care enough about him to start this kind of arguments/discussions, Unlike [ The shameless perpetrator! ], Fuck that guy.
Doc
“I’m not mad at his actions of the past ,”
Then spends the remaining rest of the paragraph detailing Heinz inaction IN THE PAST.
Present Heinz is recuperating from having his soul being damaged with his team and we haven’t heard much of anything from him during the entirety of the Hajime-Fitun arc. So I don’t know what present actions you think Heinz isn’t doing.
“he rather continues things the same way that led to him causing someone like Darcia’s death.”
Again, you can’t possibly know this. You’re putting motivations and thoughts into a character’s head that the author hasn’t written. You may think this is the case, but the author certainly hasn’t stated this is what he thinks.
” As someone who is seeing things objectively, he put himself in a position where he could have made a real change”
Says the word “objectively” before then immediately stating a subjective opinion of what’s “not good enough”. Unless you’re stating there is some absolute universal constant that exists that dictates how much somebody needs to act in any given situation. There isn’t. Therefore, that’s not objective reasoning. If you’re going to use that word you need to follow it with unrefutable facts. Heinz said x words. He did x actions. Those are “objective” truths.
But semantics aside of you misusing terms, let’s cover that subjective opinion. “His actions aren’t good enough”, again we arrive at what I keep asking, which is WHY? What is the determining factor in what would be “good enough” to you? You can’t just say something ambiguous like that and assume everybody has the same standard you do? Is “good enough” doing the same thing Van is doing? Is it doing the same thing Schneider is doing? Is there no middle ground between two of the strongest characters we are aware of in this story that satisfies you unless Heinz is doing literally the same thing as them?
Are there different laws you think he should be pushing for? How do we know he hasn’t already tried? Be specific with your arguments. You can’t keep telling me the same ambiguous weak argument when I keep requesting you explain why he has that responsibility and what specifically you think he can do with the power he has. He’s the face of the peaceful Alda faction. Ok? So? Who decided that means he has more responsibility than random Joe citizan? Did the author say it was Heinz personal duty? Did Heinz himself state that’s what his role should be. You’re missing the key ingredient in deciding responsibility. And that’s WHO DETERMINES IT. What stops me from not going to work and just lounging around my apartment? Personal responsibility. Why does a cop have to arrest criminals and try to stop crime? Responsibility from their job from laws decided on by that cop’s government. Who gives the government the responsibility to govern? The people that make up the nation. There is always a who when deciding responsibility. Who is deciding Heinz responsibility? You?
If you’re a Titan, for example, who recently became able to work in the Hartner Dutchy, would you think Heinz didn’t do enough? You’re able to support yourself now when you couldn’t before.
Next we come to another odd fixation point. Heinz not “apologizing” during his fight to the death with Van. Again you’re ignoring the context around that fight. Heinz had fought versions of Van repetitively for weeks. Often dying to him. So when he suddenly has a conversation with the real one which tells him all sorts of knowledge he couldn’t have known before that would rock his fundamental beliefs, you expect him to give an apology? One that you know Van wouldn’t accept anyway? The fact that his soul healing took longer than normal and that he was very unsettled from getting the title about being the “Holy Mother” killer or whatever it was should be proof enough of his remorse. Whether he says the literal words to Van should be irrelevant. And there’s still time for him to do so. They haven’t interacted since their death fight. Your argument assumes Heinz was purposefully refusing to apologize but that’s not supported by the context of the relevant chapters. Not doing something is not proof of intent not to do it. If somebody does something nice for me, but I neglect to say, “thank you” at that moment, that doesn’t mean I must actually hate that person or even think remotely negative of them. Could just be that I had a lot on my mind and I missed the opportune moment. Can’t know for certain unless you know what’s going on in my head.
Also, if I’m remembering the final moments of the chapter, Heinz DID try to directly apologize to Darcia. Darcia cut him off and said it’s not her he should be apologizing to but Van, then she “killed” him before he could get another word out.
Dr. Steel
Heinz didn’t intentionally use Darcia’s death, it just happened. And you said he tried to deflect or justify his actions? He has admitted that it was a terrible mistake, but he’s trying to move on and find his peace, put himself back together after wallowing in regret, because you cannot change the past.
You are trying so hard to vilify Heinz that you ignore anything the author writes that takes this story from black and white, good and evil, and makes it a complex and compelling tale with realistic representations of the thing called humanity. This goes for everyone that condemns Heinz one-sidedly without acknowledging his struggles and situation.
Dr. Steel
Hold up, since when did Hiroto blame Eighth Guidance? And it’s more like he feels Death Attribute is distasteful, and that makes sense considering all the terrible ways you can bring about death with it, but its not like a religious fervor “It’s evil!!” that overwrites his reason or anything
Dr. Steel
And on account of Heinz, people, stop trying so hard to vilify him. It’s not like he knew the circumstances behind all of Van’s actions, and it’s not like he’s blaming Van for everything, in fact he blames himself for being the cause.
Doc
I agree. I think what’s happened here is that people got over zealous with siding with our protagonist. The mark of a good writer is to make the central protagonist likeable, and somebody you want to emotionally and logically agree with because the readers will be spending the most amount of time with that main protagonist. A story is doomed to fail if nobody likes the protag.
However, the consequence of that is often people will then over commit to that protag’s actions and viewpoints. Failing to see where the protag might be wrong or acting imperfectly. A good character is not supposed to be perfect.
From Van’s perspective, Heinz is a hypocrite and the murderer of his mother. That belief is completely justified FROM VAN’S PERSPECTIVE. However, from a neutral observer who knows all the facts, Van’s hatred is not justified and is in fact wrong. Heinz was used by the Pure breed vampires in an entire scheme to hunt Darcia down. And in the first place, Heinz has a fundamental misunderstanding of Vida races that even allowed him to take part in such a scheme. Heinz understood he was in the wrong after his actions and made tangible efforts at self improvement. Demonstrating growth as a character.
We can argue all day whether he went far enough in that growth or if he truly was repentant but again, as a neutral observer, Van killing Heinz just seems wrong. And as I said in an earlier comment, Van himself recognized his beliefs were not logical. He stated that simply because there is a chance Heinz could hurt his mother again, that he must be killed because of that. Heinz flawed views on Vida races had nothing to do with it.
It’s the same flawed kind of statement people made fun of from Batman V Superman, where Ben Afflick says, “even if there is only 1% chance, we must take it as an absolute certainty” when he was explaining to Jeremy Irons, I mean Alfred, why he had to stop Superman despite Superman clearly doing positive things for the world.
The point being, even Van is aware he’s not being morally correct here and that Heinz is not really the problem.
I don’t particularly like this kind of argumentative discussion. While I like a good discussion, and this thread covered some great literary topics about character motivation, it’s always difficult to get people to acknowledge their own emotional standing. I’m essentially telling people what they should or shouldn’t hate based on logical reasons which as I reflect back on it, was never going to work because emotionally driven viewpoints aren’t logical to begin with. They hate Heinz because Van hates Heinz because they made an emotional connection with the protag and there’s just enough logical reasons to sort of support some of that belief (because Heinz is a morally grey character trying to come off as more good than he really acts)
Rollrock
Hate is too strong of a word to use, I don’t like Heinz because in spite of everything that had transpired within the story, he has not changed his ways and learned nothing from his lessons, especially since we already have a character like Schneider that already exists in the story, who despite being human and most likely having been born and lived with a typical Alda-worshiping family, adventures alongside an evil god, that may or may not be his lover and fights for justice while disregarding boundaries of unjust societies.
Doc
“he has not changed his ways and learned nothing from his lessons,”
I’ve repetitively stated how this is not the case. The mere fact that he forms the peaceful Alda faction IS HIM CHANGING HIS Ways. Because you don’t consider what he has done as all that meaningful in the grand scheme of things doesn’t mean literally nothing was done. You’re willfully ignoring his character growth by claiming it doesn’t exist when it does. We’ve read it.
You’ve also basically provided the answer I asked of CybreDre to the question,” What is good enough”. Which is you think he should be doing the same thing Schneider is doing.
So finally, at long last, that’s at least a specific argument other than the ambiguous “I dislike him because he isn’t doing enough” statement.
Schneider is a lot older than Heinz is and has seen far more of the world than Heinz has so comparing them is again, pretty unfair. Schneider is also supposed to be one of the strongest non-god like beings in this world. So what he’s able to do is also much more than what Heinz is capable of doing.
Also, I don’t recall Schneider providimg us with a backstory for why he turned away from Alda’s beliefs in the first place. As an adventurer he likely also killed Ghouls before he had his change of heart, there’s no reason to suspect he didn’t. Ghoul materials were a common enough request from guild offices. Yet, all his forgiven for him because he spent more time saving Vida races? Yet Heinz is bad because he doesn’t immediately start saving Vida race people the moment he has his change of heart? It’s only been a few years since Darcia’s initial death. And in that time he’s made numerous attempts at helping Vida races and even saved a Dhampir girl. You can’t keep ignoring evidence just because it doesn’t fit your bias.
Chiu ChunLing
Let’s step away from the way Heinz has treated Van and his loved ones for a moment.
From Chapter 154, at the beginning of Vol. 8. The original has the full context.
…
Hope of what?
If it turned out that Vega hadn’t maxed out his DK Encroachment, and he was just using the fragment to escape from the tomb (and then the Devil’s Nest) on his own after his team abandoned him, and he demonstrated that he could deactivate them and return to a human appearance, what exactly would Heinz have done to “save him”?
The chapter goes through all this in detail, but Heinz is spouting unmitigated B.S. here because it “looks good”. He’s planning to kill Vega, he has no plan for not killing him. He’s just engaging in this farce because he prioritizes looking good over everything else.
Especially actually being good.
Eddy
I continue to worry because nobody cares that the girl, who since before birth was involved with an experience very close to a little-known energy, is drawing a strange monster in all her drawings for several months, because children have their friends imaginary, but Banda is not something I would let my son draw without taking him to therapy at least once
Jonathan Hurd
Congratulations you are an actually good parent. Just remember what Hiroto does and do the opposite and they’ll probably turn out well, lol.
Honestly children don’t usually draw things they haven’t seen before. So if your kid keeps drawing a Demon maybe look into it.
In Narumi’s defense, Banda is one letter from Panda(not sure how that looks in Japanese but in English makes some sense). She might just have decided she really likes the black crayon while drawing the Panda. She also might’ve gotten bored and thought he’d look cooler with a few more arms.
She might of also seen him in some kind of TV show Hiroshi was watching. Also the fact that she seems so happy and not upset at all makes it feel okay to put it down as a phase. Add in how upset it makes Mei when you tell her Banda is not real I think Narumi might just be picking her battles.
kazamakj
Lol no way their children will be against Van in the future then. Guessing Banda will be trying his best to protect them as much as possible.
Paps
Thanks for the chapter, the Amemiyas are lucky to have the ultimate bodyguard around them.
Darkhelios
Hope that Banda-kun will break Moriya’s soul. Or at least he will die so painfully that his soul will be scarred forever. As for why I’m hoping for this: He’s one of the people who is helping maintaining the brainwashing on Mari…
Superboy8338
Just keep reading to find out.
Jonathan Hurd
There is definitely going to be a giant battle with Hijiri before a bunch of the Bravers leave Origin. I think Banda is probably going to be playing a leading role in that battle and he is going to be leaving a lot of trauma in his wake, lol.
Part of me wants Banda to injure Moriyas soul, but part of me wants him to get to Origin so Van can eat him…. slowly….
Lord Rin
We still don’t know if Banda can break or devour souls while he’s in Origin. He specifically says that that’s the one thing he wouldn’t test out to see if he can use it in Origin because he’d need to find a soul to be a guinea pig first.
Darkhelios
Moriya volunteers as test subject n°1.
Doc
Also souls in Origin are Rodcorte’s jurisdiction. If he breaks a soul in Origin he might tip off Rodcorte that he has a presence there as well as Lambda.
Jonathan Hurd
That is definitely true considering how many alerts even one soul breaking sends and Van being the only being in all of Rodcortes worlds with that power.
Darkhelios
Hmmm… True but I don’t think that Vandalieu/Banda cares about hiding his presence in Origin from Rodcorte. After all, it’s not like he can check whether or not Rodcorte already knows that he’s in Origin as well.
Moreover, even if Rodcorte could try to attack Banda, it would be mostly a waste of time: If Vandalieu managed to arrive in Origin, he can come back. Besides the Origin gods are also on his side, right? So it would be better for Rodcorte to focus himself on the origin point. Deal with the big Vandalieu first, before he can get even more powerful and/or “infect” other worlds. Then deal with the small Vandalieu.
Jonathan Hurd
I think Van would want to avoid attracting Rodidiots attention to Mei so he’ll probably avoid breaking souls in Origin. I think the bigger part though is he’ll probably avoid breaking souls if possible because it would be bad for Mei’s education, lol.
Doc
Couple things. First, Banda is attached to Mei in Origin. He wouldn’t want Rodcorte messing with Mei’s soul.
Secondly, Van wouldn’t want the rest of the bravers to be turned against him all at once by Rodcorte telling them things. By laying low, he’s able to gather intel, as well as subtlely influence people to his side. If he’s able to convince Narumi and Hiroto that he’s good before they leave Origin, that’s two powerful allies.
And yes, Origin’s gods aren’t exactly fans of Rodcorte, but at the same time, he’s solely responsible for the entire planet’s transmigration system. In Lambda he shares responsibility with Vida and the former demon King’s systems and remember, the more souls Rodcorte is in charge of, the stronger he is. Therefore his influence in Origin is stronger than it is in Lambda.
Shar
I think everyone is forgetting the fact Rodidiot’s attention might be drawn to Origin and realize Van has influence there, since he has probably, like Mei, drawn Hiroshi to his path and Vida’s circle. Because the familiars had noticed Mei had but not said or thought about it to keep Rodidiot from noticing. But now Hiroshi has been guided by him it’s possible he might notice. Unless this is happening while he is still hurt, then the others might fix the problems and choose to not think about it while he is still down for the count, trying to hide this fact from him.
Doc
Rodcorte figuring it out requires him to pay attention to what lower mortals are doing which the author has established is not something Rodcorte cares to do. Van breaking a soul would be Van actively seeking Rodcorte’s attention as his system would throw all sorts of alarms at that happening. Van casually guiding people to Vida’s system of reincarnation is not as big a tipoff as Van destroying a soul.
Dr. Steel
but then, wouldn’t he not want Rodcorte to even know he can go to other worlds, because that would make him even more desperate, and they say a cornered rat will bite the cat.
Dr. Steel
He almost definitely can, it’s an aspect of Death Attribute, and he still has his skills like venom secretion, it’s just he doesn’t want-to/have-an-opportunity-to, especially because it will alert Rodcorte and he doesn’t want to do that yet because things will probably get (more) troublesome
Ungrave
I love how he is so considerate as to what is good for the kids’ development while being an eldritch monster.
Thanks for the chapter!
Superboy8338
Van is a benevolent Lovecraftian horror, not a monster.
hidefreek
But his standard isn’t humane through.
And spoiled little girl with tentacle.
Superboy8338
Van’s not human anymore and the majority of his closest allies were never human to begin with.
Rollrock
He is very humane, he just isn’t human. “Humane” in this particular instance being compassionate, considerate and nurturing. Van is a better parent than most parents existing, because he knows exactly what should not be done to developing children having had all the wrong things being done to him.
JeKeBe
Haaah, so the Avalon isn’t the only little bitch left among the Bravers. Well, I guess that’s kind of to be expected with the heavy-handed approach that Amemiya has taken over the years to try and make them a group of ‘Heroes of Justice!!~!’. With this guy popping out of the woodwork it shows that we have plenty of fodder for Origin stories for the foreseeable future, as there are dozens of faceless Bravers out there.
Nice to see Banda expanding his friends network a little though! I had an image pop into my head of the parents somehow discovering him and moving to destroy the ‘threat’ to their kids, only for the munchkins to hop in front of him to protect their friend. Do have to wonder when/how the parents will find out about him.
Thanks for the chapter!
Tejing
So Banda managed to call home for updates huh? I was hoping that would happen. Some of those jobs and skills will probably help a lot. IIRC he didn’t get Dream Guider till after Banda split off, so Banda should only be getting access to that ability now. Not to mention Demiurge.
That signature mix of utterly abnormal and perfectly normal is very Van. Hiroshi took it pretty well though. I’m now looking forward to the day when the Amemiyas realize both their kids are friends with an eldritch abomination…
I was wondering what happened to Super Mana Recovery. I guess I have my answer. If it’s additive and not multiplicative, it would be pretty useless for Van, so giving it to Hiroshi makes decent sense I suppose.
It’s amazing how completely the Amemiyas lack the information they need to come to useful conclusions about this… I just hope they don’t step on a land mine due to that lack of information.
It’s kinda too bad Van had to reveal himself a bit more to Rikudou’s side, but I guess it can’t be helped. He couldn’t afford to let those spirits hang around.
Jonathan Hurd
It is nice to know the Mana regeneration cheat isn’t forgotten. I think the problem for Van is that it was set up for someone who only had a few thousands of mana. Van works in the Billions. So it’s not even a drop in the bucket for him.
I feel like Rikudous side misunderstanding what Van is might actually help Banda more hurt him. It means that Rikudou is going to have to go more direct with his infiltration. That means more chances for Hiroto and his wife to find stuff. Better yet if there’s physical evidence Banda could move it so they will notice it.
I’m also really looking forward to Banda and Meh Kun parent conference. I always find it funny how concerned Banda is about raising the children well, lol. It’s pretty adorable and funny when you consider that Van and Hiroshi aren’t actually that far apart in age.
WoflgangFang
Actually I was wondering about that conference as well. I think Banda is sorta going to be like an Uncle Iro or Uncle Qrow to the family by the time its over.
Jonathan Hurd
I’m kind of imagining Banda talking to them with a list of grievance’s about how they raise the kids. Like letting them stay up to late and stuff, lol. Would be hilarious to see Banda the giant Eldritch Horror coming off as a fussy Mother in law or Grandparent.
Dr. Steel
Now Banda can take over the Dream Enchroachment/Therapy in Origin! And gain power from the worship that it will generate towards the Undead!
Doc
I suppose it helps that since Hiroshi is still so young, he’s more likely to believe Mei’s “imaginary” friend that she constantly draws and talks about is real if he sees the same thing. And since Mei is never afraid of it, he wouldn’t be.
Marco Hueber
An insignificant Mana recovery ability for Van that becomes even more insignificant after being transferred = easy infinite supply of Mana for people in Origin… he just literally created a cheat 😀
Jonathan Hurd
Van is literally a cheat, lol. Creating a cheat was Banda. This is just recycling the garbage.
Dr. Steel
Infinite mana… For a child. Not as big once he gets to an adult. And he didn’t create it, just recycled what he got from Murakami.
Eddy
Still, it’s a cheating recovery, even as an adult I could be a class A magician if they have talent.
Dr. Steel
I’m not saying it’s not a cheat, I’m just trying to correct a misconception. And apparently Hiroshi did inherit his parent’s talent for magic and athletics, so he’ll without a doubt become a powerful individual on Origin comparable to the Bravers
Dyneamaeus
Y’know, as I’m reading this again, it occurs to me that while the mana regen will be nice, the No-Attribute Magic will probably be more busted. Van only got tortured originally because Origin logic states mana must have an attribute. Even the security system presented in this chapter are based on mana attributes.
This might mean Hiroshi’s spells are now unbreakable, unblockable, and undetectable.
Chase Eldredge
As for the undetectable part, one thing this story glosses over a lot is spell chants since Van, most of his crew, and many of his enemies have chant revocation. If Hiroshi could cast without chanting, even only no-attribute, then he could mimic half a dozen abilities (enhanced strength, enhanced regeneration, flight, telekinesis) but if he has to chant for them he can still use them but once he has to use it in an emergency he’ll give away that it’s magic. Mana sensors wouldn’t pick anything up but someone near him could still tell he’s about to do something once he starts to chant.
Jonathan Hurd
I agree that he is going to have to chant it, but I wonder how loud you have to chant the spells. This is a world that has been using Magic in combat for centuries. Knowing how humans deal with war they probably have methods of at least hiding chants from foes. That or ways to shorten the chant through practice/magic medium.
Out of the list of abilities I think flight might be too much for his mana supply. Even Van burned through mana too fast when he first started using that one. Enhanced Strength and Telekinesis though would be pretty nice to disguise as a cheat skill.
Dr. Steel
Regarding chanting, I wonder if Banda can’t somehow give Hiroshi Chant Nullification, perhaps through Guidance, or use his huge amount of mana and use the transfer technique to help Hiroshi train until he can cast magic chantless no problem, though I don’t know how well either would work in a systemless world where he won’t be able to acquire the skill…
Doc
For the record, no-attribute magic is not unbreakable, unblockable, or undetectable. It’s just another form of mana, what makes it special is it does not carry an elemental attribute with it. Since that form of magic hasn’t been discovered in Origin that would give Hiroshi a leg up on people just from the novelty of it, and it would be undetectable as far as sensors go in the short term, but eventually the novelty and advantage will disappear. Like how death attribute magic didn’t exist before the “undead” and now there’s technology based on it and can detect it (albeit that technology is rare because of how rare death attribute magic still is)
Valeth
While I agree it is not a perfect form of Magic, as it is the purest form of Magic it does have advantages.
Remember Asagi’s ability lets him stop all magic in a radius around him. However, as he learned the hard way No-Attribute Magic still worked inside his cheat ability.
It has its downsides like Mana Bullet being a point blank attack, unless you can dump like 10k mana into it. I get the impression at least for the time they won’t be able to detect No-Attribute Magic, until they tweak their detection devices or abilities.
After all it did not exist until now, which is in a way amusing as it’s considered to be a beginners magic in Lambda.
Doc
It was powerful because Van was the one using it. My point simply is it’s not a super magic. The fact that it would be new to Origin is the biggest advantage going for it and that advantage would serve Hiroshi well for whatever the period of time he’d likely need it. But, it wouldn’t remain an advantage indefinitely.
Also, it’s not actually clear if Asagi ability wouldn’t work on no-attribute magic. He wasn’t aware of it upon immediately arriving in Lambda and it’s already been proven that the reincarnators can improve their cheat abilities in Lambda with enough time and effort. Again, Van is not a good source of comparison when judging what’s good against what. But like you said, no-attribute magic is like the first magic people in Lambda learn, so it wouldn’t surprise me if Asagi learns to include that type into his cheat coverage (especially since his goal is to seal Van’s death magic)
OK
it would be good if hiroshi manage to use the magic that van used to kill curatos or a magic similar or he will create a degraded verion of it
Dr. Steel
Perhaps Hiroshi will be one of the first dedicated No-attribute mages and develop better versions of spells like Mana Bullet that don’t require Van’s billions of mana to be effective weapons
Chiu ChunLing
The fact that most of the ‘cheat’ abilities immediately subsumed into the higher version of the No-attribute magic skill probably means that most of the cheats of the heroes can be replicated with sufficient no-attribute magic.
Nox
Thanks for the chapter.
Both of Amamiyas and Narumis children are being raised by Banda-kun and are thaught by him while both of them are ignorant about this. And they’re furthermore ignorant that most of their “friends” are in fact their enemies who are after their daughter and they still haven’t made any kind discoveries in that regard. I’m starting to wonder if they’re just musclebrains because all the things that happened to the bravers it should be obvious that there is something fishy going on there.
flannan
Well, it is obvious to them something is wrong, but figuring out what exactly is wrong is too hard at the moment. Well, except that governments still want death-attribute magic.
Jonathan Hurd
Just starting to wonder if they’re musclebrains? Lol. The Bravers had left almost all of their thinking to the human lie detector, calculator, and library from the start. Even before those three were killed they still did a terrible job of avoiding tragedies and finding out their friends crimes.
Overall the Amemeyias have always been incompetent. Thank god they have such a great 24/7 nanny/bodyguard for the children now, lol.
Eddy
Hey, Amamiya is incompetent, but I wouldn’t say he’s a muscle brain (that’s asagi). They only have a serious problem where they place their trust, putting people like asagi in positions of power(He was one of the most immature members, until Van which is, well, Van, he left his days on earth behind), focusing the entire administration on non-combatants without adequate security (honestly, Rokudo has played his cards very well, if it weren’t for I revealed it to
those who were basically dead, maybe even Banda would have been slow to realize)
Doc
I mean to figure out the crux of why the Amemya’s kids are being targeted, they would need to know that Mei has death magic. Which nobody in the bravers know is the case. Avalon and his subordinates suspect Mei does due to the Pluto incident but they don’t know for sure.
And so far Hiroto and Narumi haven’t been given enough information to be suspect of other bravers. There’s possibly a level of personal bias in play here. Hiroto started the Bravers. He probably doesn’t want to think that members of the group he put together, made up of his fellow reincarnations would try to kidnap his children. Sure Murakami and his supporters split off but they stopped being bravers at that point to him.
VEreality
Thank you Yoshi-sama!
Oh my god.
No no no.
Oh. My. Vandalieu!
He is now the most godlike MC I know.
He can now grant power? This is godhood if I ever seen any in a light novel/manga/anime.
Also, Mei and Banda! The dream team itself!
Looking forward to more chapters about Origin now(even if I am aware is not going to be soon).
dakuisha
The next chapter is another origin chaper 😀
VEreality
I have no way to tell you how happy I am after reading this. Therefor I will only say one thing:”Nice”
Jonathan Hurd
Nice….
bk3k
Van wouldn’t be happy to hear you say that.
[spoiler title=”Title”] “Self-proclaimed human”
Because no matter how obvious divinity he obtains, he insists he’s just a human (as in a mortal being, not racially). He has an ever-growing complex about this. And getting that title only stung him further.[/spoiler]
Superboy8338
He’s been giving other people powers for awhile now and he’s been performing god-like feats since the beginning of the series.
Eddy
Unfortunately, I know what is coming,and Van is going to almost cry, from shame
Doc
He’s granted powers before. When he picked up the “dream guider” job several chapters back he gave all of his main followers additional powers on top of his divine protection. Zadiris, Borkus, Basdia, the vampires, I believe they all got rank upgrades out of it.
VEreality
Yeah but it was not in such a direct way. They got a boost in strenght and other things related to their races, but this time it’s an entire ability just slapped on Hiroshi.
Doc
It was fairly direct. Each of them were at an impasse in their training and it took Van handing out bits of himself in his dream for each subordinate to get their upgrade. You’re correct that this is the first time he’s specifically given an ability he acquired to another person through a dream but I don’t know if that is any more special than giving people divine protections, or increasing the ranks of several people at once.
Jonathan Hurd
I feel like the deliberate nature of this shows Vans growth. He has gone to people’s dreams and given them pieces of his Soul ever since he first got the Guider Job, but all those times were done subconsciously. This time he consciously made a choice and arranged a skill for someone.
I do think part of what makes this possible now compared to before is that Vans soul is much more organized. Before everything was mixed together so I think it would of been impossible for Van to take out such a specific piece with one ability and give it to someone else.