Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu

“Um, if I said that I was just cracking a joke to ease the atmosphere, would you all believe me?”

“I would as I know you to be a grandmaster of shooting yourself in the foot. Of course I’d believe that you’d shoot yourself in the foot like that. But, my believing you won’t help you. She definitely won’t believe you.”

Amelia had a bright smile as if she felt quite happy and comfortable, or as if she could vent by seeing my misfortune.

I was now sitting on the ground while bleeding all over, yet nobody seemed to care about me. I felt just like a Holy Knight who was being discriminated against in an adventuring team. All my suffering was only known to me, with nobody caring about me. I could only go grind Holy Light by my lonesome.

Divine Sins were no laughing matter to deal with, as they could easily kill even the Gods, not to mention mere mortals. That direct hit I’d taken just now was quite unpleasant.

I was now covered all over in the shattered shards of my dragon armor. If it weren’t for the fact that I had summoned my armor in time, I would likely have been crushed to death and reincarnated into my next life already.

Just a few minutes ago, I had been happily proud of my armor’s astonishing defensive capabilities. In fact, I was even feeling like it was almost undefeatable in the mortal plane, and since nothing could break its defenses, I was naturally undefeatable as well, so there would be nothing wrong in calling myself undefeatable. Yet, the armor shattered instantly… Why did I receive such a slap in the face…? Could it be that…?

“Is this my karmic comeuppance for shouting that I was undefeatable…? It would seem that some words can’t be said no matter what world it is. Or, Astrya, were you really bored enough to transform these words into a karmic weapon in your world?”

…

It would seem that even Astrya couldn’t be bothered with responding to such a boring question of mine. In that case, I should probably chat a little less and focus more on healing myself.

Beams of Holy Light started illuminating my body and curing my wounds. This felt rather comfortable, even if the scene still seemed rather bad for me. It felt like the hatred for me in this room was rather high.

In the opposite corner of the room, Reyne was continuing to vent her anger out on spirit image Roland. I saw this spiritual creature that seemed to greatly resemble me kneeling while clutching his head to protect himself while glaring at me spitefully.

“Is that a new type of undead species? Could I have him so that I can research him?”

Even though my head was still bleeding, I was rather curious about that spiritual creature. Although this spiritual creature was currently in the process of getting beaten up, why did he seem to look so familiar, and so handsome… cough, cough, I meant, so much like me?

“Did you get plastic surgery to become so handsome? You didn’t even pay me the copyright fee!”

It would have been fine if he simply looked like me as I had seen many transformation magic spells before. However, it was quite difficult to understand why this spiritual creature also had such a similar soul wavelength to my own. Although I knew a little bit about spiritual creatures, and had heard that archmages in the Mage Country were researching this topic, I had never heard of such an advanced spiritual creature before.

I recalled that archmage Andro from the Mystic Blade mage organization had spiritual creature servants in his mage tower. His personal magic spell, “Andro’s Invisible Servants,” allowed him to summon helpers that he typically used for chores around his tower. This was a spell that many people were envious of. But, unfortunately, this was one of Andro’s trump cards and personal spells, which meant that he had never revealed the workings of this spell to anyone.

If I could analyze this spiritual creature with the silly cat’s assistance, perhaps I could even complete a spell like “Roland’s Free Slave Labor” (with no salary and no health insurance!). Then, I could sell this type of magical spell and make tons of money!

“He… he wants to dissect me! Help! Save me!”

I felt like I was watching a scene out of a horror movie. Someone that looked identical to myself was rolling around on the floor, trying to dodge Reyne’s silver-booted stomps. His face, which was badly beaten already, was so scared that his expression became completely distorted. Not only that, I was hearing my own voice speaking in such a begging tone. This all made me feel… like this was such a fresh experience!

But, I found it even more strange why this spiritual creature Roland came to such a conclusion about me. Did I look like such an insane mad scientist? I was clearly a good person with moral boundaries!

“Dissect you? Do I look like such an immoral person? Every intelligent life form has the right to live. Although I am indeed quite interested in spiritual creatures, I will respect your right to life.”

I attempted to defend myself. However, it seemed that nobody believed me.

“You are exactly such a person! Moral boundaries? Shame? Do you even have such things?”

“Haha, you’re so funny. But, today’s not the ‘Fool’s Day’ festival, so please don’t joke around like that with terrible jokes that nobody will laugh at.”

Even worse was that judging from everyone’s comments, not a single person believed in me. This was so heartbreaking. Was I really that untrustworthy?

“…The ‘right to life’ of intelligent ‘life forms.’ But, I don’t think that this guy technically counts as being ‘alive.’ In that case, what you said just now was all meaningless. Although you tried to defend yourself, you didn’t even promise not to dissect him? You’re just as shameless as always,” Harloys explained to everyone.

I respected the right of intelligent life forms to have life, but since this spiritual creature wasn’t truly alive, I could dissect him in the name of science. That was the real meaning behind my truthful words… Tsk, I was actually seen through! But, only other scammers were the best at seeing through scams. Harloys was no different from me at all!

I didn’t try to defend myself anymore, since my magical pet had already exposed my true inner thoughts. It was unlikely that anyone would believe me.

I simply grabbed the extra-chatty black cat on my shoulder and then sent this traitorous cat flying with a kick.

“Hey, hey, hey, could someone please take a look at my injuries? I’m clearly the victim here, so why is everyone looking at me like I’m the villain? An ordinary person would have been instantly killed there.”

“You deserve it! Why didn’t you die… And you, bastard, you even dared to pretend to be dead. Why didn’t you die for real!”

Reyne roared angrily at me. Not only was there significant anger in her voice, she also sounded somewhat sad.

…I fell silent for quite a while. Based on my many years of experience, it would be unwise for me to try and reason with an angry woman. All angry women had the ability to transform any problem into an emotional issue, and change any situation into one about how badly you were treating her.

“Hey, hey, hey, if I hadn’t pretended to be dead, you would have attacked me again and I really would have died. I didn’t know that you would end up crying like that…”

Yep, Reyne burst out into tears earlier when she saw me pretending to be dead. She didn’t even try to check my “corpse” and burst right into tears. Even now, her eyes were red and swollen. That was why Reyne was still inexperienced. Adam and Margaret definitely would have checked the corpse. Yep, and Elisa would have…

“Reyne, he’s thinking right now that you’re so inexperienced and easy to fool, and that you don’t understand him as well as Elisa does.”

Alright then, Harloys was proudly saying truthful words that weren’t the full truth. She was indeed a quick learner of my style. Was this a comeuppance I deserved?

I instantly sent my cat flying again, and then took a defensive posture. That last Divine Sin attack had caused me to bleed so much already, so it was likely that I would actually die if I took another direct hit. However, this time Reyne actually didn’t listen to Harloys’ blabbering. Reyne hesitated for quite a while and then started venting on my substitute again.

But just as I started casting more Holy Light healing spells on myself out of boredom, I heard her incredibly tiny voice whispering in my ear.

“…Did you really not recognize me? Or, did you completely forget about me?”

Seeing how my demonic descendant was venting her anger on my duplicate while keeping her ears perked up for my reply, I suddenly felt like I really had treated Reyne poorly indeed.

When I considered how anything even half-truthful would likely cause me to be sold out by my cat, I ended up telling Reyne the full truth after much hesitation.

“…I really did recognize you when I finally saw your battle flag, but you were already attacking me by that time. Still, you really have grown up, Reyne. You’ve grown so much that I didn’t recognize you at first sight. You grew from such a tomboy into a woman.”

It seemed that I had accidentally said something correct this time. Reyne, who was the direct type that couldn’t hide her feelings, instantly had a much sunnier expression. I finally heaved a sigh of relief.

To be honest, the real reason why I hadn’t recognized her was her astonishing power level. Reyne’s progress truly astounded me. This was because if you only looked at energy level, she was somehow above even me now. No wonder she could now fully control the Divine Sins.

“Tsk.”

As expected, my silly cat required more “training.” Although I escaped any further punishment, she unhesitatingly showed off her regret that I escaped. Did she really want to see her master to become canned meat that badly?

“…Be a little more serious. We’re still in the midst of a battle.”

Although I reminded everyone, nobody seemed to agree with me. They all had relaxed expressions as if victory was already theirs.

We were so free to chat right now of course because the situation had already been stabilized. After Reyne’s slaughter of the demons, no more demons came up anymore. They seemed to be afraid of her to the extent where they were the ones who collapsed the way down in an explosion this time.

And judging from the data on Timlad’s random assortment of measurement machines, it seemed that the demon army had almost been completely annihilated. Everything was going wonderfully well, so we would probably win even if we directly attacked… Wait a moment, I felt like I just said a death flag sentence. I wouldn’t be so unlucky again, would I…?

“…I’m detecting a high energy reaction from below. It’s a new demon!”

Alright then, Timlad was indeed someone who liked to bring bad news.

“Does that make you a professional jinxer then?”

“…Then, Harloys, does that make you my personal professional commentator?”