Chapter 119: D's Departure, Shirazawa's Plan
"If you don't go back, who is supposed to manage the Underworld?" Meidou looked at D, who was stubbornly refusing to budge, feeling a massive headache coming on.
"I can just let you manage it~" D blurted out, instantly trying to pass the buck to her secretary.
"You..." Meidou was so angry she laughed, a blue vein throbbing on her forehead as she held back her temper. "I have to manage Hell, I don't have the time."
"I think you can handle it."
"No way! Absolutely not!"
Seeing that Meidou was dead set on dragging her back, D reached out and grabbed Maid-chan.
"This kitty right here–she's the new King of the Underworld from now on. Let her go back with you."
Meidou: ???
Maid-chan: ???
What kind of absolute nonsense was this?
Meidou stared suspiciously at the cat-eared maid, snapping at D with an irritated voice, "Are you kidding me?"
Expecting a regular person to manage the endless, boundless Underworld? What a joke, stop messing around.
"There is a limit to how far you can push a joke!" Meidou's last shred of patience finally snapped. With a cold snort, she forcefully dragged D away.
D, on the other hand, held onto Maid-chan, bringing her along for the ride.
"I'm terribly sorry, but it seems I won't be able to come back for a while. I probably won't be able to interfere with that world anymore."
"As for the System, I won't be able to meddle with it either, meaning it won't be able to fend off any external invasions."
Right before leaving, D rattled off a massive list of parting instructions to Shiro, almost like she was reading out her final will. It might have just been a tactic to delay her departure, or perhaps there was another reason. Regardless, it made Shiro realize the absolute gravity of the situation.
Without the protection of a supreme deity like D, that fantasy world would be highly vulnerable to invasions from foreign gods. Previously, Shiro could casually mess around in the alternative world without ever worrying about entities more powerful than her. Because D had her back, Shiro was effectively the strongest being in that world. She could take her sweet time training until she established a solid foothold in the domain of the gods.
But that luxury was officially gone.
"Oh~ Right, take this."
D transmitted a comprehensive breakdown of mid-to-high-level magic circles and structural formulas straight into Shiro's mind, letting her pass the data along to Shirazawa.
"You have to create ultimate magic formulas yourself as a god; it's a mandatory milestone on the path to becoming a high-ranking deity. So, you two will have to figure out the rest on your own."
The ultimate formula belonging to D was none other than the highest order of magic within the System: Abyss Magic. It was a formula that reached the absolute end of death, and in this world, she was the only one capable of unleashing its finalized form.
Shiro understood what D meant and offered a quiet word of thanks. Now that her emotional knot had been untied, her hatred toward D had lessened considerably. The woman was genuinely wicked, but she was also genuinely supportive. She was a truly contradictory creature.
"As a parting gift, I'm leaving this house to you as well. Take a look around; you might just find some divine artifacts I casually put together lying around."
Inheriting D's estate? Not bad at all, quite a sweet deal. Shiro thanked her once again.
"Even though I can't interfere, I will continue to sneak a peek and watch over you all from afar. Please keep up the good work and try even harder to entertain me~" D gave a playful wink. The subtext was clear: *You're still dancing in the palm of my hand, so keep struggling.*
Shiro: *Alright, I take back my naive thoughts from earlier. This woman is still thoroughly obnoxious.*
"Dear me, dear me~"
Hearing those words, Meidou simply shook her head with a gentle, calm smile. "Moving forward, you won't have a single second of free time to catch up on your shows, Master. I don't care if Satan himself shows up to argue; my word is final."
"Ugh..." D's stunning face instantly collapsed into a look of pure despair. This was nothing short of brutal, unadulterated exploitation–twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. She strongly condemned this kind of sweatshop labor.
"Sigh~ Until we meet again if fate allows..." D waved farewell reluctantly, clutching Maid-chan as she stepped through the doorway.
In the next millisecond, the three of them miraculously vanished into thin air, leaving quietly without a single trace, as if they had never even existed in the room.
"Meow~"
Maid-chan: *I feel like I just skipped hundreds of thousands of years of hard work and went straight to the end of life. So, the ultimate destination of the divine domain is just becoming a corporate drone? That is way too tragic...*
Watching the silhouette of D's departure, Shiro suddenly felt like being a supreme Evil God wasn't anything to be envious of. At the same time, she silently prayed that D would kick the bucket from pure overwork, because if that happened, she would be completely free.
Though deep down, she knew that was entirely unrealistic.
Standing alone in the now empty room, Shiro suddenly felt a wave of loneliness wash over her. Over the past few weeks, she had grown quite accustomed to D's presence and had inexplicably formed a trace of dependency. Now that the woman had suddenly vanished, it felt rather jarring.
When she really thought about it, D counted as a friend. It was just that her personality was far too wicked, and she always did things Shiro couldn't comprehend.
"Ah, right."
"D mentioned there might be some divine artifacts she casually crafted lying around the house. Better look for those first."
With that, she began rummaging through the drawers and closets.
She uncovered a massive pile of incredibly bizarre objects. She even stumbled upon items like leather whips and collars, alongside decorative fox and wolf tails with entirely unknown purposes.
"...She really knew how to have a wild time~"
Meanwhile, back in the alternative world, inside the Demon King's Castle.
In the Demon King's office.
"Ariel, I need to borrow two of your people."
Ariel, who was buried up to her neck in paperwork, lifted her head and knit her brows slightly at the red-robed youth who had suddenly materialized inside her office.
"Hmph! You only ever think of me when you need something. When everything's fine, you just play dead at home. What am I, your mother? Having to micromanage everything for you, honestly!"
Lately, she had been drowning in preparations for the impending war between humans and demons, working herself to the bone day in and day out without a single moment of rest. Yet, the two shut-ins back at the manor were living an incredibly leisurely lifestyle, possessing absolutely zero sense of urgency.
She honestly couldn't comprehend what the point of forming an alliance with them had been in the first place. She figured she was recruiting two immensely powerful heavy-hitters, but it turned out she had simply invited two grandmasters of slacking off. Sigh, her soul was exhausted.
"Come on~ Don't sweat the minor details. Didn't we technically upgrade the equipment for the Demon King's Army?" Shirazawa shamelessly claimed the credit for Riel and Sael's fabric-weaving efforts as his own.
"Heh. Fine, spit it out. What are you up to now?" Ariel didn't bother arguing with him, cutting straight to his objective.
"Well, I need Mera to go rescue someone. You've seen her before–that little elf loli from last time."
The moment Shirazawa finished his sentence, Ariel's expression instantly turned remarkably peculiar.
"You haven't actually developed feelings for a little girl like that, have you?" She looked at him with a half-smile, her tone dripping with mockery.
"Big sister, do you harbor some kind of profound misunderstanding regarding my fundamental character?" Shirazawa's lips twitched violently. Was he really that kind of person?!
"Alright, I've got the picture regarding that matter. Is there anything else?" Ariel dropped her teasing look, turning serious.
Shirazawa thought about it for a moment and decided to lay out the full scope of the sequence to her. "Have the Major General secretly escort her back to the elf faction. It's all part of the blueprint."
"Agnar?" Ariel blinked in surprise, then a look of sudden realization dawned on her. "Because that guy has deep undercurrents connecting him to the elf race, having him make the move won't trigger any suspicion from their side?"
"Brilliant!" As expected of Ariel, she caught on instantly.
First and foremost, the teacher absolutely could not be allowed to die right now. On one hand, there was the debt of gratitude Shiro owed her. On the other hand, the exact millisecond the teacher perished, the remaining reincarnations trapped within the elf faction would completely devolve into simple tools for the old elf to amplify his own strength. Without the teacher acting as a buffer, the old elf would absolutely make a move immediately. Those kids were perfect test subjects, and there was no telling what kind of horrific abominations he might engineer out of them.
As long as the reincarnations hadn't been fully gathered, the old elf wouldn't touch the teacher. He fundamentally required her skill to help him pinpoint the whereabouts of the remaining students.
However, there was one major exception where the old elf would absolutely execute the teacher ahead of schedule: if his true colors were exposed and the teacher no longer trusted the elf tribe. At that point, the teacher would absolutely refuse to aid his tyranny and would never continue helping him hunt down the reincarnations. In the old elf's eyes, she would completely lose her utility value.
To preserve the teacher's tiny life, she had to remain inside the elf faction, acting as a pawn for the old elf. This arrangement had to hold until the two of them could engineer a way to crack the ruler skill, Diligence.
The teacher carried a fragment of Potimas's soul within her body; with a single thought, her consciousness could be completely overridden by him. It was precisely because of this massive complication that Shirazawa had gone to such great lengths to involve Ariel.
Sending Merazophis to rescue the teacher ensured her identity as a reincarnation wouldn't be exposed, preventing her from suspecting anything. Having Agnar handle her return journey ensured the old elf wouldn't look too closely, given his existing ties to the faction.
"Understood, I'll handle the arrangements for this matter," Ariel nodded in agreement, wrapping her mind around the sequence.
As the weakest supporting member of the core group, Merazophis was currently undergoing training as the Vice-Commander of the Fourth Demon Army. It was precisely because of his placement there that the delinquent Bloe had been able to take a vacation to visit home, which inadvertently triggered that massive romantic assist earlier.
Receiving his orders, Merazophis immediately set off for his destination, while Bloe headed back to the Fourth Army to take over his post once again.
Right before he left, however, Bloe gifted Shiro a bottle of premium red wine. And that was exactly when things went completely off the rails...
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