After shutting the vampire girl up, I listened to Kuro's story all over again.
Well, she kept hedging and throwing in unnecessary remarks like "It's my fault" and "I made a mistake" at every turn, so just listening took forever.
But, summarizing it into three lines, it goes something like this: Kuro called for a ceasefire between the humans and the Demon race, appealing to both the Hero and the Demon King.
The Hero and the Demon King: "Alright, let's take down the Administrator!"
Why does it always end up like that?
To be more specific, the chain of events went something like this: First, the souls of this world's inhabitants had been degrading — particularly the Demon race's souls — and the Demon race's birth rate had been declining as a result.
Because of that, the Demon race was no longer in any state to keep fighting wars.
Kuro, foreseeing that the Demon race would perish if things continued like this, called on the Demon King and the Hero to cease hostilities.
Up to this point, things were fine.
Kuro's judgment wasn't wrong.
I don't know the exact state of affairs back then, but seeing how Aegner and Balt were desperately running around trying to rebuild the Demon race, it's not hard to imagine how dire things must have been.
In general, for Kuro — someone who normally just watches from the sidelines and never takes the initiative to act — to actually make a move tells you just how bad the situation was.
Maybe, if Kuro hadn't intervened and the war had simply continued, the Demon race might have already gone extinct by the time we reincarnators were born.
Even if that's an overstatement, the situation must have been more urgent than anyone realized.
However, this is where Kuro's miscalculation came in.
Specifically, the previous Hero and the previous Demon King had already been contacted by Potimas.
And that bastard had been feeding them the very same "Administrator is evil" theory that even Sensei had been told.
That the Administrator pits the Hero and the Demon King against each other, forces the inhabitants of this world to fight, siphons the energy they generate, and steals it from them after death.
Which is actually true, but hearing only that much makes the Administrator sound like the villain, doesn't it?
Even though in reality, the Administrator has been working hard to restore this world.
What the previous Hero and previous Demon King — who heard both Kuro's side and Potimas's side — thought about all this is something only they would know.
And since those people are already dead, we can never learn the truth.
But judging purely by the results, they were fools who recklessly challenged the Administrator and wasted an enormous amount of MA energy.
Why did such a massive drain of MA energy occur?
Even if you're going to challenge the Administrator, merely fighting shouldn't cause MA energy to plummet like that.
Unless you're the Hero and the Demon King.
The Hero and the Demon King have various hidden mechanics at play.
That's the result of that wicked god cramming strange functions into them.
The Hero becomes stronger against the Demon King.
Since the Demon King — drawn from the long-lived Demon race — is often superior to the human Hero, this was implemented as a counterbalance, a saving measure to level the playing field.
When a Hero and a Demon King of vastly different power levels fight, the Hero can consume MA energy to achieve a temporary power-up.
Actually, this power-up also has applications beyond Hero versus Demon King.
Specifically, when facing a god.
Right now, Kuro is the only god in this world who's still functional.
In other words, Kuro is the only one who can take action against external threats.
The gods fight wars over territories, snatching entire planets from each other.
This planet has been abandoned by the dragons and is on the verge of destruction, so there's no real prize in it — it's unlikely to be targeted.
But you can't say it's absolutely impossible.
There's no guarantee the dragons who gave up on this world won't come back, and some stray god might pop up out of nowhere.
The countermeasure against such gods is the Hero and the Demon King.
When the Hero and the Demon King challenge a god, they can consume MA energy to power up.
Of course, they can't easily defeat a god, and cramming enough energy into a single individual to even temporarily match a god doesn't come without consequences.
Moreover, since the opponent is a god, the MA energy consumption is incomparably higher than in a Hero versus Demon King fight.
And yet, this function still exists.
And — here's the kicker — the Administrator falls within this function's scope of application.
Huh?
Yeah, that's the reaction, right?
If this were an online game, it'd be like giving players a special anti-GM attack.
And using it could quite possibly kill Sariel.
It's a specification so reckless it could overturn the very foundation of the game.
No, calling it a specification is generous — it's basically a bug.
But it's not a bug. It's a legitimate feature.
Because it was created by that wicked god.
In my guess, D probably kept open the option of the inhabitants of this world challenging the Administrator as well.
If you asked whether there was any meaning in that, she'd probably just say something like "Because it seemed more entertaining that way."
An ordinary person challenges a god.
Whether that changes the world or not is unclear, but for D, even if it had no purpose, that event alone would've been entertaining enough, right?
Yes.
In other words, the previous Hero and the previous Demon King succeeded in consuming MA energy to momentarily obtain tremendous power by challenging the god known as the Administrator.
The cost was, of course, the massive consumption of MA energy and their own lives.
They probably did it because they genuinely thought it was the right thing to do, in their own way.
But the result was a wasteful drain of MA energy that pushed the world to the brink.
And on top of that, they went out of their way to try and kill us reincarnators from another world — extra trouble nobody asked for.
What a couple of clowns.
Now then — have you noticed something?
Given everything I've just laid out, Kuro doesn't bear that much responsibility.
"Listening to all this, isn't the one at fault basically Potimas?"
"No. The fault lies with me for failing to properly explain things to the Hero and the Demon King."
The Demon King raises a perfectly reasonable point, but Kuro stubbornly insists it's her own fault.
She kept emphasizing it was her own fault throughout the explanation too.
Is it true that Kuro bears no responsibility whatsoever? Well, you can't say that for certain.
I don't know exactly what Kuro explained to the previous Hero and previous Demon King, but if she'd managed to win their trust firmly enough at that point, things wouldn't have turned out this way.
It means she had less credibility than Potimas.
That's sad.
That said, Potimas — who deceived the previous Hero and previous Demon King — is obviously the most to blame.
Judging from Potimas's diary, it looks like these two didn't rely on Potimas at all but acted independently and blew themselves up on their own.
Maybe from Potimas's perspective, it was just a bonus if Kuro happened to get taken out as well.
The fact that they nearly reached the truth just from analyzing the situation shows how unnecessarily brilliant Potimas was.
Which is exactly what makes him such a rotten person!
"Guilie, what are you hiding?"
"Nothing at all. I was simply inadequate. That's all there is to it."
The Demon King presses, and Kuro feigns ignorance.
But at this point, it's completely obvious that Kuro is hiding something.
"I gave them incomplete knowledge about the system, and that led to the tragedy that followed. The responsibility for that is mine."
Hmm.
Kuro isn't lying.
She's just not telling the important parts.
It's true that the previous Hero and previous Demon King were idiots.
It's true that Potimas was the one who goaded them.
It's true that Kuro was the one who gave them incomplete knowledge about the system.
Everything, every single piece, contributed to the worst possible outcome.
When it comes to the mastermind behind it all, you could almost say everyone involved played that role.
Almost. There's one missing.
"Goddess Sariel."
At my murmur, Kuro reacts dramatically.
Her gaze practically screams, "Don't say it!"
Well, I'm going to say it!
"The person who deflected an attack that was originally aimed at Kuro and redirected it toward D — that would be Goddess Sariel."
Each of them reacts differently to my words.
Kuro maintains her expressionless mask.
The Demon King's face goes hollow, drained of all life.
The Oni looks like it finally understands.
The vampire girl is making the face of an idiot who has no clue what's going on.
When you think about it, it's obvious.
There's no way the previous Hero and previous Demon King could have attacked D — someone whose very existence Potimas didn't even know about.
In theory, if you went through the system, it wouldn't be impossible to trace it back to D, its creator and spellcaster.
But you'd need an extremely intimate knowledge of the system to do that.
With the sole exception of the one who manages it — Goddess Sariel.