I was over at
It was about the surveillance on the elves I'd delegated.
But in truth, my attention was focused elsewhere.
At the human race's academy, an excursion was being held.
They called it an exploratory field trip under the guise of extracurricular activities, but from where I stood, it looked like nothing more than an excursion with guaranteed safety.
Normally, it would be a trivial affair—something not worth worrying about.
But I was gathering more clones than necessary at the small mountain where the field trip was taking place.
The reason was Nasuke-kun.
That guy looked like he was planning something.
I'd been watching Nasuke-kun's intense rivalry with Yamada-kun for a while now, and I knew it all too well.
From my prior observations, Nasuke-kun had been reincarnated and was quite privileged in terms of status and abilities, which had made him arrogant.
Then Yamada-kun appeared.
Bluntly speaking, Yamada-kun was even more of a cheater than Nasuke-kun.
He possessed roughly equal strength to Nasuke-kun, was diligent, and on top of that had a kind personality without a shred of arrogance.
And to boot, he was the Hero's younger brother.
Being Level 1 to boot, his future potential was enormous.
They were evenly matched now, but it was plain to see that before long, Yamada-kun would leave Nasuke-kun in the dust.
I think Nasuke-kun himself had realized that too.
That was why he'd gone down the extreme path of treating Yamada-kun as an enemy and trying to eliminate him.
It was all because nothing had ever gone against him before. That baseless confidence that he could do anything and be fine was what drove Nasuke-kun to this outburst.
Assassins lurking in the mountain.
Not many in number.
I could dispose of them easily if I wanted to.
This time, I'd prepared proper combat clones in addition to the usual surveillance ones.
But me getting too involved wouldn't be ideal.
If possible, I'd prefer to let them settle it among themselves.
The problem, if any, lay in the Monsters the assassins had brought along.
I didn't know how they'd managed to tame it, but the assassins had a single Monster under their command.
An earth dragon.
From what I could see, it hadn't reached the level of a true dragon.
But it was close—quite a high-ranking earth dragon.
If I could use Appraisal, I'd know the details, but without it I could only get a rough estimate of its strength.
It was probably on par with the fire dragon I'd slain in the Middle Layer of the Great Ello Dungeon ages ago.
Seriously, how had they brought something like that along?
The earth dragon was sitting quietly in its cage.
But if it decided to act, it should have more than enough power to shatter something like that cage with ease.
Hmm?
Was there something off about the situation?
Well, whatever.
If the earth dragon stood in the teacher's way, I wouldn't hesitate to intervene. That was all.
Or so I was thinking when things started moving.
Nasuke-kun had spotted Yamada-kun alone and was launching his attack.
Wh—wait, seriously?
What was with this haphazard, sloppy ambush?
Wasn't that a bit too half-baked?
He was smugly declaring "This is my world" and whatnot.
Was his head boiling over?
Ah, no—let me not frame that as a question. Let me state it outright.
This guy's head was boiled clean through.
Ah.
He'd always been a certain type, but being reborn as some prince with a weird cheating ability had pushed him over the edge into full-blown delusion. And now he'd completely lost it.
I'd had a feeling while watching him, but this was beyond bad—his brain was completely fried.
And on top of all that, he was weak.
He was going on about being the strongest or whatever, but he wasn't even that strong.
The first Hero I'd met back then was stronger than this guy.
Well, sure, considering his age he was probably strong enough in a general sense, but there was no way he could ever beat our little vampire girl, no matter how hard he tried.
And Yamada-kun was supposedly Level 1 too, yet he was holding his own just fine.
As for the other assassins, let's see.
They were getting thoroughly demolished by the teacher.
The teacher was strong.
She could probably take down an eel or two on her own.
The panicked assassins tried to release the earth dragon, but I quietly stopped that.
Even the teacher would have her hands full with an earth dragon.
If it came down to it, I could step in, but I'd rather keep it to covert support if possible.
The teacher hit Nasuke-kun with a spell.
Nasuke-kun went flying.
He didn't give up and tried to charge the teacher again, but she slammed him into the ground with another spell.
Yeah.
You can't beat the teacher, kid.
The difference in raw power was too great, and the difference in experience was just as vast.
She hadn't spent her time in the Demon race's territory fighting wars for nothing.
The teacher had been working behind the scenes in Demon race territory for quite some time.
Her activities there were covert operations aimed at preventing the Demon race from going to war.
At times she would make contact with the Demon race to negotiate peace; at times she would carry out physical sabotage to slow the Demon race's war preparations.
And she did all of that to keep the vampire girl, who sided with the Demon race, from being dragged into the war.
I mean, really.
For some reason, if the war broke out, the vampire girl would die.
I didn't fully understand it myself, but the teacher was utterly convinced of this.
I had no idea what evidence she was acting on, but the important thing was that the teacher believed it.
Otherwise, there was no way she would have taken the insane step of trying to stop a war just to save a single student.
Well, it was also possible she was trying to prevent other students from being caught up in the conflict.
The teacher, who had fought the Demon race in the shadows for so long, could never lose to a sheltered child swimming in delusions.
She'd given me plenty of trouble too, after all.
Getting rid of the teacher safely had been a real headache.
I'd manipulated information through Agner, gradually tightening the noose little by little.
I'd cut off most of her operational ability in Demon race territory, then dealt the finishing blow by spreading false intelligence about suspicious activity in Yamada-kun's country to draw her attention that way. Only then had I finally managed to send her off.
It had taken that long.
The punk who'd tagged along with her had been an unforeseen variable.
And all those reincarnators converging on the academy had also been unforeseen.
And every last one of them being problem children—also unforeseen.
Hmph. But still, no problem.
None at all.
Besides, that one problem child was about to fade out after this.
Knowing the teacher, she wouldn't kill him.
But she would certainly deal with him accordingly.
Even a teacher who coddled her students as much as she did, what Nasuke-kun had done this time was something she couldn't just turn a blind eye to.
So, what would the teacher do, I wonder?
Lose an arm or two, maybe?
...Huh?
What was she doing?
The Sovereign's Authority?
What?!
The cup in my hand shattered to pieces.
Its contents spilled onto my body, but I couldn't afford to care.
"I have an emergency."
I said that much to Agner and teleported away.
I thought even getting that single sentence out before leaving was impressive.
That was how panicked I was—reluctant as I was to spare even a single word.
With a clone, there was no way I could handle this.
It would take my real body's specs to deal with this.
And so, I arrived at the location via teleportation.
The Great Ello Dungeon's deepest layer.
And beyond that—the Goddess's seal.