Brou drew his last breath.
Having witnessed it, I took a step forward.
The Hero noticed me.
His face was filled with shock.
It seemed he had intuitively realized that I was the same entity as the nightmare of the dungeon where he had once been defeated.
Hero
Sub-bodies designed for surveillance and non-combat purposes couldn't defeat the Hero.
Thanks to that, I had been unable to monitor the Hero's movements.
I think the strong impression of being utterly powerless against me had made him hyper-aware of my existence.
That was why it was within expected parameters when he immediately charged toward me.
Within my accelerated thoughts, I observed the Hero's desperate expression.
Unfortunately, no matter how much power the Hero strained, he could never defeat me.
I opened my eyes.
As a small mercy, I would kill him before he could even feel pain.
My improved Evil Eye — the Annihilation Evil Eye — struck the Hero.
The two attributes I had not lost even after becoming a god.
Darkness and Corruption.
Or rather, Darkness and Death.
The attributes governed by Evil God D.
The Annihilation Evil Eye granted death to the Hero and obliterated his physical body.
Compared to D's own power, it was weaker — but it was still unmistakably the power of a god.
A Hero who was no god could not possibly withstand it.
I delivered the finishing blow to the Hero without question, and in the same manner disposed of his companions as well.
One managed to endure it, but that too was within expectations.
What lay outside expectations happened elsewhere entirely.
"Leave the rest to you."
"Huh?"
Due to the emergency, I dumped the battlefield entirely on
I arrived at a vast space where a giant magic circle inscribed with geometric patterns sprawled across the area.
At its center was the figure of a woman — upper body only.
The Goddess's seal, located beyond the deepest layer of the Great Ello Dungeon.
The core of the system that supported this world.
I approached the Goddess swiftly.
Her remaining half had diminished since the last time I had seen her.
Far more than I had anticipated.
Suppressing the anger that surged within me, I seized her chin.
I wanted to believe I was still calm, given that I hadn't crushed it outright.
"Do you have any idea what you've done?"
My voice came out harsh and threatening — I couldn't help it.
I opened my eyes and stared straight at the Goddess.
Her eyes were hollow, and from her mouth drifted only murmured system messages.
"Stop screwing around."
It wasn't a loud voice.
But it was as angry a voice as could possibly be produced.
Who did she think had been fighting this war? Why, and for whose sake?
And this Goddess had ruined it all.
The preparations to free the Goddess from the System — that was what all of this was supposed to accomplish. And she had gone and ruined it herself.
The purpose of this war was to thin out the combat-capable personnel of both the Human race and the Demon race, securing energy while simultaneously reducing the number of people who would be caught in the System's collapse.
And by defeating the Hero, deleting the Hero-related entries in the System, and recovering the energy allocated to them.
There were other minor reasons as well, but those were the two biggest ones.
Both were strategies to gather energy in one massive sweep.
And yet, the energy collected was lower than what I had projected.
It had been reduced.
Because the Goddess had intervened unnecessarily.
The Goddess had been interfering with the decomposition of the Hero System.
Using her own body, and a portion of the energy that had flowed in this time.
I couldn't communicate with her directly, so this was all speculation — but the Goddess probably understood the full scope of what I was trying to do.
Well, she was the core of the System I had been hacking into, so it wouldn't be strange for her to know.
The problem was that, knowing this, she had still come to interfere with my actions.
"You hate seeing so many people die that much? Even though you know exactly who everyone is killing each other for?"
My grip on her chin tightened.
The Demon King had gone so far as to accept death in order to take action, and this woman had rendered it all meaningless.
Unforgivable, isn't it.
What utter garbage.
"Watch closely."
I projected an image before the Goddess's eyes.
It showed the battlefield.
The battlefield where the First Army was fighting.
That alone was ghastly — an unbearable sight for the Goddess, no doubt.
But I wasn't going to stop there.
I summoned a single Queen Taratect onto that battlefield.
And gave the order: trample everything — Demon race and Human race alike.
"Don't look away. Because of your meddling, I've been forced to take even more lives. This is what you wished for, and what you caused."
She offered no rebuttal.
But I detected the faintest gesture — a slight shake of her head.
I tightened my grip on her chin, not allowing her to avert her eyes from the image for even an instant.
Foolish Goddess.
The one who desired peace more than anyone, yet had forced the people of this world to walk a more blood-soaked path than anyone.
Even if that was the result of D's malicious salvation.
This time was no different.
If she had stayed out of it, I had no intention of carrying out such a massacre.
I had intended to keep using
Instead, I had been forced to crush him ahead of schedule.
I hadn't wiped out the Second or Fifth Armies because, considering the future, it was better to leave them intact.
The First Army was the Demon race's elite.
And the Human race army opposing them was equally so.
Which meant more energy could be harvested when they were wiped out entirely.
To minimize the number of casualties while recovering the most energy, destroying the First Army was the only option.
I'm sorry, Agner.
To fulfill the Demon race's future that you wished for, I had to discard you.
And even that — even that might not be possible, depending on how things turned out.
I showed the Goddess, without restraint, the sight of the Queen Taratect trampling all living things.
Even after it was over, I kept the death-saturated landscape displayed for a while longer.
"Do not interfere again. Understand that every time you do, the death toll rises."
I released her chin roughly.
Somehow, her already hollow eyes had grown even more lifeless — like a dead fish.
Good.
Even so, my irritation hadn't subsided.
I was so angry that I was speaking normally instead of in my usual manner.
To have to sacrifice Agner over something this trivial.
Damn it.
More importantly, I needed to confirm quickly who had become the new Hero.
I needed to contact the Divine Word Faith and have them search.
As I was considering future plans, one of my sub-bodies detected an anomaly.
The one keeping watch over Yamada-kun.
Yamada-kun had suddenly stood up in the middle of class and was behaving suspiciously.
No.
No — no, no, no!?
"You — you!"
I punched the Goddess.
"How far will you go to interfere with people's lives?! How far will you trample on their feelings?! Do you really want to save people's lives that badly?! Don't you realize that very thing is what pushes people to their deaths!?"
I restrained myself from killing the Goddess right then and there.
If I did that, everything I had done until now would lose its meaning.
This Goddess had not only allowed the Hero System to continue existing — she had designated Yamada-kun as the next Hero.
Yamada-kun — a reincarnator.
She had deliberately chosen a reincarnator, knowing full well that I could not kill him, would not kill him.
The Goddess should have known exactly why I had been trying to destroy the Hero System.
Energy recovery?
That was indeed one of the objectives.
But the greatest objective was to prevent the Demon King from being killed.
Through the System, the Demon King would inevitably be killed by the Hero.
No matter how far the Demon King's Status exceeded the Hero's.
That was the dread I had been trying to eliminate by destroying the Hero System.
"Do you want the Demon King to die that badly!? That Demon King — who worked so hard all this time, for no one else but you!"
My teeth ground together.
If I stayed here any longer, I would genuinely want to kill the Goddess.
I turned my back on the Goddess and left via teleportation.
I didn't want to see what expression she was wearing.