I've arrived at the kingdom's royal castle.
I snuck inside and commandeered an empty room, making sure not to be noticed by any humans in the castle.
Well, there are only a limited number of humans in the castle right now, so I don't really need to be too paranoid about it.
I'd already used Natsume-kun to clear out everyone inside the castle beforehand.
Even the crown prince and queen of the kingdom had been temporarily kicked outside, leaving the place practically empty.
And then I had Natsume-kun scrape together some decent forces to handle the defenses.
Well, the purpose of this operation is to have Yamada-kun perform resurrection, so it's not like I set up any serious defensive forces or anything.
Huh? That's how it was supposed to be, right?
Because there's an old man here who looks incredibly familiar.
Unless I'm seeing things, the strongest person in the empire is standing right there.
Yeah. No matter how many times I look, it's the same old man I've seen before.
The first time I saw that old man was in the Upper Layer of the Great Ello Dungeon.
He was with the group of knights who burned down My Home.
And then, for some reason I don't understand, he showed up afterward wanting to become my disciple.
Nostalgic.
Back then he was this incredibly intense character of a man, but the years have passed and he's gone and changed class into an old man.
Hmm.
That old man killed Shota of the Sixth Army during the last great war, didn't he?
He should definitely be the strongest in the current empire, so why is he here?
Huh?
Natsume-kun? Isn't this different from what we discussed?
Whoa, whoa.
Isn't this quietly dangerous?
Because that old man might be stronger than Yamada-kun, you know?
What am I supposed to do about this?
Well, whatever.
Yamada-kun is never going to die anyway.
At worst, he'll just retreat.
This operation isn't all that important anyway.
If Yamada-kun can't break through the old man, then the third prince and the others being held hostage will die.
If Yamada-kun breaks through the old man and manages to pull off the resurrection, the hostages will be saved.
Of course, that's only if the resurrection strips off
Potimas's soul is attached to the third prince.
The same thing Potimas had been doing to the kingdom's VIPs.
Those VIPs have already been purged, excluding the third prince.
In the end, we never figured out what Potimas was trying to do in the kingdom, but a massive purge to clean things out was certainly better than letting him run wild.
So the king and everyone else seized on that chaos as an excuse to go on a killing spree, but watching Yamada-kun try to resurrect Oshima-kun got me thinking.
If they die once, wouldn't Potimas's soul get stripped off?
Because once you're dead, that's it.
Due to how the system works, when you die, the soul sheds everything extra.
So Potimas's parasitic soul should get shed too.
Though well, you can't really say anything until you actually try it.
Yamada-kun's resurrection seems to call the soul back before the system takes it completely.
I think it probably won't succeed unless you resurrect them before the shedding process begins.
So it's possible Potimas's soul might not get shed, and the resurrection goes through anyway.
Well, if that happens, we'll just have to deal with it again.
The third prince's fate depends on Yamada-kun's resurrection.
Though he might not even be able to get there without breaking through that old man!
Seriously, why is that old man here?
Natsume-kun, you really messed up the casting here.
All you had to do was set up some halfway decent forces, so why go and deploy the empire's ultimate fighting power?
Do you hate Yamada-kun that much?
Speaking of which, Yamada-kun is currently approaching at high speed on the back of a dragon.
Nnnngh, I should stop here because any closer would be dangerous.
Actually, infiltrating from high altitude on dragonback... that's pretty bold of them.
I can fly around freely myself, but after that vertical shaft dive in the Great Ello Dungeon, I've gotten a bit uncomfortable with heights.
I'll fly if I need to, but I don't particularly enjoy being up really high.
For humans, keeping your feet on the ground is best.
I'm not human though.
Now then, what's the old man going to do about Yamada-kun?
A: Anti-air fire.
Oh. Oh wow.
The old man is incredible.
He actually fired off magic shots at Yamada-kun's group, who were flying at such a high altitude they were barely visible to the naked eye.
The range on that is insane.
A magic spell's range is determined by the caster's magic attack Status and the amount of MP they pour into it.
And then there's how well they've actually mastered using magic.
Just relying on Skills to activate magic isn't enough.
You need to properly understand the flow of how magic activates and know where to pour in extra MP.
On that front, the old man seems to have a pretty solid understanding.
According to the old man's Status as I remember it, there's no way his magic should reach that far.
The fact that he's pulling it off means he must be pouring in a huge amount of extra MP.
That man who once came to me wanting to become my disciple has become so impressive now.
It's not like I actually took him on as a disciple, but I'm kind of getting a little teary-eyed.
But well, when you push it that far, the power drops.
The magic that flew toward Yamada-kun was intercepted and canceled out.
Wait, managing to cancel out the magic of Yamada-kun, who is the Hero no less, is insane.
And on top of that, he saw right through them even though Yamada-kun's group was operating with Stealth.
Old man, what ARE you?
Are you really human, this old man?
Between the Pope and this old man, aren't all human old guys kind of messed up?
I wouldn't even be surprised if someone told me "old man" is a species entirely separate from humans.
Actually, this is kind of bad.
What if Yamada-kun actually gets shot down for real?
[Ah, shoot. This one... I can't win.]
[Wait!? Master!?]
[Nope, nope. We're retreating.]
The old man himself went and defied all my worries.
He telepathically told all the people who seemed to be his disciples something like a grumble, and then activated a group teleportation.
They teleported away somewhere.
I'm dumbfounded.
Wait, why would he retreat at that point?
It seems like I'm not the only one who can't keep up with what's going on — Yamada-kun's group is confused too.
Can you blame them?
Actually, old man, if you'd kept going, you could've won, right?
With that kind of power that let him pull off group teleportation so effortlessly.
As far as I can remember, when we encountered each other in the Great Ello Dungeon, it took him a considerable amount of time just to activate group teleportation.
More than a decade has passed since then, and he's clearly improved a lot.
With that kind of skill, he shouldn't have been at a disadvantage even against the Hero's party.
So why did he retreat?
I don't get it.
Well, it works out in my favor, so I guess it's fine.
Still, it doesn't sit right with me.