9-10 The Spirits’ Live Broadcast

“Brat, hurry up and undo this. Do you think a mere honorary-noble like you can do this to a legitimate Imperial noble and get away with—”

Who was he calling a brat?

Talking to me like that, you middle-aged Showa-era geezer.

You’re young enough you probably still have a Mongolian spot, you greenhorn.

And more to the point, aren’t you a count?

I’m a marquis, thank you very much.

And he didn’t get to finish his line.

Because I ground my boot into the face of the guy lying on his back.

“Rick, this is your thank-you gift for the okonomiyaki. Eat it with gratitude.”

For now, I handed Rick’s person over to the Kingdom.

I’d leave the annoying role to His Majesty the King.

After hearing the explanation, His Majesty made a slightly troubled face.

The Chancellor kept tugging at his long gray beard that matched the king’s.

“Now, now, leave it to me. Things have turned out very nicely. I’ll settle this cleanly.”

“I see. Then I’ll leave it to you. So what do we do?”

“Act like this has become a real headache, take your time, and keep him hanging a bit—just drag it out.”

I grinned and put on the most black-hearted, villainous face I could manage.

His Majesty returned a small grin in kind.

“Very well. I understand. The rest is up to you.”

“I’ll handle it.”

I’d prepared properly for this.

I’d make those Imperial idiots learn what Earthlings were capable of.

Then I teleported to a certain place.

I’d already secured their cooperation.

It was the Alba Grand Temple.

This world apparently didn’t have real gods, but countless gods were worshiped.

And among them, the one revered as the chief deity was the lord of the Ross Grand Temple.

The massive Ross statue enshrined there looked like a sturdy, bearded old man—more like a grandpa, really.

It felt oddly familiar.

Adros meant “The Chief God Ross’s Banquet.”

Usually it was simply called “The Banquet of the Gods,” apparently.

As a labyrinth that functioned as a resource mine, it was a strangely apt name.

Unfortunately, plenty of adventurers also became “banquet fare” for monsters.

“Hey, Jessica.”

The one who greeted me was Jessica, the high priestess representing the Alba Ross Grand Temple—a radiant, awe-inspiring silver-haired beauty.

“Are you truly going to do it?”

She asked, looking a little—no, quite—worried.

Getting to see a worried look from such a beauty was a feast for the eyes, a feast for the eyes.

Well, she wasn’t worried about me, exactly.

“No need to worry. My country is really good at this sort of thing. It’ll be fine, it’ll be fine.”

Then I turned around and spoke to them.

“Heeey, you lot. You ready?”

On the radar, they were swirling in a huge chaotic dance.

“Alright. The friends I asked you to bring—are they good to go too?”

On the Radar MAP, the spirits spun in circles as if drawing loops to show agreement.

“Hell yeah! Then let’s do a spirits live broadcast. Camera One, you’re up.”

A spirit was perched on top of the camera filming me.

That Besmagil-made camera I’d specially brought out was packed with enormous mana, so it must have felt fantastic to sit on.

Somehow the other spirits seemed jealous.

I’d put Mari in charge as assistant.

You didn’t often find someone this skilled at manipulating mana.

After all, she herself was basically a mass of magic.

Her item box was also stuffed with an enormous quantity of Besmagil batteries.

Then the spirits used spirit magic that manipulated space, loaded it with the video received from the camera, and handed it off to their comrades all around the world.

Of course, the local spirits had already coordinated with the others.

Jessica the interpreter had been a huge help.

My thanks—together with the safe-house fee—was ten platinum coins.

Lately, the temple’s finances seemed tight.

And of course, not everyone up top was devoted to austere purity; even someone on the ground like her had it rough.

Along with the video magic, enormous mana was carried as compensation and presented to the spirits of each region.

Even spirits didn’t work for free.

What a harsh world.

What video, you ask?

Obviously—everything Rick had done.

A recorded video played on a large, three-meter tablet.

I publicized it flamboyantly, and I even embellished the story.

All those brutal attacks inside the Empire that normally couldn’t be made public—I dumped the whole lot on Rick with a big, flashy bang.

Right about now, Rick was probably foaming at the mouth.

Because I broadcast it loudly—audio included—over the skies of major cities in the key nations.

Including the sky over Alba, the Royal Capital where he was right now.

And the video also loudly announced that fact.

There was no way Rick wouldn’t understand what that meant.

After all, he was famous for being a sneaky bastard.

Well… it took one to know one.

But those were atrocities carried out by the Empire in the first place, and there was no way the Empire could openly say, “Actually that wasn’t Rick, it was us.”

Serves you right, Empire. Serves you right, Rick.

I wanted to laugh crudely, like, “WEE-HAHAHAHA!”

But that was as far as my laughing went.

Mari was freaking out.

“Hey—what is this mana flow? This is bad. The batteries are already running out!”

What?

The hundred-trillion MP worth of mana I’d stockpiled was completely drained?

That was impossible!

“N-no, this… Could it be that spirits all over the world are… all latching on together, like some kind of ‘treat’ from the regional spirits who helped us?”

“Hey! That’s a clear contract violation!”

But Jessica said, apologetic and barely audible.

“Um… for spirits, a ‘contract’ refers to a contract in the strict sense, and… well… everything else is, how do I put it… secondary—or they don’t really care. Ah, but in exchange, if they like a person, they’ll lend their strength for free. S-so that’s good, right? From now on, spirits all over the world are on your side.”

Miss?

This isn’t called “free.”

In a rare visitor’s country, it’s called prepaid—paying up front.

And the spirits, no longer satisfied with Mari’s drained batteries, finally started eating my mana itself—directly—because I was blasting out outrageous mana.

Naturally, they did it mercilessly, including the portion meant to be distributed to their comrades worldwide.

At least they weren’t eating Mari’s body, which was made of magic itself—should I call that “conscientious”?

Ah, there it is.

An MP level-up.

MP Lv13: 3,774 quadrillion 8,736 trillion MP.

My MP was skyrocketing past “ordinary astronomical figures” into an even more ridiculous realm.

But the spirits kept sucking my mana—sip sip sip sip—like they’d just gotten a refill.

This was insane… even though I’d just leveled up, my MP meter was down by nearly half.

What a pace.

It seemed like the number of spirits latched onto me was increasing more and more by “spirit math.”

I hallucinated a heartburn-inducing scene: an all-you-can-eat conveyor-belt sushi course, where countless burly men like pro wrestlers endlessly stacked up plates.

And their friends kept multiplying, to the point the restaurant looked like it would collapse.

I remembered a rumor about an all-you-can-eat place near a Self-Defense Force base with around a thousand people shutting down.

During training, a JSDF member’s required calories were… what, about 5,000 kilocalories a day?

A friend of a friend is a friend?

At this rate, even the friends of friends of friends were showing up.

Hey, hey, hey.

Um… what do I do about this?

For me, even if my MP ran dry, I’d just level up, so I wouldn’t collapse.

But for other people, this would absolutely be lethal.

And before that, an ordinary mage would have run out of mana and dropped ages ago—this “banquet” would’ve ended long since.

The spirits had done the job they were supposed to do, so all I could do was stand there blankly, waiting for them to disperse, while they continued sucking me dry.

But Jessica, after trembling with her shoulders shaking for a moment, unleashed a terrifying roar at Camera One.

Her beautiful, long silver hair practically stood on end in fury.

She looked like a kabuki actor, hair flying wildly, dancing an enraged performance.

“You lot! That’s enough already—!”

With the dignity and spiritual power of a high priestess capable of communing with spirits and forming contracts, her voice crackled irresistibly through the broadcast camera and spread across the entire world.

The spirits everywhere—those who’d been getting carried away and running rampant—prostrated themselves without exception, and the bell tolled to end this spirit banquet.

Then Mari turned to me with a beaming smile and said:

“A Great Demon King is born.”

“Hah… yeah. That might not be so bad.”