Chapter 405: Side Conversation to Unwind from the War
"..." I look at our troops marching towards the human kingdom, Freya has already arrived with my troops and now we begin to advance towards the human kingdom.
’It’s been almost two months of war...’ A time that seemed to pass too quickly, but moving troops, fighting, resting, and gathering everything took much longer than just a few days.
"Elena, what do you think about this? About the war, I mean," I ask Elena while Calypso and Freya are talking further away about damages and supplies for the soldiers.
"It’s... complicated, there’s really no good feeling of victory, after all we’ve had quite a few casualties as well... and obviously we’ll have more before we win," she speaks without any real excitement about all this.
"Are you sad?... You’re so sentimental, Elena, but I guess it makes sense, you’re a demon, it must be unpleasant to see members of your race being killed..." I say to her without caring.
"Pandora... don’t you care?" She asks me as I think about what to answer, deciding to be honest since there’s no reason to lie or make up an excuse.
"Honestly? Not at all, I know well that they are my subjects... but I can’t feel sad that they’re dying... to me they’re just numbers that will slow down my progress... do I seem very cold saying that?"
"Pandora, I don’t think you seem cold saying that, after all you’re a monster, can’t expect empathy from you towards strangers, in fact I’m surprised you called them numbers and not food," she says with a little smile.
"Oh yes, it’s just that I don’t like to eat junk, I prefer a really tasty piece of meat, you know? I only eat low-quality meat out of necessity," I say excitedly as I think about a delicious raw piece of meat.
Talking to her is pleasant, it helps to not take the tense mood of the war, after all it’s better to have a silly conversation like this than to stay tense.
"Hahahaha I don’t think you should say that kind of thing around the soldiers," she says, going along with it as I really think about a feast after this, I’m so hungry.
Almost dying against the heroes increased my hunger, but I didn’t have much time to eat because I was busy with the war.
’It would be nice to have a delicious piece of meat that could be constantly restored’ Lilith kind of fit that, but she wasn’t as tasty as food, she was good, but not even close to the best thing I’ve eaten.
’So far the best things I’ve eaten were Delphina and Zephyra...’ I’ve heard that love is blind, but apparently my love affects my taste since Zephyra is a delicacy.
And of course a delicacy in both senses, that tasty little body! She has some breasts that are a delight, although I’ve only generally tasted her blood since they were more loving bites than me really trying to eat her.
"...Pandora, please don’t start drooling like that or your image will start to crack," Elena says, politely wiping my mouth with a handkerchief.
"I’m hungry! You can’t blame me for that! I was just thinking about tasty things, besides, Elena, I also have something interesting to tell you!" I say with a huge smile, changing the subject.
"Is that so? What is it?" She asks, now relaxed with the whole war topic, which is good, setting the war aside for at least a few minutes helps to make the mood more pleasant.
"You know, I have a skill called [Ruler of Monsters - As the ruler of monsters, you have met the necessary requirements to help monsters evolve by reaching certain parameters.]"
"It’s a pretty cool skill, but I don’t know how to use it, so far the only monster that has evolved with it was Shogo, honestly it’s a waste... HOWEVER!! I noticed something interesting during my near-death experience!"
In moments when I approach death, that’s when my body is forced to evolve. And in such moments, my understanding of what life, death, and magic are increases dramatically, probably due to my adaptation, moments when I’m forced to the limit are moments when my adaptation works faster.
And in such moments, crazy ideas come to my mind, it’s not something I gain out of nowhere, it’s just my mind connecting dots that have always been there, but I ignored until an emergency moment.
It’s as if my brain was looking for ways to save me, so it finds various things I can do, but don’t normally use.
"Fundamentally, everything that exists is ’equal’ whether it’s demons, humans, monsters, and even goddesses, do you know what I mean by ’equal’?"
"Hmm... no?" She thinks a bit but says no.
"It’s simple! Mana! Everyone is fundamentally made of Mana, Mana is in everything, and everything that exists has Mana, unlike the heroes who come from a world that has no Mana, we inhabitants of this universe are literally made based on Mana."
"If we think logically, the primordial goddess somehow used this energy called ’mana’ to create everything, and since everything comes from mana, everything is equivalent to one thing... I know it seems a bit confusing, and it even seems like madness for me to say that everything is equal in the end."
"But I don’t mean it literally, obviously monsters, humans, demons, goddesses, and any other race are different things, but the basis of their existence is still mana, everything has mana and everything will always have mana."
"So I thought, and what if the ’Ruler of Monsters’ skill doesn’t actually refer specifically to monsters?" I say, leaving her even more confused, she gives me a strange look as if I had gone crazy after almost dying.
"Elena, don’t look at me like that! I know what I’m talking about, the system often gives confusing and not so direct names and descriptions, leaving us to interpret them, a common thing about monsters is that most of them don’t exactly have a soul."
"Thinking about this, I came to the conclusion that the skill actually only makes the body evolve, and not specifically a specific body, despite the skill mentioning monsters, in other words, the skill may not be limited to evolving only monsters."
"And yes, evolving bodies that I have made reach certain parameters, maybe the point is that monsters must have some parameter that other races don’t, that’s why the skill focuses on talking about evolving monsters." When I say this, Elena gets even more confused.
"Pandora, if in the end only monsters have this necessary ’parameter’, then what’s the point of knowing that the skill only evolves bodies and could theoretically work on everyone?" Her judgmental look really makes me falter in my logic.
"Well, obviously I wouldn’t be talking about this if it wasn’t useful... considering that there are specific conditions and that in general monsters reach this condition, I thought I could forcibly make someone reach those conditions." I say, and finally she understands.
"That... is genius!! If you could do that, you could force other beings besides monsters to ’evolve’, so far the only beings in the world that can evolve are monsters, and the evolution of monsters usually gives them a humanoid form."
"But isn’t it strange that only monsters evolve? So Pandora, you’re saying that monsters actually evolve because they have a condition in their bodies that only exists in them! This is pure theory, but it makes sense." She speaks while I give a smile.
"Exactly! That’s what I thought! Monsters have something extra that makes them evolve! So if I find out what it is, I can do it to others!" I didn’t tell this to Elena without reason, of course I’ll try to evolve other things.
"Elena, do you want to be my guinea pig?" I ask while she seems tense and shivers all over.
"...Your guinea pig?"
"Yes, yes, you know I’m a monster, and if anyone understands monster bodies, it’s me! Since... well, I literally am one." I have Pandora Yandere who is the body and can help discover what this condition is.
’If I force Elena to evolve beyond her race...’ I think about the implications of this, if I discover that I can forcibly evolve other races, I can gain more authority in the system.
The system grants authority to the goddesses based on various things, and one of those things is racial ’discoveries’ that impact all races, if I’m a goddess who can force non-monster races to evolve, the system should grant me more authority over it.
’I want to be able to reach 50% authority soon...’ All the goddesses have 50% authority, and I want that too.
"W-Well... if you trust in this, I’m willing to try..." She says as I give her a thumbs up.
’By the way... am I a monster, can I evolve too?’ I don’t know, evolved monsters gain a humanoid form, but I’ve had a humanoid form since the beginning and I’m a different kind of monster, so I don’t think I fit in that.
Since unlike normal monsters, I’m the daughter of the Goddess of the Abyss, a kind of ’unique’ monster, so I’m honestly not interested in trying to evolve that way.
"Great, but we’ll do that after the war, anyway I talked about this just to relax, it’ll still take two more days until we reach the first human kingdom," I say, bored.
’Pandora Yandere, I’ll need a lot of your help’ I’ll take advantage of this ’free’ time we’re marching to try to figure out what conditions this skill requires, it’s literally an extremely powerful skill.
But I didn’t use it before because I don’t know how to use it, so it’s just been there without any real function.
’An evolved Elena... hmm, would she become even more beautiful?’ I’m curious about that, it would also be interesting because if Elena evolves, maybe she’ll regain the things she lost.
"Well, Elena, do you like..." I start another topic with Elena to pass the time, despite feeling a strange restlessness about going to the human kingdom now.