Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka?

Chapter The Human-Demon Great War - The situation of Merazofis

The man known as Merazofis is an ordinary person. Though his subordinates amongst the demons would surely laugh in disbelief if they heard that. Who could possibly call a man with enough strength to single-handedly overturn the course of battle “ordinary” of all things? Even still, he was undoubtedly an ordinary person. He was merely an ordinary person who had experienced an extraordinary life.

He has no special talent. No matter what he did he was average. Saying it the other way around, he could do everything to an average level. To put it in a positive way, he could do anything. To put it in a negative way, a jack of all trades and master of none. With that versatility that allowed him to be average at everything, he acquired various skills.

The sequence of events that led him to being like that, relates to his childhood. He came from a family that had served a certain noble house for generations. Naturally, it was decided that he would also serve that noble house. There, he had a fateful encounter.

It was with the young lady of that noble house. For her and Merazofis, they did not start out their relationship as master and servant, but growing up as childhood friends. During that stage, he held faint feelings of love towards the young lady. However, that was an impossible love. Since she was a child she had a fiancee, and on top of that she and her fiance were in love with each other. There was no room for him between them. He didn’t even think of coming between them. For him, so long as the person he loved was happy then he was content.

So that he could aid her, Merazofis continued to improve himself. Whenever he had time he would indiscriminately improve his skills in anything that seemed useful, making an effort to study. That work was recognised, and he was even trusted by her fiance. Thus, when she married into her fiance’s house, he went with her.

Her fiance was aware of Merazofis’s feelings. Precisely because he knew, he trusted Merazofis. Because he was confident that Merazofis would never make her sad. Between the two men who loved the same woman, perhaps there was some kind of understanding.

Precisely because of that, he was entrusted with their beloved daughter. It was already too late. Between the woman he loved, and her husband, there was nowhere to escape. Physically and mentally, he was trapped. That daugher, was entrusted to the highly dependable Merazofis.

Merazofis, accepted those feelings. Even if he couldn’t protect his beloved woman, even while enduring his own powerlessness, he would still protect that woman’s daughter, he steadfastly vowed.

Even that vow, was soon crushed.

He wasn’t able to do anything. Without being able to do anything, the end result was that he gained power from the one he should have been protecting. Even after throwing away his humanity, he was still overwhelmed by his powerlessness.

After the occasion when he was hopelessly beaten down by the bandits, he never failed to practice swinging a sword every morning. That would never make him dramatically stronger. Even still, wanting to reform his powerless self even a little bit, so that the next time he would be able to protect them, he put all his soul into continuing to swing.

Even all that effort, never bore fruit in the end. No matter how he struggled, Merazofis was an ordinary person. He wasn’t at all suited for fighting right from the very start, so waving a sword around when he had no talent, wouldn’t be enough for him to protect anything.

And yet, he didn’t die. Once again, he was saved by a certain spider. Or perhaps in a way, he had already died at that time. He had lost his precious and beloved sweetheart.

Afterwards, his life was spent protecting the child of the woman he loved. To watch over her development, to be beside her.

However, Merazofis’s ojou-sama, was no ordinary person. A reincarnator, and not even human - a vampire progenitor. Merazofis himself, became a vampire as well due to that ojou-sama.

Compared to the normal humans of this world, reincarnators have more ways in which to increase their status values and skills. In addition, the ojou-sama was forced to go on a rigorous journey when she was an infant, forcing her status values to grow. The time when status values grow the fastest, is during infancy. The growth rate of those values falls together with overall growth rates as one reaches adulthood. During her infancy the ojou-sama was put through a harsh environment that would normally be unthinkable, that could even be called abuse, resulting in her status values growing at a rate that vastly exceeded those even of her fellow reincarnators.

Merazofis’s status values, who was put through the same environment, also grew at a slower rate than the ojou-sama’s. The cause was due to him being a person of this world, and one who had already reached adulthood. Due to him being reborn as a vampire, his status values grew faster than when he was a human, but from the perspective of the irregular ojou-sama, even that was more like a minor blip in the measurements. Eventually, Merazofis became weaker than even the ojou-sama he was supposed to protect.

Even so, what Merazofis needed to do did not change. When they were separated by the Demon King so that they wouldn’t become too dependent upon each other, his thoughts were focused on the ojou-sama. To protect the ojou-sama, nothing more.

Therefore, he needed to be strong. The ojou-sama already possessed a strength that he could never reach. While that might be true, that in no way implied that it was unnecessary for him to become strong. At the very least, he needed to be strong enough so that he wouldn’t hold the ojou-sama back.

And thus Merazofis never failed to train himself every day. That training was so harsh in practice, that it would make an average person doubt their own eyes. Enough that for an average person, either they would quickly damage their own health or harm their own mind. What allowed him to do that, was the experiences from the harsh journey along the way to the demon territories. The aberrant training conducted by an aberrant spider. Using the skills that he had gained while training during that journey to the full, Merazofis continued to put himself through hellish personal training. Without himself realising it, he had strayed from common sense.

By using the Abnormal Condition Nullity skill, he no longer needed to sleep. By using the automatic recovery of HP and MP he didn’t spare himself from even damaging his body. When he damaged it he took joy from being able to raise his Treatment Magic skill level. Even in the midst of work he would devote himself to strengthening skills that would make no sense to others, like Magic Manipulation and Fighting Spirit.

Eventually, Merazofis’s average status values had risen as far as 5000. Such values were more than enough to be on par with a low ranked dragon, a level of strength that would be more than sufficient for this world. But even that did not satisfy him. Because the ojou-sama had about triple that.

「Report to Balto-sama.」

「Yessir!」

Merazofis sent a subordinate to report on the defeat. Even for Merazofis as an individual, considering the overall battlefield, this battle was a defeat.

The circumstances were bad. Having to fight two reincarnators, with support from a human mage of the highest class. On top of facing the three of them, it was a clear day with bright sunshine.

There was no way he could kill the reincarnators. While being weakened by the sunlight, he had to fight his opponents without killing them. That was quite a difficult order to make of an ordinary person with no talent for battle. Therefore, despite having an advantage in status values over his opponents, the fight dragged out, and he couldn’t even assist with the worsening condition of the battlefield.

It is certainly true that both reincarnators were strong. Merazofis also retained the Appraisal skill. That was the spider’s policy, and because of its usefulness he also kept it up for many months and years, slowly raising the level. The status values of the reincarnators as seen with Appraisal, were in the top ranked drake class. Considering their skills, it was even conceivable that they could reach bottom ranked dragons. The boy was physically orientated and had average status values of about 2500. The girl was more magically orientated, but like the boy had average status values of about 2500. Status values don’t simply add up together, but those two combined had values about equal to Merazofis.

In addition, there was supporting magic being fired. Appraisal couldn’t be used because of the distance, but Merazofis estimated that the magic offensive ability was probably at least 2000.

For humans, the line that determines whether they’re top class or not is having a status of 1000. Having to face three opponents with well over that, it can be understood why Merazofis was having a hard fight. Actually, before Merazofis became their opponent, the two reincarnators were routing the demon troops, and the mage was using great magic to cause massive damage. Without being able to rally the troops from the damage those three had caused, losing the battle could be considered good enough.

「Commander, you are injured.」

「It’s just a scratch.」

Merazofis’s chest had been pierced. Due to carelessness at the very end, he was sniped. But, as he himself said, after penetrating the armour, the damage to the body itself was nothing more than a scratch. Merazofis’s magical defence ability was roughly 5000. Even when suffering a direct hit from that magic, it only pierced the skin, and didn’t even reach his heart. Then again, even if it had reached his heart, that probably wouldn’t have been enough to defeat Merazofis.

「I still have a long way to go.」

As for his muttering, his subordinates ignored it with a faraway look.

The man known as Merazofis is an ordinary person. He did not have a single outstanding talent. However, if there is one talent he could be said to posses, that was the talent to endure. The talent of hard work was not enough. Having surpassed the likes of hard work by reaching hell, that’s what he has now. Who on earth would keep on deliberately tormenting himself until on the brink of death every day? To say that someone who would do that as having the talent of hard work seems somewhat insufficient.

As an example of that, there is a certain skill he has recently obtained. The skill called “Patience”.

The man known as Merazofis is an ordinary person. However, it is not always the case than an ordinary person stays ordinary, as seen in his story.

Reference data from the time of the elf village war:

Shun: average status values of 3000

Katia: average status values of 1800

Sensei: status values of 1500 in magic types, 500 in physical types.

Kunihiko and Asaka would be stronger than Shun if he didn’t have the Hero title. Because sensei put her effort into searching for the students rather than combat, she was in fact surpassed by Shun and Katia.