Chapter 246 - Rimuru vs Yuuki - Part 1

"I knew it" was my honest thoughts.

I calmly pondered in the middle of a fierce sword fight.

To begin with, why would he need a 1 month delay?

If we fought in that place that day, I didn't know what the outcome would be.

If he had sent Chloe toward me at that time, while I wouldn't lose, the fight would still be difficult.

If he used Velda's power, he should be able to handle Veldora and Velgrind while I was being toyed with by Chloe.

Moreover, Kagali, Vega and the angels could have killed Diablo and the others.

There were people who could use Unique Skill such as『Teleportation』 like Mai too, I think that the prediction wasn't wrong altogether.

Even according to Ciel-san's calculation, our chance of winning wasn't high, just around 40%.

Although, if I could kill Chloe without hesitation, our chance of winning would be over 80% and the situation would be reversed.

That's why I thought they acted carefully since they feared I would act without hesitation, but I changed my mind after I saw the angels' assembly and the explosion phenomenon this time.

Or rather, I'm convinced.

Velda, whose goal is to destroy the world, would have been more advantageous if he could do that.

Because everything would have been better for him if he were to hold down and eliminate us by making the energy of the angels go berserk.

What was the reason for why he didn't do that?

――That's because he wants to buy time――

Ciel and I agreed on the same thing.

Although he disappeared while saying plausible things at the end, what if all of that was Yuuki's acting?

All pieces seemed to fit together.

『Ku, kukuku, ahahahahahahaha! This is really unexpected.

I didn't expect it, really.... You'd be the most dangerous of all.

Bravo, Rimuru-san.

I really did want to end the world with my own hands.

But, unfortunately....

I really can't imagine myself winning against you. Not to mention, even that Demon over there――

――Your power is just too insane. That chills I got when we first met was right on the money.

I should have ended you back then.

Did I lose my marbles somewhere? Well, it doesn't matter at all now.

No, in fact, if you can stop me, that'd just be the will of the world.

I guess, Velda will decide the rest, heh.

Goodbye, Rimuru-san

I kinda liked you a bit too.

――Honestly, we could've been friends, you know...』

I ended up honestly trusting those words.

He changed into Velda at the end with those words and I thought that Yuuki had told me his true intention.

However, I was wrong.

It was already too late at this point.

Perhaps, he had started since we first met――

I must admit that he acted splendidly, I was even outwitted.

Although Ciel seemed to have doubts about it, she couldn't find any definite fault.

I was gullible enough to believe Yuuki's words; on the contrary, she had said that she suspected that it was some kind of a ruse.

While I laughed it off that she might be overthinking it, but if it meant something, what was it? The two of us made the prediction over it.

That answer we concluded was "Isn't his goal for the 1 month delay to buy himself some time?" or something like that.

And, that was the right answer, Yuuki gradually made the power his while inside Velda.

「You-you've deceived me until the end to buy yourself some time...?」

「Ahaha, you've figured it out? 100 points for you, Rimuru-san. Well, it seems that Velda was completely deceived about that too. Hey, there's a saying "To fool the enemy, first deceive your allies" after all, right?」

「Stop with your bullshit, I really believed you――」

「Haha, that what they call naïve, you know. For you to believe the words of your enemy, your mind is really simple you know, Rimuru-san.」

Yuuki mockingly shrugged his shoulders.

Looking at him, Diablo and Milim gnashed their teeth while shooting nothing but death glares towards Yuuki. However, the aura emanated from Yuuki which was incomparable from before, coerced and made them unable to move their body at all.

What a terrifying growth――No, evolution.

Our weapons were of equal class, but I felt mine was inferior.

Veldanava Sword didn't budge even after it was struck by Veldora Sword.

And, Yuuki who wielded it skillfully parried the impact unlike Velda.

「How did you get this much power?」

「I don't feel I need to tell you, but I did make you wait for 1 month, so I guess I could tell you that much. It's really simple; I just suppressed Velda and turned him into my subordinate. After I fully analyzed his power, I also completely analyzed Velda's knowledge and understood all of it. Thanks to that, I could easily get the power of an awakened Hero too. Lucky for me, I also stole some of Leon's power. After that, I just changed our relationship from fifty-fifty relation into a complete domination with me in charge. Oh yeah, it was easy because Rimuru-san had crushed Velda's hope and broke his heart. Thanks for that.」

Yuuki replied while smiling.

I regretted asking since what this guy said didn't always mean the truth.

I was curious and unintentionally asked, but I could get deceived again if I carelessly speak with him.

Although I had pompously reprimanded Mai, it wasn't funny that I also got deceived. Talking with him anymore than this was dangerous and I would rather concentrate on the fight with my full power.

"I assume that Yuuki's words just now are true, but I agree that talking more than this is dangerous."

Ciel seemed to have sensed the danger too and agreed with my opinion.

A top class trickster was so troublesome to deal with.

As I took pride that I wouldn't be deceived easily, I felt angry that I ended up being led around by the nose by someone. However, if I got caught in it too much, it would lead to a great failure.

I couldn't really laugh at Mai with this.

From our conversation just now, Yuuki had said that he got the power of an awakened Hero. Then, it wouldn't be strange for him to have the power of an awakened demon lord too even if he didn't say it.

After all, his subordinate, Kazaream was also an awakened demon lord.

Hero and Demon Lord, powers of different natures were united in the same Will called Velda, and a being who could control that power as it pleased――that would be what Yuuki had become now.

Surprisingly, it was clear that the current Yuuki had power equal to me.

「However, for Rimuru-san to be the one who had『Raphael』. I had thought that was possible and it seems I was correct. Since my plan didn't work out smoothly, I suspected you might have anticipated them. But, who would have thought that the Skill Velda wanted the most was in the hands of Rimuru-san, his greatest enemy. That really made Velda look like a clown. He's so laughable, isn't he?」

As soon as I thought about ending our conversation, Yuuki spoke as if to block me from doing so.

I heard a pleasant tone echoed from Yuuki's voice as if he sincerely thought that Velda was hilarious.

What a tough opponent.

I parried Yuuki's sword and slashed him back while keeping my mouth shut.

「Ahaha. Don't be so wary like that. You see, Velda believed that he was Veldanava's reincarnation. There's no way that could be true, what a foolish guy. It was no more than an ability. It was Veldanava's original ability, so I had him inherit all of the memories. In other words, Velda was just a similar existence like Kondou and Damrada whom were called back with Memory Orb. He's a pathetic Manas that's even inferior to the irregular being like Rudra. What a fool, isn't he? A tool that didn't even have a shred of dragon factor and yet he misunderstood everything. However, even a fool like Velda was capable enough as support for me. After all, I can control all of Veldanava's abilities now!」

Yuuki kept on blabbering about things even though I wasn't asking, Was his plan to confuse me with the conversation?

However, his plan was actually quite successful.

It was because it made me unable to concentrate very well. Even though we were in the midst of a fight, Yuuki's words disturbed my thoughts.

Good grief, what a really troublesome guy he was.

Nonetheless, if what Yuuki had said was true, I could understand how he got the power equal to mine.

It was probably true that Velda was a Manas. An existence that assisted all of your abilities was very helpful, just like Ciel-san.

Even if it was a spell formulation with difficult control, it could activate it as your proxy. In other words, while you are concentrating in close combat like this, further attacks could be prepared without your opponent sensing them.

However, I couldn't comprehend why Yuuki would bother to tell me that.

I suspected the motive behind it whether it was also one of his plans. The existence of a Manas itself could be considered as a very important trump card that should be hidden, after all, I naturally felt the desire to find out his goal for telling me that.

No, I suppose making me worried like this was what Yuuki expected, there would be no end if I kept on thinking about it.

I earnestly reconfirmed that Yuuki was a very troublesome enemy for me.

「You said that can control all of Veldanava's powers? Don't get conceited, you lowly human!」

Guy who was listening to me and Yuuki's conversation, shouted while glaring at Yuuki with his crimson eyes blazed with fury.

As if they were following his lead, Velzard and Velgrind also nodded.

「That's right! In the first place, it was me who sealed Veldanava's holy corpse. As long as the seal is not broken, there's no way someone like you can control all of the powers!」

Thus, Ramiris instinctively shouted.

When he heard that, Yuuki wickedly grinned and smiled.

――Eh, wait a minute? Why did Ramiris blabber about such important information so easily like that? No matter how careless and scatterbrained Ramiris was, this was clearly strange...

「Too bad! Your seal was pointless. If I make you angry, why don't you release the seal and check it yourself?」

「Don't you dare make fun of me! Okay, let me do that――」

I was convinced when I saw Ramiris was about to respond to Yuuki's provocation.

「Diablo, stop Ramiris!」

「As you wish.」

Diablo moved promptly to my order.

Gently, but assuredly.

He locked up Ramiris, who was kicking up a fuss about something, inside the deployed Magic Barrier.

「Hey! What is this, Rimuru!?」

「Calm down, Yuuki's aim was for you to remove the seal, you know. Just now, you were acting according to his words.」

「Hah!?」

I calmly answered to the shout of the dissatisfied Ramiris.

Ramiris was speechless when she heard my explanation. That would make sense. After all, she probably didn't have any recollection about it.

If you only listened to the exchange of the words, it was unlikely for you to be tricked by the contents of the conversation. Yet, she unconsciously tried to act as Yuuki wanted. It was something unbelievable if you think about it calmly so I naturally thought that there was some kind of skill involved in this.

It seemed I had to make sure of this.

There was a possibility of me being manipulated too, but I decided to trust Ciel about this matter.

"Please leave it to me. I will analyze Yuuki's skills."

I spoke to Yuuki after I received the reply from the reliable Ciel.

――All this occurred while continuing to respond to the fierce sword blows without averting my sight from Yuuki.

「You're still a trickster as ever, Yuuki.」

「Ahaha, what do you mean?」

「Don't play dumb. You put Thought Guidance in your words and you could even trick those with a strong will. I'm sure that's it not a technique on the level of suggestiveness or hypnotism or something like that. It's very impressive of you.」

「Oh my, thank you. But, it's not fun now that you have seen through it though.」

「Like I care!」

Yuuki dodged my words with his aloof attitude.

Since he wasn't fazed by it, he seemed to have anticipated that things were to be seen through.

Then, this meant Thought Guidance wasn't his trump card... it might be more reliable to deal with Yuuki's words by treating them all as lies.

No, could it be that was his aim?

If he mixed a bit of truth within the lies, he could make me under the impression that even the truths were lies too.

Was it the reverse pattern of mixing a bit of lies into the truths...?

"I think that's very likely. Unfortunately, I have analyzed the wavelength pattern of all his energy including his voiceprint, but I couldn't discern whether he's lying or telling the truth."

Just as I suspected.

However, it was a pain that even Ciel was unable to tell it apart. It would be certainly difficult as we couldn't read him even from his expressions or emotions.

Then, that meant I had no other choice but to judge for myself what information that Yuuki would want me to believe was a lie?

"Additionally, I've confirmed that Yuuki's words harbored some kind of power. This is probably the Primitive Magic[1], "Power of Words[2]". I presume that Thought Guidance might have evolved."

What? "Power of Words"――you said!?

I asked Ciel-san for more details, any kind of Primitive Magic was placed on a higher rank than the magic used by Demons. She said that it was the source of all magic.

However, its characteristic wasn't manipulating physical phenomenon, but the power to affect the soul.

While it had no effect on physical matters, its effect was tremendous inside the spiritual world.

In other words, it was a terrifying magic that could exert its effect while invalidating defensive barriers. I was surprised that it could even affect strong people who had awakened an Ultimate Skill.

In addition, a being who could use this magic would become the natural enemy of any spiritual life-form.

Just like how Ramiris easily got induced now, it could affect the inside of someone's heart...

For now, our swordsmanship was on equal terms.

Neither I nor Yuuki was being impatient, but neither of us had received any blows.

Yuuki protected his whole body with a God Class Armor, but it wouldn't be able to withstand a hit from Veldora Sword.

Likewise, I wasn't confident that I could withstand a hit from Veldanava Sword. After all, I felt energy surpassing Veldora Sword from that sword.

Its power truly should be called as the incarnation of Veldanava――

「You, it can't be――you really can control Veldanava's powers?」

My hunch told me so as if I received a divine revelation.

The reason why Yuuki was buying himself time was probably to get enough power to beat us for sure.

If that was the case, it was pretty logical that meant for him to obtain Veldanava's powers.

「What the heck are talking about? There's no way that could be true.」

「That's right, Rimuru. Like I said before, if the seal is not removed――」

Guy and Ramiris were denying it, but Velzard and Velgrind were silent.

Milim was silent as well.

They probably had sensed it. The same surges as Veldanava's powers.

It was the power overflowing from the sword Yuuki wielded.

「Aha, ahahahahahahahahahaha!!」

Yuuki suddenly began to laugh as if the dam inside was now broken.

He kept laughing while blocking the blows from my sword.

Then――

「Fufu, bravo, Rimuru-san. There would be nothing at all even if that fairy over there had released the seal. I just wanted to see her face of despair when she did so. After all, it's true that I have broken the seal, you see.」

Everyone excluding me fell quiet as if they were frozen after they heard Yuuki's words.

My intuition told me that he was telling the truth.

It wasn't a lie to make me cautious. The reason was there was not much merit for him to tell such a lie.

That meant Yuuki had broken Veldanava's seal in a month.

And, the 1 month delay was for that purpose.

「Yeah, I wanted to see those faces. After all, I got really serious now. I may have lost the game to end the world using my tools, but wouldn't it be fine for me to have some fun until the end?」

Yuuki was laughing as if he was having fun from the bottom of his heart right now.

[1] 原初の魔法(プリミティブマジック) Gensho no Mahō (Purimitibu Majikku). Original/Primal/Primordial Magic.

[2] 言霊 Kotodama. Spirit of Language/Spirit of Words/Soul of Language/Magic Words/Power Words/Sacred Words. This refers to the Japanese belief that mystical powers dwell in words and names. Names and words have special powers that can influence our surroundings, both in a positive and negative way.