THE CONSPIRATORS: THE PONTIFF OF THE WORD OF GOD

"I see… My team of Word of God intelligence agents who were hiding disguised as robbers has all been wiped out?"

My subordinate nods meekly.

"Yes, sir. However, the spies who have been long disguised as residents of Keren County, merchants, and so on are unharmed. And since other robbers besides our disguised agents were killed as well, it would appear the thieves were the target, not our agents."

I cannot help but sigh at this report. This all started when the disguised intelligence team we'd sent into Sariella was destroyed. And those who were disguised as robbers suddenly dropped all communication.

We hurried to investigate, but we were not prepared for what we discovered.

"Dear me. We have an unexpected interloper on our hands."

You must forgive me for the idle complaint.

After all, a major part of the network we were setting up in Sariella has suddenly been crushed by the appearance of a powerful outsider.

I review the report once more. It contains information on the mysterious monster that suddenly appeared in the labyrinth and exhibited inexplicable behavior: the Nightmare.

These documents include all the tracks that we know to be connected with the Nightmare.

A postscript on the final page describes the aboveground appearance of a queen taratect at the same time as the Nightmare's discovery, complete with an eyewitness account from the oldest Divine Beast.

If the Nightmare is a spider-type monster, it must be the offspring of Lady Ariel.

One can only wonder why Lady Ariel would do such a thing when she has hitherto never intervened with worldly goings-on, but it is impossible to divine meaning behind her movements and the Nightmare's alike.

It looked as if Lady Ariel was searching for something, but in my later investigations, I have been unable to determine what she might have been attempting to find.

The Nightmare's behavior is yet more mysterious. I do not understand what thoughts motivate its actions. At times it helps people, and at other times it attacks them. If all this is in accordance with orders from Lady Ariel, the intent is completely lost on me.

"Well? Are there any signs that the Nightmare might know about the other spies?"

"Not at the moment."

What is Lady Ariel trying to do?

Surely she did not simply set out to dispose of some robbers.

Am I to take this as a warning to us? Perhaps she means to tell us not to lay a hand on the land of Sariella.

However, I cannot agree to such a request. In which case, our only option is to observe with utmost vigilance. And Lady Ariel is not the only one to watch.

"Do we know whose employ the other thieves were under?"

"It seems they were members of a human trafficking organization operating not just in Sariella but all over the world. And the masterminds behind this organization are the elves."

I already half expected my subordinate's reply. The elves. Potimas Harrifenas. What in the world has moved him to create a human trafficking organization?

I cannot say, but surely any actions taken by that man will cause more harm to the world than good. I must expose and stop him at once.

But right now, we must deal with the Goddess followers first. Until we clean up this problem, we will never be able to stop a worldwide human trafficking organization. Our forces are so concentrated on the Goddess at this stage that we simply do not have the resources to spare. We have already made up our minds to destroy the Goddess's religion. Ariel's unknown machinations concern me, but we cannot change our plans now. We have prepared too much. The deaths of some intelligence agents disguised as thieves will have no great bearing on our plan. That damn lord of Keren County has made great efforts to avoid war with Ohts, but the center of Sariella is beginning to lean toward open conflict. Little do they know that we have been slowly guiding them toward it all along. If a spark emerges with Ohts, it is sure to spread into a wildfire all on its own.

Sariella's Goddess religion despises the Word of God, and we Followers of the Word of God view them as heathens in turn. With the coals of hatred already thus ignited, one simply needs to prod those embers until they burst into the flame of war. Quite laughable, when one considers that the Goddess and the Word of God are in fact one and the same.

"Shall I continue the report?"

Oh dear. I must be more mindful.

I let my thoughts wander in the middle of listening to the briefing. It is a bad habit of mine.

"The robbers have all been wiped out, but there are still elves remaining in Keren County, sneaking about on business unknown. Shall we eliminate them?"

The elves are still lurking about after their forces have been destroyed?

To what end?

According to the reports, the elves have taken aim at Lord Keren and his family not once but twice. Is Lord Keren their target? However, I cannot imagine why Potimas would have any need to target Lord Keren. There is no connection between them to my knowledge. For that matter, I do not understand his motivation behind carrying out human trafficking in various places, either. Kidnapping. What does he aim to accomplish by stealing away a great deal of children?

No, wait. Is it the opposite? Could it be that he needs not a great deal of children but a select few, and he has made this large-scale operation to mask that fact?

But why would he go to such extreme lengths? What kind of child could possibly be worth that much trouble? I do not have enough information to determine that.

Any further contemplation would be mere speculation—nay, delusions. However, it does seem quite possible that he is targeting specific children. If so, could the elves' target in Keren County be not Lord Keren but his child? That is certainly worth considering.

Once the problem of the Goddess worshippers is dealt with, it may be the hint that helps me expose Potimas.

"Let them be. However, be sure to monitor them closely."

"Yes, sir."

Hrm.

Come to think of it, the elves have yet to target the Nightmare, even though it has now protected Lord Keren and his family from them not once but twice.

Could it be that they, too, have decided to let it swim free in order to lie in wait for an even bigger fish?

In that case, the angler in question is surely none other than Potimas Harrifenas.

The Nightmare of the Labyrinth, eh? That creature has a strong connection with the land of Ohts.

As Lady Ariel's offspring, it is doubtless potentially dangerous to meddle with, but it may yet serve our cause, as well. The best-case scenario would be if Lady Ariel and Potimas go head-to-head themselves, but it would be difficult to ensure such a thing.

This situation is likely to require a careful hand and a watchful eye.

Such a complex game we play. Who will emerge victorious?

Will it be Lady Ariel, Potimas, or myself? In any case, whoever controls the events in Keren County is sure to take the lead.

"We must be more thorough in our intelligence operations in Keren County. Send along every piece of information you can find, no matter how trivial. We had best assume the battle has already begun."

This is a true matching of wits, in which each of us tries to predict and outwit the others. Perhaps we should throw in a move of our own?

"The adventurers who encountered the Nightmare in the Great Elroe Labyrinth are in Ohts now, are they not? Send them a request, one that will not provoke their suspicion. A request that will set them up to encounter the Nightmare once again."

Now, how will our Nightmare react? Whether it helped those adventurers by chance or for some larger purpose, I should hope that it will send some kind of response. How will it warp the stone I have thrown in?

I am a weak person. The barrier covering the sky disappears in an instant. This is the barrier that has protected the elf village for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years.

All the elves except for me stare up at the sky, dumbfounded. They must be in complete shock that the barrier they thought was impenetrable is suddenly gone. This is why I tried to warn them that the barrier might vanish.

"Everyone. Please prepare yourselves for battle. They're coming."

I use Wind Magic to help my voice reach the frozen elves.

Hearing me, they all seem to gasp collectively as the tension of the current situation dawns upon them.

They must realize now that if the barrier is gone, the imperial army is going to attack.

"The barrier is broken. However, the device itself that generates the barrier is still intact. All we have to do is hold out until the barrier can be restored."

As the daughter of the chief, my voice is strongly respected by the elves.

Even now, they seem to be calming down little by little as they listen.

"Besides, this is our forest, essentially the garden of the elves. No human troops can win against us, especially here. Let us show them how foolish they are to challenge the elves in the middle of a forest."

I make up some encouraging words to stir their fighting spirit. To tell the truth, this situation is not so simple. We do have the advantage of being on home ground, but the numbers are overwhelmingly in the enemy's favor. Besides, our opponents are demons and the experienced army of the militant Renxandt Empire.

I know this will be a difficult battle. The elves must have some understanding of that, too, but morale is very important.

As the elves regain their composure and mentally prepare themselves for battle, I'm relieved that, for the time being, they seem to have overcome the shock of the barrier-breaking.

Although, to be honest, I have no idea whether the barrier will actually be restored. I do have concerns that the barrier might be irreparably broken. And I know all too well that there is a high likelihood that I am right.

Because of my unique skill.

Student Roster.

I am most likely the only person in the world with this skill.

It records a general summary of my former students' presents, pasts, and futures in their reincarnated lives.

When I close my eyes, the roster rises from deep within my mind. If I open the roster, I can see my students' names listed in order of their seat number, and when I focus on one name, I can read more information about that person.

However, the information this skill provides is exceedingly simple.

The "past" is a record of the moment they were born. It tells me where they came into this world. However, that's as far as the record goes.

The "present" summarizes the person's current condition in one word.

Healthy, Sick, Fatigued, and so on. It doesn't reveal their current location.

And then there's the "future." This part gives a rough estimation of when and how the student will die.

It uses a standard year of 365 days, with the day of my birth as the starting point. When I open the Student Roster to Kengo Natsume's name, it states that he will be killed in action in the elf forest.

Killed in action. In other words, in battle with someone.

Thanks to the scouts I've had watching him in secret, I know that he is with the imperial army right now. In other words, he was outside the barrier.

The fact that Hugo is fated to die in battle in the elf forest was a hint that their forces would find a way past the barrier.

This was why I suspected all along that the barrier might be destroyed.

And that Hugo is likely to die here. My body trembles. When I remember the names of the four students who have disappeared from the Student Roster, I tremble even more.

When a student dies, their name disappears from the roster.

Hugo's name, Kengo Natsume, will most likely disappear soon, too.

And unlike the previous four students, his blood will be on my hands. I thought I was prepared for that, but I still can't stop shaking.

It takes everything I have just to hide this from the elves. If they think I'm trembling in fear, the morale I raised will quickly plummet.

Then we won't be able to take on the imperial army. How did it come to this? I only wanted to save all my students. In my previous life, I was a teacher.

Being a teacher was my dream from a very young age. I always wanted to be the kind of teacher who could share a laugh with her students. And I spared no effort to make that happen.

That meant learning about anything that children of the current generation would be interested in.

Games, manga, novels, the Internet… I tried to develop an interest in anything I thought I might be able to talk to them about.

I might have actually gotten addicted to those things…

Ultimately, I changed my manner of speech, invented a new persona, and became the kind of strange, slightly pathetic teacher I thought would be easiest to befriend.

I may have gotten carried away with the "pathetic" part, but that's all right.

Still, I couldn't help but wonder. Was this really enough? Was it really my dream to laugh with my students as a fake me?

But I was too afraid to show them my true self and shatter the image I had worked so hard to build up.

In the end, I spent my days contenting myself with the situation I'd created. Then I was reincarnated into another world. My last memories are of teaching my class. Then my recollections of that life cut off abruptly, and the next thing I knew, I was a baby. The time until I understood what was happening was very difficult.

Since I was a baby who had just been born, I could scarcely move my body, and my eyes and ears weren't fully functioning. I must confess I flew into a panic then, crying and shrieking.

When my eyes could finally see and I realized that I'd become a baby, I was even more shocked than before. For one thing, the ears of the people around me were long and pointy.

Thanks to the nerdy knowledge I'd spent so long accumulating, I knew right away that they were elves. And I understood my own situation, too. Reincarnation in another world. It's very trendy in stories online right now, and I'd been sucked into such a story. But I am weak.

I couldn't be strong and build a brand-new life for myself like the protagonists of those novels. I couldn't give up my old identity. As I was overwhelmed with confusion, I latched on to one specific part of that identity. I am a teacher.

Meaning I have to prioritize my students above all else. That's the ideal teacher I always wanted to become. Fortunately for me, I was born with a very convenient skill for this task. The Student Roster skill. However, the information I learned from that skill only threw me into despair.

Most of my students would die within less than twenty years. Unable to accept the facts, I hid trembling from reality for several days. However, reality did not change, and I couldn't stop time only by ignoring it.

Then I noticed something. The name of the student whose time of death was the earliest, who was written to die while still a baby, had disappeared.

My roster had an empty space. When I saw this, I knew I had to do something. Of the remaining students, ten were set to die within two or three years.

I used the abilities we know as "skills" to try to do something about it. If a mysterious power like the Student Roster skill existed in this world, surely there must be a skill like Telepathy, too. Thus, I paid skill points to acquire the Telepathy skill.

Fortunately for me, my father is Potimas, the chief of the elves.

The average person would likely question their sanity if their infant daughter started suddenly talking about reincarnation and such, but Potimas accepted my story easily. As it turned out, Potimas already thought of me as a special case from the beginning.

At any rate, though it was risky, I took the bet and was able to convince Potimas to promise to protect the reincarnations. The rest was simple. I could tell from the "past" descriptions in my Student Roster where my students were born. We simply needed to search in those areas.

Unfortunately, there were a few students we couldn't reach in time, but we were able to secure most of them safely.

Sometimes we accomplished this with money, other times with…

Well, there's no point in mincing words—with kidnapping. This was, of course, a crime.

But the elves did not hesitate to carry it out. The elves have their own motivations, you see.

Their goal is a world with as few skills as possible, in order to best combat the administrators.

And as it happens, reincarnations are born with a great deal of skill points, along with a single extra-strong skill.

If such a reincarnation was to acquire and strengthen a lot of skills, then according to the elves, they might catch the eyes of the administrators and be exploited for their purposes.

I have good reason to believe this story. One of the causes of death listed in my Student Roster is "divested of skills."

Even now, it's still listed as the cause for Shun and Katia, among others.

Initially, most of my students were fated to die for this reason.

I suspect this would indicate death brought about by an administrator.

Now that many of my students are in the elf village in an environment where they can't improve their skills, the number of skill-related deaths on my list has decreased.

The "future" information changes fairly frequently. However, no matter what I do, there are students whose predetermined causes of death still have not changed from "divested of skills."

Worse, all these deaths are meant to happen at the same time.

This year. And I have no information about the future past that point.

Aside from the students who are meant to die this year, the others' "future" information is all blank.

Just thinking about what that might mean frightens me. My own name is not listed on my roster, you see.

That's only natural. After all, I am a teacher, not a student.

I don't have any information about my own fate. But it's easy to draw conclusions.

The students who are still fated to die by being divested of their skills are those with a great deal of skills. And I have a great deal of skills as well.

Most likely, I am going to die along with them.

I assume I don't have any information past that point because I'll be dead by then. I'm scared. I don't want to die. I thought about using Skill Elimination.

But I need to keep the power of my skills at least until I've dealt with Hugo. Besides, if I did use Skill Elimination to erase my skills, I don't know what the elves would do.

Skill Elimination essentially surrenders your power to the administrators. If I give their opponent my power, the elves may start to view me as an enemy.

I have no doubt that Potimas would be willing to purge me without even the slightest change in his expression. Even more importantly, that might endanger my students who are in the elves' care. The elves are not protecting them out of goodwill, after all. That leaves only one option.

I must turn the tables on the enemy who comes to rob us of our skills, most likely an administrator. I don't know if I can even do such a thing, but I have no other choice.

But before that, I have to deal with Hugo. As his teacher, the blame lies with me for letting him end up like this. I must take responsibility for that.

…And Hugo isn't the only case for which I need to take responsibility. I recall Kudo's cold eyes glaring at me.

Am I doing a good job of protecting my students? I don't really know. Perhaps if I told them everything, they wouldn't hate me so much, but there is one curse associated with the Student Roster. Namely, students are forbidden from reading it. In other words, I cannot tell my students anything I have learned from the Student Roster.

I don't know what the penalty is for breaking that rule, but I can't afford to take any unnecessary risks. No matter how I attempt to explain it to the students, there would be no avoiding mention of the Student Roster. And so, I have no choice but to keep silent. As of now, the only problem it's caused is a bit of resentment for me. My students' dissatisfaction hasn't yet reached an explosive breaking point.

In that case, being hated by one's students is simply part of a teacher's job. I ought to just resign myself to their enmity.

This sort of thing is no big deal.

…That's a lie.

It breaks my heart.

I'm not strong enough.

I'm frightened.

I don't want to die, and I don't want any of them to die, either.

Am I doing the right thing?

Have I made a mistake?

Am I doing a good job as their teacher?

Someone, please tell me.

"Ms. Ooookaaaa! Aw yeah, this is perfect! So nice of you to come out to meet me!"

Hugo appears, along with the imperial army.

He's their general, yet he's charging ahead at the front.

"I'm happy to see you, too."

I'm not really happy, of course. But I have to scold a student who's chosen the wrong path. I don't know if that's really the right thing to do. But I have no choice but to do it.

Because I'm their teacher.