Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka?

I’m chased.

I run away.

I use obstructions.

Yep.

This is repeating.

What?

Wadda ya mean the depiction stinks?

You can say it all you want but I can’t do anything about it anyway.

There’s not really anything worth talking about, okay.

Fine, there are some changes that come with the passage of time.

Moment by moment my clones encroach onto Kuro’s zone, so little by little their influence strengthens.

On top of that, as Kuro is also obstructing that, the rate of progress is at a tortoise pace.

Of course Kuro knows that if his zone is completely overwritten then it’ll be bad for him, so he’s using the power of his zone to slow the movements of my clones.

It’s really plain but this is still a proper fight.

I just can’t describe it properly.

After all, it’s plain.

In the first place it seems likely to take a heck of a long time to paint over Kuro’s zone.

I’ve been running around all over the place for a while now but is there no end in sight to the zone?

Whee, it’s huuuge!

Nai wa.

No matter how hard my clones push to errode it, doesn’t it seem impossible to paint over the whole thing?

I don’t know how big this thing is in practice, but at the current pace I doubt this will end in a day or two.

But hey, “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” and all that, right?

Emotionally it feels like picking up the gravel along a thousand mile journey one by one and then painting them.

That way I’ll repaint those thousand miles in a new colour.

Hehe, I’ve not advanced a single step yet.

But anyway, while it might look like a plain battle visually, I’m actually super serious about doing it okay!?

Look, consider a marathon or similar, from the viewer’s perspective it’s just a contest about running on and on, yeah?

But, for the athletes themselves they’re basically having to keep running through an awful lot of pain.

This is the same!

It might seem plain, but I’m seriously battling with my life on the line here, so don’t call it plain!

I can’t help it seeming to be plain and it taking a long time, but this is a life and death situation for me you jerk!

Ah man, seriously.

This sure is taking a long time.

Just how many days is it going to take to reach a damn conclusion, I wonder.

If it goes badly maybe a month.

It won’t take a whole year, surely.

Or rather, this taking a long time is actually worse for Kuro anyway.

I don’t know how much of my plan has been figured out by Kuro, but the longer this takes the more advantageous it is for me.

At any rate, while this is going on I’m still continuing with hacking the System after all.

With enough time I will be able to gain complete control over the System, upon which I’ll immediately collapse the System, using the energy that the System was preserving to then regenerate this planet and release the Goddess.

In doing so, skills and status values will be stripped from the people.

The more skills they have and the higher their status values the greater the burden it will be on them, and because their souls have been weakened due to multiple reincarnations they won’t be able to withstand that, so they’ll die.

In the worst case their souls will also be extinguished.

In my forecasts, including the chaos caused by the System collapsing, the number of people who’ll survive is half what it is now in the best case.

The worst case?

Zero, naturally.

Well, see, it’s like that.

Well basically, the surviving people surely won’t be dumb enough to do something stupid in a situation like that, hopefully.

At any rate, I’ve put a filter on the reincarnators such that they’ll survive and I plan to make sure that they won’t be affected by the aftermath of the System collapsing at least, plus there’s others who’ve helped me that I’ll put through the same treatment, so there shouldn’t be a situation where there’s no survivors.

If it still ends up with zero left, that would only be because after the System collapses everyone sits around nonchalantly doing nothing right?

If they go that far it’s not my problem.

I won’t babysit them to that extent.

The Goddess can’t accept such a scenario.

Which is why Kuro is taking action according to the Goddess’s will.

That being the case, I would expect that this stalemate situation would not be good for Kuro.

The longer this takes, the closer we get to going over the time limit where I can activate my plan after all.

Hrmm.

In which case, how much Kuro knows would have various effects on the current situation.

Firstly, in the scenario where Kuro knows nothing.

That’s totally to my advantage.

After all, it means I can simply keep things as they are until Kuro runs out of time.

By the time Kuro will have noticed, that ship would have already sailed.

Whether I win or lose, by the time we return everything would be over, the end.

Secondly, in the scenario where Kuro knows there’s a time limit.

We can split this scenario into two alternatives.

The first alternative is one where he’s waiting for an opportunity.

Perhaps he has concealed some kind of killer technique that is capable of defeating me and is preparing to activate it.

Or otherwise, he’s playing for time like me.

This alternative wouldn’t be a particularly welcome situation for me.

As it would mean that one way or another he is advancing some strategy that I cannot detect and is bad for me.

That being said, if he has some kind of killer technique that’s capable of killing me, then he should have used it first during the surprise attack, so if he’s still playing for time then I don’t have the slightest idea what he’s using that time for.

After all, I want to play for time as well.

Hrmm-mm.

I dunno!

The second alternative is well, I rather doubt it but one where Kuro genuinely is at a loss at how to go on the offensive.

Perhaps he is aware that the more time that passes the more advantageous it is for me.

However, he’s not able to attack.

Something like that.

Well, surely not.

After all, Kuro is far higher ranked than me after all.

That’s surely more unlikely than how things are now where I’ve been able to recover from the surprise attack by a rather unbelievable amount.

Just what the heck are you planning?

I’m scared because I can’t figure it out.

Hmm.

Seriously, what are you planning?

In what kind of situation would it be an advantage for Kuro to play for time?

Nobody on Kuro’s side should be able to exceed my expectations.

In which case, is there someone on Kuro’s side that I’m not aware of?

Even then, I can’t imagine that being the case though.

Have I overlooked something?

Unlikely.

In that case what is Kuro aiming for?

Seriously… I got no idea at all!

Sigh.

I guess it’s no use thinking about things I don’t know huh.

I better concentrate on the battle in front of me.

Even if it might be plain to describe.

Even if it might be plain to describe!

Oh?

Kuro is preparing to teleport?

Perhaps he’s judged that so much distance has opened up between us that he won’t be able to catch up without leaping through space?

Eh?

But, even so, that’s a bad move you know?

Kuro activates the teleport.

He’s trying to link space to an area right in front of me.

「Guhah!?

」However, I interfere with the technique.

Due to that the technique is disturbed, with the resulting distortion causing Kuro to take damage as he tries to jump through space.

It’s like he was about to jump through an open door, but then the door was locked shut and he carried on moving and collided with it.

The situation is completely different, but it’s something along those lines.

Incidentally, the cause of the door being locked was my interference with the technique.

Currently in this zone, Kuro’s zones and my zones are mixed together, so it’s become an unstable place where we can each obstruct the other.

If you try to activate a high level space technique like teleport in such a place, it’s obvious that the opponent will interfere with the technique, resulting in it failing.

However, rather than it simply failing to activate, the interference will cause it to explode like just now.

It could even cause major damage.

For him to make such an elementary mistake, just what is going on?

Seriously… I can’t figure out Kuro’s intentions.