I’M STUFFED
Right now, I’m locked in a desperate battle.
Things aren’t looking good.
It’s been a long time since I faced a predicament like this.
But that doesn’t mean I’m going to give up!
I will win!
No matter what it takes!
“U…urgh!”
“Miss, you don’t need to force yourself to finish it, all right? If you’re full, it’s okay to leave some on the plate.”
That’s nice of you, lady, but there’s no way in hell!
I refuse to leave a speck of food on this plate!
That’s right. I’m eating my lunch in the inn’s mess hall right now.
And eating, and eating, and eating!
“Hurk!”
“See? You’ve clearly reached your limit, young lady! You’ve been at it for almost an hour now, but if you can’t eat it, then that’s that.”
Delicious food is right before my eyes.
As you may have guessed from the presence of those adventurer assholes from earlier, this inn is for the general public, so it’s not fancy like the kind of place nobles might stay.
And all the food definitely emphasizes quantity over quality!
Bam! Tons of bread!
Boom! Tons of veggies!
Pow! Tons of meat!
And so on.
But this lady must be a pretty good cook, because even though the food is humble, it’s also surprisingly flavorful and hearty.
That’s right. It’s delicious.
It’s delicious, but I can’t quite finish it!
“Urrrrgh!”
I groan despite myself.
How can I possibly leave this delicious food unfinished?
No! Noooo! I won’t do it!
But my stomach has reached its limit, my throat is closing up shop, and my mouth refuses to take another bite.
My body won’t listen to me. I’ve been betrayed!
What insanity is this?!
How can I allow such a terrible tragedy?
I can’t, obviously!
“Wehhh…”
“Miss?! Please don’t cry, miss! There, there, it’s all right. Okay?”
The nice lady comforts me, but that doesn’t change the reality that I can’t finish the food in front of me.
The greatest misfortune that’s befallen me since becoming a god is the fact that I can’t eat as much as I used to.
Battle power?
That’s not nearly as important as food!
Until now, with my monster body and Satiation skill, I could eat way more than you would think possible just from looking at me.
Thanks to that, it’s been ages since I last experienced the feeling of being too stuffed to eat another bite.
I just ate and drank as much as I wanted.
But now that I’m a god, the tiniest amount of food makes me totally full!
Thinking about it, it’s pretty obvious that without the Satiation skill, I’d be able to eat only the same amount as an average person.
If anything, Hiiro Wakaba’s body always had a small appetite, so I need only about half the amount of food most people might eat to feel full.
Yeah. If I remember right, cup ramen or a convenience-store bento box was enough to satisfy me.
Depending on which kind, sometimes I couldn’t even finish the whole bento box.
So since my current body is based on that, it’s no wonder I suddenly have a small appetite.
My heart wants to keep eating, but my body refuses to accept it.
Do you have any idea how awful that feels?!
Even now, no matter how much I want to finish the food in front of me, just looking at it makes my body want to puke a little bit!
Uuurgh, this is the worst.
What did I do to deserve this, God?
Okay, I know I’ve done plenty of bad stuff, but still.
Not to mention, god in this world mostly refers to that awful you-know-who…
Unreal.
Absolutely, positively unreal…
Utterly heartbroken, I push the cold food in front of me over to Sael, who’s sitting across from me.
Sael has already demolished a giant plate of her own, but like most spider monsters, she has the Satiation skill, so she can eat a lot more than you’d expect.
Even though her actual body is a palm-size spider, the skill allows her to eat several times her own body weight in no time flat.
She may have had the same meal I did, but I bet she can still finish my leftovers.
In fact, it’s been a while now since Sael finished eating, so I bet she’s already getting hungry again.
Ugh, to think that I of all people would have to relinquish my food to someone else!
Sael looks at my face, then my plate of food, then at the chef lady, then back at me and my food…
Uh, don’t get stuck in an infinite loop, okay?
Just eat it already, dammit!
Sael doesn’t seem to be able to escape the loop, so I just shove some food into her mouth.
Why are these little girls each so unique anyway?
Shouldn’t they all be more like their mom, the Demon Lord?
Since she made them with the Egg-Laying skill, they’re basically just inferior clones of her, y’know.
So why does she produce such weirdos?
Yeah, I said it. Weirdos.
They’re weird, okay?
Except for maybe Ael. Thank goodness for her.
Sometimes I feel like Ael’s the only one holding the puppet posse together.
For a second, it occurs to me that there might’ve been more individuals like Ael among the puppet spiders I killed a long time ago.
When the Demon Lord and I were still at war, I killed no less than seven puppet spiders.
The four who are around now are the only survivors from that battle.
When I think about it that way, my relationship with the idiot who’s stuffing her face mindlessly with food in front of me (also known as Sael) is actually pretty complicated.
Luckily, all three of them except for Ael are idiots, meaning they don’t really think about that kind of thing and warmed up to me pretty quickly, but I bet Ael and the Demon Lord herself had some thoughts about it when we first teamed up.
I’m guessing Ael just calculated that it was in her own best interest to accept me quickly.
In that regard, she’s definitely the talented eldest sister.
It’s entirely possible that some of the other puppet spiders I killed were just as talented as Ael or maybe even more so.
If that was the case, it might’ve been easier to keep these idiots in check.
I imagine it for a moment.
Picture this: a total of ten little girls milling about.
Each of them acts on their own, so Ael just throws in the towel and lets them do whatever they want.
What is this supposed to be, a preschool?!
…Okay.
I hate to say it, but I’m glad there are only four of them.
Since there are only three problem children, Ael can handle them just fine.
Yeah. I just gotta stay positive.
Sael looks at me in confusion as she demolishes the last of my food.
Well, since she’s a puppet spider, her face doesn’t actually change, but I can pretty much tell at this point how she’s feeling anyway.
Looking at Sael’s blank expression, I shrug and pat her on the head.
That night, the Demon Lord returns with a troubled look on her face.
The baby bloodsucker looks furious, too.
Something must have happened.
“I have two pieces of bad news,” the Demon Lord begins once we’ve all gathered together.
Unlike the baby bloodsucker, she doesn’t quite look murderous, but her brow is furrowed deeply.
The Demon Lord is usually pretty easygoing, so when she’s this serious, it usually means trouble.
“First, it looks like we’ll have to stay in this town for a few days.”
I tilt my head in confusion.
Our plan was to gather supplies for crossing the Mystic Mountains and leave right away, since this is the best time of year to make the journey.
This world does have seasons, even if they’re not as dramatically different as in Japan.
Right now, it’s technically summer.
It’s kind of chilly outside, but still.
The Mystic Mountains are so cold that they’re covered in snow all year long.
If we don’t cross while the weather is even slightly warmer than usual, it’s gonna be a rough trip.
Before my deification, we might’ve been able to push through even in winter, but now I’m way too much of a burden for something so adventurous.
Because of me, we can’t use the route we originally planned: the shortest way across that the Demon Lord took on her way here.
I mean, we’re talking hundreds of miles of mountain, y’know?
I can’t even stroll across a flat plain without passing out!
Therefore, our new plan is to wind through the gaps between the mountains, avoiding high elevations as much as we can.
It’s still gonna be tough, but it’s the best we can do.
This roundabout route is gonna take way longer, and considering the possibility of unforeseen occurrences, it’s in our best interest to leave as soon as possible.
If we miss this chance, we’ll have to hang out in this town for a whole year until summer comes around again.
So why would we be staying in town any longer than necessary?
“The road we’re supposed to take is under a blockade. Apparently some super-evil monster has appeared, see. It’s an ogre, but it’s killed a bunch of adventurers already, so they’re saying it’s too dangerous to leave town. What awful timing, right?”
That makes sense, unfortunately.
The lady who made me lunch mentioned something about a dangerous ogre, too, come to think of it.
For the safety of the townspeople, it’s only natural that they wouldn’t want anyone to go in the direction where a dangerous monster’s lurking about.
But still, considering that the Demon Lord’s strong enough to crush some stupid ogre with one finger, it’s a bit pointless to insist that she not leave town.
“So we’re stuck here until they get rid of that ogre. The imperial army’s apparently putting together a whole big squad to take care of it, so we’ll just have to wait it out till then.”
Gotcha.
So we have to chill out in this town for a few days until they take care of that ogre, huh?
And wait a sec, they’re bringing in the army?
Guess this ogre must be stronger than I thought.
I’m sure the Demon Lord could still beat it with one punch, though.
In fact, wouldn’t it be faster for her to go take care of it herself?
She’s technically got an adventurer permit, so why doesn’t she just beat the ogre as an adventurer or whatever?
“Why don’t you just defeat the ogre yourself, Miss Ariel?”
Ooh, looks like Vampy was thinking the same thing.
“Hrmmm. We don’t wanna stand out here, so I’d like to leave that as a last resort. Plus, there’s supposed to be some famous mage and swordsman in the army that’s coming, so we wouldn’t want to pick a fight with them.”
The Demon Lord doesn’t seem to want in on the whole ogre-hunting biz.
I can’t imagine that the army would be upset if the Demon Lord beat the ogre first, and even if they were, I’m sure she’s strong enough to handle them.
But it’d still be a pain for sure, and in the worst-case scenario, it could slow down our trip through the Mystic Mountains even further.
Since the imperial army’s supposedly gonna beat this ogre without her help, I guess she’d rather just wait until they take care of it for her.
We’re probably only delaying our departure by a few days, so it shouldn’t affect our journey anyway.
If it were a few weeks, that’d be another story.
“So we’re going to sit tight until the ogre gets beaten. Merazophis, be careful not to draw any attention, all right?”
“Of course.”
Mera nods.
If anyone was going to cause a problem here, it’d be Mera.
Sael and I do run the risk of being spotted as monsters, but that just means we have to stay out of sight as much as possible.
As a natural shut-in, I have no problem with staying inside, and I don’t wanna go out into the sun anyway.
And Sael wouldn’t go outside unless she was specifically told to do so.
But Mera’s situation is different.
He and the baby bloodsucker are vampires.
The little one’s a Progenitor, so her title cancels out normal vampire weaknesses, like sunlight and needing to periodically drink blood.
But Mera doesn’t have that advantage.
He takes a small amount of damage if sunlight touches him, and he has to drink blood occasionally.
The latter is the real monkey wrench. It means Mera has to attack people and drink their blood.
And not just any blood. Human blood is by far the most effective.
The blood of monsters like us gives him only enough energy to hold him over temporarily.
Since Mera used to be a human, drinking human blood is the only way to keep him going, for whatever reason.
Okay, I don’t understand the specifics, but basically it means he has to drink human blood to get the results he needs.
Which means he’s been attacking humans every night to drink their blood whenever we visit a town, but now the Demon Lord’s saying he has to cut that out.
We wouldn’t want to draw the imperial army’s attention.
“Fortunately, I have some in reserve, so I’ll be all right.”
Mera’s not talking about carrying around bottles of blood or anything like that.
Since his Vampire skill has leveled up, he gained the ability to stash the blood he drinks inside his body.
He can gradually stockpile any excess blood, so now he can go for a short while without drinking blood if he absolutely needs to.
“So yeah, that’s the first problem, but it’s not super-serious. It’s the other problem that’s kind of the big one.”
The Demon Lord crosses her arms, still looking serious.
For some reason, though, something about her expression says that she’s not quite convinced.
What in the world happened?
“To sum it up, we just got attacked by a group of elves.”
The Demon Lord is saying that our greatest enemy of all, the elves, has just come after us.
After two years of unnerving silence, Potimas has made an assassination attempt.
Good !