(Is there any point in me being here?)

　When I returned to the room, pedestal-chan was giving off a gloomy aura.

(An isolated room that no one visits anymore... there's no need for the pedestal there to have a will.)

　Well, it certainly wouldn't make sense.
　I won't deny it. I won't deny it....

'Still, you're the lucky one, little pedestal.
Well, that's not very comforting.
It's just a matter of time.

　I interrupted the telepathic conversation and picked up the dagger resting on top of the pedestal-chan.

This is it. You know, maybe it's someone's reincarnated form?
(What?　(You don't know that!)

　I nodded silently at the screaming rebuttal.

'Yes, I don't know. Who knows? Maybe the walls in this room are also reincarnated, or maybe the floor is too. Maybe it's the spear in the wall, maybe it's the floor. But no matter what these guys complain about, no one will notice.

　Have you ever imagined that the tools you have around you actually have a will?
　That the tools you see around you actually have a will.
　That they actually have a heart, and that they are always talking to you.

　Of course, it's a delusional sort of thing, and it's easy to snicker at it.
　No one can hear an inorganic voice.

(It's...)

　But that's why you can't deny me my words, pedestal girl.
　Because I'm the only one who is involved.

'What do you think would have happened if Daiza-chan didn't have the ability to talk to me?　You couldn't even get the pedestal to notice me, could you?

　If you check with your appraisal eye, you can notice the abnormality of the magic waves, so you can send a telepathic message from me to Daiza-chan.
　But if you don't hear a voice, it's doubtful that you even used your appraisal eye in the first place.

''I might have also decided that the pledges were elsewhere and escaped from this secret room prematurely.

　He tossed the dagger in his hand and tapped the wall with a conk.
　With the will to destroy this room with the will to destroy this room if I wanted to.

'And why I was reincarnated on a pedestal I can't even think about that. Most incarnations are accidental, you know.
(G: Coincidence...)

　Yes, most incarnations that are not divinely mediated are a twist of fate.
　The reincarnation of pedestal-chan into a pedestal is like an accident.
　There's no point in seeking a solution.

'The cheat ability is obtained by hooking up the Power of Isolated Genri in the conduit between dimensions as the soul moves between worlds. That's the reason why many summoned heroes and reincarnated people have cheats. Daiza-chan happened to obtain a telepathic cheat in such a situation. That's why she was able to have a conversation with me right away. I was really lucky.

　A strange silence fell over the room as I cowered my shoulders and finished my story.

(I see ... I was lucky.)

　Eventually, I heard a muttered voice.
　A voice with mixed emotions, sad and happy, echoed in my head.

(Mr. Sakagagi, you are so kind, aren't you?)
What?
(For saying such kind words to me like that. It was a bit warm.)

　Hmm, I just wanted to cough up the negative aura of the pedestal-chan that was leaking out....
　Well, let's just leave it at that.



　Then we talked about other trivial things for a while again.
　We went back to the topic of "what is this place after all?" again.

(Hmmm, I don't know what it is after all!)
No, we already know what room we're in, don't we?
(What?!)

　I popped the surprised pedestal and looked towards the door.

I found a strange pattern on the stairway a while ago. That's probably the mark of an evil god.
An evil god?
It means he's a bad god.

　Well, what's bad in the eyes of everyone depends on who you are at the time.
　The monster gods of evil are naturally evil to humans, but to those who worship them, they are a reassuring backbone.
　The god of war is good if he's your friend, but if he's your enemy, he's a god of evil who gives his soldiers a nasty blessing.

　Even if the god of destruction who leads the world to collapse has a character that delights in killing, if he fulfills the role of destruction for the sake of rebirth, he's not an evil god in the eyes of the entire universe.
　The god of shit is definitely the great evil god for all things, but at the same time, he's also the supreme god that controls all parallel universes.
　Just as there are irredeemable scum in humans, there are some gods that can be called absolutely evil... but there are very few gods that are only harmful to all beings.

'And this room. We have no food or water, but we have air and light. Unnatural, isn't it?
(Oh, I don't breathe or anything, so I didn't notice that at all... but sure!　(There was a chance that Mr. Reverse Hagiwara would suddenly have trouble breathing~)

　Yes. Despite the fact that it's a secret room in the basement, there is fresh air here.
　I don't have to use a breathless cheat to breathe.
　It must mean that this room has magical ventilation capabilities or that there is a place for air to come in and out from somewhere.

'A passage that doesn't let the intruder leave alive. A room where the evil priests can continue their rituals without drinking or eating. A slotted pedestal, this dagger, and ... I'm out, this summoning magic circle.

　He crouched near a magic circle of intricate geometric patterns.
　The lines that drew them were carved into the floor as grooves, and a few of them extended from the circle toward the pedestal-chan.
　As I followed them, I ended up at a slit on the pedestal.

'This is a ritual hall. It's also for making sacrifices and summoning the Evil God's family members........''
Jeez, so I might be...
Yeah. You don't have any--

　He took the sealing beads from the item box and placed them on the pedestal.
　I released the seal and laid a girl on top of the pedestal-chan.

''This is how a sacrifice can be placed. Just like a chopping block.

　...You may remember a man named Zado.

　He was the man who had his sister cuckolded by a certain cheat reincarnation and stripped of her social status.
　This is exactly what that man wanted to do in order to get revenge.
　It was the summoning of an evil god's family members.

　In that man's case, he failed the summoning ritual and summoned me, a hazel, because he failed the summoning ritual.
　In reality, the household of the evil god was supposed to be summoned to fulfill my wishes in exchange for my soul.

　Perhaps Zado, who had been cornered, couldn't afford to prepare a sacrifice.
　He couldn't even procure substitute livestock, so preparing a virgin was probably a pipe dream.
　If there was a suitable sacrifice that the Evil God preferred, I might not have been summoned to that other world.

''This dagger is for killing the sacrifice and drawing blood. And through the slit carved in Anta, the blood of the sacrifice flows into the magic circle. In other words, Anta's true identity is the altar of sacrifice. Well, it looks like it's unused.

　This is how I finished telling the shocking truth.
　I felt more than a little sign of shock on my pedestal, and I was looking for her reaction.

(.........Hey!　(What's with this girl~?!

　Oh, that's the one I was shocked about.

"Oh, my wife not yet. A little girl from another world.
(YU-ABDUCTION!　(That's a crime!)

　I was about to say that........ and then stopped when I realized I couldn't deny it.

'Well, I was kind of sick. Thought I'd check on my progress.

　I ignore Daiza-chan who asks for an explanation of the situation and look at Stella-chan, the star girl.
　Yeah, the missing part is coming back, though not completely.
　You won't have to worry about it anymore.

''Ugh.''

　Oh, there you are.

Nee-chan....

　For a while, Stella looked up into my eyes gazing up at me, but then she turned her head away from me with a pui.
　Apparently, she was still pissed off.

'I'm sorry,'

　Again, my apologies.
　I'm sure I was selfish enough to do this boy a favor.
　I don't blame you for not being able to forgive me.

　Even so, this child was the only one I could think of that I wanted to help.
　I'm sure her kindness was a distant cause of the world's destruction, but it was a f*cking god who wrote the script.
　Most of all, I can never forgive the inexcusable death of only Stella, who didn't want to abandon the humans until the end and kept grinding herself to death.
　Even if I have to turn all the gods of the entire universe against me, I will protect her.

(Mr. Sakagagi, may I have a moment?)
Hmm?

　And here's a suggestion from the pedestal.

(I'd like to see if I can talk to this girl too.)
Yeah, I think we can do that. Telepathic cheats will be fine.

　I guess we can save you the trouble of asking.
　That'll save me the trouble of asking. We'll cross over.
　We'll need to leave for a while to see how it goes.

　After a few moments, Stella crawled up and began to look around.
　The pedestal is probably talking to her.
　Eventually, Stella-chan noticed something and began poking at the pedestal she was laying on with a bang.
　As she nudged the slit marble, Stella's eyes flashed as she realized what was going on.
　Although I have no idea what the conversation was about, Stella seemed to be very interested in the talking pedestal, repeatedly tilting her head and touching it, stroking it, and rubbing her cheekbones against it.

'........It's so cute.'

　Stella's little animalistic reaction makes me want to protect her.
　I don't have a taste for pedophilia, but the innocence shown by a baby girl like Stella is still soothing to watch.

　
　Coupled with the tranquility of the space, it's rather strange because there's even an atmosphere of holiness in the air.

'Huh?'

　I hurriedly wipe it away, feeling confused by the drops that spill down my cheeks.
　I haven't seen tears flowing on their own like this since I found Feama.

　You haven't noticed, have you?
　Stella seems to be engrossed in the conversation, and I'm sure that pedestal-chan's pseudo-vision is not for me.

　After that, I continued to observe the strange interaction between the two (...) people (...) while firmly blocking out any signs of attention.