Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Saga of Tanya the Evil EP 1

Amongst the vast multiverse sat a small collection of rooms bubbled in its tiny universe. The main room was divided into seven sections, the largest section housing a movie theater-sized screen with a sound system to match. The other 6 sections were roughly of equal size, the far right section’s back had a two-headed dragon on a red flag, barbed wire around the perimeter of the dirt brown section, red with gold trimmed militant looking but extremely comfortable chairs with three of them being slightly higher than the rest. Those seats are titled “Lergen, Zettour, and Rudersdorf” respectively. Just in front of the raised dias/subsection were two seats, the left labeled with Tanya and the right labeled Visha. In front of those were four chairs in a semicircle, going from right to left they were labeled Weiss, Grantz, Neumann, and Keonig. Hanging from the ceiling rested a plaque labeling this section as “Military Records of a Young Girl/Saga of Tanya the Evil.”

The second section (going from right to left) had a large throne at the back with two smaller thrones (Albedo on the left and Demiurge on the right) by the sides of its staircase (a few steps down from Ainz’s throne was expanded to be a platform). On the right edge of the section was a half wall for Cocytus to sit against. At the bottom of the staircase was Shalltear’s chair on the left and Sebas on the right, at the front of the section sat Aura and Mare’s seats. The ‘Staircase of Nazarick’ was pushed into an indent for a mostly unblocked line of sight between the sections. Of course, the entire section was decorated like a tomb with a sign above it titled “Overlord”.

The third section was colored dark purple and white. With two chairs on a raised platform/dais at the back, the left labeled Emilia and the right Roswald. Emilia’s chair was just a tad higher than Roswaal's and looked like a throne made of Ice than the rest of the section had theater seats. On Emilia’s left chair arm sat a smaller chair labeled Puck. In front of the dais were the chairs for Subaru just below Emilia, Rem and Ram below Roswald, and Beatrice’s in between the twins and the Immortal in a semicircle. On the back wall sat the flag of Lucina. Hanging from the ceiling labeled this section for “Re: zero”.

The fourth section. Was a wagon. Indented into the back wall like the Nazarick Staircase yes, but a wagon nonetheless. Specifically, it was Filo’s Wagon. Well technically it was branded under the name Naofumi, but anyone who knew Naofumi would realize whose wagon this truly was. The wagon was sideways in the indent allowing Rapthalia and Naofumi’s seats to have a canvas headrest. Filo has a bed large enough for her true bird form on Naofumi’s left side. Sign labeling this as “Rising of the Shield Hero.”

The fifth section thankfully only had two theater seats and looked the most like a normal theater you would see on earth. One was labeled Risarte and the other Seiya. “The Overpowered Hero is Overly Cautious.”

The final section of seating arrangements was colored blue with yellow-golden trim. Every single chair was a recliner/lazy boy instead of the theater chairs of the other sections. The seats for Aqua and Kazuma were in between/behind Megumin and Darkness’ seats in a semicircle. Other Konosuba characters weren’t featured because of character bloat. A sign hanging from the ceiling labeled “Konosuba.”

With a pop and a flurry of light, an odd menagerie of characters manifested in their respective seats. It only took a few seconds for them to realize they had been teleported and were surrounded by strangers. Rem got out her Morningstar and manifested her horn while Roswaald summoned his orbs of magic pointing one handful at Konosuba and the other at Overlord. The Floor Guardians of Nazarick bristled at the insult of these inferiors pointing their strange magic and weapons at The Supreme One.

Tanya and the 203rd Brigade's eyes shone with their magic as they brought their rifles to bear, while the General Staff desperately searched the room for weapons of their own. Darkness spotted Cocytus and Ainz therefore she was pulling a ‘herself’ and thus was unable to help, Megumin realized that her sole Spell would hit them as well and thus she tried her best to snap Darkness out of her delusions. Kazuma was unsure who to aim his bow at and was changing targets constantly.

Rapthalia frowned as her illusion magic refused to take hold. Naofumi had Air Shields primed to deploy and Filo had her gloves on, trying to decide who was the most delicious-looking one. Risarte hid behind Seiya who merely had his sword out. Aqua however had a sadistic grin on her face when she spotted Ainz, Shalltear, Albedo, and Demiurge before cracking her knuckles.

Shalltear started the fight by launching one of her Purifying Lances and frowned when it passed through everyone in its path while doing no damage. Aqua retaliated with a Turn Undead ...which passed through the undead like light through glass. Shockwaves ruffled everyone’s hair/clothes but they (and their original explosions) merely passed through everyone. Again and again, every faction tried to attack each other and again and again they did no damage.

“Okay, this isn’t working. Let’s all calm down and try to understand why we are here.” Ainz shouted, halting the fight.

“If you say so Lord Ainz,” Shalltear said with a pout. “I could have figured out how to kill them eventually.”

“It was like someone turned off Friendly Fire,” Kazuma commented while plopping down on his beanbag.

“Friendly fire is exactly what it says, a person who can do damage can also damage their allies/collateral damage.” Subaru preempted a question. ”Of course, it is most often disabled in video games with a cooperative element. Like a ‘defend against the zombie horde’ style game. This is the first time I've seen someone turn off Friendly Fire in reality.”.

“Then why are we considered allies?” Rudersdorf voiced the question in everyone’s minds.

“Eh?” The black wall in front of them suddenly turned on and started singing. Tanya and Visha, Ainz and Albedo, Subaru and Emilia, and Kazuma and Aqua all pointed to themselves as the camera jolted to them. Making confusing noises as they spotted their classmates.

The room was completely silent as they watched the Isekai Quartet’s first opening.

“What,” Koenig asked.

The Opening rep-

“NO! Don’t repeat, explain!” Beatrice yelled in exasperation.

The air in front of the screen rippled revealing a mass of strings and gears that phased in and out of visibility as they moved in the vague form of a humanoid pillar. Gears and strings wound themselves together forming a pure white face mask, one that covered the entire face if the wearer was human, and the only detail was a purple bird where the mouth would be. Gears whirled, clanked, and ground while stringed instruments sounded behind the mask.

=I am a Fae of the Celestial variety.= The gears and strings melded together to produce a voice. =My kind is tasked with preventing mishaps at the multiversal level. Like for instance Mass Effect’s Reapers descend upon Nazarick and bury the Tomb in molten metal. To fix such mishaps we usually require either the [Chosen One] of the antagonist's Origin or alternative [Chosen One] if the Original is preoccupied.= 

Albedo rolled her eyes. “We don’t need your help, nor any of your ‘Chosen Ones’ help either. Whoever these-” Albedo paused to finger quote- “Reapers are they are nothing compared to our might. They won’t even compare to the New Worlder’s entertainment value.”

=Of course over our timeless existences, a vast majority of my species grew a connection with the universes under our protection. I am one of them.= The fae ignored Albedo. =A large section of my subculture labeled themselves with the human-Japanese name Kadokawa and took an incredible amount of universes under their banner. In an attempt to gather more to their cause, they took copies of various moments in time and (for lack of a better word) distilled them into their barest essences, in a form that resembles Earth’s televised and weekly media, sending the ‘Episodes’ to the farthest corners of the realms.=

The company that we know as Kadokawa simply didn’t exist under that name on the Origin Earths of our Protags. Thus they didn’t experience existential dread.

=A powerful sub-faction of Kadokawa was displeased by the strict ‘No contamination’ laws and brought your four universes closer together and made a fifth universe. Dubbing it the ‘Isekai Quartet’ project,= Strings uncoiled from the Celestial Fae pointed at the screen as it replayed the Opening. =The sub-faction I represent agrees on the harshness of the contamination laws but disagrees on how the ‘School’ faction did their experiment. There is simply too much chaos and not enough downtime for friendships strong enough to revise the laws to form.=

“And that's where you come in, kidnapping us from the school I presume,” Lergen commented. 

The fae nodded (or at least the mask moved up and down). =My faction can’t overpower the School faction thus we kidnapped you in earlier portions of your timelines, splitting the ‘You’ in this room from the ‘You’ that would have gone to the School and the ‘You’ that never met a Celestial Fae. All equally the ‘You’ that should have been and are. But alas I have work to be done and you have timelines to view.=

The Celestial Fae faded from sight and reappeared in a corner, out of the way of the movie screen. =If you need a name for me, I’m Weaver=

The screen switched to credits whose only intelligible word to the majority of the viewers was Kadokawa, with the sound of someone moving. An explosion filled the screen as the camera panned upwards before switching to men in blue and dark red uniforms yelling in fear as explosions blossomed into existence close by. The camera switched to men in grey and red uniforms bombarding the previous group with cannons.

The camera panned over to the battleground revealing a desolate wasteland of a no man’s land. The camera then switched to a gray uniformed man with his brothers in arms in a trench. An officer blew his whistle and waved for his troops to advance. The men did so with warcries spilling from their mouths as they climbed out of the trench as they were each shot in the head. Trumpets started playing as the battle unfurled.

The grey uniformed men charged through the kill zone as some unfortunate sods were blown up and the camera showed the blue uniformed men calmly firing into the charging masses. The camera even showed a Mortar team loading their heavy weapon. The sole survivor of the Mortar attack was flung into a pool of water as he gasped for breath, the soldier stared at the battlefield.

“My eyes!” Cried a grey-uniformed man while the battle raged around him. “Medic! Someone get me a medic!”

“If there are any medics nearby, I doubt they could get to you,” Seiya said.

Nearby a comrade of the yelling man was on his back, trying desperately to get upright. 

“It’s no good!” Someone yelled from offscreen as a grey uniformed man was covering his ally trying to get wounded men off the battlefield. “The Reinforcements are just a random group of Mages!”

The Good Samaritans got shot in their heads for their efforts. A man had a haunted look on his face in the mud. Before he turned around in anger and stared into the barrels of three men in blue uniforms. One of the blue-uniformed men had a sadistic grin on his face. Before the wind whistled the three blue men were blown up as Victoria dropped out of the sky wearing an apparatus.

“A mage?” The rescued man asked as Visha carried them to safety. Visha/Victoria was a brown-haired, currently glowing blue-eyed, girl. Covered in a flight jacket with a large med-pack that hung from her waist, she also had a glowing metal boot on her foot.

“I am assuming that the additional flight gear is added for visual clarification?” Zettour asked. Weaver nodded in response.

A machine gun nest built into a trench spotted them and opened fire. 

“What are you doing Visha!” Harald covered her retreat.

“We can’t provide air support anymore,” said Kurst.

Visha landed and planted the rescued soldier in another trench while a nearby machine gunner opened fire. 

“What are the platoon Commander’s Orders?” Kurst continued over the radio.

“Sh-She cannot allow us to retreat,” Visha replied. “We are to continue delaying the enemy to the end.”

Visha heard the whistle of incoming artillery and strained to get a Mana Shield up to protect her and her allies. Visha yelped upon impact and was flung backward, Visha whimpered as she gritted in teeth in pain.

“Believers, have faith in the Lord’s Blessings.” An adorable voice said.

Visha opened her now glowless eyes and above the battlefield hovered an equally adorable girl. “For the Lord will not abandon us.”

Tanya moved her gun into firing position and enveloped it in a golden aura. “Give me the power to destroy the enemies of the Fatherland.” As Tanya said in her final line a note rose in volume and sharpness until the camera looked down the Iron Sights at Tanya’s blue eyes. Before they shrank it was instantly overcome by Gold.

There was only one word (well two in Tanya’s case) in everyone’s mind when they saw the Gold Eyes: Divine.

Tanya’s rifle rang out in silence as her Explosion spell detonated to a synthetic bass drop. Instantly and painlessly annihilating the blue uniform’s artillery line, secondary explosions almost reached Kurst and Harald as they floated above the battlefield.

The camera returned to Visha looking up at the explosion, muttering. “An Explosion Spell...”

“If you have the time for Idle Chatter, spend it doing all you can to survive.” Tanya rebuked Visha.

Visha made a noise of confusion as Tanya landed with an electric sound effect covering half of the screen with her left leg. “Platoon Commander?”

An unholy chorus started as Tanya bathed in her explosion’s light. “We are Soldiers.” Tanya opened her right eye. “If the brass tells us to do something, we do it.” Tanya shook her head, breathed in, and opened both of her eyes to stare ahead while she pulled her rifle to point over her left shoulder. Visha breathed in before the camera swapped back to Tanya to pan up her body.

“Second Lieutenant Tanya Degurechaff.” Visha Narrated with her thoughts. “Amidst the downpour of shells and bullets, she flew high and nobly. Like a Fairy of the Battlefield.” 

Tanya narrowed her eyes as the camera cut to black, displaying the kanji and English letters for Military Records of a Young Girl/Saga of Tanya the Evil respectively. The chorus finished with an imperialist note, leaving only the orchestra.

A continental map of Europe framed by flames was quickly covered by the flag of the empire. At the very ‘back’ of the flag was a pure red cloth, upon which laid a black and white bar crossing the flag horizontally. In the middle of the flag was a large hereditary badge, yellow with the aforementioned bars cordoning off the badge. In the badge was a black two-headed dragon with both of its tongues out and two claws with four talons on each side of its triplet tails. The left and right tails curved inwards on themselves forming a massive bow, and the third middle tail jutted straight downwards transforming the bow into an anchor.

“In a cursed world,” Tanya replaced Visha as the thought Narrator. “Always engulfed in the flames of war, there was a nation known as the Empire.” The camera zoomed out to reveal the Empire’s flag was in the middle of the Continental Map’s Fatherland. “Its vast military and industrial power made it virtually synonymous with victory.” Previous scenes of the Rhine Theater were shown through misshapen gaps on the map. 

“It possessed a large number of brilliant military minds and mages, but it was surrounded on all sides by strong potential enemies.” the camera zoomed back into the Fatherland now sans flag as multicolored short Ts appeared on the map. Green represented the Empire, blue represented the Francois and Allied Kingdom, brown represented the Legate, Red, of course, represented the Rus Union, and yellow Represented Darcia.

“For this reason, its military formulated Plan 315,” A large T, larger than any other t on the map, appeared in the Fatherland’s central fields. Wherein border forces carried out delaying actions in all theaters,” the Central Army representative moved to the various borders wiping out any enemies it encountered. “Buying time for a highly mobile, concentrated main force to travel to each area and defeat the enemy there. At least that was the plan.” Tanya ended on a somber note.

The map burned away to the wing flaps of birds, the screen had the caption Unified Year 1924, Imperial Capital Berun. 

Kazuma chuckled. “Wow Berun? I mean it's better than something like Berlun as they changed two letters instead of one, but seriously. What's next, the United Kingdom being called the Allied Kingdom?”

Rudersdorf raised an eyebrow. “Changed two letters from what exactly? And for your information, yes there is a nation called the Allied Kingdom. It's the two little islands above the Continental Europe.” 

“It went from Berlin to Berun.” Aqua followed up.

Zettour nodded in approval. “Decent name.”

“Wait, correct me if I’m wrong,” Subaru spoke up. “But weren’t the Germans too busy using Marks as insulation to fight a war?”

Kazuma frowned. “No I believe you're correct, that and there were no wars in the 1920s.” Kazuma shrugged. “Maybe the Great War didn’t end in 1919?”

“The Great War ended on November 11th, 1918.” Tanya corrected. “And yes the entire world was too busy fighting the Influenza pandemic to wage any war. The Germans (because The Treaty of Versailles was brutally applied to them) had to pay 132 billion gold marks.” Tanya shook her head. “Even if the Germans wanted to fight a war, they literally couldn’t.”

“Billion?! ” Many squeaked.

Lergen held his head in his hands as the General Staff recoiled from the cost of The Great War.

“Ah, so 1919.” Kazuma nodded in satisfaction.

Tanya closed her eyes and counted to five.

Imperial Strategic HQ.

Uniformed people were walking outside the gray building with red and black flags. The next shot was of a Grandfather clock’s pendulum swinging as the music faded away. It zoomed out to show Rudersdorf sitting at his desk underneath a painting of Romans in battle. The smoke from his cigar reached most of the way to the chandelier from the camera’s perspective. The smoke divided Zettour on the left who had his arms to himself and Lergen on the right holding a stack of paperwork.

“What is the situation in the Rhine Theater?” Rudersdorf demanded. “When will the main force be deployed there?”

Lergen pushed up his glasses as the camera showed his face with text covering the right side of the screen identifying him. -Department of Strategy and Operations, Lieutenant Colonel Erich von Lergen- Lergen had black hair with a long strand that settled aside his face. He had a gentle, cool-headed-looking face and wore bottom-rimmed glasses that appeared to do nothing for his eyesight.

“Movement from the northern areas is being delayed,” Lergen replied.

Rudersdorf took a drag from his cigar, text covering the lamp on his left. -Deputy Director of Strategy and Operations, Brigadier General Kurt von Rudersdorf- Rudersdorf had dark-grayish hair (which wasn’t from black whitening in age) and a large bushy mustache that reached his cheekbones.

“We must adjust the ship and rail schedules, so the deployment will take another two weeks.” Lergen finished as Rudersdorf blew out smoke.

Rudersdorf hmmed while he ground his cigar into an ashtray, asking. “We must pull back the lines even more? The western industrial areas will be endangered.”

“We don’t even have the reserves to send reinforcements,” Lergen replied as he fiddled with chess pieces on a map. “We’ve been caught totally off-guard.”

Rudersdorf stared down at the map. “From the start, a major offensive against the Entente Alliance was a mistake!” Rudersdorf closed his fists. “If we’d kept ourselves to a limited mobilization…” Rudersdorf slammed his fist in anger toppling some of the chess pieces.

“We were the ones who failed to convince the higher-ups that they were wrong about the republic not mobilizing.” Zettour countered as he picked up the fallen chess pieces.

“So many projects were scrapped.” Ainz's eye-flames twitched in sympathy/remembrance. “Nowhere enough time to get the new projects ready before the deadline.”

Nazarick (and the rest of the room) looked at Ainz in concern.

“I (and most of my friends) have had terrible experiences with superiors not listening,” Ainz explained.

Zettour leaned back up, text identifying him as -Deputy Director of Strategy and Operations, Brigadier General Hans von Zettour- Zettour definitely had hair graying from age and strangely both of his eyes were closed.

“Plan 315 is no longer viable.” Zettour rubbed his chin. “Since our attempts to delay the enemy aren’t working, we’ll have to move to a mobile defense, right?”

“But that will be difficult, given the state of the Rhine theater.” Lergen interrupted. “Our forces are depleted and exhausted, so it's beyond their capacity.”

In response, Zettour moved a few chess pieces. “We’ve already grabbed every spare soldier we could to send there.” Zettour finished his movements. “That will buy us some time.”

Rudersdorf hummed again. “I suppose it helps to have a talented contemporary, huh?”

“Isn’t that statement premature?” Zettor replied.  

Rudersdorf blinked, “What?”

“Reports say we’ve lost over half the units we’ve deployed,” Zettour said as the camera panned across and away from his face, leaving only a sliver as he visually opened his eye. “They say the Rhine theater is now a living hell.”

Corpses manning wooden barricades faded into view. Then a group of injured Empire soldiers appeared, led by a man with his left(?) arm in a sling. The lead man stopped and looked to the left, the camera changed revealing a battlefield with some fires billowing smoke and flat denoting above the battlefield. It cut to Tanya staring at the camera with binoculars covering her eyes, leaving only her hair and frown uncovered.

“Is the Rhine Theater your version of Verdun?” Aqua asked.

“I hope not,” Tanya answered.

Tanya was looking at the aforementioned battlefield with Francois's soldiers running in a loose formation. Visha hovered close to her commanding officer, obediently waiting for an order.

Imperial Army 205th Assault Mage Company Platoon 3 Commander. Second Lieutenant Tanya Degurechaff was ...a little girl who really shouldn’t be on (or hovering above) a battlefield, and it showed. Her blonde hair framed her face with bangs (two of them hung down to her shoulders), and her blue eyes were lightened by her magic into cyan. And her rifle was taller than her body.

“Enemies sighted on the ground, two o’clock. Artillery Spell. Fire!” Tanya commanded.

Platoon 3 Member. Corporal Viktoriya Serebryakov had chocolatey brown hair that also framed her face in bangs. But this time in two solid strands (brunches? The Author does not know Hair Terminology). Her eyes glowed blue with her magic.

“R-Right!” Visha followed her orders. 

The Francois soldiers yelled as Visha’s bullet artillery blasted more craters into the pockmarked battlefield. They also uselessly shouted: “It’s coming from Above.” As if any Mage would be ground-bound and able to dispatch this amount of firepower. ...In this Reality. And the battlefield was too destroyed for landmines to be hidden. That and no one was human clouds. Oh and “Damn the Bastards!”

Platoon 3 Members Corporal Harald von Vist and Corporal Kurst von Walhorf unloaded their clips at the so-called ‘Republican Bastards’ before shoving a Barrier Film into existence as the retaliatory fire reached them.

“Artillery… Take out the artillery. Come with me, Harald!” Kurst ordered. Before rocketing off with his friend.

“Both of you corporals, get back here.” Tanya calmly countermanded through the radio microphone on her neck. Which was under her clothes, not that she was carrying around a full radio backpack with her neck like some weird anime character. This World was too low on the Weirdness/Shonen Scale for that. Was that the true purpose of the boots, to contain their radios? They only needed their Operation Orbs for flight/any spellcasting. Not everyone had the massive box Tanya carried. Unless Tanya was carrying her platoon’s Radio server? Radio backpack in a box? “Our Mission is to delay the enemy via flanking attacks.” Tanya finished, looking like she was choking herself.

“Let us go, please! Now’s our chance!” The men replied.

“Your chance to do what?!” Tanya yelled in response. “Get back Here! This is an Order!”

Her men ignored her direct order. Causing her to adopt the most pissed face (That isn’t directed at Being X) in Canon. Thus scaring Visha, poor lil Russian.

The denizens of Nazarick violently twitched.

Demiurge rubbed his temples. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you are their Superior right?”

Tanya nodded.

“SO they need to obey your commands, or else it can start a chain reaction that will result in the collapse of your entire military, yes?” Demiurge asked, his anger causing him to squeak-yell out his first word.

Tanya nodded again while the rest of the Military Records cast suppressed their laughter at Demiurge’s overreaction.

Her response only furthered the Nazarick’s compliment twitching.

Then a camp was shown above before the camera panned past wounded Empire Soldiers. Wide shot of people sitting around a campfire before zooming in on Visha drinking soup from a spoon. Visha’s true eye color was a very soft blue almost gray color. 

The soup went down the wrong pipe causing Visha to cough and prompting Harald to say “Too tired to eat, huh?”

“Force it down if you have to.” Kurst followed up. “You won’t last otherwise.”

Artillery fire caused Tanya’s subordinates to look off-screen. The camera changed to show muffled flashes reflecting off the night clouds.

“They say the 202nd and 203rd Companies were wiped out,” Visha said quietly.

“I volunteered to come to the frontlines.” Kurst started. “And now I have to work for that lieutenant?”

“Platoon 3, of the 205th.” Stated the man that just walked on screen. “Your captain is calling you.” 

“We’re being sent back home?” Does it matter which one said it? I really shouldn’t spend so much time matching character faces to voices when said characters only exist for this episode. At least the Swords of Darkness/Workers (Overlord Characters) had an entire ARC! Of like 5 episodes and the Entire Book! Using logical deduction via a later camera angle I conclude this was Kurst.

“I would say you’re getting off lightly,” Tanya replied. “Be grateful. The Army has no need for officer candidates who disobey orders.”

“Officer candidates pulled that?!” Ainz facepalmed.

“Did you know that pigs are omnivores and will eat fully-grown humans whole if you are not careful?” Aura asked while calmly tilting her head with eyes closed and a small smile. “Surely pigs exist in that world. Just break their arms and legs from escaping, with a mana drain to prevent flight.”

“So that's why the family was so afraid in Wizard of Oz.” Kazuma did the hand in the palm at realization pose.

“But we were trying to take out the artillery!” Kurst complained. “You know how many of our infantry they took out, don’t you?”

“Is that all you have to say?” Tanya asked. “An Army is an organization. And organizations are nothing without rules! Dismissed.”

Tanya unfolded from her at-rest stance and walked aw- 

“I...I can’t accept this!” Kurst interrupted. “I volunteered to come to the frontlines. My only choices are Victory or Valhalla!”

“While us Valkyries are tasked with collecting fallen warriors, I doubt you would be their first pick,” Shalltear commented.

“Me too!” Harald agreed.

“That goes double for you!” Shalltear doubled down.

“I agree with Corporal Kurst.” Harald followed up.

Visha looked concerned. And cute. Her hands nearly held her Operation Orb, framed by her longest bangs. 

“A man of the Empire is expected to be Brave!” Harald continued.

“Bravery is doing something in Spite of your fear. Not disobeying your Direct Superior’s Direct Orders!” Sebas countered.

“Then you’re saying you’ll disobey your Superior Officer’s orders again?!” Tanya moved to draw her sword as she asked.

“Lieutenant!” Visha finally stepped in and played her part of being half of Tanya’s Morality Chain.

The low notes of the soundtrack continued as the shot switched to hanging from the tent roof. Then swapped back to Tanya still clutching her sword handle.

“I’ll take your opinion under advisement.” Tanya finally stood up to her full height and let go of her sword.

Tanya proceeded to turn around and look over her shoulder in a very cute fashion. “But you best be prepared to face some punishment.”

Tanya finally walked away from her subordinates. Visha breathed a sigh of relief before the camera swapped to the camp during the day. Visha zipped up her outer jacket, covering her rectangular Operation Orb. Visha also put on a harness for her bags and tightened her boot tube valve before untangling her hair from her jacket. Visha looked around for her comrades and her superior walked up to her.

“Corporal Serebryakov, is something wrong?” First Lieutenant Ihlen Schwarzkopf was a man with neat, combed-back brown hair and light brown eyes.

“Sch ...Lieutenant Schwarzkopf!” Visha stood up and saluted her superior. With little stars of adoration/admiration hovering above her shoulder. ...Even though this was a Serious Setting. “Um, I don’t see Corporal Kurst or Corporal Harald.”

“That’s right.” Lieutenant Ihlen did a half nod. “You were in their class, weren’t you.”

“I was,” Visha confirmed with a nod. “They were volunteers while I was a conscript, which did not endear them to me at all.”

“They have been transferred to the rear as of today.” Lieutenant Ihlen continued with a smile.

“To the rear?” Visha questioned.

“Yeah,” Lieutenant Ihlen said while the camera showed a pillbox. Visha made a noise of happiness at the thought.

“I did not move them to a pillbox.” Tanya countered the presented information. “I transferred them back to regional HQ with a notice to put them on offensive squads.”

“That's a reward, not a punishment?” Albedo tilted her head.

“Yes, just because they disobeyed my orders doesn’t mean they were wrong. It's called Nuance, and if our mission was to attack the enemy side I would have spearheaded their charge. But our mission was to hold the line.” Tanya shook her head. “I am not going to waste the years of training and hundreds of thousands of marks needed to raise and equip them, over a mere disagreement.” Tanya grew a small smile. “Besides, offensive missions like attacking enemy artillery have a much higher fatality rate than defensive ones. Let alone support/administration roles.”

Night sky with clouds before a red-white flare shot into the center. Another flare shot up as the camera panned down to show an Empire-controlled trench. Yet another flare lit Visha’s face as Tanya’s squad flew over the aforementioned trench. Visha quietly plummeted to the bottom right corner of the screen, Tanya was blissfully unaware of her subordinate's lack of sleep.

“You need some coffee,” Kazuma commented.

“Or adrenaline or terror, those work too.” Subaru followed up.

The Emilia camp filed Subaru’s comment under Subaru being himself. ...the angst will be enjoyable when the Mansion loops start.

Visha wheezed after impacting the ground and the camera panning over dead soldiers. 

“If you’re wearing that uniform, contribute to your country.” Tanya reprimanded her subordinate after noticing Visha’s collapse and faceplant. “The Empire doesn’t have resources to waste on weak soldiers.”

“R-Right.” Visha softly replied.

“Corporal Serebryakov!” Tanya demanded attention. “Call an emergency meeting,” Tanya said while holding her neck radio.

A tent but with guards. Why would a random ass tent need guards in this universe? I know it's a Command Tent but in this version of Military records, Spy mages don’t exist. Visha’s best friend Elya is one such spy mage but she is Madam-Not-Appearing in the anime. And the guards are non-mages (or hiding their orbs underneath their shirts as Visha did earlier). I mean yes non-mages can be spies but I assume they would be in a more important spot, like the Regional/Theater HQ not random-ass Command Tent on the frontlines.

“Bad news, everyone.” Lieutenant Ihlen started. “Our 403rd Mage company suddenly encountered and entered combat with two companies of enemy mages. And they can’t use artillery because the observation mages were targeted, meaning they can no longer spot the shells.”

“Enemy observer-hunters?” Tanya asked, prompting her superior to question/state her experience. “And I never want to experience that again.”

“We will leave immediately to rescue the observers.” Lieutenant Ihlen got back on track, he honestly looked like the robotic illusion Tanya used in episode 5. When she was recruiting for her battalion. At least in facial expression and camera angle. “Any questions?”

“We can perform a delaying action, but rescuing them will be difficult,” Tanya said. 

Lieutenant Ihlen made a noise of doubt. “Even with that Type-95?” The camera zoomed onto the red orb with bronze trim. Casing? With a bronze star/plus sign on the top, hanging on Tanya’s uniform chest.

“I can still fight, but Corporal Serebryakov is at her limit.” Tanya countered. 

Visha adopted a very betrayed expression. 

“I don’t want to be the kind of incompetent who goes to rescue someone, only to lose them and her soldier.” Visha’s betrayed expression grew worse.

Visha breathed in before stepping around her superior. “Company Commander, I volunteer for this!”

Nazarick twitched once more.

“If this is their reaction to ‘mere’ humans disobeying their superiors.” Ainz thought to himself. “ Would Narberal disobeying my direct order cause seizures?”

“I volunteer for this rescue mission!” Visha redoubled.

“Stop.” Tanya simply said. “You can’t do it.”

With an adorably angry face, Visha countered. “I-I’m an Imperial Soldier, too. I’m certain I can complete the mission.”

“Corporal!” Tanya interfered one more.

“Company Commander!” Visha spoke over her direct superior. “Please, please let me go!”

Coctyus reached into his inventory for the Lizardmen’s Cask of Infinite Wine and brought it into reality along with a horde of glasses, cups, chalices, and various other drink holders. Weaver spawned tables to hold such things.

“Cask. Of. Infinite. Wine.” Coctyus clarified to the room.

The Nazarick Denizens (excluding Aura, Mare, and Ainz of course) collected their wine before instantly gulping it down and going for seconds.

“You heard her, Second Lieutenant.” Lieutenant Ihlen said. “I understand your concerns, but she says she’s alright.” Thus started (or continued if viewed in the proper chronological order) the trend of Tanya’s superiors not listening to her (often) Sage advice.

“Roger,” Tanya replied submissively/resigned. Visha grew an equally adorable happy expression. “I’ll do the best I can.”

Later outside Visha looked around from the tent opening like Tanya pulled a ninja on her. Before walking over to Tanya and asking for attention.

“Thank you!” Visha bowed.

“Corporal,” Tanya started. Already tired. “You’re really ready for this, right?” 

The two swapped confirmations. 

“Time for work, then,” Tanya said as she walked off. 

Visha adopted a gentle smile as she watched Tanya walk away. Then the title cards, unfortunately despite this being a very information-dense series. Hell, the entire sextet is information-dense. The anime did not go the route of Attack on Titan and sneak in some world-building with the Title Cards. ... honestly more series should, especially if it takes place in another world.

Upbeat music started as the title cards faded away to show a mortar artillery piece. Side shot to show more Mortars. Pop, pop, pop went the explosions across the sunlit battlefield.

“Command Post, this is Bravo 01.” Narrated Bravo 01. “Enemy mages are stopping us from artillery spotting!” 

“We just learned that information, no need to repeat it!” Shalltear said.

An explosion happened near the trench to accentuate Bravo 01’s point. “How much longer will reinforcements take?”

“Command Post to Bravo 01.” The Command Post radioed back. “The 205th Mage Company is en route. 403rd Mage Company, continue spotting.”

Bravo 01 cursed and threw his headset on the ground. “Don’t they understand what’s going on?!”

Bravo 02 bravely peaked his eyes over the trench ridge and looked around before jetting up into the air. Instantly a whistle filled the air, Bravo 02 didn’t have time to react before he exploded. Alas, Bravo 02 truly lived up to his Call Sign. Meanwhile, a group of brown-shirted men, led by a weirdo with only a disc of hair on the top of his head, looked at the 403rd’s trench. They were riding metallic horses with pink glowing circles on the bottom, presumably for propulsion. They were the Republican Army 106th Recon Mage Company. 

Republican Army 106th Recon Mage Company, First Lieutenant Augustin Hosman made a noise of disdain. “I heard the Imperial Mages were supposed to be good. Guess you can’t trust rumors… Troops! Find the remaining Observers!”

“Perhaaaps it's because you are picking on Observers and not Combat trained Mages?” Roswaal suggested.

“I’ve been trying, but they appear to be hiding in the trenches.” Hosman’s subordinate Sean reminded his superior.

“Then blow away anywhere you think they might be,” Hosman commanded.

“But a wide area explosion spell will drain our magic.” Sean was once again the voice of reason. Two for two. Shame these folks all die in like 5 minutes. If that. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Hosman said while pulling up his rifle to aim down the iron sights. “Maximum Firepower.”

Pink magic outlined the French Republican Mages’ rifles and the 403rd trench lit up with pink explosions which instantly faded to red. ...ignoring the smoke/dust kicked up and all. The shockwave thrummed past the camera. Flying high above was Tanya’s little squad in a diamond formation. 

“What a mess,” Tanya commented after her subordinate reported all hands lost.

“Sh-Should we turn back?” Visha asked.

“No, it's a shame we weren’t in time, but we’re inside of enemy firing range,” Tanya replied. “We gotta earn our pay.” 

“W-We only have one platoon.” Visha pointed out. “We can’t fight a whole company.”

“You said you were ready for this,” Tanya commented once more, causing Visha to adopt a regretful face. “Our enemy is on an exhausting, long-range mission. And they’ve used a lot of firepower to take out our observers. There’s a good chance we can win.” 

“But I guess losing new troops already would hurt my promotion chances.” Tanya continued in her thoughts.

Lergen floundered for words.

Zettour and Rudersdorf merely ahh’d as a new piece of Tanya’s puzzle became available.

“Aw, you do care.” Visha smiled as she patted Tanya’s shoulder.

“You are to rendezvous with Lieutenant Ihlen and provide support,” Tanya said into her radio. ...when all of her subordinates were in speaking range. ... was proven a few seconds ago. No wait she had to update Ihlen. “I’ll go ahead and destroy three platoons. The rest are yours.”

“Despite your name being in one of the titles, I doubt you could take them all on.” Kazuma countered. “Unless you have a bigger version of that explosion spell from earlier.”

Tanya looked at Kazuma with a deadpan stare. “This is my first episode. When has anyone lost in their first episode?”

“Humanity in Attack on Titan.” Subaru backed up his fellow sufferer. Also me.

“Okay, one out of millions of different IPs.” Tanya countered. “So there is a precedent but not a trend.”

“Man, it's rough being a salaryman.” Tanya finished.

The other Protagonists suppressed their laughter. The others were confused by the term and the aforementioned people were shaking.

“I have the strangest feeling that being in the military is different from being a salaryman,” Ainz commented sarcastically. 

“Also that word shouldn’t exist for another 80 or so years. Or suppose to anyway.” Aqua followed up, letting loose a giggle in the process. “But hey, the Great War didn’t have magic at all. Seems like the Germans replaced the Chemical Weapons for mages.”

“S-Salary…?” Visha questioned.

The Haunting Chorus started once more. “I pray unto God.”

A zap-like sound effect played as golden lightning flashed in Tanya’s currently cyan eyes. The cyan was instantly overcome by the richest Gold anyone had seen, the same Gold from earlier in the episode. 

Tanya’s big metal box had an opening at the top, filled with green energy. “Lord, Save my Fatherland.” A turbine spun up as the green became Gold. 

The turbine continued to increase its revolutions as Tanya rocketed away from her platoon/squad, creating a shockwave and jolting her subordinates out of their flight positions in the process. Already Tanya appeared to be a small dot racing towards tiny dots. The republican mages noticed Tanya’s approach and expressed disbelief at her speed.

“Hm, I wonder what's the difference between Observer Mages and actual Combat Mages,” Shalltear said sarcastically.

The Republician Mages fired their rifles, some of them sending mana packets which exploded at a pre-set destination. That's the Light Novel explanation for the random explosions in this scene. And bog standard bullets, alternating bullets and packets to confuse their prey. Unfortunately for this company, Tanya’s reaction speed and mana sensing capabilities were a ...Bit higher than Bravo 02.

Thus Tanya giggled at their futile attempts to harm her and started dancing. Specifically, jetting upwards to avoid the initial volley. Sean choked down a gasp. Tanya curled around the second volley’s bullets. Bouncing right before a packet exploded around her with a loud pop/airgun/potato cannon sound. Or was that the distant rifle fire or the packets themselves exploding? Hosman berated his subordinates as Tanya finally stabilized and returned fire.

Cyan exploded in Hosman’s group instantly fading into brown/black smoke. Leaving only the leading two mages outside of the smoke clouds. Hosman panicked and ordered the survivors to scatter and climb. Tanya’s bayonet blade’s edge glowed cyan as Tanya applied the Mage Blade spell to it. 

Thrum sounded Tanya’s ...something as she entered stabbing distance. Tanya giggled again.

“COMMANDER!” Hosman’s voice of reason dived into the line of fire.

Pitch black went the screen before light was violently sliced into existence. Glass shattered as Tanya sliced through Sean’s Mage Barrier, Hosman made a deliciously despairing face as Sean’s decapitated head and blood flew towards him. The screen became white leaving only Tanya, Hosman, and Sean’s corpse on the screen. Tanya had also decapitated the metal horse, causing an explosion.

Nine pink stars left the large cloud of smoke, curving to chase the sole Golden Star. Tanya casually flew above the clouds, like she wasn’t in a life-or-death battle. Random people who weren’t Hosman or Sean strained their horses to escape. A small dot-like Tanya (recognizable by her rifle held sideways) quickly caught up to the trio of just-seen men. The men spotted Tanya and fired down at her. Tanya simply gently/softly twirled around their bullets and packets.

Tanya fired two shots directly into their steeds, detonating their rides. We get to see an upside-down iron sight as Tanya fires at the sole survivor’s steed. Hosman glared at the still ascending Tanya.

“See. The Orb had them soundly beat.” Tanya had a supernaturally fitting smug smirk.

“How high up is she going?” Hosman asked himself and the world.

An exhaust pipe was frighteningly red, implying itself to be one of the metal steed’s exhaust pipes.

“Commander, this is our max altitude.” Hosman’s subordinate confirmed the previously shown visual.

Hosman and his surviving crew yanked their horses to the side and halted their climb. Hosman in particular looked up at the still-ascending Tanya in awe, saying “Impossible! She’s over 10,000 meters in the air.”

“How the hell do you not need aviation equipment?” Ainz questioned.

“Two of the very basic spells of my world are Air Creation and Temperature Control. The other basic spells are Flight, Body Reinforcement/Enhancement, the Magical Shield Orb you’ve seen, the Mage Blade I used to decapitate Sean, explosive bullet enchant, mana explosions, and one more you’ll see in just a bit.” Tanya explained.

“Why would you need temperature control?” Filo asked.

“Because humans don’t have any built-in insulation like feathers or blubber or fur,” Naofumi answered. 

“It's very cold up there.” Seiya followed up.

“The reason why it is so cold is because the air itself is thinner,” Kazuma said.

The chorus stopped as Tanya reached her destination height and turned to Hosman far below her, catching her breath in the process. All was silence save for Tanya’s breathing and her reloading her rifle. Drums rolled and the chorus restarted as Tanya reached for her neck-radio.

“Attention.” Tanya started. 

Back down with Hosman, Tanya was barely a dot in the clouds. Strangely Tanya was in a different position than the previous shot.

“You are trespassing on Imperial Territory.” Tanya continued over the radio. 

“An open comms channel? And this voice. So she is just a kid?” Hosman questioned reality once more.

“This is our sky!” Tanya raised her ...Left arm. “Our Home.” Tanya raised her other arm clutching her rifle. 

Visha and her squadmates could only see Hosman and his subordinates. Surprisingly they numbered more than 3. The clouds were covering Tanya’s location and parted over her next sentence. “If you would stand against the Empire, we shall eliminate you without mercy.”

“Are you not doing the Battlefield-Wide Blast?” Visha questioned. “Because you certainly are not broadcasting the warnings.”

“Perhaps.” Tanya pondered on the options the Type 95 could take. “Maybe this Distilled version of me figured out a way to do the explosion without the radiation?”

“This is our task!” Tanya finished.

“What an amazing patriot she is.” Visha had a very adorable happy expression.

“Answer me!” Tanya started once more. “Why do you invade the Empire, our homeland?”

“If you want to play more, I’ll give you some lead toys!” Hosman raised his rifle to provide some of said lead toys.

Unfortunately for Hosman and his troops, the lead toys merely shot through Tanya. Making a mechanical sound and flickering in the process.

“A Decoy.” Private Obvious made his existence known.

With a radio-like static Tanya’s Decoy flickered out of existence.

From behind a cloud, Tanya sighed. “No room to negotiate, huh?”

Hosman fired once more and Tanya didn’t give any shits as she allowed Hosman’s shot to detonate against her shield. With a very loud glass-breaking sound of course. A deep male voice hummed, joining the restarted haunting chorus. Tanya waved her hand and summoned a Magitech Screen in front of her.

“Spatial coordinates identified.” Tanya continued her streak of showing off. “Calculating all stochastic evasion routes for all targets.” Tanya had another Magitech Screen in her eye lense, perhaps it was merely a reflection of the one in front of her. “Magical energy in the chamber within normal parameters.” Thump. “Attention, All Allies. Prepare for Impact.”

“So you are doing the Battlefield blast?” Emilia asked.

“No matter if you do it or not, nothing will compare with [Explosion].” You get no points for guessing who said this.

A purple starscape appeared Golden gears spun up while Golden magic circles appeared and interlocked. Lines of Golden energy speared through the gears and circles, interconnecting and reaching outwards as the camera zoomed back. Finally showing the Type 95 as it escaped the gem.

“Is that what the mana sees in a spell?” Weiss asked. “Can mana see at all?”

“No, your universe needs to have more active soul stuff before energy starts being aware.” Aqua soothed. “The first signs of self-aware energy are little specks of light that can bite.”

“Oh, Lord… Save our Fatherland from these heathen invaders.” Tanya prayed. 

She clutched her fist before dismissing her Magitech Screen by raising her hand in the air. Bringing her rifle into both hands and the barrel pointed up, Tanya continued her prayer. “At the end of the long road,” Tanya brought down her rifle to aim at Hosman with a slam against...something. “We shall reach the promised land!” Rainbow fire flared from the iron sights, almost burning Tanya’s face, and traveled down to the barrel.

A Golden star blossomed into existence around Tanya.

“Massive Magical Signature Detected.” Private Obvious struck again.

“I guess Sean did suck up all of that Company’s Common Sense,” Ram said.

Synthesized notes plummeted/zeroed in on Hosman as Tanya fired a Golden Bullet with many red-orange star-like sparks in the casing. The Camera was, of course, hideously zoomed in to show all the details. The bullet flew past the camera to become a second, smaller, Golden star.

“Is she the Devil?” Were the last words of Hosman.

Boom. White screen and no chorus. A visible shockwave roared out from the explosion in a ring. Numerous little (well little from this perspective) streaks of fire reached down towards the earth from the center of the explosion. We could see those streaks before additional shockwave rings formed, going up and down respectively. Visha raised her shield just before a shockwave hit her. However, the force did push her and the man behind her past the camera.

Both Visha and Ihlen expressed visible awe at Tanya’s explosion. 

“Nice shockwaves, haven’t figured out the orb movement yet.” Megumin complimented.

“A diffusive magical explosion caused when magic under maximum pressure mixes with the surrounding air,” Ihlen explained the SCIENCE! Behind the explosion. “Even if you dodge the impact, you can’t escape the oxygen deprivation or carbon monoxide poisoning that follows.”

“Poison can be in the air?” Emilia questioned.

“Yep. Carbon Monoxide is one of the most common poisons in existence, one of its few rivals is Carbon Dioxide which is produced when oxygen-breathing animals such as humans exhale.” Tanya clarified. “The easiest way to kill someone with Carbon Monoxide is to lock someone in a room with smoldering coals.”

The watchers looked around the room for any windows or vents. There were none.

=Do you think Poison could exist around Aqua?= Weaver inserted. =Oh right, we haven’t gotten to her weirdness yet.= Weaver twitched and the left wall dissolved to reveal a nice garden. =Plants take in Carbon Monoxide, Water, and Sunlight converting them into food for themselves and breathable air for everything else. Considering the content of the shows, I really should have made the garden earlier.=

“How many of my kills were from the side effects instead of the actual explosions?” Megumin pondered. “If the actual [Explosion] didn’t kill them, then they aren’t worthy kills.”

“We didn’t need to provide any support.” Crumbling ash-covered bodies fell from the explosion while grinding and crumbling stones rumbled past the bodies. Ihlen continued to narrate. “In this cruel world of wars, there’s no mage you can count on like her.”

Tanya coughed as she emerged from the smoke. “The Battle is over,” Tanya said to the ground-bound forces. The smoke clouds above her dissipated as well. “Surrender now, and we will guarantee your rights as prisoners under the Treaty of Worms.”

Tanya breathed out and flew down when there was no response.

Republican Capital Parisee was unveiled by a moving car. Ministry of Defense. Six guards, two angel statues with a sword, and an hourglass each. 

Inside a fancy ass room with a lot of candles. “This is the record of a Computation Jewel,” Republican Army 2nd Mage Company, Lieutenant Colonel Severin Bientot started. “Which was recorded in a certain battle.” Bientot laid down his clipboard with a picture of Tanya and a report in French. “This single mage wiped out the 106th Company. Her appearance was first confirmed two months ago. She’s a Named Mage whose background is unclear, but our soldiers call her…”

“The Devil of the Rhine?” Bientot’s superior stated.

“So being a Named Mage means your enemy acknowledges your existence?” Megumin asked.

The Records cast nodded.

Aptly the screen switched to a two-headed dragon bust/statuette (Dragons are one of the Devil’s many forms in Abrahamic Literature). The two-headed dragon bust was back in Berun. 

“Redeployment of our central forces to the Rhine has been completed,” Lergen said while moving a stick on a map.

“So we somehow made it in time.” Rudersdorf summarized while smoking. “We put some pretty hard demands on you, huh?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Zettour dismissed Rudersdorf’s concern. “It is for our country’s sake.”

“I must thank you somehow.” Rudersdorf dismissed Zettour’s Dismissal. “How about one of my best bottles of wine?”

Lergen picked up a bundle of papers while his superiors traded dismissals.

“I’m afraid I’ll put off drinking until our victory.” Zettour dismissed once more.

“Don’t want to celebrate too early, you will always miss a critical piece. Whether that is your piece or your enemies is to be determined.” Seiya agreed, causing the planners to nod.

“Heh.” Rudersdorf unleashed a small cloud of smoke while a soft piano played. “Stubborn…” 

Thud went something and a baton rolled on the red and black floral patterned carpet, gently resting against a shoe. Lergen was looking down at the bundle he picked up.

“Lieutenant Colonel Lergen, is something wrong?” Rudersdorf questioned.

“No, it's just…” Lergen looked over his shoulder.

“Just what?” Rudersdorf continued his questioning.

Lergen straightened his back and turned to his superior. “W-well this report says that Second Lieutenant Tanya Degurechaff was sent to the Rhine Theater.”

On those (in hindsight) ominous words the camera fades to the Rhine Theater Frontline Mage Camp.

“Kurst and Harald are dead?” Vishia asked with clear concern in her voice and held a pamphlet of paper.

“While they were on standby in their pillbox, an enemy shell struck,” Ihlen informed Vishia and the audience. “It’s a shame.”

“No.” Vishia voiced her displeasure. “Does the Platoon Commander know?”

“No, not yet,” Ihlen answered.

“The one called “White Silver”?” Rudersdorf voiced over the transition back to Imperial HQ. “The one awarded the Silver Wings Assault Badge? It’s surprising to see an Ace at her age.”

“I know Ace is a pilot term but I forgot what it meant,” Kazuma said.

“Ace means you have killed 5 other Mages or Pilots,” Rudersdorf answered. “It is a small world up in the air.”

“What about her?” Zettour asked.

“I once had an opportunity to see Lieutenant Degurechaff,” Lergen replied.

With that, we fade back to the Mage Command Tent. Visha stood at attention after excusing herself, while Tanya did paperwork as the camera could only see Tanya’s hair.

“I’d like to report something.” Vishia sought permission.

“What is it?” Tanya permitted while she continued the paperwork.

Vishia squeezed her hands to comfort herself. “Corporals Kurst and Harald-”

Tanya’s little hair antenna bounced as she moved to a new sheet of paperwork. The camera slowly zoomed in on Tanya’s head. String instruments slowly rose in volume, signifying the tense atmosphere. “They’re dead?”

“Wh-where did you learn that?” Vishia’s surprise caused her to break the At Attention Stance.

“It’s self-evident,” Tanya replied as she finished her paperwork. “A Pillbox doesn’t move. It's an ideal target for Artillery. A Perfect Place for men who wanted to die.”

Vishia let loose a small gasp in surprise as she comprehended Tanya’s words and implications.

The camera cut to Lergen. “If I may be so forward to give you my opinion.” Lergen tightened his free hand into a fist.

“You didn’t know this would happen, did you?” Vishia in denial sought reconfirmation as her eyes wavered in disbelief and adopted a semi-aggressive stance.

The camera showed us the back of Tanya’s head. Tanya slowly turned her head to the side and bit her thumb’s fingernail. Cut to Lergen’s eye filled with madness as he narrated in silence. Performing his secondary role as The Other Half of Tanya's Morality Chain.

“She is…”

Vishia also showed madness as Tanya showed her sideways adorable face before smashing into her brand of Madness. Though Tanya only did her Insane Faces when she got hopped up on Adrenaline or other Combat Drugs. Tanya stared directly into the camera and/or directly at Vishia. 

“A Monster in the form of a Little Girl!” 

The Haunting Chorus returned as the end card showed. Saga of Tanya the Evil. Episode One: The Devil of The Rhine.

“Ah,” Visha said. “So that's why the show is called Tanya the Evil.”

Tanya meanwhile jumped up and flew over to a newly manifested chalkboard. “Okay, so the cost of the men’s uniform is.-” The cost of cotton, stitching, the wage of the average tailor, minor metal working for the buttons all were placed upon the board. “The cost of the pillbox.” Mining, Refining, Cement production, constructor crew wages, the cost of training the construction crew, the average cost of an adult Imperial Working Male growing up, electrical wiring, radio, and the cardboard needed for the playing cards.

 “Harald and Kurst in particular.” Again the cost of raising an Imperial Working Male was written, coupled with Kurst and Harald’s favorite foods, the cost of making the Operation Orbs. the wages for making the Orbs, the wages for the miners. And so on, if you are desperate please read the Chicago School of Economics and read the sections on The Value of a Human. Cause I’m not reading that shit just to transcribe it.

“That did not happen in reality.” Lergen countered, though most of his attention was on Tanya scribbling her World View on the board.

=This is a distillation, remember?= Weaver offered. =Of course there are going to be some hiccups. That is why I brought so many of you, to correct them.=

“The hiccups couldn’t be that many, to require us all.” Emilia looked on the bright side.

=True, but there are 4 different worlds represented, so.= Weaver grew arms and shrugged. =Any ho, technically I’m supposed to show you another two separate universes-=

“It's already going to be confusing to watch all six of our worlds.” Aqua interrupted. “So can we not?”

=But we don’t have the funding to fight Both The Witch and The Hand Behind The Waves at the same time=

Subaru shyly rubbed his head. 

“No, the Waves are the problem I was summoned for.” Naofumi countered. “Nice to know that there is a Demon King I have to kill.”

=I said at the same time, did I not?= Weaver replied. =There will be gaps in the playlist where we can watch Shield and Overcautious Heroes.= Weaver shook his head. =But not at the same time as all four of the main shows.=

“Hear that Seiya? We already have bards exclaiming our tales!” Ristarte said.

Tanya finished her calculations before she underlined her final answer on the cost of the arranged assassination of her subordinates cost the Empire. Kurst and Harald may have been disobedient but not deserving of Execution by Artillery. They crucially hadn’t gotten any allies killed from their tomfoolery, quite the opposite. While their combat record was mostly against ground-bound troops, their target of choice (Artillery Pieces and Assorted Crews) would have vastly outweighed any mismanagement of ammo on their parts. While not particularly wise (wanting to directly assault Enemy Artillery and all), they were skilled enough to see at least another year of the war. That excludes the other unfortunate souls trapped in the crossfire.

In Conclusion: A Net Loss for the Empire, which if repeated by other Commanders will drain the Empire of Manpower far before the Empire runs out of enemies and/or war material.

Tanya blinked at the room saying, “What? I may have graduated from college in Economics but my hobby was Military History, and that was before I got reincarnated into my world.”

“Reincarnated into your world? What do you mean by that?” Darkness asked.

“Simple. Isekai is Japanese for ‘Into another world’.” Tanya answered. “The two main methods of Isekai are either reincarnation-” The Logos for Military Records and Konosuba appeared on the screen.” -oh good, I'm not the only reincarnator. Or Summoning.” The Logos for Cautious Hero, Shield Hero, Re:zero, and Overlord appeared. “Usually the person being Isekai’d is a NEET, someone who's Not in Education, Employment, or Training. Those sufferers of Isekai tend to have the goal of Defeating the local Demon King/The Source of All (or Most) Evils of their worlds.”

“But.” Tanya looked around the room. “I don’t think the tropes/cliches of ‘Normal’ Isekai apply to us.”

===============================================================================

===============================================================================

Canon (dubious) but I don’t know where to fit this #1:

“So who would have won?” Shalltear asked.

=Subaru. Hands down, no ifs and, or buts.= Weaver answered.

Shalltear had a questioning look on her face. Thus Subaru stood up and waved.

“The way I would've won is simple: Diplomacy,” Subaru replied.

“But-but that’s not how you win a fight?” Shalltear squeaked. 

“Do the words Peace Treaty mean nothing to you?” Asked Lergen.

Another omake/potential oneshot for someone else to write: Emilia sings Stay Alive (re zero s1 second ending) (Canon Fact), but she’s tone deaf (also canon fact). The song itself? Beautiful. Solution? Emilia is tone deaf for an Elf, but to the human hearing range, it's perfect. Remove the infra/ultrasonic bits and she’ll love her singing too. ...in the mansion loops when Subaru wakes up with the torturous twins she always says “You make such a ruckus” when they are being quiet AF. So it's potentially canonical that she has stronger hearing than Subaru.

...I wonder if she could hear the blood seeping out of her and Subaru's wounds in the first loop. Cause you know, it’s Re zero nothing is wholesome 100%. If IQ then Nazarick would also hear the ultra/infra sounds/tone-deafness of Emilia’s singing. They are often cited to be better than humans, well if you are better then take the bad and the good. Like Phenomenal Cosmic Power, Itty Bitty Living Space to quote Disney’s Aladdin.

Some observations/rants aka have some semi-deleted content:

Four people sent a deadpan stare toward the Celestial (Copyright) Fae.

“HA! I knew Being X wasn’t a God of Mythology! ” Tanya thought to herself. “But seriously? World Wars but with magic/magitech is the best my Author can come up with? And could Being X be less blatant about being the Author Avatar?” Tanya sighed.

“The hell is a Kadokawa?” Ainz thought.

“Okay, there is a 25% chance of our universe being told from Emilia’s perspective like Puella Magi Madoka Magica. And a 75% chance of it being from my perspective.” Subaru pinched his nose. “In which case, ooh boy I have a large hatedom for my actions.” Subaru looked around the room. “Hopefully the anime will be from my perspective so I can finally talk about Return by Death and be honest to everyone. Still gonna choke the author for how cruel they are in my deaths. I did not need to see Rem getting tortured in front of me to hate the Witch Cult!” Subaru’s eye twitched. “Rem torturing me with her Morningstar was enough, thank you very much!”

“We’re the only comedy in this gathering aren’t we?” Kazuma and Aqua thought in unison. 

“If we are a comedy, then a whole lot of stuff makes sense.” Kazuma thought further. ” Still gonna punch my ‘Author’ for making Aqua as stupid as she is. Wait, am I never gonna get that Succubus Dream?” Kazuma spasmed at that thought. “Right! I’ma delete all their porn.”

Chapter Text

“So are we watching our next episode?” Lergen asked.

=Nope. Per our Contract with the Security Force we have to rotate the Shows we watch. Thus we are going to watch Overlord’s First Episode, then Re Zero’s and so on and so forth.= Weaver answered.

Electronic tones sounded as the logo for Media Factory formed. Either piano or soft horns played while Kadokawa Video assembled and shone. Another Kadokawa logo appeared this time of the Pictures subbrand and in silence. Funimation advertised its logo.

“Why are there so many logos? Aqua complained. “Isn’t Funimation a dubbing company? What is it doing in production?! You really modeled yourselves after humanity that much?!”

“Dubbing is a part of production.” Kazuma replied through his facepalm.

Emilia tilted her head. “What is dubbing?”

“Audio translation, that is repeating what someone said but in your language.” Ainz replied. “Performed by Voice Actors/Actresses like my friend Bukubukuchagama.”

“HA! I was right!” Shalltear said with a smug look and voice.

Ainz blinked. “Wait, you remember our conversations?”

The NPCs nodded.

“Huh. That’s odd.” Ainz rubbed his temples. “Did Yggdrasil make sapient AIs?”

“What are Aye Eyes?” Visha asked while tilting her head.

“AI stands for Artificial Intelligence. Basically they are Spirits, but instead of Mana they are made out of Electrons.” Subaru replied. “Electrons are the smallest form of Lightning Bolts.”

“That's just a Lightning Elemental.” Megumin responded.

Ainz raised a finger to protest before thinking about it and sighed. “In a way, you’re not wrong.”

The first scene was a Very High Tech Chair and the sound of plastic ruffling. A human man clad in a hazmat suit walked onto screen.

“So our next person of interest is a Hazardous Materials Worker?” Kazuma asked. 

The Nazarick contingent bristled in their seats. “Wait. Why are we angry?” The Denizens of Nazarick questioned.

“I recognize that chair. Or atleast the brand it's from.” Ainz thought to himself.

“It does make sense on how they got summoned. Must have mishandled one of their wares.” Subaru followed up.

The Hazmat Clad man proceeds to remove his protective layer, revealing Sazuki Satoru.

The Nazarick Denizens reflexively took a knee, only stopped by their confused minds and the fact that they were seated. Completely unaware of their Last God’s eye-flames widening.

“Has it really been a few weeks since I’ve seen my human body? ” Ainz pondered.

Satoru walked over to his fridge, revealing only a horde of liquid holding tubes.

“I’m fairly certain that being a Hazardous Materials Worker can afford more than yogurt.” Aqua said.

“Maybe they recently had an accident and thus the doctor forbade them from regular food for a while?” Seiya contemplated.

Nazarick Denizens’ all collectively twitched before they smothered the reaction.

“No, my mother died while preparing my favorite meal as a child. Nothing so simple as a medical thing.” Satoru recounted.

Satoru quickly downed the nutrient paste and walked over to the chair. He picked up a Needle before sitting in the chair, putting on his Helmet Camera that looked like a VR Headset and jammed the Needle into his neck, injecting the contents into his bloodstream.

“Oh great we’re following a druggie.” Tanya said with much condensation. Tanya’s killer of her Nameless Salaryman Life was a long time abuser of drugs and a slacker. Hence why she kicks Kazuma (another slacker) in Isekai Quartet’s First Opening.

Nazarick violently suppressed their urge to lounge at Tanya.

“I am not a druggie.” Ainz defended himself.

“So that is Lord Ainz True Form.” the NPCs thought in unison as they scrambled to take in the Visage of their Last God. “If Ainz’s True Species was Human, then the appearance of us NPCs make sense. And why we were so angry.”

“Those were nanites I needed to access the latest iteration of the Internet, if that word means anything to you.” Ainz continued.

“What is your human name? So you’re from a potential future earth? Has your Earth cracked space travel and/or met aliens?” Subaru asked.

“No, we're still unfortunately trapped on Earth. And no First Contact hasn’t happened yet.” Ainz said.

“My human name was Suzuki Satoru.” Satoru revealed. “I’ve had bad experiences with regular food so Nutrient Paste it is.”

Subaru made a noise of comprehension. “Ah, I’ve been on both sides of that situation.”

The room blinked and looked at the Emilia Camp, who in turn looked in concern towards Subaru. Trying to remember the instance where he was fed bad food. ...Blissfully unaware of the time, Subaru, right after getting literally tortured for information, thought that Rem and Ram would poison his meals because of The Witch’s Stench. 

“What’s with the Virtual Reality Headset if you’re using Nanites?” Naofumi asked.

“That's a security camera to provide alibis against hacking.” Satoru answered. “Hacking is just Possession but Lightning.”

“Ah, yeah that’s a hazard of advancing tech.” Tanya nodded.

“Why the hazmat suit then?” Seiya questioned. “If you have Entertainment-Grade Nanites, then a simple Grey Goo Swarm is definitely in your society's capabilities. It should be a fairly simple programming change from Military to Environmental Clean-Up.”

Satoru’s eye flames dimmed/was shadowed for half their width, mimicking lowering eyelids in a deadpan stare. “Acid Rain and Toxic Air because of Nuclear War. ...This is after said Environmental Clean-Up Nanites expunged enough hazards for the lower classes to live in a shamble of safety underneath/in the Arcologies’ Shadows.”

Aqua, Kazuma, Subaru, Naofumi, Ristarte, Seiya, and Tanya all groaned the instant they heard Nuclear War.

“What is Nuclear Warfare?” Demiurge asked.

The aforementioned reactors above Demiurge’s Line plus Satoru froze in unison. The room was filled with noises of concern when they wouldn’t respond.

=Don’t worry. They just had a moment of dawning comprehension that only Military Records would even begin to understand Nukes.= Weaver Soothed.

At the strange noises that Weaver dared to call speaking, those who knew what Nukes were jolted out of their shock.

“Okay. Don’t ask about Nuclear Warfare.” The rest of the room thought.

“Dive Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.” appeared on the screen and was narrated by Satoru. “Also known as a DMMO-RPG. It is a type of game where you can enjoy an imaginary world as if you were in it.” A tree formed the Y of the Yggdrasil while soft female chanting and flute/forest themed music played. “Yggdrasil. Released in 2126, it stood above all other DMMO-RPGs due to its expansive map and unusually high player freedom, making it explosively popular within the country of Japan.”

“Wait Yggdrasil?” Darkness asked. “Is that the same Yggdrasil as Mr-I-want-to-be-tormented-by mentioned?”

“I doubt that.” Zettour answered. “Yggdrasil is the Norse Mythology’s name for Reality Itself and thus is a public-domain name. Aka it can be used for anything.”

“That and in my World,” Kazuma said. “Yggdrasil was the name for a whole lot of games, considering this Yggdrasil is explicitly made in one of my world’s possible futures. Then the likelihood of it being the same Yggdrasil is literally astronomical.”

“What's a ‘game’ in this context?” Emilia asked.

“A Dream forged in Lightning.” Seiya answered.

Those who knew about electricity and computers and video games raised their fingers to object and then lowered them.

“In a way, you’re not wrong.” Tanya said while hanging her head.

“So AIs are Lightning Elementals in Dreams forged in Lightning, is what you are saying, I suppose?” Beatrice asked.

The Isekai sufferers nodded.

“Though they aren’t solely limited to Games and there are multiple types of AI, even though most of them are purely theoretical with my world’s technology.” Subaru said.

“Okay.” Rapthalia said. “What is with Humanity and Lightning?”

“The Real Question is: Why is Lightning so damn Useful? But you should see Humanity and Explosions.” Kazuma said with a smirk.

The Yggdrasil burned away while shadowed root-like trees passed in front of the camera. “Now, twelve years later, Yggdrasil is about to meet its end.”

A group of adventurers grouped up before a tomb entrance.

“Isn’t that Nazarick’s entrance?” Shalltear asked. 

“Well it's certainly in a hell-world.” Kazuma replied. “Cause that sky ain’t natural.”

The Denizens of Nazarick felt a strange stirring of obedience to the voice. Even though they had never heard it before.

“Is that your voice, Lord Satoru?” Sebas asked.

Satoru nodded. “Dive is just the more advanced version of Virtual Reality, if you were wondering about terms.”

Trumpets played as skeletons popped out of the ground and engaged with the adventurers. The camera panned out revealing a small cliff separating the adventurers from the skeletons and Death Knights. The Adventurers leapt in the action with the Gundam Knight being the first to throw a blow with a noise of excretion. The ninja twirled around some skeletons cleaving them in half. 

“Really, a Gundam Knight?” Subaru asked.

“Show some originality.” Tanya followed up.

“Do you want Kamen Rider or Super Sentai outfits?” Aqua countered.

“Or worse, a Goku Rip off?” Kazuma provided backup for his party member.

“So that Player was infringing on copyright, I’m assuming.” Satoru questioned.

“Eh.” Tanya waved her hand in an indecisive manner. “I’m fairly certain the Copyright would have expired and the Gundam Franchise became Public Property in the 2080s, if, you know, the execs don’t make a new series to sell toys.”

“WHY ARE THERE SO MANY GUNDAM SHOWS!” Ristarte screamed while clutching her head. “I thought you would run out of ways to make Mecha interesting but noooo!”

=Copyright is another word for the contamination laws. But for truly fictional worlds/Worlds that were preserved on Earth(s) as Fiction. So that we know how they’re meant to be after correcting an extra-dimensional invasion.= Weaver clarified.

A paladin spun their staff and casted a spell causing the skeletons in front of them to dissolve into white orbs. The Amazon ran at a group of skeletons and cut them in half. Then a heavily Armored Knight spun their flame axe, vertically bisecting a Death Knight. The Sorceress gathered a pink ball of energy at the tip of her eye-staff before unleashing it, dissolving skeletons and A Death Knight.

The Barbarian punched the swamp, tossing the surrounding skeletons back. Gundam Knight cut down some more skeletons before The Adventurers regrouped. The camera panned around to show the stairs leading into the Tomb. At the top of the stairs were some members of Ainz Ooal Gown. 

On the far left I want to say is either Yamaiko (The Creator of Yuri Alpha) or Bellriver who got ‘disappeared’ and might have created Area Guardian Grant (an arachnoid who is friends with Entoma and Cocytus), but is actually Amanomahitotsu the creator of Nazarick’s Chief Blacksmith. Thanks again to Haakon. To their right is Tabula Smaragdina, to his right is Ulbert Alain Odle, to his right (and occupying the center of this formation) Is the (relatively) Overpowered Overlord known as Momonga. To his right is Touch Me, to Touch Me’s right is Peroroncino and in front of him is his older sister Bukubukuchagama.

The Denizens of Nazarick made noises of glee as they saw their Creators once more. Even if it's through a TV.

“You know I really should stop counting the Odds.” Kazuma shook his head.

And now for the song. This is gonna suuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. If you’re expecting in depth analysis of the songs, that’s sidestory content. That and I don’t know enough about cinematography to do that. That and I haven’t mustered up the willpower to shamelessly rip-off Mother’s Basement. If any of you have some observations then I will add them.

Soft electric drums and guitars played over a starscape. Which was overcome by a blur of colors, primarily yellow, as non-readable red and white text appeared on the left side. Reaching from the right was Momonga’s right(?) hand.

“Where did the answer go? Search For it.”

I’m guessing on the first syllable of “Search” the camera swapped to behind Momonga’s back. 

“What is this?” Visha asked.

“The introductory song of course.” Kazuma answered.

=This one is called Clattanoia, the first of Overlord’s three Openings. Military Records is Jingo Jungle. Re:zero’s first Introductory is Redo. The first introductory song of Konosuba is Fantastic Dreamers. Shield Hero’s First Introductory is Rise. and Overcautious is Tit for Tat, sharing the lack of episodes to make another Introductory with Military Records.= Weaver said. =There are of course ending songs. But those are for later.=

“Where’s My Soul?”

Momonga was shown in all of his frontal glory, skull sheathed in shadows with his eye-flames piercing it. The camera zoomed into Momonga’s eye entering a black screen and seeing the Fancy Overlord Title. The black screen faded so that marching skeletons were overlaid with the Title. A brief flash of Nazarick’s Top/Courtyard/Entrance was shown before smashing into Momonga on another black screen.

This time Momonga had a yellow, slightly to the left, shadow. The camera was panning up to show Momonga in contemplation with his hand on his chin. More unreadable text covered the left side of the screen.

“It's like a fear, just like a nightmare.”

“ Even when I wake, all I've got is bones.”

On “Bones” Momonga looks at the Camera. Well specifically the Camera only had Momonga’s Face and his hand which looked at the Camera. Before transitioning to Albedo’s Wing-clad Hips, Albedo herself laid on the ground on her side with a pink shadow right behind her.

“I’m in a panic? Get out, hurry.”

The Camera panned up from Albedo’s hips. Albedo looked at the camera on “Hurry”, transitioning to Aura with a red shadow doing a backflip.

“Oh, there are mysteries and miseries.”

Aura landed sitting down on Mysteries and Mare twirled onto screen holding his Druid Staff on Miseries. Mare did a pose with his purple shadow. 

“Dead or Alive, I’m being swayed by the line between them.”

The Camera panned up Demiurge who appeared on “Dead or Alive” and was adjusting his tie with a Green Shadow. 

“If I wander, right to left to hell.”

Cocytus came from the right with his intimidating Ice-like shoulders and purple shadow. Breathing out his cold mist breath on “Right to left to hell”.

“Invitation to Loneliness, withdrawal of emotion.”

Of course Momonga couldn’t show up again at this line, so this line went to the second most fitting character; Sebas who had his hand over his heart and bowed with his cyan/light blue shadow. His right eye shadowed with a regular black shadow.

“I dance 1, 2, 3 steps on this dark stage.”

Shalltear’s Victorian dress appeared as she literally danced with her parasol/umbrella onto screen. A light blue/cyan shadow accompanied her. On “Stage” the Parasol passed the camera for the second time and revealed Shalltear’s Lamprey-like True Vampire Form, which ate the camera.

“O...Kay, so you’re not a vampire.” Lergen said. 

Shalltear tilted her head. “Huh? I’m a True Vampire.”

“There is no such thing as a ‘True’ Vampire.” Naofumi said.

“If you’re from Earth, then Vampires shouldn’t exist at all, let alone Elves, Demons, and whatnot.” Weiss interjected. 

“No. I meant there is no unifying distinction in the “Bloodsucking Nocturnal Parasites with the Shape of a Human (or sometimes a Bat Swarm)” species.” Naofumi clarified. “In some worlds/stories, Vampires (and maybe Demons) burn to death in sunlight. Other times they can walk about during the day with no penalties. And in different worlds/stories they become stone during daylight and return to life upon moonrise. Or they just lose some of their powers.”

Satoru ahh’d and nodded. “In Yggdrasil those are separate subspecies of Vampire, True Vampire has all of the upsides of the other Subspecies of Vampires but only the Turn to Stone during Daylight which can be outgrown into a mild slow upon reaching level 60.” [1]

“Do Lamprey even suck blood?” Kazuma asked. “I know of bats that drink cattle blood in South/Central America.”

“Yes they do, though they only drink fish blood considering the fact that they too are fish, specifically a type of eel. They can be found in Lake Erie of Canada/USA Borders..” Aqua answered. 

“What do you mean by not existing?” Raphthalia asked while tilting her head. “Surely there are other races on Earth like Demihumans, right?”

“Not really.” Seiya shook his head. “While there are a lot of animal species, there are only the Chimpanzees and Dolphins who are close to human level. Chimpanzees can be taught sign language (their vocal cords aren’t built for sound-based languages), they have trouble understanding basic nebulous concepts like Tomorrow. Dolphins however we have no idea how to communicate with.”

On the screen a tsunami of animals passed by before consolidating into a Chimpanzee and a human ‘talking’ via sign language. A Dolphin Pod of the Bottlenose Variety was shown swimming and breaching the water. Both specified animals were labeled with their species names, in the common lexicon not the scientific names.

“Oh sure there are animals who can pose a danger to individual humans like Lions and Tigers and Bears, but other races like you are talking about?” Zettour said. “Those races are either hiding somewhere on Earth or flat out don’t exist on Earth.”

“That explains why we only saw Humans during your episode.” Emilia said after the room was in quiet contemplation for a minute. “I-We thought they were simply on another Battlefield.”

“So by aliens, you meant another race who conquered a World on their lonesome?” Aura asked.

The protagonists nodded.

“Yeah if a Fantasy World (i.e. a World of Magic, Elves, Dwarves, and whatnot) actually met Aliens, said aliens would probably be very confused on how many sapient (Human level or above intelligence and rationality) species could come from a single World.” Naofumi said.

“Raise your flag, march on, fight.”

Momonga was shown top-down walking on a red carpet. Enri and Nemu Emmot were the first to appear on the red carpet. Brita holding Momonga’s gifted Red Health Potion was next.

“My hand reaches for the mask’s edge, but only my bones resound.”

The Swords of Darkness appeared on the first syllable in a massive group hug. Lizzie and her grandson Nfirea Bareare are shown in front of a window, which I assume to be their store front.. Gazef Stronoff and his warrior troop were on horseback, riding desperately trying to outspeed the currently unseen raiders.

“Wars and swords, tears and blood.”

Said raiders were shown next. Specifically they were the Sunlight Scripture of the Slane Theocracy led by Ningun Grid Luin. The Red herring Necromancy Terrorist Group Zurrenorn was represented by Clementine formerly of the Black Scripture of the Slane Theocracy and Khajiit Dale Badantel. 

“I suddenly find myself laughing at the overwhelming power.”

Of course for this line there was none other than: Brain Unglaus, the Character that made me invested in Overlord. [2]

And then some characters that I have no clue where they are from and thus can not identify. Are they from the side stories?

Momonga finally stopped trampling over the New World Populous and turned to look up at the camera. Skulls were laughing on a black screen. 

“Where is the answer? Search for it.”

A hamster ran on a boulder and tripped over itself making an adorable freeze-frame crash. Red overtook the screen revealing Momon in the Perfect Warrior Spell granted Armor leaping towards something. After Momon got out of the way Nabe appeared, also leaping apparently in front of the sun with the Clattonia label appearing over her face. Momon landed in a circle of what Overlord dared to call Ogres before slicing through some attending goblins and the ogre who was blocking the camera.

Nabe came from behind Momon and unleashed a lightning bolt/stream which the camera followed. And it exploded transitioning to Aura riding her Fenrir named Fenn and pulled her brother onto its back.

“I’m getting swallowed up by reality.”

A giant chameleon monster whose species was called Itzamna and named Quadracile. Why the hell do we not see more like this, instead of Generic European Fantasy World Number 1896680715 when logically the six centuries of Vertible Gods sssshould impact the ...everything but barely do? 

“Don’t hesitate, go this way.”

Albedo in her Apparently-Power-Armor-That-Looks-Like-Knight-Armor spun her giant ax/bardiche, which apparently is a World Item just transformed, in front of Carne Village’s Elder House. Cocytus appeared freezing Lizardmen to the ground. Sebas, again with his right eye shadowed, appeared in a combat ready position in an alleyway where he fought the Eight Finger’s mooks/trained Climb, I have watched s2 far too many times to recognize that alleyway.

“Okay so we’re tackling not only our Summoning, but Momon and Nabe’s First Adventure. But also the Lizardmen And the Eight Fingers?” Shalltear skipped her humiliation.

=No the first 13 episodes/the first season only tackles the Summoning, Momon and Nabe’s First Adventure, and the Honyopenyoko fight. The Next 13 episodes/season 2 are the Lizardmen and the Eight Fingers. Coctyus and Sebas simply needed to be shown again in the intro.= Weaver explained.

The room nodded in understanding.

Demiurged flapped his wings before the moon. 

“I don’t know, I don’t care.”

Satoru phased through his alternate personas. Albedo shed some tears of dramatism and clutched her hands in prayer.

“Even if I’m moving an imitation.”

Shalltear (Honyopenyoko) was shown in her Third/Final/Bloody Valkyrie Stage/Phase/Armor with her blood drinking lance. Shalltear’s face was shown before Ainz and Shalltear flew at each other in a dog fight. 

“Any explanation on why Honyopenyoko looks just like Shalltear?” Subaru investigated.

“Has to do with her unknown origins.” Shalltear answered. “Do we get an explanation on her origins?”

=Yes.= Weaver replied.

“I just have to live on in this world.”

Ainz threw a fireball at Shalltear who dodged. Shalltear rammed Ainz causing an explosion with magic circles. 

“Ah, the sadness of loss aches once again.”

Ainz walked up to Albedo under a bright but cloudy day. Reaching for the Ainz Ooal Gown Flag in Albedo’s hands. Ainz turned around and planted the flag right on the Cliff edge.

“Misery-World.”

The flag boldly waved in the wind. Hamsuke was poorly hidden behind the Pleiades Seven (Six shown) Combat Maids on the left, Sebas was just in front of them. To his right Albedo stood covering Sebas from the waist down with her extended wing. Ainz of course was front and center. To his right stood Pandora’s Actor covered by his Father’s Staff and the credits. To PA’s right was Shalltear.

In front (and slightly to the right) of Demiurge was Aura with her hands behind her head and Mare clutching his Yggdrasil Stick. In front of Cocytus was Fenn the Fenrir and Quadracile the Itzamna.

“Well that’s a high bar to clear for the other introductory songs.” Ristarte said.

While most of the room didn’t know a lick about ‘Modern’ anything, let alone Modern Military Tactics and thus unable to effectively comment on Military Records. What the room did know was ‘Fantasy’ i.e. Elves, Demons, Magic, and Divinities.

“It was fun. It was really fun.” Satoru Thought to himself while the screen was black.

Satoru opened his eyes revealing Herohero sat in the 9th Floor’s Round Table of the Great Tomb of Nazarick. In the upper left corner of Satoru’s vision sat an info box proclaiming: Ainz Ooal Gown Membership via the Ainz Ooal Gown Symbol. Japanese symbols which I presume meant “Magic Caster with the Appearance of a Skeleton”, below that sat English letters spelling Momonga, Level 100. HP and MP bars below that and some random Japanese that I don’t know what they correspond to.

The middle of the top proclaimed either the room name or proclaimed that the Live Service was ending. The right corner was a 24-hour style clock showing 22:24:00. Bottom left was a chat box with Menu, Chat, Event, and System tabs. The bottom right was a Map with a built in compass.

Herohero was a dripping Purple slime with a small stub acting as a raised arm. “Hey, there. It's been a really long time, Momonga-San.” The audibly sleep deprived Herohero said.

“I really didn’t think that you’d come, Herohero-san.” Momonga said. “It's been about two years, hasn’t it?”

“It’s been that long?” Herohero asked. “This is bad. I’ve been doing so much Overtime lately that my sense of time is messing up.”

“Yeah that definitely distorts time.” Subaru commented.

“Isn’t that a pretty bad syndrome?” Momonga asked with obvious concern.

“My Body? It's completely worn out.” Herohero replied with a shrug.

“Whoa.” Momonga said.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t come here just to complain.” Herohero apologized.

“Don’t worry about it.” Momonga replied while using an Eyes Closed Smile Emote.

“Oh, I have to go soon. I’m way too sleepy.” Herohero said, sealing his life to Acid Drenched Despair. Even the music realized just what Herohero did and became a sad soft piano.

“Could Lord Herohero have been with us?” Sebas asked.

Satoru sadly nodded. “I wish I had been more persuasive.” 

Herohero tapped on the air creating a menu with numerous Japanese options. 

“Oh.” Momonga flinched back at Herohero’s Rejection. “Please rest well.” Momonga used a Wide Smile Emote.

“Nazarick’s beds would have ensured that rest.” Aura commented.

“I’m really sorry about this.” Herohero said before looking around. “But, I’m really surprised that the Great Tomb of Nazarick is still here.”

“Huh?” Momonga muttered in confusion.

“You must have been maintaining it as the Guild Leader, Momonga-san.” Herohero complimented, while the music became wistful

“Well, Nazarick was a base that we created together.” Momonga said with an audible blush/embarrassment.

“Momonga-san, thank you for all your hard work.” Herohero praised while using the Wide Smile Emote. “I hope we meet again somewhere.” 

A soft beep played as Herohero disappeared in a flash of blue-white light. In the middle of Momonga’s vision appeared “Herohero has logged off.”

“Well that's inconvenient if someone logged on or off and you’re in combat.” Naofumi remarked in his head.

A black screen flashed before the camera panned across empty seats. Chapter 1: End and Beginning in red text appeared in the bottom right.

“Today is the last day Yggdrasil’s servers will run.” Momonga practiced in lamenting after the fact. “Why not stay until the end?” Momonga lowered his hand as he trailed off.

Momonga sighed. “No, I’m happy that he even came today. I hope we meet again someday, huh? Just when and where would that be?”

Momonga slammed his fist on the table. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Momonga shouted with audible anguish while the wistful music returned. “This is the Great Tomb of Nazarick that we built together!”

“How can he give it up so easily?” Momonga asked, clearly confused. “No, that’s not it.”

Momonga stood up. “No one betrayed me.” Momonga walked over to an alcove containing a floating staff. “The Guild Weapon, Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown. We played recklessly to make this. Some members used their paid vacations and others fought their wives to make time and get the materials to make this.”

“So you’re a Raid Guild?” Kazuma questioned.

“Yeah.” Satoru nodded.

“But among the 41 members, 37 of them quit.” Momonga thought after the camera came back to him. He pulled down the staff. “And even the three that were left…” 

The staff let out semi-transparent black ghosts. “Let’s go. You are the testament to our guild.”

Momonga turned and walked to the door. “There were two requirements to join the guild Ainz Ooal Gown. The Player’s Avatar had to be a Heteromorph.”

The room (excluding Nazarick of course) blinked at the term.

“What is a Heteromorph?” Subaru asked.

“Yggdrasil divided the species into three categories. Humanity which included Elves and Dwarves to the definition alongside Homo Sapiens Sapiens (the humans you know quite well as Humanity).” Satoru started. “The Demihumans, a weird middle section that includes the Lizardmen and various species like them. And finally the Heteromorphs: Angels, Demons, Slimes like Herohero, Automatons/Golems all fall into this category.”

“So you can actually play as the Monster Races?” Kazuma asked. “How fancy.”

“A Norse Mythology based World of Warcraft, yeah I can see why it skyrocketed to popularity.” Tanya said nodding while thinking back to her Gamer days in her past life.

“And the player needed to be a functioning member of society.” Momonga walked out of the room. “That's right, everyone’s livelihood was at stake.” The chandeliers were pretty. “There were people whose dreams came true. It can’t be helped that they all chose real life in the end.”

The Pleiades and Sebas appeared.

“A combat butler and maids, how strange.” Seiya said.

“It's a Great War British tradition.” Tanya clarified. “At this point in time Britain’s Commissioned Military Officer Status was Buyable instead of promoting on Merit. Thus the Aristocracy filled the Officer Ranks, thus at least some of their retinue joined them in the military. In the time after the Great War the Aristocrats found pleasure in being served by people who could effortlessly kill and provide tea.”

Well technically I believe the whole Combat Butlers were Intelligence Officers from the Second World War-Cold War. But Tanya hadn’t figured out how to drop those bombs yet.

“As for the name, the only way it could be more Combat Butler is if it was Sebastian Hayate.” Subaru said. “Sebastian Michaelis is the name of a Demon Butler in service of Ciel Phantomhive, a fictional British Aristocrat.”

Ciel and Sebastian appeared on screen. Sebastian pouring some tea for his Current Master and Future Meal. Black Butler was the label in the top left corner. 

“While Hayate Ayasaki is from the Other Combat Butler of Note anime, Hayate the Combat Butler if you wanted to know its name.” Subaru continued.

Hayate appeared on screen holding a belt fed gun single-handedly. (Specifically a MG3 according to his Fandom Wiki Page). Hayate the Combat Butler was the label in the top right. This I just shamelessly ripped from his fandom page.

“We all had you guard the throne room but no player ever managed to get this far.” Momonga thought. “As Guild Leader I should move them around one last time.”

“Follow.” Momonga ordered.

Sebas and the Pleiades obediently followed him in a single file line.

“I’m sure the guild members will forgive me for doing whatever I want for just today.” Momonga thought.

“If they're actually your friends, then yes they should.” Naofumi said.

“Why wasn’t there a voice line prompted by the following command?” Subaru thought. “Or even a simple dialogue box?”

A large double door was decorated with an angel and a demon. Through it was a grand throne room with numerous blood red flags with the Personal Symbols of the Supreme Beings. A massive blue chandelier with decorative candles hanging from the chandelier. The throne itself was spiky like it was a rip off of the Iron Throne from A Song of Fire and Ice/Game of Thrones, just purple. At least from this distant point of view.

The camera introduced Albedo.

“The command was “Stand By,” right?” Momonga commanded/asked of himself.

Sebas and the Pleiades bowed before standing to the side. 

Momonga looked over to Albedo. “What were her settings again? As the Highest Ranked NPC in the Tomb of Nazarick, she supervises all of the Floor Guardians.”

Albedo had a small smug smile at her Lord’s compliment.

“What is a NPC, I suppose?” asked Beatrice.

“NPC stands for Non-Player Character. So literally everyone is an NPC, though the way I used it meant an Ally.” Satoru explained. “Mobs are Hostile NPCs. There are NPCs that specifically exist to explain stuff in the tutorial. Peroroncino had an adorable ‘manual girl’ because of his Avatar’s race.” Or is a Manual Girl someone like Yuki Nagato from the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya?

“You aren’t That Person, so don’t go assuming I’ll explain things for you! I suppose!” How the hell are you meant to write Beatrice’s verbal quirk while she is yelling?

Beatrice pouted and crossed her arms when Subaru ignored her yelling and head patted her.

Momonga rapidly sped through Albedo’s settings. “So Long! Come to think of it, the setting maniac Tabula-san was the one that created her.”

“If I understand this ‘camera’ logic correctly, then we should have a record of Albedo’s Settings correct?” Shalltear questioned.

Albedo blushed as she lunged to strangle the True Vampire back to the Afterlife. Unfortunately for Albedo that wasn’t classified as an ‘Emote’ and thus passed through Shalltear.

=Yes we do.= Weaver replied as the screen rippled into text.

She is a demoness who holds the title of Guardian Overseer, which is the highest-ranking position in the Great Underground Tomb of Nazarick. With flowing raven hair and golden pupils, her beauty could bewitch a nation.

She is proud of her position and confronts intruders as a confident, dignified superior being.

Regardless of how brilliant or brave her foes are, or whether she considers them strong, she will never acknowledge them as being equal to herself.

This is because she understands the meaning of the position bestowed upon her.

Her abilities befit the title of Guardian Overseer, with outstanding intelligence and combat ability.

That said, she is not omnicompetent. For instance, in pure wits, Demiurge is her superior, while Shalltear is superior in fighting ability. Yet, nobody in Nazarick can rival her administrative ability.

Demiurge and Shalltear smirked.

In addition, her feminine skills -- particularly those pertaining to being a housewife -- are excellent, and during her free time, she can be seen sweeping, sewing, and so on.

Though the reason is unknown, she enjoys cleanliness and her desire for such frequently drives her to clean things up.

In particular, her ability to sort out bookshelves knows no peer.

However, she recognizes the possessions of others as belonging to them, so she rarely insists on cleaning up.

That said, the items accumulated through her collector’s habit are typically very messy.

Therefore, it remains to be seen whether she actually likes being tidy.

This might well be an act -- in order to appear as the perfect woman -- though the truth of that is unknown. It is too scary to confirm.

She always has a gentle smile on her, and her elegant way of speech has made many people think she is a goddess or an angel.

That mistake is not particularly laughable, given that she is surrounded by that sort of atmosphere and acts in an appropriate way.

The fact is, it would not be wrong to view her in that way.

She was originally planned to be an angel of the highest order, but she ended up with a greatly distorted appearance after being fused with a monster from the land of dreams.

Because of that, her personality is similarly twisted, being merciless and cruel, cunning and savage. She gives her enemies despair and revels in their agonizing deaths.

Her usual expression seems to be there to suppress the urges which flow from her heart -- a mask which exists to conceal her desire to perform ruthless acts upon the weak.

If the mask breaks, she would probably end up being like Empress Lu Zhi or Empress Wu Zetian.

“Who are these Empresses this bio speaks of?” Kazuma asked.

Google opened and pasted the names into the search box. Weaver clicked on Wikipedia. I won’t be copy-pasting those. That line neatly explains the origin of Albedo’s Hitsquad.

Naofumi pulled Filo and Rapthalia behind him, the 203rd shuffled to put Tanya in a better defensive position. Megumin just aimed her staff at Albedo. Beatrice just stared at Albedo with the air rippling around her. Aura and Mare shifted to be farther away from Albedo, who in turn was holding her very strong Poker Face. 

“HA! I’ll be an Objectively better wife and mother than you!” Shalltear laughed.

However, that only applies when dealing with those not of Nazarick.

Fortunately for those who do not serve Nazarick, one can take comfort in the fact that the mask is very sturdy and will not break easily.

She feels very strongly about her duties as the Guardian Overseer of the Great Underground Tomb of Nazarick.

Naturally, the fact that she has ears everywhere listening for information goes without saying.

In addition, she smiles all the time -- to the point where one might say she does not show any other emotion.

Her smile is nothing more than a poker face to her.

She can also show emotions like anger, grimaces, and fake tears.

Her sophisticated lady’s face will not break, even when she is torturing the fools who oppose her.

By her appearance alone, she is a perfect beauty.

=And the last line is actually read by Satoru.= Weaver said.

“Ah fuck. I’m sharing a room with Succubus!GlaDos.” Naofumi said.

“Thankfully this isn’t her actual coding.” Subaru said through his facepalms. “So the chances of her actually going GlaDos or SHODAN or Hal9000 (no wait, Hal’s male) or Skynet (Skynet is female right?) on us are slim.”

“It’s describing my personality, what’s wrong with that?” Albedo asked in confusion, as the rest of the NPCs silently sat unsure on how to butt in, or even if they should..

“What it is, is a fuck ton of paradoxes.” Seiya said.

“If you thought me and the military were sticklers for rules, AIs are built upon Logic, so if there were Contradictory Statements.” Tanya waved at the entirety of Albedo’s Bio. “Then said AI has a very large chance of murdering someone, ‘accidently’ or not. That includes the ‘Wrong’ People, such as Allies.”

“I very explicitly didn’t open her actual programming.” Satoru reminded the room. “So this really shouldn’t impact Albedo’s functionality.”

“But those Empresses she explicitly references are very …into backstabbing children and reinforces those torture lines.” Kazuma said.

“I have more references to actually being a good wife.” Albedo defended herself. 

“While those do have overlap, the Mentioned By Name and reinforcement aspects could overpower them.” Tanya said.

“Incidentally she is also a slut.” Momonga read. 

Every visible inch of Albedo’s skin was red with the force of her blush. Albedo reached into a dark purple disc, withdrew a blanket, transformed into her Imp form leaving her succubus wings, before cocooning herself in said blanket and wings.

“Dad!” The cocoon squeaked.

“Well that explains the War Bicorn Lord.” Aura and Shalltear said in unison.

Momonga dropped his head. “What’s with you, Tabula, and your obsession with Gap Moe?”

“Other than Albedo, what is Gap Moe?” Neuman asked.

“Tanya.” Aqua, Seiya, Satoru, Subaru, Ristarte, Naofumi, and Kazuma said in unison while hooking their thumbs at the little soldier.

“I am not-” Tanya stopped to think about it. “-Shit I am the Gap Moe.”

“Gap Moe is someone or something that is equally cute and horrifying.” Satoru further explained. “It’s usually accomplished by having someone cute do horrifying things.” Satoru again hooked his thumb at Tanya. “Of course there’s the rare instance of something horrifying to do something cute, like Bukubuku Chagama or Nigredo (Albedo’s Older Sister). Bukubukuchagama chose the horrifying slime model and used her best little girl voice for pretty much the entire time she played. A lot of players were salty because she was everywhere considering she was our best Tank.”

The Military Records cast made noises of confusion as they pictured a slime tank (the military vehicle) looking horrifying but with a little girl’s voice.

“No, not the weapon platform vehicle thing.” Satoru saw their confusion. “Tank'' meaning someone who can absorb/sustain a lot of damage, far more than other people. Though I don’t know why they’re called tanks.”

“Simple.” Tanya said.

A Republic force was moving through a town infested with loud growling, the poor soldiers rounded a corner and met the metal carriage type tank and promptly shot it for fuck all damage.

“Most Infantry scale weapons are useless.” Tanya narrated as she waved her hand at the bullets pinging off. “Hence why Defense Oriented Builds are called Tanks. The reason why these ones are called tanks is deception, if anyone had discovered the documents about them, the spies would naturally think "Oh, they mean water or fuel tanks." Not a new type of vechicle.”

Momonga picked up his head. “But this is just too terrible.” Momonga looked to his Staff and plucked the hovering item. “Normally you need a tool to change the settings, but since I have this.”

Momonga deleted the “Albedo is a Slut” line blissfully unaware of the true troublesome lines (for ya know, building a Nation/Dynasty like the Canonical Sorcerous Kingdom) WAAAY up in her settings. I’m talking about the child/offspring killing empresses Mentioned By Name.

“Should I add something?” Momonga pondered. “She is deeply in love with Momonga.”

“That line on its own, would make an incredibly wholesome relationship like Android 18/Lazuli and Krillin.” Kazuma said. “Buuuuuuut those Empress/torture Lines.”

“Distorts it into Yandere-hood.” Subaru said. “Yandere is Japanese for someone who's insane because of love.”

Albedo unfurled from her cocoon and returned to her succubus form now that the focus was off of her ...slutiness.

“Whoa! That’s so embarrassing! I’m so stupid!” Momonga grabbed his head in instant regret.

Momonga dismissed the screens as he calmed down. Proving that he didn’t need to be Emotionally/Soul Mutilated for that to happen. “The command was… Bow Down”

Albedo, Sebas, and the Pleiades all took a knee. Now that the camera was closer, the Throne of Kings (a World Item that the Guild earned for being the first guild to defeat a level 90+ Dungeon. Which puts the formation of Nazarick (and the simplicity of the Members names) in the first 3 years.) was visually brown and darker brown with large detailings. The purple from earlier was the back wall.

Momonga looked up to the ceiling. “A Relic of the Past.” Momonga pointed at the flags and listed the associated members. “Me. Touch Me. Shijuuten Suzaku. Ankoro Mocchi Mochi.” the camera swapped to the other side. “Herohero. Peroroncino. Bukubuku Chagama. Tabula Smaragdina. Warrior Takemikazuchi. Variable Talismen. Genjiro.”

Momonga leaned back and let out a final sigh. “That’s right. It was fun.” the screen returned to the blank gray from right after the song. “It was really fun.”

The clock was now audible while it counted down.

“I have to wake up at 4 am tomorrow.” Weaver helpfully translated the time into the local variants. Cause at least Re:zero has a different Hour Measurement. With the whole crystal lamps telling time.

“I’m fairly certain even morning shift people wake up later.” Kazuma said.

“Don’t try to be Eiichiro Oda, even if he can keep up with that kind of work load. You don’t have his health care!” Ristarte said while rubbing her temples.

Fuck it, time to headcanon.

“I needed the extra time to further mourn Yggdrasil and prepare to go outside.” Satoru said. [3] 

“I need to sleep as soon as the servers shut down or it’ll affect my job.” Momonga said.

The clock grew louder as midnight approached. The screen faded leaving only the UI. 

A black screen with only a white 00:00:00. 

Then it counted up. 

And didn’t stop.

The clock even echoed to hammer the point in.

“Hm?” Momonga pondered.

Soft notes played as Momonga looked down the throne room shakily.

“Did they push back the server shutdown?” Momonga asked.

“Did you get pulled into the Matrix?” Ristarte asked.

“No. Thankfully not. Just a Proper Alternate World.” Satoru replied.

Momonga tapped on thin air but no screen appeared. There was a sound, perhaps it was his finger bones clicking together?

“Where is my console?” Momonga asked in mild panic. “I can’t chat or GM Call, either.”

Momonga stood up. “What is going on?!”

“What’s wrong, Lord Momonga?” Albedo asked with a voice as smooth as velvet.

Momonga just stared at Albedo in confusion. Albedo however repeatedly asked for instructions.

Momonga panicked as Albedo’s boobs bounced before the emotional suppression kicked in for the first time in a green glow.

“W-wh-at was th-hat green sh-shine around Lord Satoru?” Mare asked.

“That was my emotional suppressor.” Answered Satoru.

“Was that the only time?” Concernly asked Albedo.

Satoru merely guffawed so hard he fell out of his throne and off the staircase. Mid fall the green light shone once more and Satoru caught himself with [Fly], floating back up to his throne. “No.” Satoru simply stated. The NPCs were in the midst of offering themselves as cushions to break his fall.

After the NPCs shuffled back to their seats. Demiurge’s tail thrashed. “Okay I can understand panic, but-” Demiurge rubbed his temples. “But why positive emotions?”

“Does Libido fall under the suppression?” Shalltear followed up.

“Yes.” Satoru replied. “I’ve determined that all debilitating emotions have been removed from my soul.”

“But libido isn’t an emotion?” Albedo sputtered in confusion.

Kazuma, Darkness, Shalltear, and Ristarte joined Albedo in the confused sputtering.

“What about Hunger?” Filo piped up.

“I have no organs to digest.” Satoru laid out.

“Have you even tried?” Filo questioned. “So what if the food falls through your mouth, you can still taste it! And that's if that Red Orb of yours doesn’t act like your ‘digestive organs’ (whatever those are).”

Satoru raised a finger to dispute Filo’s claim before remembering, he never actually did try. “Undead need no upkeep.”

“So just eat for pleasure.” Weiss answered.

“Also I’m fairly certain Undead do have upkeep, just different kinds than humans. If we go by mythology of course.” Zettour countered. 

“If you haven’t slept since your transformation, you really should before your body catches up with you and causes you to nap for a century or something suitably ridiculous.” Naofumi said. “If you physically can’t unless you're knocked out or something, then try some blindfolds, earmuffs and other accessories until you reach sensory deprivation.”

“If you know, there isn’t a sleep option deep in your menus.” Seiya followed up.

“I’m surprised that I could laugh so much.” Satoru commented, pushing the advice deeper in his head for further pondering..

=I’ve been slowly uncoiling that Suppressor from your Soul. Can’t go any faster or Lovecraftian stuff starts happening.= Weaver explained. This is so I don’t have to keep on writing: Then Satoru glowed emerald and his emotions were suppressed. ...every five minutes in Re zero or Konosuba, specifically and the others in general.

“I-We thought that we were failing you because you didn’t express happiness.” Sebas said.

“Nononono. You were/are doing just fine, I just don’t know how to express happiness as a skeleton.” Satoru scrambled.

The NPCs had a small smile on their lips on the fact that they were actually helpful.

“I don’t get upset, I have people to do that for me.” Team Four Stars’ Frieza voice echoed through Naofumi, Subaru, Kazuma, Aqua, Tanya, Ristarte, and Seiya’s minds.

“Hm? The GM Call function isn’t working.” Momonga explained.

Albedo backed off. Apparently unseeing of the green glow. “Please forgive me. An ignorant one such as myself has no answer to this “GM Call” you speak of.”

“GM means Game Master, they are the actual builders of the game.” Satoru explained.

“So the people who would fix being trapped in the game.” Albedo nodded in understanding, glad that she finally had the answer.

“Her mouth is moving?!.” Momonga thought.

“So you’re telling me that your world has access to records of Empresses LITERAL MILLENIA AGO! and doesn’t have Lip Flap/prerecorded lines. Or even simple dialogue boxes?” Tanya rubbed her temples. “Does your Humanity lack common sense?”

“Considering the fact that a Nuclear War happened?” Subaru pointed out. “Signs are pointing to: Yes.”

“ I could buy Players not having facial reactions. ” Naofumi thought. “If it wasn’t for the Vtubers. Damn nukes.”

“If you would allow me to correct this grave mistake, I would be forever grateful.” Albedo continued, blissfully unaware of her God’s continued confusion.

“No way! Is there an error going on?” Momonga clasped his face as he sat back down.

Momonga let go of his staff and it gently floated like in the game. “The staff functions just like it does in the game, but I can’t use my console. I can’t contact the Administrators, either.” The camera had zoomed onto Momonga’s unmoving skull. “What should I do?”

“Panicking has already been checked off.” Rudersdorf said. “Securing your position is always a useful priority.”

“Sebas!” Momonga demanded attention, following the unheard future advice. 

“Yes?” Sebas responded.

“Is it alright for me to give him orders?” Momonga thought. “ Just do it!” Momonga bullied himself into submission

“Sebas. Step outside of the tomb and confirm the surroundings of Nazarick.” Momonga commanded.

“Understood, Lord Momonga.” Sebas stood up.

“Pleiades. Go to the 9th floor and guard it from possible intruders.” Momonga ordered.

“As you wish, Lord Momonga.” Yuri Alpha said. Turning to follow Sebas out the door, leading her Sisters.

“The NPCs are recognizing non-specified commands?” Momonga thought.

“Any and all Guild Base NPCs couldn’t leave their origin Guild Base.” Satoru clarified. “That's the reason why Ainz Ooal Gown didn’t send Shalltear backed up by VIctim, Aura and Mare out whenever we had a fight with another Guild.”

“What in the world is going on?” Momonga returned to pondering.

Momonga looked at Albedo who gave a claiming smile in return.

“I have to contact the administrators somehow.” Momonga returned again to pondering. “ If I can’t use the GM Call function, maybe I can use the Message Skill. But will a magic skill used to contact other Players even reach a GM?”

“If their server-side support had accounts and was on, then yes.” Tanya said.

The camera panned over to Albedo as Momonga continued to speedily think.

“Wait, can I even use magic like this.” Momonga thought.

“Of course you can use magic, Lord Satoru.” Albedo assured. “There were those Lightning stuff.”

“No. The Humanities that cracked Lightning couldn’t do Magic or Ki or Psychic Powers.” Satoru countered. “That’s why in Worlds where Humanity can do those things, excluding the times where Magic and whatnot only develops because of the Cracked Lightning, freezes at the Medieval Tech Level. I.e. using Iron Tools and Weaponry. Oh sure they can augment it to do far more than mere Iron and have access to magical materials. But all those are far easier to obtain than the Secrets of Lightning.”

“Renaissance is the Actual Era.” Aqua clarified as the sole one who lived through it. “The Renaissance Era is when enough people survive to their middle ages that they can devote a lot of time to research. Hence why Mages always have Towers (or Dungeons for the Dark-inclined). The main physical difference between the Medieval/Dark Ages and the Renaissance is the abundance of Glass.”

“There are exceptions like Hunter X Hunter with its Nen (Ki) Systems, but those merely prove the Rule.” Tanya said. “My World only had legends of Magic and only with the Industrial Revolution did Magic Return.”

“So, Lord Momonga.” Albedo Started. “What shall I do?”

If Satoru could blush, his entire structure would be red as soon as he remembered what would happen. Albedo had a small smile on her face at the memories.

“Let’s see. Then, come here.” Momonga said blissfully unaware of his future embarrassment.

Albedo basically lunged into Momonga’s personal space.

“Whoa! She smells so good!” Momonga complimented.

Albedo’s smile grew wider.

“Wait, smell!?” Momonga pondered. “There wasn’t a function like that in Yggdrasil.”

“If our World was merely a Dream to produce Happiness, then why weren’t your senses fully simulated?” Demiurge asked with a finger raised.

“Hm. Yes. Make the Dream be indisgustionable from Reality.” Seiya said sarcastically. “Cause that won’t cause any problems at all.”

“Oh it's not like that was the Plot of the Matrix Series.” Naofumi provided equally sarcastic backup. “Where the characters grew up in the Dream and have to escape to Reality. ...Or the Promised Neverland. Or Peter Pan. and some others I’m forgetting.”

Demiurge sheepishly lowered his finger. “Well, when you put it like that.”

“Albedo. I’m going to touch you.” Momonga bluntly said.

Albedo proceeded to moan when Momonga grabbed her hand. ...how degenerate of him.

“Oh great. There’s another one.” Megumin said.

“She has a pulse.” Truly Momonga was the descendant of Sherlock himself. “And, what’s this?! She’s an NPC that only runs on basic A.I. Program.” [4] 

“Why does she look so alive?!” Momonga ignored Albedo to ponder, briefly shaking his head to clear his thoughts. “ But, this is the last test… I have to confirm this!”

“Albedo. C-can I touch your chest?” Momonga asked-commanded-hesitated in a voice that only a fellow virgin could have.

Albedo let out an adorable “Huh?”

Momomga mentally let out an adorable squeak. “ This is necessary!”  

The non-Nazarick and Konosuba casts merely looked at Satoru.

“Yggdrasil wasn’t an Eroge so any sexual actions like ...boob grabbing would auto-eject you out of the game.” Satoru explained under the room's weight.

Kazuma thankfully had a hand over Darkness’ mouth to forestall any lewd ranting.

“So that’s why Lord Perorocino was turned off on hearing Lady Bukubukuchagma in the eroge.” Shalltear noted.

Aura and Mare came close to matching Albedo’s blush record as the curious sound of bone impacting bone echoed through the room, Satoru facepalming as the source.

“Bukubukuchagma is Perorocino’s Older Sister. ...and the creator of Aura and Mare.” Satoru said with much chagrin.

“That's right. Naturally. I have to ask her naturally. ” Momonga mentally slapped himself. 

“I don’t think there’s a way to naturally ask that.” Ristarte said.

“You don’t mya.. Mind do you?” Momonga asked.

“I doubt someone from a post-nuclear war Cyberpunk Dystopia is into non-con/abusive bosses.” Tanya thought. “ But just in case, how does one kill a skeleton?”

“It was impossible to do it naturally!” Momonga thought in instant regret.

“Please touch me as much as you like!” Albedo said.

“Oh good, she consents.” Tanya thought. “ Still going to figure out how to kill a skeleton just in case. Besides, it will be helpful for escaping Weaver and getting back to my office.”

Apparently Albedo wasn’t wearing a bra because her boobs jiggled ferociously. Momonga even made a noise of shock at how much they jiggled.

Momonga grabbed Albedo’s boobs. And ignored Albedo’s adorable moan. “Let me assess the situation. The fact that I can do a 18+ action like this means this isn’t a New Yggdrasil Game-”

“It would be strange to be directly booted into the sequel.” Kazuma said.

“-And the chance that this is a completely different DMMORPG is also low.” Momonga finished his thought.

Camera-kun really loved it’s shots of Albedo breathing/moaning heavily.

“There is a chance that this imaginary world became real…” Momonga thought.

I can’t tell who is more sexualially posed/provocative, Albedo with this camera-glued hip swing, Darkness and her extreme masochism, or Aqua.

“No way.” Momonga shook his head. “ But…”

Albedo looked very adorable while holding in some of her many moans.

“Conversing with the NPCs, their natural expressions, their scent…” Momonga thought. “These are the things that couldn’t be programmed within a game until now.”  

Momonga saw Albedo’s smile and realized he was still groping her. He ripped his hand away like Albedo was painfully hot. ...in the non-lewd sense.

“Hey, just how long do I plan on fondling her breast?” Momonga stared at his hand in dismay.

“As long as you want.” Albedo resisted the urge to say that aloud.

Albedo breathed heavily.

“A-Albedo. I Apologize.” Momonga said with clear certainty as Albedo’s boobs bounced once more.

“You’re going to take me for the first time here and now, right?” Albedo said with clear arousal. Unfortunately for her, this was not Monster Girl Quest or whatever your preferred monster porn setting is called. Thus no Porn Logic to bridge the Biology/No Genitals Gap.

“Yet another downside of being Undead, no genitals. And if they do exist, then they don’t work.” Aqua pointed out.

Albedo and Shalltear froze in realization.

“There is the artificial insem- no wait, those also require sperm.” Ristarte said.

“In 2007 scientists claimed to make sperm from bone marrow.” Tanya piped up. “But in 2009 that study was piled under claims of plagiarism. If that study was ever picked up again, it was after my time.” It was picked back up in 2020, so if we did make any progress it was probably lost to the Virus. Fucking Virus.

Kazuma silently shook in laughter. “ Virginbus.”

“Huh?” Momonga apparently forgot that Albedo was a Succubus.

“What shall we do about my clothes?” Albedo asked.

“Just do it in your clothes and rip them off during the sex, it's more arousing that way!” Darkness wanted to comment but was stopped by Kazuma’s hand.[5] 

Momonga repeated his confused huh.

“Shall I take them off?” ...why does my brain auto-write everything as way less formal than it is?

Albedo’s wings flapped very adorably. “Or would you like to remove them yourself, Lord Momonga?”

And here we see the rare instance of Momonga showing that his backbone is in fact, not made of Gelatin. “Stop. Stop now, Albedo! Now is not the Time…” Satoru showed poor germ discipline by coughing into his hand. “No, we don’t have time to be doing such things.”

“Nor the equipment.” Aqua reminded the room.

Shalltear tossed her wine glass at Aqua in retaliation. Sadly that wasn’t an ‘Emote’ and passed through Aqua. Kazuma held Aqua with his spare arm, to prevent Aqua’s whining and any counter attacks.

Albedo flinched back like she was a Pathfinder Succubus. ...who mindrape their victims and if said victim mentally survives that and rejects the mind rapist Succubus scum, then the Succubus takes some Psychic Damage. Which can be added to with additional refusals to fuck the Succubus. So yes, Subaru with his very strong Love for Emilia (...and Rem) would be the worst enemy Slut!Albedo could face.

“I-I am very sorry!” Albedo instantly apologized.

“It's fine. Albedo, I forgive you completely.” Momonga waved away her concern. “More importantly, I have an order for you.”

“I will do anything that you wish.” Albedo said.

“Except for the Guardians of the Fourth and Eight Floors, Gather the Floor Guardians to the Sixth Floor.” Momonga commanded. “Have them gather in an hour.” 

“Understood.” Albedo bowed before leaving him to internally monolog.

“This is terrible.” Momonga clasped his head. “I dirtied the NPC that Tabula-san created…”

“I don’t mind.” Albedo said. “I prefer not being a slut like a generic succubus. And seeing that you do care, makes me feel a warm gooey-ness deep in my heart.”

Satoru titled his head like he was blushing. “I’m sorry for not telling you the full changes earlier.”

“It's okay, I forgive you.” Albedo replied.

Momonga vacuumed his Staff into his hand. “ Shit! I’ll worry about that problem later.”

Momonga stood up. “I have to take care of the things I need to do right now.”

In a dark corridor Momonga appeared in a blue flurry of light. “ It worked.” The Ring of Ainz Ooal Gown’s gem gleamed in the faint light. “It looks like the ring’s teleportation function has no problems.” the camera panned down to his many-ringed hand. “It looks like I can use items.”  

Momonga walked towards the arena floor. “ Albedo and the others are loyal to me like their original settings.” The iron bars withdrew into the ceiling and Momonga stepped through. “ Then, what about the other NPCs?”  

“It would be odd if enemies got into this room.” Koenig said.

Roswaal suppressed his reactions.

A brilliant purple and black night sky shone above the sand/dirt pit. The Amphitheater was shown in all its spiky glory. With a textbox at the top of the screen labeling it as the 6th Floor Amphitheater. Looking like an upside Citadel space station from Mass Effect.

“The twin dark elves that Chagma-san set should be the guardians here.” Momonga looked around.

Aura made an adorable squeak as she lunged off her announcer box. Aura did several flips like she had levels in a circus performer. ...no wait, Beast Master is also a type of Circus Performer. Aura kicked up a cloud of dust and a small boom/thud sound as she landed. I am unsure if I'm supposed to take that as a strength/durability feat or that the Amphitheater has light dust for dramatic effect. It's an equal chance.

“Victory!” Aura did a pose with both her hands in a peace sign.

“My hero does it better.” Rem muttered under her breath.

An upbeat tune played as Aura ran over to Momonga. 

“Welcome, Lord Momonga.” Aura folded her right hand over her heart and her left hand behind her waist. I guess it is the standard servant pose. It sounds so weird to hear Momonga-Sama and not Ainz-Sama. “Welcome to the Floor that we guard!”

“I will intrude for a short while.” Momonga preemptively apologized.

“What are you saying?!” Aura asked. “You are the Lord of the Great Tomb of Nazarick! Its absolute ruler! There is no one that would ever consider you as intruding.”

The NPCs nodded.

“Hm.” Momonga absorbed Aura’s mini-rant. “By the way…”

Aura spotted the lack of her brother and turned. “Mare! You’re being rude to Lord Momonga!” Aura angrily waved her arms. “Hurry up and get down here!”

“I-I can’t, sis.” Mare said.

Mare jumped down and again the dust was kicked up. Then he did a clumsy ‘joke’ routine. I know he’s the actual support of the two support twins, but having the moe trait of clumsiness AND being a combatant does not work well. Though in Mare’s case it makes sense, settings and all that jazz. Unlike Wendy from Fairy Tail. 

Aura let loose a green breath, calming down her brother.

“That breath is from my Beast Master/Trainer levels. Among a few things like buffing their HP and Damage values, is the ability to remove any mental debuffs. Such as panicking.” Aura explained.

“That would have been so~ helpful.” Subaru, Lergen, Naofumi, Ristarte, and Kazuma said with audible envy/jealousy.

“We tested those skills later and they don’t affect me. Because of undeath.” Satoru said.

“I-I am sorry for making you wait, Lord Momonga.” Mare apologized after he calmed down.

“Yes. I came here today to have the two of you help me with something.” Momonga said.

Momonga jiggled his staff.

“U-Um, is that the legendary item that only Lord Momonga can wield?” Mare asked.

“Indeed.” Momonga raised his staff. “This is the Guild Weapon that we created together. The Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown.” The camera rotated around Momonga’s sparkling staff as brass instruments played. Focusing now on his family jewels. “Each stone in the seven crowning snakes is a Divine Grade Item.”

“Levels 88 to 100 out of a hundred is Divine Grade for clarification.” Satoru explained.

“On top of that, the power in the staff exceeds even the Divine Grade.” Momonga continued to show off his staff to impressionable children. “It is on par with any World Level Item.”

“Lorewise the World Class Items are leaves torn off from Yggdrasil by the Main Storyline’s Big Bad. There are 200 World Items and no two items are the same, nor are there any copies of the Items.” Satoru explained. These Items are what the Dragon Emperor actually summoned, ignorant of the Dystopia Survivors attached to them. 

The room didn’t need the other gamers’ reactions to know, that's not how you add end game items for a large player base. But yes the aggressive twitching did help.

“For example Nazarick has the Avarice and Generosity gauntlets.” Satoru said. “Capable of draining, storing, and giving an unknown amount of XP.”

“An~d there goes XP Boosts.” Raphtailia said, eyes tracking a mental leaf floating away on the wind.

“Its automatic attack system is especially…” The Implications of Momonga’s actions sunk in. I guess the diatribe happened for the audience as well cause we all forgot that the staff had an AI. Though it really only appears in the Evil Eye Side Story . “Well, anyways. That's how it is.”

“That’s so amazing, Lord Momonga!” The dark elf twins said in unison.

“I would like to run some tests with it.” Momonga replied.

“Yes! We will prepare immediately!” Aura said.

“Also, Aura. I have called the Floor Guardians here.” Momonga informed her. “They will be gathered here in an hour.”

“Huh?” Aura hesitantly asked. “Is Shalltear coming as well?”

“You can’t escape me, cousins.” Shalltear said in a singsong tone to Aura and Mare.

Totally not DND style Dragonborns appeared, moving some test dummies into place. They were actually Half-Dragons, usually made from transhumanist attempts of ascension and thus accidently became infertile. ...or were the Mules of Dragonic Races.

“In Yggdrasil, you just had to click the icon on your console to conjure magic. But now that icon doesn’t exist.” Momonga thought.

“I would be questioning the lack of Thought/Brainwave-based Control Schemes. ...if it wasn’t for the lack of even simple Dialogue Boxes.” Seiya said.

“Also those Log On and Off Notifications in the center of your vision? Combined with a Hotbar-Style Combat System ala World of Warcraft? Bad combo.” Naofumi said.

“Over the course of the game, Log Notifications were the 5th most common cause of Damage and in some cases Death.” Satoru’s body movements conveyed that he was blushing. ...if you know he still had blood. Sadly that is not a canonical fact.

“But, I can tell that if I focus within myself… The attack range of my magic, the cool down rate, and how much MP I have!” Momonga thought with audible joy. Momonga tested out his Fireball.

“Huh, Third Tier.” Kazuma rubbed his chin. “That sounds like DND.”

“Dungeons and Dragons first came out in the 1970s or 1980s as a Tabletop Game (like Chess) that cornered the College Campus Market.” Aqua followed up. “It took basically all Fantasy (mostly European/Western) and compiled it all into one massive experience.“

“There have been multiple editions of DND, the latest is 5th edition released in 2015..” Ristarte backed up her fellow Goddess. “But DND 3.5 Edition is called Yggdrasil, so we might as well follow the trend.”

If someone has actual 3e/3.5e edition books and gives any advice, I would be glad to place them in. for now I will generalize. 

“Fireball is an Evocation class Magic, available to the Sorcerer and Wizard Classes at Level 3.” Aqua said. “Levels only go up to Twenty, so it's not as early as you may think. ”

“Fireball requires either Vocal-” Kazuma slapped Aqua’s head.

“We don’t need the wiki pages!” Kazuma said, glaring into Aqua’s questioning eyes.

“Fireball deals a singular six sided die as the initial damage that scales per caster level, to a max of ten six sided dice.” Ristarte said. “That combined with its low mana/spell slot cost and being a very early spell, third ‘tier’ as well, makes it a solid workhorse for any mage.”

“True. I however prefer the higher base damage spells, like my actual favorite spell: Grasp Heart, a level based Instant Kill Spell. If the target is high enough level then they get mini-stunned (i.e. they can’t do anything for a quarter of a second), just long enough for me to dodge out of the way of any retaliatory strikes.” Satoru explained.

“Yeah, status moves are powerful.” Tanya complimented as she nodded.

“Elves in DND, however, are extremely powerful.” Ristarte said. “Even including such worlds as Middle Earth. They don’t sleep at all, they meditate for 4 hours and treat it like a Long Rest (8 hours of REM Sleep.)-”

Rem just stared at Ristarte, thinking. “What does me sleeping have to do with elves?”

-”And generally just better than humans in pretty much every way, especially the lifespan. As in they are ageless.” Ristarte said,

The room made noises of confusion.

“Ageless as in, they mature to physical, mental, and emotional maturity. But they don’t have any symptoms of Old Age, such as weakened bones, senility, and other stuff.” Kazuma said. “Of course that means they can get to ridiculous ages and still be treated as a child in their culture.”

*insert clip of High Elf Archer from Goblin Slayer stating her age*

“Half elves only get a millenia or so.” Seiya said.

“Not in my world, we get the full immortal lifespan.” Emilia said.

“Well that answers the freezing cause of old age conundrum.” Subaru muttered.

Puck just looked at Subaru in confusion. “ I don’t remember Subaru meeting me as the Beast of the End.”

“And then there’s the Drow, or Dark Elves if you prefer.” Tanya said.

“So we’re Drow?” Aura tilted her head.

“No. You’re not.” Subaru said. “First off, the Colors.”

A Purple Skinned and Pure White Hair Elf appeared, specifically DOTA 2’s Drow Ranger. Other crazy colored Drow appeared by their comrade.

“Though black is a more accurate skin color than brown.” Subaru said. “You get a tan (Brown skin color) from exposure to the Sun. ...and Dark Elves are usually found underground, so technically they should be pale like Burning in the Sun style Vampires. Black presumably from the coal dust/Gray from stone Dust.”

“Secondly, you lack the Spiders.” Naofumi said.

“W-Why do we hear the capitalization?” Mare asked.

“That’s because you should.” Tanya replied.

“Don’t you dare show us that!” Kazuma glared and pointed at Weaver. “I don’t want to be traumatized for life!”

“Did Yggdrasil’s devs stumble upon a copy of 3.5 early in the development cycle?” Satoru asked, deeply disappointed in the Devs for shamelessly ripping off DND.

“Considering that Humans, Elves, and Dwarves forge an alliance so much that just making said alliance hardcoded, signs are pointing to yes.” Subaru said.

Momonga’s Draconic Minions replaced the targets and cleared the area. Momonga’s Primal Fire Elemental Summon incinerated the targets while being born/summoned. Strangely the totally Half Dragons shielded Aura and Mare from the heat when they (or atleast Aura) was Immune to Heat. Admitly it was hot enough to melt steel via its ambiance/aura, but steel is a 1-12 level ore, or so the Overlord fandom discord has come to decide. Cause Marumya didn’t give levels for ores, only the Ore that the dwarves couldn’t even heat up from ln 11.

“Amazing!” Mare said.

A pink orb shield flickered into existence around Momonga protecting him from the heatwaves. I want to say that the pink shield is Momonga’s ‘you must be this tall to ride’ damage cap, but the PFE is level 80. And the cap only negates damage from levels 60 and below.

The Primal Fire Elemental formed a draconic head and arms before it roared.

“Primal Fire Elemental is in the Upper Eighties Levels.” Momonga explained.

Aura and Mare proceed to play with the Primal Fire Elemental, Aura using her whip named Queen. Because apparently Buku is into that. Aura’s bow is at the same place as Elya/Spy Mages from Saga of Tanya the Evil/the last chapter.

“At least you have a magic shield around you.” Rudersdorf commented.

“Well at least Aura has a Divine Spellcaster as support.” Ristarte said.

“DND has four categories of Divine Spellcasters. There are two things uniting them, the fact that they have a Sponsor (whom they usually worship, hence the Divine Part), and the fact that they have access to the entirety of their Sponsor’s Spell/Ability List. The higher level a Divine Spellcaster is, the more of their Sponsor’s spells they can hold in their Spellbook/Mind/Soul at once. All Divine Spellcasters can freely swap out their readied spells once per day.” Aqua informed. 

“The Paladin is a Cleric-Tank Hybrid, able to deal damage equal to their ability to sustain damage. Making them the Bruiser Archetype. Tanya falls under the Bruiser Archetype, specifically a Lightning Bruiser for her speed.” Seiya said.

“Cleric is the extreme generalist/utility Class, with even more subdivisions than the other Divine Spellcasters.” Aqua said. “I am the ‘basic’ Cleric Class (Life Domain) complete with Extreme Healing and Extreme Effectiveness against Undead and Demonic. There’s the War Cleric (and War Mage) but Military Records is already covering that. Clerics also have a subclass you really don’t want to anger: The Death Cleric.”

“No. You don’t get it, You Die.” Momonga Intoned to someone off screen as The Goal of All Life is Death’s Doomsday Clock spun into existence on his back. [10] 

“The Only One that can save you from the Wrath of a Death Cleric, is the Goodwill of a Grave Cleric.” Aqua finished.

Subaru appeared, looking at the offscreen carnage, before looking at Death Cleric!Momonga and saying: “No.” A droplet of blood impacting a much larger pool of blood overtook the image. Before the fallen droplet and the pool of blood surged upwards in a geyser.

Subaru gave Weaver a deadpan stare. 

“Druids share some of the Cleric’s Utility but blend it with the extreme flat out damage capability with Warlocks.” Kazuma said. 

Subaru caught Roswal and Beatrice’s twitch at Warlock.

“Warlocks are the ‘special’ Divine Spellcasters. Instead of being content with worshiping a Deity (or a Concept or Oath for the Atheist Clerics and Paladins) or Nature (for the Druids). Warlocks turn to the ...Exceptional such as Lovecraftian Entities, the Demonic, Sometimes the Angelic(Celestials), and the Fey.” Ristarte said. “They also have permanent access to Eldritch Blast, a Cantrip (a spell that has no Mana Cost, no Cooldown, and can be used in every situation) that deals approximately-”

“You Die.” Weaver replayed.

“-Levels of Damage, able to strike multiple targets per cast, and some side effects like Insanity, Blindness, Deafness, Complete Sensory Deprivation, and turning all lower garments brown.” Ristarte finished.

“Of course Warlocks can do that.” Roswaal deeply sighed. 

Beatrice merely facepalmed.

After some dynamic/gorgeous animation.

“As expected, this is a piece of cake for them.” Momonga said on the side lines. “It looks like the other magic skills aren’t a problem, either. However…” 

Momonga held his head. “Message.” A beep sounded before a much harsher beep. “As I thought, I can’t connect to a GM or any other Guild Members.” Soft Piano played as Aura and Mare continued to play with the PFE. 

“Yes? What is it, Lord Momonga?” Sebas said through the Voice Chat enabled by Message.

Momonga’s eye flames flared. “ M-My Message Skill connected?” ’

“Sebas? How do things look outside?” Momonga asked.

A different, and strangely normal, night sky appeared as Sebas also held his hand to his ear. “Well, there is a slight problem...”

“Yeah, Whatever World you’re in is closer to normal/Earth than Helheim or whatever Yggdrasil World you previously were on.” Kazuma said.

“I see.” Momonga nodded. “I have called the Floor Guardians to gather on the Sixth Floor. Give your report here.”

“Did they remember their deaths?” Momonga thought to himself. Damn Needed Light Novel Scene not being adapted. 

=We were unfortunately unable to get footage of this invasion. So have a recreation.= Weaver said.

Tanya holding an ornate bow and wearing a gold/bronze/brass and red rosary over a knight’s armor, Seiya in his everyday armor with that weird chest piece over half his chest and his sword, Ristarte with her normal clothes and wings manifested, Naofumi in his Cal Mira Island Arc outfit (ditto with Rapthalia and Filo), Konosuba’s cast appeared in their standard outfits. Ditto with re:zero save Subaru who wore long flowy clothes. If one knew of RBD then Subaru’s outfit would bring to mind the word: Oracle.

“1,500 people invaded the tomb. What is this a Defend against the Horde Style Game?” Tanya asked.

“Yeah, but split over instancing down to a manageable number is possible.” Kazuma countered.

“That ability was lost when we conquered the Raid Dungeon that would become Nazarick.” Satoru countered both of them. “So all 1,500 were in the same instance.” [6] 

The various placeholder models appeared in a jam packed corridor.

“So while technically that made them a target rich environment for traps.” Satoru continued.

Lava poured down from the ceiling but Model!Subaru alerted Model!Tanya to the danger, a few seconds before the valves opened. Tanya threw up a Mage Barrier to hold the lava at bay. Naofumi caught a rolling Giant Boulder of Doom in his palm before steadily pushing it back down the hallway. Using the boulder as an ablative shield.

“They just had too many options for any of our traps to weed them out.” Satoru said.

“Surely the Guild Members could do strafing runs to thin numbers before a Boss/Floor Guardian Fight?” Aqua asked.

“Human and Demihuman Players could kill Heteromorphs penalty free.” Satoru countered.

“So that's the division, Factions.” Kazuma nodded in understanding. “Did you ever go on raids against Asgard and/or Midgard?”

“No. We (the Heteromorphs) would get punished by the shitty devs for Player Killing via lowering our Karma stat, which is tied into some attacks and various other stuff. This and the highest value item is dropped if you are killed which precludes any strafing runs.” Satoru said.

The other protagonists twitched. 

“But they’re in another Faction.” Tanya rubbed her temples. “If it's a Faction based game the only people you would be punished for killing/harming are your allies. Not your enemies.”

“So Fantasy Planetside 2 is a failure at Friend or Foe identification.” Ristarte said.

“How did Yggdrasil defend against Data mining?” Seiya asked.

Satoru tilted his head in askance.

A large field dissolved into a hideous amount of programming language.

“So programming is ...lighting ...runes.” Megumin said while comprehension filled her voice. “AIs are Self Aware Rituals?!”

The non-protagistons twitched as they finally understood why the people who know about AIs were panicking about Albedo’s settings. They just stared at Albedo in growing fear.

“Yggdrasil had its own AIs to defend.” Satoru applied yet another Head Canon Patch, accidentally interrupting the collective panic attack. Though everyone did shuffle just a bit farther away from Albedo.

“No paywalls?” Subaru asked.

Satoru tilted his head in askance.

Subaru was shown on screen in the midst of a hallway, specifically Beatrice’s Infinite Hallway. Subaru tried a door which only opened to an infinite black void with a hovering screen. Declaring “Free Trial of Luguncia has ended, to continue your adventure please purchase a monthly subscription or Suffer as you permanently purchase Each Zone individually. Zone Blocked: Beatrice’s Forbidden Library.”

Subaru adopted a “Very Done With This Shit.” Face.

The room ahh’d while the Emilia camp chuckled with Subaru and Beatrice being the loudest.

“So how much are the cash shop items? 10 usd? 20? 50?” Subaru asked after calming down. “They need to raise a metric ton of cash to fund it.”

“47 thousand dollars, congratulations! That is not a small amount of money.” Weaver played Josh Strife Hayes’s video: Dreamworld - The Scam MMO that got funded.[7] “Unless of course you’re making an MMORPG. In which case it is a drop in a vast ocean.”

“Yes, while the Designers can choose to drop several fundamental things like sex in Yggdrasil’s case, it still is Building an Entire Interactable World.” Subaru said. “Minimum Wage Laws and all that.”

In reply Satoru held up a Ring with Three Comets on it. “This took an entire month’s salary to get. Considering its three free uses of the Wish Upon A Star Spell (which drains your level if casted normally), I consider it money well spent.”

“So a whole lot of Whaling Items.” Tanya said. “You literally are their target demographic. But not enough high level Whales. It seems.“ [8]

“Do you not have mana potions?” Tanya asked.

“Mana can’t be stored.” Satoru countered.

“We’ve only had magic back for a few decades and we’ve already solved that problem.” Rudersdorf said while jabbing his thumb at the Type 95. “We just have to figure out the Mass Production Trick.”

“There’s the Bocco Fruit that restores a small amount of mana.” Emilia said.

“Manatite is basically solidified mana that can be used as extra mana.” Megumin said.

“Actual Mana Potions exist in my World.” Rapthalia said.

“So do they in my World.” Ristarte said.

“Do you not have any Mana Restoration capabilities?” Subaru asked.

“Waiting for 8 hours is the sole way of regaining mana.” Satoru said.

“So what's the time dilation?” Aqua asked. “Neverwinter Nights is a DND accurate MMORPG where Spells are limited by day. But for the players a day is merely half an hour, so spellcasters usually have a snack or watch an episode of whatever.”

“That really would have been helpful.” Satoru said. “But not the case for Yggdrasil for some reason/ So if I ran out of mana I had to wait the whole eight hours of Earth time.”

The other gamers twitched. 

“So Yggdrasil followed those time-wasting mobile ‘Games’ that sold the solution to the artificial problems via Microtransactions.” Naofumi rubbed his temples. 

“Except, of course, they failed at even that.” Tanya shook her head. “Not even selling Mana Potions in the Cash Shop.”

“This is also a factor in why the Invasion failed. The Spellcasters and Physical Fighters ran out of Mana and Daily Uses respectively. Then Victim, the Floor Guardian of the Eighth Floor, cleaned up the Invaders.” Satoru explained.

“What about alt characters?” Aqua asked. “A very easy way for extreme customization games like World of Warcraft or DC Universe Online or Star Trek Online is to offer a small amount of free slots. Usually one per faction, and then give every class a different storyline (whether that be reordering the missions you encounter or flat out making new missions) per Faction.”

“Considering this is a very competitive game, I'm fairly certain that at least one character slot would be devoted to roleplay.” Naofumi said. “While the others would be Meta Builds.”

A colony of Shalltear(s) appeared in different colored armor, forming a rainbow gradient. The 203rd names appeared over the new Shalltear heads.

“Considering that everyone wasn’t a Shalltear face or some other boss, no.” Satoru said. “In all of Ainz Ooal Gown’s experience, we didn’t find a ‘Purchase New Character Slot’ option or register another account option.”

“So there is absolutely no way to gain another character slot?” Tanya rubbed her temples.

Satoru nodded.

“Do they not want money?” Subaru asked. “Cause that is one of the easiest ways to gain money, right next to a cash shop and Paywalls.”

“We did have a cash shop and a gacha, but I guess it wasn’t enough.” Satoru replied.

“No subscriptions, no purchasing character slots, no xp boosters, No time dilation, Factionless faction based combat, only cash and gacha shops.” Aqua counted on her fingers. “I take back wondering why it didn’t last for twenty+ years, I'm flabbergasted on how it reached 3 years, let alone the full 12!”

“So-so it was-wasn’t our fa-fault that every-everyone left?” Mare asked.

“No, it never was in the first place.” Satoru comforted the boy.

“As for remembering our deaths, yes we can.” Albedo said. “But because Yggdrasil wasn’t built to simulate the negatives of combat, it's ...detached from us. Merely observing that we died and not ‘experiencing’ said deaths.” [9]

The other NPCs nodded.

“The invasion was stopped by Victim and the Eighth Floor, if you were wondering how deep they got.” Satoru Clarified.

Sebas confirmed his new orders as the PFE finally died and the twins came running over to Momonga. “You two did well.”

“Thank you very much! I haven’t exercised this much in a while!” Aura said.

“Yes, you must be thirsty.” Momonga withdrew a pitcher of Infinite water and cups from his inventory.

“I thought that you would be a scarier person, Lord Momonga.” Aura said after the twins drank their cups.

“Yeah MMOs/The Internet is like that.” Kazuma nodded. “Sometimes the players with the gear, titles, and names that scream “Take me Seriously, damnit!” are the kindest. While those with nicer names such as Momonga which is Japanese for Flying Squirrel.”

Weaver showed them the Japanese Dwarf Flying Squirrel.

“Are sometimes the most toxic. It's nice to see a subversion to that subconscious/meta-trend.” Kazuma finished.

“Hm? You think so?” Momonga questioned. “I can be scarier if you’d like me to.”

“Nonono. Please be yourself. We want to serve you not a false persona.” Aura backed up her past self. Before drooping, “Especially since we now know about your emotional suppressor.”

The room drooped as well.

“How you are now is better! It’s definitely the best!” Aura backed up her future self. Mare nodded as well.

Momonga made a noise of acknowledgement before seeing a purple-black-pink oval appear.

Shalltear walked through her Gate spell. “My, am I the first?”

“Well. I don’t know what's going on in this world at all, but it seems that the NPCs are loyal to me after all.” Momonga thought. “Then I have to act like a proper superior in front of them.”

The NPCs shyly blushed at His consideration. 

“I also have to collect information.” Momonga thought as the camera panned skywards. “In Yggdrasil I was considered one of the Strongest. How strong am I here? And if this is another world, should I return to my previous one?”

Shalltear and Aura proceeded to have a silent catfight. Cocytus appeared breathing a cold mist. Demiurge and Albedo walked closer to Momonga.

“I haven’t met any of my friends in the Physical World and my parents have been dead for decades now. Nor did I make a family of my own.” Momonga thought. “ Just working and coming home to play Yggdrasil and sleep every day, what worth is a life like that.”

The NPCs turned their eyes to their fiddling hands.

The Floor Guardians all lined up as black wisps floated from Momonga’s form before a tone played. 

The screen briefly blacked out and revealed an upclose shot of Albedo’s face. 

“Now, Everyone. To our Supreme Leader, we offer the ritual of fidelity.” Albedo said.

“The Guardian of the First, Second, and Third Floors, Shalltear Bloodfallen.” Shalltear took a knee and placed her hand above her heart. Imperialistic chanting started as Shalltear opened her eyes. “I bow before the Supreme One.”

“Guardian of the Fifth Floor, Cocytus.” The Ice Beetle Samurai took a knee. “I bow before the Supreme One.” Cocytus breathed out his icy mist once more, because of the camera being so close it sounded like a hydraulic press being released.

“Guardian of the Sixth Floor, Aura Bella Fiora.” The name meant Beautiful Flower of the Air.

“A-Also the Guardian of the Six Floor, Mare Bello Fiore.” Beautiful Flower of the Sea. thanks Soldin.

The twins took a knee and placed a hand above their hearts in unison. “We bow before the Supreme One.” 

“The Guardian of the Seventh Floor, Demiurge.” Unlike his Gnosticism namesake, the Archdevil proceeded to acknowledge his Superior. “I bow before the Supreme One.”

“The leader of the Guardians, Albedo. I bow before the Supreme One.” Albedo rounded out the present Floor Guardians. “Other than the Fourth Floor Guardian Gargantua, and the Eighth Floor Guardian Victim, all of the Guardians have gathered to bow before you. Please bestow your orders upon us, Supreme One.”

The camera flashed between the Guardians.

“We offer our complete loyalty to you.” Momonga’s skull was shown as his eyes flared.

The NPCs resisted the urge to hiss as they sensed the episode’s end.

Le Ending Song.

=This is L.L.L. Military Record is Los. Los. Los. Konosuba’s first ending is A Little Adventurer. Shield Hero’s first ending is Your Name. Overcautious ending is Be Perfect, plz.= Weaver explained. =While Re:zero’s first ending is Styx Helix.= Yes A Little Adventurer is the translation of Chiisana Boukensha

“What kind of morbid nonsense is going on in your universe?” Naofumi, Seiya, Ristarte, Aqua, Kazuma, Satoru, and Military Records asked of the Emilia Camp.

Subaru merely had a large blush, making his face entirely red. “Well that's blunt.” Subaru coughed before getting his blush under control. “Styx refers to the River Styx in the Greek Mythology Underworld/Afterlife, specifically Styx is the River of the Dead. And Helix is a shape that if viewed in a certain way-”

A Stygian River Helix appeared, strangely though it was only filled with Subaru in his tracksuit. To Subaru himself and Weaver, the bodies all showed the fatal wounds that ended loops up to the end of season 1, all the rest saw perfectly intact Subarus. Just with their eyes closed and not breathing. The Spiraling Water moved to show ‘up’ the camera, giving the illusion of Infinite Length.

“And Infinite Death.” The Room thought in unison.

“So I ask again, what kind of nonsense is going on?” Naofumi questioned. “I expected that from Mister-I-Come-From-A-Dystopia, not you and your tracksuit.”

“You’ll see in a little bit, just be patient.” Subaru replied. 

Electronics spun up while Albedo’s head and shoulders appeared in a swarm of black feathers, presumably from her own wings, falling. Albedo shifted through several adorable expressions.

Don’t you give me your love and passion?

The black feathers landed in a small pile.

(Believe in love, even though there’re borders and disturbances and more,)  

Albedo held her head in a seductive pose supported by her hands. While the song whispered the lyrics in brackets.

(I’m the only one who loves you because I’m crazy about you.)

A spider’s web appeared before the camera scrolled down. To a pair of legs, presumably Albedo’s.

Let’s ride to hell, I’ll serve you and go

The song snapped back to normal volume as the camera continued to pan up Albedo’s body.

If it means we can be together, I wish we could die.

Beyond the line there is no ending.

At this line we get to Albedo’s breasts.

I swear, I’m gonna be so fucking grateful.

Blessing word, you are supreme.

We finally reached Albedo’s face and predictably she had an alluring expression.

I follow your orders loyally, your highness.

You give orders, I won’t give you to anyone.

The other NPCs glared at Albedo.

You are the most treasured existence. 

Albedo appeared standing up on the right side of the screen, hand on her face like she was adjusting glasses.

You don’t know why my love is crying.

The screen panned over to the right and revealed a mirror reflection of Albedo.

I want to adhere to the point of excessiveness.

I want eternity, don’t wanna cry.

I’m about to go crazy with my jealous delusions.

A flurry of darkness left the Mirror!Albedo in a black dress. A final black feather fell to the floor.

Don’t you give me your love and passion?

Albedo was shown from above hair and wings flying in an unseen wind.

Love is a riotous impulse, let’s go.

Instinct over spirit, I demand more of your heart. 

The picture of Albedo was fully zoomed out by this point.

I don’t want to live in a world without you.

Any future other than you, kill it, kill it.

I would be happy to kill it for my love.

Albedo was hugging herself. 

(I’m imagining now, if you’re mine.) 

this bracketed line wasn’t whispered.

(It's like a paradise and heaven and more.)

(You’re the only man who I love in my life and destiny and all)

Albedo had a demure smile. A final drumroll happened.

Don’t you give me your love and passion?

I know the border. It should be wrecked, go!

On that final line the music spun down as the screen glitch in the VCS Tape fashion. A final English letter Kadokawa logo appeared on a black screen.

“Huh, no post credit scene?” Ristarte asked.

“Not everything is the MCU!” Kazuma countered.

=But there are some after credits scenes, off the top of my head: Overlord s1 ep2, Military records has a few, same with Re:zero.= Weaver said. =But I’m in firm control so we won’t accidentally skip anything, I do have access to the Time Bar.=

========

Previews/The Only Scenes of Some chapters.

Preview of Overlord s1 ep 5

=And this is why you do not summon people from a dystopian world by greed to get more power= Weaver commented after the final fade to black.

“Huh?” the room questioned. 

Overlord s1 episode I don’t remember #1

Nabe disobeyed Ains’ very direct order.

The Nazarick contingent was still. Then their eyes were glazed over with Blue Screens of Death and fell over.

Overlord s1 episode I don’t remember #2

Shalltear fucks up capturing the bandit camp.

“You do realize you can simply break their arms and legs to successfully capture them. If it is physically impossible to capture them by putting them to sleep or something.” Tanya said with a deadpan stare towards Shalltear. “Because of some strange disability that you need to see injuries whenever you go out. There are several veins that you can cut, which won’t cause death via bleeding out. You could always sever their spinal cords, paralysing them from the waist down.”

A blank grey skinned human model showed how to do the various things Tanya said, and how the human body would be affected.

“There is also the Achilles Tendon, which isn’t fatal as far as I know.” Subaru piped up.

Shalltear glanced at the screen to understand whatever the fuck an ‘Achilles Tendon’ was. “Well I’m sorry for not being efficient, I just wanted to have some fun. ...I think.”

“A, you were on a mission.” Rudersdorf followed up. “So not the time to have fun!”

“B, you best not imply you’re forgetting crucial information.” Puck said. “Cause that’s our shtick, and seeing it over and over again.” Puck twitched his ...everything. “Is wearing a bit thin.”

Shalltear only had silence to give.

Aqua uncorked a wine bottle, poured some for her party and drank heavily.

“How-how did the ‘plot armor’ go away?” Grantz asked.

“I thought you would be happy that we (briefly) faced equals.” Demiurge counter-questioned

Koenig nodded. “Yes, but equals lead to suffering.”

“Perhaps if Re: Zero wasn’t in the rooster.” Neuman followed his fellow Squad Leader. “We would be baying for your blood.”

“But as is.” Weiss continued the train. “We’ve had our quote-unquote fill of suffering.”

======= 

Preview of Re:zero s1 ep 1

“How can I save you in the alley, when you saved me in the loot house?” Emilia questioned whilst gripping her head.

The room stared at Emilia in confusion.

“...You do realize those aren’t mutually exclusive, right?” Aqua cross-examined.

“It is for us.” Subaru countered Aqua’s cross-examination.

-----

“...You have no Mental Protections?” Aqua asked. “No Anti-Nightmare, no Anti-PTSD, nothing?! I knew that the Deaths would be hidden otherwise you wouldn’t have acted that way, but no Protections?!”

“Aqua. I don’t have Mental Protections Either.” Kazuma said.

“Yes you do. Didn’t you find it strange that you’ve never had a Nightmare since being Summoned?” Aqua countered. “When our new world has the Frogs, The Cabbages, The Beginner’s Bane, The Winter Shogun, Keem’s Dungeon, and the Destroyer? Heaven is crushing all of the side effects of living in this World of ours, and unfortunately doing that has hogged all of our resources. Hence why we haven’t descended and declared a Crusade on the Demon King. Thus the only way we can provide physical support is via Summoning Heroes.”

Kazuma blinked and combed over his memories. “Huh, never realized I don’t have Nightmares.”

----

Re:zero s1 ep3

“How the hell are you lifting Rom’s Club?” Shalltear asked.

“Hysterical Strength.” Subaru answered.

*Insert Hysterical Strength is literally just The Power of Friendship but IRL/less BS PoF stuff, i.e. Sailor Moon winning against Queens Beryl and Metallica (instead of physical strength its magical strength) or Luffy winning against Leopard-man from Cipher Pol 9 in the Enies Lobby Arcs. not the straight up revival stuff ala Pokemon Mewtwo’s Debut Movie. If I don’t get to this in a sooner chapter.*

“Whenever someone says that Humans are not a social species, I can only-” Tanya collapsed in laughter.

Re:zero s1 ep 7

Rem drops her morningstar on Subaru’s just healed leg.

Tanya flew over to Subaru, picked him up and flew back over to her seat. She plopped Subaru down on her chair and sat on his lap. Basically kidnapping him from the Emilia Camp.

“And why the absolute fuck are you so joyful around your literally torturturer?” Tanya asked.

“A lot of work on her part.” Subaru blinked before replying.

Rem was a statue frozen in concern.

“Why haven’t you taken revenge?” Kazuma asked.

“Cause technically this never happened.” Subaru waved at the image of him being literally tortured. “And thus it falls into the purview of Thought/Future Crime. Excuse me for not watching to indulge in those dystopian policies. That and the best revenge is living happily.”

“That only works if you are far enough away to be safe.” Seiya commented while rubbing his temples.

“And there’s a thin line between Revenge and Creating a Dystopia. As thin as LENGTHWISE GRAND CANYON!” Naofumi shouted. “Citation: Myself!” Naofumi took a deep breath trying to calm down.

Weaver helpfully shoved the length of the Grand Canyon.

=======

Preview of Konosuba s1 ep 2-3

“If you start saying Art is an Explosion I will slap you.” Naofumi said.

------

“Why not adopt a Counter Build like Wobbafet from Pokemon or a Voodoo Build like Hidan from Naruto Shippuden?“Tanya asked. “There are ways to feel Euphoric Pain and still be Combat Effective.”

=====

Overlord s1 ep I don’t remember #3

“Is Orchialum red? Does it conduct magic?” Zettour asked.

Satoru nodded.

Zettour smirked. “Of course Orchialum is soft, we know it much better as ...Copper”

The protagonists facepalmed.

“But Copper doesn’t conduct magic.” Emilia said with confusion.

“Oh sure, Copper can’t conduct mana, but it can conduct Lightning, specifically Copper is one of, if not the, easiest ways to conduct lightning.” Zettour explained. “And you’ve seen what Lightning can do. Be honest if someone (Before this room) explained what people can do with Lightning, would you classify it as Magic?”

-------------

Bloopers:

Aura and Mare proceed to play with the Primal Fire Elemental.

“At least you’re not Fire Lord Ozai.” Subaru commented.

The entire cast of Overlord Bristled.

“I have no idea who that is, but I’m frankly insulted that you just compared us.” Satoru said. “I’m fairly certain that I pole vault over him, and I’ve never even tried pole vaulting before.”

Blooper 2:

“So we’re Drow?” Aura tilted her head.

“No you’re not.” Subaru said. “First off, the Colors.”

A Purple Skinned and Pure White Hair Elf appeared. Other crazy colored Drow appeared by their comrade.

“Secondly, you lack the Spiders.” Naofumi said.

“W-Why do we hear the capitalization?” Mare asked.

“That’s because you should.” Tanya replied.

Insert Drow’s Spider Usage Montage that I can’t be arsed to Write Here. Specifically they only managed to do the First, Second, and Third Most Popular Uses for Spiders and what spider breed.

“Those. Are. Too. Many. Spiders.” Coctyus said.

“Why. Just Why.” The other members of the room muttered.

Mare tensed when Aura hugged him. Resting her head on his head, trying to anchor herself in factual reality/defending him from make believe Drow.

=====-----------------

an:I did some research on “No Formal Education Required Jobs'' on the bls.gov/ooh/occupation-finder.htm website, and at the very bottom was: Telemarketer. Thus it's no surprise that PA is so annoying. Telemarketer fits with the absurd instant contracts of LN 11 (where Nazarick conquers the Dwarven Runesmiths (hence all the Runecraft ™ memes you see on the Overlord Reddit) AND avoids the Acid Rain.

Originally i was going to do a long drawn out comparison with Assassination Classroom and how Overlord fails to live up to Nazarick’s citied speeds. But that was Bashing Overlord and considering i grew up in the Naruto/Harry Potter Fandoms, I’m sick and fucking tired of bashing. Even canonical bashing like Nazarick v New World. I just found Nazarick to be Arlong Park from One Piece, oh sure you’re greater than humanity. ...when you’re picking on the islands that have the closest to IRL Humanity. Not the weird/powerful humanity from The Grandline (or in Overlord’s Case: The Holy Empire from vols 12-13/Slane Theocracy).

Like that random asshole (the Adventurer) from vol 3 could have served a purpose: “Fine, you want to hunt Honopokyoko?” have Aura restrain him while Ainz and Shalltear fight, have them standing still and then fucking disappear with maybe some shockwaves. And then show Aura/Shalltear/Ainz’s perspective with the written fight, killing the rando after Ainz won. Tada, you’ve just easily established the relative speeds, like Naruto’s Wave Arc/DBZ’s Saiyan Saga.

The only Nazarick denizen that is proven to be faster than New Worlder’s is Sebas when he weaved through that crowd in the Men in the Kingdom book 1/LN5. Maybe again in Men in the Kingdom Book 2/LN6 when Brain couldn’t find Sebas with his ring of detection thingy. If you count that as a speed feat and not a stealth feat.

Shalltear didn’t supersonic dodge the Downfall of Castle and Country’s Brainwashing Dragon Lightshow. So she isn’t Super Sonic (unless that rando ass squad from the ST is also Super sonic). Or used Time Stop or Gate/other Teleport Spells. Even when she realized that she was in True Danger aka enough time to Cast Time Stop, which gives her the time to cast Gate/Hypersonic sprint away. We could have had a scene where Shalltear timestops, takes a breath, before frantically dodging with teleports and hypersonic sprints from the Downfall Dragon. Which would be the only other thing moving. Cause you can’t evade an Activated World Item. There's also the problem of “Call of the Banshee.” Spell with a double reference to sound (cause banshee is a sound ghost). It caught Shalltear, who can apparently move fast enough to ignite the air around her. Aka far faster than sound. And GOALID only makes the Instant Kill Spells actually be able to kill the unkillable. Unless you want to go to a Fate(Nasuverse/Type-Moon)/DC or Marvel/80s cartoon and say “Sound Faster than Sound '', which falls under Wild (Dragon)Magic not Tier Magic. 

Directly Incompatible, Thy Name is Shalltear Bloodfallen.

Entoma didn’t dodge the FUCKING CLOUD. You’re telling me a FUCKING CLOUD can engulf a Super Sonic being? MULTIPLE TIMES?! If Entoma was Super Sonic then Vermin Bane would either be a laser or a bubbled area of space where air is transmuted into pesticide. Cause Evil Eye is undead and undead don’t need to breathe. Unless Vermin Bane disabled those abilities of Entoma. Fair Enough. But that does nothing against Demiurge who rescued Entoma

Aura and Mare use mounts thus either they aren’t supersonic and can't run to the Baruth Empire, or they did Naruto run to the Baruth Empire, stopped just outside the city, and then summoned the dragons for the intimidation factor. If Nazarick was supersonic capable then the fights would be a Thunderblight Ganon from Zelda: BOTW fight. 

Its either they don’t have those abilities ….or Idiot/I forgot I had that Power Balls, and I hate Idiot Balls MUCH. MUCH. MUCH. more than I hate Nazarick. ...or I spent too much time in the ‘Ainz/Nazarick is the best thing since the invention of Agriculture/Can beat anyone with their heartbeat’ segment of the fandom. Guess I subconsciously realized that they have a reasonable power level, and thus never got the motivation to write DC’s Doomsday v Nazarick.

Oh yes likes make the survivor of a dystopia MAKE another Dystopia, this time Paranoia Alpha Complex-Grade. https://youtu . be/d5zdft7m_fM (Title: Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory, Welcome to Alpha Complex). What is irritating is that we don’t even get the details on how the Dystopia functions, like Hunger Games or Half Life 2 or Psycho Pass or...

Or maybe I’m letting my hatred of Self-Righteous City States like Marvel’s Wakanda color my perspective on Nazarick. Objectively speaking Nazarick is fairly high on the Shonen Power Scale: About Chimera Ant Arc of Hunter x Hunter. Or what I've seen via Cultural Osmosis of Black Clover, though I haven't even picked up that series. Or Fairy Tail in the Grand Magic Games Arc (smack dab in the middle of the anime), gotta pick up that series again. 

Or maybe I have stupidly high standards for Nazarick’s Cited Power Level.

At least Overlord did the female on male abuse arc seriously/better. Instead of “Let’s become Allies!” that Re:zero pulled with the Oni Twins or that “Hey let’s make a DID Personality (which IRL forms if someone was abused) and make them the abusive one!” like they did with Satella/The Witch of Envy. yes I know technically she’s being possessed by an eldritch thing, but the thing only developed a personality in her body. And the personality doesn’t carry over to the next host. Cite: the Sloth Authority aka the Unseen Hands in Petelguese and Invisible Providence in Subaru. Like Marvel’s Venom. So DID. Seriously, it's like Subaru is secretly in the Alpha Complex from a few paragraphs up.

 ...It's ‘nice’ entertainment, until it actually happens to your family. Mom has DID and I was abused by my former step sisters. ...What do you call a family when your parents never actually married them? Because they were related to mom’s then boyfriend but she broke up when mom found out about his daughters’ abuse.

In case you were wondering what this acronym meant: DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) or as it was formerly called Multiple Personality Disorder is used as an evil force in fucking everywhere, remember Split 2016 by M. Night Shyamalan? ...Sorry if I went TMI.

If you can’t tell, I hate the “Let’s attack the newly transformed human Ainz'' bit. Not only is it Non-canonical AF what with the NPCs detecting Loyalty via the Account/Soul and not the Body. it's also a Permanent transformation. I’m sorry we must not have watched/read the same series, cause there are no downsides to Nazarick’s Power. If Ainz does figure out a Human/Organic transformation then it would be just another form. Ala Danny Phantom. Overlord isn’t Undertale where Humans have Literally Different Souls than other Races. shakes fist in too busy writing this to attempt my own Human!Ainz story.

The story could have gone down the route of Undercover Boss, where Momon and Nabe keep stumbling on Rivals to the World’s Throne and have Ainz grow to be a Better Boss by not falling into the same Pitfalls as his Rivals. ...hell even the mere existences of Permanent (or a whole lot more) Rivals could have done the series much better. Cite: Sasuke, The Worst Generation for the Strawhats, etc. and it would give the other adventures like Blue Rose more context. To make the inevitable clash all the more bittersweet, rather than “Here Pleiades have some characters I made explicitly for you to win against.” Like the Magic Caster of Destroy/ln9/season 3 finale would have hit the emotional beats (best friends on the opposite sides of the war) if the Swords of Darkness were still alive and that's when they die. Instead of Gazef, who barely had half an hour with Ainz to connect on a personal level. Ala Marvel’s Winter Soldier or Civil War..

That’s if I take Overlord on its own. If I take in Overlord as part of the Isekai Quartet Multiverse, then it's so ...uplifting for the Protagonist's Plans to go off without a hitch. That and like I said via the 203rd, Re zero fills the suffering quota. …except for the fact that Nazarick is the fucking cause for most of the recent suffering. The Dragon Emperor (who summoned/is summoning all of the World Items (and whatever poor sods who happen to be near them) was at least 6 centuries ago. 

We don’t see any demihumans suffering under the cruelty of the Slane Theocracy raids. Apparently AInz only destroyed the Eight Finger’s Slave Trade and not the mindrotting Drug. Zurannon fucked off into Red Herring Terrority. We don’t see any Frost Dragon Cruelty. While Buser (a demihuman ‘king’ who likes collecting human infant skulls and somehow has a positive/good karma rating, thus proving the Karma system is by Species/Culture Values (and thus the Slane Theocracy Raiders are also Morally/Karma Good)) does exist, we are more focused on Suzuki Let me Shoot Fireballs at children Satoru/Remedios than him. That’s not how you save children from a hostage situation by shooting them. -Visha (Saga of Tanya the evil s1 ep 11-12)

And there’s the fact that the Overlord respawn emplantmentiation is very boring. First we brought up the possibility of the NPCs respawning in this episode. Then we confirmed that with Shalltear’s defeat in s1’s finale. And then in season 2 we had the perfect chance for another Nazarick death, Entoma getting the Vermin Bane. but noooo plot armor kicked in. I am not expecting Re:zero levels of rocks fall, everyone dies and then gets back up again.

All I’m asking for is ‘tactical’ deaths like Konosuba or Log Horizon.

So either way I have a LARGE amount of salt and I hope I'm being as neutral as I can be.

The Konosuba heaven doesn’t canonically suppress all the negativity, it's just a byproduct of a Comedy World. They have a Non Aggression Pact with Vanir’s Hell (which he is one of seven Rulers (Archdukes)) to not Open Up the Pearly Gates and flood the World with Angels. Else a Large Scale War restarts, Vanir is a veteran of the Previous War, while Aqua and Eris are not. Hence why he doesn’t feel threatened by them.... Until Aqua gets serious, showing him that Heaven’s New Blood are bs. Vanir is a Devil, not a Demon. Succubi are one of the Lesser races of Devils. So no, the Demon King is not Vanir’s Boss from Hell.

[1]No that is not the canonical explanation of True Vampirism, mostly because I haven’t FOUND the true Canonical explanation. The Mild Slow thing is fact. I think there was a mention about being Overleveled so the Sun doesn’t affect Shalltear. However I headcanon that if Shalltear was lower leveled/On a planet with a weak Magnetosphere/Ozone Layer (Like say the School)/Get drop kicked out of said things, then she would turn into a statue like Jojo’s Pillar Men. Cause you know, Super Vampire. ...and then the Statue would shatter and free Shalltear before getting statueified again if she hasn’t teleported out the UV bombardment. Rinse repeats for all of Eternity before she gets rescued/gets out of this predicament. If you’re particularly angry towards her/sadistic then this experience would cause unrelenting pain for her. Or get hit by fusion warhead nukes or bathe under UV lamps.

The reason why she would get freed is because Shalltear has a Passive that prevents her movement from being restricted, hence why she escaped that Ribcage trap that Ainz used against her in s1 finale. That is my headcanon on why Shalltear used an Umbrella during the Beach Episode of Isekai Quartet (The Chibi Comedy). 

...See what I mean by ‘Fixing Another Setting.’? I’m a RWBY fan who grew up watching Matpat’s Game and Film Theory Channels and went on to become a writer. I'm used to thinking in this manner.

[2]Of course for this line there was none other than: Brain Unglaus, the Character that made me invested (specifically his PTSD/relationship with Shalltear who is his Nemesis. So rare to see Male Suffering (Let alone/specifically/especially Female on Male Abuse. Far too much Male/Society on Male abuse or Male/Society on Female that it’s irritating.) treated seriously. ...You get no points for guessing which show is my favorite in IQ) in Overlord. Rip his Shattered Statue (and my investment, save for my Sunken Cost Fallacy) in vol14 The Abortion of Re-Eztie’s Plots and the First Stage of Overlord’s Abortion in favor of loli wrestling. -The Overlord Fanfic Discord’s Consensus. We could have had 50 Light Novels like A Certain Magical Index like was planned from the start but noo we only get 17, if that.

[3]Also... I too stumble a bit when it comes to how early Satoru has to wake up for work.

Take myself. Work starts at 7 in the morning for morning shift (sometimes 6, if I'm set to a different position). I like to eat breakfast, wake up and generally not killing myself as I drive the 35 minutes it takes to get to work. Thus, I wake up approximately 1 hour 45 minutes before work starts.

In a dystopian world where food tastes like shit, the only entertainment is Yggdrasil, and cities are domed enclosures, unless Satoru works on the complete opposite side of 'town', it only makes sense that he has to be up that early if he similarly has to start working very early.

With how shit Earth is made to sound in 21xx, I'd be surprised if worker laws and stuff protect workers to the same degree they do for us. People lie dying in the streets due to acid rain and toxic air, as Satoru either walks to work or walks to a public transport station. In western countries, normal working hours range from 6-10 hours a day, 5-6 days a week, depending on what you work as for full time employment. 

With Satoru being single and having a not very high degree of education, I'd say it's more likely he works 10-14 hours a day to sustain his gaming addiction, while setting aside some money in case something should happen.

Sorry for the rant, but that's my interpretation of Satoru's job situation.

-Hakon.

There was a Mech Builder game mentioned in the blu-ray exclusive Side Story where Ainz Ooal Gown (the guild) forms and conquers the Raid Dungeon that would become Nazarick. Overlord Prologue I believe it was called. (Probably Mech Quest from Artix Entertainment says Hakon).

[4]Apparently there are other AIs back in the World of 2138. So think less Fallout Franchise and more Ghost in the Shell. A Member of Ainz Ooal Gown has Subdermal Armor too, my headcanon is that person is Touch Me. Who was Law Enforcement, just Morally Better than his peers but forced to do evil things. So like Unfortunate Father and Unfortunate Son (Sebas).

Even though this kind of opened a massive hole in the Mystery Aspect of Yggdrasil. You’re telling me Cyberpunk-Grade/Era AIs can’t Datamine a single game? When we can IRL datamine hard games like Zelda: Breath of the Wild?

[5]I’m fairly certain that Darkness would be a nudist (for the easier/more frequent damage for her pain masochist side and the staring for her embarrassment masochistic side), but alas Konosuba wasn’t focused on Vampire Clothing like Kill La Kill and thus couldn’t handwave casual nudity. So have a Patch Job Headcanon, the First for Konosuba. (hasn’t kept track, plz more in depth konosuba fans correct me if I’m wrong.) 

Or maybe she just liked being forcefully stripped by her enemies. Hm… (adds the “and rip them off” bit).

[6]Well technically Yggdrasil in canon doesn’t have any instancing but that breaks my SOD harder than Ainz doing the National Destruction over a fucking Grain Cart (LN14) and not when the Crown Prince raided Carne(LN9/s3). There’s a reason why I (and some of the fanfic discord) are collectively ignoring LN14 for characterization. And only doing our best vulture/scavenger impressions for world building materials. Like the demihuman with a belt fed minigun. Or Platinum Dragon Lord (who is totally not Bahumutt from DND (Dragon God of Good) but vastly weaker) using a remote controlled Armor as a scouting tool.

[7] Edited for easier insertion into the story. Go watch it after finishing this chapter, a nice half hour of a velvet smooth voice ripping a scam to shreds. His channel is all about finding the weird MMOs and reviewing them. And possibly the only full playthrough of the Otherland MMO(based on the book series), which is extremely dead aka he is literally the only player on the servers while he recorded. 

[8]Marumya said that AOG was so high level because of its Microtransactions. Marumya also said that at AOG/Yggdrasil’s peak, AOG only ranked 9th out of all Guilds in the game. So good lord, how much money did the 8 higher ranked guilds pay?! So yes the “OC comes to curbstomp Nazarick” has canonical backing. For New World born OCs you could make said OC a True Dragon Lord ala PDL and the Dragon Emperor or Evil Eye’s Backstory Dragon. Or the leader of a Mongol Horde-Expy.

[9] I don’t think the canon overlord has an answer for the “Can they remember the deaths?” I know it's impossible for Shalltear to remember her time as Honopokoyo because Shalltear was booted up from a save file and not continued. So sadly unless we get more conceptual, Sleeper Agent for the Slane Theocracy Shalltear is flatout impossible. But I don’t remember if the reload from backup happened in Yggdrasil Proper.

[10] Which was his one of two ways of matching the higher powers like Satella/The Witch of Envy (Re:zero aka the bitch behind Return By Death) or Being X. (Saga of Tanya the Evil who is either the Abrahamic God (LN), The Abrahamic God while also being the Spokesperson for Every Pantheon that was ever Worshiped on Earth (Manga), or The Unworshiped Creator (Anime)) ...if you know their heart doesn’t beat (in the twelve second time window of potentially countering it) punting him back through time/rewrite the Laws of Physics/Magic dissolving the Skill, respectively. ...and that's if I just keep to Isekai Quartet’s Main Four, let alone completely non IQ properties.

The other is summoning the Dark Young (s3/ln9 Magic Caster of Destroy) but that requires a lot of corpses to spawn even one of them. ...if you know he didn’t stumble upon the Human Sacrifice in the Woods under a Full Moon Ritual, which is how you summon Dark Young if you went by the actual Cthulhu Mythos Methods. But this isn’t the story where the Necronomicon falls into the hands of a New World resident after the ‘Splat’, too busy writing this to be writing that. Well technically he would need to summon the Dark Mother Herself.

Chapter Text

“How long will it be until it's back on us?” The NPCs thought. “ On one hand we acted very embarrassingly after Lord Satoru left. But on the other hand we grew closer with the episode’s knowledge.”

=Fair warning this episode is 49 minutes long. So either after this episode or the next we will be taking a break.= Weaver said. =Don’t worry, the other episodes of Re:zero aren’t as long, just the standard half hour. Shield Hero is the second longest first episode. Though we will have some movies. Especially since Overlord is getting its fourth season and first non-recap movie distilled. Though I have no idea when the distillation will be complete.=

The room nodded and thought in unison. “There are just some things that need privacy.”

The NPCs smiled in glee.

“Of course it would be difficult for our story.” Subaru said while hanging his head.

“My kingdom, the Dragonfriend Kingdom of Lugnica, is currently in a Royal Election. I assume this episode will cover how I met Subaru if we follow the trend set by Overlord.” Emilia explained. “So that’s my assumption on why this will take so long. I only met him after tracking down a thief and then got pitched into a fierce battle.”

“The only explanation I can come up with is that the first episode will also cover the framing of a crime I didn’t commit in addition to my summoning.” Naofumi said.

The room nodded in agreement with those assumptions.

The first thing everyone heard was Subaru wheezing. A soft green invading the black screen from the bottom left corner. “This is bad… Very bad…” Subaru said through the blood in his lungs.

“Subaru? What's wrong?” Emilia asked, sounding like she was also underwater.

Subaru opened his eyes and stared at his hand. 

Then a modern convenience store with an Office Man walking past and gazing at his phone.

The room was silent.

“Please just be foreshadowing and not involve time travel.” Seiya softly said.

“Happily/Sadly to say I will not be able to comply.” Roswal and Subaru thought in unison.

Generic store music played as Subaru was revealed reading a manga. Said manga had a generic friendship fight. 

“Ah, I see. This is the part where they suck you in.” Subaru said after flipping the pages.

“No… Run! Hurry!” The wheezing Subaru pleaded with the unseen Emilia, as his blood pooled on the floor.

“Can we please go back to me awkwardly flirting with Albedo?” Satoru asked.

Subaru stares enviously at a passing couple, before letting out a sigh and placing the manga back. The register beeps blending into an EKG-like heartbeat. A sharp noise that was either an aborted scream or metal slicing metal echoed as Emilia fell next to Subaru. 

“Can you please pick a time and place.” Tanya rubbing the bridge of her nose.

“Yay an EKG rhythm.” Subaru thought sarcastically.

“Why a heartbeat?” Those aware of heart monitors thought.

Noodle cups were shown, the left had an English logo saying “Noodle the Tonkotsu”. Subaru picked up the red black cup.

“Nah, not natto.” Subaru said as he picked up the black Tonkotsu one after placing back the Natto

Subaru absentmindedly picked up a pack of chips as he walked by. 

“Wait there…” Subaru said as he reached over his blood towards Emilia.

“That’ll be 363 Yen.” said the man behind the cash register.

“Oh, a grooved-edge ten.” Subaru thought as he shuffled around his wallet. 

“A grooved-edge ten is rare in my time, so it's considered as a good luck charm.” Subaru explained why he shuffled the coin back into his wallet.

“Though it apparently meant Luck in the Chinese “May Your Life be Interesting” sense and not “Get Enough Power to Protect the ones you love” sense/thing.” Subaru thought.

A taxi passed by as Subaru walked out of the store.

“Where are the horses?” Darkness asked.

“We replaced them with explosions.” Kazuma explained.

Megumin looked at him and went back to the taxi. “It doesn’t look like it's riding on an explosion. Like we did to get that Golden Apple.”

“Tiny explosions inside a metal case.” Kazuma said. “Hence the name ‘Internal Combustion Engine’. It generates torque to spin the ‘spine’ of the vehicle.”

A diagram of a car engine appeared with easily digestible explanations on torque. If you must have a reference check out: I brought an exoskeleton to wield Giant Anime Swords by Allen Pan - Sufficiently Advanced. On youtube.

“While Steam Engines are powerful enough, they are terrible at repeated stopping and starting which are necessities in the complex maze of intersections we call cities.” Aqua said. “Only really good for long distance travel between cities or nations.”

“How are you able to afford such education?” Rem asked

“Taxes and sometimes a creative type gets the idea to fuse entertainment with education.” Tanya explained.

“Of course in worlds with Magic you could potentially tax mana itself.” Naofumi said. “Taxes don’t always have to be currency. Like One Piece’s Big Mom’s Soul/Lifespan tax”

“It would be irritating for Reagents themselves to be taxed and not the currency price associated with them.” Demiurge thought.

“I’m…” Subaru reached for the dying Emilia.

The taxi faded from hearing.

“Going to…” Subaru continued as his face contorted in pain and blood flowed from his mouth, staining some of his teeth red.

Subaru blissfully looked after the taxi.

A white space with a dark purple spot surrounded by misshapen dark/black blobs. A series of ominous noises rang out as the purple overtook the white. 

“Save you…” Subaru said without wheezing.

A clawed hand formed out of the purple and reached for the screen.

“And it even looks the same as Petelguese’s hands.” Subaru thought.

“Who the hell is that?” The room and especially the Emilia camp said.

“I have no idea.” Subaru shrugged in helplessness.

Subaru looked forward as reality proceeded to glitch around him, spooky sound included. Subaru looked around in utter confusion.

“Well I guess anyone’s eyes would be tired after holing up in their room, gaming all day.” Subaru said at 1 am.

Subaru rubbed his eye as faint clopping faded into hearing, a soft mechanical-angelic female voice went ‘ah’. As Subaru blinked a crowd of demihumans passed by market stalls. Again Subaru looked around in understandable confusion.

“Well at least the transportation was painless.” Emilia said. “And a whole lot of things about you make sense in this context that we gained earlier.”

“That’s gotta be very confusing for your body. Going from nighttime to what, noon? That’s a recipe for Jet Lag if I ever heard one.” Naofumi said.

“I’m lucky that I don’t have any chronic pain syndromes, else I would have felt mind numbing pain. Probably.” Subaru said. “Thankfully because of my body reverting back to prime condition every time I die. I haven’t developed any of the chronic pain syndromes.”

“Yes it would have for me.” Ram thought.

A large bell rang as rooftops were shown.

“What's going on?” Subaru thought. The general chaos of a capital city’s daily life was shown. “ This stuff obviously isn’t fake. Which means...”

A metaphorical light, the potential for an actual purpose (other than being his father’s son) in life, grew within Subaru’s eyes. “I’ve been summoned to a fantasy world?”

The camera zoomed out to show a disc-like planet, all of its edges were taken by a Waterfall. In an area of green there was a patch of ice. The sole volcano in the upper left corner suggested the meeting of two tectonic plates or some overpowered person made it. Yes, Re zero finally got its ‘official’ world map...from a gacha game. Specifically the Re zero Forbidden Book and the Mysterious Spirit.

Satoru’s eye-flames twitched “How has your world not collapsed because of gravity?”

“And how do you still have water?!” Aqua backed up Satoru.

“Unlike at least Satoru’s earth, our world has a veeeery active Spirit/Mind called Od Laguna. It handles everything from Divine Protections (abilities granted to you at birth), Mana, managing Natural Disasters and their side effects. We think there’s more to Od Laguna but we don’t have the capabilities to see for certain.” Roswaal explained. “My family had the fortune of repeatedly getting a Divine Protection that allows access to all elemental spells for ce~nturies. Thus the Mathers Family has been the Court Mage for the same amount of time.”

Albedo bit her tongue to squash the ‘Lord’ correction urge. “My Beloved isn’t the classical warmonger and wouldn't want us to force our values on others. But that doesn’t prevent us from stealthily converting them.”

“Ah yes the “Magic, I don’t need to explain shit.” option of having illogical worlds.” Aqua nodded. “This explains why the water is flat out disappearing and not hanging in the orbital path resulting in an absurd monsoon season.”

The Emilia camp, save Subaru, tilted their heads.

“Earth is a round planet, we know this because of the curved horizon and the 1960s-1970s Space Race.” Tanya said.

Weaver showed the Central Europe map from Military Records’ first Episode, then zoomed out and rotated the planet to showcase the Japanese collection of islands. With labels of course. A montage of a hideously large amount of people that basically say: We can tell how tall that mountain is by looking towards the Horizon. And then showing Sputnik launching and orbiting the earth, and Colonel Joseph William Kittner II space diving.

“I saw a curved horizon in my next episode.” Satoru said.

Weaver supplied evidence with Satoru in his Momon Armor but helmetless. Demiurge with wings and a frog face hovered with his God above the clouds. Overlord s1 ep2 was the caption.

“Our world is definitely curved.” Aqua said.

Megumin’s end of movie explosion was tall enough to show the horizon/pierce a higher layer of the atmosphere. Konosuba Legend of Crimson!/Konosuba Let’s Go, Crimson Magic of Explosion! Appeared as the caption.

“Gaebrande has a curved horizon I saw while dealing with a column of undead.” Seiya said.

“Well that's one way to say [I summoned meteors on a defenseless horde of undead.]" Ristarte muttered.

A giant flaming rock fell behind Seiya and Ristarte, the mountains in the distance curved. Cautious Hero s1 ep4 appeared.

“My world also is round. Thank you islands.” Raphtalia said.

A sailing ship showed the easily visible horizon. Shield hero season 1 ep 23 appeared.

“While disc worlds are unusual, at least they aren’t Ring Worlds or Matrioshka Brains or Dyson Spheres/Swarms.” Satoru consoled the Emilia camp. “Arcology is literally the word for Self-sustaining Architecture. Of course the easiest to imagine and build are the tower-style. In which an entire city or more is stacked upon each other. Nazarick is a tower-style just one that goes underground.” Satoru said.

A disconnected Nazarick appeared on screen as the camera panned down past all 10 floors.

“My world used Carbon Nanotubes and Graphene in the construction of our Arcologies. Because iron and its derivatives don’t have enough tensile (resistance to ripping) strength to support everything.” Satoru explained.

“Where’s the other Tectonic plate?” Tanya asked. “You need a gap in the tectonic plates to form a volcano. It's usually when two tectonic plates clash, this also causes earthquakes.”

“Well the Witch destroyed half the world 400 years ago.” Emilia replied. “So that's probably where the Volcano came from.”

“And I thought that I would be free of world destroyers once the eagle-squirrel-snake chimera was in a separate dimension.” Satoru muttered. “Was the frozen forest also because of the witch?” he said at a louder volume.

“I don’t know what caused my forest to be frozen. That’s why I entered the election to secure supplies to unfreeze my fellow forest dwellers and prevent whatever happened to happen again.” Emilia said.

“Aww, you’re adorable.” Naofumi said, causing Emilia to blush. “Please don’t lose your nobility/kindness in the election."

“Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus.” Is what I think the woman is singing. Rondo of Love and Darkness. A funeral bell rang out. A stone carving of the Lugnica Insignia with some flowers appeared behind the title: Re: Life in a different world from zero.

“Why do you have one of the songs for the Christian/Abrahamic funeral. Also known as a Requiem?” Zettour questioned. “I thought it would be us because of the war. Or Overlord. Especially with that name.”

“Well if we consider electing a new dynasty as the final act of a mourning country, then it makes sense?” Emilia pondered while tilting her head.

“That and something we will see later will make everything sensible. Including the apparent literal funeral chants, is it a sibling song to Dies Irae?” Subaru asked.

“Yes.” Grantz confirmed. “Dies Irae is the third song in the sequence while Sanctus is the eleventh.”

“Well it's just baked into me, isn’t it?” Subaru muttered.

“And now there’s two Barasu.” Ram said.

The two looked at each other.

“Hey, at least we’re not circling ravens/crows.” Grantz said.

“We don’t need any more Death Omens in this room anyways.” Subaru nodded in agreement.

After a black transition, birdsong filled the air as the camera showed a top down view of a demihuman marketplace. Notably there was a small figure hopping across rooftops. The rooftop jumper was shown from their feet and we could hear her breaths as she ran. The girl looked at her prize which was a less detailed version of the Lugnica Insignia but strangely the red gem was glowing a vibrant red.

“The reason why the gem is glowing is because that's how Volcanica, the dragon that Lugnica made a contract with, chose the electorates in the election.” Emilia explained.

The room nodded in understanding.

Felt giggled as she seamlessly hopped off the cart tops without alerting anyone.

“Are the dragons a symbol of your pact with Volcanica?” Raphtalia asked.

“Hooorses went extinct four hundred years ago by the Witch. They also have a species wiiide divine protection that creates a tunnel around them of nooo air resistance.” Roswaal explained. LN 2 cut content, specifically the bath scene from episode 5.

“I can assume this is a fantasy world with the typical medieval culture.” Subaru said while string instruments played.

“Why do we still have music?” Emilia asked. “I thought it would have ended after showing us Od Laguna.”

“Because silence with only footsteps or talking is vastly unnerving. It has to do with psychology that I don’t know the earth's words for and I have no clue how to translate.” Subaru answered. “Sure, while sometimes it actively harms an impression like Shalltear’s true form. It's far better than being actively submerged in sensations that our brains/souls have no idea how to use. Or do you want to feel Satoru’s Emotional Suppressor?”

“Fair enough.” Emilia nodded.

“That and if someone brings their own music then that's an intimidation tactic.” Tanya said. “Like say Boss Music.”

Someone whispered before a set of drums steadily built in intensity. A haunting bell chimed.

“I suppose I did ask for that.” Tanya said as the creepy music continued.

A small shiver went down most of the room’s spines.

 A group of men stood outside of a carriage. Then the men had the stupid idea of opening the door to the carriage revealing Shalltear and the caption of Song: Overlord OST CD2 17 ‘Blood Frenzy’.

“Yeah that fits.” Tanya nodded in appreciation. “Guess we will see if you can live up to your music.”

Shalltear merely had a smirk that said ‘oh I will’.

A humanoid reptile passed Subaru by.

“A realm where demihumans are commonplace, and probably stuff like wars and adventures as well.” Subaru said. “And here, I’m…”

A child and a nearby crowd yelled in terror. Subaru turned to see a child in the path of one of the carriages.

Subaru shouted and pushed his hand, a knight dove in from off screen and saved the kid. Subaru looked at his hand, “Guess I'm not manifesting magic just yet.”

“Dude. You can summon and/or create Knights.” Kazuma thought what I thought upon watching and pointed out. “I really should have asked for that.”

Subaru blinked. “Well, I felt no drain when the Knight appeared so I just assumed he was an actual knight.”

“If Suuubaru could summon and/or create knights, that would’ve been fa~ntastic.” Roswaal replied. “ I wonder if Subaru’s little time travel secret will be revealed.”

“Yeah too bad I don’t have any of those ‘Personal Development Causing and/or Synched’ powers like Jojo’s Stands/Persona’s Personas. Or the suffering fueled sharingan. Or Monkey Paw-types like Kyubey’s Contracts from PMMM/Counter Guardian Contract with the Counterforce from Type Moon/Fate. Or death fueled like Danny Phantom or Yu Yu Hakusho or Bleach or Fate’s Noble Phantasms. Or even detective skills supernatural like Sherlock or not. That's not even counting the “Knowledge is Literal Power” types such as Mysticism (A certain magical Index/Scientific Railgun are Mysticism right?) or Xianxia or Lovecraft.” Subaru felt his heart sink as he remembered all potential power sets. “Among others I am surely forgetting.”

“Harry Potter’s magic system doesn’t have any drain. Except for becoming an Immortally Respawning Lich via crafting their phylactery/horcrux and drawing up sufficient emotion to repel literal soul-eating despair radiating demons.” Ristarte said. “Though usually Phylacteries are a DND thing.”

“I can see why the devs removed the Phylactery from Liches. The lich is one of Nazarick’s auto-generated mooks.” Demiurge explained.

“That and the Staff is our Phylactery. All Guild Weapons are for their respective Guilds.” The Overlord Cast thought.

“Yeah that would cause the Phylactery to join the Zone of Truth and Sense Motive in the pile of not implemented.” Subaru said. “But regarding the knight If I did create him, wouldn’t I just make a mobile suit of armor and not a fully sapient knight? Especially on my first try? Tanya has military training and Satoru had Yggdrasil to grow in.” Subaru prepared them for his inability to damage anything.

“Zone of Truth and Sense Motive are things we (and our Pop Liches) can do.” Demiurge mentally noted. “ Though there is a decent chance that they mutated from gameplay to the New World. Like us NPCs.”

“Heaven crushed the Liches ability to form a Phylactery, that is why Wiz doesn’t have one.” Aqua whispered/said to her party.

“You could mimic Knight Creation with an Earth Spirit or a friendship with Vollachia’s Steelfolk demihumans, I suppose.” Beatrice offered.

Subaru was shown in the market and saw Kadomon the Appa salesman and an unknowing checkpoint guy. A pleasant instrumental played.

“I can’t read this.” Subaru thought.

“But you can?” Emilia said while tilting her head. “If you can’t then how did you learn while asleep in one night?”

“I learned in a time that no longer exists.” Subaru replied.

The room stared at Subaru in disappointment for not saying the actual reason.

“You could just say no I won’t tell, I suppose.” Beatrice said what was on everyone’s mind.

“Hey, boy.” Kadomon said. “Those are some weird clothes. Are you traveling?”

“What are these?” Subaru asked while pointing to the apples.

“Those are Appas.” Cardamom ...Kadomon answered.

“It's an apple.” Everyone but the Emilia Camp said in unison.

“Can we leave the barely changed names to Military Records?” Ram asked while hanging her head in embarrassment.

“They understand me, though. The question is…” Subaru showed some of his now utterly worthless money.

Kadomon predictably shouted Subaru away.

Subaru hunched over and walked in the street. “There’s no other way… I’ll just have to go around gathering information.”

The Emilia camp save Subaru all facepalmed.

“Wrong Door Barasu!” Ram said.

Subaru accidentally walked into the women's bathroom to predictable results.

“Yeah that’s the wrong door if I ever saw one.” Koenig said.

The room nodded in agreement.

Subaru then walked into a demihuman only bar before being shoved out and through his blind stumbling fell into a river.

“Really upped the slapstick factor didn’t ya? I just wandered into the alley directly from Kadomon.” Subaru commented as the screen Subaru appeared next to his drying jacket..

“Is this how it’s supposed to be?” Subaru questioned the world.

“Seriously, where is your Isekai Infrastructure?” Naofumi said. “While the King eventually turned his back on me, he did provide me with coin.”

“As far as we are aware, Subaru is the only one from beyond the Great Waterfall.” Emilia answered. “And Infrastructure only applies to multiple things, not a standalone existence.”

“Wasn’t I summoned to a Parallel world?” Subaru briefly forgot his highschool academia.

“Ah yes, cause a disc can come from a round planet. Like we could eventually develop into Satoru’s Earth.” Tanya said sarcastically.

Subaru counted his starting gear with the door jingle playing.

“ Do I really want everyone to learn of my struggles in this way? ” Subaru thought. “ It's not worth them knowing if they have to suffer .”

The smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies tickled everyone’s nose. Before anyone could ask where the chocolate and water bottles came from, Subaru grabbed the nearest plate of cookies and plopped them on his lap before gorging himself with said cookies.

“What?” Subaru asked after swallowing. “Chocolate promotes happiness.”

“Only you would eat strange food that smells weird, I suppose.” Beatrice shook her head.

Subaru blinked and hesitated on picking up the next cookie. “Chocolate doesn’t smell like the Witch does it?”

“Thankfully not.” Puck replied. “But if Subaru recognizes it then it is safe for you, Lia.”

“Hey, at least I’m not that guy.” Subaru jabbed his thumb at Weiss.

Weiss had poured an entire plate of unwrapped Hershey kisses into his mouth.

“I turn around for 5 seconds.” Tanya rubbed her temples. 

“How did you unwrap all of them without us knowing?” Grantz asked.

Weiss swallowed and replied. “Skill.”

“Don’t transform into your bird form until your stomach has settled.” Naofumi whispered to Filo.

Filo raised her eyebrow before trusting her owner and nodded to show her agreement.

“Not even Excalibur?!” Subaru finished his rant. [1]

“You do realize King Arthur doesn’t exist right?” Zettour asked.

In response Shalltear coughed.

“King Arthur shouldn’t exist and even if he does, he will need Excalibur.” Zettour amended.

“True. However Exaclibur was the first weapon I thought of that wasn’t A, Hideously Overpowered like DC’s Power Rings which can form anything you can imagine out of their associated emotions. B, had hideous curses and clauses like Lord of the Rings’ One Ring which was the downfall of several civilizations.” Subaru said. “or C, where too fundamentally important like Ame no Nuhoko. Which is the Shinto (Japan’s native religion) Spear of Creation. Or D, permanently life changing like Devil Fruits from One Piece. Which gives you a wacky power like being rubber at the cost of being THE worst thing you will ever eat. And lose the ability to swim.”

“Besides Excalibur was made by the Fae, and they (by pretty much definition) have limitless resources so even if I did take King Arthur’s Actual Excalibur and not a random blade also called Excalibur then the Lady of the Lake can just make another one. Besides I wanted self defense not to accidentally reshape the map.” Subaru continued.

Weaver showed Britain in the hypothetical King Arthur Era, then skipped to when Britain got the bright idea to Conquer the World for all the Spices and showed a Time Lapse of the British Empire’s Rise and Fall. And Artoria was summoned by Shirou Emiya from TYPE-MOON. Caption being TYPE-Moon: Fate: Stay/Night Visual Novel.

“As for why I thought of Excalibur, I have no idea.” Subaru said with Audible Sarcasm as the time Lapse played. “Let’s not go into TYPE-MOON, it's a weird verse.”

“Besides, you've been burnt in the spy sense.” Tanya said.

Burn Notice s1 opening is on youtube.

“Of course America would make a tv show out of my situation.” Subaru said. “And back then I didn’t have immediately applicable skills,”

“You have the basic cooking knowledge.” Ram asked with audible confusion. “Enough knowledge to get hired as an apprentice.” 

“Again. You taught me the basics.” Subaru replied.

Ram slowly breathed out in exasperation.

“What does your ‘cellphone’ do?” Megumin asked, wondering if Subaru could answer stuff at all.

“Yggdrasil’s [Message] Skill was derived from cell phones. Also it's two words.” Subaru said. “While my model couldn’t play mobile games such as…”

Some gameplay of Overlord Mass of the Dead mobile gacha game played. Unfortunately the global/english release got taken down. Still the YT videos are available to watch. It's an alt timeline from the main series.

“Knew that there was at least one Mobile Gacha game of us.” Kazuma smirked.

“Least we don’t have to deal with those enemies.” Satoru said before the NPCs nodded.

“Can’t spend all my allowance on gacha if I'm physically incapable of playing that type of game. It can communicate with all other phones so if I had any friends they still could talk to me. Doubtful considering I was a full blown NEET.” Subaru said.

“Ah, so more advanced and portable Communication Mirrors.” Emilia nodded in understanding.

Felt continued her hopping spree and Subaru continued to lament his start. Kon, Chin, and Ko/Joe, Larry, and Moe/Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest walked into Subaru’s alley. 

“What is welfare?” Emilia asked.

“Welfare is the term for the government paying someone to compensate for their destabilizing lives. Such as getting in a car crash and needing weeks or months to relearn how to walk/others, and however long it takes for them to regain a paying job and financial security. Or permanent like losing limbs or being born blind.” Tanya explained.

The room nodded in understanding.

Subaru heard their footsteps and halted his speech.

“Just because Albedo and the Pleiades were there, doesn’t mean that's a thing.” Emilia said.

“Yes it is.” Aqua and Kazuma said in unison.

Aqua and Kazuma appeared in a golden shimmer next to a tree with the caption Axel Town of Beginning. [6]

“Me and Seiya.” Ristarte said while waving at herself and her past/future lover. “Because if there isn’t a summoner, then this ‘freak accident’ has the potential to happen again. It could be because the dimensions/worlds/settings are fusing and thus people can and will fall between dimensions. If the barrier between dimensions aren’t/haven’t weakened enough to allow Lovecraft’s many many nightmare gods into Reality.” Ristarte consoled Emilia. “That and if someone doesn’t anchor the summoned to their new reality then the best case scenario is that the summoned will breeze through all their challenges and not grow as a person. The worst case is that the summoned will become a far worse Demon King than the current one and/or become the Demon King that needs a Hero to awaken/be summoned to defeat.”

“I’m sorry for treating you like a doll.” Subaru whispered-apologized.

“We’ll talk about your behavior in private.” Emilia whispered back.

“But that does make sense.” Emilia replied to Ristarte. “It would be insanely counterproductive for a Hero to fall.”

Ristarte nodded in agreement. “Also, Rem shares a voice with Hestia who is the Leader of Bell (the main character)’s Guild. So you share a voice connection.” Ristarte thought. 

“What are you blabbering about?” The smallest mugger/Kan/Camberly muttered.

“If you don’t want to get hurt, cough up whatever you have!” The middle mugger/Chin/Rachins Hoffman said while stepping closer to Subaru.

“Slight problem, I had no worthwhile items. And I doubt Rom would let you in to appraise my phone. If you don’t break it.” Subaru replied.

“Crap a compulsory event.” Subaru muttered while being picked up.

“Move it, Move it!” The cute girl Subaru ordered shouted.

“Is that the cute girl that summoned me?” Subaru successfully confused Felt into halting.

“Summoned? I dunno what you’re talking about. But I'm busy.” Felt said. “Sorry! Live strong!”

Felt went around the processing mugging, futilely trying to flee the lolimancer. Subaru expressed his shock at her abandonment as she leapt up the walls.

“But Felt didn’t recognize you in the loot house.” Emilia tilted her head in an adorable fashion.

“You’ll understand later.” Subaru promised.

“Hey, that didn’t make you decide to be less hostile towards me, by any chance did it?” Subaru asked. 

“Actually, it rained on our parade and made things worse.” Said the tallest/Ton/Gaston while cracking his knuckles.

“Yeah, of course.” Subaru agreed and bemoaned his fate.

“Just calm down, Natsuki Subaru. Since ancient times, it's been the rule that anyone that was summoned will display supernatural powers!” Subaru thought on a black background.

“Supernatural for a magicalless earth or supernatural for your new world?” Zettour asked.

“Usually both.” Subaru answered.

“That’s absurd.” Ram understated.

“ Be glad that you don’t live in a world where such an imbalance is needed.” Filo thought.

“I’ll mow these guys down and use them as fuel for my shining future! ” Subaru thought while clutching his fists and drums and/or string instruments played.

“You lumbs of EXP!” Subaru chose that as his battlecry.

Subaru knocked down the biggest thug with solid punching characteristics, using his entire back in the movement. Subaru converted his momentum into a roundhouse kick punting the little mugger like a soccer ball.

“Are you sure you need Excalibur?” Kazuma asked sarcastically. “NEET my ass.”

“Hey, dad only woke me up with wrestling only a few days of the week.” Subaru countered.

The room looked befuddled at that statement.

“I’m fairly certain that a parent shouldn’t wake up their child like that.” Rudersdorf commented.

“Are you sure you want Excalibur and not Zangetsu?” Kazuma said.

“Considering that I would need my Soul kicked out of my body every single time I wanted to use Zangetsu, yes I would prefer Excalibur over Zangetsu.” Subaru replied. “Zangetsu is one of the Zanpakuto/Soul Cutters, the main tool of the Bleach’s death personifications. While there are some that can manifest their Zanpakuto as a physical sword, all of them are highly trained. So Zangetsu would be utterly useless against non-spirits for a long time.”

“Oh right.” Kazuma said.

A compilation of Ichigo dodging his dad’s training/playful attacks played. With the Bleach caption.

“And yes, before my NEEThood chokeslammed me into compliance, everyone compared me to Ichigo.” Subaru explained.

Subaru waved his hand trying to dissipate the pain.

“That’s the first time I've ever hit someone! I didn’t expect it to hurt me that much.” Subaru said. “But this world is set up for me to become stronger.”

The middle/last standing thief cast Knives and Subaru instantly went into dogeza, the ‘default’ japanese pose of submission. As the rising music instantly cut and a tire skid sound effect like Subaru was a model of the car brand.

“I do know how to force someone to drop their knife. But I don’t know how to do that with two knives at once.” Subaru said over his screen-self rambling.

“How?” Shalltear asked.

“The human musculoskeletal system can only twist a certain amount before it collapses.” Subaru said. 

A blank gray skinned human model holding a knife appeared before losing its skin. The muscles were highlighted as the knife holding arm was twisted until the model was literally forced to let go.

“This probably won’t work against Nazarick.” Subaru said. “On one hand you blush and have various other signals of biological processes going on in your bodies. But on the other hand.”

A teenage girl’s face was caved in, showing a rotating prism hovering in her hollow skull. A Certain Magical Index s1 finale was the caption.

“That is Kazakiri Hyouka of the Imaginary Numbers District of Academy City. aka Humanity’s first Artificial Angel of their first Artificial Heaven.” Subaru explained.

“I have the sneaking suspicion that no, we don’t have triangles in our skulls.” Albedo sarcastically said.

Knife dude kicked Subaru prompting the first of the many Subaru Screams. The other two thugs slowly picked themselves back up as Subaru crawled backwards.

“Play games with us, will you?! Die Scum!” The tiny mugger yelled while kicking Subaru.

“And don’t think it would be painless.” One of them said after 15 seconds of kicking him with the only sounds of flesh hitting flesh.

“Shouldn’t they be grabbing all of your items and fleeing by now?” Aura asked.

Subaru shrugged. “I guess they forgot?”

“And we’re already using the silence thing.” Emilia said.

“That’s Enough.” Emilia said in oppressive silence after the Knife dude stood on and grinded his foot into Subaru’s eye.

“How can I save you in the alley, when you saved me in the loot house?” Emilia questioned whilst gripping her head.

The room stared at Emilia in confusion.

“...You do realize those aren’t mutually exclusive, right?” Aqua cross-examined.

“It is for us.” Subaru countered Aqua’s cross-examination.

“So this is why I’m second in Subaru’s Heart.” Rem thought. “If this is not a lie of Weaver’s.”

“I’m glad that someone is helping you.” Emilia said.

Emilia got a suitably majestic reveal with the wind softly blowing past the mic.

“I truly get to see the beginning of this relationship that not even Time and Space can destroy.” Roswaal mentally smirked.

The Mathers insignia of a hawk (or perhaps a phoenix) embroiled in yellow thread upon a purple fabric hung down to Emilia’s feet like hip guards. 

“Who the hell are you?” Knives asked.

“Stop now, and I’ll let this slide.” Emilia said. The camera panned to show her determined face. “So just graciously return what you stole.”

A soft violin played as Subaru stared in amazement at her beauty.

“What we stole?” The tallest mugger asked.

“Now, please. It’s important to me.” Emilia said. “I’ll give up on the other stuff, but I can’t let you have that. Be good and return it now.”

“So you didn’t come to save this kid?” Asked the tallest thug while pointing down at Subaru.

“What strange clothes he has.” Emilia said with audible confusion. “If you asked me whether I had any connection to him, I’d say no.”

“Then you’ve got no business with us!” Said the tallest. “If someone stole from you, it was the brat that just ran by!” Tallest said while pointing to the rooftops.

“Yeah! That way! She ran that way!” Smallest mugger backed up his friend in no shared honor among thieves.

Emilia put her hand on her chin, saying “Hmm… They don’t appear to be lying. I need to go after her!”

“And there’s a second place to my first meeting with Tanya.” Lergen said.

“It looks bad, but Lia will help.” Puck countered.

The thugs breathed a sigh of relief as Emilia ran past.

“But regardless of that…” Emilia said after stopping next to Subaru’s grocery bag. Emilia turned around, the camera zoomed in, and motion lines appeared as she said. “I can’t overlook what’s going on here.”

Emilia raised her hand, a blue glow appeared concreting on her palm, and blunt icicles appeared knocking all the thugs on their ass. 

The icicles vanished into a blue glow. “Magic?” The Subaru without a pain tolerance muttered in slight confusion. Either that or he was dreading a magicless fantasy world, such a world would deal with plagues.

“Mess with us, will you?” Knives yelled while him and the tallest stood up. “I don’t care if you can use magic, I’ll kill you.”

“Like I’ll let you.” Subaru and Puck thought.

Puck merely directed a smug smile to his daughter’s doubters.

“You think you can win when it's two against one!? Huh?!” Knives yelled.

“You’re right.” Emilia said quietly in a confident pose with the formerly casting hand on her hip. “Two against one may be unfair.”

“Two against two should make it fair, then.” Puck announced his existence with an adorable little montage coming to rest on Emilia’s upturn palm. A weird swirly sound played. I have no idea how to describe it other than swirly. Just note that it plays every time Puck moves via floating.

“You’re a user of the spiritual arts?” Tallest needed independent verification. 

“Correct. Back off now and I won’t come after you.” Emilia verified. “Decide quickly. I’m in a hurry.”

“You bitch, next time I see you I won’t go easy!” Knives said. 

“Do anything to her, and I’ll haunt you and your kin forever.” Puck made a promise on the behalf of the Beast of the End. “Not that you’ll have any kin if I do that.” As the Great Spirit of Fire (temperature) sat cross-legged on Emilia’s palm,

The muggers finally listened to their instincts and fled, but not before Knives came back and picked up the smallest.

“You saved me. Thanks.” Subaru said uncharacteristically quiet.

“Don’t move.” Emilia warned.

Subaru blushed and averted his eyes.

“See? You averted your eyes because of your guilty conscience!” Emilia said. “Looks like my judgment was spot on.”

Emilia walked closer to Subaru.

“Are you sure?” Puck floated in his seated position. “I think it was just an instinctive male reaction. I didn't sense any malice at all.”

“We have to read body language and micro-expressions and tone of voice. But you can just sense emotions.” Tanya hung her head in audible envy. “You don’t even have the common decency to smell the pheromones that humans give off but can’t smell ourselves.”

“You be quiet, Puck.” Emilia asserted herself before placing her hands on her hips and bent over slightly. “You know who stole my insignia from me, don’t you?”

“Uh, sorry, I don’t have the slightest idea.” Subaru said.

Emilia stared at him, reading his expression before jerking back, held her hand close to her chin, and softened her tone. “Huh? Wait, it can’t be!” a soft piano? Played as Emilia turned to face the back of the alley, preventing Subaru from seeing her blush. “Did I really just come around the long way?”

Subaru made a small Hu before saying in a cool tone. “You should probably run after her, miss.”

Subaru tried to stand up, saying. “I could… Help…” before collapsing on his back.

“Ah, you shouldn’t have tried standing up.” Puck said as he and his daughter looked at the boy. “What should we do?”

“It's none of our business.” Emilia futilely denied her own heart. “He won’t die. We can just leave him.”

“I still remember none of this.” Emilia defended herself. “So I have no clue what’s going on.”

“Really?” Puck expressed his disbelief at his daughter’s self denial.

“Yes, really.” Emilia reverted to her hands on hips pose.

“What is that, your default loading pose?” Kazuma asked.

“Default loading pose refers to video game characters and how their bodies are posed in a neutral stance. Like their arms either make an English T or an English capital A shape, to make it easier for animators to do their craft.” Satoru explained. “Or whenever you enter a new environment there’s a chance you could see all the characters in their poses before their scripts start. Or just because it's loading something huge like Jormungar or Surtur's respective boss fights. So if I was in Yggdrasil 2’s stealth beta/sequel hook, the transition would look like this.”

Momonga was shown sitting down on his World Item Throne with Albedo, Sebas, and the Pleiades maids all standing in a T-pose to assert dominance. Modem sounds and clipping into each other/the environment optional.

The room chuckled at the image.

“No, that's not my default loading pose.” Emilia said while putting her hands on her hips. Before slowly covering her face and blushing as the room’s laughter increased.

“You say that, but I bet you’re still gonna help him.” Puck said while the camera showed Subaru’s adorable resting face.

“At least this weirdness is accurate to Subaru-kun's adorableness.” Rem thought.

“I will not!” Emilia further denied. 

“Yeah, right.” Puck replied in a, whatever you say, tone.

We see through Subaru’s eyes as the familial debate continues. “Absolutely not! I am not going to save him!”

“She's even super cute when she’s mad.” Subaru thought.

Emilia’s cheeks reheated at his compliment.

“That’s an isekai fantasy for you.” Subaru thought.

Subaru finally closed his eyes as the screen faded to black. The camera faded in to show Subaru resting on the lap of a mascot character.

Subaru hid behind his hands while the rest of the Emilia camp laughed.

“You’ll understand later.” Subaru said through his fingers to the rest of the room.

“Is my head on someone’s lap?” Subaru gained instant awareness.

“You’re awake?” Emilia said from the left and not above.

“I didn’t know cute girls were this hairy…” Subaru lacked Auditory Depth/Direction Perception. Subaru then blushed once more. “Wait, that can’t be right!”

Subaru turned his head upright and saw the mildly terrifying MascotPuck's face. Subaru then in the next frame leaped out of Puck’s lap and pressed himself against a wall.

“It’s just a thoughtful arrangement we made so you could at least feel happy until you woke up.” Puck played along by adopting a high pitched voice and explained to the wall-clutching Subaru.

“Never adopt that tone again, please.” Neumann pleaded.

The rest of the room nodded.

“People these days can’t recognize talent even when it's in front of them.” Puck half-heartedly complained.

“Natsumi.” Subaru replied.

Causing Puck to submit to the superior crossdresser as the rest of the Emilia camp nodded.

Puck even did a tiny wave. 

“First of all, don’t talk in that high voice!” Subaru complained. “No sane guy confuses a cat for the main heroine!”

Puck put his raised paw behind his head before saying in his regular tone. “Aww, making myself bigger was worth it to see you so happy.”

“I'm not happy!” Subaru protested. 

Subaru paused at seeing Emilia’s serious face. The piano? Played once more.

“I’m sorry about this.” Subaru apologized. “You stayed with me the whole time I was unconscious...”

“Don’t get the wrong idea.” Emilia said. Before gesturing to Puck and herself. “I had to stay because there are things I want to ask you. Healing your wounds and making Puck your pillow until you woke up were for my own benefit.” Emilia adopted her default loading pose once more. “So I need you to repay me in kind.”

“For such a normal favor, you’re making it sound like I owe you really big.” Subaru commented.

“Well to be fair I do repay you heavily.” Subaru thought.

“No such thing.” Emilia debated as she stood up. “You have some idea who stole my insignia, right?” Emilia walked over to Subaru.

“Insignia?” Subaru questioned. “You mean those badge things that show your affiliation?” Subaru remembered his dictionary.

“It has a jewel in the center, and it's about this big.” Emilia demonstrated the size.

Subaru raised his hand to stop her. “Sorry, but no matter how many times you ask me, I have no idea.”

“Unfortunately I am not Sherlock Holmes.” Subaru said. “Sherlock is the main character of a very famous series of mystery novels and various other media. And can generally piece together the perp from very little clues.”

“To be fair, authors have to write who did it first/the entire mystery backwards.” Naofumi said.

“I see. No helping that, then.” Emilia said while putting only one hand on her hip. “But you’ve given me the information that you know nothing, and you gave me my answer, in return for healing you.” Emilia crossed her arms and turned away. 

Subaru huh’d in confusion.

“Well, I’m in a hurry, so I’ll be going now.” Emilia said. Before turning and pointing at Subaru. “Your wounds should be better now, but next time don’t do dangerous things, like wandering into deserted alleys alone.” Emilia did a cute wave before tilting her head and placing her index finger on her chin. “I’m not concerned. I’m just warning you.” Emilia turned away again. “If that happens to you again, saving you won’t be of any benefit to me, so don’t expect me to help.”

The happy tune reached a crescendo as Emilia walked away. 

“Sorry about her. She’s so insincere.” Puck apologized on his daughter’s behalf in the new found silence. “Don’t think badly of her.”

The camera showed Emilia slowly walking away before only showing Subaru’s mouth, his black undershirt, and MascotPuck. 

“Insincere?” Subaru asked.

Puck turned to look at Subaru.

“I think this goes beyond that.” Subaru said softly. “She was in such a hurry to find what was stolen from her, yet she stopped to help me.” a soft guitar played. “And she even came up with that lame excuse for a favor so I wouldn’t feel like I owed her, even though I am a total stranger. Anybody who lives like that…”

Subaru grabbed his stuff and ran after Emilia. “...is going to end up wasting their whole lives.”

“I don’t think that only applies to her.” Kazuma said.

Subaru turned the corner and spoke after Emilia. 

Emilia turned to the strange boy. “What? Just so you know I can only spend a little more time with you.”

“I sense you’re being a tiny bit lenient...” Subaru replied. “Forget that. You lost something important, right?” Subaru pointed his thumb at himself. “Let me help you.”

“But you said that you don’t know anything…” Emilia tried to use logic against a time traveler (to be).

“But I remember her face, at least.” Subaru countered. “If I see her again, I’ll know for sure.”

Emilia hmmed in thought. “You’re very strange…” Emilia understated. “Just so you know, I can’t do anything to thank you.”

“I don’t need you to.” Subaru answered. “I want to thank you. That's why I want to help you.” 

“I didn’t do anything deserving of thanks.” Emilia said in confusion.

The room, save the Emilia camp, merely looked at Emilia. 

“From this perspective, I guess I did something of thank worthiness?” Emilia admitted.

“I told you, I’ve already received compensation for healing your wounds.” Emilia said.

“Then…” Subaru said. “I’m going to help you for my own sake, too. My Objective is… Let’s see...” Subaru looked up as he pondered. “Yeah! One Good deed per day.”

Emilia made adorable confusion noises as she pondered Subaru’s new found philosophy.

“I don’t sense any malice. I think you can just accept his offer.” Puck advised while appearing on her shoulder. Puck slightly turned to Subaru. “The more shields between yourself and ruffians, the better, after all.”

“That’s what you want me around for?” Subaru instantly reacted.

“I mean it, though. I can’t do anything to thank you.” Emilia said.

“No problem. Just leave it to me.” Subaru put a hand on his heart.

A violin and piano played as the camera panned down to show a fountain with Subaru and Emilia in a crowd standing before it. On a small bridge Subaru and Emilia talked to a canine(?) demihuman. Before showing Subaru trying to climb into an obviously abandoned place and Emilia rushing over to prevent him as soon as she realized.

“As for why I did that, exactly how many times have criminals been found in abandoned warehouses, fictional or otherwise? I am aware of context clues.” Subaru asked the room.

“Fair enough.” Lergen said while the room was nodding.

Next Subaru and Emilia were shown next to a building, Subaru holding an accurate if adorable sketch of Felt. A Felt look alike appeared in front of a stall. But alas this Felt had green instead of red eyes. The jam-packed street was shown once again. Subaru and Emilia were at the top of a staircase overlooking the capital.

“I talked big, but isn’t this town too huge to find one little thing in?” Subaru said. 

“It's the capital of Lugunica.” Emilia replied. “You didn’t even know that, um…” Emilia trailed off as she realized that they never traded names.

Puck looked at his daughter. “That’s right. We haven’t even asked your name yet.” Puck turned to Subaru and adorably waved his arms. “Should we all introduce ourselves?”

“Oh, yeah, you’re right!” Subaru said. “I’ll introduce myself then.” Subaru stood up. “My name is Natsuki Subaru!” The camera showed his finger pointing upwards at a disco ball that didn’t exist and zoomed out three times to show his somewhat ridiculous pose.

“Well, at least, you’re not the Ginyu Force.” Tanya said.

“Never compare me to them again.” Subaru pleaded.

“Don’t do poses then.” Tanya replied. “It's not like your powers (if you have any) require them, like Super Sentai/Magical Girls.”

“Fair.” Subaru hung his head.

“Would ‘Kamen Riders’ be classified among them?” Satoru asked.

“Kamen Rider is basically the origin of the genre, while Super Sentai came a few years afterwards and sold itself as being a team focused version, instead of the mostly solo that is a Kamen Rider. Specifically a type of tokusatsu/live action with heavy special effects like explosions or miniature cities. Though Tokusatsu in popular culture refers to the Transforming Heroes type of stories. The latter is mostly used for Kaiju (large/great beasts) movies like the Godzilla franchises.” Tanya explained.

Attack on Titan’s scale/height chart appeared. Humans were labeled roughly one and a half meters tall. Everyone in the room had their canon height (anime canon for Satoru). Gargatuna was labeled with 30 meters. Only for Emilia and Puck, a very large white saber tooth tiger (Beast of the End form of Puck) was labeled 25m. The giant ass walls were labeled 50 meters. The Colossal Titan was labeled 60. And there were various reptiles all named Godzilla with their various sizes and home media.

“As you can see, we can’t agree on how large Godzilla should be. While Super Sentai has fought Kaijus with their own Giant Robots/Mechs (usually the exact size to Punch Kaiju in the face), I don’t think Kamen Riders had that escalation. The Riders traded the mechs for motorcycles. For some reason I don’t know, a lot of them had an insectile theme.” Tanya explained further.

“So that's why Touch Me simply said ‘Kamen Riders’ when asked why he chose an Insectoid race.” Satoru nodded in understanding.

“Large beasts indeed.” Puck muttered.

“Ah so that’s the King of the Monsters.” Aura thought upon the creature revealed in vol14. Called an Iris Tyrannus Basileus. A pet of hers whose species doesn’t appear in the New World as far as I am aware.

“Live action?” Darkness asked.

“Using actual people to act. Of course you could use puppets or heavy makeup/costumes as other characters. Hence why Rubber-Forehead aliens such as Star Trek’s Klingons are so prominent in Live Action media.” Tanya explained.

Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Worf was shown at his Bridge station, patiently waiting for an order.

“If you have an animated series then you can be vastly more free in character design. Because they are literally drawings. But not too complicated because the anime usually requires like 20-30 animators per scene and it would be cruel to draw this over and over again.” Tanya waved at the screen.

The bubbly Death Knight illustration was shown.

“In video games it causes lag/delay. Hence why the Death Knight was slimmed down from its Beta appearance.” Satoru explained. As the actual anime Death Knight appeared next to the Light Novel Illustration.

“Not only am I clueless, I’m also broke beyond compare!” Subaru said that like it was something to be proud of. Subaru lowered his hand for a handshake. “Nice to meet ya!”

“When that's all you say, you really do sound hopeless.” Said Puck while doing a little wave before humming. “And I’m Puck! Nice to meet you!” Puck said while swirling in mid air in front of Emilia.

Puck raced over to Subaru’s hand and didn’t leave his future son-in-law hanging. 

“It’s very unusual to see someone who can touch a spirit so casually.” Emilia noted. “Where are you from?”

“Well, following the usual pattern, a small island nation to the east.” Subaru said. Puck floating contently nearby Subaru. Both of them in a semi-smug blissful pose.

“Why to the east?” Emilia asked.

“A lot of factors, but mostly because the curvature of the earth means that Japan is the first one to get the morning sun’s rays.” Subaru explains. “But also geopolitics, it is widely believed that humanity originated in the fertile crescent and is home to the oldest civilizations (or at least some of them) that we know of.”

The fertile crescent was shown with the names: Fertile Crescent, Mesopotamia, and Babylon/Babylonia. Then zoomed out to show the whole globe with a compass centered on the fertile crescent. To the west was Europe and to the far east was China, India, and Japan. I think that's why nations are called Eastern and Western.

“Also culture/terms/manner of dress/names.” Subaru said. “Knights are European. If this was a Japanese world, then it would be Samurai and the Shogunate.”

“Wait, the Winter Shogun exists in your world too?” Megumin asked.

“As an actual person instead of a metaphor for/a descriptor of a snow storm/blizzard, no.” Tanya clarified. “The Shogunate era lasted from 1192 to 1867 when the Meiji Restoration happened. For most of the Shogunate era Japan was technically ruled by the Emperor but in actuality by the Shogun who held all the military power. The shogun was supported by 300 daimyo (or regional lords) who held control over individual groups of Samurai.”

The Actual Shoguns, The Winter Shogun from konosuba s1 ep 7, and Cocytus stood side by side, allowing everyone to see Cocytus’s design inspiration.

The room made noises of understanding.

Emilia put a finger on her chin, saying. “Lugunica is the easternmost nation on our continental map.”

“Continent meaning insanely large landmasses.” Tanya clarified. “Though Od Laguna would be a Pangea world.”

One giant mass of land appeared on a blue orb. Hovering over it was the caption “Earth roughly 250 million years ago”. Then a timelapse sped through the epochs as Pangea broke to form the modern day continents.

“Ah geology is always great for stupidly large numbers.” Aqua said.

“That’s Astronomy.” Kazuma countered.

“Fascinating and ridiculous for something that large to move at all.” Raphtalia said.

“There’s no nation east of here.” Emilia concluded.

“No way!” Subaru instantly reacted. “There’s really nothing east of here.”

“You have no idea where you are, you have no money,-” Emilia put a hand over her mouth. “-You can’t read, and you have no one that can help you.” Emilia turned towards Subaru. “You might be in an even more precarious position than me, um…” Emilia took her hand off her mouth. “Subaru… was it?”

Subaru lightly blushed at her attention and breathed into a clenched fist. “Yes, that’s my name.”

Puck floated upwards judging Subaru. “But when I look at you this way, you look pretty well built.”

“I work out every day.” Subaru said while flexing his hand. “For a shut-in who’s gotta guard his house, that much is a given.”

“I have literally never heard of that philosophy and someone actually training to uphold that.” Aqua said. “And Trust me, I know my shut-ins.” Aqua waved at Kazuma and ignored his bristling. “You’ll get independent verification for my credentials in our first episode. …unless we follow Military Records' example.”

Weaver shut his head in the negative.

“Other shut-ins don’t work out?” Subaru asked in audible confusion. “I’ve consumed too much fiction with wise and powerful hermits.” Subaru said while hanging his head.

“Well when you put it like that.” Kazuma said, hanging his head.

The room nodded in more complete understanding.

“I’m not sure I understand what a ‘shut in’ is, but that means you’re from a respectable family, right?” Emilia asked.

Emilia walked over and gently held Subaru’s hand.

“Your fingers, too. They’re very pretty.” Emilia complimented. “They’re evidence that you don’t live like a peasant at all.” Emilia turned Subaru’s palm skyward. “And your muscles don’t look like the kind you gain from working.”  

“Japan’s been at peace for over 80 years, so there’s no pressing need for new bodies to feed the war machine.” Subaru noted. “That and my dad is a salaryman, specifically middle management in a grocery store/marketplace, and mom is a housewife so I couldn’t generate callouses from cooking or something. That combined with my neethood removed the callouses I gained from pitching/other sports I played.”

“What, did your balls reach 70+ km/h or something?” Tanya asked.

“120 km/h to be exact.” Subaru the sports anime protagonist stated. From s1 ep24/25 when Subaru throws a firestone at Petelguese in an earth dome.

The others who knew about baseball coughed/sputtered in surprise.

=For reference, efastball.com claims that the fastest japanese baseball game pitch was by Marc Kroon of the Yomiuri Giants at 162 km/h or 100.7 mph on 6/1/2008.= Weaver clarified with conversions into their measurement systems. =We’re fairly certain that if Subaru wasn’t isekai’d he would be a sports anime protagonist. Same with Satoru being an electronic sports protagonist with Yggdrasil. Kazuma continued his romance charactership, Tanya had a nice financially stable life as middle management so they could have gone the Office Dramatization route, and Naofumi being a cooking sports star. Seiya, we sadly have no idea.=

Kazuma regained control of his breathing. “Again, NEET my ass! That’s literally professional level! …I think.”

“I mean baseball skills are useless in a fantasy world. There’s nothing to throw.” Subaru debated. “They did not help against the thieves.”

“We have explosive fire crystals.” Emilia informed her knight-to-be.

“So that's how the Witch Cult destroyed the village in those loops.” Subaru thought.

“Fair and thanks for letting me know of their existence. But it's not like I had any on hand at that time.” Subaru said.

Emilia nodded in agreement.

“What were you the ‘black/oath breaker knight’ character, or whatever that type is called in your time?” Darkness whispered.

Kazuma hung his head. “The Childhood friend who was passed up for the Biker Bad Boy aka that black knight.”

Megumin and Darkness winced in sympathy while Aqua comforted the boy by patting his head.

The Overlord Cast nodded in agreement with Weaver’s assumption.

“Your food is definitely delicious enough to be a main attraction.” Raphtalia said with Filo nodding in the background.

“Thankfully you had a safe life before I summoned you.” Rista said. “Though how the hell you got that personality from a safe world, I have no idea.”

Subaru breathed in and gently pulled away his hand before looking away, trying to futilely hide his blush. “Uh, anyway, I know your cat’s name now, what’s your name?”

“My name?” Emilia asked. Emilia clutched her hands. “It’s Satella.” A dramatic wind blew upon her taking the name.

The Emilia camp save Subaru instantly gagged/choked on their surprise.

“This has to be a lie.” Rem denied what she just heard. “There’s no way Lady Emilia would take on the Witch’s name.”

The rest of the room save of course The Emilia Camp gagged/choked on their comprehension of what just happened.

“But there’s a major problem, I suppose.” Beatrice piped up.

The room save Subaru turned to the librarian spirit.

“Subaru asked me why would someone take the Witch’s Name?” Beatrice said, looking at the screen with disbelieving comprehension.

Re zero s1 ep 8 was the caption. 

“Either way, they must have no fear of death, I suppose.” The onscreen Beatrice proposed. Quiet piano(?) played in a soft rhythmic tone. “One who would steal Her name can be called nothing but insane.”

A short montage of Emilia looking concerned/protective played.

“I see… So that's why.” Subaru said. “She was trying to creep out a weirdo to keep him out of this Royal Election Business.”

“She tried to protect me, a boy who she only met in passing.” Subaru thought.

“That was an attempt to protect?” Emilia said with audible confusion. “But surely the screen me could have seen that screen you wouldn’t abandon that me. Considering everything she already tried.”

“I guess we’ll just have to suspend our disbelief and wait to see what’s actually going on.” Tanya said. “The answer is in this episode right?” she asked.

=Yes, in roughly twenty minutes.= Weaver said.

“The explanation better be worth the wait.” Ram said.

“It is.” Subaru said.

“If this is what happens in the first loop, what will happen in the others?”  Roswaal pondered.

“At least I know now why you asked for my name after the Loot House.” Emilia said.

The rest of the Emilia Camp blinked as they remembered Subaru’s personal reward from Emilia.

Satoru’s flames flickered in an equivalent to blinking. “That’s a lackluster reward for saving someone’s life. …But considering the name you just gave him, I can understand why he would ask for that.”

The rest of the room nodded in agreement.

Subaru thought that it was an adorable name. Puck was shocked at his daughter's audacity.

“I have no family name. You can just call me Satella.” Emilia said.

“I see… Satella…” Subaru smiled in blissful ignorance. “That’s a nice name.”

“It means Satellites like the ones that make some functions of more advanced cell phones work. Or is a corruption/variant on the name Stella which is the name version of Stellar. Stellar is another word for the sun and stars.” Subaru explained.

“And cultural ignorance fills in the rest.” Beatrice said while hanging her head at the coincidence.

“So somehow between this and what actually happened we will have to be separated, you meeting Reinhard and sending him to the slums to meet Felt. Me, Puck, and Felt all need to have our memories erased. All within the next few hours before sunset.” Emilia rested her forehead on her hand as she went down the list. “And there’s someone or something that can erase memories that aren’t the White Whale, Splendid.” Emilia said the last word with much sarcasm.

“Well whatever it is, they do~n’t have complete information control.” Roswaal noted. “So even if the Emilia camp is on its lonesome, they can be defeated.”

“Why is there a Moby Dick on that disc and why is it famous? It really doesn’t look like your society is in the early Industrial Revolution.” Koenig said. “Thus hunting the whale population for their oil to fuel the machines and lamps and various other things.”

“The White Whale is something I really hope to never encounter in my life.” Emilia said.

“And you’ll never have to. If I have any say about it.” Subaru thought.

“Subaru somehow has knowledge of the White Whale’s next target/location.” Rem informed her superior.

Emilia adorably opened and closed her mouth as she floundered for words. “I left you two alone for roughly a few days and you already somehow gained knowledge of one of the Three Great Witchfiends.” Emilia took a deep breath in through her nose, held it for 5 seconds, before letting it out of her mouth. “Will that information be disclosed in this episode?” She asked,

Weaver shook his head no.

“Let’s get this confusing mess over with, so we can move onto the White Whale’s confusing mess.” Emilia stated.

The room nodded in agreement. 

“Ah, you’ve already met the Whale in your loops.” Roswaal thought. “ Did Weaver pick you up while you were gathering the army or are we from a failed loop? I hope that you were in the army gathering stage, I would like to remember whatever I shall learn.”

Emilia made an adorable noise of shock and confusion upon hearing Subaru’s lack of revulsion and rejection. Puck floated next to his daughter and sighed in being too old for this shit.

“You have terrible taste.” Puck whispered. And then disappeared into Emilia’s hair.

The room nodded in agreement with Screen!Puck.

“Okay, time to get back to asking around!” Subaru continued nonchalantly.

A random street was shown.

“Hey, Subaru…” Emilia started while pointing at a young child. “Do you get the feeling that child is lost?”

Subaru turned and saw the child of Kadomon hesitantly looking for their mother.

“Uh, what about our questioning?” Subaru asked after turning back to Emilia.

“That’s important too, but if she’s lost, we have to do something.” Emilia said.

Kadomon’s daughter shed tears of anxiety. 

“I’m in no position to talk after you saved me, but do you understand the position we’re in?” Subaru asked while also blissfully ignorant of said position.

“But…” Emilia countered. “She’s crying! Is she not, Subaru? If you can’t do this with me, that’s fine. Thanks for all your help, Subaru. I’ll handle it on my own from here, after I help that little girl.”

Emilia walked over to the girl causing her to look up in happiness only to hesitate. 

Emilia crouched and said. “I’m sorry I’m not the one who you’re looking for. So what’s the matter? Aren’t your mom and dad with you?”

Emilia tried to comfort the young girl, only for the girl to see Emilia’s ears and descend further into crying.

“Did the Uncanny Valley just activate?” Tanya asked. “The uncanny valley is the term for something that is almost a perfect mimic but lacks a changeable indescribable quality. It usually invokes utter disgust and revulsion and/or surrealism upon sighting the almost perfect mimic. This is often used as an excuse for racial discrimation, though in actuality people are just bigots and the Uncanny Valley doesn’t trigger on Earth. Save for our failed attempts at making Androids and Gynoids. So if Nazarick didn’t have their inhuman qualities and/or the quality of their Creators’ craftsmanship then they would be the perfect examples of the Uncanny Valley.”

Emilia nodded in understanding. “Yes. Yes it did.”

“I did not know the sensation they felt when looking at me had a name.” Emilia thought.

“Did my Beloved make his mourning Statues Uncanny on purpose?” Albedo thought. “If so he did succeed in that endeavor.”

Nazarick’s NPCs made no effort to hide their glee on Tanya’s compliment.

“Hm. The ‘Perfect Soldier’ shtick of Tanya definitely falls into the valley.” Rudersdorf thought. 

“I wonder if Tanya has other aspirations than advancing her military career. Something. anything, to sweeten that bitter pill that is your military career.” Zettour followed up his cohort.

“I just thought it was me being dramatic, when I mentally called Tanya a vampire when we first met.” Vishia and Weiss thought. That was LN cut content. Okay-victoria’s tumblr has a post listing basically everyone’s view on Tanya.

“Um, uh… Don’t cry.” Emilia was startled at how easily the girl’s tears were provoked. “I won’t do anything to you, okay?”

A faint jiggle of coin was the only warning before Subaru shoved his grooved ten coin between them.

“What I have here is one grooved-edge ten yen coin.” Subaru said.

The camera showed the girls' respective bewilderment and Subaru’s showman pose.

“I will now clutch it tightly in my hand.” Subaru announced before proceeding to do just that. “Tight, tight, tight… just like that! And now… ” Subaru opened his fist to reveal the coin had disappeared. “Imagine that!”

Kadomon’s daughter made adorable noises of confusion and attention as she looked from the empty hand to Subaru’s face. Who smiled at her glee.

Subaru reached over to Kadomon’s daughter's head and said. “And this… is where the coin was hiding.” Pulling the coin from her hair.

Kadomon’s daughter adorably lit up in amazement.

“You can have this.” Subaru kindly offered. “It’s rare, so take good care of it.”

Kadomon’s daughter made a noise of adorably glee as she took it before saying. “Thank you!”

The next scene was the three of them walking down the street.

“I see. You got separated from your mom, huh?” Subaru summarized. “Hey, it’ll be fine. Just leave it to me and this young lady here.” Subaru briefly pointed to Emilia. “We’ll find them for you in no time.” Subaru had a random thought. “When we do this, people who don’t know us probably think we’re a married couple and child, huh?”

Emilia blushed. “So you were always so …blunt.”

The video backed up Subaru’s bluntness with its own stylish bluntness.

“How embarrassing.” Subaru finished.

“At best, I can’t see you as anything more than her older brother.” Emilia shot down Subaru’s fantasy.

“What makes you think I'm that much younger than you?” Subaru asked.

Kadomon’s daughter saw something offscreen and said. “Oh! Mommy!”

The camera panned to show her mother who bent down to embrace her daughter.

Subaru smiled at the mother-daughter reunion. “Looks like she found her.”

Emilia turned slightly to Subaru. “Yeah. I’m glad.”

A tiny Subaru was draped over the side of a bridge next to an equally tiny Emilia sitting on the railing nearby.

“So…” Subaru said. “I think we took a pretty long way around, but what benefit will you insist that you get out of this?”

“That’s easy.” Emilia answered Subaru's questioning finger snap. “Now we can continue our search with our minds at ease, right?” Emilia turned to Subaru. “Anyway, why did you help me? You were against the idea.”

“I could say I just wanted to show off my magic trick, but that would be a lie.” Subaru replied. “I told you, finding your insignia will be my one good deed for the day!”

“Then, since you helped the little girl, isn’t your one good deed over?” Emilia countered.

Subaru flinched at her logic. “That comeback was way too logical!” Subaru spat out rapidly. “Come on, it doesn’t hurt to do more than one nice thing in a day, right? I just got tomorrow’s out of the way.”

“Fair.” Emilia nodded.

“My plan is to get a week’s worth of good deeds taken care of early!” Subaru pulled one of the first of many plans out of his ass.

“Subaru,” Emilia said with concern in her voice. “You’re the type that basically wastes your whole life, aren’t you?”

The room laughed after Emilia unknowingly copying Subaru.

Subaru laid on the railing. “You’re the last one I wanted to hear that from.”

Emilia looked across the river. “You’re not a bad boy, though.”

“Why are you treating me like I'm younger than you again?” Subaru asked. “I doubt there’s that much difference between you and me.”

“I don’t think making guesses on that will help you.” Emilia said. Emilia leaned over to shade her eyes. “I’m a half elf.”

“Again, screen-me. That won’t result in the way you think it will.” Emilia said.

The room nodded in agreement.

Subaru stood up at her proclamation. The camera showed Emilia huddled into herself waiting for a tirade of hatred to spew from Subaru.

“Now I get it.” Subaru said. “No wonder I thought you were so cute.” Subaru turned to Emilia and put his hands on his hips. “Elves are always beautiful, right?”

Emilia startled at the surprise compliment.

“See?” Emilia said smugly to her screen counterpart. …before blushing at the compliment herself. “Are they/we always beautiful?”

“They were in Tolkien and because nothing is new under the sun, every story/world since has beautiful elves.” Subaru said.

Many, many, many story/world names scrolled past with a female and male elf displaying their beauty.

“Once is a neat fact, twice is happenstance, thrice is an actual pattern.” Subaru said.

“At this point it would be strange if an elf would be ugly.” Aura said.

“That’s a bit more than three.” Ram said sarcastically.

“What?” Subaru asked confusedly while soft piano played.

“[What]? Well, I mean… I’m a half elf.” Emilia quietly said while pointing to her ears.

“Yeah, I heard you.” Subaru replied in an adorable quiet voice.

Emilia adopted an adorable face as the compliment settled into her mind. She dropped off the railing and crouched before placing her hands on her head facing away from Subaru. Subaru made a noise of confusion mixed with concern as he gazed upon the crouched. Puck swirled out of Emilia’s hair and punched Subaru’s cheek weakly.

“What’d you do that for?” Subaru asked in bemused confusion. 

Puck curled up and wiggled. “I just had to do something about this unbearable tingle I feel.”

Subaru turned to touch their noses. “I can’t accept being hit for a reason like that. Though I’ll forgive you because it was squishy.”

“I didn’t hit you out of anger or anything.” Puck countered while still wiggling. “The opposite, in fact.” 

Emilia turned and looked at the two of them. “Subaru, you’re such a dunderhead.”

Puck had floated to the side allowing Subaru to stare at Emilia in confusion. “Dunderhead? Who says that in this day and age?” Subaru asked. “And why are you insulting me?”

Emilia turned away again clutching her fists and making an adorable pout. “Hmph! Whatever!” Emilia stood up. “More importantly, we have to get back to the search.”

“Hey, hang on!” Subaru stopped her. “Running around without a plan never ends well. There’s a basic rule of searches.”

“A basic rule of searches?” Emilia asked.

“Yep. You revisit the crime scene a hundred times.” Subaru said confidently before placing a hand on his chin. “Where was your insignia stolen?”

A smash cut to Subaru in the same pose next to Kadomon with the music cut leaving only the sounds of the marketplace as background.

“So, you see, it seems the crime happened around here, so I came back to this fruit stand after valiantly telling her to leave it all to me.” Subaru recapped.

“Well that’s another thing that this strangeness got right.” Emilia independently verified.

“What? I thought I had a customer but it’s just the broke kid?” Kadomon asked after going alone with Subaru’s absurdity.

“Do you really want to take that attitude?” Subaru asked, turning to face Kadomon. “Haven’t you noticed I'm not who I was before?”

“What?” Kadomon asked.

“Just look who I brought with me!” Subaru bragged. “I brought someone who just might become a regular!”

“Um, Subaru…” Emilia interrupted. “You seem to have some weird expectations of me, but I don’t have any money, either.”

“I had the money.” Ram answered the unasked question. “And I was unsuccessful in finding Emilia that day, that is why I won’t appear until we get to Lord Roswaal’s Mansion. …however we get there.”

“This really does explain why you were very specific on purchasing Kadomon’s wares.” Emilia said.

Subaru jolted in surprise. “Huh?! Seriously?” 

Emilia made an adorable noise of regret while scratching her jawbone.

Kadomon turned to Subaru. “So what did you want to say to me now that I’ve got two broke customers, boy?” he said sarcastically.

“We’re actually looking for someone,” Subaru started. “And we hoped to ask you some questions…”

“That was a sarcastic way of telling you I don’t have time for losers with no money!” Kadomon got in Subaru’s face. Kadomon turned to face Emilia and waved them away. “Get outta here!”

“Mister!” Kadomon’s daughter said off screen.

“Thank you for your help earlier.” Kadomon’s wife bowed while her daughter waved.

“What brings you here?” Subaru asked.

“It’s my husband’s shop, so we were just stopping by.” Kadomon’s wife explained.

Subaru just looked at Kadomon in disbelief before Kadomon’s daughter ran over and hugged her father.

“Hey, there’s my girl.” Kadomon said in a much softer tone while rubbing his daughter’s head. “Wait, you know these broke losers?” Kadomon asked his wife.

“She got lost, and they found her.” The wife explained.

Kadomon returned the disbelieving look as his daughter went to Emilia holding something.

“Here, lady.” The girl offered a flower pin.

“She gave me the same pin after I saved her in my recollection.” Emilia said after blinking. “Yet another thing that is the same.”

“Please accept it. She wants to thank you in her own way.” The mom said. The distinctive sound of violins played as Emilia accepted the offering.

Kadomon cleared his throat. “Sorry about that.” He said with regret in his voice. “You helped my daughter and I want to thank you. You can ask for anything.”

Subaru and Emilia glanced at each other in glee.

Emilia smugly put her hands back on her hips. “There, you see? That came back around and worked in our favor.”

Cut to a setting sun slightly clouded and zoomed out to reveal the slums. Some of the roofs flat out had holes in them.

“Sheesh the wealth gap is that much?” Aqua asked.

Emilia blushed. “Sadly yes, hence why most of the candidates seek to change this, in our own unique way.”

Emilia and Subaru were stared at by various groups of slum dwellers in dull color clothes.

“The air, the atmosphere, and most likely, the attitudes of the people living here are awful.” Subaru quietly noted. “Are you sure she’s here?”

A white flash revealed Kadomon looking at the sketch of Felt with his daughter on his back.

“It might be that Felt girl.” Kadomon offered. “You said a nimble little blond girl, yes?” Kadomon turned to Subaru and Emilia behind the camera. “She’s well-known in the slums. Dunno where she lives, though.”

Kadomon’s Daughter giggled as another white flash transferred the camera back to the present.

“Maybe someone will tell us if we ask.” Emilia offered.

“No one would sell out one of their one, so I don’t think that will work.” Puck advised. 

“Maybe we should come back later.” Subaru offered.

“Whether you stay or leave, you should decide quickly.” Puck said sleepily. “I’m almost out of time.”

“You’re what? Out of time?” Subaru asked. 

“I have a cute appearance, but I am a spirit.” Puck replied. “It takes a lot of mana just to appear in physical form.” Puck did a full body flop from exhaustion and the swirling sound effect played. “So at night, I return to the crystal I was summoned from and prepare for the emergence of the sun.” Puck leaned against his daughter’s neck. “On average, my ideal staying time is about nine to five.”

“Nine to five? You sound like a civil servant.” Subaru said. 

“Civil Servant?” Satoru asked.

“Government Employee.” Lergen answered.

“Considering the election, I guess I am one.” Puck said as Satoru nodded.

Subaru placed a hand on his chin as he pondered. “Employment terms for spirits are more severe than I thought…”

“We’ll be fine without Puck. We have to move forward.” Emilia asserted.

“Yeah. But, sorry… I’m at my limit.” Puck said before yawning and a pitch-downed version of the swirl sound effect played. 

“It's almost like he’s dying when he disappears…” Subaru commented when Puck became translucent. 

“Sorry to work you so hard, Puck.” Emilia said. “We’ll handle things from here, so get some rest.”

“Okay.” Puck sighed. “We won’t have enough time to beat Elsa, because I was necessary for that fight. And I’m being removed from the equation.”

“It’s gonna be okay.” Subaru reassured the spirit.

“It really doesn’t seem like it will from my perspective.” Puck countered. “But considering the fact that somehow you knew my name AND my employment terms when we actually first met, this is the only available option that clarifies how you know the things you really shouldn’t. Unless you’re a better mind reader than me.”

“It would be so~o convenient if I was.” Subaru said.

Emilia took off her gem pendant and Puck crawled off his daughter’s shoulder and sat on the gem in the cup of Emilia’s hands. “Don’t do anything reckless.”

“I don’t think we had(?) have a choice.” Emilia noted. “Reinhard should be close by, so I can delay until he arrives to help.”

“If it comes down to it, use the odo to summon me again.” Puck commanded.

“Odo is lifeforce. So if needed Emilia could burn some of her lifespan to get me back to full energy and ready to fight.” Puck explained.

The room except the Emilia camp made noises of understanding.

Emilia nodded.

Puck turned to Subaru and waved goodbye. “Okay, take care of the rest, Subaru.”

“Considering you were able to call me fast enough to block Elsa’s attack in what we actually remember. Good Job, Subaru.” Puck bestowed some credit.

Subaru blushed from the compliment.

“Okay, so we must have fought through the night and somehow escaped Elsa and then we had our mana restored and our memories wiped. And somehow Felt needs to steal our Insignia again.” Emilia fell down the rabbithole of fitting two separate timelines together.

“Oh no, it’s nothing so complicated.” Subaru reassured Emilia.

The room waited for an explanation and gave a three-quarters hearted glare when Subaru didn’t cough up one.

Puck then glowed and shattered into a multitude of small orbs of light which imploded into Puck’s Gem house. With a twinkling sound effect. A fade to Emilia and Subaru walking to a bridge with Subaru looking mighty hesitant.

“Hey, I haven’t been alone with a girl since I was in grade school!” Subaru said.

“Don’t get any weird ideas.” Emilia said. “I can use magic.”

“I won’t.” Subaru denied. “The bigger issue is how we should find Felt now.”

“I’ll ask the Lesser Spirits.” Emilia said.

Subaru turned to the halted Emilia. “Lesser Spirits?”

“Lesser Spirits are beings that haven’t become Spirits.” Emilia explained. “They grow over time, and when they gain strength and self-awareness, they become full spirits like Puck.”

Emilia stood majestically in a circle of glowing lights. As soft piano played.

“I thought you would interrupt me.” Emilia thought aloud.

“Just because I have little self-control doesn’t mean I have none.” Subaru said. “That and the inherent beauty of the scene”

Emilia blushed at the compliment.

Subaru looked around and soaked in the beauty before him. After a fade to black and the night sky appearing, Subaru and Emilia walked past more depilated houses. 

“It’s getting lonelier and lonelier.” Emilia noted.

“Does she really live in a place like this?” Subaru expressed his doubt.

“The Lesser Spirits say they saw someone who looked like Felt coming in this direction…” Emilia confirmed.

A slum dweller passed them by. Subaru and the man glanced at each other. 

“Hey, bro!” Subaru halted the dweller. “Does a girl named Felt live up this way?”

The man saw the dirt collected on Subaru and Subaru tracked the man’s eyes scanning him. 

“Huh? Felt?” The man said, deciding to take pity on the two. “Nothing that way but Old Man Rom’s loot house.” The man grasped his chin. “Did Felt steal something from you guys?” The man let go of his chin. “Well, go try and negotiate to get it back.” The man waved goodbye. “Live Strong!”

The two looked at each other in confusion at the odd parting. The full moon hung above the Loot house. A wolf howled as the camera panned down revealing Subaru using his cell phone’s flashlight.

“Why do I have to pay money to get back something stolen from me?” Emilia asked.

“Well, at any rate, leave this one to me.” Subaru said. “I’ll negotiate with him.”

“Okay. I’ll leave it to you.” Emilia allowed.

“You agreed to that awfully easily…” Subaru said. “The way you’ve been acting, I thought you’d say-” Subaru put his hand behind his head. “-“Leave this to a useless boy like you? That’s so ridiculous I’m laughing my head off!” Subaru said in an haughty tone. “And I'd be hurt, but still make up my mind to help you all over again.” Subaru said back in his normal tone.

“I wouldn’t say something that mean.” Both the room and Screen Emilias protested in unison.

Puck nodded in agreement.

“Of course, I would be lying if I said that you weren’t holding me back…” Emilia continued.

“It’d be a lie?” Subaru overdramatically reacted.

“But…” Emilia interrupted. “I’ll try believing in you.”

“Oh, you’re going to far surpass believing in him once I’m through with you.” Roswaal thought.

Subaru looked at her in genuine surprise.

“If it actually goes well, I’ll consider it a bonus.” Emilia said.

“If you’d look up at me and say-” Subaru widened his eyes and held his hands to himself femininely. “- “Do your best for me!” I’d feel a lot more motivated.” Subaru said.

“I can’t force myself to say something like that.” Emilia shot down. “But… Do your best.”

“Yeah, I will.” Subaru replied. “I’ll go in first. You stay outside and keep watch. I won’t be back too late, but you can have dinner without me.” Subaru presumably copied his father as he walked up the steps.

“Don’t say dumb things like that.” Emilia said. “Be careful.”

“Sure, sure.” Subaru said. “Don’t come in until I say it's okay, Satella.”

Emilia just looked at Subaru in dawning horror.

“What did she expect?” Kazuma snarked.

Emilia blushed as she nodded in agreement.

“What?” Subaru asked in confusion.

Emilia shook her head. “N-Nothing. Nevermind. If you can get back my insignia, then I'll apologize.”

A fade to black then Subaru opened the door to the loot house.

“Excuse me…” Subaru said before foolishly closing the door behind him.

“I didn’t expect any danger, okay, I didn’t know about Elsa yet.” Subaru made his case to a disappointed looking Tanya.

A suit of armor and different weapons were some of the wares Old Man Rom had on display.

“Now, am I walking into a demon nest or a snake pit?” Subaru asked while looking around. “In a fantasy world, either one is equally plausible…”

“Or a snake demon pit.” Seiya offered.

Subaru nodded.

“This is all stolen loot?” Subaru asked. “And why isn’t there someone here? A place that handles stolen goods can only afford to be so careless.” Subaru said while pointing the light at the camera leaving only himself visible.

Subaru then stepped in some blood.

The room winced in dawning comprehension.

Subaru made a noise of confusion as he looked down. A string instrument played a few haunting notes as Subaru tracked the large blood pool. A large dark color hand laid next to a brown handle as shock filled Subaru.

“But Rom isn’t supposed to be dead.” Emilia said while confusion etched into her whole being.

Puck sent words of encouragement to Emilia over their bond.

A sharpened glass mug glinted in Subaru’s Camera light next to Rom’s corpse. The haunting female voice returned and ahh’d once more. Subaru yelped in shock as he backed away from the corpse. He yelped again as something fell. Subaru hyperventilated as Rom’s corpse with his throat ripped out by the glass came into full view. Rom must have been dead for roughly a minute because blood was still heavily flowing from his mouth.

“Oh, dear, you found that?” Elsa said from offscreen.

“And the killer is still in the building.” Lergen said, sighing at the mishap.

“How did you get past the killer? Did your power finally manifest?” Naofumi asked.

Subaru had joined Puck in reassuring Emilia and thus was too busy to answer.

Subaru hiccuped in fear.

“Well, I have no choice, then.” Elsa said.

Subaru turned his head towards where he heard Elsa.

“Yes, I have no choice…” Elsa trailed off.

Subaru hit the floor with a gaping wound that disemboweled him. Rolling past the table and a chair as the string instrument (perhaps a guitar?) kicked up in volume joined with soft clapping. His phone bounced/rolled into a corner leaving the room in darkness.

“Ow, that burns…” Subaru said while attempting to sit up. That ah played again as Subaru saw his disembowelment covered by his arm. Something crystalline played as he removed his arm.

“Oh crap. …Is all of this my blood?” Subaru thought as he bled out and looked at the blood on his hand. 

Subaru coughed up some blood. He put his hand on his mouth in a futile attempt to keep his blood where it's supposed to be. “This is bad. This is very bad.”

“Why are we lingering on this? Military Records and Overlord didn’t linger.” Thought everyone excluded the Emilia camp.

“This really should have been an End of Season Event not a first episode one!” The more aware of them thought. “ If this really happened then angst-fueled powers should be manifesting any second now.”

“Now is the perfect time to discover your Loop Trigger.” Roswaal thought. “ It really shouldn’t be that hard to break/bend Time over your knee. Especially now that I have some of the Isekai Context.”

“At least I’m quick about it.” Puck thought. 

“I should have gone in with him.” Emilia thought. “ Reinhard has to be nearby by now. ...unless Weaver’s Fey-Trickster instincts kicked in and this is all a lie. ...in the Non-Overlord Sense.”

“We all knew that he couldn’t win against Julius. But not even being able to at least see Elsa?” Ram shook her head. “ This is outrageous. What happened to carrying around me and my sister like it was nothing? This really has to be fake.”

“This has to be a lie. My hero doesn’t suffer. Not in this manner.” Rem thought while clutching her head.

“The brat could be useful and use her Ice Blossom on Elsa, stabilize S-the other brat until a knight investigates the new Ice Sculpture in the slum and fetches Felix. If the maids don’t find her first, who then brings them to me.” Beatrice thought. “...not that I care. ...or believe this”

“But well. Somehow Subaru has these memories. Or at least knowledge of Emilia taking on the Witch’s Name.” The Emilia camp thought,

“Well. We are finally here, there’s no going back.” The Viewing Subaru started after taking a deep breath. “Where everything gets strange.”

“Yes you’ve been inflicted with a very arousing looking wound.” Darkness said. “But nothing strange has happened.”

“And despite the oddities of the day on screen, I can definitely heal that wound long enough for Beatrice to take over.” Emilia followed up.

“True.” Subaru nodded. “But Elsa is still in that room.”

Subaru collapsed as the door opened.

“Subaru? What’s wrong?” Emilia asked while entering the combat zone.

“If she stayed away, she could have gotten the drop on this ‘Elsa’ or did that Od trick to get Puck back in the fight. So that she could heal Subaru while Puck distracts.” Rudersdorf shook his head at the girl who utterly ignored the amateurish sound advice. “ That’s if Emilia is not a Tanya level combatant and capable of defeating Elsa by herself. …but judging by the others' reactions, that's not the case. As of then/now.”

“No, don't come in! RUN!” Subaru said, though the message was garbled thanks to the blood in his throat.

“Subaru?” Emilia was promptly sliced for her naivete, but she sensed something and turned towards the camera/Elsa before the slice.

“Ah-ah-ah, what? I never got sliced by Elsa.” Emilia stuttered.

Emilia collapsed next to Subaru with her hand in a beam of moonlight. Emilia’s fall replayed as Subaru stared in shock before the camera zoomed out to show the both of them and their blood splatters.

“Oh so it's not just Subaru that Elsa outspeeds.” The room thought.

A small but haunting 8-bit tune played faintly as Subaru stared at Emilia dying next to him. Subaru clenched his fist before pushing through his pain and reached for Emilia.

“Wait there…” Subaru said as his vision shook as his hand neared Emilia’s. Subaru sucked in a breath. “I’m…” Subaru finally grasped Emilia’s hand. “Going to…”  the camera showed the two hands bathed in the moonlight. “Save you…” the camera violently shook as it zoomed onto the hands. As a ceramic sliding sound played.

Emilia, in her last moments, returned Subaru’s grasp.

“I don’t need you to save me.” Emilia wanted to say, but even she couldn’t deny what was happening on screen.

“This is how the last few seconds of my life ended.” Subaru spoke. “The final sensation I felt was the firm and gentle grip of Emilia.”

The room stared at Subaru in confusion, Emilia was too confused over the episode to blush in embarrassment.

“Okay, I need to get you a dictionary, teach you how to read it, and have you read us the definition of ‘Final’. Cause your definition isn’t the same as ours.” Tanya rubbed her temples at the teen’s stupidity.

Utter silence and a black screen.

“What’s the matter, boy? You look like you saw a ghost.” the Apple salesman said in broad daylight.

The room just stared at the screen. The only sound to be heard was Subaru taking a deep breath.

“I can Return by Death.” Subaru held himself softly muttering. But the pain of Envy’s punishment never came ….and no one was dying. 

Subaru repeated the mantra again and again while Emilia got up and hugged Subaru, too embarrassed to give him a lap pillow with this many viewers. Emilia rubbed his back as Puck floated over and sat on Subaru’s head, adjusting his feel/temperature to be the most ‘Comforting’. One of the many benefits of being the Great Spirit of Fire (Temperature) Magic. Rem hugged Subaru’s other side.

“So this is why Subaru didn’t trust me when I said I can defend myself.” Emilia thought. Emilia closed her eyes. “That whole debacle was about a promise not to embarrass me vs an unknown promise to save my life. And it's no surprise which promise won.” Emilia frowned. “Though he still could have trusted Reinhard and the other Knights to protect us. He doesn’t need to do everything himself.”

“Why is that the activation?” Roswaal frowned while his entire body twisted and spasmed, unseen by all others. “It should have been at will. At most the basic Goa’s worth of concentration.” Roswaal rubbed his temples. “How did/will you accomplish the feats that you did/will, when your Loop has such a stupid activation cost?” Roswaal gritted his teeth. “ How will you save Sensei, when you can’t even save yourself?”

Roswaal hid his displeasure while staring at Military Records and Overlord. “ They don’t have these asinine penalties for their power.”

In an attempt to give the grieving man and his friends some privacy, the others broke off into conversations.

“Hm. I wonder what kind of Death qualifies to activate the Return.” Satoru pondered. “Will the Death of his comrades trigger it? The end of a spell duration (thus the Death of the spell)? Can he kill an enemy and trigger it?” Satoru mistook Return by Death for Minute Hand Ryugon’s Temporal Reversion. [0] 

Albedo snorted and unknowingly hit the mark. “Perhaps if he was in an Avatar, but he is not. So only his Death would count.”

“Even if he can only Return by his Death, that still means he is a Human version of Victim.” Sebas replied.

“He can only cast a single Debuff.” Albedo unknowingly foreshadowed.

“Does he need more than one Debuff?” Aura asked.

“He can Time Travel!” Aura threw up her arms.

“T-There are sit-situations where ti-time travel is a det-detriment.” Mare countered his twin. “S-So a vers-versatile Debuff Mage w-would be preferred.”

“Well he can’t do anything if we capture him and prevent him from dying.” Demiurge apparently watched Season 2 part 1 of Re Zero.

“That’s the Death of his Hope Escaping.” Satoru spoke up.

Demiurge’s eye-gem thing twitched behind his glasses. “Of course it would be, there’s Death in basically everything.”

“But. Whatever. We. Do. We. Only. Have. To. Slip. Up. Once. And. Then. We. Don’t. Know. What. He. Knows.” Cocytus said.

The rest of the Overlord cast nodded in agreement.

Albedo and Demiurge glanced at each other and were glad they were on the same page. That crimes such as Subaru’s death wouldn’t be so easily accomplished in Lord Satoru’s nation. Mostly out of principle but also to deny any other Martyr types from activating.

“I thought he needed my calming breath/ranger abilities for rampaging allies.” Shalltear blushed at Aura’s comment. “But no, he definitely needs it just for himself.”

The rest of the Overlord cast nodded in agreement.

“ Why does Subaru feel wolfish to me?” Aura thought. “Like putting him in with my canines if Lord Satoru gave Subaru to me as a pet.”

On the other side of the room:

“I see I need to drown someone.” Aqua said in a low serious tone while the sound of waves crashing against a cliff face echoed from her body. “Or several someones.”

Kazuma, Megumin, and Darkness floundered for words and crossed their eyes as their brains/minds/souls tried to comprehend the new signals Aqua was unleashing.

Aqua waved away her party’s concern. “Oh don’t worry, I won’t use the Flood-Class. I’ll just create a water source in their lungs. Or maybe pull their blood so that it never leaves the lungs.”

Kazuma picked up the largest piece of chocolate nearby and shoved it into Aqua’s mouth. Kazuma held Aqua’s mouth closed with one hand and used the other to force Aqua to chew and swallow. 

“My complaints about your idiocy have (pardon the pun) evaporated.” Aqua’s Handler said. “For now at least.”

Aqua crossed her arms, the sound of rushing water flowing from her body. “I had no reason to be serious in Belzerg. I am a Senior Goddess after all, and Belzerg’s Patron is the Literal Goddess of Luck. It’d be very strange if things didn’t go our way.” Aqua said at her normal tone/volume level.

“Speaking of Luck. Where is the law enforcement in Lugucia?” Darkness questioned. “I can’t feel aroused if people are dying, in pain or embarrassing situations, yes. Because of jealousy and/or envy. But death?” Darkness stared at her hands, pondering. “I didn’t even know it was possible to go from that much arousal to ...nothing! Instantly!” She shivered at the unusual lack of arousal. 

“And our Pervert has joined us in reality.” Kazuma's eye twitched before turning to Megumin. “What’s next, you're revoking [Explosion]?!”

“No.” Megumin simply said. “I am revising my choice of only putting skill points into [Explosion], instead of my mana pool. Perhaps I can get to multiple [Explosions] in one day.”

“You’re only putting points into [Explosion]?!” Kazuma glared at Megumin. “Next time you run empty, I am not refilling you with [Drain Touch] and will drag you across the ground. My reputation can take a hit.”

“They seriously had no idea?” Darkness said while rubbing her arms in a self hug. “Why didn’t he tell them?”

“We are definitely the only comedy in this gathering. If Military Records and Overlord won’t go down the Gallows/Black humor routes.” Aqua said.

Her party members went over their memories before nodding in agreement.

Over in the military section.

“I bet you 10 kilos of chocolate that this ‘Elsa’ is dealt with in this episode.” Koenig piped up. 

“Sure, I bet Subaru calls for Law Enforcement this episode.” Weiss counter-betted.

“I bet that Elsa won’t be defeated in this episode.” Neumann said.

“It does explain the unending chocolate.” Visha commented.

“Here’s hoping that bleeding to death is the most painful that Subaru has experienced.” Rudersdorf said.

“So many ways for a human to die.” Tanya said. “Almost all of them are painful, let’s hope that Subaru doesn’t die more than 5 times.”

Seeing Subaru and Emilia get utterly demolished by the unseen ‘Elsa’, discomforted Seiya and Ristarte. Tickling their memories about a massive toad-like creature. In response to these faint memories, they unconsciously sharpened his sword and reviewed her healing spells respectively. Ristarte in particular felt pain over her womb.

“Oh great. More trauma.” Raphtalia said.

“Subaru should get some chainmail.” Naofumi said. “Minimizing all of the chip damage he has received in that world, if not outright negating some of the deaths.”

“Why did it one-shot him?” Filo asked. “He should have at least a skill to prevent that because he’s a Summoned Hero. But if not then he should at least see this ‘Elsa’ so he can know who to get revenge on!”

“At least I have the Shield and you two.” Naofumi said.

A few more minutes passed as everyone gathered themselves to begin the New Loop. All of them blissfully unaware of how much ...Literal Goddamn Torture Subaru went through.

“At least we know why the Styx was only filled with Subaru, why Albedo’s entire settings were shown, and why they/we have a literal funeral chant as one of their/our songs. ” The room except Subaru thought. “At least this Fae isn’t cruel enough to put us through the sensation of the Emotional Suppressor and the Sensations of Death. It definitely got to the point where Time Travel is the Easier Answer.”

“It seems the best timing is handcrafted.” Ram thought.

“Why didn’t you tell us about Return by Death?” Emilia questioned, still hugging Subaru.

“Well, there are four reasons why an Oracle won’t tell.” Zettour said, imparting some wisdom and buying the oracle further time to pull himself together. “First off is that they do tell you, they just say it in a cryptic manner that requires at least a few hours of thinking to decipher (which already happened). Secondly it is simply that they don’t trust you with that information. Thirdly, viewing the future caused them to go insane. And lastly (judging by Subaru’s Breakdown and his dialogue during that School Song, appears to be the other model he is following), is the Cassandra Situation.”

Subaru appeared sitting up on his guest bed, Emilia was sitting in a chair next to him. The caption read Re zero s1 ep7.

“Emilia, I have something to tell you.” Subaru mustered up the courage. “I can-”

Time Itself halted. A dark cloud of magic swirled into existence as Subaru expressed his confusion. 

Cocytus got up and poured some of his Infinite Wine for each of the viewers. Most of the room partook of the wine.

The haunting female voice returned as Emilia and Subaru were cloaked in dark smoke. 

“So this is why he smells of the Witch.” Rem thought.

Emilia tightened her grip on Subaru, careful not to hurt him. Simultaneously holding him to reassure him and using him as a teddy bear, tears gently flowing down her face.

Puck, Beatrice, and Roswaal instantly knew what this fog was. What they felt upon seeing it. A Witch.

Something creaked like a shipwreck on the bottom of the ocean and growled as the smoke swirled into a hand. The same hand from when Subaru was isekai’d. 

“We should not have opened this Pandora’s Box.” Satoru thought. “ Whoever this hand belongs to is definitely the reason why we were kidnapped into this place. Instead of having a media console and flash drives with our shows on them teleported into our respective rooms. Whether that be in our ‘home’ realities or at the school. Surely we could get Blaine’s media of us, especially for one of power such as Weaver and his Ilk.”

“FUCK!” Satoru thought. “If we’re seeing this, then we’ll definitely see Pandora’s Actor! ” Satoru mentally screamed. “And his German! Ah, did I make mistakes in the grammar? Either way Military Records will lynch me!” Satoru paused in thought. “ Wait, they would probably just dismiss it as the childish fantasy that it is. Because they don’t have the context of the Third to Thirteen Reichs. …SHIT WE’RE GONNA HAVE TO TELL THEM ABOUT HILTER AND THE HOLOCAUST!” 

“Okay it was actually the Witch. But if Subaru is/was actually her chosen. Then why didn’t she grant him power? If he is the Witch’s Champion why didn’t she rip Greed out of Regulus? If she wanted him to be immortal that would be far easier than time travel.” Beatrice thought.

Subaru could barely whimper in understandable fear as the hand reached into him.

“Whoa! Wait!” Subaru mentally pleaded. 

But the hand continued tunneling through his body, snaking its way up to his heart.

“As much as I hate Being X, my talent for magic/warfare, and this stupid brainwashing Orb. At least I can defend myself with them.” Tanya thought. “ That and he doesn’t stoop to this level.”

“ This is seriously no joke.” Subaru continued pleading to no avail.

The hand reached his heart and gripped so hard that shatter lines or veins arced across Subaru’s body. 

Emilia started rubbing Subaru’s back to provide extra comfort. Lightly scanning his body to see if Time healed this wound as well. To her gratitude there was no damage to his heart.

“How many times have you died besides me or anyone from my camp and we did nothing?” Emilia thought. Emilia breathed in, feeling his heartbeat before breathing out and resting her head on Subaru’s head. “ Starting from now, I won’t let you die while we could do something. Even if we don’t remember any new loops, our memories of this place obviously will surpass the Witch’s Capabilities. So we can/will recognize the signs. More refined from what we were previously capable of.” Emilia closed her eyes. “ If we won’t remember this, then what is the point of showing our story?”

“Subaru took my reinforcement to heart in the worst possible way, didn’t he? I just wanted him to be loyal to Emilia to the fullest extent of his capabilities. Because only me and him are in the Emilia Camp because of Emilia. Not borrowed from Roswaal. If I’d known he could actually die instead of metaphorical death via limb loss or other healable injuries, then I would have phrased that better.” Puck thought while drooping. “ If I’d known. That definitely will be a running theme for us.” Puck rubbed his temples. “I will not let numerous deaths weigh on my daughter’s mind and soul.”

“ I very much doubt that our world will allow Subaru’s gate to heal. Even Felix would need a few weeks.” Puck glanced at Rista and Aqua. “ Perhaps those weird Essences in human forms could help? But we’ve only known each other for an hour before our episode started. And even if I had the mana to go Beast of the End on them for intimidation. Weaver is actively preventing any harm (let alone lasting/damaging harm) from happening in this pocket dimension.”

Puck glanced towards Albedo and Tanya before curling up. “ And I am one of the main reasons why he is doing that. With friends like me, who need enemies.”

Subaru gargled in pain. Before time snapped back into motion like a stretched rubber band. The veins in Subaru’s eyes were visible for a painful eternal second.

“What happened, all of a sudden?” Emilia asked after Subaru panted in fear.

“My body moves. My voice works. My heart doesn’t hurt.” Subaru thought as he held a hand over his heart. “But… The fear is engraved.”

Emilia pulled Subaru closer, saying after she wiped her tears away. “I’m sorry I was unable to help back then.” 

“It's ...better now that you know. Or at least it seems like it will be.” Subaru softly said.

“Sensei. Is this why you never told me his trigger?” Roswaal thought. “Would I have died if I knew before Weaver kidnapped us?”

“I didn’t know I could hate the Witch Cult any further than earlier today. When Subaru told me of their attack. But this is their Goddess?” Rem thought. “...hate. Nononononononono- I can’t have killed Subaru-kun. He wouldn’t tolerate the sight of me let alone love me at all if that was the case. Please listen to your older sister and Lord on controlling your urges. Please just be the time I walked in on him sleeping and thus Subaru-kun couldn’t feel anything if you do succumb.” Rem pleaded but had the sinking feeling of going unheeded like her Hero. [4]

Ram shuffled over and gave her little sister a hug.

Ram froze. “He didn’t use the punishment to lure the Witchfiends to us, did he? Please find another way to generate the lure other than that.”

“I very much doubt that you will let pain stop you from telling anyone. After you overcome this panic attack, of course.” Puck said.

“Let’s not open Pandora's Box further.” Satoru interrupted.

Emilia balled her fists in anger for some unknown reason. Before taking a calming breath and unclenching her hands. “How important is this box?”

“The Box is from Greek Mythology and to cut a large amount of differing myths short Pandora eventually opened it. Unleashing literally all of the evils of the world like Death, diseases, famines, Old Age, and insert other things you disagree with/hate here. In some myths the last thing in The Box is Hope itself, the ‘evilest’ of them all to prevent people from committing suicide and escaping tragedy.” Satoru explained with accompanying illusions of a very beautiful girl and a very complex box.

The room stared at Satoru.

“That explains His choice of name for His Son.” The NPCs thought.

“You know I keep on forgetting how depressing the Greek/Hellenic Mythos is.” Weiss said.

“Okay, I see your point.” Puck said. “But wouldn’t this place be the only one that would survive this ‘Opening of a Pandora’s Box’? Surely with our combined strength we could forcefully close the box if necessary. If Weaver and his associates don’t do that for us.”

“True.” Satoru conceded the point.

Re zero s1 ep 17.

“Fine, I’ll tell you everything.” Subaru said while Emilia looked in concern. “If you all forget about Rem, I’d rather expose everything and end up coughing up blood.”

“The White Whale erased me, didn’t it?” Rem asked.

Subaru merely nodded in silence.

“So this is why you were majorly concerned about the Whale in our talks.” Rem said while resting her forehead on her palm.

The rest of Emilia camp frowned and mentally extended their plans to face the whale.

“Thank you for caring.” Rem whispered.

“It's literally the least I could do after what happened.” Subaru whispered back.

“Why is there something that can erase people from existence?” The rest of the room thought. “And yep that’s definitely at the top of our “DO NOT meet at all costs” list. ….that we now have.”

Subaru gripped his chest. “If you’re coming for me, then come! I’ll gladly give you my beating heart.”

Emilia briefly floundered for words. “I think I can stabilize you if your heart got ripped out, certainly long enough for Beatrice to come and regrow it. Because she’ll come running once the Witch does whatever will happen.”

“That might work if Her Shadow doesn’t manifest and eat Subaru. And If I could detect Her in the first place. Considering I haven’t felt any space-time weirdness from Subaru, I very much doubt my capabilities to counteract whatever the Witch does.” Beatrice thought. “ Unofficial Great Spirit of Yin/Space-Time Magic my ass. Can’t even sense a major oddity like the past doubling back multiple times in the sole place I’ve lived in for the entirety of my life.”

Outwardly Beatrice merely nodded in agreement to Emilia's plan.

Subaru was reflected in Emilia’s amethyst eyes.

“Emilia…” Subaru started.

“Yes?” Emilia sensed Subaru’s seriousness.

The camera zoomed out.

“I…” Subaru said. “...can use r-”

A sharp haunting tone played as smokey shadows flooded in from the four corners of the camera. The tone transitioned to the creaking wood sound from earlier as it reached the frozen Subaru and Emilia. The smoke audibly bubbled as the purple-black hand manifested once more, reaching for Subaru's face. Delicately rubbing his jaw as another hand gently clasped his hand, before diving into his chest.

Subaru’s heartbeat was audible as the hand cuddled his heart. The wood groaned as the hand left Subaru’s heart unmolested.

“Okay. This… This is bad if she’s not going to fall into a pattern.” Emilia hugged Subaru tighter as she pondered.

Subaru made a noise of confusion at the lack of pain. His heartbeat faded with the clouds returning to the corners. Emilia looked concerned at the seemingly random act. Subaru made another noise of confusion as time resumed.

The room echoed the confused noise that Subaru made.

“What was that about?” Subaru looked down at his intact chest.

Emilia fell onto Subaru’s chest. Emilia’s blood dripped from her mouth and onto Subaru’s foot. The ominous female went Ah once more.

“Oh.” Emilia said in a monotone. Emilia tightened her grip on Subaru to just shy of hurting him. Reassuring herself and him that she was very much alive. Her heart was firm and audible to both herself and Subaru. “She got me.”

Puck twitched while restraining his urge to (in polite terms) eviscerate Subaru. “Sorry.” Puck said before falling off of Subaru’s head and face planting into the nearest source of wine.

“Yep. Definitely a human version of Victim.” The Overlord Cast thought in unison.

“Oh, a very worse version of Cassandra then.” The Military Records cast thought.

“Is this someone that happens to you too?” Megumin asked in a whisper.

Kazuma and Aqua shook their heads no.

“Good, otherwise I would start praying for more of Eris’ Help.” Darkness muttered in an equally quiet tone 

Naofumi, Raphtalia, and Filo glanced at each other. Raphtalia and Filo cuddled next to Naofumi, allowing each of them to hear their heartbeats.

Rista twilted her head in askance, mentally asking if something like that happened to him. But she was too afraid to voice it.

“I’ll tell you in private.” Seiya whispered into her ear. “But no. Not in the punishment sense.”

“No. Before you ask, I can’t weaponize the punishments. As far as I can tell (when I was pondering during Military Records) is that the punishments are manually decided by the Witch. So no, I can't weaponize that death mechanic thing.” Subaru said after he took a calming deep breath. “Considering I've felt a dragging sensation every time RBD activates. It's also manual. So it's more like a set of behaviors of the Witch. No falling to my death infinitely. And why I won’t get in the habit of drinking alcohol, even though this is the only safe place I could.” [2]

“You did tell us unintentionally with comments such as “I feel like I've known you four times longer than I've actually have”. We simply didn’t have the context. Sorry for being unable to help, I suppose.” Beatrice consoled.

“And that removes finding out from journals, because she would probably destroy them at the first chance.” Emilia said while rubbing her temples. “That's if she doesn’t stop you amidst writing.”

“I’ll ask about that Witchfiend Lure in private.” Ram thought.

“So there are no Stat Mechanics?” Ristarte asked while her eyes violently twitched..

“Just because Overlord made a precedent doesn’t mean it's possible for anyone else to exist under Stat mechanics.” Subaru countered.

“Counterpoint: we were taken from an XP-Boost Event archipelago and the Status Magic System is our version of your ‘Physics’” Rapthalia said.

“Setting up a Stat System is far less complicated than regular Physics.” Ristarte said. “Especially when crafting Heroes.”

“The Adventurer’s Guild literally hands out our character Sheets in the form of our Adventurer’s Card, and it's also a Stat System with the annoying Skill Point Grind to boot.” Kazuma said. “Besides, you’re already ignoring Space, Death, and Time. What's a couple more?”

“And teaching Emilia [Explosion] became that much harder.” Megumin muttered.

Mare just looked at Megumin. “ Right like I would teach enemies of Nazarick my spells/Skills. ...if I had anything to offer Puck or you.” Mare frowned in thought. “ If only there were injuries in this room, then I could heal them and earn some Diplomatic Capital/Credit/Favors. Being useful to Lord Satoru once more. Shame that the chocolate didn’t poison anyone, could’ve reaped a favor or two from healing them.”

“Can I get an actual character sheet while keeping RBD? I really need it.” Subaru asked.

“You did escape the loop right?” Tanya bargained on his behalf. “Surely you got more powerful afterwards. Or even just figured out some time and/or space powers of your own via osmosis like Homura and then break out..”

“I’m only a month and a half older than I should be. So I really haven’t found the time to figure out the ‘coding’ of Return By Death..” Subaru stared deadpan at Tanya.

Subaru turned to the rest of the Emilia camp. “Don’t worry Homura and Madoka literally became Goddesses/the new Laws of Physics after escaping their time loop.”

“So the points where you return to are Kadomon, the bed, and Kadomon again?” Rem extrapolated from his wild moments in her memories.

“Yeah. Subaru nodded. “Kadomon is the Appa merchant.”

“So savepoint guy.” Kazuma noted.

“What about training in the sword or something?” Seiya asked.

“I literally can’t build muscle, physical or magical, through my loops.” Subaru explained. “No Items are taken with me. So no, I can’t just grab a knife or distill almonds to get cyanide. I would have to re-acquire them Every. Single. Loop. Which is time I could be spending on figuring out my enemies weaknesses.”

Seiya twitched. “So the only thing that carries over is Information, like Stein’s Gate?” Seiya frowned and rubbed his chin. “That still leaves technique style weapons like whips, but again the lack of time.”

“Well there goes my suggestion of getting chainmail.” Naofumi said. “Really thought that trick Rem did with her flail was a teachable thing and that your whole camp could do it.”

“So who (other than The Witch) are your enemies?” Tanya asked. 

“A terrorist cult currently dedicated to putting Emilia through some ‘trials’ who I share a magical smell with. My smell has a quality/quantity that rivals the cult’s leaders. Hence why I assume the one that did this to me is the Witch or something like her. And not the Dragon. An entire category of monster called Witchfiends that viciously attacks anything smelling of the Witch. One of the weakest are an entire species of vampire doberman-looking dogs that eat via delayed curses that slowly, painfully, and very disorientally kills you over the course of 10 minutes. Which is unblockable, you’ve got to kill the eater to cancel it.”

“A giant flying fog whale whose fog can erase people entirely from existence leaving only my memory as their sole claim to existence. As you saw a glimpse of earlier. The Beast of the End who thankfully won’t be hostile any longer. And the other parties of the Royal Election/Politics.” Subaru counted on his fingers. “I think I'm missing a few.”

Emilia briefly tightened her hug before resting her head on Subaru’s shoulder. “Thank you for sharing this while we can know.” Emilia whispered into Subaru’s ear. “ Please don’t die because of that stupid smell.” Emilia winced in realization. “I left him all alone in the capital to be treated by a rival camp. And he’s already met the White Whale AND apparently a leader of the Witch Cult. Do they identify each other by this smell?” Emilia’s eyes stung. “Please don’t again meet someone who can smell this ‘scent’, I don’t think Rem can protect you from them.”

Cocytus got up and refilled the wine. Most of the room partook of the offered wine.

“Why are your enemies so high in metaphorical levels?” Kazuma said.

“And conceptual fighting, fantastic! Might as well live in TYPE-Moon/Nasuverse!” Tanya said through her facepalm hiding an exasperated glare.

“One flying kaiju whale does not make a theme.” Naofumi countered.

“We have the Sleeping Beauty sickness that leaves people in eternal slumber and no one knows who they are.” Roswaal countered.

“The Beast of the End called the White Whale Gluttony. Considering the person I was gathering an army to kill is the Sin Archbishop of Sloth and he called me Pride. Sadly I was catatonic and thus could barely react until unrelenting anger forced me to. Then it's only logical to assume Gluttony and the other Christianity/Abrahamic Seven Deadly Sins also have seats.” Subaru said. “Hopefully there's no Bishop seats to warrant the ‘Arch’ part of the title.” [7]

“Thankfully there is no Bishop position in the Witch Cult. But the Archbishops do have strange powers called Witch Factors but how they manifest are called Authorities that pass on death. They consume no mana and thus can be used endlessly unless that specific incarnation of the Authority has a built in weakness.” Beatrice explained. “There’s also a ritual to transform someone into a mindless undead called a Cursed Doll. also originates from Gusteko. If you damage them they just appear next to you damageless. Hence their sole use in assassination.”

“Either the target will reduce the Cursed Doll’s body to nothingness, preventing them from regenerating from any tiny body part. Or the Target will die under the weight of the Cursed Doll Brute Forcing their death. Thankfully Odglass did not raise a foolish nation and thus after their target is killed, a Cursed Doll evaporates beyond regeneration. One such Cursed Doll tried to kill their target by ripping open their neck, thus they are also my world’s Vampires.” Beatrice continued. “…At least that's what the books in my library told me about those two topics.”

“Of course, why wouldn’t there be more types of vampires?” Shalltear muttered under her breath.

“Alright, who's the exception that proves the rule?” Seiya asked. “While antagonists aren’t stupid enough to explain their weakness. Except of course Deathmagala, the leader of that undead column from earlier. Just as monsters such as vampires don’t use items magical or otherwise. Except of course Nazarick/Demon King Generals.”

“If said exception does exist then they probably still have their sanity.” Beatrice theorized.

Beatrice shattered a woman in black clothing with a purple crystal and turned to deal with an off-screen threat. Only for the woman to come back instantly and perfectly intact. Standing ominously behind Beatrice’s back. Re zero s2 ep 11 was the label.

=Elsa Granheirt is the exception that proves the rule.= Weaver informed.

“Not going to use at least the basic Minya against her.” Beatrice breathed in before laying out a rudimentary plan. “...and we’re going to have to wait to see why Elsa took another job on Emilia’s camp, aren’t we?”

“Of course I would meet the exception so soon. Why wouldn’t I meet them this fast!” Subaru’s right eye twitched.

“Back on the topic of the Witch Cult: how strange are their powers?” Tanya asked, preempting Subaru from spiraling.

“Regulus Corneas is the sin archbishop of Greed, who is the strongest of all the Sin Archbishops and has a ridiculous amount of wives.” Rowsaal said. 

A very bland and forgettable man (For Re Zero) was the only one standing in a field surrounded by enemies. Magic, swords, arrows, and other attacks all failed to even blow his hair. Let alone stop him from picking up a pebble and tossing it, utterly obliterating a section of enemies and the landscape.

“A pebble.” The room drank their wine.

“Really hoped the star names weren’t a theme.” [3] Subaru sighed. “I also hoped that I was mishearing Petelguese’s name, but here we are. First off, you’ll know my Greek name much better cause we’ve already seen it. The Pleiades seven sisters.”

Subaru waved his hand at the screen showing the Pleiades and Orion Constellations. With the Pleiades maids all lined up except for the name Aureola Omega above a nondescript shadow-figure.

“The reason why we are seeing Pleiades and Orion is because the constellations are some early civilizations harvest time indicator.” Subaru explained. “Betelguese is also called Orion’s Hand.”

A green-skinned man in purple clothes appeared, the same dark-purple hands reaching out of his back towards someone off screen. The Orion constellation was shown again before dimming, leaving only Betelguese.

“You truly fell this far.” Beatrice thought.

“Regulus is the ‘Heart’ of the Leo Constellation. Said constellation’s most famous myth is the Nemean Lion of Hercules’ Twelve Labors.” Subaru explained as said constellation appeared and the star was highlighted. “Invincible hide, extreme enough strength to compete with that Patheon’s Arch-God’s son who eventually ascends to become the God of Heroes. If we are lucky then Regulus can only sustain his invincibility for five seconds at a time before his heart acts up. If we’re unlucky then he has figured out a way to store his heart into something else thus bypassing the time limit. If we’re very unlucky then something else is another person, probably his ‘ridiculous amount of wives’. We can probably just remove his heart via medical magic. But if we are extremely unlucky then there is no way to remove his heart without killing the host.”

“But considering.” Subaru waved at himself. “We probably need to kill all his wives to make him vulnerable. …Unless he’s controlling Motion, but that’s very unlikely for two reasons. A, Od Laguna doesn’t have the needed tech for that style of Psychics. B, the Cursed Dolls already that up that ‘slot’ of empowerment.”

Emilia turned to Subaru. “Why do you keep calling him The Beast of the End? He shouldn’t have assumed the form. There simply isn’t enough mana in our contract.”

“I don’t care what you say-.” Puck said with an echoed voice. Hovering ominous above Subaru and Petelgeuse with an highlighted outline.

Something cracked as Puck was brutally twisted. The wood groaned as the camera shifted to Subaru’s point of view and revealed the Unseen Hands crushing Puck.

Petelguese moved his body’s fingers like they were an Orchestra’s Conductor Baton. “Complacency! Negligence! That is Sloth! You should have killed me right away!” and then he starts rolling his eyes like a chameleon.

The room shivered in discomfort.

“At least Ren isn’t this insane.” The Shield Hero cast thought.

“Even with the power that you have-” Petelgeuse said with a spittle coming out of his mouth. “-You failed to accomplish what you needed to do!”

Puck burst out, expanding until the full twenty? Thirty meter long saber tooth tiger was revealed in its blizzard clad form. One of its front paws landed next to Subaru utterly dwarfing him in size.

“Oi. Me. Please be quick about it.” Puck thought.

Emilia felt torn, glad that someone was helping Subaru with this Witch Cultist. And dismayed at the seemingly only way for Subaru’s power to trigger. 

“ Why do I have to choose between Puck failing to protect/help Subaru or Puck killing him?” Emilia breathed in. “ No. I don’t have to settle for those options. I’ll just have to be better so that this situation never occurs again.”

“Ah, so that’s why you didn’t ask the Lesser Spirits beforehand.” Satoru said. “Puck had scared them away.”

Puck and Emilia nodded.

“It's definitely because that hasn’t happened to me-me, but I just don’t agree with that-me’s plan of living down to my name/title.” Puck apologized. “Instead of sticking around and preaching Lia’s virtues.”

“Maybe you’ll only destroy the attackers before calming down and Beatrice could hold the mansion’s inhabitants in her library.” Emilia hoped. “I never thought of what would happen after my death, I'm far too young.”

“Okay I can understand why your mind is different. But why didn’t you, oh I don’t know, use at least a fraction of that power on the Witch Cultists that are/will attack?” Subaru followed up.

Puck flicked his tail at the true culprit, Roswaal before saying. “My greedy bitch of a mother-” [5]

“Mom’s not a bitch!” Beatrice interjected.

“Blank. For. Centuries.” Puck replied with a deadpan tone and expression.

Beatrice sputtered.

“Decided the greatest idea for her little pet project of a protector was to make sure said protector couldn’t get close to their protectorate.” Puck said. “This is why I needed for you to call my name before we made our contract, Lia. I literally couldn’t help and the mindset I adopted to interact with you outside of that context only lasts a short while. Else things get weird mental wise. However, once our contract was made, I focused most of my power in taming Lia’s Ice Blossom.”

Emilia fought a yeti-like Witchfiend before an ice sculpture grew out of its formerly-bleeding wound. Re zero Bond of Ice was the caption.

“I. Expected. That. From. Us.” Cocytus said. “Why. Do. You. Have. An. Instant-Win. Condition?”

“I have no idea.” Emilia said while shrugging.

“It grows from all wounds doesn’t it?” Subaru guessed.

Emilia nodded with a sad expression. “I’ve gotten better at containing/choosing which wounds it grows from. But I just dislike using it in general.”

Subaru sighed. “Well at least it's not exploding yourself.”

“Okay so we saw the strongest Sin archbishop. Any others of note?” Tanya asked.

“We have no idea where the Pride Authority is. It's been missing for decades now, so whenever it resurfaces it's definitely going to be a pain.” Roswaal said.

=The only known candidate for Pride would be Alderan, of the Priscilla Camp.= Weaver said. 

A functionally shirtless (vest with it open to expose his torso/abs and chest) one armed man with a knight helmet appeared.

“And that’s the Dark Souls Helmet.” The protags thought.

“Him?” Ram asked. “While odd, he doesn’t appear that insane from what I know of him. …except for his choice of Royal Candidate,”

A flamboyant woman appeared with a smug smile half hidden by a paper fan.

“She went through several husbands.” Ram explained.

The room except the Emilia camp winced in understanding.

Rem rubbed her head. “And because he is not in the Cult he is merely a candidate.” Rem sighed. “I guess we should be happy that at least two (if Return by Death was in prior circulation) Authorities are out of the Cult’s hands.”

“More importantly, what does his Authority do?” Puck asked.

=First thing it does is metaphorically flip a coin. You will want Heads. It allows him to loop back time in a small area, roughly 5 to 10 minutes. Allowing him to completely redo a single fight. I believe this is the only part that Alderan knows of.= Weaver said.

Alderan seamlessly blocked all attacks that were coming towards him. 

“This is the preferred outcome?” The room said in unison.

“Your stars were bad.” Alderan said.

Capella the Lust Archbishop and the head of the Assassination Organization that Elsa was a part of merely laughed with the titles hovering above her head.

“Fantastic.” Ram sarcastically said. “I assume her fellow Sin Archbishops get discounts?”

Weaver grew arms and shrugged.

“Well, aren’t you just helpful?” Rem backed up her sister.

The room nodded in agreement.

Her hands shapeshifted into claws and bisected Alder-

“Your stars were bad.” Alderan repeated.

Capella blinked before turning around and walking out of a previously unseen territory. The room knew that the boundaries were illustrated for their convenience.

“Your stars were bad.” Alderan repeated.

Capella screamed.

=For tails your only option is to become harmless from insanity. Hopefully his Authority has a sanity damaging aspect, otherwise his death count would be insane high. But either way luckily for him, all of those deaths don’t get remembered. And the fact that they are at most a minute of time. Thus they blend together heavily. Thus from his perspective people have the random chance to spontaneously go into crippling insanity.= Weaver said. “Especially since he only appeared on Od Laguna in Vollachia 18 years ago. Chronologically.”

The room winced in sympathy.

“Did he lose his arm prior?” Rem asked.

=No he lost his arm during a gladiator match back when he presumably didn’t know how to use the Heads.portion.= Weaver shook his head no. =The other weakness of …Bad Stars is this-=

Capella was still screaming as she rapidly shapeshifted until the sky shattered letting her out.

“Ah, yes. The ‘why don’t you just destroy it’ option.” Rudersdorf commented sarcastically. “While that can theoretically be applied to Subaru, you would need to kill the Witch herself.”

“While the exits in the Portrait of Landscapes is annoying, at least we don’t have to deal with it being destroyed.” The Overlord cast thought.

“That’s a reality marble.” Kazuma thought. “Yet another thing I should have wished for.”

“If Time manipulation is our isekai infrastructure, then it makes sense why we have no prior stories of them.” Emilia said.

“Did the Witch gra~ab him?” Roswaal asked.

“So that’s why Subaru can’t redo fights.” Roswaal thought. “ Well, at least without major hassle.” Roswaal frowned.

Weaver grew arms and shrugged. =It would be far easier and simpler if that happened. But for now we don’t know. We also don’t know exactly how Capella destroyed Al’s territory, only that she did/can.=

“So in all your ‘genre’ is Mystery on the backdrop of Fantasy.” Rudersdorf said.

Subaru raised a finger before remembering how exactly he succeeded in every loop and lowered it. “Usually it's another person who is the detective and not the victim.”

“The phrases : “Truth is stranger than fiction” and the like, exist back in your time right?” Sebas asked.

“Point.” Subaru nodded.

“Besides you won’t be doing this alone, you have us.” Emilia said while grasping his shoulders. “Even if the earnest qualities fade.” Emilia let go of his shoulders and poked her index fingers together, “What does your name mean and which name, Natsuki or Subaru, is your given?”

“Natsuki (my family name) can be spelled as Na (Vegetables/Greens) and Tsuki (Moon) or Natsu (Summer) and Ki (Hope). Those are just a few ways that Kanji could form Natsuki. Subaru means to govern or to gather.” Subaru scratched his jawbone/cheek in embarrassment. “Considering the power I have, the name “To gather together hope” is a bit on the nose.”

The room save Subaru facepalmed.

“Also Natsuki can be used as a given name.” Subaru said. “So all of my family has two given names. So we’re all used to answering to either of them.”

“I’m going to call you Subaru, okay? Just to make things a little bit easier.” Emilia said.

“Are there any medical advancements you can share?” Rem asked.

“Do you know about germs?” Rista asked.

The Emilia camp hummed in confusion causing those from a post industrial revolution to adopt an oh dear face.

“Okay, not a world where you can casually see down to the cellular level.” Rista muttered. “Okay, germ is the catch all term for all organisms literally too small to see with the human eye. And there’s a frankly hideous amount of them everywhere. On your face. In your mouth. On/in the ground. Some of them are part of the decomposing process, hence how Shalltear still doesn’t rot. These are the origins of most diseases, and definitely all non-magical plagues.”

The Rhine theater was shown and it zoomed all the way down past the dead bodies and worms to reveal blobs.

“I would recommend sanitized materials to get rid of these but you don’t have the capabilities to manufacture those. Save for Alcohol, though even that will fall short of medical grade. ” Rista said. 

The screen showed alcohol’s sanitizing effect in action.

“So I can’t say “Use Saran wrap to hold in your organs if you get disemboweled.” because you literally can’t make Saran wrap.” Rista snarked.

Weaver gave each of them some Saran wrap to fiddle with.

“But what is very possible is boiling water before doing anything. Especially stagnant water. And do not mix cooked food with raw food.” Rista said.

“Ah. What about creating a magical version of your advanced techniques?” Emilia asked. “Maybe we can bypass the difficulties in the technologies?”

“Eh, yes and no. The easiest of the more advanced stuff would be blood transfusions.” Subaru piped up. “While technically you could just grab a healthy person and suction out some of their blood. And stick it into a different person. That will cause further but hopefully weaker complications. To accurately provide transfusions you need a strong centralization and census of your populace. This is because human blood (and maybe other species) have different types.” 

“The different types are defined on where the antigen and antibody are in the blood. Antigen are the officers and antibodies are the soldiers, for reference. So Type A blood has the antigens in the red cells (which carry basically everything where it needs to be in your body) and the antibodies in the plasma (what makes blood a fluid). Type B blood is the inverse. Type AB has both the antigens and antibodies in the red cells.” Subaru continued.

“Type O blood is the inverse of type AB. While there are an absurd amount of specific antigens and thus making Typed blood transfusions more of an educated guess. The closest thing to true universal donorship (without any possibility of rejection) is the Type O-. Which I am a part of. At least that's what I remember from the Red Cross (an organization dedicated to helping survivors around the world) came to my town and hosted a blood drive.” Subaru said. Not canon blood type because his blood type is not listed.

The other Japanese facepalmed and muttered in unison. “Of course, with that power what other blood type is possible?”

Japan’s Blood Type Personality Theory. Type O are usually optimistic if not having a romantic/idealized view of the world. Easygoing, Leadership, Insensitive, and Unpunctual are some traits that were assigned to Type O. Other famous Japanese characters with Type O blood include but are not limited to Midoriya Izuki from My Hero Academia, Tsukino Usagi/Sailor Moon and Kino Makato/Sailor Jupiter both from Sailor Moon.

“Ah, so the Hero blood type.” Shalltear said. “I guess that’s why blood tastes different depending on the person I drink it from.”

“Of course the more advanced versions of this require an even more in depth census and sufficient numbers. In that we need intact organs, which are either donated while you're still alive. And thus humans surprisingly don’t need a lot of our organs to survive. Like only one lung and a single kidney of the donatable while still alive. If you waive your dead body sanctimony, then we can harvest your heart and other such irreplaceable organs.” Subaru said.

“Ah, so that’s why Lord Satoru didn’t object to my treatment of the Abelion Sheep. This is normal for him. And not out of a plebian thing like lack of knowledge of what his subordinates are doing.” Demiurge thought.

Everyone but the isekai veterans and their hanger on goddesses, Nazarick, and Military records just looked at Subaru in horror.

“That’s literally necromancy.” Filo said, voicing the opinion.

“No, it’s medicine.” Tanya countered. “Necromancy would be if it interfered with the afterlife and not merely prolonging life. Of course in emergencies it does get a bit brutal like Cardiopulmonary resuscitation or CPR for short.” 

The 203rd cadets looked in dismay at the unbreathing form of Grantz before Tanya descended and kicked him. Causing snow to burst out of his airways as his musculoskeletal system was shown. Highlighting the processes involved as Grantz regained his breath. Military records s1 ep5 was the caption.

“If you aren’t cracking ribs while doing CPR, you’re doing it wrong. Is what my first aid teacher always said during my first life.” Tanya said. “And considering my current body, I can’t generate enough force on my own.” Tanya explained away her dropkicking of Grantz. “But considering your magic system allows you to regrow organs, you probably won’t develop the needed technologies for organ transplants. Considering you already have access to its theorized replacement.”

“I never considered what we would do without magical healing.” Darkness said.

“That’s the reason why our world was so happy to learn that our medic mages could regrow our limbs and organs.” Grantz said.

“Which was helpful when one of the Type 95 prototypes exploded and removed one of my arms.” Tanya said.

“I’m glad that DND-based healing just hand waves all of the …squicky stuff away. I will work under those limitations if asked by Lord Satoru, but that would be way more stressful.”  Mare thought.

“I’ll set up more censuses if you start work on the technologies needed for this Necromancy-based healing. Even if it’s inefficient compared to our healing magic, it will help with manpower constraints. We will have a headstart over the other nations because of Nifrea and our Liches.” Albedo communicated to Demiurge through microgestures.

Demiurge nodded in agreement.

Aura and Mare had small smiles on their faces as instinctual knowledge of Microflora and fauna had solidified in their minds once the word ‘cell’ was spoken.

“Of course it’s inconvenient to hold someone’s wrist while doing CPR to feel their heartbeat. Hence why we made the Electrocardiogram/EKG. Electro from Electricity (because saying Cracked Lightning is a bit of a mouthful for everyday use.) and Cardio from Cardiology medicine focused on the heart. Gram just means a chart/record.” Tanya explained.

EKG sounds with the heartbeat line doing its jig of healthiness.

The room except Subaru made a clusterfuck of noises when they realized that Subaru left ‘life’ behind on Earth. As they remembered the cash register.

“Sheesh, did I bite someone’s face off in my true form and that’s why subtlety doesn’t exist anymore?” Shalltear asked.

Subaru and Weaver merely shrugged in unison.

“And what isn’t soulless necromancy is hyper selective poisons.” Rista followed up. “Unless you’re fighting against cancer (cells that don’t have a finite lifespan and eat far too many of the body’s resources) and then you use regularish poison.”

“There might be a reason why technology is usually portrayed as evil.” Kazuma sarcastically said.

“Fair enough.” Emilia said. “I’m sure that there is a whole lot more that you can tell us, but we should get back to watching. Just so we know the full context of what this episode will tell us.”

The room nodded in agreement.

“Huh?” Subaru blinked. While cupping his right(?) ear.

“I asked you about the Appa. The Appa.” said the blurry Kadomon while moving the offered doctor preventing fruit. “Do you even have money?”

Lil babi Subaru merely said what while cupping his other ear.

“Don’t “What?!” me! The Appa! Are you buying it or not?” Kadomon asked.

“Oh…” Subaru’s neurons finally realigned from the time travel. “No, like I said, I’m broke beyond compare.” 

“The hell?” Kadomon asked calmly. “If you’re just browsing, then move along.”

“I run a business here. I don’t have time for window shoppers.” Kadomon said. 

A quick fade to black left Subaru standing in the middle of the street.

“I thought that he would explode in anger again.” Aura said. “Guess he saw your confusion.”

That ominous woman hauntly sang woo, ahh. Or however the hell you type the “Call of the Witch” sounds. A drum banged while a black screen slid down to transition. Subaru looking at the upper bits of the street. Something wooden moved as the drum beat once more and a cut to Subaru looking down at his groceries. Another drum-fade left Subaru looking at the crowd. The camera swivel panned to Subaru’s face.

“What’s going on?” Subaru asked. “Wasn’t it nighttime a minute ago?” Subaru looked down and raised his jacket. “The wound on my belly is gone…”

The woman did the soft echoly ah as Subaru remembered Emilia falling. Him reaching for her hand.

“Oh, right! Satella.” Subaru said after jerking out of his memories. Subaru cupped his face in regret. “Damn it, didn’t Puck ask me to take care of her?” Subaru looked around as anxiety inducing electronic music played. “I have to get back to that shop!” Faint murmurs played as the camera panned up to the sky as Subaru ran.

Much louder electronic music played as Subaru ran in an alley.

The muggers appeared in the alley.

“And before you ask. Yes, that is a different alley.” Subaru said. “One of the reasons why I call them tonchinkan which means irrelevant or inconsistent.”

“What are they, Team Rocket?” Tanya asked.

“Ah but Jessie/Musashi, James/Kojiro, and Meowth/Nyarth are all extremely skilled in everything but their one job.” Subaru answered.

“Point.” Tanya conceded.

“Hey, why do you look so spooked?” asked the literal dwarf thief.

“If you don’t want to get hurt, cough up whatever you got!” said the knife wielder thief as the camera panned up the trio’s mugshots.

“You guys…” Subaru started with audible disbelief. “Did you see I was alone and decided to get revenge?”

“Huh? What are you talking about?” Knives asked.

“Are ya nuts?” Asked the dwarf.

“Don’t worry about it.” Said the tallest man. “Just leave everything you’ve got on the ground and we’ll let you go.”

Subaru closed his eyes in exasperation. “Okay, fine. Everything I've got, huh?” Subaru put down his grocery bag. “I’m in a hurry, so I don’t even care.”

“Now act like a dog.” Commanded the dwarf. “Get on all fours like a dog and howl, [Help me!]”

Subaru glared and said. “Don’t get cocky, bastard!”

Before uppercutting Knives taking the weapon user out of the fight. By forcing him to bite his own tongue. The electronic music kicked up as Knives fell back in slow motion. Subaru wound up and kicked the dwarf who squeaked upon hitting the brick wall.

“Did-Did you just crack bricks?” Emilia asked.

“Well Lugnica’s Gravity is 1/10th of Earth’s.” Subaru explained.

“Eh no.” Tanya interrupted. “The Moon only has 1/6th the gravity of Earth.”

“I mean it's not like I activated Hysterical Strength.” Subaru said. “Basically a weird berserker stage that people, usually parents, go into to save someone they care about. Such as lifting a car (which ranges from 1 to 5 tons) off their child. We still have no idea how it works because no one wants to put people in those situations to actually supposedly trigger it. Whether that be morals or simple pragmatism in not wanting lawsuits depends on the researcher.”

“So whenever people claim that humanity is not a social species I simply-” Tanya let out a laugh..

“This is why we have so many stories and worlds about the power of friendship. Or the heart of the cards. Or Soul synchronization. Or whatever the setting calls their version of hysterical strength.” Aqua said.

“I guess with Ranger, and other specialized hunters, it would be the Power of Racism.” Aura thought.

“The ‘greatest’ version of Hysterical Strength would be Type-Moon where humanity itself is alive, in a metaphorical sense.” Seiya said.

“But if the power of friendship/hysterical strength does a literally impossible thing/breaks the suspension of disbelief, then that is Deus Ex Machina/God from the Machine.” Tanya said. “One example of that is my Gold Eyes/Divine Intervention thing. One of the few things that can counter that is if another god empowers someone else and we clash. Or Diablo Ex Machina/Devil from the Machine. The Witch killed Emilia.”

“Ah.” the room nodded in understanding.

“Of course you can weaponize that and/or broader emotions but you would need at least training in mental powers.” Tanya said.

A bandaged woman clad in the same purple coat as Petelguese suffered a wound. When the sword impacted the cut her the crowd shared the same injuries. The woman was labeled Sirius, the Sin Archbishop of Wrath.

The Emilia Camp let out a deep sigh.

“I was being hypothetical and thinking of the Paw Paw fruit.” Tanya muttered while rubbing the bridge of her nose.

“Okay so we need to figure out how to smuggle a Water magic user close to her and have them cast a sleep spell.” Subaru laid out a bareboned plan.

“Or other indirect means like a dust explosion.” Kazuma said. “If you could catch her somewhere alone. But you probably would need to do that anyway.”

“Dust Explosion?” Emilia asked.

“Flour is like 35 times more explosive than gunpowder. So if you get the grains small enough, toss a bag in the air, wait for it to form a cloud, and then provide flame you get a devastating explosion.” Tanya clarified. “But if the grains are too big then congrats you’ve quite literally added more fuel to the fire.”

Weaver provided cups of flour, their right hands had the grains be small enough for explosions. The left not. Subaru hunched over as he (and the rest of the Emilia camp) noticed that the left cup had the same feeling as the flour they used. No need for different laws of physics to explain that re zero season 2 moment.

“Well... there goes that plan.” Subaru said.

The tallest one just looked at Subaru while reevaluating the choices that lead to this encounter. Before trying to rush the infantile immortal. 

“Whoa there.” Subaru said while dodging.

Subaru dodged the mugger’s retailory hail makers. Subaru grabbed the mugger’s arm and twisted said arm around the elbow.

“Don’t underestimate a truant kid with too much free time.” Subaru said while inflicting pain. “After swinging a wooden sword around all the time for no reason, my grip strength is over 70 kilograms!” 

And then Subaru kicked the mugger in the balls.

“And this is why you wear cups.” Seiya said as the room jolted at the underhanded action.

The mugger slowly turned to face the cracked wall and leaned against it in pain. 

“I’m in a hurry! Don’t get in my way again!” Subaru said.

The loot house had plants growing on its roof and sides. And not in the protect the environment by allocating space to plantlife, kind of growing.

“Don’t freak out… Don’t freak out. Don’t freak out.” Subaru psyched himself up.

Subaru stepped closer and leaned close to the door. Straining his hearing in an attempt to gather info. Subaru stepped closer to knock and hesitated. 

“Am I stupid?” Subaru thought after leaning away and closing his eyes. “After coming this far, I can’t just leave without answers.”

Subaru knocked on the door. “Is anyone there?” Subaru knocked again. “Someone… Someone’s in there, right?” Subaru escalated to banging. “Please, answer me! Please!”

“Shut yer trap!” Rom shouted while opening the door. His stomps shake the camera.

“I was about to say, give them time to move to the door to answer. Intercoms probably haven’t been invented yet.” Naofumi snarked.

Subaru blushed. Which only increased further as the rest of the room nodded in agreement.

“You tryin’ to bust my door down when you don’t even know the signal or password?!” Rom shouted while stepping outside.

Subaru stared at the giant, the woman did her noise as the dead Rom flashed in his mind. 

“You’re…” Subaru started. The unspoken word was alive.

“...You have no Mental Protections?” Aqua asked. “No Anti-Nightmare, no Anti-PTSD, nothing?! I knew that the Deaths would be hidden otherwise you wouldn’t have acted that way, but no Protections?!”

“Aqua. I don’t have Mental Protections either.” Kazuma said.

“Yes you do. Didn’t you find it strange that you’ve never had a Nightmare since being Summoned?” Aqua countered. “When our new world has the Frogs, The Cabbages, The Beginner’s Bane, The Winter Shogun, Keem’s Dungeon, and the Destroyer? Heaven is crushing most of the side effects of living in this World of ours, and unfortunately doing that has hogged all of our resources. Hence why we haven’t descended and declared a Crusade on the Demon King. Thus the only way we can provide physical support is via Summoning Heroes.”

Kazuma blinked and combed over his memories. “Huh, I never realized I don’t have nightmares.”

“Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is very simple and very complex to treat/heal from.” Tanya said. “It is basically the self-preservation instincts (Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn) but are unfortunately unable to be turned off, usually from prolonged situations of danger. Of course there are shades/degrees of severity to PTSD, unfortunately War is pretty much the source of PTSD. Specifically the variant called Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or C-PTSD. In most Great Wars PTSD was thought to be caused by artillery bombardment and thus earned the name, Shell Shock.”

The rest of Military Records went ah and winced. “ Why did you join so early if you knew about this?”  They thought.

“What is the preferred treatment?” Emilia asked.

“Drugs that you have no hope of manufacturing. That and being able to attend Therapy, talking with a trusted person who gained a license in Psychology and if a Psychiatrist then they can prescribe (authorize) you said Drugs. Second is gaining your Life’s Purpose and the reason why you get out of bed and/or the house every day.” Tanya explained.

“That’s the reason why (at least) My Heaven picks NEETs to be isekai to provide purpose to the lost.” Aqua said.

“If you were wondering, that's what appeared in my eyes at the beginning of the episode. It's either that or hope.” Subaru explained..

The room nodded.

“There is also communal/group therapy, which is basically this room and the School.” Tanya finished. “Admittedly other group therapies are structured differently but they never had members who fell between dimensions as their imaginary subordinates came to life or suffered under time travel. Either way, PTSD is unified by intrusive thoughts like the Call of the Void (the urge to jump off an edge) or this. And constantly thinking about the trauma.

Though if you stop thinking about a trauma after 6 or so months, then that was Acute Traumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD is a chronic syndrome. Chronic meaning repeating such as feeling back pain every sunday or constant pain. Without a reason like you are working a construction job on Sundays. That is the difference between Chronic pain and Seasonal pain for old people. They are feeling the barometric pressure changes and foretelling a weather change/storms. The human brain just doesn’t have the proper equipment to sense that correctly and defaults to pain.” Tanya clarified. 

“Again. Why did you join at 7, if you knew about all this?” the rest of Military Records thought.

“Why is your default sensation pain?” Emilia and Raphtalia asked in unison.

The humans shrugged in unknowing.

The inside of the loot house was decent to live in, now that it was daylight and not covered in blood.

“What’re you all fidgety for?” Rom asked as Subaru took in the loot house. “Are your balls chafin’ ya that much?”

“I’m not worried about the position of my privates!” Subaru denied.

“Bit more important things going on than mere discomfort.” Naofumi said sarcastically.

“Don’t start the conversation with potty humor!” Subaru complained.

“You’re already interrupting my evening booze.” Rom complained back. Before drinking some more. “You’ll kill me if you start talkin’ about boring stuff now.” 

“Don’t drink while the sun is up. You’ll die young.” Subaru shot back. “Actually, this is a dumb question, but…”

Rom made a noise of attention.

“Have you died recently?” Subaru bluntly asked. The camera zoomed in to show his shaking eyes.

“Well that’s certainly one way to breach that topic.” Darkness said.

“I have consumed media with oracles who refuse to even hint at what they’ve seen. And it's even more infuriating now that I am one.” Subaru said.

The room nodded in agreement.

Rom tilted his head and made a noise of confusion. Before slapping his free hand on top of his head and laughing from his gut. “Well, I admit I’m an old man at death’s door, but I ain’t really died yet.”

“Okay, have you seen a girl with silver hair?” Subaru asked.

“Silver hair?” Rom asked. “I ain’t seen anyone that conspicuous.”

Subaru put his hand on his chin and looked down. “Was it all a dream?” Subaru thought. “ Then exactly how much of it was a dream, and why am I in this world?”

“So what are you doin’ here, anyways?” Rom asked.

“Oh… I’m looking for an insignia.” Subaru answered. “It belongs to a silver-haired girl who helped me out. I don’t know why, but it's important to her. I think she said it had a jewel in the center.”

Rom gazed into his booze. “An insignia with a jewel…” Rom looked at Subaru. “Sorry, but I ain’t got anything like that.”

“Are you sure? Try to think!” Subaru said. “Maybe you’re just old and senile.”

“If I can’t remember when I’m at my best, with booze in me, the only explanation is that I don’t know it.” Rom replied. “But… I’ve got someone bringing in some goods later. I’m told it’s some fine loot. There’s a good chance it could be what you’re lookin’ for.”

“Is the one bringing it a girl named Felt?” Subaru asked.

“What, you even know who swiped it?” Rom asked. “Of course, whether you’ll be able to afford it is another matter.”

“Ha! It's no use trying to size me up!” Subaru boasted while pointing his thumb to himself. 

Rom chugged his booze. 

“I’m as broke as they come, after all.” Subaru finished.

“Ain’t no use talkin’ about it, then.” Rom replied.

“No, there is the option of trading.” Subaru replied.

Rom made a noise of realization. “Now that you mention it, you’ve got some unusual stuff there.”

“It took him that long to realize that?” Demiurge asked. “I would have thought being a fence he would notice the items first.”

“Isn’t a fence an object to divide open fields?” Emilia asked.

“Thank you for voicing my question.” Satoru thought.

“A fence is a colloquial term for someone who sells stolen items somewhat legally. Thus tossing the item over the ‘fence of law’ and making law enforcement much more difficult.” Demiurge explained.

Emilia made a noise of understanding.

“That’s right. For example, this is a corn potage snack.” Subaru said as he held up the chip bag. “It's super tasty!”

“H-he won’t know what corn is. W-which Lugnica doesn’t have the environment to grow na-naturally.” Mare piped up.

“While potage is a creamy soup. The synonyms are porridge and stew.” Lergen replied. “In the English Middle Ages (Roughly the 1300 to 1700 centuries. It is also called the Medieval era.) It was made with wheat, barley, rye, or oats.”

“The packaging doesn’t look water-tight.” Filo said.

“It holds solids. The liquid would be the natto, and as you see it's different materials.” Subaru explained. “Didn’t realize that about corn. thanks.”

“That’s food?” Rom asked while raising his hand.

Subaru handed over the bag. Rom opened the bag to a loud pop as chips burst out.

“Though chip bags shouldn’t explode like that.” Subaru explained. “My guess is that being pulled through worlds jumbled it.”

Rom then reached in and grabbed a decent chunk of the chips before shoveling them down. “I see! What an odd flavor! These would go great with booze!” Rom blushed.

“Among other things.” Tanya said.

The most common party supplies scrolled by with chips highlighted.

“Cheap, mass produced, easy to clean up, and only requires a beverage if salty food. Utterly perfect for the college parties.” Tanya described the chips. “That’s the reason why every gas station, airport, and store stock chips. …even if said places can’t afford the name brands of the region let alone international name brands.”

“Especially in America with their red plastic party cups.” Aqua said.

“Too bad we don’t have this ‘maize’ to farm, let alone how to get that crisp form.” Puck said.

“Eh, America uses potatoes instead of corn. And considering you call them taters, we could theoretically make them.” Subaru said. “We would need to figure out a design because each brand has a different method of making the chips.”

“Today on how it’s made: Potato ch-”

“No!” Tanya denied. “We’ll get to you later! Also you’re useless for a pre-industrial revolution society.”

Military Records, Demiurge, Albedo, Naofumi, and Seiya saw how the Emilia camp except Subaru subtly tensed.

“Ah. We’re still not in the Victory timeline.” They thought.

“Right? Right?” Subaru nodded in agreement. “HEY! Don’t just eat them!” Subaru shouted while pointing at Rom once he realized what was happening.

“Well, I dunno what you want to trade, but you’ll have to come back after Felt gets here.” Rom said while chewing. “Hmm, that’s good!” Rom said after stuffing more chips down his throat.

Fade to black and the sun was shown behind some clouds. The sky tinted reddish brown in the evening. Subaru sat on the stairs patiently waiting for Felt. Two kids were shown to be staring at Subaru.

“I guess in any world, there are people with money, and without.” Subaru noted. “It sure is easy to see the difference here.” Subaru said as the camera panned down from the castle to the slums.

“Hey, what’re you doing here? You’re in my way.” Felt said after walking up.

The ominous ah played once more as Subaru recognized Felt.

“You recognize me?” Felt asked.

“Of course I do! I’ve been waiting for you.” Subaru said.

“What for?” Felt asked.

“Wait, are you saying you don’t remember me?” Subaru asked.

Felt leaned closer and grasped her chin. “Have we met? You know, I’m a busy woman, so I don’t remember most people I meet unless they leave a huge impression. ”

“I’d say that was a pretty huge impression…” Subaru said. Subaru stood up. “Well forget that. I want to negotiate for the insignia that you have.”

Felt went over her options. “Oh, so that’s it, huh? All right, I’ll hear you out.”

Felt knocked on the door, as pleasant horns played. 

“For a rat…” Rom asked through the door.

“Poison.” Felt replied.

“For a white whale…” Rom asked.

“A harpoon…” Felt replied.

“To the noble dragon lord, we are…” Rom asked.

“Shitbags.” Felt answered. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Old Man Rom.” Felt walked in. “My target was more persistent than I thought.”

“But not persistent enough to help.” Emilia sighed and hung her head. “But that probably wouldn’t have mattered anyways. The chip bag that Rom ate. Subaru used it as a prize for a contest.”

The rest of the room sighed and groaned respectively.

“Shame, it would have left a few additional minutes if we actually reached Rom’s Loot House.” Puck shook his head. “Would have let me pass the baton directly to Reinhard.”

“Can you not freeze all of Elsa’s cells simultaneously?” Tanya asked.

“Not enough time to permanently kill her at the end of the day.” Puck shook his head.

Tanya and Subaru clicked their tongues in semi-irritation.

“It took a while to shake them.” Felt said, unknowing that was one of the primary causes of her doom. 

Rom glanced at Subaru as if saying ‘see. That’s how you get in here. In a polite manner.’

Felt grabbed and chugged down Rom’s offered mug of milk. Before glancing at the mug in dismay.

“Hey, Old Man Rom, did you water down this milk?” Felt asked. “It’s nasty.”

“Hey, I give you something outta the goodness of my heart, and you call it gross?” Rom complained.

Rom rubbed Felt’s head who made a cute noise.

“You two are closer than I had either hoped or expected.” Subaru said. Subaru closed his eyes. “I’m feeling left out over here.”

“Don’t act like a wuss when you’ve got a face almost as scary as Old Man Rom’s.” Felt instantly said.

The camera snapped back to Subaru’s amateur scary face and his amateur yakuza voice. “People have said many things to me, but you tell me I can compete with this old guy?!”

“Really? Doing a budget Yakuza impression to basically the actual Yakuza?” Tanya asked.

Subaru shrugged. “Considering the other slum dwellers weren’t living in fear, Rom is nowhere near as bad as the Yakuza.”

The rest of the room used context clues to understand that Yakuza was the Japanese term for organized crime.

“Okay, I went too far that time. Sorry, Bro.” Felt apologized.

“You two aren’t in some conspiracy to try to piss me off, are you?” Rom asked.

“Okay, well, why don’t we get down to business?” Felt ignored her father figure. “How much will you pay for it?”

“You don’t waste time…” Subaru commented. “Before I answer that, you do have the insignia, right?”

“Of course I do!” Felt replied. She showcased the Insignia and the gem was glowing. “See?” the insignia glinted in the light before Felt handed it to Rom. “This one’s got a jewel in it, so I had to work pretty hard for it. If you can pay enough to match my effort, then we’ll both be happy.” Felt said.

“I have no money.” Subaru didn’t delude Felt.

“Then we have nothing to discuss!” Felt interrupted while doing a cute angry motion.

Subaru waved a finger at Felt. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. I don’t have any money, but I have things worth money.” Subaru withdrew his phone. “What I have here is a magical device that can stop time for everyone, everywhere: a cell phone.”

“Eh, close enough.” Tanya gave her retroactive permission. “It actually uses light and a lot of required secondary technologies to work.”

The fantasy characters nodded in understanding.

“What’s that?” Felt asked. 

“Never seen one of those before.” Rom said.

“The earliest form of Cameras are large boxes. Though even in my time we’ve shrunk it to be man-portable.” Zettour said.

The cowboy/industrial revolution era box with a tripod and cape appeared. Then cut to the 203rd soldier carrying the video camera. Filming the destruction of the Mosca from the Tanya Movie.

“So that should be the first form of cameras.” Zettour finished.

Subaru opened his phone and went to the camera app. “Take this! Nine shots per second: Continuous Shots!” Subaru said while taking pictures. 

“Whoa! Hey! What’s that sound! And that was too bright!” Felt complained.

“Are you tryin’ to kill us?” Rom asked. “Don’t you go makin’ light of this old man with dodgy tricks like that!” 

“Now hold on!” Subaru said while presenting the photos he took.

“Is this…” Felt asked.

Felt’s eyes ominously glowed in the camera light.

“Required secondary technologies indeed.” Zettour said. “For us it would take a few hours to develop the photo or film in a specialized room. Film meaning moving pictures displayed in theaters like this room.”

The fantasy characters nodded.

“Them’s me and Felt’s faces.” Rom said. “What sort of magic is that?”

“I told you, it’s a mystical item that can freeze a moment in time.” Subaru explained again. “With this, you can capture moments in time and store them in here.”

“I see! That’s amazing!” Felt said.

“Never seen the like!” Rom said. “Is that one of the “metia” I’ve been hearing about?”

“Metia?” Subaru questioned.

“It's the name for devices that lets people who haven’t opened their gate use magic, like real magic users.” Rom explained.

“I’m more concerned with the price.” Felt said. “What can I get out of this metia?”

“Well, it's my first time using a metia, too.” Rom explained further. “But I'd say there’s no doubt it’ll fetch more than that insignia.”

“Yeah it would have, If I wasn’t an unaware asshole.” Roswaal hid his eye twitching.

“Then that settles it! This cell phone for that insignia! Negotiations complete!” Subaru said.

“Did you get killed on the way to finding Emilia?” Aura asked.

Subaru declined to reply knowing that Felt’s next words were all the answers the room needed.

“Nope! Not yet!” Felt snapped the insignia out of Rom’s hand.

“Why not?” Subaru asked.

“You’re not the only one that I’m negotiating with for this.” Felt said, putting another nail in her coffin.  “Besides, I nabbed this insignia because I was asked to.”

The room except the Emilia camp made a noise of understanding.

“So that’s why Elsa is there, she’s the client.” Lergen voiced the room’s deduction.

“My client said I could get ten holy coins for it.” Felt explained.

“You already had a deal with the one you stole it for?” Subaru needed to hear it again. “I don’t know what ten holy coins would be worth, but…”

“That metia you’ve got would be worth at least twenty holy coins…” Rom laid out a barebones price. “No, there are probably fanciers out there who’d pay more for a thing like that.”

“I doubt anyone could afford the phone if anyone realized what it actually is.” Naofumi said. “But in that case it loops back around to being worthless.”

The room nodded.

“Really? That means I can get away with overcharging for it!” Felt said.

“So, when and where are you meeting your client?” Subaru asked.

“Don’t worry. The negotiations will be held here.” Felt assured Subaru. “If a little thing like me dealt with them alone, I’d be sunk if a client decided to bilk on me. But I don’t have to worry with Old Man Rom here.”

Elsa knocked on the door.

“Do they know the password?” Rom asked.

“Oh, I didn’t mention it.” Felt said. “That's probably for me. I’ll go check.” Felt got up and walked past the camera.

“You’re okay with her using you like that?” Subaru asked.

“Well, it ain’t like we’re total strangers.” Rom said while standing up. “I’ve known her a long time, so I’ll help her out.”

“You know, even I have to give a wry chuckle at the sight of someone looking like such a barbarian.” Subaru said as Rom calmly laid his club underneath his bar.

“Well, look at where we are.” Rom said. “Everyone around here is just desperate to survive. Its common for youngsters to join forces with others in similar situations to keep themselves alive. But Felt ain’t cut out for that. That’s why I gotta look out for her.”

Subaru made a small impressed noise at Rom’s compassion.

“I was right. It was for me.” Felt said.

Elsa slowly walked in through the door.

“Ah, so that’s what Elsa looks like.” Rapthalia said.

“I wonder if someone’s ever disemboweled her.” Tanya said. “She does have a convenient stomach window after all.”

Rem started thinking of ways to disembowel people with her flail.

“Over here. Can you sit down?” Felt said pointing at the table in the middle of the room.

“There seems to be several outsiders here.” Elsa stated while staying near the door.

Felt put her hands behind her head. “Well, I’ll be in trouble if you decided to bilk on me.” Felt turned to Rom. “We weaklings have our own brand of smarts.”

“I know this older fellow, but who’s the younger man?” Elsa asked.

“This guy’s your rival.” Felt said. The camera angle changed to look down upon Felt and Subaru from above Elsa’s head. “He’s the other person negotiating with me.”

The camera slid around Subaru’s head to showcase Elsa in an ominous manner. With quiet eerie sound effects to match. A quick flash to the outside displaying lower light levels for a timeskip before Elsa drank from a glass. She licked the fuzz from her lips.

“I see.” Elsa said.

“A morbid fact, Elsa shares a voice with mom.” Subaru nonchalantly said. “So I was primed to ignore any and all simularities, cause they are instantly stupid.”

The room except Subaru took a deep breath through the nose, counted for 10 seconds before letting it go out the mouth.

“To be fair there are a lot of famous voices in this room.” Naofumi said.

“That, and well, jumping to oh hey you time travel upon death, isn’t something my mind instantly jumped to. I had to see the corn potage intact for that to click into my head.” Subaru clarified. “Among my subconscious grieving/reeling from the sights of corpses and the sensation of dying.”

“I understand the situation now.” Elsa said as the camera zoomed out to show all four of them at the table.

Rom had his arms crossed at the head of the table, visually placing himself between Elsa and Felt/Subaru.

“So that means you two will be bidding against each other.” Felt said. “I don’t really care who gets the insignia, so I’ll sell it to the highest bidder.”

“I think I like that personality of yours.” Elsa complimented Felt. Elsa gestured to Subaru. “So how much did this young man bid?”

Subaru withdrew his phone. “I’m putting up this metia. It’s a rare item, probably the only one of its kind in this world.” Subaru took a picture of Elsa. “That muscleman tells me it's worth no less than twenty holy coins.” Subaru showed her the photo he took.

“A metia…” Elsa said. Elsa nodded in understanding thus Subaru folded his phone to preserve the battery. “As it happens, the client sent me with some extra funds.”

“And we’re going full Matryoshka Plotting.” Visha rested her head in her hands. “There better not be a client behind this client.”

“Would Teacher count as my Client? I have followed her Gospel for the past four hundred years.” Roswaal pondered.

Kazuma made a noise of exasperation. “The chain of clients better not reach all the way back to the Witch.”

“If the Witch Cult was involved, I presume that Elsa would have been given more than she had. They must be funded by raiding.” Subaru said.

“Right, cause I doubt anyone would donate to the terrorists” Tanya said.

The others nodded.

“Just so I’d be prepared to sweeten the deal.” Elsa said.

“The client… So you were asked to fetch it, too?” Subaru asked.

Elsa did a slight nod. “That’s right. The client is the one who wants it.”

“No, I just wanted the Time Traveler that would come if I did that. And use him to get back to Teacher. Except in that manner the insignia is worthless for me.” Roswaal thought.

“Would you be in the same business?” Elsa asked.

The room laughed.

“If by the same business, you mean willing to do anything to save our loved ones? Then yes we are.” Roswaal thought.

“Being in the same business as me would mean they’re unemployed!” Subaru stated.

“There’s being an honest person, and then there’s that.” Naofumi said.

The others nodded while Subaru blushed.

The faint music that was playing halted upon Subaru hooking his thumb towards himself.

“So, this unemployed guy has named a price that puts him far in the lead.” Felt said after a moment of silence for Subaru’s awkwardness. Subaru lowered his hand now that he wasn’t the center of attention. “What price is your master putting on it?”

Elsa turned for her coin purse. She laid out a small pile of silvery coins with a dragon and a tree engraved on them. Along with a script that I don’t know the translations of. …if they exist. Felt’s hair bobbed as she let out a gasp of surprise. The room was silent except for Rom counting the coins and the faint string music. Even Rom was shocked at the amount of money he was handling.

“Twenty exactly.” Rom said.

“Well… that is …abysmal luck.” Satoru searched for words as the room nodded. “Assuming those are the holy coins.”

“Those are the holy coins.” Emilia confirmed.

“Okay so whoever hired Elsa is definitely a rival to the throne.” Tanya said. “That or a rival nation is interfering with the election. Because I assume that Elsa’s fees are not cheap.”

“Do we meet whoever hired Elsa?” Puck asked in a too-sweet voice.

=Yes, in Season 2. And comeuppance is vigorously applied.= Weaver informed.

Puck sighed and curled over. “I was hoping for this season but no, we have ‘better’ things to be doing.”

Emilia patted her father’s head. “At least it won’t be in a century and we find out in their post-death journal.”

“Why do I have the mental image of me being a chipmunk?” Roswaal thought as Puck nodded in agreement.

“These are all the holy coins my employer sent with me.” Elsa said. “Is it not quite enough?”

Subaru had a face that read as ‘what the hell is this luck?’

“You’re a man! Don’t make that pathetic face!” Rom encouraged. “I told you, your metia is worth no less than twenty…”

Subaru reacted to something I can’t see in Elsa’s face or eyes.

“As I see it, victory in this deal is leaning towards the boy.” Rom finished. “Sorry for you and your employer, but you’d better bag up those coins and leave.”

Subaru did a premature celebration.

“Wh-What? What’s wrong with a little victory pose? I’m psyched!” Subaru sensed the audience’s discontent.

“No one said anything.” Felt countered the paranoid boy. “Go as crazy as you want. I don’t care, so long as I get my profit.”

“Ah, so that’s why they died the last time. Felt let her greed control her and made a demand of Elsa that she couldn’t pay.” Seiya deduced. “Either that or Elsa was ordered to clean up.”

The room nodded in agreement.

Elsa stood up. The camera zoomed out to showcase the entire room at an eerie angle.

“Uh, sorry, Elsa. You’ll probably get in trouble, huh?” Subaru forgot that she was a killer. Thus starting the long chain of forgiving his killers.

Elsa shook her head. “It can’t be helped. It was my employer’s fault for trying to underpay.” Elsa drank once more. “Well, this deal ended in disappointment for me, but I’ll be taking my leave now.” Elsa licked her lips. “By the way, what do you intend to do with the insignia?”

“Don’t you dare answer honestly.” Kazuma futilely commanded.

“I’ll be returning this to its owner.” Subaru naively said.

The room except Subaru facepalmed and groaned in disbelief at his stupidity and/or naivety. Subaru however rivaled Albedo’s blush.

“Okay I get that she shares a voice with your mother. And that you dismissed your previous life as a dream/delusion. But why didn’t her glares trigger your sense of danger?” Raphtalia asked.

Subaru merely let his natural mean/yakuza eyes show.

And Subaru’s Mom did the same revealing where he got them from.

“Of course. Why not?” Raphtalia said while resting her head in her hands at yet another coincidence.

The room except Subaru joined her in her exasperation.

“Don’t worry. I’ll remember that law enforcement exists and get some help.” Subaru assured the room.

Felt and Rom instantly looked at Subaru for his audacity. Subaru’s visible eye widened in fear. The camera zoomed out multiple times focused on Elsa.

“Oh… you’re with them. then.” Elsa said with a wicked smile on her face. She tilted her head down, casting a shadow over her eyes.

Felt tackled Subaru out of the way of Elsa slicing.

“Do you want to die?!” Felt asked.

“Oh, my.” Elsa said, causing the two of them to look at her. “You dodged my strike.” Elsa held up her kukri blade which glinted/produced a lens flare.

“Where am I? I should have reached the Loot House by now.” Emilia said.

=Simple. Felt had hired distractions.= Weaver explained.

“So I was able to help by staying with Felt.” Subaru breathed a sigh of relief.

“The amount Felt would have gotten couldn’t allow her to leave the slums.” Roswaal said after doing a quick mental calculation. “Especially not after paying for enough distractions for the transaction to complete.”

“So I would have arrived after sunset anyways, possibly even after Elsa had left.” Emilia thought aloud. “Joy!” Emilia said sarcastically.

The table went thud as Rom tossed it out of his way before charging Elsa with his club at the ready. Elsa leaped onto the table dodging Rom’s first attack. She backflipped over Rom’s table pulverizing attack.

“This is my first battle to the death with a giant!” Elsa exclaimed in glee as she landed on the bar top/counter.

“Quiet, little girl! I’ll grind you up and feed you to the rats!” Rom said as he charged once more.

Elsa dodged by hopping next to the tossed table. Rom’s next hit was blocked by Elsa’s Kukri and produced sparks. Rom smashed another table as Elsa leapt to the fourth table. Their weapons clashed producing sparks once again. Rom smashed a crate before Elsa ducked under one of his swings which smashed into the wall. Leaving broken wooden planks to fly everywhere.

The chandeliers swayed as Rom futilely swung and missed. Elsa backflipped over Rom himself after one of his swings.

“This is bad!” A blurry out of focus Subaru said.

“Don’t worry! There’s no way Old Man Rom would lose.” Felt said.

“Riiiight, even though he hasn’t landed a single hit yet.” Kazuma sarcastically said.

“Take this!” Rom shouted as he wound up for a more damaging swing.

Elsa twirled and cleanly sliced through Rom’s elbow. A string instrument played as Rom grunted in realization.

“Old Man Rom!” Felt shouted in concern.

Rom’s arm landed next to her. His blood dripped next to and onto his foot.

“Damn it!” Rom said in pain with his cut off arm behind him.

Elsa bent down to pick up her glass. “I forgot to say…”

“I can at least take you with me!” Rom charged once last time.

Elsa tore out his throat with the milk jug. “Thank you for the milk.” Elsa said.

Rom spewed blood, staining his teeth. Before falling backwards landing on a crate.

“I’ll return this.” Elsa said.

Elsa put the blood stained glass on the floor.

“You bitch… How dare you?” Felt said while standing up.

Elsa stood up from her lean and looked at Felt.

“Oh? It seems you have more courage than your friend there.” Elsa said. “But if you resist, you might very well get hurt.”

“I’ll kill you, even if you don’t fight back, you psychopath!” Felt said with the camera zoomed in revealing Rom’s blood splattered all over her. She wiped some of the blood off.

Elsa tossed her kukri in a spin and caught it as she said. “If you move around, my hands might slip.” Elsa tossed and caught her blade once more, pointing the tip towards Felt. “I’m quite rough at handling blades, you see.”

Felt turned her head to Subaru. “Sorry you got caught up in this.” Felt bent over and put a hand on her dagger.

“I.I.” Subaru tried to speak, perhaps an apology.

Felt accelerated and condensation swirled around her.

“Did she just break the sound barrier?” Kazuma asked.

“If she is Mach One, then she would have reached Elsa by now. Either going through Elsa and ripping her organs out. Or tackle Elsa into, if not through, the walls of the loot house.” Tany explained. “Besides, it's not like Subaru is absurdly small and thus Od Laguna’s meters are bigger than ours. But because he is the same size as them, then either he got the standardized size adjustment or the size discrepancy doesn’t exist.”

Subaru was sitting on a regular sized Puck’s head, who in turn was sitting on his daughter’s head.

“Also, Elsa killed Felt once and we’re about to see her do it again. The only difference that Elsa has to the other Cursed Dolls is her sanity. So if Felt is Mach One, Elsa is also at least Mach 1. Do you really want a repeatedly reproduced regenerative assassin that can reach at least Mach 1?” Tanya asked. “Because that seems like America Superhero Comics, which is a bit too close to DC (where the Power Rings originated) or Marvel (its life long competitor) for my tastes/comfort.”

Kazuma wheezed as Tanya metaphorically beat some perspective into him.

“Blessing of the Wind.” Elsa instantly identified Felt’s Divine Protection.

Felt swirled around Elsa, strain visible on Felt’s face as she went to attack. Felt unleashed a greenish-white slash that Elsa presumably dodged. Or Felt missed because she was unused to combat at this speed.

“How wonderful. I can see you are loved by this world.” Elsa said with her hair jiggling. Elsa blinked. “I envy you!”

Elsa twirled, unleashing a purplish-white slash that eclipsed Felt in height. Visually dividing Felt in half on the vertical axis. Felt’s blood exploded outwards and to the side in a circle pattern. Splattering over a vase and a framed picture before cutting to Subaru’s horrified face. He wheezed in fear as Felt fell and the noise of a crystal chandelier played. The impact of Felts knees hitting the wooden floor echoed dramatically loud.

Felt’s chin and neck were covered in her own blood. The rest of Felt’s body was louder than her knees as it impacted the floor. Elsa turned to the still sitting Subaru.

“The old man and the girl have fallen, yet you aren’t moving.” Elsa noted. “Have you given up?”

In response Subaru shuffled to his feet.

“D-Damn it…” Subaru muttered as faint piano keys played. Specifically the first few notes of Rondo of Love and Darkness.

“Ah, you finally stood up.” Elsa said. “It’s less fun since you took so long, but still, not bad.” Elsa praised Subaru.

The Rondo kicked up in intensity as the camera swapped between Elsa and Subaru’s faces a few times. The Rondo went silent as Subaru took a deep breath before returning louder as he charged Elsa. Elsa merely shoved one of Subaru’s arms out of her way before spin-kicking him in the gut, tossing him back to where he began. The camera hanging from the ceiling to highlight the gap between them.

“It’s no use, though. I can see you’re a novice, and your movements are rough.” Elsa said as Subaru wheezed on the ground. “You have no blessings or techniques. I’d hoped I could squeeze some wisdom out of you, but you lack that, too.” Elsa ranted in disappointment.

“Shut up! I do have my pride!” Subaru said while holding a hand over his mouth to prevent blood puking. “After you put me through all of this…”

“I do acknowledge that you have extraordinary determination.” Elsa said. “If only you could’ve done that sooner, things might have gone differently for these two.” Elsa turned to the dead bodies on the floor. The camera flashed to said dead bodies before Elsa turned back to Subaru and licked her lips. Subaru made a weird noise before realizing something. Subaru flashed back to the previous loop.

His memories lingered on his gut wound. Subaru blinked in realization and the seed of a plan to survive manifested. 

“It’s time to end this.” Elsa said while the camera looked up at her from her feet. Elsa walked forward. “I’ll send you to the angels.”

The music kicked up with vocals as Subaru adopted a basic stance. Elsa ran towards and through the camera. Her eyes glinted as she swung her Kuriki. Subaru twisted his ankle and dodged Elsa’s swipe. The blade sharply whistled as it missed. Subaru grunted as he spin-kicked Elsa, tossing her backwards a few feet, silencing the music.

“Ah… I certainly felt that one.” Elsa moaned in masochistic pleasure.

Subaru’s determined look faded into shock as the pain hit. Subaru looked down at his gut causing the camera to pan down. Revealing that Elsa’s slicing range was longer than her physical blade. Ominous bubble(?) sounds played as the camera panned down, becoming deafening once the full gash was revealed. 

“Are you surprised?” Elsa asked as the camera panned rightwards behind Subaru. Causing her to disappear behind him like an eclipse. “I opened up your belly when we passed by one another.” Subaru collapsed futilely trying to keep his bowels in. “This is the one thing I excel at.”

Subaru’s blood instantly pooled on the floor. Elsa walked over and crouched down to peel back Subaru’s skin to see his guts. 

“As I thought…” Elsa moaned. “Your guts have such a lovely color!” 

“It hurts! It hurts! It hurts! It hurts!” Subaru thought as he strained to look at Elsa. “It hurts! It hurts!”

“It… doesn’t hurt?” Subaru thought, finally reaching the medical state shock.

“Does it hurt? Are you suffering?” Elsa asked. “In pain? Sad? Do you want to die?”

“Die?” Subaru thought before the camera focused on his bloody face. “ Am I dead? Am I still alive? When will I die? When will I die?” the outlines of his past live played over Subaru’s face. 

The outlines continued as Elsa’s basically masturbating face came into view. “Slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly…”

“Is she going to orgasm into his wounds?”  Shalltear and Darkness thought.

“I’m scared… I’m scared.” Subaru mentally weeped as Elsa continued to whisper ‘Slowly’. “ I’m scared! I’m scared! I’m scared!”

Subaru’s vision was overtaken by his memories of the first loop and his tears. “ I’m gonna die! I’m gonna die! I’m gonna die!”

“Yes, you’re slowly losing body heat…” Elsa said, while barely visible underneath the past. “You’re slowly growing cold…”

“Oh… I’m dead.” Was Subaru’s last thought in the black void of death.

The camera looked at the tired Subaru in front of Kadomon’s stand.

“Oh, please don’t let me die.” Sung by a woman. They were the first words to Styx Helix. A soft electronic beat played. 

“And we’re already at the end.” Emilia sighed while leaning her forehead against her hand.

“What’s the matter, boy? You look like you saw a ghost.” Kadomon asked.

“Waiting for your touch.” the woman continued singing.

Subaru slowly looked at Kadomon in disbelief. Who returned his disbelieving look.

“Boy? You okay?” Kadomon asked.

Most of the room shook their heads in the negative.

“No, don’t give up on life.” The woman sang.

Subaru wobbled. “I have no idea what’s going on anymore…”

“This endless dead end.” The woman sang.

Subaru collapsed to the right. As the screen faded to black we see Kadomon attempting to catch Subaru and the crowd watching. The screen fades back in as Subaru laid on a staircase. Kadomon splashed some water on Subaru, jolting him awake. 

“A defective hourglass counts my life away.” the woman sang.

Subaru looked at Kadomon in utter confusion. 

“Are you okay, boy?” Kadomon asked a redundant question. “Here, forget the money. Just take these.”

“Grains of memory, spilling out.”The woman sang.

Kadomon offered his merchandise to Subaru. Subaru sat up to take the offered wares, the small crowd looked on in concern. 

“Will the feelings I developed.” The woman sang.

Subaru saw Emilia passing by, a crystal chime played as the surroundings blurred into white. Leaving only Emilia.

“Escape just as easily?”

Subaru’s head just followed Emilia. Subaru got up.

“Hey… Wait…” Subaru said while stumbling to chase after Emilia. “Wait! Please, wait!” Subaru clumsily chased after Emilia. “Wait! Satella!”

The room winced at the faux paus Subaru just committed.

“I’m sorry for being so rude.” Subaru said.

Emilia caressed Subaru’s face, forcing him to look her in the eyes. “It's okay. You literally didn’t know any better, and I wouldn’t have responded to anything else you knew about me. Save for Puck but that would only arouse suspicion.” Emilia waited for Subaru to nod in understanding. “I forgive you.” she waited until he nodded in understanding once more before letting go.

Everyone just stared at Subaru in shock and horror for actually voicing what they all thought. 

“I wish I was there.” the woman whispered.

Emilia stopped.

“Oh please don’t let me die.” the woman returned to a regular volume.

“Please don’t ignore me.” Subaru wheezed.

“Waiting for your touch.” The camera panned to reveal Subaru behind Emilia.

“Me dying and not doing what you said were my fault!” Subaru said.

Most of the room frowned.

“So he can tell you in a blunt fashion.” Zettour rubbed his head.

“But only if you literally don’t care about him or what he’s saying?” Darkness questioned while resting her temples on her palms.

“What a useless information gathering ability.” Demiurge voiced what the room thought.

“So that you’ll never lose anything ever again.” Styx Helix continued.

Subaru walked closer before collapsing, holding himself up with his hands on his knees. “But I was desperate.”

“Please forget me and [Re:start]”

Subaru breathed heavily. “I went back to the loot house after that, but I couldn’t find you…”

Emilia turned her head in disgust and confusion.

“No, don’t give up on life.”

“I’m sorry for only thinking of myself.” Subaru said.

“This endless dead end.”

“But I’m glad you’re alright, Satella.” Subaru said.

“I hope the sadness tearing you apart.”

Emilia finished turning and glared at Subaru with disgust visible in her eyes.

“Will someday come to an end.”

“What are you thinking?” Emilia asked in a furious whisper.

Subaru jolted in shock at Emilia’s reaction to the only name she gave him. The camera showed the entire marketplace looking at him in disbelief. Even the sole human among them.

“I don’t know who you are-” Emilia continued in a low tone.

“For now I’ll see you off.”

“But don’t call me by the name of the Envious Witch!” Emilia finished.

“Sorry for being so rude.” Subaru said.

“You literally had no idea to the contrary, it's okay, I forgive you.” Emilia soothed again.

“What are you thinking?!” Emilia basically yelled.

“And we’ll die waiting for a new day.”

Subaru’s face twisted further in shock and appalled at himself, realizing that he caused Emilia to look at him in that way.

“Never again”

Emilia’s and the marketplace’s disgust was reflected in Subaru’s iris. Clearly visible now that the entire screen was Subaru’s iris. Subaru blinked twice before the camera swapped to show Emilia’s iris, Subaru’s horror also visible in her iris.

“And we’ll start waiting for a new day. Together with you…”

A black screen with the title: “The End of the Beginning and the Beginning of the End.” and the first ‘Begin’ was in purple while the rest of the title was white. Styx Helix’s playover was finally done as the title slowly crawled away into the black void.

“So one more loop before you escape Elsa.” Weiss said. “Hopefully the next show will be more uplifting.”

“We’ll try our best to be uplifting.” the Konosuba cast said in unison.

==========

Previews:

Re zero s1 ep4.

“Space don’t run from Time. It never works.” Kazuma said.

“True, I suppose.” Beatrice said while hanging her head.

Re:zero whenever Paradise paradoxum gains its animation:

Ravens and/or Crows flew in a circle.

The room let out a groan.

Re zero s2 ep1

Rem grabbed Crush and jumped above the convoy of evacuees. Just in the nick of time as Regulus threw a pebble utterly obliterating it.

Rem groaned. “Gluttony and Greed?”

Tanya s1 ep2

Tanya moved her infant head.

“I want to say Being X is cruel because I felt the train, remembering all of my diaper changes, and being trapped in a body that I couldn’t control.” Tanya started. “But my memories skipped from that scene, to when I was roughly 3 and a half when my body firmly gained control over itself. Thankfully skipping all of the bladder and bowel training. So Being X isn’t that terrible and thus would be lies, if we ignore his idiocy of plunging the entire earth into a world war just to generate faith without providing necessary things like afterlives or anything. At least compared to the Witch.” Tanya smiled sarcastically. “Congrats Being X, you’ve passed the bare minimum and failed the bare minimum at the same time.”

“So we’ve got the Ultimate Heretical girl literally fighting the entire world, me the unwilling God Emperor of the Tomb of Horrors, an Immortal Time Looper, and a boy who dragged a Goddess down from Heaven.” Satoru said and rested his head in his hands. “Why am I the normal/sane one?”

Tanya s1 ep 10ish.

“Did we just?” Weiss started.

“Causally.” Vishia continued.

“Prevent the entire Francois military.” Grantz said.

“From noticing our entire Military retreating.” Koenig said.

“By ourselves?!” Neumann finished.

“Yes we did.” Tanya said. “And we didn’t need any of Being X’s help to do so.”

Konosuba s1 ep1.

“And because of this chaos, everyone is becoming infertile.” Aqua rapidly explained.

“So the Orc Conundrum is everyone’s fate.” Megumin said.

I forgot that in the first episode Aqua said that no one is choosing to reincarnate into Megumin’s world. The light novel clarified that as “No More Babies”, so the Demon King is literally making the world sterile.

….

“I’m surprised that you didn’t say that Heroes marry into Belzerg’s Royalty if they killed a Demon King, and Nobility if they didn’t.” Darkness said. “Thus the Royal Family has abilities on par with the Heroic Cheats.”

“Why only Belzerg?” Aura asked.

“We’re the frontlines and have been for countless Demon Kings.” Megumin said.

“Thus the other nations provide elite troops to shore up our defenses and give other types of support. But the main financial backer of Belzerg is Elroad, a nation built on gamblnig.” Darkness clarified. Vol10 stuff.

A magic circle appeared and trapped Aqua and Kazuma in corridors of light.

=Disconcerting fact: the angel that replaced Aqua is utterly terrible at selling the romance of another world and the rest of the gods/divine beings are too busy to take up that job. So Kazuma and Mitsugi are the last Reincarnated people until Aqua regains her job.= Weaver informed.

“Yay.” Kazuma said sarcastically. “No backup for removing the sterilization.”

“Yay.” Aqua said sarcastically. “I’ll have an even larger than I anticipated paperwork backlog! ...And potential educational reforms to make.” 

Konosuba s1 ep4

The castle was heavily deteriorated from the daily explosions spanning at least a month or two.

“You're going to need a new scratching post soon.” Tanya said.

Konosuba s1 ep6

“Are you really a beginner?” Beldia asked while we got a bird eye view. “Isn’t this town a gathering place for beginners?”

“Yes it is, in the Od Laguna sense/scale. Be glad it isn’t DC or Marvel or even worse, Being X’s Scales.” Satoru said.

Beldia tossed his head and spawned the Eye of Sauron.

“No. He did not spawn the Eye of Sauron in actuality.” Kazuma clarified.

Konosuba s1 ep5

“Okay. That lake took hours to clean via basic purification via touching AND even more hours of back to back repeated purification spells. Both of which are from a Literal Goddess whose domains/build is entirely built around purification because of her symbolism.” Satoru rubbed his temples. “Was that lake from my earth?”

“Probably.” Aqua shrugged and nodded.

.-

“I want to hit him.” Darkness foreshadowed her sadistic side awakening in vol 7 or 8 when a hydra rolled over trying to kill her and Kazuma.

“I still want to hit him.” Darkness backed up her past self.

Konosuba s1 ep 8.

“He was the sort who often rolled his head by my feet and looked up my skirt.” Wiz said.

“I was correct.” Darkness beamed.

Overlord s1 ep 10/11

Brain fled the abusive vampire.

“You could at least try a little harder/longer!” Shalltear complained. “I know there's like a 90/60 level difference, but everyone else tries! Can we drain some of Subaru’s Determination and inject it into Brain’s spine?”

“Oi. I need that determination.” Subaru countered.

“I said some.” Shalltear clarified.

Overlord s1 ep12/13

The malshapened statues of the other guild members lined the walls.

The room shivered in discomfort as misery metaphorically dripped from them.

“And yet more Uncanny Valley, Sorry.” Satoru apologized.

Re zero s1 ep 24

Merchant!Petelguese flicked open his metia.

“And they have cell phones. Great!” Emilia said sarcastically.

Re zero s1 ep 25.

The Witch’s extra long arms phased through Petelguese’s fingers.

“No.” The Witch of Envy/Satella said sharing the same voice as Emilia. “You are not the one.”

Before literally bitchslapping Petelguese out of Subaru’s body.

“I guess I'm literally immune to possession.” Subaru said. 

“One try? Wimp.” Tanya said.

“At least Brain tried multiple times.” Shalltear nodded in agreement.

….

Subaru wrote The End in Petelguese’s future telling Gospel. A caption overlaid translated it for the non Od Laguna residents.

“Well that's one way to end a book.” Tanya smirked.

Petelguese’s sleeve caught in the wheel grinding the spirit to nothingness.

“Natsuki Subaru!” Petelguese tone shifted from normal to Demonic/Eldritch as he died.

The last hand of Petelguese reached out and dissipated just before reaching Subaru’s face.

“Will you finally stay dead?” Emilia asked. 

“Please don’t make me invent a way to bring the Elder Coffin Dragon Lord to obliterate you.” Subaru begged. “The clean up will/would be atrocious.”

Re zero s1 ep 8/9

Subaru tried to comfort Emilia in the throes of Echidna’s trials but couldn’t. It had finally clicked how the entire world saw Emilia.

I’m sorry that-me can’t comfort you. Subaru said.

Emilia caressed Subaru and forced him to look in the eyes once more. “It’s okay. I would be vastly more worried if you could comfort me after directly meeting her.” Emilia waited until he nodded in agreement before letting go.

Re zero s2 ep 14-19

Petelguese was a radically different man before he got on the drug known as ‘Sloth’.

“Sorry I've killed your father.” Subaru hung his head.

Emilia gripped Subaru’s shoulders tightly. “Geuse wouldn’t want to live in that state any longer. And what we’ve seen in the loops, I’m glad the Victory Loop me hadn’t crossed paths with that monster which stole Geuse’s everything. We now know why that Old man Petelguese cried upon sighting me. ”

Re zero s2 whenever Pandora shows her smug face first.

Pandora showed herself from behind Regulus to Fortuna and Geuse.

The room’s temperature instantly plummeted to the point where everyone’s breath was visible. While spiky icicles climbed their way upwards from Emilia's throne. Puck waved his tail as he dissolved the icicles and reverted the temperature to normal.

Emilia blushed. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Lergen waved off her concern. “I would do the same if I could.”

…

Pandora deleted her death and appeared utterly intact.

“Valkyrie, please help.” Emilia prayed for the Cautious Hero Goddess.

The room twitched.

“And we have yet another Subaru from the outside.” Seiya groaned.

Re zero s2

“Die! Die! Die!” Emilia shouted as she froze herself and Elior Forest.

“So it really was me.” Emilia said.

“But Pandora provoked you.” Subaru said while rubbing her back 

Overly Cautious s1 ep5

“Yuck. No thanks.” Seiya ruthlessly denied Adenela’s love.

“You could be less rude about it.” Rem said.

Shield Hero s2 ep 6.

“Why is there another Heroic Suicide?” Tanya asked.

Bloopers:

Reason for deletion: too much information to process and thus would devalue their reaction to RBD. thus I can;t do this and RBD justice in the same chapter.

Emilia comforted the young girl, only for the girl to see Emilia’s ears and descend further into crying.

“Did the uncanny valley just activate?” Tanya asked.

“The difference between actual Lovecraftian and Eldritch is simple. Lovecraft breaks your mind upon nearing them, Eldrith is simply odd biology like.” Tanya said.

“Dormammu, I’ve come to bargain!” Stephen Strange announced to a sky-face.

“Of course you would use Dormammu.” Subaru said in exasperation.

“When it comes to madness it has a lot of different flavors.but we’ll focus on the most common.” Aqua said. “The first flavor, complete and utter mind breaks.”

Rem and Subaru rode Patrache out of the fog and a loud Whale call echoed out. Soldiers screamed and Rem clutched her head as their minds were assaulted. A soldier tore at his eye socket leaving gashes under his eye. Another exposed one of his arms muscles before starting to repeatedly slam his head against the ground. Re:zero s1 ep20 was shown as the caption.

“Of course.” The Emilia camp bitterly said in unison.

“It's nice to know I will get the army to fight the whale.” Subaru thought.

“I would have thought Satoru would be facing Lovecraft, cause with all his minions only World/Planet-level Threats such as alien invasions would be challenging.” Aqua said. “But anyho, there’s the feral type.”

Maka Alburn swung Soul Eater in his scythe form at Crona Gorgon in a stylish but refined manner. Crona leaked some of their Black Blood forming their Sword-Symbiote Ragnarok, their ungainly movements and liquid cheating allowed them to draw some of Maka’s Black Blood. After a fade to black Maka caught one of Crona’s slashes as Black Blood dripped down from her crescent grin.

Maka punched away Crona and stood on Soul’s Polearm in an animalistic wide pose while laughing.

“Don’t do Black Blood kids, it's really difficult to remove once in your body. Like Cancer but in Soul form! And what's fun about Soul Eater (in the “apply firm beating until things start making sense again” way) is that this Feral-Mutagenic madness isn’t the only type in the verse.” Aqua said.

The room floundered for words.

“I was fairly certain it was impossible for human blood to be black.” Satoru shrugged. “But other worlds are other worlds.”

“Huh, I would have thought we would get Mutagenic with the Brethren Moon. I forgot how ...efficient Soul Eater was with madness.” Kazuma said.

“I had a proposal to purge those hideous things out of existence but noooo, we can’t expand over to that verse and create some actual moons. Stupid ftl communcation body horror generators-” Aqua’s burgeoning rant against the Brethren Moon was silenced by Kazuma’s hand.

“Let’s just say there’s a reason why that world is called Dead Space on backup/storage Earths.” Kazuma explained.

“By moon you don’t mean the one in the night sky right?” Visha pleaded.

The final flavor of madness we will be covering is the enlightenment. Tanya picked up the slack

“For Lovecraft we will only focus on Shoggoths, Deep Ones, and Chtuluhu (sometimes the Lovecraftian mythos is called the Cthulhu mythos). Because Lovecraft’s stories became public domain and thus a whole horde of actors exist.” Tanya said.

A text wall including but not limited to: Hastur, Shub-Niggurath, the Dark Young, the Pluto alien name I can’t remember. All scrolled by.

“Shoggoths are the tools of precursors who have an unyielding desire to build with the ability to shape their liquid bodies however they like to facilitate that desire.” Subaru said.

“Of course in other authors' hands Shoggoths only promote exasperation.” Naofumi said. “Like say, meeting a T-rex.”

A statue of a T-rex shattered revealing the still alive T-rex inside. Its first action was to squash Idol Rapier as Naofumi, Rapthalia, and Filo wisely fled. Shield Hero s1 eps 15/16 appeared.

“For reference the entire group of species called dinosaurs have been dead for 60 million years.” Naofumi clarified. “Through some process I don’t know about, scientists got the bright idea that Dinosaurs (literally Terrible Lizards) are in fact avians. So.” 

Fitora appeared in her colossal floofy bird form and the T-rex roared. Each with the captions “Dinosaurs now.” and “Dinosaurs then”. 

The room chuckled.

“Though I don’t understand why dinosaurs equals dragons.” Naofumi said.

*insert rant about Abrahamic Angels being both Eldritch Horrors and Human-passable shapeshifters. Neon Genesis Evangelion. Final Fantasy’s Sephiroth. (maybe) Bludgeon Angel Dokuro San and more To-Aru angels with Mishia (the Power of God).*

“Thus demons became the ‘safer’ option, which I find stupid-” Naofumi said.

Filo spread her wings revealing/reminding the room that she was in fact an Angel loli.

“-for obvious reasoning.” Naofumi finished..

“Hence why the Shoggoth Maids came to be.” Satoru deduced.

“This is why humanity’s perspective on the undead changed. Resulting in stories like Dark Souls, Hellsing, and Ace Attorney to name a few.” Naofumi said.

“Say that to my Mayo chugging friend.” von Karma said from the Phoenix Wright: Is Soup A Drink?

“Really.” Subaru gave Weaver a deadpan stare. “But yeah Mayo is a drink. Cite: My 777 bottle caps of Mayo. Though I don’t love mayo, I just like it.”

The room looked at him, all with a deadpan expression.

“Define: ‘Love’.” Albedo said.

“7777 bottle caps of Mayo. Which is my dad’s collection.” Subaru said.

Puck floated over and grabbed Subaru’s cheeks, unknowingly mimicking Gordon Ramsey’s Idiot Sandwich moment. “Don’t compare yourself to your father.”

“To be fair, everything is a drink if you blend it enough.” Tanya said.

A woman labeled General staff poured in various healthy ingredients labeled with the Empire’s enemies. Into a blender whose blades were labeled Tanya von Degurechaffe, the container was labeled as the rest of the military, the anti-spill top was labeled 203rd. And turned the control dial to Type 95, pureeing the contents into a nice creamy liquid.

Insert the first few seconds of Overly Sarcastic Productions: Halloween on Henry and Jekyll.

….

“The phrase: Truth is stranger than fiction exists back in your time right?” Shalltear asked.

“Point.” Subaru nodded.

“Besides you don’t have to do it Solo like Dark Souls, you have us.” Emilia said.

-----

“Does the moon have a purpose other than looking pretty?” Demiurge asked.

“Yes.” Aqua nodded. “It protects its host planet from meteors and asteroids (the next size class up for rocks), hence why they have a lot of craters.. It also pulls on the planet’s water to form tides and storms. This is why the average for a human-like bearing planet has 2 moons.” 

Familiar of Zero bluish-green moon and its smaller pink moon appeared. Goblin Slayer's red and green moon also appeared.

“Of course there is an exception in One Piece where they have 8. But for some reason the extra seven moons do not appear in the night sky.” Aqua said.

The globe figurine from Robin’s backstory appeared.

Carrot looked up at the moon and transformed into her Sulong form. Before darting off to fight the Big Mom Pirates.

=The Minks as a race can all transform into Sulong. Thus the blank extra moons are to prevent a Sulong from happening roughly every 4 days. So no it's not a quirk of the world like the Auto-clothes thing. It's a strategic victory. …I think.= Weaver informed them.

The room floundered for words. “Yeah let’s go with that.”

Luffy punched Aokiji who shattered into ice taking his clothes with him.

“It's futile to resist.” Aokiji said reforming behind Luffy and froze the boy via hugging. The visible patches grew in the shape of the One Piece Logo before overtaking the rest of Luffy’s body.

“And I had to get my mana drained to get that.” Filo pouted adorably.

“Another one of the Devil Fruit powers?” Roswaal asked. “I wonder if I could replicate that Ice dodge thing. We do share a voice after all.”

“Yep.” Subaru nodded. “As for replicating the dodge, considering that Kizaru’s Logia Fruit was partially replicated in the Pica series. Then his direct cohort/equal Aokiji (the one we just saw)and they share the same type of Fruit, thus the dodge should be replicable.”

A montage of the Pica/Pacifistas firing their lasers to varying results. And Kizaru doing his Sabaody interrupt montage played.

“Sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from technology, after all.” Tanya said.

“Thank you tech limitations for preventing the Star Element enemies from doing that shit.” Satoru thought.

“Let’s not go down the rabbit hole. We can definitely do this later.” Emilia said.

------

“There is also Mash Kyrielight from Type-Moon's ‘save the world’ game.” Subaru said.

Mash Kyrielight smacked a dark boned skeleton with a giant sword (A Dragon Tooth Warrior (Sabar Class)) with her giant shield and once the skeleton collapsed Mash expressed concern for her senpai.

“Shouldn’t there be a ‘Saving the country’ plot between ‘Battle to the death’ and ‘Saving the world’?” Emilia half-heartedly complained.

“Yeah that was Fate; Apocrypha I believe.” Naofumi said. “Because of its save the world feature, it also houses the largest cast of them all. Including but not limited to: both of Roswaal’s Voice Doubles. Aoi Yuuki (Tanya’s Voice Actress) is one of the last Samurai, her alternate self that made a contract with Alaya and thus became a Counter Guardian, and one of the most famous Oni: Shuten-Doji.”

Fate Grand Order’s Shuten Doji in her Cherry Blossoms Kimono outfit and laughed as she poured sake into the air.

-----

“This is Alaya the sum total/concentration of Humanity’s Desire to Survive at all Costs.” Seiya explained. “While Alaya mainly chooses to empower bystanders, it/they does have quite a few dedicated soldiers. Such as but not limited to: EMIYA Archer (the one on screen), a different timeline of his adopted father EMIYA Assassin, an alternate version of a Samurai that shares Tanya’s voice, and another samurai/diplomat who was one of the main forces in the Meiji Restoration, Sakamoto Ryouma.”

EMIYA Assassin appeared with his hood up. Okita Souji Alter appeared blissfully sleeping against her sword, and Sakamoto Ryouma and Oryou/Naraski Ryo his wife floating behind him. 

“While we can, and have, pieced together the ‘meta-lore/physics’ of Type-Moon from countless installments. We have one specific installment to thank for compling all of the disparate mechanics into one place.” Seiya said.

“Are you okay senpai?” Mash Kyrielight said with Rie Takhashi’s voice. Who also voiced Emilia and Megumin.

“And yes, that one does involve time travel as well.” Subaru said after the room blinked at the shared voice. “Specifically the organization the Player Character and Mash work for is Finis Chaldea. The Organization of the Preservation of Humanity. Though I only watched the First Order Movie, where they go to Fuyuki (the place where the first Fate installment took place).”

“Specifically they went to secure their own existence before even attempting to tackle unraveling the mess that was this.” Seiya gestured to the screen.

“This is Chaldea.” Mash gestured to a globe with rings around it over her shoulder and behind her. “We use it to see if humanity will still exist in a century.” The instant Mash closed her mouth to breathe, the globe went from a nice peaceful blue, to searing red flames. Mash face fell flat when the crackles of flame reached her ears.

The room had equally flat expressions.

“Yeah, that would need time travel to fix.” Emilia nodded in understanding.

“Hence why we, the player and Chaldea, have to do this instead of leaving it to Alaya and humanity’s Counterforce.” Seiya said. “That said, Alaya does/did have enough power for the players to basically trip over all currently known/created Counter Guardians and even their Champions, the Grand Servants.”

“I should hope so.” Emilia said. “Really not doing their job if they don't help.”

“The Grand Servants (that we know of) include: All of the Abrahamic Faiths’ Death Metaphors/Symbolism rolled into one Knight-Shaped Assassin. Merlin who is/was King Arthur’s Court mage/oracle, the wise warrior-mage king lifestage of Gilgamesh of Babylon/Mesopotamia myth, King Solomon who when offered anything by the Abrahamic God, he chose wisdom. And finally Orion.” Seiya said.

King Hassan stood in his black knight armor and his white bone mask with his sword piercing the hilltop. King Solomon, Caster Gilgamesh, and Merlin were talking about something to King Hassan’s left. And Orion was to King Hassan’s right, his eyes tracking something off screen. Specifically Roman-Quirinus or however you spell that Grand Lancer’s name from Fate Grand Order, Cosmo in the Lost Belt number 5.

“As for why I know all of this. Type-moon is really famous. B, the Grand Order Mobile game has several adaptations into more accessible formats. And c- “Seiya said.

“You can’t talk to the Great Goddess Ishtar that way!” Rista tried to instill some manners into her chosen hero. Granny Ishtar merely had a pleasant smile on.

“Ishtar what are you doing?” Ritsuka/the Fate Grand Order player character said. Ritsuka Fujimaru and Mash looked at their Ishtar with the caption: Fate Grand Order, Absolute Demonic Front Babylon. Caster Gilgamesh nodded in agreement.

“A vested interest in Babylon. I am employed by one of their main divinities after all. Type-Moon is one of the modern things that has Babylonian Mythology.” Seiya said. 

The rest of the room nodded in understanding.

“Wait, how did you know that I would summon you and that Ishtar is my superior?” Rista thought. “ Is this related to why you said properties instead of status like I asked you to?”

“Among literally hundreds of other non-Grand Servants are our voice doubles.” Seiya said.

Shuten Doji, Hans Christain Enderson, Ozymandis, Okita and her Alter, and any other character that shares a voice with the school/Isekai Quartet appeared fighting a generic tide of enemies. Deploying their Noble Phantasms to show which one shared a voice with whom. 

-----

“It's not like I’m asking for a set of Sharigans or Kryptonian DNA.” Subaru said.

“I sense rivals for my Clan.” Megumin said.

Kazuma and Aqua laughed.

*Insert Sharigan rant here*

“I’m fairly certain that's not how eyes work.” Demiurge said while unveiling his gemstone eyes.

-------

“There’s an entire setting called Is it Wrong to Pick up Girls in a Dungeon. The first scene of How not to summon a Demon Lord is about two girls trying to summon the titular demon lord. Familiar of Zero when the protagonist is literally summoned by a cute girl. The main character of Bleach housed one of the many personifications of death (and equal adorability) in his closet for weeks if not months. Though those only come to mind because of how outrageous they are. Usually it's just an excuse to form companionship.” Ristarte countered off her fingers.

“Isn’t the phrase Skeletons in the closet?” Emilia asked-stated. “Authors and Worlds, why must you counteract me?”

-----------

“I see I need to drown someone.” Aqua announced with the bleak tone of voice like the depths that light itself could not reach. “Or several someones.”

Kazuma, Megumin, and Darkness floundered for words and crossed their eyes as their brains/minds/souls tried to comprehend the new signals Aqua was unleashing.

“Oh don’t worry, I won’t use the Flood-Class.” Aqua waved away her party’s concern. “I’ll just create a water source in their lungs. Or maybe pull their blood so that it never leaves the lungs.”

Kazuma picked up the largest piece of chocolate nearby and shoved it into Aqua’s mouth. Kazuma held Aqua’s mouth closed with one hand and used the other to force Aqua to chew and swallow. 

“My complaints about your idiocy have (pardon the pun) evaporated.” Aqua’s Handler said. “For Now at least.”

“I had no reason to be serious in Belzerg.” Aqua crossed her arms sounding like mere ocean depths instead of pitch black. “I am a Senior Goddess after all, and Belzerg’s Patron is the Literal Goddess of Luck. It’d be very strange if things didn’t go our way.”

---------

“Oh right, To-aru exists.” Seiya said. “The basic premise of A certain Magical Index and its spin off following the love interest A Certain Scientific Railgun is Academy City. A place where progress can exist without any budgetary or ethical restraints. Because of magic going into hiding for some reason I don’t remember, all of the Psychics are results of the cracked lightning. To-Aru means ‘A Certain’ in japanese. And one of the major characters, Shirai Kuroko, shares a voice with Beatrice.”

“Well that's one way to say: creating an entire artificial heaven and an angel .” Megumin said.

“Type-moon on the other hand, refuses to stick with a single timeline. And once it got past its vampire phase, the main species (besides humans of course) are aware of the different timelines. Because Type-moon took the concept of Ancestral Spirits. People who you pray to for protection that had lived before you. Made it so you could literally summon them to the present. And then expanded the capability to be summoned to engulf mythologies AND applied said Ancestral Spirits to every culture that ever existed on Earth. With historical and mythological facts like Vlad Tepes the 3rd, the Lord Impaler and the fictional vampire based on him, Dracula mixing.” Seiya said. 

“Cause where else will you find Cu Chulainn from Celtic Myth, A female King Arthur, Hercules, an Original Type-Moon Hero, and several others in a free for all battle to the (temporary for the second species) death. ...which was the introductory timeline/product to the Fate side of Type-Moon and the one we saw an image of earlier.” Seiya finished. “While not the only story/world to have ancestral heroes returning, it is certainly the most famous from Japan.”

“Yeah I can see why it gets complicated fast.” Emilia said as the room nodded in understanding.

----------

“Why are you called Shallchair?” Subaru asked a low res Shalltear.

--------

Maybe cannon but the author can’t find the time to rewrite and reinsert either in this chapter or future ones, and personally wants to move on instead of constantly reestablishing things:

“Roswaal shares a voice with a centuries old vampire who stops time with a male model ghost/manifestation of his lifeforce, Soul Eater’s Excalibur, Attack on Titans’ Beast Titan/Zeke Yeager and the ones we already covered.Just to name a few of his roles.”

Dio Brando did a pose before a male model ghost appeared above/behind him shouting something about the World, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders. The weird humanoid form of Excalibur, and that shot of Zeke standing on his Titan’s shoulder from the end of season 2.

“Then there’s Aoi Yuuki and Emiri Kato.” Tanya said.

“You can undo this disaster with your frankly insane karmic potential. So what is your wish, Madoka Kaname?” Kyubey with Emiri Kato/Aura’s voice said.

“If that is true, then I’ll do one better.” Madoka said with Aoi Yuuki/Tanya’s voice.

“Hideous downsides I am assuming.” Aura rhetorically asked.

Tanya nodded anyway.

“Subaru got isekai’d again but a much safer/kinder world filled with science !” Seiya said.

“Shut up. I’m not cheering one millimeter for you, you big oaf.” Senku said. Dr. Stone s1 ep 1.

“Oi. Why did you choose that line?” Subaru bemoaned. 

“To be fair, Senku isn’t the first one of us that had to rebuild society from the ground up.” Naofumi said. “That would be Akatsuki. …the Ninja goddess not the ninja kaiju hunting terrorists.”

Pick a monologue from Log Horizon’s Akatsuki perspective on the society they built.

“Only a few months to build that society, not bad for me.” Aura said.

“Though unlike Syncretism (the process of finding out which deities transcends their birth/current culture, mythos, and/or patheon) finding voice similarities are functionally useless. Cause I’m fairly certain Military Training and participating in the Great War aren’t something you can forget.” Subaru said.

“And I’m fairly certain you can’t forget the sensation of death.” Grantz replied.

“Ah yes the reason why we out of all existences were chosen for the school and this project.” Roswaal said.

“It does seem fun.” Emilia said.

What was literally a humanized short haired Emilia appeared and said the line above sharing the same voice. The caption labeled her as Shino Kiryu from Girlfriend Girlfriend.

The room laughed at the timing.

“I’ll let them figure out that mom and dad also share voices with Kiba Inuzuka and Ino Yamanaka on their own.” Subaru mentally smirked. “ It really would be helpful if I had Naruto-Style Chakra. Let alone either of their clan techniques. Od Laguna is a world where the Hero is Villain and the Villain is the Hero. I should have access to moral neutral people.”

=================

Tany said. “And this is what happens when humans wearing dozens of kilos of equipment are in Moon Gravity.” 

Insert comedic montage of Astronauts falling over and getting back up. Hopping around. And various other things I am too busy to properly name. The earth hovering ominously in the sky with time/date stamps. Specifically the astronauts falling on the moon by Anomaly Detected on youtube. The current weights and masses were converted into the respective measurements for understanding.

“As you can see America went to the moon, ending the Space Race.” Tanya explained after the laughter faded. “And nothing is floating like it should be if it was one 1/6th of Earth’s gravity. Let alone 1/10th.”

“So we will see that if we survive the war.” Zettour rubbed his chin. “Something to look forward to.”

“Though usually when we talk about gravity differences, we mean positive ones.” Subaru said. “Such as training in 10x or 300x earth’s gravity.”

Dragon Ball Z appeared with Vegeta training in the pre-androids gravity chamber. With the gravity shown.

“Wouldn’t that mean your flesh and organs weigh dozens if not hundreds of tons?” Demiurge asked after he did a rapid calculation.

“Yes.” Aqua nodded. “That’s why DND calls that type of Ki they use, Sun Soul.”

“Yep. That's a fitting name.” Emilia voiced the room’s thoughts.

--------

“They can’t be that bad.” Satoru naively said.

Insert montage of Team Rocket effortlessly pulling off one of their schemes only to fail at capturing Pokemon/Pikachu. In the montage were the weird clans of Officer Jenny and Nurse Joy. let alone the team rocket/protag doubles.

The room just stared at the screen and Team Rocket’s failures.

“If you really want that animal, maybe I don’t know, assign some different kidnappers?” Satoru offered some sarcastic advice. “Though considering what I’ve gleaned from that montage, I doubt you have any better ones.”

“Team Rocket simply doesn’t.” Subaru confirmed. “That and-”

Moltres, Mewtwo, and the various other Legendaries that the trio tried to capture appeared.

“They are that world’s equivalent of Puck/other Great Monsters.” Subaru finished.

“And why isn't this enslaving organization a high priority?” Puck asked over the non-pokemon aware folks' noises of surprise.

“There are a surprising number of environmental or world destroyers. If they don’t want to remake/conquer the world of course. Using those same Legendaries.” Subaru said. “Team Rocket only made Mewtwo and thus only appeared on the World Threat scale once.”

The non-pokemon aware just went ah and nodded in agreement with the Law Enforcement priorities.

-------------

“Lord of the Rings has a flat-and-Round world at the same time.” Aqua said. “The afterlives for the Elves and the Valor/Maia are physical places, so if killed they can just walk out coming back to life. No Dragon Balls needed. So of course there was a raiding problem and thus the God of that world bent the world. Leaving the flat-world only to the Elves and Valor/Maia. Hence the name Middle Earth and the Elven superior archery. They didn’t need to account for the curvature and thus could see farther”

“So that's why the Elves could walk on snow.” Naofumi said.

“No, that's a trained ability.” Aqua said.

“That’s just a ridiculous wo~rld.” Roswaal commented.

--------

Explanations:

[0] The Main Ability of Motoyasu from the Reprise of the Spear Hero Spinoff. The upsides to Temporal Reversion Is the fact that any of the Heroes Death triggers the Loop and Motoyasu is able to Accumulate power/strength through the Loops. The Downside is that the Original Timeline is forgotten while any detriments like the Spear of Lust (which for Motoyasu turns any female not a Filolial (because of his Angel Fetish, yes he is not a (Primarily) lolicon.) or helpful to Naofumi into a Pig that can only oink) stays. That and the sole checkpoint being the original summoning ritual without the ability to update it.

If I do tackle Reprise it will be sidestory/later.

[1]This is probably just a Hindsight Bias thing but I really don’t see Subaru wanting Excalibur to be unreasonable. He could have asked for any of the Shinto Weaponry, becoming a Game Avatar (ala Overlord or Maou-Sama Retry or How not to Summon A Demon Lord Or Log Horizon), operating under (More) Game Mechanics ala the Gamer, getting his own faction ala Overlord and Slime Reincarnation. Etc. etc. but no he is only asking for a sword, a very famous sword yes, but a sword nonetheless.  

Unless the concept of “Subaru Capable of Self-Defense” is too Powerful. 

[2]Yes this is actually what happens. So all the plans for trapping him in an impossible situation are doomed to fail. Unless you tie up his priorities like Roswaal in season 2. ...except of course then you would have to deal with his friends which include but are not limited to: Emilia with her Ice Blossom ability. In its low powered state she invades any cut on her enemies and creates flower-like ice out of her enemies blood. In its middle power state she freezes all of her enemies cells at once, creating a very spiky flower. And at full power she freezes an entire region (Ellior Forest) so large it appears on the world map. 

Cite: Re zero OVA/Bonds of Ice for the first stage and episode 44/s2 ep 19 or simply youtube search re zero emilia’s curse the top video is Ice Blossom at full Power and the second one is Ice Blossom at Middle power. 

There’s also a failed time loop where Emilia fights Petelguese and creates an ice tree and an ice cross, that's also Ice Blossom.(s1 ep 23’s finale 5 minutes) In arc 5/season 3 Subaru coaches Emilia into going full Gray Fullbuster/Ice Make Magic. So in ice magic Emilia and Puck are tied in first place. Cocytus is Second, and Wiz is a vast third. The only feat for her I've found is her trapping her fellow Demon King General Hans in ice for a few minutes. Cocytus I think froze an entire city’s water supply in vol14.

[3]the reason why it takes Subaru so long to get with the Star Theme is because (in universe) the misspelling of Betelguese threw him off. Out of universe he flat out didn’t have this knowledge. Cite: arc 5 chapter 33 when the Star theme 

[4]Yeah Rem met a sleeping Subaru after being healed by Beatrice. And she instantly thought of killing him in his sleep when she was finally alone with him. Cite: the re zero reddit translation wiki specifically: there is one by remonwater on a .wordpress.com called rem-and-subaru-meet/ (end of the chapter/short story is when the must kill thoughts appear). 

Morbid fact. Subaru’s habit of self harming started in the post-torture timeloop. Where he tried to tell Emilia. Once she left, Subaru stabbed himself with a needle on his arm and hand. Forming a proto-tattoo, at least that's what Beatrice says when she spots the holes on the hand Subaru offered for a contract. This is vol 2 content cut from the anime. He also self harms in the library later that loop to keep himself awake. And this self harming habit carries itself into at least arc 6 if not arc 7.

And the author ships them for some reason.

Unless this (the side story) is non-canon and then you can just ignore me and my stupidity/disdain for Rem.

[5]while I haven’t gotten the chance to confirm it myself, I have heard that in the light novels (specifically vol 15/16) it is revealed that Roswaal tampered with Emilia and Puck’s Contract with the express purpose of preventing any Godzilla Threshold Hijinks and/or Shenanigans. He used the arc 3 split up to tamper with them. So in the Royal Candidate meeting Puck was still able to freely go Beast of the End but not after words.

Also Puck is the other Artificial Spirit made by Echidna and thus has the metaphorical mana consumption of a formula 1 race car. The sudden blizzard that pops up whenever Puck goes Beast of the End is because he’s draining all of the mana.

[6]Axel has: 2 goddesses, 2 former Demon King Generals, One Hero-Bred Right Hand of the King Heir Tank, 2 genetically engineered supersoldiers from the same fallen civilization and creator as the Mobile Destroyer, (maybe) one Dragon Blooded Lancer dude who got very bored and swapped to petty pervertness and a weapon his terrible at, and finally Kazuma: the Luckiest Man Alive. So town of beginnings MY ASS!

Aqua is a goddess (obviously), Chris is Eris which will be revealed in s3/volume 7 I believe. Wiz and Vanir are of course the former Generals.

Darkness’ Bloodline trait or whatever they called it will be revealed in vol6/s3, same with Iris (the Princess). Though I believe Iris appears in that gacha game that launched in september/august of 2021. The Crimson Demon’s Heritage was revealed in vol5/the Crimson Demon Movie. So yes the movie is canon, go watch it. 

Dust is the only one I’m hesitant on. I haven’t read his side stories. But from what I’ve read is that: He is a rival party leader who saw the surface level harem and swapped parties with Kazuma for a while. Kazuma got to show off his leadership, gained Beginner’s magic (create water, tinder, create Earth/dust, Freeze, and I’m forgetting the wind spells name and/or if it exists), Archery (and Snipe), and successfully lead his temporary party against Goblins and a panther jobber thing called Beginner’s Bane.

So called because they find some weak mobs such as Goblins and push them closer to civilization in order to better eat humans, Dust had to deal with Megumin wasting her explosion on a field (maybe a frog?), Aqua, Darkness, and Another Beginner’s Bane. Dust fled back to his party in shame after he finagled a victory through a process I don’t remember. This was volume 2/s1 episodes 5-10 cut content. His next appearance did make it into the anime. Edit: (rewatching Konosuba for entertainment) nope Create Water was in the cold opening of s1 ep4. So Dust is vol 1 cut content.

He’s the one that introduced Kazuma to the Succubus Brothel. Considering all the other wacky people in Axel, I’m inclined to believe the Konosuba Fandom when they say Dust is a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass. His side stories are called A time in the limelight for this fool too! (or so says the konosuba reddit FAQ).

Also remember Kazuma’s domination of rock-paper-scissors? Yeah only Chris-Eris can beat him. Cite: volume 8 when she (as Chris) was forced to open a lottery/card stall to raise money. She put 2 victory cards and one lose card (in the costumer’s favor to be exact). And she was constantly winning to the point that she was in the fetal position behind the desk. And one of her followers literally prays to her (Eris) for victory or he’ll convert to Axis (Aqua) Sect causing Chris to look up and attempt to stop him before he draws again.

Unless it's something perverted then Kazuma’s luck beats hers. Cite: the many times Kazuma stole her panties with a Luck-based Spell. That and in vol10 (I believe) he literally bankrupts an entire merchant city. Because his party made the active choice to minimize their own bad luck. Hence why Kazuma was able to save Axel from the Destroyer but he/Wiz accidentally teleported it to the local Feudal Ruler’s mansion.

The armorsmith Darkness went to repair her armor after the cabbages broke it? Crimson Demon (Archmage) Blacksmith. All Crimson Demons are Arch Wizards/Archmages. The first volume of the Explosion Spinoff (focusing on Megumin and Yunyun) reveals that the CD has skill point potions. So many of them in fact that it's their graduation from school reward. That and the flying cabbages are literally XP givers.

Oh and the provider of Wiz’s broken (as in malfunctioning) magic items? Megumin’s father. So indirectly because of Wiz’s poor business/selling ability, Megumin grew up malnourished.

[7] There's a boy who woke up in his paralyzed body who could only count the days via shadows and Barney. He was so pissed at Barney that he clawed his way out of oblivion and back into the waking world. His name is Martin Pistorius and Locked-In-Syndrome is the name. That is what I believed happened in s1 ep15. Its the only explanation that isn’t utterly fucking stupid like ‘Subaru was faking’, he certain went through enough bullshit that by that point Subaru is definetly mad. Mothers Basement in the Subaru v Petelgeuse Anime Melee/Wider re zero fanbase.

Cite: the chapter you just read, the Witch Fiends, the Oni Twins, not accepting their food cause of potential poison, them causing Subaru’s long living habit of self harm, Julius, s2 ep4/Subaru’s backstory (no his trauma does not start in episode 1. How else do you explain the “you only purchase your knighthood” or the “you try and fail to live up to your father’s name’ comments?), seeing the Witch Cult’s aftermath. BUT NOOOOO its Subaru pitching a hissy fit..

Either Locked in syndrome or Tonic Immobility. Tonic immobility (TI) describes a state of involuntary paralysis in which individuals cannot move or, in many cases, even speak. Aka why rape victims don’t punch their rapists and run away. Even if said rapists are weaponless. From the scientific american article titled simply: Sexual Assassult may trigger involuntary paralysis.

=====

edit: 8/29/22 shuffled around some things, hope you like it. not dead. working on the interlude that takes place between this chapter and konosuba s1. also was tasked to finish something I can legally earn money off of. shacked with extroverts who keep on taking me outside away from my computer. futilely trying not to fall down rabbit holes of information, but as you can recall I am terrible at that. 

Chapter Text

After the kiss anime.me ad, a series of irrigated grain paddies was shown. Frogs/another farm ambiance animal made their noises. Another bit of farmland was shown near what was presumably Kazuma’s house. A blurry computer screen was shown before Kazuma raised his hand and tugged on his sleeve.

“There we go…” Kazuma said.

The camera zoomed out to look down at Kazuma and his room.