Black Iron Magician - Chapter 529 - The Principle of the World

People living in the present era may not know this, but there used to be a god on this planet who governed this world. The name of the God is―― sorry, I forgot. Well, it was a long time ago after all. Ah, but I remember the gender. The God was a woman. Just as one would expect from a Goddess, she was so beautiful that ordinary people would prostrate when looking at her. Well, since people had been treating her like that for centuries, she became self-conceited. I don’t remember her name, but I do remember that her personality in her last years wasn’t a good one.

The Goddess, who was so beautiful but had a difficult personality, looked a lot like a human being. That’s why she planned to place humanoid creatures, such as humans, elves and, dwarves, at the center of the world. Since they were creatures that look like her, she thought that they were the most beautiful creatures in the world and should stand at the top of all other creatures. Looking back on it now, it really is a story full of conceit. But well, no matter how bad her personality was, she was still a Goddess. There was a time when she tampered with the world’s system and made it into reality. That’s why humans don’t evolve like monsters when their job levels rise. She thought that they were already perfect from the beginning, so there was no need for them to evolve and change their appearance. Oh, by the way, vampires and succubus are in a different category because they have horns and wings. She was really selfish, right?

Also, the Goddess decided to create a common enemy for human beings to prevent them from fighting each other. As you probably know, it was the Demon King, the leader of the monsters. The world’s system created a powerful demon king every certain cycle, creating a threat to mankind. Well, there’s no such a system now since the Goddess is gone.

Anyway, the Goddess also prepared a way for her beloved humans to oppose the absolutely evil Demon King. It was the hero summoning ritual, which is considered taboo now. There was an incident in Adelheit where Haruna and her friends were summoned from another world, right? That was originally a technique created by Goddess. Adelheit’s big shot used it in an imperfect state, so the number of people summoned was large, and there were children with low levels like Haruna.

In the original ritual to summon a hero from another world, it is essential to have a 『Summoner』 who has been officially granted the right to summon heroes by Goddess. The chosen summoner would hear the Goddess’s voice, would be given power, and would act according to the Goddess’s will. On the other hand, the big shot of Adelheit, Joseph Joshua, was it? It seems that he’s also a summoner, but he doesn’t have the right to summon a hero. For example, let’s see…. It’s like an unlicensed back-alley doctor doing an operation illegally. But well, he also summoned abnormalities like Haruna, who rose from there to the level of the Great Eight Demons. You never know what’s going to happen in this world. Hahaha.

Going back to the topic, the level of the hero summoned by the original ritual from the beginning was high enough to oppose the power of the Demon King. It was about level 8 or 9. For a while, after this system was put into operation, mankind became the center of the world by having the heroes defeat the demon kings, just as the Goddess intended. It was an ideal era that the Goddess wanted, where mankind united their hearts to overthrow the demon king.

…… But as you know from the current situation, that era didn’t last forever. For the first time in history, the hero was defeated by the demon king. That hero was level 9, which was not inferior compared to the previous heroes. As the administrator, normally, you would be wary of this situation, right? You think so, right? However, the Goddess at this time had become quite complacent due to the long period of peace in the world. To put it simply, there was no sense of danger.

『Well, that was just a fluke. Let’s look forward to the next one.』

Saying so, she summoned a new hero from another world. Then, she sent the hero to subjugate the demon king without any countermeasures or advice, just as she had done up until then. As a result, the newly summoned hero was also defeated. It was around this time that she finally started to get serious about defeating the demon king. She gathered the power of all mankind, created an army, and welcomed a fully prepared hero party. But well, it was already too late.

I guess you’ve figured it out by now. That’s right, that demon king was old man Vakala. It seems that the Goddess hadn’t been maintaining the system properly, so the demon king generation system, which had been running for a long time, developed a bug. Old man Vakara was born with a strength that far surpassed the previous demon kings, but even so, his level at that time was only about 10. If the Goddess hadn’t made a mistake in dealing with the problem at the early stage, it wouldn’t have been a serious problem….

『Why do my pawns keep losing!? There shouldn’t be a demon king who could surpass my pawn in this world…!』

Well, as I mentioned earlier, everything was too late.

Because the Goddess, who had little sense of danger, was late, the heroes never managed to defeat old man Vakara no matter how much she prepared her forces. On the contrary, the corpses of the heroes and their companions were used by old man Vakala as undead. The more they fought, the stronger old man Vakala became, and the more the demon king’s army grew in strength. After several hundred years had passed since the appearance of old man Vakala, all mankind’s forces and old man Vakala’s forces became evenly matched.

Moreover, the Goddess blunder didn’t end there. I pointed out that the system to generate a demon king was broken, but the Goddess was so busy dealing with old man Vakala that she forgot to readjust this system. This Goddess was really an idiot, right?

A Demon King would be periodically born into the world as the enemy of human beings. The battle with old man Vakala dragged on for too long that the world entered the next era where the next Demon King would be born―― in other words, it was the birth of the second calamity, Maria Irygal. The system was still buggy, so Maria was ridiculously strong.

『Goddess, we and the other world’s heroes cannot overcome this difficulty alone. Please lend us your strength directly…!』

『…… Right. I also don’t want to see further chaos in this world. It’s forbidden for Gods to directly interfere with the worlds. But it’s also the duty of Gods to repair the corrupted world. Very well. I will descend to this world and destroy the hateful Demon Kings myself. Agalia, as a Goddess, I grant you permission to summon me.』

『Ooh, as expected of Goddess! How merciful!』

So, I decided to betray the Goddess.