My Castle received no visitor again. Again.
The new reincarnated Hero had abandoned the role that was properly his and was living exactly as he pleased.
And what is wrong with that, you ask?
These people were dead. They were reincarnated on the condition that they defeat the Demon Lord who preys on humanity, and were handed the Goddess's Gift, [The Power to Have Any One Wish Granted], into the bargain.
Which means they are ignoring an enormous debt and unilaterally breaking their word.
I do as I please as well, but I did at least defeat the Demon Lord of the day. I can fairly say my mission is discharged.
It is merely that I have since taken up conduct rather similar to a Demon Lord's.
The single biggest reason I look down on them is that they abandon the mission and then play the good guy about it.
I am destroying humanity in full and proper awareness of being evil.
I decided to kill this slacker Hero too.
Not, mind you, because he abandoned his mission. Because he annoys me.
I am evil. I do not punish people in the name of justice.
"Mofu. You're on house duty."
I paid a visit to Nation E. I teleported into the sky above it and looked down at the ground.
The new Hero was in a peaceful farming village. Not stopping there on a journey. Settled there.
I set down behind him as he stood surveying his fields.
"Well, well. Soil's good and moist round here, ain't it."
"Isn't it? These fields are my pride and joy."
"Is that so… wait, what in blazes are you doing throwing away your duty as a Hero?! Get out there and do the job you're supposed to be doing!"
I whacked him on the head. Lightly, of course.
"Ow! What was that for?!"
"Pride and joy, my eye. You haven't done a thing. You've had your underlings do all of it."
The ones working the fields were not the Hero but monsters he had tamed—that is, coaxed into hand and domesticated.
Goblins—small ogres—and treant-demons, walking wooden monsters, tilled the soil, while slimes regulated its moisture.
What this Hero had asked of the Goddess's Gift, [The Power to Have Any One Wish Granted], was [Universal Communication].
The ability lets him converse with any living thing and get along with it.
Put simply, this Hero can tame any life at all—plant, animal, monster. That is what [Universal] means.
However, he had barely been able to speak with the king directly, and so had never won much of the king's trust.
Being the Hero whose selling point was communication skills, he was little expected of and shabbily treated, so he sulked and abandoned his mission. Selfish, isn't it.
"They're monsters I tamed. Their work is equivalent to my work. So there are no grounds for complaining to me about the farming."
"You tamed them with an ability, so this is the same as making brainwashed slaves do the work. Most people would feel a bit sick being bragged at about that."
For that matter, I dislike that he has his title set to Hero at all. Having abandoned the mission, he is no longer a Hero or anything like one. He is a farmer.
The system he operates under lets you set your title.
He set his title to Hero the instant he obtained it, and yet when he obtained the Farmer title he did not change it.
"And anyway—what are you?"
The Hero—dressed the full part of a farmer despite doing nothing but watch—scowled and glared at me.
"I am the being you are supposed to defeat. Which is to say, the one who replaced the Demon Lord."
"Oh, is that so. And what brings His New Lordship all the way out to the back of beyond?"
"To kill you, obviously!"
I kindly let some killing intent off the leash, and the Hero, finally grasping the situation, dropped all pretense of calm and called his monsters over.
"If you're using underlings, perhaps I'll use some too."
From the field beside the one the monsters had been tilling, carrots turned monster and came crawling out. From the other fields, daikon, turnips, and burdock followed, one after another.
The vegetable-monsters ran over on their roots and fell into formation in front of me.
"Underlings—you don't mean…"
"The vegetables buried in your fields. I turned them into monsters and made them mine."
"That's absurd! Hey, everyone! Carrots, daikon, turnips, burdock! I raised you with love—remember the bond between us!"
The Hero appealed passionately to the monster vegetables.
The monster vegetables did not react. Naturally. My underlings do not defy me.
"Raised them with love? Are you stupid? You were going to eat them or sell them. There is no bond between anyone and a man like that. And in any case it wasn't you who raised them, it was the monsters."
"Ngh—fine. But I have plenty of fighting strength of my own. I won't lose."
The goblins, treant-demons, and slimes lined up in front of him, and behind them the Hero bared his hostility at me.
I could simply have set his monsters against my vegetables, but with tamed monsters on his side this Hero still believed he held the advantage. Which annoys me.
"Monsters. Be my servants."
Hearing my voice, all three kinds of monster crossed over to me, fell in beside the vegetables, and squared up against the Hero.
"Wha—?! That's absurd!"
"Well then, shall we…"
The monster vegetables and the monsters began closing in on him.
All he could do was back away, one step, two.
"Wait—wait, please! Let's talk."
"Oh dear. And from what position are you making that request?"
"P-please… let me talk… I'm begging you…"
He bowed his head, hesitantly.
I looked coldly down at him, and he bent at the waist as well.
"Sigh. I don't mind sparing a moment, but your ability will not make us friends."
He raised his face, recoiled, and his eyes went wide.
"What are you? You know everything and you can do anything. You're practically a god. What in the world are you?"
"I am [The Omniscient, Omnipotent, Strongest, Invincible, Absolutely Superior One]. Which is why you have no chance of winning. And no means of surviving."
"Omniscient and omnipotent?! That's absurd! No such thing could exist. Then—then can you create a being stronger than yourself? You're omnipotent, aren't you?"
Perhaps this argumentative streak comes with universal communication ability.
Very well. I shall humor him a little on that too.
"Ah. The paradox. Suppose I did as you say and created a being held to be stronger than me—omniscient, omnipotent, strongest, invincible, absolutely superior. A contradiction would arise in this world, because my own nature would be rendered false. What do you suppose happens then? The answer: the cause of it ceases to exist. I existed first, and whatever emerged after me is the cause—so the one that came later ceases to exist."
"Then can you not create something that comes later and doesn't cease to exist? Wouldn't that mean you aren't omnipotent?"
"In that case, the being who set it in motion ceases to exist, and the situation never arises. Which is to say, the one who vanishes would be you. Shall we try it?"
The words caught in his throat. One careless remark and he would cease to exist, which made speaking at all terrifying.
I had given this farmer-Hero quite enough time.
Let us finish.
"Listen. I am omniscient, and I am absolutely superior. However high your communication skills, however you armor yourself with argument, you absolutely cannot beat me. Now disappear."
I said disappear, but I did not simply blink him away. I set the monster vegetables and the monsters on him.
The Hero whose only merit was conversation had his moisture drawn out and his flesh eaten by the monsters and vegetables he had decided, on his own, that he shared a bond with, and at the end they gnawed noisily at his bones.
Back at My Castle, I dropped onto Nation E a monolith—a twenty-kilometer black object cut to the shape of Nation E.