Overlord (LN)

Evileye countered Remedios’s question with a vicious retort. Gustavo struggled to clear the uneasy mood in the air.

“Ah, no, what our Captain meant was that if Darkness could attack some weak point of Jaldabaoth’s, perhaps we could do something too. I apologize for not clarifying.”

“No, we should be apologizing for the immature tone our Evileye is taking with a client.”

That reply came from Lakyus. What was this, when the two main players were sidelined and their supporting cast went on to smooth things out between themselves.

“Hm... well, assuming Jaldabaoth really does have some weak point, Momon-sama must have won by attacking it. Still, it’s hard to imagine a demon like that would leave his weaknesses unguarded.”

“Indeed... perhaps he used an item or a subordinate to make up for it.”

While this was the first time she had heard of the maid demons, Jaldabaoth had several powerful demon minions.

After questioning demihuman captives, they knew there were at least three of them.

There was the demon who ruled the wilderness where the demihumans lived.

There was the demon who ruled the port city of Rimun.

And then, there was the scaly demon who commanded the demihuman army.

“So, can you tell us in detail about that scaly demon you mentioned earlier?”

“That’s right, can you tell us what abilities it has?”

“Yes I fought it before, so I’ll take Evileye’s place and describe it in detail.”

She described its abilities and how they fought it. Lakyus’s tale ended with Brain Unglaus — a man on Gazef’s level — slaying that demon.

“...That’s strange. Jaldabaoth hasn’t made any movements after conquering the Holy Kingdom’s capital, but that scaly demon’s been commanding the demihuman armies in his place. Wasn’t it already defeated?”

“I see... however, we’ve met this Brain fellow before, and I don’t think he was lying. It’s probably not a unique demon, just a high level one.”

“In other words, Jaldabaoth can conjure that demon any number of times as long as certain conditions are met? Or perhaps he can summon the same demon multiple times?”

Neia could not cast spells, but she had heard this during her lectures.

It was difficult to summon multiple beings with summon magic.

In other words, when a summon spell was active, casting another summon spell would cause the previous summon spell to end. The currently-summoned monsters would go back from whence they came and new monsters would be summoned in their place.

However, people capable of high tier summoning spells could simultaneously conjure several weaker monsters at once, of the sort that one would evoke with a low tier summon spell. For instance, one could use a fourth tier spell to summon multiple monsters that could be invoked by a third tier spell.

“I don’t understand at all. His method of summoning demons is still a mystery. While it felt like he was summoning them with spells, he couldn’t have summoned multiple demons of such power... but if he could, that would beg the question of why he did not do so in the Kingdom. Perhaps if he were a magic caster who specializes in summoning, he could simultaneously summon multiple copies of such a creature...”

“So even if we defeated the scaly demons, Jaldabaoth could immediately resummon it?”

“Just so. However, that refers to the situation where Jaldabaoth conjures them with magic. If he used some kind of special ability to do it, that would be another matter entirely.”

“So you don’t know much about that side of things?”

“Sorry, but I don’t. We know very little about him.”

Evileye sounded clearly disheartened.

“...Erm, I didn’t get any of that at all, you know?”

“...I’ll explain it to you later, Captain.”

“No, start clarifying now. I haven’t been able to keep up since just now.”

This is our Captain... the person in charge of all of us...

“That being the case, was that disgusting insect maid one of Jaldabaoth’s summons too?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to think that way...”

Blue Rose’s members began discussing among themselves.

“Erm, may I ask a question?”

Everyone turned to look at Neia after she nervously spoke up, and the tremendous pressure made her regret doing so. Perhaps it might be better for someone other than her to bring this up. However, the die had been cast, and after firming up her resolve, she asked:

“This might be a very basic question, but where did Jaldabaoth come from? Was the name of Jaldabaoth passed down from earlier days?”