Published: March 21, 2026
After the meal and after clearing the dishes, we gathered in the same spacious room Noa had made — probably intended as a meeting room — as before. We'll just call it the meeting room since it will likely be used as one from now on.
"Alright then... hm, where did we leave off?"
Lattice Nail scratched his cheek as he stood before the chairs where we sat.
"If I remember correctly, Commander Saran is Demon Clan, he's your uncle, and the demon king's wife was killed by Humans, so he's trying to revive her. That's where we stopped, right?"
"Ah! That's right, that's right! As expected of someone who assisted that uncle famed as the Volunteer Eccentric of the Demon Clan!"
Mr. Zeal summarized Lattice Nail's previous explanation succinctly, and Lattice Nail pointed a finger with a little snap.
Mr. Zeal gave a complicated smile at whatever could be taken as a compliment from Lattice Nail.
Come to think of it, our conversation had broken off before because we were all shaken by the third taboo.
"No matter how much I thought about it afterward, there is no method to revive her. Even I had to give up," Noa said, arms crossed. Crow's eyes went wide at that.
Presumably the person Noa had tried to revive was Crow's sister and her own daughter, Aria. When Crow and Noa had met again in the "Forest of Death," Crow had been furious that Noa said nothing about Aria; Noa, meanwhile, had apparently tried in her own way without consulting Crow about methods, whatever they were.
Really, like father, like daughter. Between Amelia's family and this world's families, do they all refuse to talk things through?
I looked at Crow with the sense that I had heard this before when Noa declared there was no method.
"There was a method, right, Crow?"
I had heard that from Crow at the Uruk hotel.
Using the skill "Exchange" at the cost of many lives, revive one person. We had obtained intelligence that Gram was involved in human trafficking for that purpose, and someone in the Kingdom of Reytis planned to use that to start a war against the Beastmen.
"...Ah, you're talking about the skill 'Exchange.' But that was on King Reytis's side, not the demon king's, wasn't it?"
"No, that's right. Father and the King of Reytis formed an alliance a while ago. Even while entrusted with a nation or a tribe, both of them are pursuing the same selfish goal."
Lattice Nail spoke quietly, and unintentionally confirmed Hiraes's information.
We all fell silent, staring at the single person standing among us. The usual innocent smile faded from Lattice Nail's face.
"It's laughable, isn't it?"
For an instant, Lattice Nail's expressionless eyes overlapped in my mind with the night-eyed fury I had seen on the ship's watchtower.
"The demon king and King Reytis both need an enormous quantity of lives and magical power to revive their beloved wives. Amelia being kidnapped in Beastmen territory is connected to your magical power and to 'revival magic' and 'magic creation.' Well, 'revival magic' and 'magic creation' were probably a long shot. ...And your being summoned to this world was part of that plan."
Lattice Nail's wisteria-colored eyes scanned us, people from another world, one by one. He then flicked a glance at Ria.
We, the summoned heroes, watched Lattice Nail with bated breath, wondering what new revelation would come next.
"This hero summon you were part of is special. The magic circle developed by the Demon Clan to summon people from another world is normally for one person only, but this time they managed to call twenty-eight people. That's something that should never happen. And the caster was a Human with the least magical power in this world. Even the Demon Clan, which has the most magic, would need dozens of people to summon that many; Humans would normally need thousands of users. Yet they accomplished it with only a few dozen. Reytis claims they used a new technology secretly developed for centuries to replenish atmospheric magical power, but by magic capacity calculations that still wouldn't be enough. So how did they make up the shortfall?"