But before Yuuji could celebrate too much, Lala spoke again.
"Even so, this is only a temporary solution. Even if neither side completely destroys the other, that doesn't stop them from continuing to kill each other whenever they meet" Lala explained.
'Right. God is dead here. Not that I can rely on Him.'
"It doesn't seem that easy to solve, huh?" Yuuji sighed once more.
"It actually is" said Lala. "However, throughout the universe there are multiple races at war and many with small grudges that kill each other on sight. Are you sure you want to get involved instead of simply leaving them as they are? I know it seems serious to you right now because it's an entire race, but on a universal scale it's not that important."
"I understand" said Yuuji.
Speaking critically, Lala was almost as responsible as Yuuji for the current situation, so seeing that she seemed completely normal surprised him.
But now he understood. No matter how normal she seemed, Lala was still, at the end of the day, an alien princess, no, she was THE alien princess, and between that and her overflowing curiosity, there was probably no one who had seen more of the universe than her.
Just as she said, seeing two races kill each other was nothing new to her.
And if he went even deeper, then Yuuji shouldn't care too much either. After all, in the future, as Lala's partner, he would become the King of the Galaxy and would see even more races in situations like this, fighting to the death, and even without knowing the future, with Yuuji's personality, there was no way he would go around helping all of them.
Yuuji closed his eyes again, thinking about what to do, looking at the problem not only as something he had to fix but at the bigger picture.
How important was it? Aside from guilt, how much did he truly care about helping two races from another universe that didn't really affect him? Wouldn't it be hypocritical to help these ones now and not the next ones?
"Tell me" he finally said after a while.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. Maybe it's hypocritical, maybe it's just guilt and in the future I won't help other races like this, maybe I only care because I know their original fate, but in the end, I want to help solve the problem I caused" said Yuuji, making a decision.
"Good." Lala nodded. "Then, I actually already told you, you just have to subjugate both races."
"There's no way I can..."
"Not now" Lala interrupted. "But in the future, if you keep pulling powers out of nowhere, I'm sure you'll be able to."
'Right' Yuuji nodded. 'I dismissed it earlier because I wasn't strong enough, but with Excalibur buying me time, I can definitely become strong enough to accomplish it.'
"Fine, I'll become stronger and dominate both the demons and the Anti-Demonic Alliance" Yuuji decided.
This decision wasn't made on impulse alone. He had thought about it before nodding.
From what he knew, demons were a hierarchical race. When the strong spoke, the weak stayed silent and followed, so they were actually fairly easy to convince. Especially considering what Yuuji knew about the current demon rulers, they were quite reasonable, with a few specific exceptions.
On top of that, Yuuji believed that if he solved their low fertility problem, it would become much easier to end that war, something that Yuuji didn't think he could fix right now, but he was certain the scientific genius beside him could.
As for the Anti-Demonic Alliance, that remained to be seen, but the Youkai Queen should be fairly receptive as long as freedom for her race was guaranteed.
In the end, the problem was the humans, but angels usually stood behind them, so Yuuji believed that as long as he ruled the demons and stood on equal footing with the angels, he could have them influence the humans into stopping.
Of course, since weakness within the Biblical Faction as a whole would only invite exploitation from other mythologies, the official story was that the angels were not behind the Anti-Demonic Alliance and that it consisted solely of humans who did not follow the religion.
But regardless of what they claimed, Yuuji was certain that was a lie.
Of course, in the end, it didn't matter how reasonable they were. It would simply save Yuuji the trouble of fighting before convincing them. Those unwilling to listen would be forced to do so.
'Is that too psychopathic of me?' he wondered, but quickly shook his head. 'No, it's necessary.'
"Hehehe."
"Mm? What are you laughing about?" he asked upon seeing the smiling Lala looking happier than usual.
"Yuuji, I was thinking. When you said that you probably won't help other races like this in the future, that means you're assuming you'll be in a position where you could, right? You think you'll be above not just one race but many throughout the universe, right? What exactly were you referring to? What role do you think fits that description, huh?" Lala asked, smiling more and more as she spoke.
"No idea what you're talking about" Yuuji feigned ignorance.
"Eh? Yuuji, sometimes you're affectionate and sometimes you're annoying. Why?" Lala asked, disappointed by his answer.
"I'm affectionate with normal Lala, but when Lala gets smug, I feel like teasing her."
"Really?"
"Really."
"Then, Yuuji, I love you" said Lala, trying hard to sound normal since she didn't understand what Yuuji meant by normal Lala.
"Pfft."
Seeing her like that, Yuuji simply laughed.
"Yuuji!" Lala complained with a pout.
"Haha, sorry, sorry" Yuuji apologized while still laughing. "I love you too."
...
"What's wrong?" Lala asked, confused by the deep look Yuuji was giving her.
At that moment, they were standing in front of Issei's house, exactly where Koneko and Kiba had disappeared earlier.
In addition, Lala was wearing two extremely thick pink metallic gauntlets, each finger ending in ten-centimeter claws.
"Aren't you going to give one of your scientific explanations?" Yuuji asked.
"Well, since you want to hear one, I'll tell you" Lala smiled, waiting for the question. "Yuuji, do you know what teleportation is?
There are many types, and the most common involves folding space. It's as if you took point A and placed it next to point B, removing the entire path in between. It's a type of manipulation that isn't visible in our dimension, so it doesn't directly affect us or others.
Then there's the lower-plane type. The theory is that besides our plane, there are other planes where space doesn't function the same way. So first we move into that plane and travel only a short distance there, allowing us to move a much greater distance here when we return.
There's also light transformation, where we don't actually teleport. Instead, we transform into light and move so quickly that it appears to be teleportation. This method requires two pillars, one at the origin and one at the destination.
The most difficult of all works through spatial coordinates and semi-reality manipulation. It's based on the theory that the universe possesses self-awareness and that all of us function as data within it.
If someone uses a specific type of manipulation to alter their spatial coordinates, the universe immediately corrects it by moving the universe itself so that everything becomes consistent again. It's like editing a line of code and, since you can't modify that line directly, moving all the rest of the code so it matches that single line.
There are many more, but those are the four most well-known ones.
Do you understand?"
"...I know I'm the one who asked in the first place, but how does any of this help us?"
"This..." Lala said while leaning directly against the air itself, as lines of code seemed to spread across her gauntlets, extending throughout the surrounding space and forming a wall. "...helps us understand that teleportation doesn't actually exist. There's no way to move from point A to point B without crossing the path in between. There are only ways to modify that path until it's almost nonexistent or methods to traverse it faster. Even so, the path still exists, and as long as it exists, there are ways to find it."
As soon as Lala finished speaking, the wall of code in the air began retracting, flowing back into the gauntlets.
With the gauntlets loaded with whatever that was, Lala attacked the very air itself with both hands, piercing the void with her claws and opening a crack in space as she pulled outward.
"You definitely made it that flashy on purpose" Yuuji laughed, surprised by the visual effects.
"Hehe." Lala giggled, practically confirming it.
The next second, Lala grabbed Yuuji by the arm and jumped through the spatial crack, which closed behind them as though nothing had happened.
...
"Warn me next time, please" Yuuji said, dizzy after being thrown through space by Lala.
"Maybe I will, maybe I won't" Lala joked.
"Ahem, ahem."
A female voice coughed from nearby, drawing their attention.
There stood a mature-looking Youkai woman with a curvaceous figure and, honestly, exaggerated assets. She looked at them with a gentle smile.
"So, dear guests, should I simply call you Outsiders, or do you have names?"
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+15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
p-atreon.com/IAMME26
(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)