I had pegged her as a Witch-type to start with, but now she seemed to be telling us pretty much everything. From everything she was telling us, it seemed fair to also call this approach pretty stupid. There was a chance she was a liar, but the explanation made too much sense to be a lie.

“The holders of the holy and vassal weapons are basically slaves to the weapons, correct? The weapons won’t lend their strength to anyone who won’t follow their orders. So we have confined those weapons and are forcibly drawing out their power. Don’t make the foolish mistake of comparing those other vassal weapon holders to us, thank you,” she said. So they were suppressing the holy weapons, allowing them to also suppress any vassal weapons resisting them, and then forcibly drawing out their power? Damn, my analysis had been this: even if they knew some power-up methods, they probably weren’t drawing their full power! Holy crap, I had completely underestimated these guys. We could have easily got ourselves killed, walking into this the wrong way.

“Hey!” Miyaji said.

“What are you telling them all of that for?” Witch said.

“Right! What value is there in conversing with evil?” Armor added. The three of them seemed quite displeased with the direction this stupid newcomer had chosen to take.

When I read it another way, however, their displeasure also suggested she was telling the truth. The idiot woman faced her allies with her arms crossed.

“Well, well, well. It seems the musical instrument hero from this world and our newcomers are feeling the pressure already,” she said, tauntingly, while spreading one hand to the side.

“What was that?” Miyaji replied.

“Are you looking for a fight?” Witch responded, glaring at the trash-woman with hate in her eyes. They were having a falling out already, were they? Go ahead, morons, kill each other for me!

“You agree with my stance here, correct? Rather than killing them without them knowing anything, we should give them the slightest opportunity to win and then rip it away, allowing us to enjoy the despair on their faces even more,” the idiot said, taunting Witch. It was a textbook line from a villain. But I had to presume she didn’t know how many such villains we had defeated already. “Defeating such scum, with all their pathetic efforts and cowardly schemes, like the insignificant insects they are, is the law of the truly powerful, no? If you use your own stingy, cowardly means to defeat your prey, then you are no better than the scum you defeat!” she went on.

“What?!” Witch flared up. “You have a problem with how we do things?” It looked like Witch and the moron woman were not on the best of terms. They were probably too similar to get along. I couldn’t even work out why they were fighting in the first place.