Just like this, the Demon Lord Michael left.

For a moment there, I thought the destruction of Muspelheim and the fall of the Fire Church was unavoidable, but now that things are over, the both of them are okay.

Damages were low and we didn’t allow monsters to enter the city.

We splendidly managed to repel the Demon Lord Michael.

Though, there was a crazy amount of injured in the Ignis Militant corps.

Especially Sis Kyouka who covered me in the middle of the fight. Her injuries were the most severe and was immediately sent to the hospital, but with the many burns and fractures, she was made to rest.

Regarding the bone fractures, the bone specialists in the Earth Church will be taking care of it; the burns will be taken care of by the healers of the Water Church.

We had to invite them here to provide treatment, but it will still be hard for her to return to the battlefield anytime soon.

Aside from that, there’s also many fire militants injured in trying to clean up the monsters Michael created. On top of that, due to shooting Grand Melt multiple times, most of the fire militants were down from exhaustion.

Grand Melt is originally an ultimate technique and it is not the kind that leaves energy after.

Mostly everyone in the fire militants had wrung out all their divine power, and were literally unable to move a single finger anymore.

The ones who carried us back were Karen and the Aurora Knight corps.

The Aurora Knights came rushing from Apollon City after the call for reinforcements, but they arrived at the battle practically at the end of it. Even so, it really helped us out that they took the job of cleaning up after instead of the fire militants.

If they weren’t here, a number of deaths would have come out from being late in treating the injured after all.

And so, I was also…

****

“Mirack-chan, are you okay?”

In my room at the hospital directly managed by the Fire Church, Karen asked.

The Aurora Knights have finished most of their relief job and were about to return to Apollon City, so she has come here to give her goodbyes.

“Of course I am okay. I am the fire hero, you know. I am the strongest within the fire heroes.” (Mirack)

“Fufufu, right.” (Karen)

This kind of pride works as a joke between Karen and I now.

In reality, I had uncountable injuries in my whole body, and the burden to my body when in God Hero mode was not something that could be ignored. The doctor prohibited me from training for a while.

“But I was surprised. To think that Mirack-chan became a God Hero as well. Thanks to that, you were able to fight back the Demon Lord, right?” (Karen)

“Well, yeah. If not for that, we wouldn’t have been able to turn away Michael. We would have all been slaughtered and Muspelheim would have become a barren land.” (Mirack)

From what I heard, Karen had also succeeded in turning into a God Hero.

When a hero receives a part of a God and powers up by it, they become a God Hero. That power is overwhelming, and when I wasn’t in that form, I couldn’t injure the Demon Lord at all, but after, I was able to fight on even grounds against him.

I understand how big a God Hero is after actually becoming one.

That power without a doubt will become our trump card against the Demon Lords. It can’t be missing.

But…

“Why was I able to become a God Hero?” (Mirack)

That was a question I couldn’t not ask.

It is not as if I did any special training to become a God Hero, and it is not as if I passed a trial or anything. I didn’t do any ritual either.

And yet, in a really abrupt manner, as if it had been jammed into me, I obtained power that was several times higher than anything until now.

For the Fire Church that treasures training the most, I feel as if I cheated in some way and it doesn’t let me calm down.

“It is the help of the Gods, Mirack-chan!” (Karen)

Karen says shiningly.

“The five Gods that we revere have caught onto the danger of the world and have provided us with the power to fight it back! As I thought, the Gods are really looking over us!” (Karen)

“…”

Karen innocently prided at the miracle that is the God Hero form, but I had a different impression of it.

Before becoming the fire God Hero, there was a voice resonating directly into my head that only I could hear.

That voice, looking at the situation, was without doubt from the Fire Cow Phalaris.

After the battle, he returned to his small size and was sent back to the hut of the Grand Fire Sanctuary.

Maybe because he pushed himself when fighting, or because his injuries still hurt after being pummeled by Michael, he is sleeping all the time without any energy, but due to his appetite being higher than the usual, they told us that there’s nothing to worry about.

But in this battle, the Lord of monsters came to attack us, and yet, even when he is the same monster as them, Phalaris fought as the ally of humans.

That mysterious action pushed his fluffy popularity from before even more.

It looks like the Fire Church is currently filled up with people worshipping and trying to get a look at that cow.

“…”

The voice that directly resonated in me and guided me before becoming a God Hero.

That voice…if that was really the voice of that cow…if the power of the God Hero is truly a power given to us by the Gods…

“No way, right?” (Mirack)

I denied the conclusion that was led from putting two situations together.

“Mirack-chan? What is that ‘no way’ you speak of?” (Karen)

“Don’t ask, Karen! It is definitely impossible! I am just overthinking. That cow just coincidentally did an action that favoured us! Other possibilities are improbable!” (Mirack)

A monster is?! No way!

I don’t want to talk about this matter anymore.

Karen considered my feelings and didn’t pursue the topic.

We changed the conversation to something else.

“…But even with that God Hero power, you couldn’t defeat the Demon Lord.” (Karen)

That’s right.

As long as there’s no notice from the other nations about it, this will be the first battle between a God Hero and a Demon Lord.

Whether a God Hero is truly the trump card to overturn the Demon Lords. It was supposed to become an important cornerstone, but I was unable to defeat Michael.

The God Hero didn’t lose to the Demon Lord, but it wasn’t able to beat it either.

For us humanity, who are heavily inferior in numbers against them, this is nothing short of saddening.

“…I don’t think it is such a bad thing.” (Mirack)

I couldn’t defeat Michael.

“The Demon Lords are our enemies…but, just as he said, I think that we both are great opponents.” (Mirack)

There’s types of opponents.

The type of opponent that the more you fight them, the more both of you regress; the ones that the more you fight, the more you grow.

In that sense, we can categorize them as bad and good opponents, but the truly troublesome ones are probably the good opponents rather than the bad ones.

That’s because you can simply defeat the bad opponents in your hatred.

But the good ones, the opponents that you connect with from things other than hatred, just how do you reach a good conclusion to it?

“I couldn’t tell anymore. How should I wrap up my battle with him? Is it fine with just one of us dying? I began to feel that just doing that would not be good.” (Mirack)

“Mirack-chan…” (Karen)

Michael and I; hero and Demon Lord; human and monster.

In this battle of supremacy, just in what way would it be desirable for our battle to conclude?

“In order to grasp that answer, I have to fight him once more.” (Mirack)

It is inexplicable, but for me, the unavoidable battle between Michael and I in the future was something that I was looking forward to on the same level as how I look forward to reuniting with Karen and the others.

“…Now that I think about it…” (Mirack)

Karen was about to leave the room, but I let out a final question.

“I didn’t see Haine this time. What happened? He is the type of guy that would stick his head in other people’s business even when you don’t call him.” (Mirack)

Maybe there was an even more precarious situation happening somewhere else and he headed there, so I was a bit worried.

When I asked this, Karen’s expression visibly clouded and she muttered.

It was such a low mutter that I had to ask again, and I finally understood what she said.

“Missing? Along with the Light Founder?” (Mirack)

• 277: Fantasy physics study

And so, in the end, I -Kuromiya Haine- should be the one closing this.

We are still in the Nameless Desert.

In order to bring back Mother Earth Mantle who it would be nice if she were caught inside the Black Hole.

Yorishiro, Shiva, and I were cooperating in destroying the Black Hole, but it isn’t working at all.

It isn’t even showing signs of going well.

The only weakness of my Black Hole is to eliminate the dark matter core inside of it with Light divine power. The Black Hole itself would be eliminated and might release Mantle who is probably caught inside of it.

However, no matter how many times we try, the light divine power gets caught in the high gravity of the Black Hole before reaching the core.

Even when we increased the power with the air lens of Shiva and my gravity lens, we couldn’t break through the heavy gravity.

We tried many times with light divine power, but they all ended in failure.

Right now, we were splattered on the ground resting our mental and physical exhaustion that was accumulated from all the failures.

Adding that we are in the Nameless Desert, being crazy hot is making it even more exhausting.

There’s no signs of anything going well and there was a sense of fruitless effort welling up inside of us already.

“How about we return…?” (Yorishiro)

The first one to voice out words of surrender was Yorishiro.

“As expected, we were underestimating the power of darkness. No matter what plan we have, it won’t work on the Black Hole. It is true that if the return of Mantle happens, we will be in an advantage, but if we get too adhered to that, it might end up being fatal.” (Yorishiro)

It is as Yorishiro says.

In the first place, the three people here are the incarnations of the Dark God Entropy, the Light Goddess Inflation, and the Wind God Quasar. In other words, a gathering of Gods.

“In the time we are doing this, who knows when the Demon Lords will begin moving. Let’s abandon the matter of Mantle and prepare for things in the range of what we can do.” (Yorishiro)

Her logic was so sound we couldn’t say a single word of objection.

If we could salvage Mantle here, we could make Sasae-chan into an Earth God Hero and it would increase a lot our fighting forces against the Demon Lords, but…that’s not the only problem.

It is rather Coacervate that’s a problem bigger than Mantle.

The possibilities of him cooperating are despairingly nonexistent. It is impossible to make all five into God Heroes in the current state, so it might not be necessary to force us in bringing back Mantle.

Let’s be reasonable here and think of a way to win with the cards we have at hand.

“…Aren’t you misunderstanding something?”

And in that moment, someone had cut in.

Within the group of three here, the one who spoke at last was Shiva.

“Misunderstanding? What is it we are misunderstanding? Now that it is impossible to bring back Mantle, we have to hurry and make Hyue-san and Mirack-san into God Heroes. I think convincing Nova will be difficult, but simply having the prospect of convincing makes it better than the other two. We should quickly—” (Yorishiro)

“That’s not what I am saying.” (Shiva)

Yorishiro pressed on, but Shiva stopped her.

“What I mean is that what we were lacking wasn’t output, but accuracy.” (Shiva)

““?””

We didn’t understand what Shiva was saying.

“I will begin with the basics. Why is it that the light divine power is not reaching the core of the Black Hole?” (Shiva)

Because the gravity of the Black Hole is…

“The Black Hole pulls in everything no matter what it is, right? In that case, even if the light is caught in the gravity, its destination should be the center of the Black Hole. In other words, at the super-compressed dark matter core. In that case, even if we did nothing, the caught light would reach the dark matter, isn’t it?” (Shiva)

“Yeah but…” (Haine)

“You said that the light would be infinitely caught inside the Schwarzschild radius, right?” (Shiva)

“Well, that’s right.” (Haine)

Sorry, but I actually don’t understand it well myself either.

Don’t you think the words Schwarzschild radius sound cool though?

“When you approach a certain distance to the Black Hole, no matter what power you have, you won’t be able to return. That radius is one that you can’t return from. If you make one step into it, no matter what it is, you won’t be able to escape from the Black Hole —even light.” (Shiva)

Oh, I am impressed you know so much about it, Shiva-san.

By the way, Yorishiro had already given up in understanding.

“And so, returning to the previous topic, we have shot light divine power in order to destroy the core of the Black Hole. But we didn’t succeed once. We were thinking that the reason was because the light divine power lacked in strength to break through the gravity, but is that really the case?” (Shiva)

“Then, what is the reason for the failures?” (Haine)

“Until now, we were aimlessly shooting light to the Black Hole. We didn’t try to accurately shoot at the core. Isn’t that the problem?” (Shiva)

“…”

He does have a point.

The Black Hole looks like a pitch-black sphere, but that’s because it doesn’t let even the reflection of light return which makes it look that way.

The super-compressed dark matter core can be said to be the only thing with substance inside the Black Hole, but because it is super-compressed, it is a thousand times smaller than a grain of sand.

If you want to aim at it and hit it, you would need God-like precision.

But Yorishiro and I didn’t take it as an important point to stress.

We had the positive thinking that since the Black Hole is absorbing everything, even if we don’t seriously aim at it, it should go to its target on its own.

Without noticing that we were contradicting ourselves because of the light being caught by the Schwarzschild radius.

“Listen well. Even with that, the strongest element against darkness is light.” (Shiva)

Shiva’s professor-like lecture continues.

“The one with the highest possibility of escaping from the Black Hole is light as well. The speed of light is the fastest and has no mass after all. It is probably that the light, which has been shot blindly into the Black Hole, would graze the core and pass by it, but the gravity catches it and pulls it back.” (Shiva)

Yeah yeah (I don’t really understand).

“If it were a normal substance, it would be pulled by the gravity just like that and fall into the center of the Black Hole. But light is different. Light is good against darkness, but has no mass and flies at high speed, so it goes against the gravity and can proceed through the contrary direction of the gravity. Even if it enters the Schwarzschild radius.” (Shiva)

Yup yup yup (still don’t understand).

“But everything that enters the Schwarzschild radius can’t get out, which is absolute. As a result, what happens is that ‘the power trying to escape’ and the ‘power trying to pull in’; both the high speed and high gravity balance each other out and stop into a boundary line between possible to escape and impossible to. That’s…” (Shiva)

The Schwarzschild radius…

This radius is basically the satellite orbit of the Black Hole. The light that gets caught in a battle of speed and gravity ends up being unable to move from that place.

“I have made a wordy talk there, but what I mean is that in order to destroy the Black Hole, we have to aim the light divine power accurately and hit the core.” (Shiva)

That’s why Shiva said that rather than output, we need is accuracy.

“Understood.” (Yorishiro)

Yorishiro who had given up on listening has revived!

“Just means that instead of blindly shooting, we should aim this time, right? Why did you make such a long talk just to say that? Is it that men think they will look cooler by sounding intelligent?” (Yorishiro)

“You woman also immediately shutted out the talk you yourself had no interest in! As I thought, all women aside from Juo are idiots!” (Shiva)

Them not getting along is a default.

But even if Shiva’s hypothesis is correct, it is not as if things have been easily resolved now.

The destruction of the Black Hole is still a treacherous path.

Because as I said before, the core of the Black Hole is thousands of times smaller than a grain of sand.

But its mass is several hundreds of times that of a mountain though.

Accurately hitting such a small target is close to impossible.

“I will do something about it.” (Shiva)

Shiva jumps in.

“I am the Wind God Quasar, but I am also the human that has the position of Wind Founder. I have confidence in my aim as a dual wind gun user.” (Shiva)

“Shiva…” (Haine)

“Of course, in terms of long range sniping, I am no match for Hyue, but…there’s still worth in trying. I will fix the direction of the light beam of Yorishiro with the air lens. Haine.” (Shiva)

“Yes?” (Haine)

“I will have you take the role of feeling the position of the core as a darkness user. Let’s try struggling a bit more before giving up.” (Shiva)

Shiva stands up as if saying break time is over.

I also follow and stand up. Yorishiro, as if saying ‘good grief’, lifts up her big butt from the sand.

After many failed attempts and hypothesis, we were approaching the destruction of the Black Hole.

But even with that, it would still require hundreds of test shots more in order to pierce through the core of the Black Hole.

In other words, what I am trying to say is that it will still take more time to save Mantle.

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