[So what's the plan going forward?]
Two Hundred asked excitedly, and Alex answered.
"There were three main reasons the world was destroyed. First, the invasion of the Demon King and demonkind. Second, corrupted dungeons. And last, the incidents and accidents that broke out in each country."
The corrupted dungeons and the incidents had thrown the world into chaos, and once the Demon King and demonkind appeared on top of that, everything fell apart completely.
"I think demonkind was behind those incidents too. But that's the part that'll be hard to stop. I don't know the details myself."
[Why?]
[You regressed, so don't you know everything?]
"Until Leo turned sixteen, I never left the village. Rumors did reach us, and there were people who knew a lot about the continent, but... I was a ghost."
He couldn't pick up paper, so he couldn't read newspapers or letters, and he couldn't speak with anyone, so there was no one he could ask.
"So what I know is bound to be a jumbled mess."
Alex let out a sigh.
"And by the time Leo set out on his journey, demonkind had already taken over a great deal of territory. They were too busy fighting to look into the causes or how it all came about."
And that had been a full twelve years later.
There was no telling how useful the information he held would be 'now'.
[That makes sense.]
[Then we'll just have to work hard at blocking it from another angle.]
Two Hundred's breezy attitude made Alex laugh in spite of himself.
"So first I'm going to build up my skills while investigating the corrupted dungeons."
Alex had decided to start with what he could actually do.
"Like I said before, corrupted dungeons don't vanish, and there's no way to predict when a dungeon break will happen, so they're dangerous."
Simply wiping out the corrupted dungeons would push 'ruin' further away.
[But this corrupted dungeon disappeared, didn't it?]
"Right. That's what I find strange too."
Alex took something out of his pocket.
The pure white bone fragment that had hung around the goblin shaman's neck.
"I think this is probably why. What is it, though...."
Alex tried a mana detection.
The mana within the bone fragment came into view.
Blackish-green mana.
Just as he thought, it resembled the skull that had been embedded in the Demon King's chest. Perhaps the two were connected.
'I suppose I'll have to go to the Mage Tower Federation?'
When it came to magic and mana, the Mage Tower Federation would know best.
But whether it was fortunate or unfortunate,
Alex did not need to travel all the way to the Mage Tower Federation.
Because Two Hundred told him exactly what the bone fragment was.
[I knew it!]
[I wasn't seeing things!]
[This is the bone from my right little toe!]
[The very last joint!]
...?
Alex blinked. He felt as though he had just heard something extremely strange.
"...What?"
What bone?
[The bone of my right little toe!]
Two Hundred's right, little toe, bone?
They were words he had never expected, and somehow his head refused to work.
[I told you back in the dungeon that I could feel my mana, right?]
[I wasn't sure since this is another world, but it's mine. My mana.]
[It's a little corrupted, though!]
[Normally it's an elegant green!]
Alex remembered that too.
That was why he had planned to go back into the dungeon and investigate after rescuing everyone.
Though the dungeon had vanished, so he never got the chance.
"...The source of that mana was this bone fragment?"
[Yeah.]
"But why is your bone suddenly turning up here?"
Two Hundred shrugged. He had no shoulders, but still.
[How should I know?]
[Probably my bones moved along with the life vessel when it fell into this world?]
Whatever the reason,
this bone fragment belonged to Two Hundred, the lich from another world.
[Anyway, this is great!]
"? What's great about it?"
[You were planning to make a new life vessel, right? Gathering my bones might be easier and faster than that.]
Two Hundred said excitedly.
Who would have thought his own body was in another world!
[It's the body I used to use, so I'm used to it, and my mana's in it, so I can use magic too!]
[That'll make taking down the Demon King easier.]
Alex looked intrigued as well.
If the lich from another world became a comrade and fought alongside them, rather than only teaching magic, it would be an even greater strength.
'The Church of Solenium is a problem, though.'
Figuring it would work out somehow, Alex asked,
"But what do you mean, your mana is in it?"
[Bones are kind of fragile, right?]
[So when I made the body, I cast magic on it to toughen it up. And I stored mana in it too, so I could draw it out in a fight or an emergency.]
[Like a magic stone.]
The moment he heard that,
a certain guess struck down into Alex's mind like a bolt of lightning.
"...Then if someone came into possession of your bones, they could use your mana?"
Somehow his voice seemed to tremble a little.
[I've never once thought about that....]
[Hmm.]
[I think it's possible.]
After running the odds, Two Hundred added,
[Normally I'd be in control, so it wouldn't happen, but right now my bones and my soul are separated.]
[Whoever picks them up can probably use them however they like.]
[Uh, hold on.]
Two Hundred said in a startled voice.
[Then that goblin shaman earlier was using my mana? Is that how a lowest-grade goblin turned into a lower-middle-grade shaman?]
[Whoa, that's crazy!]
[My mana's really strong! And that was just a little toe bone!]
Alex, who had been staring blankly at the bone fragment, spoke.
"...Two Hundred."
[Hmm? Did you call me?]
Two Hundred, in the middle of singing his own praises, answered quickly.
"If there's a little toe bone... then there are leg bones too, right?"
[? Obviously?]
Alex's gaze sank into something dark.
"And if there are leg bones, there's a pelvis."
[Huh? Is this science class?]
[Of course there is. How else would the leg bones stay attached?]
The fist holding the small bone fragment clenched tight.
"If there's a pelvis, there'll be a spine."
[Right.]
[Ah, my spine. Not a single slipped disc, it was a beautiful thing.]
His heart pounded fast enough to shake his whole body.
"And if there's a spine, there are shoulder blades?"
[Yeah. And the collarbones next to them. The arm bones connect there too.]
[Finding those and treating them was a real pain.]
Alex clenched his teeth, and the veins stood out on his neck.
"Above that there'd be neck bones."
[My neck bones weren't a C-curve or a straightened neck either, they were a perfectly pretty shape.]
Alex steadied his ragged breathing and murmured in a low voice.
"And then... there's the skull, the head bone, isn't there?"
[That's right!]
[My handsome cranium!]
[It's an especially important part, so I packed it full of mana!]
"Damn it!"
Alex did not hold back.
"It was because of you! You bastard!!"
***
[...Huh? Me?]
Startled by Alex's sudden fury, Two Hundred sat stunned for a moment before quickly raising his voice.
[What did I do! I didn't do anything!]
[And did you just swear at me!?]
"That skull of yours...!"
As if a searing heat had shot all the way up to the top of his head, Alex sprang up from his chair and was about to shout.
"Mmmnh...."
If not for Leo, sleeping behind him.
[Leo's waking up!]
"Ngh...!"
Alex steadied his breathing and tried to stay calm.
No, but was this something a person could stay calm about? Wasn't anger the natural reaction?
"Wow...! This is really going to make me lose my mind!"
Keeping his voice as low as he could, Alex found himself about to tear at his own hair with nowhere to put his anger.
[You have to explain what's going on if you want me to understand.]
At that, Alex, who had been silently raging back and forth across the room, seemed to calm down a little and sat in the chair. He looked exhausted.
[Guess you burned yourself down to white ash.]
"Haaa...."
Alex pressed a hand to his forehead, let out a deep sigh, and spoke. Right. Explain first.
"This is the third time a Demon King and a Hero have appeared in our world."
[Oh, so this isn't the first time?]
"That's right. Both times before, the Hero won."
They had been 'properly prepared' Heroes, so there had been no wretched ruin like the one in the 'future'.
"But Leo became the Hero at sixteen, not even an adult."
The fate of the world had been entrusted to a sixteen-year-old who would have struggled just to raise a one-year-old on his own.
"He had talent enough, but there wasn't time to build up skill and experience. Demonkind's territory kept expanding."
Alex continued with a devastated face.
"...Leo endured no end of hardship and grew stronger, but...."
One day at eighteen, a mere two years later,
'Hero Leo' was killed by the Demon King.
"The Demon King of this generation was simply too strong. Demonkind as well."
As though they had gained some new power.
"Even Solenius, the Chief God, didn't know where or how that 'new power' had appeared."
[Oh....]
"And embedded in that Demon King's body was a... skull that supplied him with tremendous power. One that gave off blackish-green light, just like this bone fragment."
A brief silence passed.
Two Hundred swallowed hard without meaning to and spoke.
[...Uh....]
[That... sounds like my cranium.]
"So it was your fault after all! You damned wretch!!"
This time Alex kept his voice firmly down while pouring out his fury with everything he had.
"My Leo! Damn it! Do you know how much he suffered because of that!"
Even now, thinking about it made rage surge up in him.
[B-but I'm not the one who did it!]
[My bones are just, uh, like a kitchen knife. If somebody kills a person with a kitchen knife, that's not the blacksmith's fault!]
[Though the damage seems less kitchen-knife-grade and more nuclear-bomb-grade....]
Two Hundred groaned with a low "Ngh—". Recalling the 'future' Alex had described earlier, he shrank down further.
"If you packed your bones full of mana, you should have made sure no one else could use them! Something that dangerous! Even the Holy Sword is set up so only the Hero can wield it!"
Alex shouted in a low voice.
[Look, how was I supposed to know? I didn't know either!]
[I was! All right?! Sitting at home minding my own business when I suddenly dropped into another world!]
[I was locked in a life vessel! How was I supposed to know my body had been shattered and scattered across the whole continent! Or that the Demon King and demonkind would use my bones!]
"Argh! Seriously!!"
He had a point, but it still made Alex's blood boil.
As Alex clutched his head and groaned with nowhere to send his anger, Two Hundred, who had likewise vented his grievance and settled down, apologized carefully.
[So... I'm sorry I didn't put security magic on them....]
He understood the fury of a man who had watched Leo die with his own eyes.
"Haaa...."
[S-still, let's look on the bright side. Now that we know why the Demon King and demonkind got stronger, there must be a way to deal with it, right?!]
Said the very 'reason the Demon King and demonkind got stronger', desperately.
"...You're the cause of the corrupted dungeons too."
The reason corrupted dungeons never vanished had to be that no one had ever collected Two Hundred's bones, which looked like ordinary bones.
'Two Hundred's bones would have stayed in the dungeon, become a second dungeon core, and gone on producing monsters and demonic beasts.'
And as time passed, the corrupted dungeon would have reached its limit and burst into a break.
[R... right. That's because of my bones too....]
[Sorry.]
Haaa....
Learning such an enormous truth left his head heavy. The sighs came on their own.
"And the divine power not working properly...."
[Probably because I'm a being from another world?]
Haaa....
The sighs would not stop.
[I'm really sorry.]
"...Forget it."
At Two Hundred's dejected voice, which he was hearing for the first time, Alex scrubbed a hand down his face and sorted out his tangled heart and head.
"Like you said, it isn't your fault that you fell into our world."
It had been nothing but coincidence and accident.
A terribly sad, pitiful, unfair, infuriating one.
"Still, you have to clean up after it. Help hard with subjugating the Demon King."
[Got it!]
"And with paving Leo's flower path."
[I'll do my best!]
Two Hundred said, mustering his energy.
[But hey! I'm not asking for leniency or anything!]
[It's just that I'm pretty sure I'm the one who sent you back!]
"...What?"
Alex wondered what on earth he was on about now.