Chapter 258: Masterful Manipulation

Point-of-View: Belia Lasmodeus

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"Alright, talk...what's going on here?" Inquired the blonde man with a frown. 

I'd opened a portal to take the six of them, myself and my four sidekicks to the outskirts of Silvland, no one would interrupt us out here. Time to win the favor of these humans. 

"Before that...we should all introduce ourselves, shouldn't we? I am Belia Lasmodeus," I replied with a smile, before nudging Shiro. 

"Shiro Blanc, nice to meet you," He remarked in a polite, friendly tone.

Ooh, nice acting... 

"I am Hacte Routh, a pleasure to make your acquaintance." 

Good work, I'd expect nothing less from such an expert suck-up! 

"Gela Sorr." 

"You can call me Druj."

"And the six of you are...?" I inquired, putting on a friendly expression. 

"Wait, hold on," Spoke up the older woman with green hair, pointing at Shiro with a slightly amused look on her face, "Your name...is it really Shiro Blanc?" 

"Yeah, that caught my attention too...that's a lot of white for one name," Added the teenage boy with a stifled laugh. 

"Hey! Don't be rude, we're in another world, things probably work differently here!" Whispered the blonde man, elbowing the teen's side. 

"Tch, who cares about being polite, we were summoned without consent, AGAIN, why should we make an effort not to offend them!?" Huffed the red-haired man. 

Again?

"Technically, we were reincarnated the first time," Corrected one of the twins, the white-haired one. 

Hm, Shiro has a strange expression on his face...he leaned in and whispered to me... 

"Send the other three away, it'll be hard to talk to these people without breaking the taboo...but Samsara only cares about that when people who previously had no idea about it find out, it should be fine if we send the others away and speak to the six of them with just the two of us."

I don't know exactly what's going on, but he usually just watches these things play out without interfering, so the fact that he's doing so this time probably means that I should listen...plus, I'm interested to see where this goes. I opened a portal below the three others and sent them away before they could react, Hacte letting out a yelp of surprise before fading as I closed the portal. 

"Wha-...what are you playing at!?" Inquired blondie with a cautious look on his face, grabbing the handle of his blade...he reacted swiftly, looks like we can definitely expect a reasonable level of skill from these people...

"Calm down, I'll explain," Responded Shiro, meeting his gaze and continuing, "This world has certain taboos that can't be broken, including speaking about reincarnation and other worlds...though it's kind of a loophole if it's a discussion between people who all already know about it. And the fact that you said the words 'summoned again' and 'reincarnated', and recognized both Japanese and French words means that..."

"Oh, are those languages from the world Kuro came from?" I inquired in a quiet, curious whisper, but he ignored me. 

"Are you saying that you're from another world too?" Inquired blondie, the grip on his sword handle easing slightly. 

"Not quite...the evil being that the king mentioned before, he reincarnated here from another world...and after he started carrying out the horrendous acts that the king described, I was created by the being who is in charge of this world, I guess you could call him God...I'm basically an inverse copy of that person, his name is Kuro Black. Unfortunately, I failed to kill him, and instead nearly ended up dying myself."

Ooh, I like this angle that he's playing...not bad, Shiro, not bad at all... 

"I see...and how did you end up here?" 

"This woman, Belia, saved me. She's a being that's been around for centuries with the task of maintaining peace and stability in this world, she had remained in the shadows for hundreds upon hundreds of years, but she just couldn't stay hidden any longer...see, she'd stayed in hiding because she was so much more powerful than any of the beings in this world, but now, Kuro is strong enough to match her...in other words, no human can stand up to him."

Me? Peace and stability? Hahaha, I really like what you're doing here, Shiro, keep going! 

"And that's why she's actively helping this kingdom now?" 

"Exactly! The Rustlands will take over the entire world at this rate, Platinberg is effectively under Kuro's control, Silvland has lost all its fighting power and the only other nation, Bronztan, is allied with the Rustlands out of fear. The people of Silvland may seem a bit crazy, but it's not their fault...their peaceful Iives were thrown into chaos by Kuro and the Rustlands, things got so bad that Belia couldn't bring herself to stay out of it anymore. Myself and the other three who were just here are working with her to save Silvland. Even if we have to lie, we don't care so long as, by the end of it, the people here get to return to their peaceful lives."

"Wait, what do you mean by lie?" The blonde man inquired suspiciously. 

Uh-oh, did Shiro mess up? Huh, going by his expression...no, he didn't. This was all still going according to his plan... 

"You mean you haven't already figured it out? Belia isn't some Archangel and the four of us certainly aren't Angels...but you see, the people of Silvland are deeply religious, and they're very wary of outsiders...we arrived at the conclusion that the only way to get them to accept our help was to exploit their religion...we'll tell them the truth once we've restored peace to this world, we don't care if they hate us or not. They may be a bit religiously fanatical, but they aren't bad people, you know? We're just...just so tired of seeing innocent people die for no damned reason!" He exclaimed, his voice trembling and cracking slightly as he yelled, before adding in a calmer voice, "I-I'm sorry, I shouldn't have raised my voice like that."

I...I just got chills. What incredible acting. Wow, I'm in absolute awe, Shiro. I suppose I should expect as much from someone who had to rely on deception the moment he came into existence, but even so, this is absolutely brilliant. What truly masterful manipulation... 

"No, you have no reason to apologize...you must have suffered all this time, haven't you?" Remarked blondie sympathetically, placing a hand on his shoulder, "You can rest easy...we'll save this world, you have my word!" 

"We will?" Inquired the redhead skeptically. 

"Yes. We will," Replied blondie, giving him a pointed glare, "We have the power to help them, so it's our responsibility to do so!" 

Ew... 

"I...thank you, you have no idea how much this means to us! We truly are sorry for summoning you all out of the blue like that, but that's just how desperate we were, to use a spell that we weren't even sure would work. If you don't mind me asking, what are your names, and what was the world you all came from like?" Asked Shiro, putting on a weak, friendly smile. 

"Oh, right. We were originally from a world without magic, and we were all college classmates, but then we all died in a truck crash and were reincarnated in a different world. We weren't all reincarnated at the same time though, that's why we're not all the same age. We all retained our memories and eventually came across each other before long. We then formed an Adventuring party and wound up being the heroes that saved the kingdom we were a part of. We were all a fair bit more powerful than the majority of Adventurers in that world. And that's when you summoned us here. My name is Shin Tanaka."

"So, you guys are Japanese? And you use your names from before you were reincarnated?" Asked Shiro, maintaining that friendly tone the whole time. 

...what's a 'Japanese'? 

"No, we're not all Japanese, I was studying for college overseas in America. And after we reincarnated, we used our new names publicly, but with each other, we used our original names. My friends are...," He replied, before gesturing to them to introduce themselves. 

Ohh, I see, they were talking about names of countries from another world... 

"I'm Lily Curran, nice to meet you," Greeted the green haired woman.

"The name's Ren Hanamaru," Grunted the red-haired man. 

"Dwayne Alan, sup?" Said the teenage boy with a slight wave of his hand. 

"Hi, I'm Skylar Lambert, how do you do?" Smiled the black haired twin, bowing politely. 

"And I'm Kyle Quill. Oh, FYI, we weren't twins in our original world, we weren't even related...in fact, we were a couple, so it was pretty awkward when we realized that," Sighed the white haired twin. 

"Yikes, that's all kinds of messed up," Remarked Shiro with a laugh, "Well, anyway, welcome to this world, all of you. Let's go back to the castle and get you all set up in your own rooms, shall we? Oh, and some of the people from Silvland might come across as kinda snobby, but don't take it personally, they don't mean any harm, they're just prideful people."

"Oh, no need to worry about that, we had to dealt with our fair share of arrogant nobles and royals in the world you summoned us from, so we're pretty used to that. We know how to deal with them without causing any friction," Assured Shin with a wry smile. 

"Yeah, it's not exactly pleasant, but there's no sense in causing avoidable conflicts, I suppose," Sighed Ren with a shrug. 

"Wait, before we head back...I have an idea, why don't have a few friendly sparring rounds, so that we can get an idea of how strong each other are?" I suggested in a pleasant tone, "Shiro here is quite powerful, so if you don't mind, I'd like to get an idea of you six stack up against him." 

"Hm...yeah, why not? I'm up for the challenge," Replied Shin with a grin, after glancing at the other five. 

It's a bit annoying, but I'm going to have to tone down my chaotic impulses in order to maintain the trust of these people whom Shiro had so expertly gained. Better make sure to get the other sidekicks on the same page too. Gaining trust is difficult, but losing it is really easy, all it takes is one slip-up...and the more you gain someone's trust, the more satisfying their expressions are when you break that trust, so I should play my cards right...

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