Time drifted by in its unhurried way. The peaceful days made themselves easy to appreciate.
Then the chat group's cold mechanical chime rang out for everyone at once.
*[Ding — member [Demon Queen] has joined the chat group.]*
*[Ding — member [Shido Saeko] has joined the chat group.]*
*[Ding — member [Flying Squirrel] has joined the chat group.]*
**[Ordinary Group Leader]:** Welcome, new members. Three at once — I don't think we've had that many join in a single wave in a while.
**[Ordinary Group Leader]:** Usually it's two and then one more later to round it out.
**[Cook Daigu Into Soup]:** It hasn't even been that long since the last new members. And here come more already!
**[Ice Queen]:** I hope their worlds aren't the boring domestic kind. Slice-of-life worlds are tedious.
**[Size-Shift Anywhere]:** I feel personally attacked.
Domestic worlds were peaceful, sure — but for someone like Esdeath, that was precisely the problem. She didn't hate peace. She just preferred war. War was where she found the things that made life feel worthwhile.
**[Richest Man]:** Welcome, everyone. Say — has anyone else noticed that the first new member's name seems... slightly off?
**[Kasumigaoka Utaha]:** You're not the group leader or Brandon White. Don't tell me you can figure out someone's identity just from their group name.
**[Kasumigaoka Utaha]:** It's just "Demon Queen." You're not thinking it's Hela, Odin's daughter from your world's mythology, are you?
**[Kasumigaoka Utaha]:** If it were Hela, her name would be "Goddess of Death," not "Demon Queen"!
Kasumigaoka Utaha caught herself mid-sentence and felt something tug at her. Something wasn't right.
**[Kasumigaoka Utaha]:** ...Demon Queen?
**[Kasumigaoka Utaha]:** It can't be the one I'm thinking of, can it?
If it was, things were about to get interesting in the worst possible way.
**[Cook Daigu Into Soup]:** That's a stretch, isn't it? Sure, we've had parallel timeline people before, but the odds of that have to be absurdly small!
Daigu had clearly made the same leap. But if it really was *her* — the implications were staggering.
**[Richest Man]:** No no — technically, the chat group draws from all worlds and all dimensions, and parallel timelines count as part of that. Mathematically, their chances of being included should be the same as anyone else's.
**[Richest Man]:** That said, it's still just speculation. Mythologies from various worlds have Demon Queens too. Probably not *actually* that specific.
In the real world, Brandon White had gone still for a moment when he heard the first member's name.
"What's wrong?"
Angel Yan had caught his expression and was watching him with curiosity. It wasn't something you saw often.
"Someone just joined who might cause a bit of an uproar," Brandon said, voice carrying an odd note.
That name mapped too easily onto a certain figure — the one who stood in direct opposition to Holy Queen Keisha.
**[Ordinary Group Leader]:** If it really is her, this is going to be very entertaining.
Roxie Vale had had the same thought the moment she saw the name. The probability was low — it could easily be someone from a completely different world — but something told her anyway. She just knew.
This Demon Queen was Morgana, Queen of the Demon Civilization in the Superstring Academy universe.
And shortly after Roxie sent her message, the new member made herself known.
**[Demon Queen]:** Well, well. Let's see what kind of place I've landed myself in.
**[Demon Queen]:** Thought Karl had cooked up some new void-research experiment. Turns out it's something else entirely.
**[Demon Queen]:** A chat group that links across all worlds and dimensions?
**[Demon Queen]:** Tch. If I couldn't verify it for myself, I might not believe it.
In the Superstring Academy universe, Morgana turned the virtual screen in front of her over with curiosity.
This wasn't the work of any known civilization's technology.
And then there was the moment she'd been pulled into the group — a massive data stream that had simply ignored her attempts to block it and poured itself directly into her mind. That alone confirmed this thing was real.
*Even if the plan fails, what of it? If I grow for a few thousand years in a place like this, couldn't I just pin that bitch Keisha to the ground and beat her anyway?*
The psychological weight Keisha had left on her was apparently significant — even with the chat group in hand, Morgana's first instinct was to estimate conservatively.
**[Demon Queen]:** So the universal system across all these worlds isn't technology?
**[Demon Queen]:** Magic? Chakra? Spiritual energy? Martial cultivation? What kind of strange power systems are these.
**[Demon Queen]:** Especially this one — Godslayer! What system is that?
**[Demon Queen]:** Killing gods with a human body? What kind of garbage gods are those, getting taken out by a single person?
**[Demon Queen]:** I wouldn't dare dream of doing that.
The other systems she could overlook — she didn't know them and couldn't read them. But Godslayer? Even if they weren't tech-gods like her kind, a *human* killing a god and taking its divine authority?
What kind of so-called god was getting killed by people these days?
**[The Most Ancient Godslayer]:** ...
He knew she was describing things accurately. That didn't make it any more enjoyable to read.
Wasn't the correct response to something like this — *yes, but consider the courage required, the conviction, the sheer against-the-odds heroism of it?* Like a warrior slaying a dragon?
**[Richest Man]:** Cough — while it might sound misleading when you put it that way, those gods weren't actually weak. Destroying an entire city was very much within their capabilities.
**[Richest Man]:** And because of their Authority and their nature, these gods had certain unique properties — ordinary people couldn't even perceive them.
**[Richest Man]:** The reason Godslayers exist at all — humans killing gods with mortal bodies — comes down to more than just courage and belief. There was extraordinary luck involved as well, and together those things produced a genuinely impossible achievement.
**[Demon Queen]:** Destroying cities... I suppose that would qualify as divine by mortal standards.
**[Demon Queen]:** But if you can still be taken down by a human at that level, I genuinely have no words for you. What an embarrassment to divinity.
Morgana turned the corner of her mouth down. A god at that tier placed in her universe would rank somewhere around slightly above Ato — possibly not even that strong.
**[Demon Queen]:** Wait, there are angels and demons in this group?
**[Demon Queen]:** Angels from another world, hm. I wonder what that bitch Keisha would think if she saw this.
**[Demon Queen]:** Hahahahaha, she never saw this coming, did she! I joined something this extraordinary!
**[Demon Queen]:** The void — *this* is the void!
**[Demon Queen]:** And she's been hunting me! Just wait until I'm strong enough — first thing I do is cut her down!
**[Demon Queen]:** No wait, I'm changing my mind. Killing Keisha early would be letting her off too cheap. She should have to watch — watch me surpass her step by step, and then watch me shatter everything she's built!
**[Demon Queen]:** Just thinking about it gets me excited. HAHAHAHA!!
*(End of Chapter)*