Diego walked along the street, feeling somewhat incredulous. As the Joestar family's archenemy, how on earth had he managed to escape from the hands of that terrifying four-generation protagonist group?
He couldn't figure it out…
He shrugged and simply stopped thinking about it.
At least the faint light cast by the dim streetlamps proved that he was free at this moment.
"Hmm hmm~~♪"
"...Found you. Don't even think about running! death!"
"Oh?"
A thunder hammer the height of a person flew toward Diego. He casually tilted his head to dodge it.
Bang!!
The thunder hammer smashed heavily into the cement ground, creating a large pit as dust billowed. A black silhouette with twin tails appeared in an instant, arriving beside the hammer and slowly gripping its handle.
"How troublesome. Is this Dio some kind of valuable commodity? Do I need to come one by one and take a swing at him…" Diego removed his hat, ruffled his hair, and let out a sigh.
"Finally, it's finally time… Come and duel! O fearsome beast who has already sunk deep into darkness, puppeted by demonic sounds!"
Takanashi Rikka stretched her left arm straight up, her finger pointed sharply at Diego. Her other hand was spread open in front of her body. She leaned back slightly, standing in a strange and chuunibyou pose in front of Diego, forming a pincer attack with Dekomori Sanae on the other side.
"It shall be I, the wielder of the 『Evil King's True Eye』…"
"It shall be I, the wielder of the 『Master of the Thunder Warhammer』…"
"Who will thoroughly crush and wake you up!" ×2
Diego's eyebrows twitched up and down, his expression strange. "Hmm… crush?"
Five seconds later…
Smack!
Dekomori Sanae was defeated. Diego clamped her under one arm like a waist drum and gave her several solid hits.
Diego spoke in a displeased tone, as if scolding a misbehaving child: "Telling you to pick a fight! Telling you to pick a fight!"
"Master! Save me! It hurts, death!"
The intense pain made Dekomori Sanae flop around like a fish that had been thrown onto land, twisting her waist in an attempt to break free.
Takanashi Rikka had a few beads of sweat on her forehead. Clearly, Diego was a formidable opponent for her.
"Hold on a little longer, my first apostle~~"
"I'll save you right away. No matter who it is, no one can escape the illusion I'm about to create!" Takanashi Rikka pulled off her eyepatch and smiled confidently. "Burst forth, reality! Bloom wildly, neurons! Banish this world!"
"Huh?"
Hearing this, Diego stopped what he was doing and turned his head toward Takanashi Rikka, meeting her gaze.
"Morata! (Got it!)" Takanashi Rikka's spirits lifted.
Sure enough, Diego fell into a dazed state.
Dekomori Sanae sensed that the irresistible force had disappeared. She quickly broke free, scrambling and crawling back to Takanashi Rikka's side.
"This is… Could this be the new move Master has been developing recently?!"
"That's right! Once someone makes eye contact with my 『Evil King's True Eye』, they will see the thing they desire most in their heart! And—" Takanashi Rikka's tone suddenly rose as she continued explaining her ability. "Because it's what they desire most, they will lower their guard at that moment. No matter what you ask them, they will almost always answer truthfully~"
"As expected of Master! This way we can find out why Diosama has become so strange!" Dekomori Sanae was extremely excited. She eagerly walked toward Diego and cleared her throat. "Ahem, let me ask on Master's behalf. Hurry up and confess everything truthfully, death!"
A strange color flashed in Diego's eyes. He opened his mouth and said:
"I've actually always liked the idea that a Stand's ability is determined by the user's spirit and soul."
"Just like how your Stands are precisely the chuunibyou powers you once yearned for the most."
"My Scary Monsters is also true to its name — the ability to seize everything."
Bang!
Diego's two fists were pressed firmly against Dekomori Sanae's temples. He began rotating them with a bit of force.
"Eeeeeek!!"
Dekomori Sanae screamed repeatedly. With a smack, she lost all ability to resist.
"You're next, Takanashi!"
Diego placed Dekomori Sanae on the ground and pointed a finger at Takanashi Rikka.
Whoosh!
In an instant, Diego teleported behind Takanashi Rikka. The same two fists pressed against her temples.
This has to be a lie. How could he break free so quickly…
Bang!
Takanashi Rikka followed in Dekomori Sanae's footsteps, enjoying a temple massage. When Diego released his hands, she collapsed to the ground. The finger she had extended earlier seemed to be proof of her inner unwillingness.
After knocking both of them down, Diego put his hat back on and rode away on his horse.
Clip-clop clip-clop…
The sound of hooves gradually faded into the distance. The two girls also struggled to their feet.
"Master, the operation was a total failure, death…" Dekomori Sanae lowered her head, looking pitiful.
Seeing that Takanashi Rikka didn't respond, Dekomori Sanae called out again: "Master?"
Takanashi Rikka rolled over to face the sky and murmured: "Dekomori…"
"I'm actually curious. What exactly determined Dio's Stand ability?"
"Eh?"
"Dio said Scary Monsters was because he wanted to seize everything, right? Then why can The World stop time?"
"Maybe it's because he hopes he can spend more time with us, death!" After thinking for a moment, Dekomori Sanae smiled and said.
"Yeah! Sooner or later, we have to form a high-level contract with the 『Evil King's True Eye』!" Takanashi Rikka's cheeks turned slightly red. She lowered her head shyly, and from the corner of her eye she caught sight of the large pit. She said tearfully, "Ugh… but before that, the two of us have to take responsibility for repairing the road surface first."
"I'll have my family send workers to fix it tomorrow, death!"
...
Diego Brando's life could be said to be quite spectacular:
Undisputed number one among warriors..
The one who controlled the entire continent and killed the Demon King..
He had always existed as a natural-born leader..
In the past, when Sui first joined the team, Diego's squad had once been ambushed by the Demon King army's vanguard. In order to establish his authority, Diego's choice was—
To personally annihilate the entire Demon King army vanguard by himself!!
"Defeating an army led by a great demon so easily…" Even the proud Sui had once evaluated him with such shock.
"Don't be fooled by appearances. Dio hasn't even gone all out yet, Miss Elga. Compared to that, he's more like the legendary hero!" Those were Alicia's exact words at the time.
"Maybe even Serie would be helpless against him…" Even Frieren had praised him highly for it.
After he went missing, his influence remained undiminished. Later generations even had a church that fanatically worshipped him.
This was—the Apex of Living Beings 『Diego』
This was—the Savior of the Starving 『Diego』
And yet, after this kind of person arrived in another world…
He degenerated from a decadent handsome guy into a card game addict, a corner-camping trash, and an FPS game monster!
And all of this was the work of Takanashi Rikka, Dekomori Sanae, and the reinforcement they called in, Ishigami Yuu, after several days of operation planning.
Regarding the card game addict:
"Diosama! Let's play the Three Kingdoms-style card game that Fujiwara-senpai recommended to you together!"
One day, Dekomori Sanae excitedly brought a small box labeled [Three Kingdoms＊] to Diego.
"Interesting. Fine, this Dio accepts!"
Diego agreed. After all, he had nothing better to do. He had played a few rounds on the computer earlier and it felt pretty decent—not boring.
"Cool cool cool, then my contracted partner will be Friend Zhuge Liang, death!"
Dekomori Sanae changed into a Three Kingdoms period cosplay outfit. She held a feather fan in her hand and wore a headscarf. The card in her hand was a confident man dressed in white, smiling.
(The card skill roughly: Predict the category or color of the next card the opponent will play. Correct prediction lets you draw cards. Wrong prediction requires discarding cards.)
"Wasn't Zhuge Liang a strategist? Can he go to the battlefield and fight?" Diego, who didn't understand the game rules very well, muttered to himself while recalling the Three Kingdoms knowledge he knew.
I remember… Guan Yu was a famous general from the Three Kingdoms period…
He searched through the deck and picked out a card showing Guan Yu riding the Red Hare.
(The card skill roughly: Red cards can be used as "kill" cards.)
Diego was quite confident: "Roar~ Don't say this Dio is bullying you. I'll let you go first."
"Then I won't be polite, death!"
Draw phase…
Dekomori Sanae's hand: "Draw Two," "Zhuge's Repeating Crossbow," "Kill"..
Diego's hand: "Kill," "Kill," "Dodge," "Green Dragon Crescent Blade"..
I've got this!
The Green Dragon Crescent Blade is Guan Yu's best weapon. This Dio has no reason to lose!
Dekomori Sanae: "I'm activating the skill Wolong's Strategy! The next cards played will be: Equipment card, Spell card, Basic card! death!"
Dekomori Sanae equipped Zhuge's Repeating Crossbow and drew a "Kill"..
She used the spell card "Draw Two" and drew a "Kill," an "Arrow Rain," and a "Wine"..
"Then I'll use my magnificent Thunder Hammer technique and take a swing at you!"
"Dodge.." Diego disdainfully tossed out a "Dodge."
"Ahahaha, as expected of my flawless strategy. I really did play exactly the cards I wanted to play!"
Under Diego's shocked gaze, Dekomori Sanae drew several more cards.
"Let me check your cards. You're cheating. There's something wrong with this character. How can you draw so many cards."
Diego snatched Dekomori Sanae's character card in disbelief and carefully read the skill description.
Three minutes later, Diego put the character card back. His hands drooped weakly as he almost ground his teeth and shouted: "The cards… the cards are fine…"
"Kill, Wine, Kill, Arrow Rain. If you don't have a Peach or Wine, I win, death!"
Dekomori Sanae dumped all her damage cards out at once.
"I don't have any! Again!"
In the following rounds, Diego experienced what it meant to fall behind and get beaten, how spending money changes fate, and how time-stop cheating couldn't beat powerful character cards.
After being completely crushed, Diego became thoroughly tilted and kept repeating one sentence:
"Again!"
Diego had gone full tilt on the losses…
Regarding the FPS game monster:
"Don't stop me. I just developed a new move. Wait until I play as Xu Sheng from the naval battle, drink some wine, then use the Ancient Ingot Blade to split that Dekomori girl in half with one slash!"
Takanashi Rikka grabbed Diego's hand, stopping him from going to take revenge on Dekomori Sanae.
Honestly, Dekomori only asked her to accompany Dio to play games and relieve his mood..
Thinking of this, Takanashi Rikka suddenly remembered a search-fight-extract game she had been playing recently and got an idea.
(Search-fight-extract: Search for supplies, fight enemies, extract with supplies and equipment.)
"Listen to me. Stop playing that game that's full of bad reviews." Takanashi Rikka looked serious as she pulled Diego over to the computer desk. "Scary Monsters' dynamic vision is the strongest. You'll definitely have talent playing FPS shooter games. This game lets you earn money to buy equipment."
"Huh? You can earn money?"
Diego clicked into the game with a half-believing attitude. His face, which had been flushed red, visibly returned to normal.
Seeing this, Takanashi Rikka poked Diego and laughed: "Dio, Dio, I wasn't wrong, right? You really do have talent. You can clear the map and extract every round."
Scary Monsters' dynamic vision for locking onto enemies, The World's time stop to counter potato mines and counterattack, plus the innate physical control from Heavenly Restriction and unparalleled gunfight instincts, along with super-strong information-gathering ability.
It was comparable to a maxed-out human-shaped violent cheat.
"It's pretty simple. Other players look like they're in slow motion to me…" Diego pondered. "But the money-making efficiency is too slow."
"This is still slow?" Takanashi Rikka pointed at several consecutive rounds with millions in extraction value.
"Let me put it this way. I was very rich back in my hometown, but that wasn't just because of the Zenin family inheritance and personal commissions from the black market."
As he spoke, Diego had a space spirit open his storage space. He took out a blue-green ore about half a hand's width across.
Takanashi Rikka asked curiously: "What is this?"
"Magic-sealing ore. Its effect is to nullify magic. An ore of this purity and size can prevent magic from being used within a three-meter radius." Diego tossed the magic-sealing ore high into the air and caught it again, patiently explaining. "It's a very rare mineral. Something this size could buy a mansion. Another special effect is that injecting magical power into it makes it emit a dazzling light. It's just that I don't have magical power, so I can't demonstrate it."
"That's amazing…" Takanashi Rikka's eyes sparkled with desire. She asked again, "But what does this have to do with efficiency?"
"This ore was my main source of income. There was a period when I was quite weak and the Demon King army almost pushed me into a desperate situation." Diego crossed his arms and recalled. "While being pursued, my squad accidentally stumbled into a cave in a magic-sealing ore deposit to take shelter."
"Magic-sealing ore is among the hardest of all materials and cannot be processed with magic. Once the Demon King army enters the cave, they also lose their magic. I used that to recover my stamina inside and went deeper to find another exit to retreat."
"After things stabilized, I had the small dinosaurs secretly return to the deposit with tools. They worked day and night processing it and emptied the entire vein. I used that to control the price and made enough wealth to spend extravagantly for dozens of generations."
Takanashi Rikka nodded: "Mm-hmm, and then?"
"Applied to the game, you can treat the entire map's resources as a mineral vein, and the players as small dinosaurs going to search for supplies and bring them back."
"This map called 'Aerospace' has three extraction points, but all of them require passing through a high bridge."
"That means I only need to take a bolt-action sniper and wait on the bridge for the whole map's small dinosaurs to deliver the supplies into my bag. It saves the time of searching for supplies myself."
Diego laid out his entire understanding and even entered the map alone to demonstrate the feasibility of the playstyle.
After clearing the map…
"Damn it, where are these people's bags?! They must have hidden them!"
"Aaaah…"
Takanashi Rikka grew more and more shocked the more she listened.
Where are your parents? (crossed out)
"But… other people won't have any game experience…"
"What does that have to do with this Dio? This is your game account. Do you want 10 million worth of supplies extracted or not?"
As long as… as long as I let Dio camp the bridge every round, I can become a billionaire?
The words Takanashi Rikka wanted to say to persuade him got stuck in her throat. She silently swallowed them down.
Regarding the corner-camping trash:
"...What do you mean Takanashi and Dekomori got educated, so you were called in as reinforcement."
Diego dug at his ear and glanced sideways at the black-haired, gloomy-looking man in front of him.
"Um, that's right. Dekomori-san asked me to come help."
Ishigami Yuu didn't dare look at Diego's face and answered weakly.
Before coming, he had thought: Whether great or insignificant, as long as it has been experienced, it was all a life one liked.
Death itself isn't scary!
What's scary is dying without value. Back then, Senior Brando saved me. I hope I can help in some way!
Therefore, he had come with the resolve that he might die.
"Well, it doesn't matter. Whatever game you want to play, I probably have it here." Diego took out a huge pile of game equipment he had bought.
"Um, whatever Senior Brando likes to play is fine."
Diego shook his head: "No. I'm a genius. The games I like to play, I'll definitely be good at. I need a challenge, so I'm going to challenge the game you like to play."
"The game I like?"
"That's right. You have to tell the truth, okay." Diego patted Ishigami Yuu's face. His voice was very soft.
Feeling the gentle breeze from beside his ear, Ishigami Yuu trembled as he chose a game with a pink cover.
"Um, the game rules are basically: dialogue, chatting, giving gifts, going on dates to raise affection, then confessing and watching the CG."
"That simple?"
Diego raised an eyebrow.
Five minutes later…
Diego looked serious: "This hard?"
He then tossed the game controller aside and flopped backward while complaining:
"It's not realistic at all. Not fun."
"Senior?"
"Why is there a dialogue box when chatting? Reality isn't like that. None of the options are things I want to say." Diego sat up and opened the window, looking around outside. "And if you directly choose the confession option, you'll get rejected. It's so fake."
After Diego finished complaining, Ishigami Yuu finally explained: "Dialogue boxes do happen sometimes in reality, but isn't it normal to get rejected if your affection isn't high enough to confess?"
"Oh? This Dio doesn't agree with that. Look at three o'clock direction. Do you see that pair of quintuplet sisters? Pick a number from 1 to 5. Three, two, one, answer."
"Ah… ah, th-then, two!" Ishigami Yuu answered in a fluster.
"Then watch carefully."
The corners of Diego's mouth curved into a sharp arc.
"Eh, what do you mea—" Ishigami Yuu stopped mid-sentence. He rubbed his eyes in disbelief. The Diego who had just been beside him had suddenly appeared next to the pair of quintuplet sisters, seemingly saying something.
Immediately after, the second girl suddenly blushed and covered her face, seeming to speak flusteredly.
Ishigami Yuu murmured: "No way…"
Whoosh…
"I'm back."
Ishigami Yuu turned his head. Diego had already sat back down lazily in his original spot and started looking for a game to play.
His expression was normal as he kept pressing buttons on the game controller. His tone was flat: "That's why I said that game isn't realistic. After directly confessing, that girl blushed and said: 'This is so sudden. We haven't even exchanged diaries yet. Let me think about it. At the very least we should get to know each other first. It's not like I can't agree to try…' or something like that."
!!
Ishigami Yuu's heart shattered.
Today's match: Ishigami Yuu's crushing defeat
(Realized the gap between people and wants to die)
To be continued...