You Really Are an Idiot

Whenever a Shirou came in, Celestial Dragon Shirou would enthusiastically go over and shake hands with him.

The moment Sakurai Shirou entered, he was startled and quickly backed away.

"What's wrong with you? Didn't we agree yesterday that I couldn't share everything with you for the time being?"

"Was that so? Sorry, I forgot."

Celestial Dragon Shirou paused, then explained with a smile.

"I finally got to eat Red-Legged Zeff's cooking just now. It was truly delicious! I feel like I've touched upon a higher threshold of culinary skill."

"Oh... is that so?"

Sakurai Shirou truly had no idea what expression he should make, so he could only nod lightly.

Seeing this, Celestial Dragon Shirou leaned closer and asked in confusion.

"Aren't you a chef too? Why aren't you curious at all?"

Huh...?

Sakurai Shirou froze for a moment, then instantly realized that he was probably about to blow his cover.

But honestly, asking him to pretend to be interested in Zepp's cooking was simply too difficult for him.

For thirteen years, he had lived a life of utter disdain for chefs, casually suppressing rookie chefs and restaurants whenever he pleased.

"I... as a chef, I must have the confidence that I'm the best chef in the world. That isn't strange, is it?"

"Eh... eh...? Your cooking is already the best in the world in the Gourmet Anime?"

"Yeah."

"Ooh... I'm really curious what your cooking tastes like. Can it make people see illusions?"

"Yeah."

"How cold! We're all the same person. Is there anything you can't tell us? There are no secrets between us."

At that moment, Slime Shirou suddenly targeted Sakurai Shirou and fiercely leaped at him, knocking him to the ground.

The instant their bodies came into contact, a scream rang out.

"Ahhh...!!"

Seeing Sakurai Shirou scream so miserably, the other Shirous looked at one another, utterly bewildered.

Once they came into contact, their abilities and memories could be shared instantly.

With such powerful strength, a fall like that was nothing at all. Why had he screamed so miserably?

It made those who heard it feel a heart-wrenching pain as well.

At that moment, the scene from thirteen years ago kept replaying in Sakurai Shirou's mind.

That pitiful woman lay weakly in a hospital bed. Anyone could tell that she did not have long to live.

Yet even so, she still forced herself to remain spirited as she comforted him, without a single word of resentment, unwillingness, or regret.

Though she was about to die, a smile remained on her face the entire time.

Her face was bloodless, and after lying in bed for so long without makeup, her smile was not particularly beautiful. Yet it somehow gave people an incredibly warm feeling.

At that moment, in that instant, the feeling of shattering in his heart seemed to echo endlessly through his mind.

With every passing second, the pain in his heart intensified, as though it would never end.

The faint pain in his chest startled Slime Shirou, and he instinctively rolled away.

After a long while, he abruptly changed back into Slime King Form and said hesitantly.

"Sakurai, the dead cannot come back to life. There's no need to keep drowning in the past. You've already gone down the wrong path."

Sakurai Shirou clutched his chest, glanced up at him, and sneered.

"What does a sissy like you know? Do you think I cared about that woman? How could that be possible?"

"I wasn't even her real son. As a Transmigrator, I was merely a roommate living under the same roof as her."

"How could I possibly care about her? What does her life or death have to do with me?"

"What would a freak like you, neither male nor female, know about human emotions?"

"From the moment you transmigrated into a Slime, you ceased to be human."

"And you still played house with a bunch of goblins. You really managed to think of something that disgusting!"

King of All Monsters Shirou's face darkened. He clenched his fists and said word by word.

"Has no one ever told you that you're begging to be beaten?"

You Really Are Stupid

"Don't! What are you doing?"

Coachman Shirou hurriedly grabbed King of All Monsters Shirou. The instant their hands touched, Sakurai Shirou's memories flooded into his mind, making his body tremble involuntarily.

"Sakurai, you..."

"Shut up! It's bad enough that you transmigrated into a coachman. You never strive to improve yourself all day long. Is living off a woman really that fun? Copying songs and famous quotes—boring, shameless, brainless trash!"

"Sakurai, you've gone too far!"

"Water Shadow? What an impressive title. You married an underage girl at sixteen, you pervert! You've done so many human experiments, and now you run out here pretending to be a good person. What do you think you are?"

"And you, how nice, a Celestial Dragon. Heh... You talk about reform, but you're nothing but useless trash who can only run his mouth! If it were me, I'd use Transformation Technique and Clone Technique to replace every King and Celestial Dragon in the world. I could reform the world in a single day."

"Tsukimi, you useless freeloader. You'll definitely become henpecked in the future..."

"Demon Lord? Pah! You occupied three-quarters of the world's territory. You remembered the original plot, and with such an overwhelming advantage, you still managed to lose? And as a King who climbed up from the bottom, you only had one loyal subordinate. What kind of joke is that? You're worse than trash."

"Tohsaka? You're even more pathetic. After transmigrating into a child, did you really start treating yourself like one? You idiot, you moron..."

In just a few minutes, Sakurai Shirou had insulted every single one of them.

All the Shirous present gathered around him at once, repeatedly cracking their knuckles.

"Who goes first?"

"He's already shared our abilities. One person probably can only fight him to a draw. Should we all go together?"

"There's no need. Didn't Rimuru scream the moment his body touched Sakurai's?"

"That makes sense! Physical pain is often nothing compared to pain in the heart."

As they spoke, the Shirous one after another extended their hands and touched Sakurai Shirou's body.

His screams rang out once again!

The events of the past kept replaying in his mind.

If that were all, it would not have become like this.

But his past emotions and personality, as well as those of the other Shirous, were completely different from who he was now. They collided with one another, as though a group of people who loathed each other were endlessly arguing inside his mind.

At that instant, time and space seemed to freeze, and Sakurai Shirou became incomparably calm.

The experiences of the past thirteen years continuously surfaced before his eyes.

On the day he had first transmigrated, dark clouds blanketed the sky, and a fine drizzle fell from above.

Believing that woman to be nothing more than a stranger, with no need whatsoever to live with her, he had secretly left home.

After borrowing money from several delinquents, he spent several straight hours playing games at an arcade.

That night, when he wanted to find a hotel to stay in, he suddenly discovered that woman wandering through the heavy rain in a daze, seemingly searching for him.

He wanted to leave without a word, yet he could not quite bring himself to stop worrying about her, so he could only follow her from the shadows.

The rain did not stop that night, and that woman searched all night as well, until she finally collapsed by the roadside from exhaustion.

After hesitating again and again, he carried her back to that cramped rental apartment.

When she woke the next morning, she was neither angry nor resentful. She only kept apologizing to him.

Perhaps out of pity, or perhaps because he could not stop worrying about her, the two of them began living together after that.

As the restaurant's business improved, he made a decision: he would go to Totsuki to polish his credentials.

On the night before the entrance exam, she confidently spoke of her hopes after enrollment and the benefits she could bring after graduation.

After failing, he returned home dejectedly. She said nothing and simply prepared a lavish dinner.

On the day she passed away, a large group of people blocked the hospital entrance to demand repayment, forcing him to use Hypnosis Magic in public.

Afterward, he heard from a nurse that those people had previously rushed into her hospital room and argued with her many times. Fortunately, the nurse on duty had arrived in time.

He heard that whenever she was alone, she would always lower her head and mutter softly to herself, every word an apology to him.

From that day onward, money was the only thing left in his world.

Was I wrong?

After examining his past once more, Sakurai Shirou finally understood. He wiped away the tears on his face, and his expression gradually became resolute.

"I wasn't wrong! But I was wrong too."

"For thirteen years, I drifted through life in a daze. I used trickery, extortion, framing, and unfair competition. Those methods may have been despicable, but they weren't wrong."

"My mistake was that I never had a specific goal. I desperately accumulated wealth, yet failed to realize early enough why I wanted that wealth in the first place."

The pain in his chest gradually vanished. Looking at the Shirous around him, each wearing a dark expression, Sakurai Shirou took a deep breath and slowly spoke.

"Enough! I can apologize to you for what I said just now."

"I really don't like you." Mizukage Shirou released his hand and snorted. "But there's one thing you got wrong. I never wanted to pretend to be a good person. What do other people's opinions have to do with me? Countless people in the Ninja World hate me. You're merely one of them."

"I've thought about what you said too. Reforming the world in one day wouldn't be difficult." Celestial Dragon Shirou paused and lightly shook his head. "But what would be the point? It is easy to defeat thieves in the mountains, but hard to defeat the thieves in one's heart. Merely overthrowing the World Government cannot be called reform."

Sakurai Shirou did not respond. At the instant their bodies touched just now, the emotions of every Shirou had surged into his heart in unison.

Although he disliked their tedious methods, he could completely understand their feelings.

"You guys want to insult me back too?"

"No. Everything that needs to be said has already been understood." Demon Lord Shirou lightly shook his head and smiled.

Though their experiences and personalities differed, in the instant their hands joined together, their emotions became connected.

Therefore, he knew very clearly that Sakurai Shirou had completely understood him.

Back then, after transmigrating into an ordinary demon and witnessing the tragic circumstances of countless low-ranking demons and humans, he resolved to become the Demon Lord, unify the continent, and end the world's chaos.

In every speech he gave, his first sentence was always, "If I ever betray my ideals in the future, any one of you may kill me."

As time passed, although the continent had not been unified, the rise of the Demon Lord had caused humanity and the various races to join forces, forming another power.

Under the confrontation between those two great powers, the lives of low-ranking humans and demons gradually improved.

Even if the continent could not be unified, the world would gradually move toward peace.

Under such circumstances, the Demon Lord instead became a superfluous existence. The world did not need an eternal ruler.

Thus, half willingly and half unwillingly, the Demon Lord was overthrown. He fled to Earth in disgrace and became an ordinary wage slave.

Sakurai Shirou looked directly at Demon Lord Shirou and nodded slightly.

"I admire you. Being willing to relinquish authority over an entire world is not something just anyone can do. However, you really are stupid. If it were me, I'd have at least several hundred ways to save the world."

"You simply let go and left behind such a mess. For all you know, the entire continent could descend into chaos."

"Those matters no longer have anything to do with me." Demon Lord Shirou laughed heartily. "I've already laid the foundation. Naturally, someone else will build the skyscrapers on top of it."

Men Aren't Cute When They're Tsundere

"By the way..." Celestial Dragon Shirou suddenly patted Sakurai Shirou's shoulder and said with a smile, "Now that you've gone straight, how about picking up your cooking again?"

"Don't use the words 'gone straight.' I'm still rotten to the core. I was never good in the first place."

Sakurai Shirou pulled a long face and said solemnly.