The True Saint
Satou here. I’ve heard that a person’s true nature only shows itself in extreme situations. I don’t know what I would do at a time like that, but I’d like to be the kind of person who makes my family proud.
“I see the holy city!”
We were using Return repeatedly to teleport to the holy city and confront the evil mastermind, Sorijeyro the Sage.
I evacuated Raito and the magic school kids to a safe place. With Demon Lord Shizuka’s consent, I used the composite spell Desert Mirage to create a city to leave her in, for safety. Just in case that would violate her Geist that forbade her from leaving the province, I used the last Geist remaining in the Xanthic Staff to cancel that out.
Before we left, Pippin told me, “I got new orders from Lord Kuro. I’m gonna have to go ahead and take care of things on my own now.” Of course, I was the one who gave him those orders. I was sending him to collect proof about the true nature of the “Aptitude Transfer” and the man behind the curtain.
“We’re here…geh! The cathedral!”
In the distance, the great cathedral had taken serious damage, to the point of near destruction.
“Master, there is an enclosing wall around the city, I report.”
“Looks like it’s a barrier made with the City Core,” I answered, looking around.
“There’s something huge near the cathedral, Master!”
Lulu pointed toward a massive monster that had appeared in the square outside the cathedral.
“LOOooOOve…God’S LOoOOOOOVE!”
The creature howled toward the heavens in a strangled cry, and slowly began shuffling away from the cathedral.
I got a huge shock when I examined it.
“It’s…a demon lord?”
Detailed information appeared next to the demon lord in my AR display.
“Master, is that really…?”
“Yeah. Pontiff Zarzaris turned into a demon lord.”
At first, I couldn’t believe the words in my AR display.
According to my map information, there were monsters called “Violet Zealots” that were the demon lord’s spawn being mass-produced in the cathedral square, and the city was already in a chaotic state of battle.
I can’t believe things went so horribly wrong in such a short time.
“I’m going to go deal with the demon lord. You guys take care of its spawn.”
I quickly conveyed the situation to my companions, then transformed into Nanashi the Hero and used “Flashrunning” to launch into the air above the demon lord, descending with “Skyrunning” to stand directly in front of its eyes.
“…So you’ve arrived, Hero of Shiga Kingdom.”
Next to the demon lord’s ear was a man in white clothing—the sage.
It took me a moment to recognize him. He’d changed from his usual black robes into a pastor’s white garb. I put a marker on him just in case, since there was no telling what he might do.
“Who are you? And why are you with a demon lord?”
“Masked hero…you are of similar height, but your voice is not Pendragon’s.”
Yikes, he suspected it was me?
“Master, we’ve all changed into our armor.”
“All right. It looks like people who get killed turn into more spawn. Be careful of dead bodies.”
Arisa connected all of us with Tactical Talk, so I relayed some key information. I also used Clairvoyance and Clairaudience so that I could keep an eye on them.
“The spawn… I recognize that white armor. So Pendragon is over there, then.”
“Pen-Pen and friends are here, too? Man, trouble follows those guys everywhere.”
I pretended to be someone else with help from my “Fabrication” skill.
If he watched carefully, he would probably realize they were one person short, but I doubted he’d be able to figure it out in the middle of battle. Especially with the vanguard flying all over the place and Arisa teleporting herself and Mia from one spot to the next.
DANGER.
“Anti-Evil Ray Sword!”
The sage suddenly used Light Magic without a chant. I barely dodged it with “Flashrunning.”
I was expecting his usual Shadow Magic, not Light Magic, of all things. If it weren’t for my “Sense Danger” skill, I might’ve gotten hurt.
“Then can you dodge this…? Your Holiness, divine judgment for the fool!”
HZOOOBBBLZY.
The demon lord let out a howl.
Purple light flowed through the demon lord’s body, unleashing a purple wave in all directions.
“Everyone! Don’t let that touch you!”
I warned my comrades right as my “Sense Danger” reacted, and used “Flashrunning” to move to a safe zone.
The flowers and trees in full bloom around the cathedral square wilted and withered as soon as the purple wave touched them.
The range of effect was smaller than I thought—it dissipated long before reaching my friends.
The sage wasn’t affected by the wave at all, even though he was right next to the demon lord. It seemed like the demon lord himself was taking care to avoid hurting the sage.
“You dodged it again?! Your Unique Skill must be some combination of evasion and movement. It does not appear to be instant teleportation. Perhaps it’s an airborne variation of ‘Warp’? No, it is more likely to…”
The sage started thinking aloud in the middle of battle.
This guy really was a researcher by nature.
“Hero! Show me that move again!”
“Whaaat? No way.”
“If you refuse, then I will simply force your hand!”
The sage threw his cloak aside and readied his staff.
It looked similar to the one with a shadow stone that I saw him use before, but this one contained stones of multiple properties, indicating that it could probably use all kinds of magic.
“Your Holiness, destroy him with a Holy Wave!”
HZOOOBBBLZY.
The demon lord appeared to be completely under the sage’s control. He unleashed another purple wave.
I dodged it the same way as before.
“I saw that! I saw it all, Hero!”
The sage, having apparently watched my “Flashrunning” closely, sounded like he might jump for joy.
More concerningly, there was a glimmer of faint purple light in his eyes.
“Good for you.”
“Yes, very good. I saw more than enough.”
He was really driving home the fact that he saw my skill.
I’m not sure why, though. Just because he saw it doesn’t mean he’s suddenly going to be able to use it.
“Show me your next power, Hero! Let me see your other Unique Skills!”
“Um, no thanks.”
“Flashrunning” wasn’t even a Unique Skill in the first place.
“Your Holiness, another wave!”
HZOOOBBBLZY.
The demon lord obeyed, sending another purple wave rippling around its body.
“That’s not going to hit me, no matter how many times you—!”
“Mana Chain Hold!”
Just as I finished dodging with “Flashrunning” and paused in the air, something wrapped around my body.
The sage had used some kind of Practical Magic binding spell. As with the Light Magic, he was either using it chantless or with some kind of chant-canceling.
“Your Holiness! Home in on him, now!”
The sage had abandoned any politeness in his orders. The demon lord’s wave narrowed and stretched toward me, the tip of it closing in like a spear.
In the meantime, he wrapped another Mana Chain Hold around me for good measure.
“Show me your power if you want to live, Hero!”
“…Nope.”
I destroyed the Mana Chain Holds with a flick of my hand and used “Flashrunning” to avoid the narrowed beam.
This time, I moved forward instead of away.
“Shadow Bind!”
Startled by my sudden appearance in front of him, the sage wasted no time on exclaiming, instead casting shadows at me like a net.
“Whoops, careful with that.”
I took the Holy Sword Durandal out of Storage and slashed the shadows away.
…The sage was gone.
He’d disappeared in the moment that my vision was blocked by the shadows.
According to the information on my map’s marker list, his current location was an area with no map available, so he must be hiding inside a shadow.
“If he thinks he can get away that easily…”
“SO…sori…jeYROOOOOOOO!!”
Before I could look for his trail to follow him into shadow space, a truck-size fist came barging toward me, so I dodged with “Flashrunning.”
I tried searching for the trail again afterward, but the miasma and shock waves the demon lord sent off had scattered them too much to follow.
HZOOOBBBLZY.
Apparently realizing that he couldn’t hit me just by swinging around blindly, this time the demon lord sent his waves out spiking in all directions, like a puffer fish.
HZOOOBBBLZY.
HZOOOBBBLZY.
HZOOOBBBLZY.
The demon lord sent out wave after wave of spikes.
He was even changing their positions and direction each time.
“Well, that’s still not going to hit me— Wuh-oh.”
As I paused in midair, an invisible slash flew toward me.
The sage.
I used my “Sense Danger” skill to help me dodge, parrying the ones I couldn’t avoid with the Holy Sword Durandal.
That wasn’t the sage’s only attack. He sent out dozens of the Practical Magic spell Remote Arrow from nearby shadows below, and while I was dealing with those, the Wind Magic spell Blade Storm and the Lightning Magic spell Thunder Storm flew toward me from a different building’s shadow.
“Like I said, you can’t hit me.”
I dodged with “Flashrunning,” sensed a presence behind me, and turned around.
“Dark Absorb.”
Blackness filled my vision, and my invisible foothold vanished.
His Dark Magic spell must have canceled out the footholds I created in midair.
“Mana Chain Hold.”
He tried to capture me with Practical Magic, but I was already gone.
Just as he looked up, sensing my position with some kind of skill, I used “Flashrunning” to jump in close to him and strike with the heel of my palm.
The sage disappeared before my eyes.
No—he used “Flashrunning.”
Eight orbs of purple light floated around the sage’s head, one of them glowing brightly.
It looked like a demon lord’s Unique Skill, but he didn’t have any such thing.
And I knew for a fact that he didn’t have a Brace of Stolen Divinity or any other status-disguising items.
“Did you steal that from me?”
“I didn’t steal it. I only copied it.”
“Copied it? What do you mean?”
Was he hiding some item that could copy skills, like the Xanthic Staff I’d acquired in the Yowork Kingdom labyrinth ruins?
“Exactly what I said. Now, show me your powers, Hero.”
“This again? Really?”
He clearly wanted to learn some of my other skills, too.
“Your Holiness! No need for mercy or holding back. Render judgment on this false hero!”
“SO…sori…jeYROOOOOOOO!!”
HZOOOBBBLZY.
A far more intense blast than the ones I’d seen before flew toward me from the demon lord.
As it approached, the sage fired Dark Absorb and Mana Chain Hold at me again.
It’d be easy to avoid all that with visual “Unit Deployment,” but it would be bad news if he learned that skill. I couldn’t risk creating a terrorist who could teleport anywhere in the world at will.
“Let there be light.”
Since we were in a holy province, I figured I’d try a religious-sounding phrase.
I used a Flash spell to blind him, then canceled the sage’s spells with the Practical Magic spell Break Magic.
My plan to avoid the demon lord’s attack with “Flashrunning” didn’t end up being necessary. The flash caused the demon lord to fall back, covering his eyes, so his attack never reached me.
“Gaaaaah!”
The sage dried up with a shriek and sank into a shadow.
From the look of things, the demon lord failed to avoid hitting the sage, causing him to take the effects of the purple wave head-on. According to my map information, his condition was “Weakened (Severe).” Talk about getting your just deserts.
While I had a moment to spare, I checked in on the others.
“Do not lay a hand on civilians, I declare!”
“It’s bad to bully the weak, sir!”
Nana and Pochi were protecting people from the demon lord’s spawn, the Violet Zealots.
“These opponents are far too weak to be a challenge.”
“Aim…and fire!”
Liza and Lulu were focused on eliminating Violet Zealots.
“Liza, take a left at the next corner. Lulu, once you’re done there, take out the spawn that will come from the shadow of the red building at your three o’clock. Mia, where are the mini-sylphs?”
“Supporting.”
Arisa was using Space Magic to help everyone navigate, while Mia sent the mini-sylphs she summoned with Spirit Magic to do her bidding, protecting frontline fighters like Nana and Pochi while helping to evacuate people.
Their efforts seemed to give the Parion Province citizens courage; the initial pandemonium had calmed down, replaced with an organized effort to resist the Violet Zealots.
Given how well they were doing, I could probably leave the rest in the girls’ capable hands.
“Your Holiness!”
I heard a familiar voice from the ground below.
Looking down, I saw the elderly Holy Woman in a palanquin in front of the demon lord. There were priestesses and shrine maidens surrounding her palanquin.
All but the Holy Woman herself were pale and trembling, cold sweat running down their faces.
I couldn’t blame them for reacting that way to the giant demon lord’s intimidating appearance and the withered state of the trees and garden. If anything, the Holy Woman was the strange one for staying so calm.
“Scatter the dragon scale powder!”
“Yes, Madam!”
The shrine maidens tossed dragon scale powder that was loaded with magic, and a bespectacled priestess used Wind Magic to blow it in the demon lord’s direction.
The powder sparkled with blue light as it flowed toward the prone demon lord, swirling in the air around his face.
As she watched this, the old Holy Woman held up a Holy Staff with a blue gemstone.
“Sacred Purification!”
Finishing her chant, the Holy Woman spoke the invocation word to unleash the Holy Magic spell. A wave of pure blue light burst from her staff, reacting with the dragon scale powder floating around the demon lord’s face to surround it with a fearsome holy light.
“GOd’s looOOOOOOOOOVE!”
The demon lord shrieked as he was bathed in holy light; black fumes rose from his body and were blown away.
Even as the demon lord screamed, his face became more peaceful. The Holy Woman’s magic must have been an advanced spell to cleanse the miasma from the demon lord.
“Your Holiness!”
“…LEANN?”
“Pontiff! Gramps! You recognize me!”
The old Holy Woman cried out to him in tears.
Wow. The demon lord seemed to have recovered a trace of his lost sanity. It even looked like his size might be shrinking a little.
“LE…ANN…”
The demon lord repeated the same word.
Leann was probably the old Holy Woman’s name before she was christened as Yu Parion.
“Start the chant again! I’ll change you back, Gramps, I promise! …”
“…aah… LE…ANN.”
The gentler-looking demon lord closed his eyes.
At this rate, maybe the demon lord transformation could be undone—or so I thought.
“Your Holiness! Destroy those fools in front of you!”
The sage’s cruel words echoed seemingly from nowhere, shattering that hope.
“SO…SORIjeyROOOOOOOOO!”
HZOOOBBBLZY.
Against the demon lord’s will, a dark purple light coursed through his body, and the deadly wave began to surge toward the Holy Woman and her entourage.
Not a chance.
I used “Flashrunning” to jump between the demon lord and the priestesses, and activated the emergency defense system Fortress.
“Nnnngh…!”
It was tougher than I expected.
I’d thought Fortress could nullify almost any attack, but the demon lord’s wave permeated through the barrier and drained life force and energy out of my body.
“LE…le…lEAAAAAAANN!”
Turning around, I saw the old Holy Woman on her hands and knees on top of the palanquin.
While I’d managed to block most of it, some traces of the wave must have still made it past me.
“Madam!”
“I-I’m fine. The ch-chant…start the chant again!”
Even as she held herself up in a cold sweat, the elderly Holy Woman resumed the chant that had been interrupted.
“Your Holiness! Kill theeeeeem!”
“SO…sORi…jeRoooOOOOOOOO!”
HZBBBBBBBBZ.
The demon lord shook his head, resisting the sage’s shouted orders.
The purple light stopped flowing across his body, flickered like a fluorescent lamp, and went out.
Dark purple liquid leaked from the demon lord’s eyes and ears, possibly because he had defied the sage’s order.
The demon lord’s status condition read “Geist/Violation.” I guess the sage had him under a Geist, then.
“Damn you… You dare defy my orders?”
The sage’s voice echoed around the square, dripping with rage.
This couldn’t be good. I had to pinpoint the sage’s location and get him away from the demon lord before it was too late.
I focused all my attention on my hearing.
“Demon Lord Zarzaris!”
All other sounds fell away, and the sage’s voice rang clearly in my ears.
“This is an order from your master!”
The map opened on its own, and a target mark appeared over a 3D display of the area, narrowing down rapidly.
“Use your inverted—”
The target marker locked into place.
Got you.
I closed in with “Flashrunning” and used a dragon’s-claw short sword, complete with a dragon fang coating that gave it the power to pierce anything, to slice the crack between dimensions wide open.
“I-impossible—”
The still-weakened sage tried to use Shadow Whip, but before it could produce enough power, my Remote Stun barrage rained down on him and pummeled him unconscious, sending him flying farther into the shadows.
“Whoops. I overdid it.”
The sage dropped deep into the darkness and out of sight.
Oh, well. He had the Shadow Magic spell Shadow Portal, so he’d probably make his way back once he woke up. Right now, the demon lord was more important than the sage.
I dropped back down to land between the old Holy Woman and the demon lord.
“Who do you think you are?!”
“You may have been fighting the demon lord, but we cannot allow you to come any closer to the Holy Woman.”
The priestesses belatedly demanded to know my identity.
I guess they didn’t see the part where I used a Holy Sword.
And when I protected them with Fortress, they were probably too scared to realize what had happened.
“It’s all right.” As her entourage clamored around her, the old woman calmly stopped them. “He’s a hero. Right, mister?”
“A hero?”
“So this is the Hero from Shiga Kingdom?!”
The priestesses and shrine maidens took the Holy Woman’s word and accepted me as a hero.
“I’ll hold him down. You purify him.”
“Okay, got it.”
The elderly Holy Woman nodded childishly and began the chant.
The demon lord kept squirming and trying to fight back, possibly due to the vestiges of the sage’s Geist, but I kept him pinned down through sheer brute force.
“… Divine Purification Youjin Seikou!”
The Holy Woman finished the chant and unleashed the Holy Magic.
The black smoke pouring out of the demon lord was blown away by the flood of blue light, only to immediately start leaking out again.
Still, it did seem to have some effect. The demon lord’s body shrank another size.
“Again!”
“Madam, we have no more dragon scale powder.”
“We’ll do it anyway!”
Despite the priestess’s protests, the old Holy Woman stamped her feet like a stubborn child.
“Here, use this.”
“Dragon scale powder?”
“I’ve never seen powder filled with such magic before.”
“This will definitely work!”
When I gave them some of the huge stock of dragon scale powder from my Storage, the priestesses got weirdly excited about it.
“Thank you, Mr. Hero.”
I nodded back at the elderly Holy Woman and watched as she began the chant again.
“… Divine Purification Youjin Seikou!”
Her Holy Magic blew away more of the demon lord’s miasma.
“…LE…ANN.”
The demon lord regained his senses a little more.
If we kept repeating this, his mind might be able to fully recover.
I unleashed the spirit light I normally kept suppressed, helping the Holy Woman purify more miasma.
“…H-he…ro.”
It sounded like the demon lord was calling for me. I moved to stand in front of his face with “Skyrunning.”
His eyes wavered between sanity and madness as they gazed at me.
“What is it, Pontiff?”
“…K…ki…ll…mmm…e…”
Did he say…kill me?
“…wh…iiile…I…stillll…ssssane.”
While I am still sane?
No wonder he was the head of a province that named itself for the goddess Parion. Even now that he was turned into a demon lord, he was trying to sacrifice himself to save his people from disaster.
If you ask me, the pontiff’s personality is far worthier of the “Saint” title than mine is, even though I technically have it.
“…Pl… ease…”
The demon lord—no, the pontiff—pleaded with me.
They say there are times when killing someone can be a mercy, but if we exorcised the miasma with the Holy Woman’s magic and then used an elixir on him, there would hopefully be no need to kill him.
“…not…mmh…time…”
Not much time, maybe?
“Not much time before what?”
Even as I started asking, the answer became clear.
The pontiff’s body was beginning to break down. Worse, the parts that were breaking down were tinged with that purple light.
“…ex… plode…”
Wait. Explode?!
At this rate, the pontiff’s soul vessel was going to break before we could eliminate all the miasma from his body.
“I won’t let that happen.”
I took out a lesser elixir from Storage and sprinkled it over him.
But the pontiff’s body didn’t stop disintegrating. The miasma around him thinned, and his body shrank a little, but that was all.
“So we have to get rid of the miasma first?!”
Damn it.
When I realized the truth, I cursed inwardly.
The Holy Woman was continuing the purification even as she ran low on magic power, trying desperately to save him.
The effects were getting weaker, though. The pontiff had fainted now, and his transformed body hadn’t shrunk much since it had reached ten feet in length.
“I’m not done yet! We gotta save His Holiness no matter what…!”
The Holy Woman refused to give up. I transferred some of my magic to her and reminded myself not to give up, either.
There had to be some way to solve this besides destroying him as a demon lord.
“We have to trust the Holy Woman!”
“Keep supporting her!”
The priestesses cheered each other on.
Their words gave me an idea.
The Holy Woman—Demon Lord Shizuka.
She might be able to get us out of this situation somehow.
“Shizuka…”
I contacted Shizuka, who was safe in the mirage city.
“What is this? Where is your voice coming from?”
“It’s the Space Magic spell Telephone. In fact, just think of it like a cell phone.”
“Aah, it’s you. I was wondering who was speaking to me out of nowhere. Do you need something?”
Shizuka spoke briskly and clearly.
She must be one of those people whose personality changes when they’re on the phone.
“Pontiff Zarzaris turned into a demon lord.”
“That old fellow with the white beard?”
“Yeah. I want to remove his Unique Skill. Do you think you can make him your familiar?”
If we eliminated the cause that was damaging his soul vessel, maybe elixirs would start working on him.
We couldn’t save the Sandstorm Lord, but I was determined to save this one.
“I think so. When I’ve made someone my familiar once, it’s easier to do so again.”
Luckily, based on her reaction, telling me that didn’t seem to violate the sage’s Geist.
“I’ll bring him to you soon, then. Be ready.”
“All right. But who am I going to transfer the Unique Skill to? I’m at my limit, so I need someone else to transfer the skill to.”
Basically, it didn’t matter who the skill was transferred to. As useful as Heal All seemed, if it could turn someone as pious as the pontiff into a demon lord, I thought it would be too risky to give it to anyone else.
There was no guarantee that I’d be around if something went wrong, and I didn’t want to make anyone carry something so dangerous.
People who could manage their Unique Skills like Arisa or the labyrinth-dwelling reincarnations were pretty rare, after all.
“I’ll just catch a bug or something. That would work just as well, right?”
“…W-well, yes, but are you sure about that?”
“Yeah, it’s no problem.”
As much as I hate to let anything go to waste, I thought it best to be brave and decisive in this situation.
“… Divine Purification Youjin Seikou!”
The Holy Woman barely managed to cast the Holy Magic spell again before collapsing on the palanquin.
“Madam!”
She must have pushed herself too hard.
“I’ll take care of things from here,” I murmured to her.
Then I picked up the pontiff and used Return to teleport to the mirage city where Demon Lord Shizuka was waiting.
“Shizuka, we’re here!”
“I’ve made the preparations.”
There was a magic circle of some kind drawn on the floor.
I was grateful that she’d managed to get it ready before we arrived.
“It won’t work if he’s not conscious, though. Can you wake him?”
“It might be a little violent, but…”
Lightning Magic might actually kill him, so I used a weak Lightning Rod to wake him with an electric shock.
“NGAAAAAAAH!”
I held the struggling pontiff down easily, thanks to our overwhelming difference in levels.
“Look at me, please.”
“…Holy…Woman…”
“I thought so. You don’t remember my name.”
The pontiff held out a trembling hand toward Shizuka. Worried that he would injure her by accident, I used Magic Hand to keep him in place.
“It’s Shizuka. Now, please become my familiar…”
Shizuka walked forward herself and took the pontiff’s overgrown hand of her own accord.
“Adopt Familiar.”
A flash of purple light ran through their hands and into the pontiff.
“AHHHHhhhhHHHhh…”
The pontiff’s face slackened with relief, and he suddenly started coughing violently.
He was hacking up miasma, dense enough that it was visible with the naked eye, all of it billowing around Shizuka like smoke.
“…Nngh!”
Doused in miasma, Shizuka began to transform.
Her canines grew out into long fangs, and her neatly trimmed fingernails grew several inches and glinted dangerously.
I guess miasma must hasten a demon lord’s transformation.
The last thing I needed was for Shizuka to lose her mind, too. In addition to my still-unleashed spirit light, I surrounded the area with several Holy Stones and scattered magic-infused dragon scale powder like the priestesses had before to neutralize the miasma.
“Thank you. That burns my body, too, but it’s better than being exposed to all that miasma.” Shizuka was sweating as she spoke. “I was able to make him my familiar. But he’s in worse condition than I thought. Even if I get rid of his Unique Skill, he might die right away.”
“Don’t worry. Once the God Fragment is gone, I can heal him with an elixir.”
“Elixir? But he told me that they’re extremely scarce in the outside world…”
“I have my own unique ways.”
I gave the exhausted-looking Shizuka a nutritional supplement from Storage.
She drank it without hesitation, then coughed a few times.
“Wow, this works great. I wish I had some of these when I was scrambling to finish a doujinshi before ComiPa.”
There was no time to focus on the fact that Shizuka had just outed herself as a huge nerd. I waited for her to catch her breath.
“All right, I’m ready. You’re sure you want me to transfer it to a bug?”
“Yes, very sure.”
I held out a scarab beetle that I’d caught before teleporting here.
“I don’t really want to handle it, so if you could just hold it there… No, then I’d run the risk of transferring the Unique Skill to you by myself. Can you just fix it in place somehow?”
I stuck a branch into the ground and tied the beetle to it with cotton thread to oblige the delicate demon lord.
“Here goes…”
Shizuka took a deep breath to steady her focus, then pressed a finger to the pontiff and another to the beetle.
“…Transfer Element.”
Purple-black light flowed through Shizuka’s body and through her hands to surround the pontiff and the beetle.
“Nnngh!”
“AAAaaaAAAAAH!”
Shizuka broke into a cold sweat, and the pontiff thrashed in apparent agony. I didn’t want to risk affecting the transfer by touching him directly, so I held him down with my Magic Hand. The beetle was making loud chittering noises, too.
A dense purple mass that was nearly black spilled out of the pontiff’s body and flowed into Shizuka through her hands.
Her stamina began depleting at an alarming rate, and her MP gauge drained as well.
“Nnnngh…owwwwwww…!”
Transferring a Unique Skill must be a painful process. It looked like she was seriously suffering.
Unable to do anything to help, I could only hold my breath and watch.
“Uuuurgh…almost…there…!”
Shizuka clenched her teeth and strained harder.
“Goooooo…!”
She forced the mass into the scarab beetle.
The increasingly loud insect began growing in size with crackling sounds.
As it grew, its level jumped from one all the way to fifty.
The scarab beetle’s title changed to “Demon Lord,” and its previously blank name was overwritten to “Demon Beetle.” That seemed a bit lazy, though it was probably just done automatically by the system.
Black smoke began to gush from the beetle’s abdomen.
At this rate, it might have a negative effect on Shizuka or the pontiff.
I decided to create an exit from the mirage city behind the Demon Beetle and chase it outside.
“Take care of the pontiff, please.”
With that, I handed Shizuka an elixir, chose “Short Stun” from my magic menu, and struck the Demon Beetle with it.
Demon lords are supposed to be immune to lesser magic, but it apparently couldn’t cancel out the physical shock wave. Unable to hold its ground, the giant beetle was thrown outside.
The Demon Beetle spread its wings and took to the sky.
“Sorry to sacrifice you like this, but…”
With a silent apology to the scarab beetle, I unleashed a volley of the Explosion Magic spell Explode to destroy its magic barrier.
SZCABBBBRZABE.
The demon lord howled and began unleashing a dark purple wave around it.
I drew a magic bow from Storage, notched a Holy Arrow that was overcharged with magic, and used Acceleration Gate to produce a hundred and twenty speed-enhancing circles in the arrow’s path to ensure the insect wouldn’t suffer.
“…Rest in peace.”
With a murmured prayer, I shot the accelerated Holy Arrow straight through the Demon Beetle.
A blue laser beam–like light shot into the sky toward the distant crescent moon, and the Demon Beetle, still reared up in an intimidation pose, was vaporized without leaving a trace.
The booming sound echoed in the sky, until silence finally fell.
“Damn yooou! Handing it off, no faaair!”
I spotted the small purple light floating in the air grumbling, and destroyed it with a slash of my Divine Blade.
> Defeated Demon Beetle
> Title Acquired: Piercer of Skies
> Title Acquired: Demon Lord Slayer: Demon Beetle
> Defeated God Fragments
The log in the corner of my AR display confirmed that I’d destroyed it.
I said another silent prayer for the Demon Beetle and returned to the mirage city.
“I’m back.”
“Eek!”
Shizuka stared at me as I returned. When I raised a hand to wave, she actually drew back, trembling.
“Was it that scary?”
“Y-yes. That was a demon lord, even if only a temporary one… I didn’t think you’d be able to defeat it that easily.”
Though her voice was shaky, Shizuka at least spoke to me normally. Maybe it was the joking tone I used that reassured her, or maybe it was help from my skills like “Negotiation” and “Making Excuses.”
“Are you really a hero…?”
“What do you mean?”
“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that in a bad way, I swear!”
Although I asked it very lightly, she still seemed a little frightened.
“Before I was taken captive, I read many stories about heroes and demon lords that were based on historical fact.” Shizuka chose her words carefully as she explained herself. “But there was no record of any hero defeating a demon lord so easily.”
“Well, what do you think I really am, then?”
“Perhaps a god’s apostle, or even a god yourself…ah, or maybe a dragon disguised in human form?”
Those were some pretty imaginative answers.
“Nope. I’m just an ordinary person.”
“…Ordinary?”
It was the honest truth, yet Shizuka didn’t sound convinced.
More importantly, though…
“Looks like Pontiff Zarzaris is all right?”
“Yes, the elixir you gave me appears to have worked.”
The pontiff was still comatose, but he seemed to have made it out of the worst of the danger.
“You should probably drink one, too.”
I took out a lesser elixir from Storage and gave it to her.
Although the Holy Stones had stopped her transformation from progressing, those fangs and nails would probably get in the way of everyday life.
“Are you sure?”
“It’s just a lesser elixir, unlike the pontiff’s.”
Shizuka continued to demur at first, until I finally pointed out, “Won’t those fangs and long claws bother you?” After a little more hesitation, she finally thanked me and drank it.
Her fangs popped out and were replaced with new teeth, and the purple nails dropped off and new nails grew in their place.
“Want them?”
Shizuka gathered the nails and fangs and held them out to me.
“…What would I use them for?”
“You don’t need them? He was always eager to take them, saying they were good materials.”
The sage collected these…?
I didn’t want to leave them lying around for some weirdo to misuse, so I accepted them and tucked them away in Storage.
My Storage was getting increasingly full of dangerous items…
“Master, how’s it going over there?”
“We managed to turn the pontiff back into a human.”
He was still a little bigger than his original size, but that was going to have to be good enough.
“Oh, good. That must be why the spawn stopped moving here.”
I was glad to hear the chaos in the holy city was over.
But when Arisa went on, I realized it wasn’t quite done yet.
“That’s all well and good, except it seems like a riot’s about to break out in the cathedral.”
The sage had holed up in the Heavenly Room in the cathedral, and the Holy Sword wielder Mezzalt had gathered a group of Temple Knights to go confront him.
“We should go help Sir Mezzalt, then. I’ll be back in the holy city soon.”
With that, I ended the call.
“Sorry, do you mind taking care of the pontiff for a bit?”
“That’s fine with me. But are you sure you want to leave him with me?” Shizuka pointed at herself. “Demon lord. Remember?”
“I think I can trust you.”
She didn’t seem like the type to be plotting something in secret. Besides, I doubted anyone who’d get depression and stomach pain from being forced to do unjust things would hurt someone who was in a coma.
“Uh-huh. Fine, then. I’ll have to make sure you won’t regret it.”
Shizuka mumbled shortly and turned away.
I could see in profile that her face was red. She must be embarrassed.
“All right, thanks.”
I closed the entrance of the mirage city and used Return to teleport back to the holy city.
It was time to settle things with the evil mastermind: the sage.
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