Ch.141141. High-Performance Flash Grenade

Enera and Lilith’s battle was proceeding exactly as expected, without any variables.

Lilith attacked while Enera couldn’t respond properly and kept getting pushed back.

It seemed normal enough to me… but apparently Celia found it quite surprising.

“It’s completely different from last time.”

According to her, Lilith had only performed at the level of her current classmates during the previous monster subjugation. She said Lilith was fortunate her power worked well against the monsters; otherwise, she would have been completely useless.

But now things were different.

Until recently, Lilith’s power control had been like a baby’s gestures, but now it had reached the level of a powerful waterfall… an unbelievable difference.

Of course, this was only in terms of output… but that alone was impressive enough.

Wait, can someone really get that strong so suddenly?

“It must be thanks to the new ability she acquired recently.”

I knew the favorability rewards were good, but… even so, does such rapid growth make sense?

…Then again, Celia and Alkine had already set the precedent for rapid growth thanks to favorability rewards.

And Lilith would eventually become one of the main characters who stands shoulder to shoulder with the strongest beings in the world… so I guess it wasn’t that strange.

As I finished that thought, I noticed Lilith was now holding something.

A brilliantly shining sword of light. Something that could only be described as a Holy Sword…

‘What is that?’

It looks incredibly cool!

The kind of weapon that makes a man’s heart race.

I don’t know where she suddenly pulled it from, but since it looked awesome, I decided to cheer her on.

“Hero Lilith! Hero Lilith!”

Perhaps she heard my shout. Lilith swung the sword down with an annoyed gesture.

And at that moment.

———!

A pure white light filled the entire space.

Everything in the world was consumed by light and became invisible.

Yes, this is…

‘Gaaaah! My eyes!’

A high-performance flash grenade.

“It seems Ms. Lilith still can’t gauge her own power.”

It was technically an area attack, but thanks to the protective barrier Celia had put up, it only resulted in temporary blindness.

I mean, if you’re going to throw a flash grenade, shouldn’t you brief your teammates first?

I had that complaint, but… honestly, it was cool.

No, first the appearance of the Holy Sword was incredible, and now this effect too? I want to swing it once myself.

Soon the light subsided and my vision cleared. There was still a slight haziness from the flash, but nothing too problematic.

…Wait a minute. Now that I look, both Celia and Alkine had covered their eyes. So was I the only one who got flashed?

I can’t believe this. I should pretend I wasn’t affected either.

“Ludion. It’s too late to cover your eyes now.”

“You saw?”

“Don’t forget that I’m always watching you.”

…That’s a bit scary.

I mean, I know what she’s talking about. I’m aware of the tracking and surveillance magic attached to me.

But you shouldn’t phrase it like that. People might misunderstand.

“Ludion. Are you really okay with keeping that magic on you? Wouldn’t it be better to withdraw it now?”

See? Even Alkine, who was listening nearby, felt something was off and said this.

“Ms. Alkine. Don’t stir up strange winds.”

“Which one of us is really being strange here?”

“Since Ludion said it’s fine, I mean you shouldn’t interfere, Ms. Alkine.”

They started bickering, so I decided to explain from my side.

“Well… even if she says it like that, she knows where to draw the line. And…”

“And?”

“And… you know.”

I said that while subtly moving closer to Alkine.

She flinched in surprise but didn’t back away, allowing me to whisper quietly in her ear.

It was obvious that Celia with her sharp hearing would hear everything even at this distance, but there’s a difference between saying something openly and like this.

“If I tell her to stop now, can you imagine how much of a fuss she’ll make? I don’t want that hassle.”

“…”

Hearing those words, Alkine thought, ‘He sounds like a husband under his wife’s thumb.’

And on the other hand… she found herself envying that greatly.

That was why she couldn’t answer, but there was no way for me to know that.

“Well, we can think about it later if it becomes a problem. For now, let’s focus on Lilith.”

I decided to concentrate on dealing with the immediate situation rather than continuing that conversation.

Looking over, I saw that Enera had completely lost consciousness and collapsed.

As a bonus, Lugra, who had been muttering to himself, had also been caught in Lilith’s flashy and cool Holy Sword explosion and lost consciousness.

But she really has gotten much stronger.

Even if they were caught off guard and defenseless, knocking those two out was quite an achievement.

Lilith, you’ve grown! It was a moment when that really hit home.

But well… I decided not to pay any attention to the collapsed Enera.

If Lilith hadn’t done it, Celia would have taken her down, and that would have been even more miserable. There was no need to worry about someone who had simply passed out without any serious injuries.

What’s important now isn’t any of that…

“Hey, Lilith. Can I hold that thing just once?”

“This? Can I even give it to others?”

I wanted to hold the king-god-general-emperor-majesty-gorgeous Holy Sword that Lilith had created.

Honestly, I thought it wouldn’t be possible, but surprisingly, the Holy Sword was easily placed in my hand.

But… something felt strange about the Holy Sword I received.

“Why is this… so light?”

It wasn’t just that. It had no weight at all.

I could definitely tell something was there. I could clearly feel the grip in my hand.

But it had no weight whatsoever.

I described it as light, but it was beyond that level.

Even when you pick up and move an empty plastic model, you can feel some sensation… but this had no weight and no resistance, as if I was feeling nothing at all.

“It’s light because it’s made of light.”

Celia said that, and I understood it intellectually, but…

How should I put it? When my body directly experiences something so contradictory, my brain gets confused.

There’s an unavoidable sense of disconnect that’s confusing me.

It’s impressive she could swing this so well.

With that thought, I looked at Lilith, who was watching me with a more confident expression than usual.

Right. She seemed a bit down lately. Looks like this has given her some confidence back. That’s good.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Nothing. You just fought well.”

“I’m a bit surprised myself at how this turned out… so what do you think, was it what you wanted to see?”

“I don’t know if it’s what I wanted, but you were an impressive hero.”

“Give that back. I’m confiscating it.”

“Wait a minute. Let me swing it around a bit.”

I almost had the Holy Sword taken away for teasing her, but somehow I managed to keep it.

Now then… I’m not particularly skilled in swordsmanship, nor have I practiced diligently, but I do know how to swing a sword like this.

Just raise it all the way above your head and…!

…The sword disappeared.

“…”

All that remained was me in an awkward pose after the sword vanished.

I felt empty inside.

“Lilith, isn’t this too much? You should have just taken it before I tried to use it.”

“I-I didn’t do anything!”

I confronted the obvious culprit, but she just played innocent.

“I’ll try to make it again, so wait! So… um… how did I make it again?”

She was even teabagging me!

After being completely played, I realized: Lilith has all the qualities of a true gamer.

She’ll probably be collecting all kinds of praise for everything under the sun within days.

I thought I had extensive knowledge about games… but I was just a frog in a well.

“I really didn’t do it on purpose…!”

Lilith kept explaining that it wasn’t intentional, but she ultimately failed to create a new Holy Sword.

Unfortunately, the wound in my heart would not heal.

///

Gardian, Risha, Serna, Harjan, Lugra. And Enera who led them.

We succeeded in capturing six heretics.

Adding Fanatic who was already imprisoned in the Imperial Palace dungeon, that makes seven.

It’s not really a large number, but having this many heretics gathered together was quite significant.

Even when the world in the original story went completely to hell, they hardly ever banded together, and at most there were never more than four of them.

But now… there’s no need to think about it anymore. We’ve caught and tied them all up.

I should probably have another talk with Lugra later… but the rest will be dragged away for disposal as they are.

“Is it okay to just leave them like that? Doesn’t someone need to watch them?”

As we were about to leave after roughly tying them up, Lilith raised that question.

I put Celia forward without any explanation.

“Celia will do it.”

“Well… it’s most efficient if I do it.”

There was nothing strange about it. With Celia’s abilities, monitoring them to make sure they don’t do anything foolish shouldn’t be difficult.

Even if they tried something, she could subdue them by manipulating mana. She’s perfect for this kind of job.

I feel a bit bad about making her work alone, but I’ll make it up to her later.

“Let’s get out of here for now.”

This place we had followed Enera into was underground.

Perhaps because of that, it was dark and the air was a bit stale.

Since there was nothing else to do, we left the six tied-up heretics behind and exited the place.

Ten minutes later…

“Judgment has come down!! God is angry!!”

“The end… it’s the end of days…”

“The priest I saw before said it. A great calamity might soon befall Ritten. To think it was true…”

We witnessed strange rumors spreading in real time.

“…Is this my fault too?”

Lilith wore a somewhat wronged expression, but I couldn’t bring myself to deny it.

“Come to think of it, I heard there’s a saint who appeared in Ritten.”

“I heard that too. Could it be…”

“Was she already anticipating God’s wrath?”

“That makes sense.”

All we could do was wonder if we could ignore these growing rumors.