Ch.181Protagonist

I looked around. One of the dormitory buildings had completely evaporated, with only a few peripheral fragments remaining, and the nearby park was completely torn up. It looked like we were in the middle of a battlefield rather than an academy.

The cause was obviously Aria.

I caught my breath. I couldn’t yet perfectly utilize the memories I had received. I needed more time to eliminate the disconnect between soul and body.

But even that was more than enough to feel the gap between the two worlds.

There was a fundamental difference between a dark fantasy world where the protagonist must inevitably suffer and struggle, and a yuri romance fantasy world where that wasn’t necessary.

If enemies are weak, the protagonist’s suffering doesn’t make sense, so they make the enemies overwhelmingly strong. But since the protagonist still needs to defeat them for the story to progress, they must be able to respond to some degree.

As settings for both enemies and allies are alternately strengthened, inflation gradually progresses. It would be stranger if such a world were weaker than the yuri romance fantasy world.

No wonder Aria was so obsessed with my power.

“What do you mean whose was it? What are you talking about, Mira? I really don’t understand what’s going on at all!”

Leona asked in a bewildered voice. Judging by her miserable appearance and Aria’s vicious expression, it seemed like things had already half-unfolded. If I had been a little later, I probably wouldn’t have seen anything good.

“I’ll explain later. Have you thought about what I asked? Who you’ll choose between Aria and me. If you haven’t decided yet, you’d better choose quickly. The time has come.”

“……”

Leona’s expression darkened rapidly as she looked back and forth between Aria and me.

She must have realized it from what just happened. No matter how much she whined about how difficult it was to choose between us, the time when she had to make that choice had finally arrived.

After hesitating for a long while, Leona painfully parted her lips.

“…Mira. That Aria over there isn’t the Aria I knew, right? Right?”

“Probably not.”

Although Aria had remained Aria even after the novel concluded, it was clear that the current Aria was different from the one Leona remembered, so I answered no.

Other explanations could wait until after everything was over. This much was sufficient to help her understand the current situation.

“Is there any way to turn her back to normal?”

“That depends on her, not me. You’re her childhood friend—what do you think? Does it seem possible?”

“…No.”

Leona bowed her head and muttered something in a voice filled with despair. After mumbling to herself for a while, she pointed her holy sword at Aria, not me, with determined eyes.

“Honestly, I want to believe. That I’m just mistaken. That she can be returned to normal. But I don’t think that’s possible.”

Her extremely bitter voice continued.

“…It’s just a feeling. I’m sorry, Aria. I can’t trust you.”

Her golden pupils grew moist. The holy sword began to emit a soft light. Watching this, I inadvertently blurted out a comment.

“It’s fine if you want to fight, but are you going to do it dressed like that?”

“Uh, huh?”

Sniffling, Leona finally looked down at her attire.

Her upper body was half-exposed with a half-burned white shirt precariously hanging off her right shoulder, revealing not just her underwear but bare skin as well. As for her lower body, her skirt was gone, leaving her with nothing but panties.

She was wearing shoes without socks in such an outfit. It was a bizarre appearance. She probably couldn’t restore her clothes after being attacked.

“Kyaaaaaaah!”

Leona let out a shrill scream. Tears of a different kind formed between her tightly shut eyelids. She urgently covered her chest and panties with both arms and crouched down on the ground.

I thought she knew but was ignoring it due to the urgency of the situation, but it seemed she simply hadn’t noticed.

“D-don’t look here! Mira! Look away!”

I took off my outer garment and held it out to Leona, who had turned her back to me and crouched down, a position that only emphasized her backside even more.

Leona snatched the clothes from me and hurriedly put them on, tucking them in all the way to her thighs while crouching. Fortunately, it was just barely large enough to cover her entire body.

Her flushed cheeks and teary face looked up at me. I turned my eyes away. I decided to pretend I hadn’t seen anything.

“I’ll deal with Aria and come back. Just stay like that for a moment. It shouldn’t take long.”

We were able to have this conversation so calmly because Aria was panting as if she might collapse at any moment. She was in no position to exploit our openings.

“Why did you have to be so greedy? You should have eliminated it instead of sealing it.”

“Heh, unnecessary greed, you say, Miss Mira… That’s, huff, quite harsh… There’s nowhere else, hak, for it to go… yet you’re, forcibly stuffing it into me… Haa, haa.”

That expression sounds a bit strange.

When I frowned, Aria gave a faint smile while dripping with cold sweat.

“It’s just over halfway in, heuk, at this point… isn’t it, hwiik, too big for me, Miss Mira…?”

“More like you’re too small.”

The conversation was full of expressions that would be easily misunderstood by someone hearing only the dialogue without context. Even Leona, who had nearly died just moments ago, was looking on with bewildered eyes.

Come to think of it, Leona used to tease me in a similar way when we first started getting close. Perhaps they share this trait because they’re childhood friends.

“It’s so tight… I’m sorry… Would you accept this as compensation…?”

Aria drew a magic circle in the air. It wasn’t the usual softly glowing blue magic circle, but an ominous red one.

“What, you’re going to fight in that state? That’s unexpected. Your body might burst in a little while.”

“Of course I’m not going to fight in this state, whew. I just need a little more… time… for what I’m about to do…”

“What you’re about to do?”

“A life-or-death gamble.”

With those words, Aria’s eyes flashed.

In an instant, her body disappeared and reappeared at a distance that made her look smaller than half a fingernail. The space beside her shattered completely, and creatures with familiar yet unfamiliar forms poured out in droves.

The first to emerge was a beast with a lion’s form. It had wings twice the size of its body on its back, large spikes on the joints of its front and hind legs, and a mace attached to the end of its tail.

Its glowing red eyes turned toward me. Its claws, twice the size of any ordinary fang, scraped against the ground. Sulfur mixed with venom dripped from its mouth.

And there wasn’t just one or two of them. The first summoning alone must have brought forth at least a hundred.

But my eyes were fixed not on the beasts that had just appeared, but on Aria behind them, who seemed to be casting magic on herself as if about to commit something terrible.

I reflexively accelerated my body and lunged forward. I swung my hand downward. A magic circle appeared in the air, and a sphere of magma plunged toward Aria.

—KWAGWAGWAGWANG!

And the newly summoned beasts were blocking the magma with their bodies. Despite dozens of them melting away with a single gesture, they stubbornly filled the gaps by pushing their bodies forward.

Sulfur mixed with venom burst from their mouths. I could easily dodge it, but the collateral damage would be enormous.

I spread a hemispherical barrier in the air. Lightning shot from the barrier in exactly the opposite direction of the sulfur’s trajectory. The lightning pierced through the sulfur and struck directly into the throats of the beasts with open mouths.

The beasts hit directly by lightning exploded from the inside out. Acidic blood and flesh scattered everywhere. The ground bubbled where it came into contact with their bodily fluids.

‘Was the plan to use them as meat shields from the start?’

Even now, the beasts were emerging in far greater numbers than those dying, and instead of charging at me, they were blocking the path and volunteering as Aria’s meat shields.

That seemed to be the reason for summoning those lion-like beasts. Their tough skin gave them extreme resistance to physical attacks as a racial characteristic. But that didn’t mean they were weak against magic either.

At this rate, I’d be too late. BOOM! I stomped on the ground. A shockwave burst out in a circle, tearing up the entire area. The protective barrier surrounding the vicinity undulated like the sea in the middle of a storm.

‘If only I had the Light Spear…’

With the Light Spear, breaking through would have been much easier. No matter how many appeared, they would have melted away as they came.

But for some reason, I couldn’t use it. Ever since meeting Latina, perhaps, my holy power would recede as soon as I tried to summon it.

I had no choice but to use something else. I drew a magic circle on my palm. An ominous black sphere rotating clockwise appeared.

The beasts howled in response upon seeing the black sphere. Of course they would. This was a power used by demon-kind, and how dangerous it was would be inscribed in their instincts.

The clockwise-rotating sphere gradually stopped rotating. “Gradually” in the context of simultaneously using body enhancement and acceleration meant it was actually a fraction of a second, but still.

—KUOOOOO…

The flow of air changed. The sphere began to rotate counterclockwise.

The beasts that were acting as meat shields between Aria and me rose into the air. Their front and hind legs pathetically flailed in the empty air with nothing to touch.

Everything within the barrier was being sucked into the sphere. Neither the defensive wall they had formed by digging their claws and teeth into each other’s bodies, nor their size—twice that of a lion—was of any use.

They were simply being sucked into the sphere and disappearing, unable to withstand the pressure.

I fixed the black sphere in the air and increased my running speed. After cutting one flailing beast in half from the front, I approached right in front of Aria.

“As expected, I must still be the protagonist.”

It took only about 2-3 seconds to sweep away all the beasts blocking the way and approach Aria again, but from her expression, I could tell.

That it was already too late.

“Seeing how successful this was.”

The power that had been trying to flow back from my body burst out all at once.

“Hasn’t it suddenly become quiet outside?”

“Oh, you’re right?”

The four people resting inside a tent specially made for the Holy Maiden turned their heads. The outside, which had certainly been bustling until just a moment ago, had become eerily quiet.

The Holy Maiden had appeared and healed all the wounded, and no monsters had appeared, so the atmosphere outside had been festive. There was no way it could be this quiet.

The four nodded to each other and rose from their seats. Leaving behind the sofa that didn’t return to its original shape despite the pressure from above being gone, they pulled at the tent flap.

“…Huh?”

The tent wouldn’t open.

No, it wasn’t simply that it wouldn’t open—it was as if it had completely solidified, without even the slightest movement. Even when a panicked Rosaria pounded on it with her palms, nothing changed.

No sound, no movement, nothing came back. Not even the fist that struck it hurt.

“What is this? How did…”

“…The same goes for other things too.”

Laura tapped the cup on the table. Again, there was no movement at all. Realizing the seriousness of the situation, the four people tried to disturb various things in the tent, but everything inside was the same.

“Is it magic?”

Priscilla, who had given up trying to lift the pillows and blankets, asked with a serious face. The other three responded with equally serious expressions.

“I don’t know. If it were magic, you would have felt it… By the way, can you use magic? I can’t summon holy power.”

“It is the same for me. I too cannot use magic.”

“I’m in the same situation, but I truly don’t understand what’s happening. I even question whether this is magic to begin with.”

They each fell into thought, but no good solution came to mind. This situation was unprecedented. Nothing made a sound when touched, nothing moved when disturbed.

As if time itself had stopped.