“Elia, what are you doing here…?!”
Access to and from the Academy was supposed to be under strict control.
There was nothing strange about Leon’s party being allowed outside the Academy. They were the heroes chosen by the Goddess, so they had more than enough justification.
But Elia was different.
She had no legitimate reason to leave the Academy.
Which meant there was only one possibility.
‘She forced her way out…?! Why? How…?!’
If Gremory, who had infiltrated the Academy, couldn’t get outside, then there should have been no way for any information to leak.
In that case, there could only be one cause.
Beyond the collapsed wall, Ex caught sight of a black-haired girl.
There was only one person who could possibly be accompanying Elia.
It had to be Gremory.
『Plausibility Penalty Acquired: Gremory Enhancement and Support』
‘So this is what that penalty I got after confronting Darius was referring to…!’
“You don’t need to know anything.”
Elia slowly approached, her voice dropping into a low growl.
“All you need to know is that you’re going to die here today…”
“Young Lady! Circe!”
A terrible feeling swept over Ex, and he hurriedly looked behind him.
“We’re okay!”
Lola’s voice came from behind him.
Fortunately, Lola had been standing right next to Circe and managed to raise a barrier at exactly the right moment.
It seemed to have absorbed most of the impact.
But she hadn’t managed to block all the debris. A thin stream of blood was running down from a cut on her forehead.
“…Ngh.”
The moment Elia saw it, she bit down on her lip hard enough to draw blood.
Yet not a single wound appeared.
Only the aura blazing around the sword in her hand trembled unsteadily, betraying the turmoil in her heart.
Ex quickly assessed the situation.
‘The seals on my talents and titles… Are they still active…?!’
Unfortunately, there were still around ten minutes left.
He couldn’t beat Elia even at full strength, and right now, most of his power was still sealed away.
The situation was hopeless.
The only thing he could do was buy time.
“Weren’t you going to wait until the Tournament?”
“…The Goddess spoke to me.”
“How did you receive Elysia’s message?”
“I have no reason to tell you.”
“If you wanted me dead, you could’ve done it at the Academy. Why go through all this trouble…”
“Shut up…!”
Elia crossed the distance between them in a single leap and swung her sword.
Ex hurriedly raised his own sword to block, but the force behind her strike was even greater than Leon’s.
Lung’s sword was ripped from his hands and sent spinning all the way into a distant corner.
“…You got even stronger.”
“If you die, everything will be fixed…! The Goddess said so…! This damned trial will end, and I’ll be able to save Miss Lola too…!”
“Save the Young Lady? What the hell are you talking about, urgh…!”
Elia grabbed Ex by the throat with her left hand and lifted him into the air.
He tried to pry her fingers loose with both hands, but her grip might as well have been solid rock.
Grinding her teeth, Elia screamed at him.
“Do you really think I don’t know that you’ve been deceiving Miss Lola?! I know she’s being victimized because of your vile, disgusting obsession!!”
“What the hell are you talking about…?! Who told you…!”
“The Goddess told me!!”
The instant Elia screamed those words, a razor-sharp spear of ice came flying straight at her.
“Stay out of this.”
Clang-!
Elia merely glanced at it and swung her sword, shattering the ice spear into pieces.
Circe frowned at the sight and immediately began preparing another spell.
“For the moment, he’s my ally. So no, I’m not staying out of it.”
“No, Miss Circe…! Take the Young Lady and get out of here…!”
But Elia moved before Ex could finish warning her.
“If you insist, I suppose I can take an arm or a leg…”
Elia swung her sword.
Ex had no idea where she had seen or learned it, but aura separated from the tip of her blade and shot forward.
Blade Shot.
Circe’s eyes widened in obvious alarm.
“What the…!”
It was faster and far larger than Leon’s version.
Carrying the will of a 6-Star martial artist, it surged forward, pulverizing everything in its path.
There wasn’t enough time to prepare Time Control.
Just as the Blade Shot was about to cleave Circe apart.
KRAANG-!!!
A rainbow-colored barrier flatly rejected the attack.
“Elia, stop it!!”
It was Lola’s Iris.
“What did Ex ever do to deserve this?!”
“Miss Lola…”
“If there’s a problem, we can talk about it! How does it make any sense to just show up and try to kill him?!”
“You don’t understand anything, Miss Lola.”
“What don’t I understand?! Ex’s lies? Who Ex really is? Do you seriously think I don’t know? I’m not an idiot! Whatever you think you know, I already know it too!”
Lola stepped forward.
Her eyes, filled with determination, met Elia’s head-on.
“If anything, I’m the one who should be asking you.”
“…Asking me what?”
“Is that Goddess really telling you the truth?”
Elia’s eyes shook violently.
“You can’t, Miss Lola. You can’t doubt the Goddess…”
“Of course I can! A Goddess who won’t even tell you her name is suspicious enough, and ordering you out of nowhere to kill Ex is even weirder!”
Lola had watched Elia’s faith for a long time.
And now, without the slightest hesitation.
“To me, that Goddess sounds more like a demon than anything else!!!”
She struck directly at the very foundation of Elia’s faith.
“If I had to choose between some nameless Goddess who does nothing but order people to kill and a liar who works himself half to death trying to save people while hiding who he really is…”
Lola declared without a shred of doubt.
“I’ll trust the liar.”
“…”
At those words, Elia seemed to stop thinking altogether.
She had never doubted.
That Goddess had saved her life.
She had proven Elia’s worth.
She had given Elia a brilliant new future.
“That can’t be true.”
And so Elia shut her ears.
“It can’t be…”
But even with her ears closed, Lola’s words kept echoing through her mind.
“If that’s really true…”
Then where had her life gone wrong?
“…Hmm~ This won’t do~”
At that moment, the black-haired girl stepped forward and raised one hand.
Clatterclatterclatter-!!
An ominous force erupted in every direction like chains, tangling through the air before locking down the entire space.
In an instant, Ex, Lola, and Circe were unable to move so much as a finger.
The only people who could still move freely were Elia and the black-haired girl.
“‘Spatial Restraint’ really is an amazing ability~ Maybe I should change my epithet~ Instead of the Demon of Mimicry, I could call myself the Demon of Space.”
The black-haired girl, Gremory, slowly walked toward them, chattering in a gentle, lilting voice.
“Elia, did you forget what the Goddess told you~? Her order to kill Ex~”
“I didn’t… forget…”
“Then stab him.”
Gremory’s voice turned cold.
Elia’s hand trembled like a leaf, and her unfocused eyes wavered helplessly.
Gremory merely urged her onward.
“What are you waiting for? This is what you wanted. You defeat Ex, the heinous, wicked demon, and become a hero. All of humanity will praise your achievement, and the Goddess’s name will be exalted. You’ll become someone even greater than the Hero.”
“…”
“And all it takes is one little thing.”
Gremory placed her hand over Elia’s sword hand and gently pushed it forward.
The tip of the blade pointed straight at Ex.
“Raise that sword and stab him.”
“…”
Perhaps she had seen Elia’s hesitation.
For the first time in a very long while, a message from Elysia appeared before Elia’s eyes.
『Stab Ex.』
These were the words from Elysia she had longed for more than anything.
Yet now, they only confused her.
Countless questions emerged in Elia’s mind, growing, snapping, collapsing, and disappearing one after another.
From among them, one tiny question survived.
And for the first time, Elia gave it a voice.
“What if…”
“Hmm~?”
“What if Goddess Elysia…”
Elia looked at Gremory with a hesitant, almost pleading gaze.
“What if the Goddess is wrong?”
It was the first question Elia had ever come up with on her own.
At those words, Gremory’s expression turned ice-cold.
“I guess I’ll have to do it myself after all.”
She let out a deep sigh before continuing.
“Elia, there’s actually something I didn’t tell you. The Goddess left another message. Well, I deliberately kept it from you.”
“Another… message?”
“Ah, it’s nothing important.”
“Ghk…!”
Gremory’s Spatial Restraint suddenly bound Elia as well.
Now Gremory was the only person left who could move.
“I was actually pretty worried about this. The ideal scenario was for you to kill Ex without questioning a thing, and then I would claim the ‘influence’ that was promised as payment for the contract. But I suppose nothing ever comes easy.”
“What… are you talking about…”
“Wow~ You can still talk while caught in Spatial Restraint? You really are a monster!”
Gremory scratched at the air in front of her with one hand and linked two points in space.
“Anyway, the Goddess’s other message wasn’t anything special.”
The connected space led directly inside Lola’s barrier.
Gremory took one step through.
Lola was now standing right in front of her.
Then Gremory reached into her clothes and pulled something out.
It was a sword identical to the one Elia was holding.
“She says to kill that Irregular human named ‘Lola’ too.”
The concealed ‘Soul Killer’ was pointed toward Lola.
Bound by space itself, Lola could do nothing but watch as the blade came toward her.
Circe desperately calculated spells, trying to find a way out of the situation, but nothing worked.
Elia strained with all her strength, forcing her entire body to scream in protest, yet even she couldn’t break free of the spatial restraints.
This ability could only be shattered by a being more powerful than Gremory herself.
And at that very moment.
『The seals on your Titles and Talents have been released.』
A vast and indescribable malevolence tore every last chain of restraint apart.
『While in the Demonization state, the seal on Demonic Power is released.
Change — Demonic Power: 10.0 [Seal Released] [Limit Reached]』
KRAANG-!!
The Soul Killer that had been driving toward Lola was knocked aside by someone and sent spinning through the air.
A moment later and it would have pierced her heart.
A horrifyingly ominous presence spread through the room.
Eyes gleaming with pure malice.
Even the hair that had once turned white was now stained pitch-black.
The figure standing there looked unmistakably like a demon.
And Lola had already suspected his true identity for quite some time.
“I knew it, Ex…”
That demon was none other than Ex.
“Young Lady, hurry up and use the magic device. Get out of here.”
“…We’re having a very long talk later.”
Lola immediately pulled out her teleportation magic device.
“Not happening.”
Gremory instantly cast Spatial Restraint again.
Ex had no idea why, but he had already realized that Gremory’s Spatial Restraint collapsed wherever the demonic energy he emitted could reach.
The energy moved according to Ex’s will as naturally as though it had been his arms and legs from the beginning, surging outward and destroying Gremory’s ability.
Gremory narrowed her eyes at the sight.
“Wait. Where did you get that power…”
Keeping his attention fixed on Gremory, Ex shouted.
“Young Lady, what’s taking so long?!”
“I think those idiots broke it! It won’t activate!”
Apparently, Leon’s party had damaged the magic device.
“Then use mine…! Miss Circe, help us!!”
“W-What?! What do you expect me to…?! No, what the hell even is all this…?!”
“You think I’m going to let you escape?!!”
Clatterclatterclatter-!!!
Hundreds of chains erupted from around Gremory.
Everything she had done until now had been nothing more than playing around.
The chains she unleashed surged toward them like an enormous tidal wave.
“You think you can escape with teleportation? You seriously think some pathetic magic device can break through these chains? If I bind this entire space, none of you are going anywhere!!”
The chains spread through the room, covering an area far beyond the reach of Ex’s demonic energy.
More chains were being created than he could destroy.
Within the cage of chains, only Gremory’s crazed laughter echoed grotesquely through the tangled restraints.
“Every last one of you is going to become my prey today!!!”
Ex calmly tore away the chains around him as he spoke.
“Miss Circe, I know you’re confused. But right now, I need you to focus on getting out of here.”
“You were actually a demon this whole time…? And what the hell is that demon supposed to be…?!”
“That demon won’t attack you, Miss Circe. You’re the only one who can move freely in this situation. So please, I need your help.”
If Gremory was acting under Elysia’s orders, then her only targets should be Ex and Lola.
Circe belonged to Leon’s party, so there was a good chance Gremory wouldn’t touch her.
In that case, there was only one thing Ex needed from Circe.
Ex threw his own teleportation magic device to her.
If it was Circe, she should be able to teleport two people at once with it.
The instant an opening appeared, they had to escape.
Circe could do it.
“Take Young Lady Lola and get out of here.”
So Ex would create an opening, no matter what it took.
Lola’s eyes widened in horror.
“What about you?!”
Ex answered while enduring the crushing pressure of the chains tightening around him.
“Demons don’t die. That’s how they’re written…!”
At his deliberately casual answer, Circe finally made her decision.
“…I have way too many questions now.”
“Come on, I keep telling you, knowing any more than this is dangerous…!”
“Exactly.”
Circe opened the Book of Eibon once again.
This time, far more pages began turning.
Rewriting the spell engraved into the device and escaping from distorted space would demand an equally great price.
“You’d better come back alive.”
“Of course.”
Ex lied, knowing full well she would see through it.
–TL Notes–
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