Hizoru Forest, spreading across the kingdom’s north.
From the <Otherworld Gate> opened deep in its interior, Valtora of the Eight Celestial Demons emerges.
(……Good, no signs of pursuit. Looks like I managed to lose them.)
Ideally he would like to make one leap straight out into the open world beyond——but.
His magical energy is not sufficient for a transfer of that distance.
The further the <Otherworld Gate>‘s connection must reach, the more the required magical energy balloons exponentially.
The ‘instant teleportation with unlimited range’ that Luna performs is a feat made possible only by her ‘inexhaustible magical energy.’
(For now, I’ll move.)
Having secured a minimum of safety, Valtora drags his heavy body forward.
Even having flown by way of the <Otherworld Gate>, even being deep in a forest, this is still within the human race’s inhabited territory.
A natural cave, an animal den, anywhere——he needs somewhere to hide.
Parting the lush grass and leaves underfoot, he fires off a <Transmission> in the direction of the Demon King.
“Tch……of course it won’t reach.”
He had hoped to report the Saint’s reincarnation’s true identity as soon as possible——but.
The Demon King’s castle is at the ends of the outer world, far beyond any distance he can connect to.
He gives up on thought-communication and takes a different, more primitive approach.
“——<Summon>“
He calls out his own subordinate magical beast——a Hellfire Grub——as a messenger, and hands it a piece of parchment bearing the words ‘The Saint’s reincarnation is Sarl Ko Leyton.’
“Go.”
“Kee——!”
The Hellfire Grub, receiving its master’s command, takes wing in the direction of the Demon King’s castle.
That takes care of his minimum obligation.
All that remains is to maintain <Anti-Magic Detection>, hide until his stamina and magical energy recover, and return to the Demon King’s castle.
Valtora lets out a long breath at having safely wrapped up his assignment——and then——
“……!”
——feels a burning pain in his abdomen.
That is where Sarko’s <Wind God’s Rending Slash> had cut deepest.
The lacerations themselves have already been healed with recovery magic——but.
The Saint’s pure magical energy exerts an absolute effect against the demon race.
The residue of that sacred power is still scorching Valtora’s flesh, delivering a dull, festering ache.
“Damn it——Sarl Ko Leyton, I will absolutely kill you next time——!”
He bites down on his back teeth and stokes the flames of hatred——when——
“——Is there something you need with Sarko-san?”
A clear, bell-like voice rings through the quiet forest.
“……!”
Every cell in his body recoils.
A shock as if his heart has been seized in a fist runs through him entirely, and cold, clammy sweat trails down his back.
(……Th-that’s impossible——!)
There is no way he could have forgotten.
There is no way he could have mistaken it.
The voice of the person who had killed him.
Valtora slowly turns around, and finds a girl standing in the moonlight.
Silver-white hair clear as water, sky-blue eyes clear to their very depths, skin white as snow——a girl of such transcendent beauty that the world forgets how to breathe.
“……The Saint, Luna……!?”
The resemblance is exact.
As if she had stepped through from three hundred years ago, crossing time itself.
(……So that’s it. That’s how it is——!)
In this moment, Valtora understands everything.
Sarl Ko Leyton is ‘bait’——a lure with the Saint’s magical energy planted inside it.
The Saint Luna observed from a safe distance, sent her trusted retainer against whoever was drawn in——and had them finished off.
He had fallen right into it, taken a severe counter from Zel, and on top of that sent misinformation to the Demon King.
Fierce irritation at having been played churns inside him, but this is not the moment for that.
(Why——how did she know I would fly to this forest!?)
When he flew by way of <Otherworld Gate>, he concealed his magical energy with <Anti-Magic Detection>. His countermeasures against tracking should have been airtight.
And yet the Saint had gotten to Hizoru Forest ahead of him.
“You……just how far ahead did you read this!?”
The Saint slowly raises her right hand, and smiles as if she holds the entire world in her palm.
“——Everything.”
“Ngh——!”
An arrogant declaration beyond measure——but he cannot deny it.
The Saint Luna is, after all, ‘the embodiment of death.’
A genuine monster that slays even the Demon King himself.
Even if she truly held everything in the palm of her hand, there would be nothing strange about that.
His mouth dries to a disagreeable degree, his heartbeat grows ragged and wild, and Valtora laughs like a man gone mad.
“Ha, haha, hahahahahahahaha——! I’ve heard about you from the Demon King! You only just reincarnated, didn’t you!? The degradation through reincarnation——massive loss of magical energy and physical strength! The Saint right now doesn’t have what she used to——!”
He shouts at the top of his lungs as if to rally himself, and cuts to his trump card without a moment’s hesitation.
“——<Primal Dragon Descent>!”
This magic hidden in his dragon blood temporarily borrows the power of the great primal dragon——Valtora’s ultimate card.
“Ngh, guh, OHHHHH——!”
The muscles across his body swell and expand, wicked spines cover his wings, and a deep crimson phosphorescence inhabits his dragon scales.
Valtora, having undergone Dragon Form, is the King of the Infernal Flame who scorches all creation.
Three hundred years ago, he wielded this power and brought down a minor nation in a single night.
“Bwahahaha! Behold, this is the power of the dragonkin! ——<Scorching Ring>!”
Valtora thrusts his right hand forward, and eight enormous balls of flame appear surrounding Luna.
“Burn to cinders!”
The sinisterly swaying crimson fireballs converge to incinerate the Saint——
——Luna lifts her toes barely off the ground, and lightly stamps the earth.
In that instant, the ground shakes with a violent rumble, and a shockwave like a storm tears through the air.
<Scorching Ring> is snuffed out. The trees snap at their roots. The earth peels upward.
“Guh, ugh——!”
Valtora drops humiliatingly to all fours, and in a posture that resembles prostration, endures the brutal shockwave with everything he has.
One stamp of her foot.
That alone neutralized a highest-order spell. The Saint levels her gaze at him, cold as ice.
“What was that about your former power?”
“……!”
The memory of defeat flashes through his mind.
Looked down upon.
Twice now.
Ground underfoot.
The pride of the highest-order race.
An unbearable humiliation.
An unforgivable insult.
Valtora’s head boils over.
“You——don’t you dare look down on dragonkin Valtora——!”
He beats both wings and rides the speed of sound, pouring every last drop of his magical energy into his right arm and launching the blow of his life.
“DIE!”
A thunderous roar rings out, and a flower of flesh and blood blooms.
What explodes is the dragonkin’s right arm.
The greatest punch of Valtora’s life could not even pierce the magical energy that the Saint carelessly leaks without any intention of using it.
“……Ha……monster……”
An instant later, a pale, slender right arm drives through the dragonkin’s face, and a tremendous crash like a mountain being shattered echoes through the whole forest.
What had once been called Valtora continues to fly parallel to the ground without stopping, until it slams into a great tree and comes to rest.
(……What……just……happened……?)
He could not understand it.
Was it a punch, a kick, or a magical attack?
By the time he noticed, an incomprehensible impact had driven through him and he had gone flying magnificently.
A strange sense of weightlessness wraps his whole body. He holds his flickering consciousness in place by force of will and moves his eyes to assess his situation.
(……What……is this……?)
His worn-through limbs can barely move. There is a large hole clean through his chest.
The Saint’s casual jab——99% of his body is dead.
Even the highest-order race’s regenerative capacity cannot function properly. Recovery magic can barely function either.
In a field of vision that flickers in and out, despair comes slowly.
The white monster.
The world’s strongest being, unchanged in any way from three hundred years ago.
“……Is there anything you would like to leave behind?”
Asked for his final words, Valtora smiles with utterly clear, straight eyes.
“Ha……go cry about it.”
In the next moment, a crimson magic circle rises from his heart.
“——<Summon>!”
He converts his own life force into magical energy and summons one hundred thousand Hellfire Grubs.
He chose.
Not his own life, but the future of the demon race.
He chose to bring back the information about the Saint Luna.
“This is——!”
A mere sliver of an opening, created by the swarm of insects.
Valtora uses it to imprint his own memories onto parchment.
‘The Saint Luna has reincarnated. Her former power intact.’
He corrects the misinformation he sent earlier, and with the truth written down, feeds the parchment to a single Hellfire Grub.
“Go——!”
Receiving the master’s command, the hundred-thousand swarm takes wing all at once, heading for the Demon King’s castle.
“He, heh……go cry about it……yourself……!”
Utterly spent, Valtora sticks out his tongue in provocation, and dissolves into glittering particles.
The last sight he sees——is carnage.
Every single one of the hundred thousand Hellfire Grubs, all of them, being crushed to death with bare hands one by one.
(Ah……no question about it, that thing is real. The worst possible one has come back——!)
With despair shattering his heart, Valtora meets his second death.
Three minutes before Valtora’s annihilation.
“——All right, this far out should be safe enough.”
While Nilva’s command center runs hot with the business of eliminating Valtora, Luna says “just going to the bathroom for a moment” and slips out——opens the <Otherworld Gate>——and flies to Hizoru Forest, reasonably close to the royal castle yet seemingly unpopulated.
“……Nobody here, right?”
She glances around to confirm there is indeed nobody, then takes off the plate armor.
“Phewwww……what a day this has been……”
The morning was the Battle Tournament, the afternoon was a frantic sprint of anti-Saint-exposure measures, the evening was dinner with a king, and just when she thought she had finally been released, she was marched into a secret-base-like command center——and then slipped out at the first opportunity.
From morning to night, not a moment to breathe.
“I wonder if that’s wrapped up over there.”
She has left the Eight Celestial Demons matter entirely in the hands of her reliable right hand.
Zel is strong.
When she had reunited with him in the Leonard Theocracy——when his feathers were beaten to shreds——he might have had trouble. But with his feathers restored to that level of luster, he will not fall behind one of the Eight Celestial Demons.
“It’s late, so let’s just get home.”
She deploys the <Otherworld Gate> again and is about to fly to the Saint Academy——when a series of heavy footsteps, thud, thud, thud, reaches her ears.
(……Someone’s coming……?)
She hides herself in the shadow of a nearby tree, and after a moment a wounded dragonkin passes by in front of her.
(That one was——one of the Eight Celestial Demons, Ba, Ba——right, Bavarois.)
Correctly: Celestial Demon Valtora.
(His right arm’s hanging off……. Got beaten by Zel and fled, that’s the feeling?)
As Luna is making this analysis——
“Damn it——Sarl Ko Leyton, I will absolutely kill you next time——!”
Valtora’s face twists with hatred, and he speaks words of dark resentment.
(Hmm.)
A demon directing murderous intent at a dear friend——even she cannot overlook this.
She steps out from the shadow of the tree to do one final piece of work.
“——Is there something you need with Sarko-san?”
“……The Saint, Luna——!?”
Valtora’s eyes waver with shock, and after a moment’s silence he bites down on his back teeth with a look of frustration.
“You……just how far ahead did you read this!?”
In that instant, a bolt runs through Luna’s mind.
(Th-this is——!?)
The line Valtora has just said is word for word the same as a line that had appeared in a villainess novel she read recently.
A once-in-a-lifetime ‘villainess move opportunity.’
(Hhhh——)
She manages to calm her racing heart, fights desperately to keep the corners of her mouth from pulling up, and raises her right hand in as cool and stylish a manner as she can manage.
“——Everything.”
Having studied it already in the novel, the perfect line comes naturally to her lips.
(Now——how will he respond!?)
Valtora’s answer to Luna’s serve:
“Ha, haha, hahahahahahahaha——! I’ve heard about you from the Demon King! You only just reincarnated, didn’t you!? The degradation through reincarnation——massive loss of magical energy and physical strength! The Saint right now doesn’t have what she used to——!”
(That’s——a perfect score——!)
As villain side-character A, it was top-tier material.
(Kuhh——!)
Luna is so excited she nearly lets out a strangled noise, but she——aspiring cool beauty that she is——holds herself still with a will of iron.
After that, Valtora uses a fire magic spell prioritizing visual impact, so she neutralizes it elegantly with a single stamp and delivers her best finishing line.
“What was that about your former power?”
Ice-cold eyes, a dragonkin sinking into despair, a scene lit by moonlight——it is exactly the kind of moment that could come out of a novel.
(He, heheh——hehehehehehe——!)
Luna is floating on a cloud——but is yanked back to reality in short order.
“……Huh……?”
She had thrown a light casual jab as a test, and villain side-character A had gone flying at a remarkable speed.
She chases after him in a panic, and finds a single half-dead dragonkin, barely breathing.
(Th-that……can’t be right——!)
The dismay hits hard.
Even the demon race’s regenerative ability won’t save that one.
The villainess-move opportunity she had just gotten her hands on is trickling away through her fingers like sand.
(Th-that’s right, if I use recovery magic……!)
For a moment the thought crosses her mind——but she holds back, barely.
A forcibly manufactured villainess move is, at the end of the day, ‘farmed.’
The human hand applied to it creates awkwardness, creates artificiality.
What Luna desires is ‘wild-caught’——a supreme villainess move born naturally.
She tastes the preciousness and fragility of life, and gambles on one last thread of hope.
“……Is there anything you would like to leave behind?”
Valtora is surprisingly weak, but he is a demon who understands how things work.
Even in this situation, perhaps he will give her some kind of villainess-appropriate response.
She just wanted to soak in this dreamlike moment a little longer.
But reality is merciless.
“Ha……go cry about it.”
Valtora converts his own life into magical energy and summons a swarm of Hellfire Grubs.
He has one of them eat the parchment, and sends it off somewhere.
(That is……a dying message.)
The contents are most likely a record concerning the Saint Luna.
She has feelings about leaving, but the villainess move is over.
To prevent being found out as the Saint, she moves into action without delay.
“——There, that takes care of it.”
Having annihilated all one hundred thousand Hellfire Grubs, Luna breathes a quiet sigh of relief.
In her hand is the parchment Valtora left behind as his final message.
Its contents are exactly what she had predicted.
‘The Saint Luna has reincarnated. Her former power intact.’
If this had reached the Demon King’s army, things would have become troublesome.
“Got to be careful about information leaks.”
She burns the parchment with a fire spell, and the threat of the Saint being found out is entirely averted.
As it stands, the misinformation that Sarl Ko Leyton is the Saint’s reincarnation is spreading through the Demon King’s army at a remarkable pace——but of course, she has no way of knowing that.
Having finished the overtime work, Luna stands with the moonlight at her back and murmurs with the weight of many feelings.
“……That was good……what just happened was really very good.”
She savors it, like tasting something slowly. Lets it come back to her again.
[You……just how far ahead did you read this!?]
[——Everything.]
[The Saint right now doesn’t have what she used to——!]
[What was that about your former power?]
A villainess move where she holds the position of absolute supremacy and overwhelms her opponent utterly.
The ‘lines’ and the ‘situation’ were beyond reproach.
The only regret, just one thing——the ‘relationship’ was somewhat lacking.
With a Saint facing one of the Eight Celestial Demons, the Saint-ness inevitably colors it, and the villainess flavor is slightly absent.
She is a noble’s daughter.
The ideal opponent would be someone of a privileged class, like royalty or nobility.
“But……it felt really good.”
What fills her heart is a contentment that defies words.
The very first ‘genuine villainess feeling’ she has experienced since reincarnating into this era.
The ‘imaginary villainess moves’ she had been quietly accumulating with patient dedication have, today, at long last budded and bloomed.
Luna’s villainess level is rising——slowly, incrementally, but unmistakably.
“He, heheh——hehehehehehe——!”
In the best mood she has ever been, Luna wanders through the late-night forest with an unsettling smile on her face——and is promptly lost.
Several hours later, Ro, who has been searching for Luna through the entire night, delivers a thorough and lengthy scolding.
A day after the Eight Celestial Demons attack, the Saint Academy is closed.
And no wonder——caught in the crossfire of Badam and Valtora’s fierce battle, the main school building and the school facilities are half-destroyed.
The kingdom’s largest construction guild has already begun renovation work, but——
Even making full use of skilled mages and expensive magical instruments, reconstruction is expected to take a minimum of one week.
And so the Saint-sama, who has found herself with unexpectedly free time, flies to Zel’s log house first thing in the morning, cowlick standing at full attention, unable to contain her excitement.
“And then! And then! Celestial Demon Bavarois goes——’You……just how far ahead did you read this!?’——and I raised my hand gracefully like this and answered! ‘——Everything’……what do you think, wasn’t that so cool!?”
“As expected of the Saint-sama. A bearing entirely befitting a villainess, dignified through and through.”
“Right!?”
This is the third time this conversation has taken place——but.
Zel listens with a quiet smile, not a trace of reluctance on his face.
(Heheh, she really is having the time of her life.)
Seeing Luna looking so happy was, quite simply, his own happiness too, in a way he could not help.
This is not the relationship of master and retainer——it is a lively granddaughter and a doting grandfather.
“Speaking of which, Saint-sama, what did you discuss at the dinner?”
“Oh, right, right. A king called Magnus showed up and said a lot of complicated things. Something about being guardian of Princess A——”
Luna gets that far and there is a knock at the door.
“Saint-sama.”
“Yes, I know.”
Luna slips smoothly into the closet.
Zel confirms the cowlick has been properly stored away, then opens the front door.
Standing there is a woman dressed in a pure white habit.
Wearing a gentle smile, she bows deeply, and slowly raises her head.
“Zel-sama, I am pleased to meet you for the first time. I am Tselli Randoll, priestess of the Saint Faith. The Pope would very much like to speak directly with Silver-sama——”
“——Please see yourself out.”
Maintaining a pleasant smile, Zel closes the door at a speed that defies belief and locks it firmly with several bolts.