Antagonist Protection Service

Following Alasil's mutter, paired with his eyes subtly widening, the masked figure slowly stretched his arm out from beneath the veil of his cloak.

Grasped in his hand was a sword of pure ice.

"You... Just what..."

Stuttering his words, the Demon naturally frowned at the act of clear aggression.

Even though he wasn't sure exactly what happened to his dragon just now, even though the person in front of him must have been a fellow Demon, even though he should have been the last of them to survive the ancient 'cleansing'...!

There was something awfully wrong.

"Why-- Why do you have that divinity?!"

"..."

The unknown figure said nothing, his only sign of life being the unblinking crimson orbs on either side of that sinister black mask's face, and the energised magic energy coursing through his veins.

That itself was surely a sign of familiarity, and yet, it had to have been a mistake.

"Answer me!"

Crackle~!

Within the Demon's hands, black lightning surged, eliciting no visible reaction from the mysterious figure.

The copycat that somehow possessed the very same internal blood-magic circulation technique that only Greater Demons like himself were supposed to bear, and not only that, but in antithetical harmony with that overflowing, chilling divine energy...

That was something truly cursed.

Something simply not allowed to exist, not by any means, demonic or divine.

"How truly, awfully, dreadfully ugly... Die!"

Swiping his hand roughly, the black magic billowed forth, but just before it was about to connect with the masked figure, the latter simply swung his sword of ice, battering the electrical discharge out of the air with seemingly no effort at all.

Right after, he let out a truly chilling sigh.

"Man, I really thought you looked like a big deal from afar..."

Following that low mutter, although it couldn't be seen behind the Villain's Vizard, the corners of Enki's lips curled up with a smirk.

"...But, thinking about it again, I'm your hard counter, aren't I?"

Swinging the Holy Sword once more, everything turned white.

❖─────★★☆☆☆─────❖

When the Holy Sword altered its form to fit my divine energy, its description also changed.

In fact, although I still called it that, it was no longer a mere 'Holy Sword' at all.

It was, rather, a sword of the divine.

[Divine Sword of the Winter Moon]

Rather than something I had merely stolen from another, this was now a weapon that had truly become 'my own'.

A Holy Sword possessed by the Champion of the Winter Mother, Her Chosen Warrior.

Alongside the Villainous Blade, I now had two weapons which were definitively 'mine'.

Travelling from beyond the veil of the world itself, he arrived like a hero to fulfil the much-desired wish of the Winter Mother and her precious daughter.

I wasn't sure if it would ever change again in the future, but I could be certain that, at least while it was in my hands, I could not lose.

With the divine energy of the Winter Mother infused into the blade, the Holy Sword once of another world had become truly dedicated, and with it will the Champion remain true.

Being a weapon with Anti-Evil and Anti-Demon properties, I knew for a fact there was no way I could lose at least against the guy in front of me.

So long as this sword retains its purity, the Winter Moon shall invariably prevail.

Further than that, I would even go as far as to say I didn't even care that it didn't possess the Anti-Protagonist property. I'd still win regardless, now and in the future.

Should all who meet its blade welcome Her cold embrace.

Because, after all, I wielded the strength of a Goddess, didn't I?

'―――Moonlight Thule.'

Swinging the Holy Sword once, a tremendous blast of glacial air swept over the area.

In the blink of an eye, the entire basin encompassing the expedition turned white, like a vast field of pure snow.

Furthermore, the black clouds in the sky had been vaporised, allowing the considerably-sized Winter Moon to gaze freely upon us, Her little sister also visible off to the side.

A substantial amount of divine energy had been consumed, which I would likely need to wait a short while to recover, but its effectiveness was undeniable.

Crunch, crunch, crunch...

Stepping through the thick snow, I approached the Greater Demon who previously attacked me, now down on his knees and half his body frozen solid in silver ice, the other half seemingly numb from extreme cold.

"..."

Wordlessly, I stretched my arm, putting the blade calmly to his neck.

"Sorry. If you just stayed holed up in your mountain, this wouldn't have happened."

He didn't respond, just distantly staring at the ground before him as if he wasn't even mentally present.

"...Ugly... So... detestably ugly..."

Hearing him mutter faintly under his rough breath, white mist exiting his mouth and nostrils with every movement of his lungs, I murmured.

"Hm. Well, for what it's worth, I did think that black lightning was pretty cool. And the dragon."

It was just a shame the White Death's "bullets" were actually magic energy, so even if the dragon was made out of lightning, it still couldn't survive a shot to the skull.

Not wasting any time, I moved the sword just a tad, slitting the Demon's throat and instantly ending his life.

I watched him reattach a severed limb earlier, but he shouldn't be able to do the same when it came to his head, and in the first place, his weakness was the Holy property of this sword. If that divinity didn't prevent his healing, I didn't know what would.

'Hopefully that'll prevent any Demon-related issues occurring in the future. Now then...'

Turning around, I faced the main force of the imperial expedition. I tried to hold back as much as I could when unleashing the Moonlight Thule special attack, but of course, it was hard to precisely control such a wide AOE, especially when it was my first time using it.

So, although they were all also shivering and perhaps experiencing a little bit of frostbite, none of them quite had their limbs frozen like the Demon.

In any case, the leader of the Black Fang was dead, alongside two of the three who were hunting me before, so although the mage who was with them was still very much alive, I didn't really feel the need to go out of my way to kill her for no reason, and the same went for that archer girl.

'Killing them at this point would just feel bad. At least they shouldn't be causing any more trouble now that over half of them are gone... Maybe Lucretia can hire them and put them to work in another way since they're so talented or whatever.'

Although, to be honest, it was hard to think of them as such a big deal anymore now that I had seen them get their asses handed to them by a lone enemy.

One that I obliterated in a single attack, no less.

'Well, it's not a very genuine comparison to be fair. His lightning was basically useless and my divine energy hard countered him, so there wasn't really anything he could have done from the beginning.'

It was a good thing the Holy Sword retained its Pinnacle Magic Resistance property even after transforming, otherwise the black lightning would have certainly been a much more fearsome threat.

Dismissing the Holy Sword, I swept my eyes only briefly over those cold members of the expedition, watching me warily while they hurriedly cast various recovery spells and passed around healing potions.

'Anyway, that's that dealt with. Those girls from the Black Fang should be fine to leave alone, so I guess... Ah no, wait.'

To one side, the archer girl was still on the ground, gazing into nothingness and seemingly unknowing as to what to do.

Approaching her with casual steps, she flinched when I stopped just before her.

"N-no..."

Stammering that whimper-like voice out, single tears broke free from the dam of her eyes and streamed down her cheeks. She blatantly tried to back away from me on the ground thickly-veiled with snow, only earning a swift fall back down, her patently quivering limbs failing her.

It was a rather pitiful sight, and I did feel bad, but all I could do at this point was ensure her condition didn't get unnecessarily worse.

Crouching down to meet her eye level, I dismissed the chilling divine energy back to wherever it disappeared whenever I wasn't using it, the hue of my eyes surely reverting back to a more comforting green.

"I'm not bad. I just want to ask something."

For the young girl who was surely still in shock from watching three of her party members be slaughtered right before her eyes, and even almost losing her own life too, I had but one question.

"You're hiding Liam Tichá. Where is he?"

After we returned to the Imperial City, there was only one thing left to do.