“Catch him!”
“This way! Dealers, hurry!”
“Seriously! Not here, okay?!”
“We need to go all out now. Otherwise, everything’s gonna blow!”
Kaboom!!
Five days after the ruckus with Fake Lily.
The alliance, having taken a big hit, had prepared during my rest, and as soon as I returned, they resumed the raid.
The opponent was the Demon of Space deep underground in the Empire.
Considering the significant damage dealt by the Demon of Preservation, the alliance was pretty tense, but the Demon of Space was weak enough to render that tension pointless.
“It’s going down!”
“Not yet! We probably have two more resurrection patterns to go!”
“Mages, defend!!”
The reason was, of course, that my fake, Black Lily had absorbed most of the spatial power.
The Demon of Space was weakened to the point of being almost a half-corpse and could be sufficiently taken on with only the strength of the users.
Although many rankers died and strained their resources, it was a big deal.
“Just catching it is impressive.”
No matter how weak it got, it was unthinkable for ‘humans’ to take on a demon race with power above intermediate level.
I glanced at the scene of colorful techniques in action, turning my eyes toward my original purpose.
Flap. Flap.
“Mmm…”
“Lady Lily?”
“Did you arrange this layout in each chapter? Huh?”
I lifted my head.
In front of me stood a knight, his white armor damaged in various places, perhaps from a fierce battle.
He looked like he’d been through a lot but was holding up reasonably well.
Thud.
I closed the Book of Magia I had been reading.
“Is something lacking? Did Holy Protection run out?”
“Oh, that’s not it. You prepared so well. I think we can completely eradicate it in about two hours.”
Even if it had weakened, a demon race was still a demon race.
Magic is a force that cannot be easily endured, so all fighting users had Holy Protection placed on them.
Thanks to that, they could fight with all their might without resistance.
“Good to hear.”
Of course, all I provided was ‘protection.’
I didn’t give a single bit more power.
“Is it really okay? This way, Lady Lily’s reward will significantly diminish.”
“It’s fine. The alliance members are working hard too.”
It’s a good outcome if the users grow stronger.
Being too greedy wouldn’t be good either.
I waved a book at the anxious knight.
“I’ve already received it anyway.”
“That magic book you mean?”
“Yeah. I’ve been researching it with Lasty whenever I can, but it’s a bit tough for me… I think it’ll require quite a bit of improvement.”
“It’s hard… I guess I need to go through quite a bit of improvement.”
“You’re already strong enough, but adding magic too… that’s scary.”
The knight’s hand holding the shield trembled slightly, genuinely frightened.
I chuckled and shook my head.
Even if I learned magic, I would still fight with a spear and a hammer.
This way feels the most comfortable and efficient for me.
Even though I know excellent attack magic now, there’s a reason I’m choosing to engage with a spear and hammer.
“Are you not going to engage more, Knight? It’d be better to maximize your contribution degree.”
“That would be good, but… my shield doesn’t synergize well with what I have. I’ve decided to take only a certain portion of the contribution and leave the rest for the other alliance members.”
“I see.”
Well, Griffin is a monster with the powers of light and sky.
Magic can be considered extreme holy.
“Of course, it’s not something you could simply accept as holy.”
Holy power is a poison that purifies everything except itself.
“Um, you’re not streaming right now, are you?”
“No.”
I turned it off for a moment to rest.
If I were directly participating in the raid, I would obviously be streaming, but I’m here purely to assist.
“If I did turn it on, the chat would go wild, demanding I land the finishing blow.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought of the chat’s madness.
The knight hesitated for a moment before extending the shield he was holding.
An impressive white shield adorned with bright yellow feathers.
“Griffin’s Shield?”
“Yes. This—”
“Are you giving it to me? Thank you.”
I promptly accepted the shield.
Despite the user-specific “binding” system being severed, when I took the shield, the knight suddenly wore a dazed expression and shook his head at dizzying speed.
“No, no! That’s not it! Didn’t you say before…?”
“Before?”
“You said you had something to say about this shield when you came to save me.”
“Hmm. Did I?”
I playfully tucked the shield under my chin and chuckled, but seeing the knight’s expression gradually harden, I quickly waved my hand.
“I was joking. I just wanted to check something.”
“Oh. Yes, yes.”
“Let me see…”
Griffin.
One of the top five strongest monsters I encountered in the past.
The five being:
The progenitor of vampires, Lasty Erbenus.
The Emperor of the Desert, Pharaoh.
The god of beastmen, Myeosin.
The disaster of the sea, Kraken.
And the last one being the Sky’s Claw, Griffin.
A creature that seems like a mix between a lion and an eagle.
Excluding Lasty, the other four have similar strengths, but Griffin was uniquely in a ‘sealed’ state compared to the other monsters.
I was in a state of being ‘sealed.’
A body that had been sealed in some ancient shrine long before I came along.
One day, for some unknown reason, the seal broke, and the Griffin feasted on every living being in the area on the first day it was released.
Humans, other races, spirits—everything.
Had it stopped there, it would have been truly wonderful, but it rampaged as if to release its pent-up resentment, and eventually made its way to my ears, leading to its sealing again.
“Now that I think about it, I’ve met everyone.”
They say the strongest among monsters are five, but in reality, I had encountered many more.
The count easily surpassed two digits, and was nearing three.
However, most of the monsters I encountered since my return were the five I knew best.
Let’s say that Lasty and Pharaoh had never left, but I’d met the remaining three again.
“None of them were in a normal state, though.”
I infused the shield with holy power.
The pure white holy essence resonated throughout the shield, and I grasped the power within it.
“Hmm…”
From the sensation I felt before, the Griffin was ‘absent’ in the shield.
Only fragments of power and strength remained; the Griffin’s soul itself was not present in the shield.
Even if it were, I thought it would either be in a completely sealed state or just fragments…
“Hmm?”
“Wh-what’s the verdict?”
“So, this is how it is.”
Buzz!
Swish.
I returned the shield.
It was now even more sparkling than before.
The knight, receiving the shield, looked as if a question mark had appeared above his head and asked again.
“Did you find anything out?”
“Nothing, as expected. The powers are just separately refined. It must be the system’s involvement.”
The Kraken and Myeosin were all managed by the administrators too.
The Griffin, which appeared even before my return, surely was the same.
Well, for a Griffin’s caliber, no way those rookie users in their second year could have taken it down.
It seems like, just like the mass-produced Krakens of the past, mass-produced Griffins also made an appearance.
“If only a bit of the Griffin’s soul was contained, I would’ve tried to converse or figure out the position of its main body. But alas, I’m disappointed it didn’t.”
“Oh… I see.”
“Yeah. Still, even that much is useful. It’s not easy to wield that level of power when there’s not even a soul present.”
The knight casually employed the Griffin’s powers.
Even though that power barely reaches one-tenth, it requires an immense lifespan or total depletion of one’s mana to unleash that much power.
But the Knight receives assistance from the ‘System’ and only uses a tiny fraction of mana, plus there’s just a ‘cooldown’ to worry about.
“With that advantage comes limitations, so I’ve loosened some restrictions. You should be able to achieve around twenty percent of its performance now.”
“Restrictions… you say?”
“Yes.”
The system had lifted the constraints.
Now the Knight should be able to draw out even more power from the Griffin.
“It’ll be a lot harder though.”
“……”
“Oh, by the way. Where did those people go?”
“Are you talking about the fakes…? Huh? Those people?”
“The rookies. They were sticking together in their trio.”
I had tossed them into a crack in space during the fight with the Demon of Preservation, fearing for their safety.
I had set the boundary within Deoen, so they shouldn’t have gone outside the continent, but they haven’t shown up during this raid either.
“They seemed quite eager about the raid.”
The Knight returned from his serious expression to the usual face of the Alliance Leader, furrowing his brow.
“?”
“Oh. Those folks suddenly deserted the alliance. I heard they had something to do.”
“Something to do?”
“It seems they’ve discovered something in the demons’ realm. Still, it’s quite… strange for them to leave without a word after receiving support.”
“I see.”
Fortunately, it didn’t seem like they drifted off to somewhere ridiculous.
It’d be a relief if news came through.
I casually thought about it while finishing my book.
How much time passed? Suddenly, I heard cheers and the sound of something collapsing.
[You have defeated the Disaster of Gongam!]
“Well, they got it.”
– Got it~
– Did a transcendence appear?!
– Wow, amazing.
– No way. A mythical drop aaah!!
“It’s going wild.”
People were jumping around, checking their rewards.
Still, seeing everyone so excited strangely warmed my heart.
“Lady Lily, what’s your percentage? I got 9%. It’s a bit higher than expected…”
“Um, I’m…”
Thud.
Huh?
“37%.”
“What?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Why?”
Isn’t that a decent number?
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