Sion, the demon who had barged in without warning, immediately reached toward the two of them.
Dense darkness gathered at his fingertips, coalescing into a mass roughly the size of a ping-pong ball. Then, with the casual flick of someone snapping their finger against a forehead, he let it fly.
*Ping—!*
The gesture was almost playful, but the compressed demonic energy that shot from his fingertip warped the air around it as it hurtled toward Cruje's forehead at terrifying speed.
He'd gone straight for the Saintess—the most troublesome of the two.
"—!"
Caught completely off guard, Cruje froze. She couldn't even react.
In the split second before the strike punched through her brow, a black shadow erupted from beneath her feet and wrenched her backward by the waist. Aiolette had barely managed to respond in time.
*BOOM—!!*
"Kyaaaah!"
The floor where Cruje had been standing a heartbeat ago cratered like it had taken a direct hit from a bomb, stone exploding outward in jagged chunks. It was almost impossible to believe that much destruction had come from something flicked so casually.
"Hey! Quack! Snap out of it! Are you trying to get yourself killed?!"
Aiolette, who had pulled Cruje clear with her shadow, shouted at her while breaking into a cold sweat.
"S-sorry! I'm so sorry!!"
While Cruje apologized with a face drained of all color, Aiolette bit down hard on her lip and immediately went on the offensive. Staying purely on defense was a guaranteed death sentence.
*Hmmm—*
Aiolette's shadow rippled, and through Shadow Control, it transformed in an instant into dozens of razor-sharp spears that launched themselves at Sion in a furious volley.
But the look in Sion's eyes as he watched the assault was utterly indifferent.
"Pathetic. You dare wield darkness in front of me."
Sion raised one hand toward the air with a lazy gesture—and something extraordinary happened. The shadow spears that had been streaking toward him with such momentum simply stopped dead in midair at a single wave of his hand.
"Wha—?"
Aiolette's mind went blank for a moment, confronted with something she had never experienced in her life.
Her shadow—which had never once slipped from her control since she'd learned to use it with Gladia's help—had just been stolen by someone else for the very first time.
This wasn't a gap in raw power. It was a gap in mastery.
The difference between a demon born into darkness and a human who had only recently learned to touch it.
Sion gave another casual gesture, and the dozens of shadow spears Aiolette had created pivoted with perfect precision and came crashing down toward her and Cruje.
*I'm going to die—!*
With her control stripped away and no means to defend herself, Aiolette desperately threw herself sideways—but Cruje, who had finally gathered her wits, cut in.
"⟨Holy Shield⟩!"
*Fwaaash—!*
Blinding golden holy energy surged into the shape of a massive shield, planting itself firmly in front of them both.
*CRASH-CRASH-CRASH—!!*
The shadow spears Sion had redirected slammed into the Holy Shield with a thunderous roar. Under the ferocious barrage, Cruje's feet scraped and skidded across the floor as she was steadily pushed back. Watching that precarious sight, Aiolette frantically gathered the surrounding shadows and began layering them behind the Holy Shield, reinforcing it on every side.
*BOOM-BOOM-BOOM—!!*
"Kyaaaaaah!"
"Hold it, Quack!"
"Aaaaargh! I *am* holding it!"
Several more breathless exchanges followed.
Cruje's holy energy—which held a natural advantage against demons—served as the main shield, absorbing Sion's attacks head-on. Aiolette focused entirely on plugging the gaps, supporting her with ruthless precision.
*If I spread it too thin, he'll steal control again—!*
The painful lesson from moments ago had made the gap between them crystal clear. If she released her mana too loosely and broadly, Sion would seize the initiative just like before and turn it against them.
So instead of expanding her shadow's range, Aiolette chose to compress it into the smallest area she could perfectly control, concentrating everything on just a few precise points.
*Crack—! Thwack!*
Whenever Sion's demonic energy slithered like a snake through the gaps in Cruje's hastily erected Holy Shield, Aiolette would lash out with a shadow and knock it away with pinpoint accuracy.
Light and darkness. Two fundamentally incompatible forces that should never have worked together—and yet they meshed with uncanny precision, miraculously holding back Sion's relentless assault.
"Hah—hah—"
"Hff—hff—"
"…"
Aiolette and Cruje were gasping for breath down to their very last reserves, looking as though they might collapse at any moment. They'd barely kept themselves alive, but even surviving just a handful of exchanges had already pushed both of them to the edge of their limits.
Sion looked down at their battered state with a faint expression of displeasure, his brow furrowing.
He was maintaining a composed exterior, but inside, he was anything but calm.
*A Saintess, appearing out of nowhere like this—!*
Sion, a high-ranking demon and senior officer of the Demon King's army assigned to infiltrate Stellar Academy, suppressed a groan.
A thousand years had passed since the Hero had struck down the Demon King.
In that time, the demons who had survived had been steadily, carefully preparing for the Demon King's resurrection—and now, of all moments, this interruption had to happen.
*Despite the endless persecution from humans, we had finally brought the Demon King's revival within reach…*
If they could only reclaim the Demon King's heart that the Hero had taken, the former glory would be restored.
That was why Sion had taken the risk of infiltrating Stellar Academy—a place deeply tied to the Hero—carrying with him the hopes of every demon who remained. But this scenario was one he hadn't accounted for.
*Where did the information leak—?!*
Had Rustil somehow caught wind of their movements?
Nothing else explained the timing. Of all the moments for a Saintess to appear, it had to be exactly when they had slipped inside. She couldn't have broken through the barrier the principal had set up on her own initiative—could she? *(She had, in fact, done exactly that.)*
*I stationed subordinates with superior concealment abilities throughout the ruins specifically to monitor the surroundings in case of this—so where in the hells are they all?!*
For the record, they had run into Gladia and gone ahead to meet the Demon King.
*And on top of that, the other subordinates I told to converge here have gone completely silent, which is also—*
For the record, those ones had also run into Gladia on their way over and were currently being massacred with great enthusiasm.
Unaware of any of this, Sion found every passing second more agonizing than the last.
The additional problem was that the lower-ranking demons he'd brought in first had been ambushed and suffered severe casualties. Without them, the pace of the investigation would inevitably slow.
*This situation has gone completely sideways—!*
Rotten as she might be for her age, the Saintess was still a Saintess. Inexperienced as she was, her holy power alone ranked among the finest of any Saintess in recorded history. Most demons would be reduced to ash by a single touch from her.
And then there was the dark-haired woman standing beside the Saintess, glaring at him.
A human wielding darkness that surpassed even a demon's. If he hadn't known she was human, he might have mistaken her for some high-ranking demon he'd never heard of who had infiltrated the place herself.
To deal with those two quickly, he would inevitably have to draw on his full power—but the moment he did, Rustil would sense the demonic energy and come flying in within seconds.
*Should I fall back for now?*
Sion's eyes flickered with indecision—and in that instant, Aiolette, who had developed a sharp instinct for reading people through her time with Gladia, caught that subtle shift with perfect clarity.
She didn't know exactly why, but she was certain the demon in front of her was hesitating over something. Aiolette stepped in front of Cruje, blocking her from view, and tilted her chin up with deliberate arrogance.
"Hey. Are you sure you can afford to keep this up?"
"…What?"
"I don't know what rock you crawled out from under, but you clearly have no idea what's going on here, do you?"
Sion fell silent, his brow furrowing, and Aiolette curled the corner of her mouth into a thin, cold smile. She could feel Cruje staring at her from behind with an expression that screamed *Aiolette, have you lost your mind?!*—but she ignored it.
*Stay quiet, you oblivious quack!*
Aiolette knew perfectly well that if things continued as they were, they were the ones who would wither and die. They were holding on for now, but barely—they were close to their limit.
She'd assumed that a fight this loud would have reached Gladia by now, but the fact that she still hadn't arrived meant the other side had clearly done something to block the way.
*I need to stall for time somehow. Or create an opening.*
"Why do you think we'd bother coming all the way down here?"
"…"
"You know as well as we do. This place can't be entered without the principal's authorization."
Aiolette spun the lie smoothly, without so much as blinking—despite the fact that they had broken in just as illegally as the demons had.
Cruje was quietly impressed by the sheer audacity of it from behind. But Sion, who didn't know the truth, felt his certainty waver.
He'd already been full of questions. A perfectly executed infiltration that no one should have known about—and yet, at precisely this moment, a Saintess and that woman had appeared. And they had broken through the barrier he'd set up without the principal's knowledge as if it were nothing, which meant they had to have something backing them up.
…Well, in reality, Dorothia had simply smashed it as a bonus while trying to look impressive in front of her junior. But there was no way Sion could have known something that absurd.
In his mind, a miraculous chain of logic was already completing itself: the Saintess had been dispatched on Rustil's orders to stop the demons.
Aiolette didn't miss the flicker in his eyes. She drove the nail in immediately.
"We don't need to actually beat you. We just have to play around with you like this and buy time."
*Please work. Please, please work—!*
Cold sweat was pouring down her back, but she kept her expression imperious as she gave Sion a dismissive sniff.
"Our principal will come running in a little while and clean all of this up herself. So if you want to live, you'd better tuck your tail between your legs and run. Right now."
*Please work! Please panic and run, you insane demon!*
It was a bluff delivered with her entire soul.
A heavy silence settled over the ruins. Sion bowed his head and went completely still.
*…Did it land?*
*Gulp.*
The moment Aiolette and Cruje swallowed nervously in unison—
"Heh… heh heh heh."
Sion's shoulders began to shake, and a strange, low laugh escaped him.
"Rustil is coming? Well then. That means I have even less time to waste."
Sion slowly raised his head.
The anxiety in his eyes was gone. In its place was something harder—a deep, unyielding sense of duty.
"That conversation just confirmed it. You, and the Saintess both. Leaving you alive would be an obstacle to the Demon King's resurrection."
*Hmmmmm—!!*
The demonic energy radiating from Sion's entire body surged to a completely different magnitude than anything before.
"I will hold back no longer. Even if I die here—I will take you both with me."
The eyes of a fanatic who had discarded even the instinct for self-preservation.
Cruje looked at Aiolette with an expression that asked *what do we do now?*—but—
*Oh no. We're actually done for. Dia! Help!*
Bluff: Total Failure.
Aiolette: In Grave Danger.
***
Meanwhile.
"Out of my way!"
"Gaaagh!"
*Slash—!*
I was cutting down every demon that crossed my path and running like hell.
Dorothia, who had been in my arms, had slipped free at some point and was now hurling spells at the surrounding demons in rapid succession.
I kept clearing obstacles and pressing forward—and then it hit me.
*…Something's wrong.*
My pace slowed, almost imperceptibly.
"She's tiring! Rush her!"
*Slash!*
"Gaaaargh!"
I cut the demon that had charged me thinking I was flagging—sliced it into a neat star shape—and kept thinking.
*At my full speed, I should have reached wherever Aiolette is long before now.*
It wasn't my imagination.
*That collapsed stone pillar. Those long gouges in the floor. The terrain around me keeps repeating.*
Like a hamster running inside an enormous wheel, the same scenery I'd passed before was appearing in front of me again.
I knew exactly what this meant.
*A spatial barrier—!*
The obnoxious mechanic that occasionally showed up in the game to cure players of low blood pressure.
The demons' underhanded trick of stitching spaces together to force you into an endless loop—!
I called out urgently.
"Dorothia! Dorothia!!"
"Y-yes! What is it? Gladia?"
"Spatial barrier! The space around us has been twisted!"
That was all Dorothia needed to hear. She was a master of spatial magic.
The moment I said it, she conjured a gust of wind and shot upward into the air, scanning the surroundings.
"Y-you're right! It's a spatial barrier!"
"Can you break it?"
"To reverse-calculate the formula and undo it would take at least ten minutes… but if I can find the core, I can shatter it right away!"
The core, the core…
On Dorothia's word, I kept cutting down the demons in my path and pushed my Heart-Sight and Sword Saint senses to their absolute limit.
Everything around me began to move in slow motion, as if time itself had ground to a halt, and simultaneously every piece of information in the surrounding space was forcibly hammered into my brain.
*Ow—my head—!*
The sheer volume of data flooding my mind felt like my skull was splitting open—but—
*…Found it.*
"Dorothia! Over here!"
Having pinpointed the spatial center, I spun my body like a windmill, sweeping the demons around me off their feet to clear an open space, and called her down.
Dorothia, who had been darting frantically through the air trying to parse the spatial formula, came sprinting over immediately.
"G-Gladia! Your nose is bleeding—!"
I swiped a hand under my nose at that. It came away red.
Ah. Pushed it a bit too hard, maybe.
Still—it was necessary.
This is not the time to worry about my own body.
I grabbed Dorothia by the arm before she could fuss any further.
"Dorothia… you trust me, right?"
Her eyes went wide.
The situation was on a razor's edge—demons were closing in from every direction with bestial howls—and I was stopping to ask if she trusted me. Understandably disorienting.
But Dorothia, flustered as she was, gave a small nod.
Good. Confirmed.
Sorry about this, Dorothia—but what are friends for? Friends help each other out when things get desperate.
"I trust you too! Just fly for me—one time!"
"Wha—?!"
I could have simply cut through the spatial center myself, but there was no telling how the space might warp if I did it that way. In moments like this, you leave it to the expert.
With Dorothia's startled cry still ringing in my ears, I detonated every muscle in my body.
*Whoooosh—!*
Feeling very much like a shot-put athlete, I calculated the trajectory with perfect precision and hurled Dorothia into the air with everything I had.
"KYAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!"
Her scream echoed and bounced off the ruins around us.
One demon, alarmed by the sight of a person suddenly arcing through the air, moved to intercept her—but—
"Not a chance."
I flung the sword in my hand like a javelin and skewered it clean through.
The moment my hand was empty, darkness swallowed my vision again and I felt the surrounding demons lunging for the opening—but—
*Perfect, actually.*
There's something wonderfully uncomplicated about a situation where everyone around you is an enemy.
I swung my fist and sent the nearest demon's jaw flying, then spun around, grabbed the arm of one that had been closing in from behind, and tore it clean off.
*Rip—!*
"AAAARGH!!"
Blood sprayed like a fountain and soaked my maid's uniform, but I didn't stop.
I took the freshly detached, still-warm demon arm in my hand and swung it like a club, caving in the skull of another demon that had been rushing me.
Then, with a graceful pivot, I drew the spare sword I'd kept in my inventory.
*Clang!*
[Trait ⟨Sword Saint⟩ activates.]
[⟨World's Trial⟩ is nullified.]
As my vision brightened again, two things came into view: Dorothia reaching the spatial center and dismantling the barrier, and the surviving demons stumbling backward in terror at the sight of me.
Good. That's that.
Now I just needed to clean up these stragglers and I could get to Aiolette.
"…Y-you… you monster."
One of the demons blocking my path ground its teeth and glared at me.
*Monster.* Really.
Just because I have a little blood on me, and suddenly I'm being discriminated against?
Disgusting bigot.
I, Gladia, have no mercy to spare for bigots.
I closed the distance and dismembered the bigot who had called me a monster in a single fluid motion.
I watched the pieces scatter across the floor, shook the blood from my sword, and looked down at what remained with perfect composure.
"Calling a person a monster."
I met the dying demon's terror-filled eyes directly and added, in a polite and measured voice:
"I'm not a monster. I'm a maid."
With a faint smile at the corner of my lips, I leaned close and whispered the final word into its ear.
"Remember that, even in death."