Chapter 4
I brushed the dust off my body and looked around.
The museum that had been holding a quiet stillness until a few minutes ago was a mess from countless slash marks and explosions.
And the one who had created this scene was none other than me.
Nearly a hundred guards lay sprawled on the floor like corpses.
Of course, they weren’t dead.
I offered them a quiet apology inwardly and headed for the main hall.
There was a massive main gate in the main hall, and its size was astounding.
It looked like the gate of a huge fortress, and I paused for a moment standing before it.
A strong sense of déjà vu pressed from beyond the enormous door.
The sensation one I had never felt in my life was like having a blade held to my throat.
My body hair bristled under the weight of that feeling.
The opponent beyond the door was waiting for me to come.
I slowly opened the massive door.
At the same time, my vision turned blindingly white.
What the hell.
Something flew faster than sound and surged toward me.
My body moved on its own in the realm of instinct, and I twisted my waist sharply to dodge the attack.
I glanced back and saw the place the attack had hit crumpling horribly.
From afar came the click of high heels and a composed woman’s voice.
“It's right in front of me anyway.”
The woman, holding a radio and speaking to someone, made a light hum.
“This is bigger than I thought. A-rank Villain, Devil Knight.”
She wore an intelligent-looking black suit and high heels.
The cold beauty with white hair fluttering like an albino embroidered the air with countless lightning spears and greeted me.
“Wow…….”
At the same time, the countless lightning spears in the air poured down toward me.
She wouldn’t give me time to say anything.
Boom!
With an explosion unlike anything before, the museum shook.
“White Witch. Why are you here.”
At the sound of my voice, interest flickered across her face.
“To dodge this, maybe the A-rank reputation was misassigned after all?”
I was a little surprised too, but that was only the consciousness of my pre-possession modern life.
My body moved as if it already knew what to do.
Darkness gathered in the air and formed a massive shield.
The shield of darkness blocked the lightning spears that poured down like a monsoon, and because of it I could stand unharmed.
Why the hell was she there?
She was the Part 1 boss of Become a Hero and the Academy’s student council president—of all people—to be here.
Before I could process the unexpected encounter, she condensed herself into lightning and lunged at me in an instant.
She closed the distance in the blink of an eye, and when she swung her hand a wave of electric discharge crashed toward me.
I fashioned a sword from darkness and slashed through the wave.
The jet-black blade of darkness swallowed the light of the electric discharge.
She frowned at the sight and then kicked off the air.
“So you summon countless weapons and use them like limbs. No wonder you’re called a knight, I suppose.”
Electric discharges sparked throughout the main hall as her body floated in the air.
Ah, that would be hard to suppress.
Relying on the sensations in my head, I pulled several black spears from the shadows and threw them.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
But I was too slow to hit her, and even if a spear, by some luck, reached near her, her defenses bounced them and they embedded in the museum everywhere.
No matter.
I hadn’t been aiming at her in the first place.
I pushed off the ground and leapt toward the spears stuck around the museum.
In the moment I closed the distance to her, stepping across the spears embedded here and there.
I fell into indecision.
I couldn’t attack her like this.
She was the Part 1 main boss and the mentor of the Playable Character.
In short, she was an important figure.
If my attack wounded her, it might affect the flow of the main story.
And she didn’t miss my momentary lapse.
The massive energy gathered in the air transformed into a gigantic lightning spear.
Ah, wait…
At the same time, the giant lightning spear engulfed both her and me.
“Gyaaah!”
A tingling pain and a nerve-searing agony spread through me.
Feeling the numbness in my whole body, I crashed to the floor.
Thud!
Damn, I had let my guard down during a fight…
If anything, she had struck even herself with the lightning.
The lightning’s power wasn’t that threatening.
At least I could barely move my body.
No matter whose lightning it was, there was bound to be shock.
I seemed to be keeping my wits thanks to a high resistance stat.
Then, from beyond the dust-filled space, the sound of high heels reached me.
At this rate it was certain defeat.
I hurriedly shed my armor like a shell and hid my body in the darkness.
As the dust settled slowly, I saw her approaching the armor.
A long leg was placed atop the breastplate.
As if her high heels were charged with mana, my breastplate was mercilessly dented.
Her cold blue eyes, arrogant like a queen, fixed on the armor where I had been.
“Earlier, you clearly had the chance to kill me, yet you hesitated. It’s not like you’d feel any pity… so why was that?”
“……”
I remained silent and quietly waited for an opportunity.
I couldn’t tell her that her future would end with her falling into a demon and being executed by the Player.
How could I say I felt sympathy for that tragic ending?
The end of a Villain, consumed and gone, was lonely and pitiful.
But she, unaware of that, sighed when I kept my mouth shut.
“Well, to be honest, I wasn’t curious about that. Goodbye then.”
At the same time, a lightning spear appeared behind her and fell toward the armor.
And now was the opportunity.
The instant the lightning spear struck my armor dead on, I drew the sword of darkness and charged at her.
Crash!
With a heavy impact sound, her body flew far away and slammed into the museum wall.
“Ssseuuhba… I almost really died.”
I lowered my sword and swept my sweat-soaked hair back.
The Devil Knight's armor had truly been a godsend.
For a moment it had served as a perfect decoy to fool her gaze.
Use the armor as bait to draw the opponent’s aggro, then come up from behind.
If she had been even slightly cautious, it had been a risky gamble that might have failed, but the armor, soaked with a surging demonic power, had filled in for my presence and let me deceive her.
I approached the fallen woman.
Her state, lodged into the museum wall, looked brutal, but fortunately she seemed to still be breathing.
Although I had struck the side of her sword, the blow had landed square on her neck, so the impact had to be considerable.
I also caught sight of some of her long hair being mangled and cut by the blade.
That made me feel a little guilty.
But the earlier failure had taught me a harsh lesson.
Once I realized that flimsy pity could cost me my life, I couldn’t hold back my strength anymore.
Especially against someone with skill comparable to mine.
To make the same mistake twice would be foolish.
Well, if I left her like that, the heroes would come and treat her later.
Leaving the White Witch behind, I headed for the place where the Heart of the Demon was located.
Passing the displays of video records of the Swordmaster’s great deeds and the numerous artifacts he had acquired, I soon saw the demon heart he had slain.
A jet-black gem the size of a fist that seemed to swallow every color around it.
That was the Heart of the Demon.
When I placed my hand on the glass case containing the exhibit, a large magic circle appeared and my hand was repelled.
A tingling pain ran through me and my hand trembled.
It was a defensive barrier made of a fairly high-level ward.
With a half-hearted attack I couldn't remove the Heart of the Demon.
So this was why they had assigned this mission to me.
Even if museum infiltration was one thing, handling a demon capable of breaking such a high-level ward wouldn’t be easy.
The stronger a demon was, the harder it was to control.
And with the artifacts on display here, there was a high chance a demon would lose focus and forget its purpose.
Sending an uncontrollable mad dog wouldn’t benefit Pandemonium—they were better off sending a well-trained hunting dog.
Just like the body’s original owner had been.
He had been kidnapped by Pandemonium as a child and trained to be their finest hunting dog.
But I had no intention of being an obedient hunting dog forever.
One day I would become a ferocious mad dog that would bite my master’s throat and choke the life out of them.
And when that time came, I would finally see the happy ending I had longed for.
I formed a sword out of darkness and concentrated my power.
My SS-rank skill, 【Lamb】.
An unprecedented busted skill included to balance the game’s Final Boss.
It was a skill that lent the user the powers of demons—the strongest entities in the game's setting.
I drew up every power I could use.
【Dark Relic】, 【Flames of Gehenna】, 【Mighty Strength】.
Crimson flames burned fiercely over the jet-black blade.
【Flames of Gehenna】 was the consuming flame of annihilation.
This force would be the siege hammer to collapse that rigid high-level ward.
Mana melted away like snow under the sun.
I would finish it in a single strike.
I surrendered my body to the overflowing power that dominated me and swung the sword.
Kwaaaang!
At the same time the entire museum trembled violently and a sound of something breaking erupted.
With the sensation of something shattering, the protective barrier guarding the Heart of the Demon collapsed.
A tremendous recoil swept through me and my legs went weak.
I used the sword as a staff and leaned against it, painfully regaining my posture.
The mana I had carried was utterly drained.
I hadn’t expected it to consume so much.
Using multiple divine powers at once devoured both mana and stamina.
If I hadn’t subdued the guards beforehand, I would have been caught before I could even try to escape.
I reached toward the Heart of the Demon lying on the floor.
Of course I didn’t grab it with bare hands.
The Heart of the Demon granted tremendous power just by touch, but it also made its owner endlessly crave it and led to corruption.
I held the Heart of the Demon in my hand while wearing gloves of darkness.
“Kuut….”
A distant thirst washed over me and someone’s whisper brushed my ear.
The obscene light the Heart of the Demon emitted wanted me.
I desperately wanted to take the Heart of the Demon right then.
It felt like being in a desert dying of thirst and seeing a single droplet of water precariously hanging in front of me.
I couldn’t help it—I let the Heart of the Demon slip from my hand.
It fell to the floor.
This wasn’t something I could just carry off as it was, was it?
The artifact glove I had brought as a protective measure had been pierced by the invading magic item.
The only reason I had been able to resist at all was the character’s high resistance stat.
While I was thinking about how to move the Heart of the Demon, an idea popped into my head.