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Translator: Tsukii

Editor: Geli

Read at Watashi wa Sugoi Desu!

Chapter 42: Haste Makes Waste

I left behind old man Aiz, who was ugly crying, then went up to the ground floor and out the castle to head for Billberry Kingdom’s Capital.

It was hard to move around in skirt

As the Saint, I had no choice but to wear this. Though I actually preferred clothes that were easier to move around, like a jersey.

Or more like, since I was still a man inside, I still wasn’t used to wearing dresses.

I briefly imagined my male-self wearing a dress and it made me want to throw up.

Nah, more like it might be more preferable if the body was male. That way, it could totally be treated as a joke.

Since the more I could laugh at it, the less embarrassed I would feel.

But in my personal opinion, in this body, dresses suited me too much, so I couldn’t treat it as a joke.

Well, let’s put that aside in the meantime.

I could reach Billberry’s capital in a few minutes if I seriously  went all out.

The distance was around 40 km, so it was not that far.

It was a slightly less distance than what you’d run in a marathon. In other words, it was still within the neighborhood.

The small-framed Styil Bird could cover that distance in an hour, and an experienced marathon runner could cover that distance in around 2 hours.

And if I seriously flew, I could easily reach 300 km/h, which meant I could arrive there within 8 minutes. 

Also, when I flew, obviously a mysterious light protected the inside of my skirt, so nothing would be visible.

It wasn’t like I minded it that much. I wasn’t embarrassed or anything, but dudes who looked at it would become lechers which was just plain disgusting…

Well then, let’s fly there and settle it quickly~

“Please wait, Elrise-sama! Can you please take me along with you?”

The one who ran and said that was the protagonist, Vernell.

Take you along, you say… Well, even if you were there nothing would change much anyway…

It was a pitiful thing to say, but even if you went, you’d merely be a hindrance, a burden, and a baggage though… ¹

Well, you are the protagonist, after all. So you might have plot armor and do more than you’re actually capable of.

Well, I will take you along for leveling up, I guess.

“Wait, you want to look cool alone?”

“Right. We will also go.”

The ones who said these and stood with Vernell were Mob A and Eterna.

The other group members and Perverted Glasses Pervert also totally wished to come along, but… why are you all assuming that I’d take you along? 

Actually my burden would just increase, so I would prefer it if you guys just stay here. But… the atmosphere in this situation didn’t allow me to say that, I guess.

Then Leila, who usually always stayed behind me, was looking here from a distance and was seemingly uncomfortable.

I’d be quite troubled if she came along with me, but if she didn’t, it would also make me uncomfortable.

At this moment, Leila was similar to an abandoned puppy.

Sometimes she looked like she was about to speak, but no words came out and she stayed silent. 

How do I say this… it was something like that, I guess. It was like a kid who ended up as a loner before you noticed it, and tried to mingle with other groups by gathering their courage and saying something to them, but never did in the end… Leila was presently in a similar  situation.

If I left her alone and just flew away… she might end up committing suicide somewhere I couldn’t see. No joke.

“Leila.”

And so I called out to Leila to come along.

Look, we have no time to spare. Don’t just stand there scared.

After all, you’re not a dog who got cowed after being caught acting naughty.

Anyway, there was no time to hesitate, so let’s just command her to get this over with.

“Please fight alongside me.”

Okay, Invoke Command, activated.

Since it was my command, Leila would have no choice but to comply.

She slowly started to approach, but… Oi Stocco! We have no time for this, you know!

Move properly like you usually do!

“I… have no right to fight alongside you…”

It seemed she was still quite conscious about betraying me; it made Leila speak weakly.

Actually, there was nothing for her to worry about.

It might be harsh to say this, but the results wouldn’t have changed even if Leila acted like her usual Stocco-self or not.

Even Leila couldn’t win if she had all of the Guard Knights as her opponents. Rather, she might have ended up gravely wounded if she did that.

With that in mind, you could say that she chose wisely by letting herself be captured without resisting.

If Leila insisted on supporting me back then, she might be a corpse already by this time. 

“Leila-san. Anyone can make mistakes. What’s important is to not let your mistakes stop you, but to focus on what you should do from now on.”

“From now on…”

“Yes. Even if you make mistakes, nothing will be changed by running away. If you harmed others because of your mistake, you should take up your sword and protect them with it as reparation. I believe that you’re capable of that.”

The one who said that to the depressed Leila was Vernell.

As expected of a protagonist, you sure said something good.

And these lines were what he said to Leila in the original game, to make her side with the protagonist.

In the original game, Leila was Elrise’s (True) Prime Knight and was indirectly responsible for the misfortune of many people; by preventing Aina’s assassination attempt, she had indirectly led to Aina’s death and felt bad about it.

So after Elrise’s (True) punishment event was over, she tried to commit suicide, but what stopped her from doing this where these lines from Vernell.

“From now on, huh…”

Leila briefly closed her eyes, and then glanced at her sword

I didn’t know what she was thinking about, but… perhaps she went off course and reached a strange conclusion, I guess.

Then she looked toward me.

“Elrise-sama… I have committed an unforgivable sin. Even so… if you still need such a person like me… at very least, let me be your shield.”

Oi, Stocco…

How did your line of thinking end up like that, you Stocco.

Having too strong of a sense of responsibility is also concerning; she totally intended to die as my shield at this moment.

What should I do? If I really bring her, she would definitely jump out to protect me from something I don’t need to be protected from and die as a meat shield.

Look, even Vernell was stunned.

Why did she come to the conclusion that she was told to die from hearing, “What you do from now on is more important.” 

…No choice. I needed to put my foot down.

“If you merely intend to become a shield, I will not bring you along with me. What I want is a sword that can cut through the darkness alongside me. That’s why, Leila… be my sword and fight alongside me. This is the punishment I give to you.”

“…gh! Yes!”

Leila’s voice sounded teary, but she properly responded to my words.

This should be okay for now.

Let’s leave the sermon for later, right now we need to go to the capital.

I have no time to give a sermon.

Okay then, time to go… or so I thought, but then the Traitor Knights all came out and kneeled in front of me.

Now what? I’m in a hurry, you see.

“Elrise-sama… please give us permission to come alongside you and protect the capital.”

It seemed like they also intended to join me.

That was fine, but weren’t they just asking me to carry them along there?

Rather, there wasn’t much point in you guys going there as well since I would be there.

Because all I needed to do was use a wide AoE ² attack several times to get rid of them completely.

But, if I told them they were just a burden, they might insist on coming along even if they had to walk there. It felt scary.

“I give you permission. But the ones you have to protect are the city and its people, and also yourselves. Please do not think about treating yourself poorly for my sake.”

At least I have to be firm on that.

If I didn’t, they might continue to carry some weird sense of responsibility and let themselves get hit by enemy attacks.

Even without them as meat shields, most enemy attacks would be unable to damage me anyway; for them to end up dying from trying to cover me from such attacks would be troublesome.

Also, these guys were supposed to serve the real Saint… in other words, Eterna.

It would be no good if their numbers were reduced due to a fake master.

“Elrise-sama… what merciful words…”

The Knights seemed moved about something, but I didn’t mind them and started preparing my magic.

It wasn’t like there was no magic that could transport a large number of people.

During my confined NEET time, I anticipated such a situation and created a kind of magic similar to teleporting since I had the free time.

This was not as fast as teleport, but it would allow me to move to another location at high speed and it also could move other people as well.

I was considering chasing the Witch using this magic, but… since I didn’t know where the Witch might run away with her teleport, this magic was pointless. I only realized that after I had created the magic already.

For example if the Witch teleported from Japan to America, I would be capable of riding a jet plane which could fly from Japan to America.

But I had no way of knowing if the Witch who just disappeared in front of me really went to America.

It was something like that.

“Festina Lente (Haste Makes Waste).”

Since I was unable to think of a cool name for it as usual, I just picked a random foreign proverb as the name. Take your time!

Simultaneously, everyone including me was enveloped in a pillar of light, and started to float.

Except for me, nobody understood what was happening but, at that moment we were floating inside this pillar of light.

Well, it was something like an elevator.

Once it reached a certain height, the pillar changed shape into a bird and enveloped us. However, this light was not for the transfer, but actually acted as a barrier.

Because we were about to move at high speeds, it was made to protect the body from air resistance.

The wing part has mana training magic applied, so it could compress mana around and take it into itself.

Compress, compress, compress… then it directed the discharge of energy outwards.

Then the barrier that covered us would fly forward.

In other words, it reproduced the principle of earth’s airplane, but in the form of magic.

It used magic power in place of fuel. But since magic power was an absurdly powerful kind of energy, I knew the speed it would produce would go beyond earth’s airplanes.

Actually, I could explain in more detail about it, but since it was a pain to explain the whole thing, just think of it as “a magic that used barriers to recreate an airplane that used magic pressure to fly.”

“Th, this is!?”

“Is, is it moving?”

The Knights got noisy then, but that was natural since they were unable to see outside due to the light barrier.

If they could see it, they would be screaming since they would be looking down from the sky.

Then we moved around for a few minutes and a few seconds.

As we arrived at the area of the sky above our destination, I removed the magic and reformed it to a pillar of light once more. Everyone including me looked at the scene under our feet.

Those who were outside the barrier might see it as a pillar of light that suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

Now, if you’ll excuse me.

---

In front of Billberry Kingdom’s capital, a battle for life or death was taking place.

Soldiers and Knights of the capital tried to resist the horde of demons who seemed to have swallowed the land. 

Where the hell did this huge number of demons come from… Perhaps, they came from several lands that were yet to be retaken and had gathered in one place.

Demons were originally wild animals that have been strengthened by the Witch’s power.

Their level of intelligence was just slightly higher when compared to common animals; so basically, they wouldn’t usually gather in massive numbers like this.

That was obvious. There were demons that were originally bears and tigers. There was no way these species would normally work together with each other.

They were more likely to try to eat each other. It was quite common for demons who were originally carnivores to eat demons who were originally herbivores.

Of course, it wasn’t  like all demons lived alone either.

For example, demons that were made from animals which lived in groups… such as dog demons, would often gather together with its fellow species.

But they wouldn’t gather with a horde of cat or pig demons.

But, there was an exception that could cause those demons to gather together and act with a common purpose.

It was when those who could command them were present… In other words, if the Witch or a Greater Demon was there, it would incite those various species to gather together and move as an army.

The current raid was being done under the command of a Greater Demon.

The number of demons has greatly decreased since the appearance of Saint Elrise; already, there was only less than 10% remaining from its heyday.

On top of that, the Witch who should have been giving these commands went into hiding somewhere. This led to the demons being defeated one by one as they were like a rudderless ship.

One day, one of the wiser demons thought… if this goes on, the demons will perish.

This demon was originally a crow, so its intelligence was quite high.

To resist against the great enemy called the Saint, every demon that remained needed to gather in one place and challenge her together. Without the Witch to take command, it understood that the demons would have to fend for themselves.

So it gathered fellow crow demons and shared its thoughts — and they began killing each other.

For demons to reach a higher level, they needed to kill their fellow demons. They instinctively knew this.

As it grew stronger by killing its fellow species, it began to attack other demons.

As a result of all that killing… it became a Greater Demon, who commanded other demons that had been hiding in various locations to make the last and greatest demon army.

As the Witch had done nothing, they had to do something with whatever amount of power was left above ground.

The demons, which once ruled 70% of the world, had their influence reduced since Saint Elrise’s appearance, and at present it was already less than 10% of the world.

And even if Elrise did nothing and the demons stayed hidden, the soldiers of various nations would hunt them down and eventually eradicate them all.

That was why this was the final challenge.

The Greater Demon, who was originally a small crow, commenced their final battle against humanity for their own survival.

“Damn! If this goes on the capital will…!”

“Are the reinforcements not here yet?!”

“It’s because that king brought all the Guard Knights with him! It’s all because that person who didn’t know the situation at the front line did whatever they wanted, leading to this shitty result!”

“Shut your mouth, that’s treason!”

“Well yes, that’s treason! Though I think the kingdom will be gone way before I’ll get punished about it!”

The Knight Brigade, without the presence of Guard Knights, and the soldiers under their command were locked in a fierce battle, but the demons still had the upper hand.

Since there were Knights present, they unsurprisingly put up a better fight than Rutin kingdom did, but the demons were just as desperate.

The demons didn’t have any other choice.

They needed to win here and reduce the number of Knights, reduce the number of people who protected Saint, and use the surviving demons to fight Elrise alone.

They had no other choice to win, and they didn’t even know if they could really win.

No, looking at the current battle, the possibility seemed low.

“KAaa — !”

The Greater Demon commanding the other demons — the individual the Knights had dubbed the “Crow” based on its appearance, took to the sky and flapped its wings.

With that, a tornado was summoned, throwing up rubble, rocks, fallen weapons, and the corpses of soldiers. This then struck the Billberry army.

The armored corpses hit the living soldiers at high speeds and wrecked their armor, killing soldiers as they were further compressed,while the swords that got lifted up struck other soldiers.

The “Crow” surveying this sight from above was a giant crow about 8 meters big.

Even as the Knights shot their magic toward the “Crow,” it merely flew a little higher and the magic would fail to reach it.

Against an enemy that could fly, those who couldn’t were at a complete disadvantage.

While they did possess long ranged attacks, it was very hard for those on the ground to hit a flying target.

Those on the ground could only evade left or right, or maybe go backward.

Against a flying enemy, if they tried evading by going forward it would only make them easier to hit, and even if they tried evading backward, they could still be hit if the enemy’s range was longer than expected.

So they could only evade sideways.

But it was different for those who could fly. Not only sideways, they could also evade by moving up or down. In addition, gravity worked against arrows shot from the ground, so it only needed to move backward a bit to evade it.

Even against a target that was not moving, it was hard to hit those in the sky.

And that target was moving, so even an expert would have a hard time hitting it.

On top of that, it could manipulate the wind, so you could basically say that using a bow against it was useless. The wind would blow the arrows away before it could reach its target.

So they tried to use magic, but with the distraction caused by the flying rubble and corpses that were flying around from the wind, it was hard to land a hit.

While the “Crow” could hit them as much as it wanted.

It could just use the wind to randomly fling things to its enemy’s side, hitting numerous soldiers. Also, the wind itself was powerful enough to blow away the ones who were hit by it, making it even worse.

It was such a simple story. Before the devastating tornado that flung many things, the humans tried to fight against it using swords and armor. You could imagine how stupid it was.

No matter how you thought about it, the only logical course of action was to “just hurry up and run away.”

But they wouldn’t run. Because behind them was the capital they were bound to protect.

Thus they had no choice but to continue this pointless fight and to try to cut off this tornado.

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