Chapter 31: Things I Want to Protect (1)

Having transformed on the rooftop, I coated my tentacles with adhesive liquid and crawled down the wall like a cockroach.

I would have preferred to move more slowly, but since there were people playing in the schoolyard, I couldn’t stay long. It was obvious a big fuss would break out.

Even so, I thought it would be harder to get found out this way than walking around inside the school building in the form of Atel Octo or transforming near the newspaper club.

When I peered through the window into the newspaper club room, I could see Leas and Reiko seriously discussing the recent incident.

——That Reiko, she’s hitting pretty close to the mark.

I have memories from my previous life.

If it’s a Monster Villain that appears in the Sacred series, I’m familiar with them because they are also involved in the erotic scenes.

Therefore, for this Monster Villain — I could roughly guess who the human they originated from was. In the original story, when a Monster Villain is defeated, a daily-life event occurs for the Sacred where "someone I know has gone missing."

Through that, the Sacred realize that the Monster Villain they purified and made vanish at that time was someone they knew, and take mental damage.

There was also a strategy that utilized this by concentrating on opponents with deep relationships and deliberately having that Sacred keep purifying them, thereby breaking their heart. Incidentally, this was an effective method against the well-connected Knuckle, and an event where "having purified and made vanish many close people with her own hands became a trauma and she can no longer transform" could be triggered relatively easily.

It was easy enough that it would happen even without aiming for it, and players online would laugh with things like "Reiko-dono is shutting herself in again!" or "Even though she’s an energetic character, she’s more of a shut-in than an ordinary shut-in, lol."

Yes, at that time I also laughed. I was able to.

’...No, no, it’s not like that, everyone, everyone... I, I was trying to protect everyone... so with Leas-senpai... sorr, sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry...’

I heard a hallucination.

The voice of Reiko that Leas heard through the door in the game, the lament of a girl who could no longer endure the fact that she had made the people she wanted to protect vanish with her own hands.

It was a voice I had heard many times in the game, and at the time I had cursed "I was planning to throw another Monster Villain at her to see the erotic scene, but this girl went and shut herself in."

But now — after reincarnating, now that it had become the reality before my eyes.

A future where that junior is made to cry like that — I cannot accept it.

"——This is the newspaper club, right?"

I knocked on the window of the newspaper club room as if knocking on a door — before that, my gaze and Leas’s gaze met.

An expression of astonishment. Noticing that, Reiko also hurriedly turned around.

"I’m looking for a girl named Haga Reiko. Sorry, but could you put me through to her?"

I didn’t say "Yo, Reiko" or anything. Not to Leas either.

The ones I had met in this form were not Leas Lot and Haga Reiko, but the two transformation heroines Sacred Saber and Sacred Knuckle.

Pretending this was the first meeting, I turned my gaze toward the two.

The two exchanged glances with a somewhat confused air — and when a conclusion seemed to have been reached, the standing Reiko cautiously opened the window.

"R-Reiko is me, but a-um, by any chance, are you angry that I gave you a name without permission or something like that?"

"You’re the one — no, regarding the name, I almost want to thank you."

"I-is that so? Man, being told thanks for such a cool name, hehehe."

"I didn’t go that far."

While having a playful conversation, Reiko kept staring steadily at my limbs and tentacles without looking away. While cheerfully communicating, she was never letting her guard down.

Of course. Even if I called myself a Vigilante and fought alongside the Sacred, it didn’t change the fact that I was a Monster Villain who had bloomed a Seed of Desire.

Such a being had appeared in a form clad in tentacles — as transformation heroines of justice, they couldn’t afford to let their guard down.

"——So, Atel Octo. What business do you have with my junior?"

"Right. I shouldn’t stay long, so let’s get the business over with quickly."

Facing a glare-like gaze, I inwardly felt a bit scared but still requested of Reiko.

"Newspaper club, Haga Reiko — I want you to become a pipe between me and the Sacred."

Reiko looked back at me with a blank face.

What is this person saying? that kind of look.

"I do fight alongside those two, but I have no means of contacting them. Sorry, but I want you to use your articles to convey my words."

"Eh? No, why? I’m not the mass media or anything, and the articles I write are just student club activities, you know?"

"One reason is that I don’t know how to make contact with the professionals. And more than anything, the last time I fought alongside Saber and Knuckle, they were also calling me Atel Octo. Your articles are being read by Sacred Saber and Knuckle, or even if they aren’t reading them themselves, they have acquaintances who are — in other words, your words will reach the two of them."

"Heh? No, of course they’ll reach them, or rather, since I’m the one writing them... ah..."

She started to say it, then broke out in a flood of cold sweat.

I think, is this girl really personnel suited for being a transformation heroine? I can only imagine her casually blurting out her own identity.

"Th-that’s right~! Man, I’m a celebrity, aren’t I~ what a problem~! To think the transformation heroines themselves are reading it! If this were SNS the notifications would never stop~!"

"...Yeah. Lend me that power as a celebrity."

While somewhat exasperated, I requested help — or rather, I tried to act that way.

No, both being exasperated and requesting help were the truth, but more than that the feeling of "Think a little more before you speak" was stronger and made me nervous. Leas was staring at Reiko with a face that said "Hey, Reiko——!?", so please put yourself in the position of the one pretending not to notice.

"...As for the content — I want you to convey that something is happening around the school, and that for the purification of a Monster Villain... someone who is about to become one, they should come to the school."

In front of Reiko, who continued letting out dry laughter while sweating coldly, I forcibly started talking about my purpose.

"I have a rough idea, but purification is impossible with just me. I may call myself a Vigilante, but it doesn’t change that my body is that of a Monster Villain. Against a fully changed Monster Villain it’s one thing, but against someone who can still return I can’t attack."

I quietly looked at my own palm.

With the light of the Sacred, it should be possible to destroy only the dark magical power inside the body.

But my power is of the same lineage as Monster Villains and Diabolics. There is no way I can purify; if I hit them, even an opponent who can still return to being human will be killed.

"If I don’t help those who can still be helped, Saber and Knuckle will be sad. I somehow need them to come over here."

"...You’re thinking quite a bit about the Sacred — even though you’re a Monster Villain."

Looking back at Leas, who spoke as if suspicious, I relaxed the corners of my mouth.

To her who was questioning not as Sacred Saber but as the ordinary student Leas Lot, I also directed words not toward Sacred Saber but toward Leas Lot.

"I was once saved by Saber when I was still an ordinary human — I want that person to be saved, and I want her to smile looking like she’s having fun."

"...Ueh?"

"What, is this answer unsatisfactory? Thinking you want your benefactor to be happy is only natural as a human being, right?"

"A-ah, no, it’s not that..."

Words that would not reach whether Atel Octo said them to Saber, or whether Shusawa Senjumaru said them to Saber or Leas.

But if Atel Octo said them to Leas — not while facing her on the battlefield, but as words leaked toward a weak human student — they would surely reach.

And as if according to my calculation, Leas began fidgeting with her silver hair with her fingers while blushing and looking unsettled.

Seeing that, Reiko was wearing not her usual bright smile but a soft one. She too must have had thoughts regarding Leas.

"Fufu—— Man, for all that, Atel-san, when you’re fighting together with Saber you just keep throwing insults and provocations, right? Well, you do say deredere words now and then though."

She smiled small and gently, then switched as if flipping a switch and put on her usual cheerful smile.

Prefacing my response to her question with "Well you see—"

"Leaving that aside, that flat-chested woman is irritating, so of course my mouth gets rough."

"——!? ...!?"

"Aah, Leas-senpai doesn’t know how to react to the temperature difference in Atel-san’s words——!?"