Tentacle Monster Reincarnation: I Will Protect the Heroines

“Fufu—”

It had been about an hour since then.

After confirming that Senjumaru had left the girls’ dormitory, she transformed into Sacred Knight inside Zero Ko’s room. She flew through the sky, greeted Tomioka, and then returned to Calmate.

While walking slowly toward home, she took a scrap of paper from her pocket and recalled her conversation with Zero Ko.

’Heroes help each other! Well, we’re transformation heroines, but there’s no rule that says heroines can’t help each other. Pretty Cure-style transformation heroines do all-star events regularly, so no problem! Anyway! If you’re scared to talk to your little brother, you can contact me before you meet him… wait? Come to think of it, over there… do you even have smartphones? Or phones?’

’Eh? …Um, there is one person who can use them…?’

Along with words Grace could not understand at all, she had been handed a memo covered in a string of numbers and English letters.

A phone number, or that if you registered you could make free calls on an SNS app—being suddenly bombarded with such unknown logic… she thought. In Calmate, the only place that had machines like this was probably Sacred Arrow’s private room…

Honestly she didn’t even understand half of it—but even so… she could at least understand that Zero Ko was worried about her and had promised to help if anything happened.

There seemed to be lingering thoughts about the attack on Atel Octo—yet she had acted as if she would not show them.

“—Leas has a good junior as well.”

She involuntarily softened her expression.

She had gone to that world intending to help Leas, yet she had only been helped.

At this rate I cannot keep my dignity as a senpai—she started to feel down thinking that, then gave a small shake of her head.

“…Dignity, how everyone sees me—let us set those things aside, just a little.”

Because from now on she was going to show weakness and ask for help from the one person she had wanted to be the strongest for—the older sister her only family could rely on.

Gahel.

Gahel Wayne.

Grace’s—younger brother.

How would he react when he heard her words?

Would he be disappointed, or would he be glad she had finally spoken? She told herself it could not possibly be the former, yet the anxiety would not leave her.

Still carrying that anxiety, Grace returned to her own mansion. As if even calling a servant would be a waste of time, she leaped over the gate and garden and forcefully opened the front door.

“I’m home! Gahel! I have something I wish to talk about, is that all right!?”

Now there was no going back. She could no longer brush it off with “It was nothing after all.”

Beneath a smile full of confidence she cornered herself and waited for her brother or a servant to come—

“My lady!? Ah, you’ve returned!”

—The servants were rushing frantically through the corridors.

Some were contacting someone, some were treating those who had collapsed, some were trembling as if something terrible had happened, some were shedding tears.

“—What happened?”

She switched her thinking.

Not Grace Wayne who had been timidly about to meet her brother, but the warrior of light, a Sacred.

“Young Master—Lord Gahel!”

But.

The surface she had been keeping up was smashed in a single blow.

Gahel. Her younger brother. The beloved family she had spoken with just that morning.

Sacred Knight—no, merely Grace Wayne—did not wait for the servants’ explanation and dashed toward Gahel’s room.

————Ah, truly.

A mocking voice rang out.

It was Grace’s own voice.

————That time as well, this time as well, why, why can I never do anything at the critical moment?

Her heart hurt.

She wanted to crouch down and cry right now.

But there was no time for that. Disciplining herself, Grace ran.

“This is—!”

And then she witnessed it.

Her brother’s room, full of books, the meticulously arranged interior, was wrecked as if a tornado had passed through.

Her thinking accelerated.

She looked around the room, searching for whether something was missing.

But as far as she could see, nothing was gone—except the room’s occupant.

“—What about the mansion’s defenses!?”

“Everything was operating normally. However—the intruder avoided all of it and headed for Lord Gahel’s room…!”

Impossible—

One year ago, in peacetime, she could still understand.

But after they had driven back Lemora’s invasion, the defenses of many houses had been reviewed.

The Wayne mansion was the same—no, she had applied excessive defenses so that no one would be able to harm her brother.

She herself had checked them regularly, and had even asked Sacred Arrow, who excelled at infiltration and surprise attacks, for opinions and improvements.

—Then why?

—Why was the opponent able to enter?

She clenched her teeth and observed the room—and found “that,” stabbed into the wall as if showing off. Grace’s face twisted greatly.

What she stared at with eyes mixed with anger and sorrow was a single sword.

A sword without substance, generated by magical power. A deep black darkness that swallowed light—a dark greatsword modeled after Grace’s holy sword Galatina.

Grace knew it.

When it had been stabbed into her own abdomen it had been a slender blade, perhaps because the wielder had not yet been used to handling the power—but even so, there was no way she could mistake it.

“The Black Knight Monster Villain…!”

It was the blade of her older brother—Aarg Wayne, who now served the queen of Lemora as the Black Knight.

Of course he could infiltrate. After all, he had lived in this mansion the entire time.

He knew the location of Gahel’s room, of course, and places easy to hide—no, he might even know secret passages Grace herself did not.

After that it was simple—cut down the security with the power of a Monster Villain and run the shortest path to Gahel.

Grace glared at the sword with hatred, then immediately noticed.

At the tip stabbed into the wall—like pinning paper to a corkboard, there was a single letter.

She snatched it up roughly and examined the contents.

’Hey, long time no see, Grace. I’ll be waiting at the abandoned factory in Tomioka New Town. Let’s talk as a family after so long.’

“Don’t… you dare…!”

Unforgivable, unforgivable, unforgivable.

That he had abducted her only remaining family, that he had left writing as if he were still the older brother from before—and as a result, that she herself ended up thinking “maybe.”

(The Monster Villain calling himself Atel Octo maintains his reason… there is no way, there is no way—but if that is fact)

Then her older brother as well.

Aarg Wayne might also have the possibility of regaining his reason.

This message too—because he had regained his reason, he had written it like before, like an older brother.

Even abducting their younger brother—surely there was some reason, a reason she did not understand, but he had no choice and abducted him, right?

Her mind was in chaos. Something more like a wish than a prediction swelled, swelled, swelled—

“—!”

—Pashin!

She slapped her own cheek hard.

She knocked down the impossible wish and tightened her expression.

—Monster Villains are the enemy.

—Evil that rampages according to desire.

—Neither more nor less than that.

Once someone had transformed into a Monster Villain, that was no longer her older brother. She knew that perfectly well.

Therefore she would not let her heart be shaken by a message from the Black Knight Monster Villain. The tears gathering at the corners of her eyes—those were only because she had slapped her cheek too hard.

She took a large deep breath and handed the paper—the memo Zero Ko had given her with the phone number written on it—to the maid waiting at her side.

“…This is Sacred Knuckle’s contact information. Sacred Arrow can use the devices from that side. Give it to her and request reinforcements.”

Saying only that, she leaped out the mansion window.

To head to Earth again. To confront the Black Knight Monster Villain.

She understood well enough that she was not calm—before it became too late, quickly, faster, she felt like screaming why her own legs were so slow.

Even so, the calm part of her told her “going alone is dangerous.”

Precisely because of that, she would rely on them. On the new Sacred and on Leas.

(—No matter what trap there is, even in a situation where I cannot do anything alone, I can endure until everyone arrives.)

Sacred Knight possessed abilities advantageous in one-versus-many, and though her swordsmanship was inferior to Leas’s it was still top-class.

Her durability was also the highest among the Sacred; protecting Gahel—her younger brother—while enduring should not be impossible.

“Therefore, please—stay safe, Gahel…”

She had finally resolved to show weakness and try leaning on others.

Therefore—she would absolutely not let him die. She would use every means and save her younger brother, the only family she had left.

◇

—Her confidence was by no means excessive.

In the first place, Sacred Knight’s performance was that of an attacker who could take on many, a sturdy tank, and a powerful buffer.

Even among the Sacred who originally possessed high resistance to darkness she was especially tough; even if the flame area attack was neutralized, defeating her was not easy.

Her solo performance surpassed not only Monster Villains but many Diabolics; in a head-on fight there were few opponents she would lose to—such a strong one.

—But. No matter how strong she was, she was only one boss character in a transformation-heroine violation game.

Not a high-difficulty game called an unfair game, but an enemy character that people who enjoy 18+ games could enjoy at a “moderate difficulty”—an enemy required to give the player a thrill and then be defeated.

Since multiple methods to defeat her existed, many players would notice how to beat her even without looking at a strategy wiki.

Of course. In a violation game, the justice heroine’s heart of justice, her noble convictions, her maiden-like hesitation and resolve—all of it, all of it—existed to be trampled and defiled.

In reality as well.

If one knew the girl named Grace Wayne well—the means to defeat her would come to mind easily.

“—Grace, my lovely little sister. I will not fight you.”

The Black Knight chuckled kuku.

Putting on a smile filled with twisted desire, he directed his gaze downward.

There was a boy shackled by the magical power of darkness.

A slender body like a girl’s, soft golden hair—those eyes wet with tears would have fiercely stimulated the base desires of those with certain tastes.

“Ah—sorry, Gahel. I know it’s cramped, but I want you to endure just a little more. But I’ll at least remove the gag. I also wanted to talk with family after so long.”

“—Puhah! …N-nii, sama… Aarg-niisama, why…!?”

There was no hostility or anger in the boy’s eyes.

What existed there was only sorrow.

Until just one year ago they had lived in the same mansion—the kind, splendid older brother who served at the castle, the one he had been proud of. He had loved him.

But the current him had none of the former atmosphere.

Wearing a deep crimson inner suit, and over that dark-colored armor—the magical power of darkness that filled his entire body.

Having lived in Calmate, even without the power to fight he could understand. The current older brother was the same kind as those who had invaded the peaceful world one year ago.

“Why? Why, you ask—Gahel, I thought it was something I didn’t even need to tell you.”

“What on earth are you talking about, please tell me—Aarg-niisama.”

Toward the Black Knight who spoke as if taken by surprise, Gahel leaked a confused voice.

But the Black Knight did not answer. Without answering, he took “that” from his pocket.

“Well, it’s fine. Gahel, you’ll understand soon too.”

The thing with a stagnant, deep-black color somewhat recalled a plant seed.

But he immediately thought it was different. There was no way that was something meant to nurture new life.

—Something Gahel had no way of knowing.

It was a magic tool called a Seed of Desire.

It parasitizes inside the body, sucks up desire and stretches roots throughout—then remakes the entire body. A repulsive thing.

But the poisonous dark color, the magical power of light that every human of the other world Calmate possessed, and a living creature’s instinct—told Gahel that it was something terrifying.

He had to run.

He had to run—or something irreversible would happen.

“Niisama, please stop—Niisamaaa!”

“Don’t worry, Gahel. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

But no matter how much he twisted his body he could not move, could not move.

Looking at Gahel rattling the shackles gishi-gishi, the Black Knight smiled gently.

“Because you and I should be ’harboring similar desires’————”

The smile he put on at that time—had no distortion at all.

It was the kind of smile of someone trying to make a suffering family member take bitter medicine in order to save them—a smile that seemed to say this is troubling.