Chapter 71: The Black Knight and the Growth Monster (3)
The Black Knight, Aarg Wayne, smiled.
Kindly, gently—yet twisting the corners of his mouth.
“Grace, I liked Princess Altina. If it could be granted, I wanted to protect that person with these hands. But the magical power of light is stronger in women. I cannot become an existence who stands beside the princess—a Sacred.”
And Aarg had not been the type with a strong body either.
Unable even to fulfill the role of protecting the princess as an ordinary knight—such an everywhere Calmate man.
“But I had accepted that it couldn’t be helped. Rather than sulking wishing for what I didn’t have, I thought it would be good if I did what I should and supported in another form—until you became a Sacred, Grace.”
The place he had wanted most, his younger sister had stood in.
The power he could never possess no matter how he struggled, his younger sister had possessed.
“Ah, I was envious. I also resented why it was my younger sister and not me, why I did not have that power. But—this can’t be helped, I thought that and swallowed it. If you would protect the princess in my place, that was enough.”
The Black Knight spoke.
It would be a lie to say he had not felt jealousy, yet even so he had sincerely blessed her.
Envying the talented and pulling their legs—what would doing such a thing accomplish.
He had put away the faint romantic feelings in his chest, blessed his younger sister, and tried to become the princess’s strength as one of the many—the young man named Aarg Wayne had sincerely thought that.
“————But, Grace. You ’prioritized the likes of me and abandoned the princess.’”
—Until that day.
“You! Could not protect the princess, no! You did not protect her…!”
One year ago.
When the black-and-white Demon King Alter appeared, Aarg’s negative emotions had exploded.
“Envious, jealous, unforgivable—you! You, you, you! Even though you have everything I wanted…!”
He had wanted to protect, if it could be granted, himself.
He had thought his most beloved younger sister would protect in his place.
But neither of his feelings was granted—his younger sister had left the one he most wanted protected and prioritized the likes of him.
“I—”
Even though he possessed what the man named Aarg Wayne wanted more than anything yet could not obtain—right in front of him she had treated it lightly.
What was that, unforgivable.
“If I had been a Sacred. If I had been Sacred Knight who united the Sacred and protected the princess! I would have absolutely saved the princess!”
Therefore he had wished.
He had accepted the darkness he had been suppressing and transformed into a Monster Villain.
—I want to become a knight.
—I want to become a Sacred.
—I want to become a man who can protect the woman I like.
The Seed of Desire had indeed heard that wish.
It had changed one man unsuited to conflict into a knight possessing the power of darkness.
“Yes, therefore I rushed to the princess’s side—and together with Alter defeated the princess, and, ah, a, a? Huh?”
The Black Knight staggered and dropped to one knee.
Putting on a confused expression, he covered his face with his palm.
“I now serve as a knight—the queen. The princess, the princess, I stabbed the princess’s back, defeated her, and as a share from Alter, that body—tasted, tasted, tasted tasted tasted why why such a sinful aaaaaah wrong wrong wrong!”
By the desire to protect the princess he had become a Monster Villain.
However, as a principle Monster Villains could not disobey Diabolics.
The feelings of the young man who had tried to protect the princess even by becoming a Monster Villain had been twisted, and as Alter’s subordinate he had slashed the princess from behind.
Screaming at the contradiction between inner heart and action, he shed bloody tears. It was wrong, he had not become a knight to do this kind of thing.
“No, no, I am a knight! The Black Knight serving Queen Fine! That’s fine, that’s fine, that’s fine! I—I became a knight—a Sacred!”
Therefore he swore loyalty not to Alter but to the queen.
As a substitute for Princess Altina, to satisfy his own desire.
To avert his eyes from the despair of having defiled with his own hands the thing he had most wanted to do.
“Ah—”
At those words she finally noticed.
The crimson inner suit covering Aarg’s body, and the jet-black armor—looked as if her own equipment had been arranged for a man.
The greatsword in his hand—had the same shape as the holy sword Galatina she herself had received from the queen.
“Ah.”
—Monster Villain transformation was.
Reading the person’s strongest desire and changing into a form suited to it.
“Ah.”
Therefore the Black Knight’s form—that form resembling Knight.
Was born from the desire that he himself was more suited to be Sacred Knight.
The words he had spoken just now were proof that everything, everything was the truth.
“Ah… so that’s how it is…”
“I—I—more—more—strong—strong—”
The giant loomed over her.
The right blade was swung down.
The left hand grabbed the armor and ripped it off with brute force.
Perhaps from the increase in sexual impulse unique to Monster Villains, the left hand grabbed her chest and the right blade randomly struck Knight’s face and neck.
It hurt.
More than the body, the heart, far more.
“If the likes of me had never existed from the beginning, it would have been better—————”
If she had not done unnecessary things.
If her older brother, her younger brother, if the foolish girl named Grace Wayne had not existed, they would still have been living happily.
Tears overflowed and would not stop.
Ah, even though she had no right to cry, her tear ducts discharged tears as if gone mad.
“—Gahel, Onii-sama.”
The blade was slammed into her neck.
A pained breath kafu leaked at the same time the Growth Monster Villain began stomping on its own greatsword.
Blood dripping from the sole of the foot, yet healing with guchu-guchu sounds—it put in force.
The blade bit into Knight’s neck.
But Knight did not resist. She only put on a tearful smiling expression.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—I’m a stupid older sister, a foolish younger sister, I’m sorry, I’m so, rry…”
Blood sprayed.
The neck bones made gishi-gishi abnormal sounds.
—At this rate she would die.
Since the Black Knight held no rebellious intent toward the queen of Lemora, there was no value in making a Sacred into a piece—if she did not move, her head would be cut off and she would die.
But—when she thought “I will die,” what Knight felt was not fear but relief.
She had tried in her own way, but it had not gone well.
Everything she had done for her family had all backfired.
(Then—ah, yes, that’s right—it would be better for everyone if it ended here)
What value was there in a woman like this living.
Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.
Then it would be better to lose this life by the Black Knight’s—her older brother’s scheme, and by her younger brother’s hands.
The blade bit in, a cracking abnormal sound rang from her neck.
(And—ah, already, there is no need to keep up appearances————)
And so Sacred Knight.
The girl named Grace Wayne was about to lose her life—right before that.
————A rough gust of wind blew through.
The one racing through the air leaped over the Knight lying on her back and slammed a fist into the Growth Monster Villain’s face.
A brute-force blow with no technique at all. But the fist of “her” fired like a cannonball blasted the Growth Monster Villain’s face—and blew it into the abandoned factory just like that.
The figure of the girl who had done that, as the abandoned factory collapsed with a roar—no, Knight stared blankly at that.
—It was a girl wearing a cheongsam-like costume.
Her limbs armored in silver-white, she let her golden ponytail and the ribbon wrapped like a headband flutter in the blast.
“As promised, I came to help—Knight-senpai.”
The Sacred from Earth—Sacred Knuckle turned only her face this way and smiled.