How Could the Villainous Young Master Be a Saintess?

Milian.

That cowardly little idiot of an elf brat was just a child who could never grow up unless she was tucked in some grown-up’s arms.

So where had that courage come from?

Where had she found the nerve to throw herself in front of danger to save someone else?

That kind of idiot, that kind of brat who only knew how to puff herself up and bluff, could barely survive even when other people protected her.

So where did she get the courage to save anyone?!

At that moment, Vinny was overflowing with every kind of emotion.

The guilt and rage of being saved while the person who saved him was killed.

The self-reproach and shame of failing to protect the one who had needed protection.

The incandescent fury of watching a companion die right in front of him.

All of it churned together.

And the fiercest emotion of all was naturally anger.

“You son of a bitch! You gutless turtle who won’t even show your face, I’m killing you today!” Vinny’s eyes were bloodshot as he tore off the ice-crystal earring and summoned Frostfang.

At that very instant, the stone around the doorframe collapsed, as though some massive thing, now that the seal had been opened, were forcing its way from that absurd world into Tyrelis.

Then, all at once, an ear-splitting roar shook the ground and stabbed straight into Vinny’s soul.

It was impossible to describe.

It sounded like nothing produced by any living creature on the land of Tyrelis.

Vinny stared in shock as the fallen boulders were flung away by an overwhelming force.

Through the swirling dust, a horrifying monster unlike anything he had ever seen dragged itself into view.

It was as tall as a small building.

Its skin was bronze-colored.

Its shape was nearly humanoid, standing upright on thick, powerful limbs.

From the huge clawed hands covered in black scales extended a black bony spike, long as a spear.

Its head was elongated, like a spindle.

Its giant teeth split the corners of its mouth wide.

Its tail was like a black whip.

Its massive wings blotted out the dim light, forcing Vinny into the darkness it cast.

There were no eyes on its head.

Instead, on its chest, amid those black scales, tiny red eyes were crammed together in a writhing cluster, hopping up and down like pomegranate seeds that blinked.

An unknown and terrifying force pulsed through its body.

It reached out with one giant claw, tore a chunk from the surrounding wall, shoved it into its mouth, chewed it to pieces, and crushed it apart as though tasting the flavor.

Vinny stared at the monster in utter shock.

A few words surfaced in his mind.

A Demon Pillar minion.

That black spike of bone.

Milian had only been struck once, and she had dissolved into nothing. He had not even been able to save her.

The thought hit him, and Vinny gripped Frostfang Spear tightly, stomped the ground, and leaped into the air. The burst of icy brilliance from Frostfang seemed to pour out all his fury at once.

[Rimefrost Full-Moon Slash]

CLANG! CLANG!

Vinny unleashed [Rimefrost Full-Moon Slash] at full power. But the spear blade, carrying its extreme cold, struck the monster’s back—and was instantly knocked from his hands and sent flying away.

“?!”

His hands went numb from the impact.

He stared at the monster.

It kept chewing stone.

It had not even bothered to defend itself.

It was as if it did not care about him at all.

Gritting his teeth, Vinny summoned an ice-ghost mask over his face.

[Frost and Snow Engulfing Flame]

He spat out freezing frostflame. Its power was so great that a path of frost and snow spread over the ground.

The monster spread its wings and whipped up a violent gust, shielding its body with them.

The frostflame left a layer of frozen rime across the surface of its wings—

and in the next instant, the monster beat its wings once, shattering the frost as easily as if it were paper.

Vinny drew [Sixfold Inferno] and fired three shots at the creature in rapid succession.

The monster casually slapped the explosive fireballs away with a light flap of its wing, as if swatting water balloons.

“?!”

Smoke curled from Vinny’s gun as he stared, dumbfounded.

All this time, he had always been confident in his magic.

After all, this world did not have any such thing as universal magic resistance. Everyone here had high offense and low defense. If someone took a solid spell, there was no guarantee any ashes would even remain.

No matter how powerful something was, a few well-placed spells should have injured it badly even if they failed to kill it.

But this monster—

It had neutralized his magic so casually that his spells looked like children’s toys in front of it.

Vinny thought of the other Demon Pillar minions he had encountered before—

the fanatics.

But those had ultimately been Demon Pillar minions recreated on Tyrelis by borrowing human bodies.

This thing in front of him, however, was very likely the real thing.

A genuine Demon Pillar minion.

A native lifeform that had actually walked out of the Demon God Realm itself.

But then—

Even the alchemy Demon Pillar Erunes had needed human assistance to manifest its minions in this world.

So how had these things crossed over from the Demon God Realm into the Tyrelis Continent?

Why did the stone door connect to such an absurd world?

No.

He absolutely could not let this monster walk out.

Once it escaped here, there was no telling how many disasters it would cause.

With that thought, Vinny decided not to hold back any longer.

He would go all out and transform into Vanessa.

But the moment he pressed his palms together, an unbearable ripping pain burst through his chest.

His eyes widened in disbelief.

The monster, which had still been some distance away a second earlier, had somehow appeared right in front of him, almost face-to-face. A lingering gust still clung to its sky-covering wings. When it landed, its huge body slammed into the ground so heavily that his ears rang.

The black bony spike on its claw had pierced straight through him with effortless ease.

A deep, muffled growl came from that giant mouth split wide by fangs.

Vinny tried to do something—

anything—

but found that his feet had already left the ground.

The monster had lifted him up, skewering him like a piece of meat on a spit.

It felt as if his organs had been churned into pulp.

The pain wrung spasms through his whole body.

At the same time, the deep weight of death began to descend over him little by little.

His eyelids grew heavy.

Darkness crept over him bit by bit.

This creature—

its speed had nothing to do with its size.

It was so fast he had not been able to react at all.

If it wanted to, it could kill him before he managed to do anything.

Once Vinny understood that, he gritted his teeth and unwillingly raised a hand—

but he could not stop the black tide from slowly descending across his vision, swallowing the last scraps of light.

He could not even complete the transformation.

Was he going to die here?

Vinny’s consciousness sank with his vision, little by little, into a black sea.

He did not know how much time had passed.

Then a sensation on his cheek awakened a faint thread of awareness.

Vinny’s eyelid twitched.

But he found he could not open his eyes.

An indescribable discomfort enveloped his entire body, as though he had been cut in half and casually tossed aside. He had not quite died, but he could hardly be called alive either.

He felt that he could only force his eyelids open the tiniest bit.

Any more than that was painfully difficult.

And whenever his awareness started fading again, the sensation on his face would intensify, refusing to let him sink back into sleep, calling him to wake up.

That voice—

it sounded familiar.

Whose was it?

Vinny’s awareness cleared a little. With immense difficulty, he pried his eyes open. The moment his eyelids lifted, a savage pain stabbed through his brain as though a thousand silver needles had been thrust into it. He also felt incredibly weak.

This weakness did not come from his body.

It came from his spirit.

A wave of panic rose in him. He could no longer tell whether he was alive or not. In this state, even he himself was unsure whether he could still be called a living person.

Was he really still alive?

When he finally opened his eyes, his world was only black and white. Countless overlapping afterimages flickered across his vision, and a piercing ringing filled his ears. Only after the afterimages slowly merged and color seeped back into the monotone view did his sight return.

Normally, whenever Vinny woke up in a bizarre situation, his first instinct would be to curse.

This time, though, he did not even have the strength to do that.

That alone said enough.

He felt like an apple cut in half, core included, stripped even of the ability to roll.

With effort, Vinny shook his head and pressed a hand to his still-throbbing forehead, trying to find something familiar in the dimness.

Then he saw a pair of large, round fruits.

Mm.

At this point, those were probably the most familiar things left.

Wait.

Wasn’t that—

“Wh-what are you doing?!” a familiar voice cried out with a trace of embarrassed indignation, striking Vinny’s muddled mind like a blow that brought sudden clarity.

Vinny froze.

His gaze shifted slowly to the side—

and there he saw a blonde elf, her face flushed with embarrassment.

That tone.

That voice.

It was instantly recognizable.

“Mi...lian?” Vinny lifted his head and looked at her in disbelief. “You... didn’t die?”

“You’re the one who died. Of course I didn’t die.” Milian puffed out her cheeks. Though it was only a token rebuttal, the dullness in her olive eyes made it obvious that her own mental state was in terrible shape too.

“But... didn’t that monster pierce straight through you?” Vinny asked, unable to understand.

“Monster? What monster? I remember getting pierced by the black spike that came out of the stone door.” Milian frowned. “Then when I forced my eyes open again, I found myself here.”

“The black spike... right. Me too. That monster killed me too.” Vinny pressed a hand to his head.

“Monster? What are you talking about?” Milian asked hesitantly.

“The stone door. A monster crawled out of it. Probably a Demon Pillar minion. It pierced me with that bone spike.” Vinny struggled to recall the scene.

“You mean... the thing that pierced me was a monster?” Milian looked stunned.

“Yes. A horribly ugly one. It came out of that door. If it’s left free on the Tyrelis Continent, it’ll absolutely become a disaster. It’s bound to bring all kinds of calamity.”

“You still have the energy to worry about that?” Milian gave a bitter little smile for reasons Vinny did not understand.

“What? Why? What’s wrong?”

“Look around you.”

Milian lowered her head and wrapped both arms around her knees.

“?”

Vinny looked around—

and his expression changed in shock.

They were in a place with no sky.

Everywhere were green bubbling swamps.

The wet, sticky ground looked like the membrane of some living creature.

Those raised little mounds all around them were covered in blinking little black “beans,” packed so tightly together that it looked as if squeezing one mound would make them spill everywhere.

“This place...” Vinny’s head throbbed violently as he stared. “This is the world beyond the stone door?”

Everything in this grotesque world was an assault on common sense. It carried a heavy mental pressure. Stare at it too long, stay here too long, and a person’s mind would definitely be damaged.

“Where is this? The Demon God Realm? How did we end up here? Does that monster’s attack send all living things into this world?”

“It’s more than that.” Milian kept her head lowered, her voice trembling as though she did not dare raise it and see those horrifying sights again.

“More than that?” Vinny echoed.

“Don’t you feel awful right now? Like something’s been cut in half?”

“...Yeah. That’s exactly what it feels like.” But Vinny looked down at his body. Nothing was missing. He had all his arms and legs. He looked complete.

“We’re incomplete. More precisely, our souls are incomplete. Or maybe only beings with incomplete souls can enter this place.”

“Our souls?” Vinny remembered being pierced just before he came here, by that creature that had emerged from the Demon God Realm.

“That’s why both our spirits and souls are so weak right now. I just tried it. I can barely cast magic at all,” Milian said.

“So that thing hunted us into this place,” Vinny murmured, staring at his hands. His head still felt horribly heavy. Everything he saw carried multiple afterimages and thick black shadows.

They had to find a way out of here as quickly as possible.

Vinny tried using [Congealed-Ice Shackles].

Nothing happened.

He realized he could not use magic either.

He remembered what their instructor had taught them in magic class:

Magic was energy formed through the combined function of mind, soul, bloodline, and the mana contained in one’s blood.

In other words—

if even one part of that cycle was missing, the whole circuit became dead-ended.

Naturally, magic could not take shape.

Vinny glanced at Milian beside him, still hunched over with her head lowered like an ostrich burying itself.

This girl was terrified of the dark already.

A grotesque, twisted world like this was even worse.

Even Vinny could barely stand it.

As for her, every second she remained here was torment.

“You okay?” Vinny asked instinctively, and immediately realized he had said something stupid.

Wasn’t the answer obvious at a glance?

How could she possibly be okay?

And yet Milian did not answer in words.

She only gave a muffled little “Mm,” bobbing her head weakly like a pecking chick, and said nothing more.

Vinny could tell that even that tiny nod had taken effort.

He tried to push himself up.

Failed.

He tried again.

And again.

Still failed.

The effects of soul incompleteness were not limited to losing the ability to cast magic.

Even standing up and walking had become almost impossible.

Even so, Vinny did not give up.

If he could not stand—

then he would keep trying until he could.

“What are you doing?” Milian finally asked from beside him, unable to watch anymore.