The screams came from close by.

'Back of the house?!'

　Aldis bypasses the house in front of him and goes around to the back side.
　Kirill follows in silence.

　There was another house behind the house around the private house, and a purple creature was about to destroy its walls, which were constructed of wood planks, right now.

　The purple creature had a mollusk-like body in the air, with more than a dozen tentacles dangling underneath it, and was about three meters long.
　Its body was about three meters long. Probably, this is the demon called the 'different saint'.

　Whenever the tentacles are raised and struck against the wall, the wooden wall is broken with a cracking sound.

''Oh no!　Somebody help me!

　I heard a woman's voice calling for help from inside the house.

'Kirill!　Stay in the shadows!　If anything happens, shout it out!

Yes!

　Kirill quickly ran up to a crate on the side of the road and hid behind it.
　It was frustrating, but all Kirill could do right now was to stay quiet within range of Aldis' eyes.

　After instructing Kirill, Aldis released a swing of the white sword-barrel shortsword from his waist and rushed straight at the 'Different Sage'.
　Himself, he drew his autumn sky-colored broadsword and rushed like a gale behind the demon.

　The white shortsword cuts off the tentacles swinging at the house to destroy it.
　Until that moment, the demon had probably only seen Ardis as an insignificant intruder.

　For the first time, when he recognized it as a dangerous enemy, it was already too late, and death was already behind the different saint.
　A blue ore-like sphere, whether it was an eye or something else, grabbed Ardis.

''Screw you.

　After murmuring words to the dying, Aldis cut it off under a single sword with the autumn sky-colored broadsword in his hand.
　The demon, which was cut in half by the entire blue sphere, lost its power and fell to the ground with a botfly.

　It took less than ten seconds to do so.
　It's a good idea to make sure that you have the right kind of information.

''It's amazing ......

　Deciding that the danger was over, he sat down to run to Aldis.
　But in the next moment, he realized that Aldis had not yet let his guard down and looked around in a hurry.

''d*mn, was it a mating?''

　Ardis turned her face to the sky while clicking her tongue.
　What Kirill saw in his eyes as he looked at the sky, was another 'foreign saint' floating higher than the roof of a house.

　Humans don't understand the emotions of this fluffy, floating foreign saint.
　But the sound that comes from the purple body, as if it were swung at high speed on a string, sounds vaguely wild.

''I guess that means we're mating ......, after all.

　As if waiting for Aldis' words, countless purple objects floating in the air appear from the surrounding shadows.

　The color and shape were no different from the different saints in the sky.
　What was different was its size.
　You can find a number of different types of shoes in the marketplace, but they're not the same size as the one you just defeated, but the ones that appear from the surrounding shadows are smaller, 20 to 30 centimeters.

　But their numbers are incomparable.
　There are probably more than thirty of them just in Kirill's eyes.

''Demon ...... larvae?''

　If there was a mating pair of demons and a creature that looked like a shrunken version of their form, even Kirill, who wasn't familiar with the biology of demons, could indeed imagine it.

''Kirill!　Come here!

　With Ardis' voice, a white sword-barrel shortsword flies to Kirill.
　The shortsword stops in front of Kirill's eyes and slashes off the young body of the different saints that swarmed around him with ease.

''...... is, yes!''

　Kirill hesitated for a moment, but he knew that he would only be slowed down if he was bogged down here, so he immediately began to run to Ardis.
　With the prey in motion, the young body of an alien holy man rushed in to prey on it.

　It was intercepted by a shortsword that floated to Kirill's side.
　Breaking out in a cold sweat as the tentacles of the larval body grazed his head, Kirill made it to Aldis.

'Keep your back to the house and stay put.

　The white shortsword is left to protect Kirill and the villagers, and Ardis begins chanting magic as she releases another shortsword into the crowd of young bodies.

'The wind that cuts through is the tune played by the white lady (shukyuu) ---- wind cutter (sherwy)!

　A swing of the sword buried one juvenile body, and the wind magic tore through two or three juvenile bodies at the same time.

　However, the number of infant bodies showed no signs of decreasing at all.
　How many of them are there? Even if you defeat them, they still appear from the shadows.

''d*mn, if only this wasn't inside the village. ......

　They will probably involve the surrounding area and use large-scale annihilation magic.
　But we don't know where the villagers are hiding, and they can't destroy the houses for no reason.

　I'm sure you'll be able to find a way to make it work.
　Naturally, there is no way that the parent, the foreign holy man, would remain calm after being harmed by the young body.
　They had already dropped in altitude and started attacking Ardis from close range with their tentacles.

　In conjunction with that, the infant body xenoholy charged at Aldis's body from all directions.
　Aldis unleashed a shortsword that revealed a yellow-green sword-body, and with an autumn sky-colored broadsword in his hand, he slashed away the juvenile body one after another.

''There's no end to it!''

　The situation was described simply and Ardis swore.

　In the meantime, one by one, the young bodies of the different saints fell to the ground.
　It's a good idea to have a good time with them.


''I wonder what he would say. Because he is so strong that it is ridiculous to think on our scale.''


　The words of a man Kirill had met on the morning of their departure from King's Landing had come to her mind.

　A man came to the tavern he had visited to meet a man named Jean. While Aldis listened to his request, a man came to talk to Kirill, who was waiting impatiently.
　The man is curious about Kirill's name, where he comes from, why he's with Ardis, and the nature of their relationship.

　It's probably something that should be avoided, like slipping up on a stranger for no reason.
　However, Kirill's lack of experience in life is the reason why the man's soft smile and polite tone of voice, which somehow put people at ease, prompted him to speak out of his mouth.

　When he got a complete set of information from Kirill, the man said ''You're lucky, aren't you? If you wanted to hire that person normally, you would need ten gold coins a day,'' he laughed.

　As Kirill rolled his eyes at the amount of money, the man also said with a self-mocking look on his face, "As a bodyguard, you are the best.

You can say that he is the most reassuring person as a bodyguard. But for that reason, he's a fearsome man if you make him your enemy. At the very least, he is so fearsome that no mercenary operating in the royal capital would ever think of sending him as an enemy.

　According to the story, Ardis had defeated the three powerful demons, which the mercenaries and the national army had been unable to defeat for decades, in just one day.
　I heard that he is now one of the most famous mercenaries in the capital.

I'm sure you'll be able to find out more. It's a good thing that you're not messing with someone's friends.

　Then Ardis returns after hearing the request.

'I can't believe you're messing with me ....... I was just making small talk, wasn't I ......, hey?'

　The man spoke in an excused manner and asked Kirill to agree with him.
　Kirill didn't know why, but Kirill could sense a mixture of fright in his expression.

'I hear you're going to the Union of City States?　Do you need the information from the other side?

No. Jan has given me all the information I need.

"You're so dull.

　Even so, the man doesn't look disappointed at all.

'Kirill, let's go.'

　Aldis didn't look at the man, but called out to Kirill and walked to the entrance of the tavern.

'If you have something interesting to say, let me hear it when you get home.

　With such a man's voice at his back, Kirill goes after Ardis.


　Kirill, who is not a resident of Gran, does not know how much of an opponent the three strongest demons are.
　But if what the man is saying is true - Kirill thinks.

　It's a good idea to have a good idea of the strength of Ardis, who is now dealing with a swarm of demons right in front of you and overwhelming them all by herself.

　Every time Aldis swings his sword, the young body of the different holy man decreases.
　From time to time, he swings his left hand and shoots ice and wind magic at the spot where the infant body is solidified, shooting it down without fail.

　Kirill thought that magic is something that always requires chanting, but it seems that when you are a wielder as good as Ardis, just holding up your hand is enough.
　Kirill didn't even dare to let his gaze catch up with the combination of sword and magic that Ardis produced.

　Eventually, the number of young xenophobic bodies that seemed to be gushing out endlessly also gradually decreased.
　As expected, when the number of them had fallen below twenty, the different saints began to pull back.

　Then Ardis mercilessly chased them down.

''The shining azure dances across the land of endless colors and illusions, the eternal time and tranquility ---- storm of the extreme north, Troa Shusu Follote!

　After confirming that the distance from the houses in the village had opened up, he eradicated the juvenile body with a blizzard magic that had a wide impact and killed the remaining adult xenophiles with two flying swords.

''Good grief, that was quite troublesome.''

　A breath of air was taken, and Aldis's murmur announced the end of the battle.