Not Just a Human, But a Saintess♡
Elfride Bathory, the strongest hero of this generation.
She was not only the strongest in the current era but also ranked among the elites among all heroes throughout history.
The knight who scattered his brilliant golden hair and defeated demons—his reputation as a hero soared to the heavens by itself.
Even she had her own problem: she had no one she could talk to.
Cynthia, the saintess of the Lunaria Church who accompanied her, was too taciturn for proper conversation, and Levius, her fellow hero, was the exact kind of person she despised.
In the midst of this situation, a new hero appeared—Abel.
His pure personality was to her liking, no matter his commoner status.
Moreover, despite knowing his own abilities were insufficient, he had still answered the call to save people.
His mindset was already that of a hero, even if his skill was lacking.
“Impressive.”
“...Elfride?”
“Ah, no. I was just muttering to myself.”
“Please cast the blessing on me, Cynthia.”
“Yes.”
Cynthia was the saintess of the Lunaria Church, the second-largest church after the Solaria Church.
She was a capable saintess who could bestow powerful blessings thanks to her vast divine power, but she was far too taciturn.
Whenever someone tried to speak to her, she always answered with a single word, making conversation impossible.
It had always been a regret for Elfride, but she had been secretly hoping that she might one day have a partner with whom she could speak freely.
“...Be careful.”
“You’re worrying about nothing unnecessary. A Barbatos-class monster was exterminated by me already—how could there possibly be a problem?”
Elfride pointed her rapier toward the monsters.
“Hero Elfride Bathory. By the honor of the Bathory family, I shall exterminate the monsters from now on.”
🏛 Type: Open-Field Combat
⚔ Difficulty: High
📍 Floor: N/A
💀 Boss: Unknown
...What the hell is that?
Elfride and the monsters began clashing.
At the same time, sparks flew from the sky, and shockwaves rippled across the otherwise clear blue expanse.
The sound of swords and spears colliding was so deafening that it reached even the ground below.
“It’s already started over there.”
“...No, what the hell is that?!”
“It’s the fight between a hero and a monster.”
“Do I really need to explain this stuff?”
“No, I mean...”
What kind of fight was this again? Was it just kids’ playground stuff?
Moreover, these weren’t normal monsters—Elfride, are you even human? She was flying through the sky.
“Hero-nim, please stop looking that way. Even if you look, you won’t see Elfride Hero-nim’s panties♡”
...You crazy bitch.
“Ah, if you want to see panties, shall I show you mine instead~♡”
“...Enough. What should we do now?”
Don’t you see? With your pathetic eyes, you probably can’t even see it~?
Following the saintess’s pointing finger, I turned my gaze forward—and a horde of monsters rushed toward me with a roar.
“Kueeeek! Kill the humans!”
“Grrrr! Kill the men and capture the women, grrr!”
“Krrruuung!!!”
I saw familiar kobolds and goblins, and many monsters I didn’t recognize.
Anyway, the numbers were insane.
“Kyah♡ Dirty monsters are coming, Hero-nim♡ What should I do? I might become their plaything until they kill me~♡”
“Shut up the nonsense and cast the blessing already.”
“Yes~♡”
The saintess giggled and lightly placed her hand on my chest.
Solaria’s Blessing
...Huh?
Once the saintess’s divine power entered my body, my body became light, and strength surged throughout my entire frame.
I felt as if I could do anything right now.
“That’s enough, Hero-nim. With your current useless skill, you should be able to handle mid-class monsters easily~♡”
“...You’re that strong?”
“You’re looking down on the saintess of the Solaria Church? That’s natural.”
...Completely cheat key.
“Now, stop standing around like an idiot and help the soldiers fight the monsters earnestly!”
“I should go too, Saintess.”
“I’ll wait here for now.”
“...Huh?”
She had said she would fight with me just a moment ago.
I looked at her with a puzzled expression, and she smiled with her eyes.
“Since I’ve already thought of everything, go on ahead. You pathetic hero-nim♡ Were you scared or something? You coward♡ Scary-guy♡”
“...I’m not.”
Sigh. Better to just fight the monsters.
I headed toward the battlefield with the sword in hand, where the soldiers were fighting earnestly.
“The hero has arrived!”
“Oh, the hero!”
...Why are all of you so excited? It’s seriously burdensome.
“Heroes are supposed to be like this.”
“Oh shit, you startled me. When did you come?”
The saintess was right behind me, as if she had been waiting for the perfect moment.
“You said you weren’t going to fight, right?”
“I did wait, but I came because I wanted to see how the hero would fight.”
So she was going to spectate leisurely and then intervene if things got dangerous.
“I’ll be back soon.”
“Don’t die, okay~♥ If you die here, it’ll be such a pathetic end♡”
“...Hehe.”
I looked at the wave of monsters rushing toward me.
Up until now, I had faced at most a dozen monsters.
But now, there were hundreds—easily hundreds—before my eyes.
“I’ll handle them moderately.”
No need to overdo it.
After all, I wasn’t that strong, and my sense of duty as a hero wasn’t particularly strong either.
I had only transmigrated into this hero’s body recently, after all.
I advanced forward with that thought, and my mind immediately changed.
“……”
As the monsters were torn apart, blood and flesh splattered everywhere.
I watched a soldier’s head being smashed by a massive mace right in front of me.
Realistic sound.
I wanted to call it a realistic CG effect.
In that instant, my entire body froze.
The green-skinned, massive monster smiled wickedly as it looked at the soldier it had just smashed with its mace.
It was an orc—the monster that never disappeared from fantasy media.
“...Fuck!”
I shouldn’t have been thinking moderately...!
I rushed forward and swung my sword.
The sword, which was already stronger than usual, cut straight through the orc’s neck in one go.
Even as the orc’s blood sprayed, I had no time to complain.
Soldiers were still dying to the monsters all around me.
What made my heart race even more were the soldiers’ fighting cries.
“The hero is with us!”
“Fight bravely! Fight and die!”
“We can’t lose to the monsters!”
Shit, just shut up that kind of talk and back off a little, won’t you? They kept shouting as if they were hot-blooded guys.
It wasn’t only orcs.
Lower-class monsters like goblins, kobolds, and orcs were standard, but mid-class monsters that had nearly split my head open before—noll chieftains and hopgoblins—also appeared.
According to the saintess, I should have been able to handle mid-class monsters with my current body.
Even if her words were bullshit, her skill was real.
I trusted her and charged at the noll chieftain.
“Krrlaaak!!!”
The noll chieftain, seeing me rush toward it, swung its huge axe.
In the past, it would have fled, but not now.
I swung my sword with the resolve to cut it in half with the axe still attached.
Swish!
The sword cut in cleanly without any snag.
It must have been the power of the legendary sword and the cheat-key blessing.
The noll chieftain was split in half by its own axe, completely powerless against the momentum.
Slaughtering a mid-class monster in one blow only raised the soldiers’ morale even more.
“The hero has defeated the chieftain! Let’s fight even harder!!”
“Fight bravely so you don’t fall behind the hero!”
No... shit, what the hell kind of berserker are you?
You say you’ll back off, but the harder you fight, the less they back off.
At that moment, one soldier shouted.
“It’s a troll!”
What? Who the hell did something to provoke a troll? On a battlefield where people are dying, can’t you even keep your head straight?
“Retreat! Soldiers, fall back! Knights, advance!”
“Huh?”
I must have misunderstood.
The soldiers fell back, and the knights formed up in front, creating a formation for dealing with a single monster.
Thud.
The sound of footsteps that shook the ground echoed.
A massive figure with arms that looked like those of a giant and legs relatively short approached.
A grotesque face and sharp, large teeth— a humanoid monster that was naked—swung the club it held and smashed the knight’s head in front of it.
The knight’s head burst with a wet sound, but the other knights didn’t even try to stand in its way.
Even trained knights were trembling in terror.
“...It’s not the troll I thought.”
The giant-type monster, the troll, revealed itself.
It felt completely different from the noll chieftain.
Perhaps it was an upper-class monster instead of mid-class.
“Hero-nim~♡”
“...You’re busy, so why are you calling?”
During the fight, the saintess had already gone quite far.
Looking closely, she was gesturing for me to come closer.
Shit, with a monster right in front of me, you want me to leave the field?
“...I have no choice.”
I rushed over to the saintess, and she asked me.
“The troll is an upper-class monster.”
“As I thought.”
“Then I’ll ask the hero. Will you personally catch it? Or should I handle the scary troll instead of the X-rated hero~?”
You bitch.
“If I catch it, what will you do?”
“Hmm~♡ Then I’ll grant you one wish. Whatever you want.”
“Really?”
“Of course♥”
You’re a damn dog in heat, you know that?
I was about to turn back with my sword when the saintess grabbed me.
“Wait a moment. I’ll change the blessing.”
“Change the blessing?”
The saintess placed her hand on my chest again and infused divine power.
Solaria’s Grace
“!”
“How is it? The hero is overflowing with strength too~?”
“...I would have been fine if you had just cast this from the beginning.”
“I didn’t think an upper-class monster like a troll would appear. Normally, upper-class monsters don’t come under Leviathan-class monsters.”
“...I see.”
So this is a special case.
“Now, go on ahead, you pathetic hero-nim♡”
“...Yes.”
After sending Abel away, Estelle glanced up at the sky.
The sky above was filled with the fierce battle between the monster and Elfride.
Even the shockwaves from the sky changed the shape of the clouds, and the trees on the ground shook.
A Leviathan-class monster was not the kind that could command upper-class monsters as subordinates.
It was obvious common sense—one that had never changed since monsters appeared.
So why were upper-class monsters mixed into the monster horde?
There was only one answer.
“That’s not a Leviathan-class... it’s...!”
Kwaaang!!!
Something fell from the sky.
The thing falling at high speed crashed right in front of Estelle with a thud.
Before Estelle’s eyes lay the brilliant golden-haired hero, Elfride.
She didn’t look dead, but she was unconscious from the impact of the fall.
It would take time to wake her up.
“...That explains the Barbatos-class story.”
A red demon with six eyes that looked like insects stared down at Estelle.
Estelle sighed deeply and glared at the unconscious Elfride.
Though she was bruised here and there, she didn’t seem severely injured.
In the end, it was a draw.
“If you hadn’t been complacent and thought it was a Leviathan-class monster, you could have dealt with it yourself.
Thanks to that, you got to work.”
Of course, it wouldn’t have been easy to assume a monster was mid-class even if you knew it was Leviathan-class.
This incident was originally the mistake of the baron who misclassified the monster’s rank.
From afar, the saintess of the Lunaria Church, Cynthia, was running toward them.
She was probably trying to save her own hero, but it was a foolish judgment at the moment.
A demon was flying above their heads.
Estelle looked at Cynthia instead and instantly disappeared.
“Sacred Chain!”
Charrring! Clank!
“...Ah...?”
A sharp spear stopped right in front of Cynthia’s eyes.
At the same time, a red monster appeared in her field of vision, and even the taciturn saintess shed a single tear.
But the monster didn’t move.
Because pure-white chains had bound its entire body.
The chains were severed in the middle, as if shot from the air, but they couldn’t be easily broken even by the monster’s strength.
“Go to your hero, Saintess Cynthia.”
Estelle looked at the saintess herself, who was walking toward her with swaying black hair.
Her amber eyes sparkled in the sunlight as she extended her hand, swung it sideways, and released the chains.
The chained monster flew backward with a loud noise and crashed to the ground.
“If you stay here, you’ll die.
I can only save you once.
Go quickly and take care of your own hero.”
“T-Thank you. Saintess Estelle, but what are you going to do...?”
“A natural question.”
The monster that had been smashed on the ground stood up as if it had received no damage.
Estelle pointed behind her with her thumb as if she didn’t know.
“You need to catch that one.”
“...! Saintess!”
In an instant, a monster appeared behind Estelle and thrust its spear.
“Sacred Sword!”
Swish.
“It’s obvious.”
The monster’s spear was sliced cleanly away.
Even when fighting Elfride fiercely, the spear had been fine.
But now it was being cut through so easily that the monster froze in confusion.
“The higher the rank of a monster, the smarter it is.
Being smart means it can think.”
“Sacred Arrow!”
Multiple arrow-shaped forms of light appeared around Estelle.
“Being able to think means it panics when a sudden situation arises.”
“......Human...!”
“It’s not just a human.”
Light arrows rained down.
The monster instinctively dodged a few, but its limbs were pierced by the arrows filled with the power of the sun god.
The arrows stuck into the ground, and the monster collapsed onto the floor.
Kwazik!
A small foot stomped on the monster’s body, which had been fixed to the ground like an insect.
She looked down at the monster with a cocky smile and spoke.
Saintess
“I’m the saintess♡”