It's Just a Basic Buff
Endings remaining until Stage 1 Privilege Unlock: 2
⚠ Ending Locked
Lucia's First Ending
At least this time I knew why the ending had locked.
Lucia was hostile toward Laward—so in a way, the result was only natural.
But then… why was Lucia trying to protect me?
Did she somehow know I had killed Karma?
“…I see.”
Meanwhile, Laward’s voice had gone cold.
He half-closed eyes that had already lost their light.
“If you’re not being threatened, then that means you were with Houndry of your own free will, Senior.”
Swoosh.
Laward, who had lowered his sword, raised it once more.
The tip pointed straight at Lucia.
“In that case, Senior is…”
There was no leisure to calmly read the ending script.
That madman’s attitude, his atmosphere, even the look in his eyes—everything had transformed.
“A target for purification.”
…So it comes to this after all.
“There is no mercy for purification targets, Senior.”
“As it should be.”
Lucia spun her sword into a reverse grip with a sharp flourish.
“At last… I’ve found a master I truly want to serve. Lucia will protect him, no matter what.”
With the situation changing so rapidly, I waved my hands to dismiss the message windows.
At that very moment—
Shwick—!
Lucia swung first.
The shift in Laward’s presence—Lucia, standing face-to-face with him, would have sensed it better than anyone.
Just before the heavy killing intent could swallow her whole, she chose to strike.
Kang!
He parried.
Perfect timing.
Having already marked even Lucia as a purification target, Laward displayed terrifying focus; the precise deflection twisted her stance and left an opening.
Swish!
Laward was never going to miss that instant.
As the edge of his blade cut toward her throat, I mouthed the words.
Wait.
Thud—
The perfect timing to sever a neck.
Laward stopped his arm with a look of reluctance.
“……”
At the same time, from Houndry’s side, a man with a brutal face pointed at Lucia.
“…Lucia?”
The other members also tilted their heads and stared her way.
“Y-yeah… it really is Lucia…”
“Lucia’s holding back that demon bastard!”
“Lucia! Don’t lose!”
Kang! Kagak!
While Laward hesitated, Lucia’s sword danced.
Unaware that he had stopped because of me, her expression said she had seized the rhythm for herself.
Laward, knowing he must not kill her, shifted into a defensive stance.
Their exchange continued.
“Reform ranks! Tighten the encirclement!”
From the other side, Marquis Fred’s command rang out like a thunderclap.
His soldiers leveled their spears once more and pressed in on Houndry.
“B-back off!”
“In the end… we’re all going to die.”
Despair returned to the guild members’ faces.
The reality they had briefly forgotten thanks to Lucia’s appearance now pressed against their skin.
They raised their weapons with trembling hands.
Yet their expressions alone made it clear: if anyone so much as dropped a weapon by accident, the rest would disarm like falling dominoes.
That kind of fear hung in the air.
Soldiers gripping their spears tightly advanced one careful step after another.
The domain of Houndry—which had once swallowed the entire Marquis’s District 6—was now nothing more than the shrinking circumference of the soldiers’ encirclement.
Dogs that had once run wild under the moonlight were now trapped in a cage.
Even that cage grew smaller with every advancing footstep.
Ting—
At the same time, Lucia’s sword went flying.
After several more exchanges, she was disarmed.
Disarmed—and therefore defeated.
“Ah… ah…”
Houndry despaired.
Even the Lucia they had trusted had finally been driven back by Laward.
“Is it… over now.”
“If only Lord Karma were here…”
Hmm.
Is this complete enough?
Rise and fall.
Crisis just before the climax.
I pulled back the hood I had been wearing low and activated the ring.
Srrr—
I caught a glimpse of my bangs dyeing black.
“Ah. Ah.”
Testing my throat, I found the voice a shade lower.
“A pack of toothless dogs. Can’t even manage a bark?”
I spoke with the new voice.
My words must have seemed completely out of place, because the atmosphere shifted in a subtle, uneasy way.
I could feel eyes on my back.
“Karma asked me to look after you lot, so I came—and what do I find? Nothing but trash.”
I turned my head slightly and met their gazes one by one, scanning them as if taking inventory.
“If I’d known you were worms trembling before the likes of them, I never would have bothered coming.”
The moment I finished speaking, the air turned vicious.
“Who the hell is this bastard?”
“I never heard anything about Lord Karma naming a successor…”
“Why are you even answering him?! In this situation, who has time for some lunatic—”
Exactly the reaction I had expected.
So predictable it nearly made me yawn.
“That’s the problem. You lower your tails for the Marquis, yet bare your fangs at your own master.”
I slowly drew out the ledger I had stolen from Karma’s safe.
Their eyes changed at once.
“Judging by those looks, you all know what this is. What I received from Karma isn’t limited to this. I know your pasts—and your family relations as well.”
I waved the ledger carelessly as I continued.
“To me it’s nothing but useless scraps of paper, but the Marquis would want it. A man like him would believe a criminal’s family ought to be buried right alongside them.”
“S-so what the hell do you want us to do?”
Tap—
I closed the ledger and slipped it back into my coat.
“Fight. Fight and show me your worth. Fail to win here and you die. Run and your families die. There’s only one path.”
By then the Marquis’s soldiers had formed a solid wall.
The encirclement felt as tight as a birdcage.
“But even if we fight… there aren’t even fifty of us left…”
“And that monster bastard is still perfectly fine!”
Houndry, once nearly three hundred strong, now numbered around fifty.
Laward—the one handling “that monster bastard”—had taken no wounds at all from Lucia’s assault.
I clicked my tongue and raised my hand.
The motion brought the Ring of Disguise on my middle finger into view.
In the game, Laward had used it to change his appearance and dig into the heroines’ true feelings, or for spying.
An item meant to pull out information and events.
At the same time, far too valuable to use only that way.
The effect of “altering mana waves” carried no small weight in this world.
I drew out holy power while activating the ring.
Originally I had no intention of using holy magic.
Revealing that I was a holy knight was one problem; it simply didn’t suit the shadows of the back alleys.
Kiiing—
The holy power gathering in my palm appeared not as warm light but as a dark, gloomy violet.
A color far more fitting for the opposite of a holy knight.
The color of those I had fought against.
“If you wish it, I’ll grant you power.”
An unsettling light spread outward.
The warm light of the Goddess Church, passing through the ring’s distortion, bloomed into a dark-red aura.
Whoosh—!
I thrust my arm forward and detonated the black light.
The light that burst like fireworks in midair turned into embers and drifted down.
Those embers settled over Houndry, engraved themselves into their skin, and magic took hold.
Before I obtained the spirits, what kind of holy knight had I been?
What place had I held in the order?
Having joined late, I lacked both time and experience.
So I had drilled one single magic until it became instinct.
Holy magic—enhancement type.
—Bless
Buff
Wooong!
The magic circles carved into the Houndry members’ skin flared with dark-blue light.
“U… uwaaaaah!”
They could not control the power surging through them like a tidal wave and began to scream.
A sacred buff magic, merely by changing its appearance, now carried an aura reminiscent of dark magic.
Fear vanished from their eyes.
Only the will to survive this place remained.
“With this… we can do it…!”
Those who had been crouching in terror charged forward with sudden ferocity.
Even when spears pierced them, they fought on, trusting the amplified muscles and sharpened senses the magic granted.
The alleyway that had sunk into bleak silence filled once more with roars and the clash of metal.
At that sudden thrashing, the Marquis’s lines were gradually forced back.
In that moment my eyes met the Marquis’s.
He gestured at me with shaking pupils.
Reading his expression, it was something like, “This wasn’t part of the deal.”
I gave him a faint smile and lightly shook my head.
A signal to end it here.
The Marquis no longer had any reason to accept further losses.
As he had wished, Houndry’s numbers had been cut drastically, and by any measure of victory or defeat he had already won.
There was no need to drive his soldiers into a slaughter.
So—conclusion.
“Retreat! Fall back!”
When the Marquis shouted, the soldiers stepped away as if they had been waiting for the order.
I also released the buff I had placed on Houndry.
If I hadn’t, they would have pursued and stabbed the soldiers in the back without hesitation.
Just up to here.
This was the line where each side achieved its goal with the least possible damage.
Thud-thud-thud—!
The hoofbeats of the warhorse carrying the Marquis and the footsteps of the soldiers gradually faded into the distance.
Heavy silence settled over the alley once more.
Only the stench of blood and thick dust remained to fill the space.
“U… uugh…”
“Hoo… haa…”
The blue haze that had enveloped the members’ bodies scattered as if it had never existed.
Houndry simply stared blankly down at their own hands, from which the light had vanished.
The afterglow seemed burned deep into their minds.
Thud.
Someone immediately dropped to his knees.
It was the man who had earlier cursed the crazy bastard.
Forgetting even pain, he smashed his forehead against the ground and cried out in a voice trembling with thrills.
“Th-thank you…!”
That was the signal.
Thud. Thud.
The remaining members collapsed one after another.
It was not submission.
It was a blind craving to taste once more that sweet power they had just experienced.
“Please… take us in!”
“That power of darkness—just one more time…!”
Dozens of heads bowed at my feet.
I looked down at the scene without expression and swallowed a bitter smile.
The rank of the magic they had mistaken for dark magic was C.
It was not even considered high-tier enhancement magic.
In the holy knight order it was treated as a fundamental skill.
In other words…
…just a basic buff.
After the situation had settled, I took Lucia with me and headed for the Marquis’s mansion.
“…From here on you must be careful. Please stay close to Lucia.”
Lucia’s right arm blocked my path.
Rolling only her eyes to scan the surroundings, she already seemed to have identified every potential threat.
“This is near the Marquis’s mansion. We should take a detour.”
“No. We’ve come to the right place.”
“Yes?”
“We’re here to see the Marquis.”
“I see. So you intend to settle things face-to-face.”
Lucia slowly nodded and took the lead.
“Then Lucia will escort you. Please watch your step.”
Clack—
She rested a hand on her sword hilt and walked with careful precision.
“You’re going to protect me?”
“Of course.”
“You say that, but you lost earlier…”
“That was because I was tired.”
Ah. Is that so.
Of course you’d say that.
“H-hm. We don’t know what traps the Marquis might have prepared.”
“No. There’s no need to be that tense…”
“Complacency is dangerous. I’m sorry, but please stay a little closer. There might be snipers.”
“Would it even matter? With the height difference my head is completely exposed anyway.”
“Well… that’s true… but…”
Lucia walked with her back rigidly straight.
An attempt to close the height gap even a little—yet it made almost no difference.
“Lucia, just walk normally. It’s not dangerous here. I’ll explain the details later. For now it would be better to trust me. Don’t regret it afterward…”
“Lower your voice. They might be listening.”
With a deadly serious expression she gestured toward the mansion’s servants.
At that very moment the Marquis’s servants were staring at the two of us with open curiosity.
Somehow…
Being stuck next to Lucia, who was acting so solemn without knowing a thing, was starting to feel embarrassing…
She was completely serious.
So serious that I simply could not bring myself to tell her the truth.
Creak—
The mansion’s main gate opened.
Lucia flinched and immediately blocked my path.
“The door… is open. It’s a trap.”
“No. They just opened it for us.”
“We don’t know what scheme they might be hiding.”
As she spoke she checked whether I was pressed right against her side.
“Haa…”
I sighed and followed behind her.
“I sense killing intent beyond the door.”
At last we stood before the Marquis’s room.
Killing intent, my foot.
Only the gentle aroma of warm black tea filled the air.
“Lucia will open the door. On the count of three…”
Lucia whispered.
Clank—!
But before the countdown could even begin, the Marquis’s door swung wide open from the inside.
Inside a room lined with goddess statues, warm sunlight poured over a sofa where Marquis Fred sat elegantly lifting a teacup.
Beside him, Laward sat munching on cookies.
“You’ve arrived, Master! Please try some of this!”
“Welcome. You’re a little late.”
And silence fell.
Lucia stood frozen, short sword still in hand, looking utterly awkward.
Between the two men calmly watching her, not a single sound stirred.
After a moment—
“W-w-what is this situation…”
“I told you you’d regret it.”
Lucia’s face began to flush, very slowly, starting from the tips of her ears and spreading all the way down her neck.
She had probably finished putting the pieces together.
“Lucia, for now… shall we sit?”
As I settled onto the sofa without hesitation, Lucia creakily sheathed her sword.
“Ah! Senior Lucia, seeing you arrive with Master, I knew you were on our side! You must have been told in advance as well!”
“……”
“Your acting was incredible! I was completely fooled. You should try appearing in a play at the Academy festival.”
“No, Lucia wasn’t acting or—”
“And Senior, you prepared lines ahead of time, right? What was it again—‘I’ve already been saved,’ was that it?”
In that instant Lucia’s face stiffened completely.
“Also… ah, ‘At last I’ve found a master I truly want to serve’—that was it, right? That line was cool too.”
Whether Laward simply could not see how red Senior’s face had become, he continued freely praising her “acting skills.”
“Haha, those kinds of lines are hard to say in everyday life, right? How should I put it—a bit cringy… the sort of dialogue you could never use normally.”
Stop it…
You absolute madman…
“Ahaha, who would ever say something so embarrassing in real life?”
Squeeze—
Lucia covered her face with both hands.
Her face, flushed as if it might burst, looked ready to dye even her fingers red.
“Anyway, I was really impressed by Senior’s preparedness. I never thought of preparing lines myself. I’ve learned something!”
Through the gaps between Lucia’s fingers, the eyes barely visible glared at Laward with murderous intent.
Killing intent.
I could feel it.
Just as Lucia had claimed earlier—there was definitely killing intent inside this room.
Heh heh.
Laward, you admirable bastard.
Now he’s lowering the affection rating all by himself.
