Chapter 286 Goddess Aurelia ㉖
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
”We’ve arrive-d!”
I reached the Suria Celestial Temple riding on the back of the Rukh¹, a wind spirit beast summoned by Storm. Even for a spirit beast, this Rukh is massive. The “Rukh of the Heavens” and the “Behemoth of the Earth” are famous for being the largest of their kind. Thanks to its sheer size, we reached our destination without any turbulence.
”By the way, are you really sure you want to go in alone?” Storm asked. “Shouldn’t you have brought some backup?”
”I’d love to,” I replied, “but there simply isn’t enough time. Besides, if everyone comes with me, who’s going to stay behind and protect Greedia?”
”Ah, good point,” Storm said.
To be honest, I had considered bringing Leki along, but I decided against it. I needed someone to guard Mashiro, whose combat potential is the lowest among the Apostles. While Honoka and Hina are capable fighters, Mashiro’s role is primarily rear support. She can use attack sorcery, but I honestly didn’t trust her to hold her own against the Goddess’s Knights. I heard she can use Forbidden Arts, and while the power would be sufficient, the collateral damage makes them impossible to use in a situation like this.
In that sense, Mihiro and Kijima-nee’s younger sister are in the same boat. Just to be safe, I’ve had Tatei provide all the Apostles-including Honoka-with the highest-grade equipment he can currently forge. They aren’t as much of a concern as Mashiro, but as a result, my own weapon ended up being pushed to the back of the priority list.
”I’m leaving the surface in your hands,” I said. “A Rukh can fly anywhere in a single bound, right?”
”True,” Storm replied, “but Sieben, are you sure about being on your own?”
”I don’t mind. The enemy is undoubtedly waiting for me, and even for a Wind Demon General, facing those guys would be a nightmare. More than anything, I don’t want you getting caught in the crossfire.”
”Ahaha… you really don’t mince words,” Storm said with a wry smile. “But I guess it’s the truth. It wouldn’t even be a struggle; I feel like I’d just be unilaterally slaughtered.”
Storm knew that average sorcery wouldn’t even scratch them. More importantly, Storm knew their own limits.
”It’s not really my place to say this, but… good luck out there,” Storm added.
”Yeah. Storm-no, Gale-you should try to get along better with Leki, too,” I said.
”Nyuah!? You knew!?”
Did he seriously think he was being subtle? After being that obvious, he acts surprised now? In the Guild, people are literally taking bets on when Leki will finally confess and they’ll hook up. Though, at the moment, most of the money is on him getting shot down.
Ignoring Storm as he flew off, face beet-red and completely flustered, I stepped inside the temple. It was called a temple, but it looked more like a palace-and a massive one at that. The gates were wide open; they were making it painfully obvious that they were waiting for me. I already knew I was walking into an ambush.
I passed through the colossal gates and moved forward. I entered a grand hall large enough to host a royal ball. In the center stood a fountain where water overflowed from a statue of a goddess holding a pitcher. Sitting on the edge of that fountain was one of the Goddess’s Knights.
”I’ve been waiting for you, rebel,” the knight said. “I, the Holy Knight of this other world, shall be your executioner.”
There stood Nishiyama-the same Nishiyama who had once been miserably slaughtered by the Killer Army Ants.
* * *
”Of all the people it could be, it’s you…”
I couldn’t help the sigh that escaped me. I was certain they’d have someone more impressive waiting for me.
”Hmph! Normally, facing a piece of trash like you would be beneath my station,” Nishiyama said. “But since I’m the strongest, I’ll deal with you myself… feel honored!”
Nishiyama leveled his sword at me. He claimed this was “beneath” him, but from where I was standing, he was simply punching way above his weight class.
As for the true identity of these Goddess’s Knights, the hints I got from Mashiro made it easy to guess. They were the summoned Heroes-my former classmates. Mashiro had probably realized it, too. After all, they use the same Unique Skills and there are exactly as many of them as there were Heroes. If I couldn’t figure it out from that, Mashiro would never let me hear the end of it. On top of that, I had a pretty good idea of why these losers were being brought back as Knights.
”Now! Die a pathetic death at my hands!”
Nishiyama charged at me like a blind bull. He was slow. I dodged him with the effortless grace of a matador. I almost wished I had brought a red cape. Honestly, dealing with this guy was a chore.
”Come, Durandal²!”
Using “Magic Sword”-channeled through my evolved “Skill Trace”-I summoned the indestructible Holy Sword, Durandal. My Skill Trace had reached a broken level of evolution, allowing me to manifest every single skill I had ever traced.
”Uooooooooh!” Nishiyama roared, charging recklessly again.
I met him with a diagonal slash. Clang! The sound of heavy metal rang out as my blade was deflected by that armor.
”Fuhi… fuhihi! What’s the matter? Is that all you’ve got?” Nishiyama let out a nauseating sneer.
”Fine. Then how about this? ‘Wind of Greed’.”
I unleashed one of the Sin Magics-a wind designed to shred everything down to atomic dust. It swirled around Nishiyama, but he remained completely unharmed.
”Fuhihi-hahahaha! It doesn’t work! That crap doesn’t work on me!”
Wait, seriously? Not even a scratch? That was definitely not part of the plan.
”Fuhihi… nothing can touch me,” Nishiyama sneered. “As a Holy Knight of the other world, I’m invincible to any attack. In other words, you were checkmated from the very start, you moron. So… just be a good boy and let me kill you!”
I wasn’t the kind of guy who just stands there and gets cut. Besides, I couldn’t believe he was stupid enough to tell me his weakness himself. In a flash, I closed the distance and placed a hand on his shoulder.
”‘Heal’.”
I cast “Heal”-the most basic of recovery magic-directly into Nishiyama.
”Fuhihi… what are you doing, you freak? Why are you healing m-ack! W-What’s happening!?”
Nishiyama coughed up a spray of blood.
”Didn’t you know? If you overdose on ‘Heal,’ it actually starts destroying the body,” I said.
”I-Impossible…! If it causes damage, it counts as an attack! Why… why is it working!?”
”Did you forget? ‘Heal’ is recovery. It’s not an ‘attack.’ Here, have another dose.”
”Stop! Sto-glargh!“
Under the strain of the magical overdose, Nishiyama’s body bloated and then detonated in a spray of gore.
”Phew. What a filthy firework,” I muttered. I’d always wanted to say that line.
Still, to think that armor could deflect even a top-tier Holy Sword. It was likely the effect of Nishiyama’s “Class Faker” skill-partly fueled by his own delusion, but there was a real chance normal attacks just wouldn’t land. I should prepare while I can. I called forth another Holy Sword: Mistilteinn³, the Undead Slayer. Using “Materialization Alchemy,” I fused it with Durandal.
(It’s heavy. Well, it’s the weight of two swords, so that’s expected. Still, I can swing this. Since I made the effort, I should give it a name… let’s see. Mistrandal sounds about right.)
Fusing Mistilteinn and Durandal into Mistrandal was perhaps a bit too on the nose. Also, since it was now a custom blade unique to me, it seemed to have lost its classification as a standard Holy Sword, meaning I couldn’t unsummon it. A minor inconvenience. As a side note, Mistrandal would eventually become my primary weapon, though I didn’t actually get many chances to use it.
* * *
Meanwhile…
”It’s been a long time, Honoka.”
It happened while she was in the middle of treating her petrified comrades.
”I’ve missed you, Honoka.”
”Come on… won’t you come with us?”
”Akiyama, Koganei, Oshiro…”
”Whoa, just our names? That’s cold,” one of them said. “Aren’t we supposed to be lovers?”
The person she had once loved-the one who was supposed to have been killed by her Master-and her former best friend stood before her, clad in gleaming white armor.
===
So, as it turns out, the people inside the armor were the classmates. Nishiyama really was just there to get clowned on…
—
Summary:
Sieben arrives at the Celestial Temple and confronts a resurrected Nishiyama, one of his former classmates. After discovering that traditional attacks fail against Nishiyama’s ‘Class Faker’ armor, Sieben uses an overdose of ‘Heal’ magic to destroy him from the inside. Meanwhile, Honoka is confronted by her own resurrected former lovers and friends, setting up a psychological confrontation.
—
Trivia:
- The Rukh and Behemoth are established as the absolute apex of spirit beast sizes.
- Sieben’s weapons were neglected because he prioritized arming his Apostles first.
- Healing magic in this world has a destructive threshold when used on healthy targets.
- Nishiyama was killed by ants in the previous timeline/early chapters, highlighting the ‘loser’ status of the Goddess’s recruits.
- The protagonist’s ‘Skill Trace’ has evolved to a permanent materialization level
—
Character Insight:
Sieben demonstrates a ruthless pragmatism, utilizing basic spells in unconventional ways to bypass high-level defenses. His willingness to sacrifice his own gear for his team’s safety shows a shift from a solo survivor to a leader.
—
Behind the Scenes:
The author references the Abema TV holiday marathon, which usually features series like ‘School Days’ on Christmas, explaining the ‘not erotica’ and ‘sorry’ comments in the afterword.
—
TL Notes:
Notes:
• Storm – Wind Demon General, known as Gale, is an undead immortal over 300 years old who halted growth at boyhood—short, with disheveled green hair, large golden eyes, and waxy pale skin. Playful and rumored to love Leki, he commands the spirit beast Ruh.
• Mashiro – A rank‑one student, strikingly beautiful yet cold and detached, wields immense mana; as an associate of the Master she supplies crucial ant‑biology data and, under the alias Apostle of Greed, betrays for knowledge, mastering barrier and reflection magic such as Mirror Shade. Her Unique Skill functions like a living dictionary, granting encyclopedic knowledge and enabling her to inform the protagonist about the Sky Temple Suria.
• Honoka – Petite, short-statured maid with shimmering angelic skin, hidden wings, and large breasts, her lewd eyes starkly contrast her pristine uniform; once a cold class rep who mocked Sasaki Natsumi, she was revived as his obsessive, masochistic Goshujin-sama, bound by his scent and a desperate wish to bear his child. She survived being frozen alive alongside him, earning absolute loyalty and high pain tolerance. Now an energetic, pouting Apostle of Lust wielding the Caduceus staff as healer, she trembles with devotion, fiercely protective yet feeling left out of the group’s rewards—her wind sorcery and wings aid in healing petrified allies, even as former classmates confront her, her holy-lust shrine persona trembling between sacred duty and carnal obsession.
• Hina – Yamato Hina is a serious, beautiful student‑council vice‑president with long straight hair and sharp eyes. As the Apostle of Pride she wields fire magic and a sword, trained by Sieben and reborn as her Master’s servant; she often slips, calling him ‘Onii‑chan’, and her mind sometimes regresses to a child’s. A Japanese associate of the protagonist, she deeply despises nuclear‑scale destruction.
• Leki – Lil’s eldest daughter, 140 cm tall with 70‑54‑69 measurements, dog/wolf ears and a husky‑puppy look, once a stuffed toy now human. She wields a great axe as a big‑sisterly combatant, smooth‑skinned, can split a King Basilisk’s skull, keen‑eyed, calls the protagonist ‘Papa’, is his subordinate/family and discovered the floating temple.
• Mihiro – 160 cm tall, B-W-H 82-55-80, short black hair; a handsome futanari known as the Apostle of Gluttony. She instantly absorbs skills, wields swift water-based sorcery and sword strikes, leads a loyal circle of disciples who admire her power. An associate of the protagonist, they/them, haunted by the salvation void left by forbidden art.
• Tatei – Tatei Kozoo, 186 cm tall but now a gaunt 52 kg (skin-and-bones), was once a solid otaku buddy of Natsumi. Bullied with the narrator and Yokoo, he wields Materialization Alchemy, crafting gear for the class—most infamously the X-shaped restraint used in Sugita’s execution.
• Tate – Male Otaku friend of Reese. Gaunt and thin, wears glasses. Possesses Materialization Alchemy skill.
• Sieben – Young black-haired man under 20, once a “loser” in his original world, now the transcendent Overlord and Avenger of the Seven Sins, hailed as the “God-Enemy” by Goddess Aurelia; he reached Level 100, became a demi-god, subjugated the former Demon King, and now rules Greedia as its new Demon King and head of Clan Renegade, former leader of a national casino guild, wielding advanced Skill Trace abilities, and is husband to Annamaria.
• Gale – Leki’s friend, secretly the Wind Demon General Storm. Hides his status from others except Sieben.
• Nishiyama – A former classmate of the protagonist who was killed by Killer Army Ants. Resurrected as a ‘Holy Knight’ for the Goddess. Uses the skill ‘Class Faker’.
• Akiyama – Akiyama Ryunya. Height 177 cm, weight 70 kg. Oshiro Yuuko (best friend of Narumi Honoka)’s boyfriend. A hot-blooded, handsome guy with a buzz cut. Member of the baseball club.
• Koganei – Height 166 cm, weight 56 kg. A mood-maker in the baseball club. He was only after Honoka’s body and worked with Oshiro to steal her from Akiyama.
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
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