I Favor the Villainess Chapter 140

"I-It seems that I made it in time."
"You again, Saint."
"P-Please don't call me that."
"You always happen to make it just in time, huh. Do you have a trick for that or something?"
"L-Let's see. I guess you could call it love?"

Although her tone was as nervous as before, Lily-sama looked poised as she remained unflinching in front of the demon.

"Lily-sama……"

I tried to get up, but it seemed that I had exhausted all of my magic and couldn't do anything.
I couldn't even use healing magic in this state.

"R-Rei-san, please don't push yourself. Lily will take on this demon."

After she spoke, Lily-sama smiled as she turned to face Arist as she wielded the two shining blades in her hands.

"Arist, won't you yield here? I have reinforcements coming in soon. You wouldn't want to die here, would you?"
"You underestimate me. Do you really think that you'll be able to defeat me just by increasing your numbers?"
"L-Lily is here too."
"Hmph, I will admit, you are quite strong, saint."

Arist raised an eyebrow.
He seemed to be quite wary of Lily-sama.

"However, are you trying to say that you'll be fine even if you do fight me?"
"Y-Yes. That's why fighting each other is futile……"
"Well, in that case, don't hold back. Let's play around a bit, shall we?"

Arist didn't show any intentions of pulling back.
Instead, he fired his bullets of darkness in Lily-sama's direction.

"Lily is quite a busy person, you know!"

Lily-sama parried the black bullets with her twin swords and then closed the distance between Arist and herself.
She swung the sword in her right hand downwards.

"Hmph. A blessed dagger, huh. That looks like it'll actually hurt."

Unlike last time with Frieda's sword, Arist did not make an attempt to catch the dagger with his claws.

"R-Rei-san, now that we have time, take this."

Lily-sama pulled something out of her pocket and rolled it over to me.
I watched as four vials rolled over to me. They were potion bottles.

"T-These potions are advanced level. Everyone can be healed with these."
"Thank you very much."

Once I popped the lid off the bottle and drank the potion, I felt my magical energy returning to me.
After I managed to get up, I rushed over to Claire-sama's side.

"Claire-sama…… I'll heal you right now."
"You can just leave me for later. Those two should come first――"
"It's fine, just stay still for a moment."

I fed Claire-sama the potion.
The wounds on Claire-sama's body began to disappear.

"Thank you very much, Rei."
"Lily-sama's the one who should be thanked."
"That's true."

After Claire-sama spoke, she got up and looked over towards Lily-sama and Arist.

"I will go and help her out."
"Please do. I'll take care of Philine and Frieda."
"Okay."

When I split up with Claire-sama, I went over to Philine.
While flat on her back, I fed her a potion as well.

"……. I'll be fine now. Thank you very much, Rei."
"No worries. An acquaintance of Claire-sama and mine is currently fighting the demon. I'm going to help them out, so can I ask you to go and heal Frieda?"
"Yes, please leave it to me."

After handing the potion vial over to Philine, I ran over to Claire-sama and Lily-sama.

"L-Lily will be in the frontline! Claire-sama and Ray-san, please stay in the back and provide support with your magic attacks."
"I understand!"
"Yes!"

This was the first time that the three of us have ever fought together.

Lily-sama approached Arist with her daggers.
As expected, since he was afraid of the daggers, he evaded the attack once again without even attempting to capture it with his claws.
The way Lily-sama wielded her daggers was very admirable.
She was quite strong before, but her skill was something that felt like it belonged to her other personality.
The Lily-sama right now was about as strong and talented as her other personality from back then, or perhaps even moreso.

"How shrewd……"

Arist fired his black bullets at point-blank range.
With that distance, the bullets were unavoidable.
However,

Lily-sama managed to dodge all of them.
What amazing reflexes and physical capabilities.
Even though she was magically enhanced, she was doing a tremendous job at handling the situation.

"You're too restless."

Nevertheless, trying to evade all of those bullets broke Lily-sama's posture.
Arist took the opportunity to swing his claw down at her.

"I won't let you!"

Claire-sama fired her magical rays.
Arist had no choice but to use his claw to defend himself against her attack instead.
The bright rays were dispelled by a black flash.

"Earth Spike!"

Stone spears rose from the ground in an attempt to strike Arist.
However, Arist flew up into the sky and avoided the attack.

"Hmm…… Were you just worn out when we were fighting earlier? Your strength of your magic feels different now. I'm at a disadvantage now that you've got all of your magical energy back."
"We'll leave you in the dust at this rate."
"No no, I'll refrain. You've got the Saint with you too, so I'll just take my leave."

Arist took off, flapping his wings as he flew off towards the east.

"I won't let you escape!"
"Don't, Claire-sama! L-Let's leave things here. I need to teach everybody about the demons first."
"Ugh……"

After hearing Lily-sama's words, Claire-sama grit her teeth.
She was probably really frustrated.
Claire-sama was an incredibly prideful person, after all.
She had almost never been defeated so decisively before.

"…… Whew. I suppose it cannot be helped."
"Lily-sama, thank you for saving us."
"Please accept my gratitude as well. If it weren't for you, Lily, we would have been in grave danger."

To be honest, I thought it was the end for us.
I could not even begin to express just how grateful I was towards Lily-sama.

"N-No, compared to how much I've received from you two already, this much is nothing――"
"Wonderful!"
"Kyaa!?"

As Lily-sama smiled shyly, she was suddenly attacked by Frieda from the side and pushed down by her.

"You're this cute, but also very cool! You are the one who saved us from our predicament. Where did this angel come from?"
"U-Umm?"

Lily-sama looked confused by the overwhelmingly energetic Frieda.
She glanced over at me like she was pleading for help, but I thought it was amusing, so I merely observed the situation.

"Angel-sama, what is your name?"
"I-I'm Lily Lilium."
"Oh, what a cute name! I am Friedelinde Imer. But, please call me Frieda."
"Ah, umm…… Okay. Friedsan."
"Speaking so politely is a non non! You and me, aren't we buddies?"
"T-This is our first time meeting though!?"

Frieda was aggressively making a move on Lily-sama.
I wonder if a Lily-sama flag was raised for Frieda?
I mean, the Lily-sama from moments before was quite cool, after all.
To the point where even Frieda couldn't help but fall in love with her.

"Frieda, we should get out of here first. There shouldn't be any more dangers here, but we will need to report this to the Empire…… as well as to Bauer."
"Oh, sorry. Lily is so cute, I lost track of everything else. Let's return."
"Is that okay with you as well, Philine-sama?"
"Yes."

As soon as Philine nodded her head, we hurried back.

In any case, demons…… Demons, huh.
I never thought they could be that strong.
It was like they were from a completely different dimension than the monsters.
In terms of strength, the demons were the strongest out of all of the enemies we have fought up until now.

(I need to come up with a countermeasure……)

On the way back, all I could think about was how I could protect Claire-sama from all of the threats that awaited us.

Chapter end