I was alone on the rooftop, holding my breath.
I had already transformed into a Monster Villain and put the tentacle clothing over myself. A tentacle mummy man wearing a black parka and bottoms, with the hood pulled deep over his eyes, was hiding on the rooftop. Even from my own perspective, I looked completely suspicious.
"...Just like in the game."
The Sacred series I had played in my previous life was a text adventure in which you advanced the story, gathered pieces during the base segments, and fought the Sacred in the decisive battle segments. And the tactics Alter was using now were exactly according to the tutorial for battles against the Sacred. In other words — capture the students who were slow to escape, render the Sacred unable to act, and then beat them senseless. Yes, if left alone, they would definitely be defeated. I wanted to jump out right this moment, but I firmly suppressed the restless feeling. If I appeared at a bad timing, I would only be attacked by the Sacred. After all, I was a Monster Villain. I had already learned from the meal with Leas that I would not be trusted. What I needed to do was interrupt the hostage event. I had to make them think that even if I wasn’t an ally, I was at least an opponent who should be put off until later.
"I will be your opponent. Release that hand, you scum——!" "Wha...!?"
But. The voice of the man who had come running at the long-awaited hostage event was familiar, and I was shaken. Niekawa. A friend from the same class. In the game he had been a mob character with neither voice nor standing portrait, who was simply killed by a combatant — yet now he was dashing forward with a desperate expression, trying to save a female student. I can’t accept a tragedy like this, his feelings seemed to say. With those feelings — the man whose death had been fated raced toward the abyss.
"Niekawa—— Ah, damn it, so that’s what ’Niei’ means...!"
He was a sacrifice. The time signal that announced the beginning of the story in which the transformation heroines of justice would be defeated and violated, accelerating this narrative. He had a strong sense of justice, and he was well-connected. If he had survived in the original story, he would surely have stopped the students who tried to violate the Sacred with all his might. And there would surely have been people who listened to him.
——But he dies in the early stages.
Probably, with him gone, the stopper of goodwill disappears, and the onlookers gradually lose their hesitation about violating the Sacred. Exactly like a river. Just as clear water from the upstream becomes turbid downstream — people become turbid with desire. Ah, originally I hadn’t intended to let anyone die here, but——
"...I can’t let him die even more now!"
——I jumped down from the rooftop. While sticking to the outer wall with tentacles and racing along, I leaped into the school building — and slammed a tentacle into the combatant who was about to swing his sword. The classroom door was shattered, several desks and chairs were caught up in it, and the combatant convulsed and fell silent. After confirming he was out of commission, I turned my gaze toward Niekawa and the female student who had been attacked.
"————Are you unharmed?"
I declared it in a grotesque form, yet like an unwavering hero. At the very least, I behaved so that it would appear that way.
Ah—— I’m scared, I’m scared, I’m scared, I’m really scared.
With this, there was no turning back. Even though it was something I had decided myself, the fear still clung to me and would not leave. But the trembling of my legs was hidden by the tentacles covering my entire body. The ones that kept wriggling and moving completely concealed my fear. Then all I had to do was act with everything I had. I would become an ally of justice — an ally of the girls who fought for justice.
"A tentacle... Monster Villain...? The one who saved Sacred Saber...?" "Yeah, that’s right... Take her and evacuate. I respect your courage, but those guys aren’t opponents you can handle."
With what mouth are you saying that? I thought. You’re pretty much the same, I thought. In the end I was just a low-combat-ability early-game Monster Villain. There was no way I could match the Sacred or a Diabolic in a fight.
But even so—— since I had decided to put on a strong front, I had no choice but to do it with everything I had.
When a classmate girl, and a junior girl, and a friend without any special power were gritting their teeth and trying to protect everyone — was I, who possessed the power to help, supposed to pretend I didn’t see it? Don’t fuck with me. Though—— if I hadn’t had the knowledge from my previous life, I might have pretended I saw nothing and surrendered myself to desire.
There’s probably someone more suitable than me somewhere, I would have thought. Even if someone like me doesn’t help, those amazing champions of justice will somehow handle it on their own, I would have thought.
But I had learned. If I pretended I didn’t see it, if I averted my eyes thinking someone would somehow handle it — the people desperately confronting it would fall into ruin. I could not accept that. Excuses like "there aren’t enough actors" or "I’m not strong enough" could all be put off until later. In any case, there was no way I could leave the stage at this point — so I stretched my tentacles toward the future!
"The Sacred, and this monster that is me, will somehow handle it. You run!" "S-sorry...! Sacred! And you too, Monster Villain! Be careful!"
After seeing off Niekawa as he ran while carrying the girl, I turned my gaze toward the schoolyard.——Everyone was looking at me with blank expressions.
The reality that an ugly Monster Villain had saved the woman who should be violated and the man who should be killed, and was standing here. Unable to understand it, even that Alter was staring at me without taking his next action. But that was perfect. Through the hood of the black parka — through my own tentacle clothing — I made my eyes shine red and shouted.
"Did you see it, did you hear it, Sacred!? The figure and voice of the people you wanted to protect! Then hurry up and face forward! You still haven’t lost anything...!"
I leaped toward the schoolyard. The back of the tentacle clothing parka opened wide. While falling, I generated tentacles from my back and from my waist.
——Their number: eight.
I brought the tips of six tentacles to my sides as if taking a fighting pose, and thrust the two growing from my waist into the ground as if stitching my own body in place. Yes—— with this, I could no longer run away. In front of the entrance, I desperately held down the legs that threatened to tremble, the feet that wanted to flee from this place, and faced forward — staring at the approaching combatants.
"A mere tentacle thing getting full of itself——!"
The combatants approached while firing their guns. I turned two tentacles to defense and protected my body. The heavy vibrations transmitted through the tentacles told me that the bullets had been stopped halfway. Fortunately, the tentacles’ sense of pain was dull. The damage was not zero, but it didn’t hinder movement...!
"You’re the ones getting full of yourselves, you small-fry combatants!"
I whipped them with tentacles using pure force. The ones that bent like whips smashed the combatants approaching the school building all at once. Together with the ringing sounds of the blows, the mucus from the tentacles scattered around as spray. Against those who tried to use the opening to invade the school building, I raised tentacles—— and slammed them down. They were struck hard from the crown of the head, their skulls shattered, their spines broken. Blood and mucus mixed, creating crimson puddles on the schoolyard. It’s okay. I’m doing it. While visually confirming the gradually spreading mixture of blood and mucus, I desperately suppressed my fear and put on a fearless smile.
——I, a tentacle Monster Villain, did not possess much combat ability.
But the number of attacks and the range. The weapon of eight freely extendable tentacles was suited to suppressing the combatants who approached in disorder. I swung the tentacles as if mowing down the combatants who charged as if saying they didn’t care about such things, and against those who managed to avoid them I raised the tentacles and slammed them down with all my strength.
——If they had been coordinating like when they were fighting the Sacred, I would definitely have been insufficient.
I would have been overwhelmed by numbers and killed without being able to do anything. But the fact that they had abandoned command in order to defeat the Sacred had backfired. If they were just small fry who only charged full speed toward the bait, even I could crush them. And above all—— because I was weaker than the Sacred. The contempt of thinking that something of that level might somehow be manageable had robbed them of the judgment ability to run away from me. After all, behind me was the school building — a facility like a treasure chest filled with plenty of young women. The combatants whose eyes were clouded by desire did not change their policy and continued advancing straightforwardly. If we can just take out that Monster Villain, we can eat as many women as we want, they thought.
"S-Senpai—— how exactly should we move in this situation!?" "That is—— no, but——" "You two handle that Diabolic! I can’t defeat him...!"
I shouted toward Knuckle and Saber, who still seemed confused. There was no need for them to trust me. But I needed them to at least think of me as "the enemy of my enemy is my ally." Saber looked at me for a while with a hesitant expression, but then pointed the tip of the holy sword toward Alter. I didn’t know how much she trusted me, but I wanted to believe that at the minimum she was thinking "let’s put him off until later." At that gesture, Knuckle also readied her fists. Faced with the hostility of the two Sacred, Alter clicked his tongue once.
"...I don’t understand it."
With his left eye twisted in irritation, he began observing my form that had become a Monster Villain.
"You have already bloomed — your ego should have been eaten long ago, and you should be violating women according to your desires. And yet—— what are you?"
His eyes spoke. Why aren’t you running wild? Why are you fighting alongside the Sacred? I wanted to say I want to ask myself that too.
"——I’m not a Monster Villain."
But even so, I declared it powerfully. At this point there was no room to complain of weakness. Then the existence that was me, what I wanted to do, what I sought. My own desires, what I should accomplish, my own answer. I would shout it loudly.
——The roots change.
——The image of the roots of the Seed of Desire covering my entire body transforming into something else flooded into my mind.
——I poured a new desire into the form of desire that was tentacles.
——They mutate, change, transform.
——The existence that was me became something completely different from a Monster Villain.
——Yes, if I had to put it into words——
"A Vigilante—— Sacred Saber, I am the Vigilante who will protect you!"