Antagonist Protection Service

'―That was close.'

Muttering to myself internally, I glanced between the dismembered beast, who itself seemed to have momentarily paused in shock, and its severed paw on the ground, bleeding dark blood like a fountain.

If I was even a second later, the mage probably would have died.

Of course, it wouldn't have been my fault, but one could argue that I was to blame for not going in to help sooner. I did intend on stealing the boss kill from the beginning, after all.

Waiting for someone to die before dropping in would have just been a complete troll.

"Hh-... Hhraaaaaaooooowwhh...!"

As I was busy thinking about something else, the beast suddenly cried loudly right in my face.

Fortunately, the Villain's Vizard was in the way to prevent any nasty stuff from its mouth flying out and dirtying my face with something disgusting, but it was nevertheless unpleasant.

Its face, which was akin to a bat's, was also very ugly.

"...How noisy."

Casually raising my right arm holding the Villainous Blade, I then swiftly brought it down, slicing the end of its surely sensitive nose in a single motion.

Naturally flinching back at the abrupt pain, I glanced just once at the split snout and hurriedly followed it up.

"Hrra--!"

'Shut it.'

Jamming the sword up to forcefully shut its mouth, I stabbed the beast from the bottom of its chin through to the roof of its mouth, penetrating even that to have the tip of the blade peeking out the very top, only exposed thanks to the nose having been split in half.

As a matter of course, it proceeded to freak out and writhe around to try and get me off, even swiping its single remaining front paw at me, but it didn't mean a thing.

Putting all the strength into my arms as I could muster, I grabbed the hilt of the Villainous Blade with both hands and pulled it like a lever, dragging it down to cut through the entirety of its mouth from top to bottom, slicing its face open without it able to resist or even scream.

There was no way it could fight after that.

Once finished, I withdrew the Villainous Blade and let the Self-Cleansing do its thing before sheathing it, watching the beast struggle and flail around in the meantime, the white fire still blazing on various patches of its body.

Now bleeding profusely from both its front limb and the entire exposed innards of its unsightly face, and burning on top of that, it was only a matter of time until it fell.

And it certainly didn't take long.

Thud-!

Its massive body causing a small tremor in the floor as it collapsed, I briefly checked to make sure all of its magic energy was fading back out into nature before turning to the other Challengers present.

As expected, they were all staring at me wide-eyed, as if I had done something they couldn't believe.

I guess it made sense, but what I was most caught in surprise by was something else.

'This guy...'

Halfway turning to get a look at the mage, who previously had his face covered by the hood of his robe, I couldn't deny that I was a little shocked to find him someone I had in fact seen before.

Although it was only a transient glimpse, it was unmistakable.

'It's the white-haired guy I saw on the Hub Floor.'

Seeing his taken aback face from close-up, I was most happy to confirm that it really wasn't Ella.

'Good... Good.'

Feeling an intense relief settle through me, I glanced around at the others, my gaze finally settling on the swordsman from before who got blown into the wall.

Judging by the other mage girl who was with him, helping him out of the crater in the wall that his body had formed, he seemed to be alive, but heavily wounded and leaked blood from multiple orifices.

Watching her worry quite intensely for him, checking him all over for his wounds and broken bones as she laid him flat on the ground, I couldn't deny that I felt a little bad. After all, if I didn't decide to wait and see what that mage was going to do first, I could have helped.

'Ah, but I don't really want to waste a Standard Health Potion...'

"Cough, splat-!"

"Max! Max...! H-hang in there..."

"..."

Checking the Storage, it seemed I had exactly three Standard Health Potions in stock.

Last time, I used the only one I had on the harpy girl because I thought it could get me in the good graces of the Protagonist, and it worked, ending up in my favour in that way.

But here... Well, there was nothing those two could probably do for me.

It felt terribly unkind, I was well aware of that, but... I myself was in the position where I had no idea the kinds of dangers I would face whenever I took on a new Contract. Especially now that I was planning on taking the vastly more mysterious and likely lethal 4-Star and 5-Star Difficulty Contracts, I would need this higher-level of healing potion more than ever.

'Even still...'

In the end, I made a decision. Walking over to the girl―tears streaming down her cheeks as she hunched over the body of the male, coughing and spluttering blood with his eyes closed eighty percent of the way and clutching at his seemingly broken ribs―I stopped just before her.

"H-huh...?"

Reaching a hand down to her, I offered two small glass vials, a bright red liquid contained within each.

"Oh! Th-thank you! Thank you so much...!"

"It's not much. Better than nothing."

Hearing the bizarre, modulated voice that exited my mouth, I was almost taken aback by how incredibly distorted I sounded, before belatedly realising that it was simply a part of the Vizard's Recognition Disruption.

In any case, in the following moment, the girl bowed her head and gingerly took the vials from my hand, evidently anxious, and immediately turned back to her companion on the ground.

The two healing potions were only of Lesser quality, but in the end, I came to the conclusion that if I simply did nothing, I would probably reflect back on it later with regret.

Now that I was finally in a position to save myself from such fates, I thought I should take those opportunities whenever possible.

To prevent that kind of regret was why I warned Ella to stay away from the Tower, and it was also why...

'...No, nevermind. Anyway, it's fine. I still have 6 Lesser-quality potions left; that's more than enough.'

Considering that the efficacy of Lesser potions was far inferior to Standard ones, I was saving a hell of a lot even by giving away two of them, and at the same time, they were practically useless for me in comparison.

"C-cough, cough...!"

Splatter-!

Watching the girl carefully feed her party member the potions, bringing the vials to his lips and helping him drink them individually, his lungs seemed to quickly jump to life, coughing, spluttering blood, and wheezing for air.

"Max!"

Her expression brightening at his―albeit only slightly―reinvigorated self, she dove down to embrace him, something I felt probably should have been postponed for a more suitable time.

'Shouldn't you wait until you get out of the dungeon first...?'

I could understand why she might have been emotional, but really... We were still in the boss room at this very second, you know?

My gaze lingering on the two for just a moment, I turned around to continue when―

"Ah, w-wait...!"

―All of a sudden, the girl's voice called out again from behind.

Rotating halfway to face her, she appeared to instantly freeze up, perhaps a natural result of my intimidating look.

After that, with some clear struggle, she barely managed to stammer out a string of comprehensible words.

"I-I-I'm sorry... C-could you... That is... Would you please e-escort us to the exit? We'll pay you back, I promise! Just, w-we need to get back to the Hub Floor as soon as possible, so..."

The girl's sentence tapered off at the end, but I got the gist of what she was trying to say.

Really, I wouldn't lose anything from them merely following me to the exit.

Now that the boss was already dead, it probably wasn't that far anyway, and I doubted there'd be much danger either way, whether in the form of traps or monsters.

And so, glancing at the young lady's brightly sparkling eyes, her hands grasped together tightly as if pleading, I responded simply.

"You may follow."

At that moment, her face lit up like the sun.

"Really?! Thank you! Thank you thank you, thank you so much! I swear on everything, we'll definitely repay you the moment we get back!"

Seeing someone act so grateful towards me honestly only made me feel awkward. I didn't know how to respond, so I simply ignored her; turning back to where the corpse of the beast was lying, I started walking to the end of the room, where a huge reinforced door was located.

'It's really a good thing I'm wearing this mask...'