The Devil Does Not Need to Be Defeated

Chapter 429: Diere’s Revelation

The conversation with Harvis ended there.

Afterward, Shien decisively turned and left, parting ways with Harvis.

They had only established a preliminary cooperative relationship. Whether they would continue to cooperate depended on the outcome of the assassins sent by the Raifurut family.

In any case, when Shien learned that they were targeting Diere and intended to take her life, he no longer planned to let them go.

After all, he didn’t want to be a protagonist who passively waited for events to unfold and then dealt with them.

As long as he confirmed that the other party was an enemy and posed a threat, he would eliminate them directly.

Otherwise, it would be a waste of his almost invincible cheat abilities.

With this thought, Shien returned to the royal capital unnoticed. After some consideration, he reluctantly chose to go home.

“If I go to the palace to see Lucy now, my impure motives might be exposed…”

Entering the princess’s bedroom in the middle of the night, if that wasn’t an impure motive, then what was?

Therefore, Shien reluctantly returned to the Buztout mansion.

“Hmm?”

As soon as he entered the gate, before even reaching the mansion, Shien sensed something unusual and turned his head, looking towards the side of the garden.

There, a figure appeared.

“Diere?”

Shien was slightly taken aback, surprised.

It was Diere, whom Shien and Harvis had just been talking about.

At this moment, Diere was holding a sharp blade, concentrating and gathering magic power.

“Hum…”

The air trembled slightly, and ripples of magic power spread, converging on the blade in Diere’s hand, forming a red magic blade.

It was the [Magic Sword] skill.

“Practicing using [Magic Sword]?”

Shien immediately recognized what Diere was doing.

From Diere’s actions, it seemed she was trying to find a better way to use [Magic Sword].

Shien took a closer look and was surprised to find that Diere’s [Magic Sword] skill had already reached level five.

Even Diere’s own level had risen to sixty-six.

“She’s grown again?” Shien muttered to himself in surprise. “This speed, isn’t it a bit too fast?”

It shouldn’t have been long since the Atlus Gorge incident.

At that time, Diere’s level had just barely broken through to sixty, and now it had already risen to sixty-six. Her growth rate was almost catching up to his own when he wasn’t seriously training.

After thinking about it, Shien walked towards Diere.

“Swish!”

The moment Shien arrived behind Diere, she suddenly turned around, the [Magic Sword] in her hand like a red lightning bolt cutting through the night sky, slashing towards Shien with a sharp whistling sound.

“Clang!”

Shien, without hesitation, reached out and caught the incoming [Magic Sword] blade with his bare hand, the magic blade clanging against his palm as if striking steel.

The sharp [Magic Sword] continued to cut into Shien’s palm, trying to sever it.

Unfortunately, against Shien, who possessed both the maxed-out [Physical Resistance] and [Magic Resistance] skills, a mere level five [Magic Sword] couldn’t even cut his skin.

“Seriously, such strong killing intent?”

Shien looked at the magic blade cutting into his hand and said, a bit speechless.

“It’s you?”

Diere seemed to finally react, abruptly canceling the [Magic Sword]’s power, the red magic light on the blade dissipating.

“What? Did I scare you?”

Shien looked at Diere with a smirk.

“You did scare me.” Diere looked at Shien and said, unusually annoyed, “Being able to catch a [Magic Sword] strike barehanded, if word gets out, not only me, but everyone will be scared to death.”

Saying so, Diere removed her cloak and sheathed the blade in her hand.

Shien looked at this scene, then spoke after a moment.

“Your strength seems to be growing quite quickly.”

“Yes.” Diere seemed self-aware and didn’t deny it, nodding. “In the royal capital, both the difficulty of the missions and the levels of the monsters we need to subjugate are much higher than in Larmigion. After choosing to develop in the capital, everyone in the squad’s strength has been growing rapidly, including mine.”

According to Diere, the strength of everyone in Vivian’s squad had greatly improved after coming to the capital.

For example, Vivian was already preparing to break through to level sixty, and Lumia and Melika were also preparing to break through to level fifty. Everyone’s strength was growing, much faster than when they were in Larmigion.

“You’re also about to break through, right?”

Diere looked at Shien scrutinizingly.

“Well, sort of.”

Shien touched his nose.

When he left the capital, his level was fifty-five. During the battle in Cosmos, after fighting against the rampaging Lilith, although he didn’t defeat her, he gained valuable combat experience from fully experiencing the world’s highest level of power.

Therefore, his level had unconsciously reached fifty-nine, just like Diere before, reaching the threshold of a breakthrough, just one step away from level sixty.

In other words, Shien was about to overcome his weakness of having a low level.

Even though he still couldn’t compare to those truly high-level experts, Shien was no longer the newbie who had just joined Vivian’s squad.

Back then, he was only level ten.

Now, his level had surpassed Lumia and Melika, even reaching Vivian’s level, and was about to catch up to Diere.

Diere had been stuck at this stage for a while, so she almost instinctively sensed Shien’s current situation.

“As expected of the Hero.”

Diere commented.

Shien chuckled, feeling somewhat grateful.

Because he knew that Diere must have some doubts in her heart.

How long had it been since Shien joined Vivian’s squad?

It had only been about three months, right?

In three months, he had gone from level eleven to almost level sixty. Such an astonishing growth rate, even for a Hero, was a bit too much.

Therefore, Diere might have already realized that Shien had something that allowed him to grow rapidly.

However, Diere chose not to pry.

She probably thought this secret was very important to Shien, so she deliberately chose to ignore it.

Shien understood the level of trust this represented.

“It’s so late, and you’re still training here?” Shien suppressed his gratitude and said, “You’re already growing fast enough. There’s no need to rush.”

Diere shook her head.

“This isn’t enough.” Diere said calmly, “At this level, I can’t even make that man bat an eye, let alone surpass him.”

The person Diere was referring to was naturally Aldia.

Surpassing Aldia was Diere’s goal, even her wish.

“You seem to care about him quite a bit.” Shien said casually, “Do you want me to beat him up for you?”

“That’s meaningless.” Diere said indifferently. “It’s not that I don’t believe you can do it. You probably can, but even if you beat him up, he probably wouldn’t feel anything. It’s better to not do it at all.”

Diere’s words sounded a bit obsessive to Shien.

“Actually, I had a brief encounter with him after returning this time.” Shien pondered for a moment, then said, “I think he might not be as emotionless as you think.”

Shien wasn’t speaking up for Aldia.

After interacting with Aldia, Shien did discover that although the rigid knight’s emotions were very subdued, he wasn’t completely emotionless.

He cared about Shien’s strength and expressed his desire to fight him.

He also cared about Shien’s words. After hearing Shien mention Diere, he also said, “No matter what, she has the blood of my Elvenbein family flowing through her veins. She did in the past, she does now, and she always will.”

Shien didn’t know what Aldia was thinking when he said these words.

But he was certain that Aldia was indeed paying attention to Diere, not treating her like she didn’t exist, as Diere said.

However…

“Do you think I’m wrong?”

Diere seemed to frown.

“I didn’t say that.”

Shien raised his hands in surrender.

Diere’s tone was filled with displeasure, telling Shien that she was in a bad mood.

It couldn’t be helped.

If someone else said these things to Diere, she would simply ignore them.

But when Shien said this, Diere couldn’t pretend she didn’t hear it.

The reason was simple.

“You are someone I acknowledge, someone I’ve entrusted everything to.” Diere looked directly at Shien and said seriously, “Others can acknowledge that man’s actions, but you can’t.”

Shien was speechless.

He knew what Diere meant.

Diere was saying that if even he, whom she had entrusted everything to, acknowledged Aldia, then her denial of Aldia would become a joke.

Of course, Shien didn’t truly acknowledge Aldia.

“I just said he’s not as heartless as you think.” Shien said, “But what he did to you in the past was wrong, and I won’t just gloss over it.”

That was it.

“That’s good.” Diere’s expression relaxed. “Don’t worry, I’ll surpass him soon.”

Diere didn’t say these words with absolute confidence, but with a determined momentum, as if she wouldn’t give up until she achieved her goal.

This wasn’t something Diere wanted to do, but something she had to do.

Shien wanted to say something more, but gave up.

Seeing Diere training so hard for such an intangible goal, Shien felt somewhat heartbroken.

(She clearly wants to be acknowledged, working hard and even risking everything for it, but there’s still someone targeting her in secret…)

Thinking of the Raifurut family, Shien couldn’t help but ask,

“You haven’t encountered anything strange recently, have you?”

Shien’s words made Diere frown slightly.

“Strange things…” Diere murmured, then said, “Not really, no.”

“What?” Shien’s spirits lifted, and he asked quickly, “What strange things have you encountered?”

Diere’s answer to this question was,

“It’s Vivian and the others.” Diere said frankly, “Recently, they’ve been taking me on random missions, as if they’re hiding something from me.”

“I-is that so?” Shien chuckled dryly.

This was undoubtedly because Vivian didn’t want Diere to encounter the Raifurut family.

Diere seemed to have noticed something, but she didn’t say it.

Although this girl was usually silent, her mind was sometimes surprisingly sharp, and her intuition was also keen. Many times, when others were still figuring things out, she had already found the pattern, one step ahead of everyone, just not saying it out loud.

(After all, she’s like Lucy, a lucky one blessed by the Goddess of Fate. It’s normal for her intuition to be sharp.)

Shien thought.

And this thought was immediately confirmed.

“Also, I feel like something is about to happen.” Diere murmured. “As if some evil being is targeting me, making me feel uneasy.”

These words made Shien fall silent.

And this silence made Diere sense something again.

“Are you also hiding something from me?”

Diere stared intently at Shien, making him feel a little guilty.

“…It seems I really need to become stronger quickly.” Diere seemed to understand something. After a moment of silence, she said, “Otherwise, always being protected by others, that feeling isn’t good.”

In the past, Diere had always been protected by Vivian, Lucy, and Relia.

Now, Diere probably also felt that she was being protected by Shien.

This definitely wasn’t what she wanted to see.

She wanted to entrust everything to Shien, let him guide her growth, not be protected by him and live in a greenhouse.

“Um…”

Sensing Diere’s emotions, Shien wanted to say something.

But before that, Diere had already stepped forward and pulled his hand, heading towards the mansion.

“Wh-what’s wrong?”

Shien asked hurriedly.

Diere simply replied calmly,

“Let’s take a bath.”

These words, which would normally make Shien ecstatic, now made him tremble.

He knew that Diere was planning to use some method to get him to talk.

…Could he withstand it?

For the first time, Shien had no confidence in his abilities.