I Was Reincarnated as a Mob Noble, and I Swear I'll Protect the Villainess Who Got Married Off to Me No Matter What ~To Dodge Our Total Downfall, I Went All Out Training My Trash Skill [Super Recovery] Through Crazy Hard Work, and Before I Knew It, I Could Totally Wreck the Game Protagonist Who Condemned My Wife Easily - Chapter 14-15

Chapter 14: Breaking Through an S-Rank Monster’s Deadly Magic with [Super Recovery]

For a split second, I thought, like, can I really beat a monster like this? But nah, I can take this thing down.

No, I’ve gotta take it down. No question. Because…

“Valeria ended up half-dead because of you, didn’t she!?”

“Kyaa!?”

Still holding Valeria tight, I leaped off the bed.

Right where we’d been lying, the Soul Eater’s huge scythe slammed down and split the bed clean in two.

Finally it clicked.

This Soul Eater had possessed Valeria without her noticing and had been secretly draining her life force little by little.

Probably on Saintess Alicia’s orders—to make Valeria suffer and keep her one step away from death whenever they wanted.

Rage boiled up inside me as I yanked my sword free and got ready.

“How dare you hurt me this badly… What was that magic just now!? No—never mind, it doesn’t matter!”

The Soul Eater trembled with shock as it raised the scythe high again.

“You and that little brat—die together!”

“Zenon!?”

Still cradling Valeria in my right arm, I dodged the attack.

The scythe carved straight through the bookshelf and part of the wall behind it.

Insane power. And yet… weirdly enough, I didn’t feel that scared.

…More than that, I could feel this ridiculous surge of strength flooding through every inch of my body.

Ohhh, so that’s why I’m staying so calm right now?

The Soul Eater kept swinging that massive scythe nonstop. Every swing shredded more of the walls and furniture into ribbons.

But I dodged every single one.

Its attacks were all huge, wide swings—super easy to read.

Thanks to all the training I got from Sword Demon Felix, there’s no way I’d miss seeing something like this coming.

Still… carrying Valeria in one arm and moving like this? The old me could never have pulled it off.

“Oh… that’s it…!”

My [Super Recovery]—is a skill that doesn’t just heal wounds. It rebuilds the damaged body into something even tougher and stronger.

My right shoulder that Gawain sliced yesterday? The power in it is clearly way higher now. That’s why holding Valeria doesn’t even feel heavy anymore.

My lungs and heart that kept making me cough up blood? They’re stronger too. Stamina and athletic ability both shot up.

I was probably in such terrible shape yesterday because of magic depletion sickness. No wonder I couldn’t bring out this kind of strength back then.

“This is all thanks to Valeria!”

She poured magic into me all night long and finally fixed my messed-up condition. Because of that, my body’s full power is coming out without holding anything back.

“Why can’t I hit you!?”

The Soul Eater started getting visibly rattled.

“Amazing… That’s my sword-saint candidate for you!”

Valeria let out an excited cheer.

She clung to me even tighter so she wouldn’t get shaken off.

Only now did I really notice how soft her body felt, and yeah, it threw me off for a second, but I shook those distracting thoughts away and focused.

“You shouldn’t even have a combat skill! And yet those movements…!”

The Soul Eater sounded confused, but I’m not nice enough to explain the true power of [Super Recovery] to it.

I need to keep my ability secret so it doesn’t leak to the [Necromancer] controlling this thing or to Saintess Alicia.

Luckily I never told Valeria the full story—that Super Recovery actually makes an injured body stronger than before.

“Stop scurrying around—[Hellfire Barrage]!”

A bunch of black fireballs appeared around the Soul Eater.

Cursed flames that eat away at anything physical.

Just the tiniest graze from one of those black orbs turned part of a pillar into dust, and the whole thing crumbled.

Oh crap…!

“There’s no dodging this one, is there!?”

[Hellfire Barrage] is a homing magic. Dodging doesn’t mean squat.

The Soul Eater laughed mockingly, sure of its victory.

With a wave of its hand, baseball-sized black fireballs came rushing straight at us.

“Kh—barrier…!”

Valeria instantly threw up a defensive spell.

A glowing, semi-transparent wall wrapped around us.

But there’s no way it could fully block an S-rank monster’s attack magic. So then…

“Valeria, I’m borrowing your magic again!”

“Huh!?”

I pulled her close, covering her completely with my body to shield her.

“…Got it!”

She instantly understood what I wanted and poured a huge rush of magic through our joined hands.

Right away, several of those cursed flames punched straight through the barrier and slammed into me.

“Heal! Heal! Heal!”

My flesh evaporated. Huge holes opened all over my body.

Shit, this is bad—my vision went red and black, the pain so intense I couldn’t even think straight.

The [Hellfire Barrage] kept trying to devour and destroy me while Heal fought to regenerate everything.

Thanks to the nonstop magic supply from Valeria, I could spam Heal without stopping.

My consciousness started fading, but Heal finally won out. Every wound closed up completely.

“N-no way… That’s [Miracle of Healing]!? I thought it was just a fairy tale, and yet someone like you—!?”

The Soul Eater stared in utter disbelief.

“And… stronger than Her Saintess’s power!?”

—

Chapter 15: Spotting the Mastermind with Game Knowledge, Setting a Trap, and Getting Valeria Super Impressed

“Y-you just pulled off something insanely reckless again…!”

All that pushing myself paid off—Valeria was totally fine.

I didn’t let a single hit land on her.

She’d been suffering for so long already. I didn’t want her going through any more pain.

“I’m good. Thanks to you, Valeria, I’m feeling freaking amazing right now!”

I yelled it extra loud on purpose so she’d stop worrying.

“I’m gonna protect you, Valeria—no matter what!”

“You…!?”

The Soul Eater flinched back like it got spooked.

From the outside, it probably looked like I’d fully recovered.

“Hit me with whatever you got. Your attacks? I’ll cancel ’em out in a second!”

Truth was, I still felt a little dizzy and light-headed from the blood loss, but no way was I showing any weakness like that.

Looks like even Heal can’t instantly replace lost blood or something.

So yeah, if this thing spams that homing [Hellfire Barrage] again, it’s gonna be a real pain.

“H-hey, don’t get cocky! Some half-baked amateur who can’t even cast proper magic on his own!”

The Soul Eater swung its huge scythe down again.

It didn’t go for the MP-heavy [Hellfire Barrage] this time—looked like it was testing my skill with normal attacks instead.

To show I was still in top shape, I put every ounce of strength into parrying the scythe.

“You… are you really human!?”

It seemed seriously shocked that it lost in raw power to me.

Thanks to coming back from being full of holes, my body had been rebuilt even tougher than before.

“…I got something I wanna ask you.”

I ignored its question and threw one back at it instead.

There was something I absolutely had to confirm before finishing this thing off—something I needed its master to hear.

Monsters controlled by a human’s skill share part of their mind with their owner. Anything they see or hear gets passed along.

I was gonna use this Soul Eater as a messenger.

“The one who ordered Valeria killed—the real mastermind behind it all—is the Holy Church, right!?”

“…What are you talking about?”

The Soul Eater’s body shook just a tiny bit with agitation, and its attacks stopped for a second.

That reaction pretty much confirmed it.

“The Holy Church is the mastermind?”

“Yeah. Saintess Alicia had a group following her with their faces hidden by masks, didn’t she?”

“That’s right. So yeah, there’s definitely some big organization behind her, but…”

Valeria looked doubtful.

“The group that gains the most from getting rid of Valeria is the Holy Church—the same one that runs the orphanage Alicia came from. And right after they exiled Valeria, the crown prince made a huge donation to that orphanage on Alicia’s suggestion.”

“Ah…”

Valeria’s voice jumped like something clicked.

Alicia had kept pushing the crown prince to support the orphanage over and over. And the amounts were no joke.

“Wanna hear how the rest plays out? This kicks off the Holy Church getting official royal approval. From there, their influence inside the kingdom skyrockets.”

“…But just that isn’t enough to say the Holy Church is definitely the mastermind.”

Valeria still couldn’t believe it.

The Holy Church was this rising new religion that was basically taking over the world.

On the surface they did charity stuff like running orphanages.

Except the real goal was training those kids—picking out the talented ones to turn into assassins, operatives, or holy knights under their control.

“The Holy Church has a secret assassination squad for getting rid of anyone who’s inconvenient. And leading it is a top-tier [Necromancer] who commands S-rank undead.”

“Eh?”

“What…?”

In the actual game, the Holy Church was the true big bad—scheming to control the world from the shadows, clashing with Saintess Alicia, and eventually getting their plans crushed.

But what if Alicia really was the ambitious, scheming backstabber Valeria said she was?

Maybe in the late game, after successfully getting engaged to the crown prince, Alicia just cut the Holy Church loose once they weren’t useful anymore.

People obsessed with power hate being controlled or ordered around.

This was probably the real truth the game never showed…

It was hard for me to accept—I used to be a huge Alicia fan—but when I thought about it like this, everything lined up.

All those convenient events happening only for Alicia weren’t because of protagonist buffs. They happened because the Holy Church was pulling strings behind the scenes.

“H-how do you even know all this stuff?”

Valeria’s question made total sense, but I just ignored it and kept going.

The Soul Eater seemed curious about how much I actually knew too, so it stayed quiet and listened.

“The Holy Church used a [Necromancer] to stage the assassination attempt on the crown prince, then pinned the blame on Valeria. They wanted their puppet Saintess Alicia to become queen—so they tried to kill Valeria. That’s the truth!”

I pointed my sword right at the Soul Eater to provoke its master.

“So here’s the simple version. We catch your master and anyone else from the Holy Church involved in this, make ’em talk, and boom—we can take down Saintess Alicia and the whole church in one go! National treason carries a heavy sentence, y’know?”

“Hmm…? Interesting fantasy. But how exactly? No way you could pull something like that off.”

Yes—its master took the bait.

The next line was the real hook. If I dropped this, I could lure the master right into the trap.

“I’ll send a letter to the Asphodel Duke asking for his help. I’ve got a pretty good idea who your master is and where they’re hiding. In less than a month, they’ll be rotting in a cell.”

“Wh-what did you say…?”

The Soul Eater looked completely stunned.

“…If—if that actually happens, I could clear my name! Father would be so happy!”

Valeria started trembling with excitement in my arms.

“Ahh, if I could just borrow Father’s personal communication mage, we could wrap this up way faster… but we’re in the middle of a war right now.”

“Thank you, Zenon. This is more than enough. Coming to this place and meeting you… I’m really, really glad.”

Those words hit me like a wave—my whole body suddenly felt hot.

Wait, what? She’s basically confessing or something again, isn’t she?

I almost got all giddy, but we were still in a life-or-death fight, so I snapped myself back to focus real quick.

“This thing trying to kill Valeria is solid proof for my claim. At the very least, it proves there was another suspect using undead to try and assassinate the crown prince—so Valeria should be cleared!”

And if Valeria and I could beat back the empire army together on top of that, it’d be perfect.

Then even the king and crown prince would have no choice but to listen to us.

“I’m never letting anyone call you a wicked woman again, Valeria!”

“You… you bastard…!”

The Soul Eater shook with rage and raised its scythe in pure hatred.

“Zenon, you’ve got some insane information network even though you’re stuck out here in the borderlands? That’s amazing!”