What If the Strongest Villain from the Original Story Became the Protagonist's Ally? - Chapter 55 - Defeat, and Strategy

Jack, one of the named characters from the original story, suddenly appeared before me.

After I beat up that Jack, this time I had him stolen away by unfamiliar clowns who claimed to be his comrades.

Who were those guys? There were many things I wanted to know, but for now I prioritized returning to Iris’s side.

“If I stayed away too long, Iris would worry.”

I chuckled softly and turned on my heel. With the setting sun at my back, I headed home.

▼△▼

Around the time Yuguram returned to the royal palace.

Jack’s group, who had fled from Yuguram, were all sitting down in a corner of the back alleys.

“Hah… hah… I-I’m tired…”

The dress-wearing girl repeated ragged breathing with an agonized expression.

“What was with that masked person! He was ridiculously too strong!?”

“To think the strength that defeated Jack was still him holding back… even if all of us attacked together, we’d last maybe 10 seconds.”

“Aira is even unconscious with rolled-back eyes… wasn’t she the one with the highest defense among us?”

“He’s the type who can penetrate Aira’s handmade armor and deal damage. If we took a hit, we might die instantly.”

“Impossible, impossible! It’s way too sick!”

“Ugh,” Miki felt nauseous at the gorilla-faced man’s words.

There was such a gap in ability between Yuguram and themselves that they never wanted to fight again.

Precisely because they were skilled, they all understood this.

But—

“Hehe. But what do we do? That mask is related to royalty, right? Right?”

“That’s right… to steal that item, we have to infiltrate the treasure vault said to be in the depths of the royal palace. If we infiltrate, we’ll definitely end up fighting him again.”

“Miki would absolutely like to pass on that. Next time we meet, we’ll definitely be killed, you know?”

To achieve their goal, Yuguram would inevitably be in the way.

No matter how strong the opponent was, they needed a certain item.

“Even knowing we’ll be killed, we have no choice but to fight. We’ll sacrifice someone to go steal that item.”

“Then Miki will be on recovery duty! I absolutely don’t want to die!”

“We weren’t expecting simple combat ability from you anyway. What’s important is buying even one second of time. Of course I can’t die since I’m the leader, but…”

“Then leave it to this guy. That would be good.”

The scrawny man pointed at Jack, who was lying in front of them. Seeing that, the gorilla-faced man grinned.

“I see… certainly, even if we lose this guy, he’s not really our comrade. He’d probably want to fight that man anyway.”

“Eh? Miki thinks it’s absolutely impossible, you know? Jack-san will run away.”

“We’ll just say something appropriate and send him at him. I’ll think of the content, so don’t you guys say anything stupid, okay?”

“Roger~”

Answering curtly, Miki carried the full plate woman called Aira, and the gorilla-faced man carried Jack as they began walking back toward their hideout.

In their heads, their strategy had already shifted from targeting Iris to how they should deal with Yuguram.

▼△▼

“Ah, Yuu-san! You’re late. Welcome back.”

I passed through the royal palace’s main gate and headed toward the courtyard. There, Iris was already sparring with Nana.

When she spotted me too, she waved and called out.

“Hey, Iris. I’m back. Sorry for keeping you waiting.”

“Not at all. Nana kept me company.”

“V!”

Nana, drenched in sweat, stood next to Iris.

Nana’s ability couldn’t be said to reach Iris’s level, to put it charitably. It would be more accurate to say that Iris had helped Nana out.

“Good girl, Nana. Iris is sadistic so you must be tired, right? I’ll take over, so you can rest.”

“Who’s sadistic? I’ll kill you.”

Iris peered into my face with eyes that had lost their highlights. Please stop with that scary face.

“J-just kidding, right? More importantly, I’m your opponent next. Show me that magical power compression I taught you before in actual combat with that wooden sword.”

“Is that okay? The current me is stronger than the previous me, you know?”

“I’d like you to say that kind of thing after making me struggle even once.”

“Then, without holding back!”

Grinning, Iris absorbed the surrounding magical power.

With the current Iris who had learned magical power compression, depending on how she fought—if she used spirit magic, she could probably defeat monsters like the one from that time. But even so, she fell far short of me.

I had to properly teach her that she was 100 years too early to defeat the final boss.

I also drew magical power from within my body—from my magic core—and wrapped my wooden sword in magical power.

Iris concentrated on compressing magical power for a while, then ran toward me while controlling her increased magical power amount.

In response, I simply met her attack with my wooden sword wrapped in magical power.