The Uninvited Visitor
“Riena! What the hell are you doing here!?”
I shouted at the girl with all my might.
“Eh!? That voice—Hero-sama!? Thank goodness! We finally met! Praise be to the guidance of Goddess Athena!”
Riena spun around at the sound of my voice.
“Hey, idiot! Don’t take your eyes off the enemy in the middle of a fight!”
GRRRUUAAAHHHHH!!
“Ah!?”
The moment Riena let her guard down, the King Wolf lunged at her without mercy!
(You bastard—not on my watch!)
“O Goddess Athena, grant me the power of the Hero to banish this evil—[Goddess Breath]!”
As I invoked the sacred words, a surge of immense power—wielded only by a true Hero—coursed through my body like lightning.
“Get down, Riena! HAAAHHHHH!!!”
“Y-Yes!”
With a burst of speed far beyond anything I’d ever pulled off at the school sports festival, I shot forward like a bullet, closing the gap in a flash to wedge myself between Riena and the King Wolf.
“Unleashing sacred light—[Sacred Impact]!”
I channeled all that momentum into a punishing right straight aimed squarely at the beast.
My fist, wrapped in a shimmering halo of silvery holy light, let out a roar as it connected with the King Wolf’s chest—and with a blinding flash, exploded.
GUGYAAAAARRRGGHHHH!!
The beast’s death cry split the air—and when the light faded, the King Wolf was gone, without a trace.
Sacred Light Release—[Sacred Impact].
A Hero’s ultimate technique, it fuses divine energy from Goddess Athena with overwhelming physical force, purifying evil from the inside out until it vanishes without a shadow.
Normally, it’s meant to be unleashed with the sacred sword Strelka in hand, but even bare-fisted, it’s one hell of a dependable finishing move.
“Are you okay, Riena?”
She’d crouched low just as I told her, making herself small to stay out of the way. I reached down and pulled her up by the hand.
“Yes, thank you so much, Hero-sama! You saved me once again.”
“Don’t mention it. Combat’s my specialty, after all. But more importantly—what are you doing in this world? I thought you stayed behind in the other world, Orphermaus.”
“Well, actually—”
Just as Riena began to explain, we suddenly heard police sirens in the distance.
“Over here! Under the bridge—a giant wolf, like a bear, was attacking a girl! Please, hurry!”
“Damn, it’s the police.”
“The police… what’s that?”
“We’ll have to talk later, Riena. The police—uh, the guards of this world—are coming. If they find us, it’ll be a real hassle. We need to get out of here, fast.”
“U-Understood…!”
I grabbed Riena’s hand and bolted in the opposite direction of the approaching sirens.
And before long—
“Um, Hero-sama. There’s an inn nearby I’ve been using as a base. May I suggest we talk there? If possible, somewhere private.”
Riena’s suggestion seemed like a good one, and I decided to go along with it.
I didn’t exactly want to discuss otherworldly stuff out in the open, either.
If someone overheard me seriously talking about magic beasts and other worlds, they’d probably think I was completely off my rocker.
At best, they’d write me off as a severe case of chuunibyou.
Either way, not ideal.
“Alright. Can you take me to the inn you’re staying at, Riena?”
“Yes, it’s this way.”
I followed Riena toward the inn she’d made her base—