Revenge On Lilium

――S-Rank Dungeon【Crimson Night Moon】, Floor 17.

One member of the Hero party, the Mage Lilium, had been cornered in a dead end by a horde of monsters and stood in a desperate situation.

“Ugh, come on! Where is everyone~!!【Thunder Shot】!”

“Gugyaa!?”

The Shadow I had sent at them had been scattered when the Hero party used a teleportation stone.

Back against the wall, she was annihilating the horde with her specialty thunder magic.

“Hah! Hah! My MP’s about to run out… th-this is the last MP potion…!”

The monsters attacking Lilium were goblins, their bodies pitch-black like shadows, with only their eyes flickering like red flames.

They were somewhat stronger than ordinary goblins.

But the black goblin horde was highly organized and, unafraid of death, charged at Lilium at full speed like a locust swarm sweeping across the continent.

“Ah—! My MP’s gonna run out! Sylvan! Garen! Ruru! Where are you!? This is bad!【Thunder Shot】!!”

“Gugya!?”

With the magical amplification of the Thunder Ash Staff “Aron” sent by the Holy Church, wiping out a goblin with a single strike was easy.

But there were too many of them.

Even though she had already slain a hundred, there was no sign of their numbers diminishing.

It felt as if new monsters were being born the moment she felled one.

“【Thunder Shot】【Thunder Shot】【Thunder Shot】!!”

Cornered against the wall, there was no way out.

At the same time, a tide of goblins so great it wasn’t easy to carve a path through pressed in.

Her MP kept draining, and she had no MP potions left in reserve.

It wasn’t hard to imagine the fate of a solo mage with no MP, watching the goblins attack with murderous intent.

“No… my MP’s running out…【Thunder Shot】!”

With no way to change the situation, Lilium was being crushed by mental anxiety as her MP steadily dwindled.

Tears brimmed in her eyes as if they might spill, and her remaining MP was nearly gone.

“Hah… hah… Huh? The goblins… they’re gone…? Did I… defeat them all?”

At the moment her MP hit bottom, the goblin horde vanished completely.

Relief softened Lilium’s face; her legs gave out and she slid down the wall to sit, her back scraping along it.

――Clack, clack, clack.

Footsteps.

The sound of boots striking the floor.

Not a monster.

They approached.

“Is it Sylvan!? Or Garen? Ruru?”

Hope appeared on Lilium’s face at the approaching footsteps.

But when she saw a black-haired, black-eyed adventurer step out from around the corner, her hope turned to disappointment.

“Y-you are…!?”

“Hey there, your favorite cup isn’t shattered, is it? Lilium.”

＊＊＊

Of course, it was my doing that had lured Lilium into the dead end and sent a swarm of goblin Shadows at her.

No matter how many Shadows Lilium destroyed, countless monsters were stocked within my shadow, forcing her to expend MP.

Watching, through the eyes of the Shadow, the brat pleading anxiously for her companions and slowly sinking into despair as her MP dwindled was utterly comical.

Seeing the scum who had despised, tormented, and abandoned me suffer despair, their usual haughty demeanor dissolved, was a perfect little entertainment to ease years of pent-up resentment.

“Could those black goblins be your doing!?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

I summoned new goblins from the shadows.

“Like this—I can turn the monsters I defeat into shadows and control them.”

“Wh-why are you attacking us!? We’re fellow adventurers, aren’t we!?”

Lilium chastised me in a piercing, grating voice.

“Fellow adventurers—huh? You sure have a nerve, considering you didn’t even think of me as the same kind of person.”

“Wh-what do you mean…? Are you mad because I tried to steal Windine’s drop at【Blue Orchid Lake】? You won in the end, so you shouldn’t hold a grudge! Besides, because of you Garen lost an eye and an arm, and I was humiliated!”

“You still don’t get it—well, of course you wouldn’t. I’ve grown taller, my voice changed, my face barely resembles the old one. I was the slave who lugged your baggage for your hero party—Sid Ranorus.”

Hearing my true identity, Lilium’s face turned to shock.

The slave they had left behind had appeared where he was abandoned.

“Re-really… Sid the slave? And you even know about my cup, so it’s true…”

The bit about her favorite cup from earlier.

That was a method Lilium often used as a pretext to punish me.

She’d deliberately give me fragile ceramic cups, and if the slightest crack appeared she’d punish me by tightening the slave collar.

Lilium seemed convinced the man before her was the real Sid Ranorus.

“S-so what are you going to do to me? Have you come for revenge!? But it couldn’t be helped! In that situation there was no escape from the Minotaur unless someone made a sacrifice! Someone had to be the victim! Of course you sacrifice a slave instead of a comrade, right!?”

“That’s convenient for you. And was it okay for you to needlessly torment me all that time?”

“Damn it! What the hell is wrong with you! You got a little stronger and now you act all high and mighty! You couldn’t win alone so you sent monsters! If I had MP I’d wipe you out easy! You’re trash and so cocky! Trash! Trash! Trash! Trash! Trash! Tr~ash ❤”

The brat kept chanting ‘trash’ as if to convince herself I was beneath her.

Perhaps she resented being put in her place by a former slave; she seemed entirely consumed with protecting her pride.

“I’d kill you right now if I could, but if you die thinking I used dirty tricks because I can’t beat you, I won’t enjoy it—so I’ll give you one last chance. Unleash your full strike. I won’t dodge it; I’ll take it.”

I pulled an MP potion from Vanargand’s extradimensional storage and tossed it to Lilium.

Lilium snatched the bottle that rolled at her feet like a starving child and gulped it down.

“Gulp gulp gulp… pwaaah! You are—so dumb~ ❤ Offering an MP potion to a Mage ❤ Did my taunt work on you? Heh heh ❤ Man, that helped, your brain’s trash too. The Shikai Tribe really are stupid~ ❤”

Like a fish given water, Lilium grew cocky and taunted.

She seemed extremely confident in her full-power strike.

“The goblin swarm was a pain, but if I kill you the problem’s solved, right? As promised, don’t dodge it!”

Lilium raised her staff topped with a large Magic Stone and poured in her mana.

“With the Thunder Ash Staff “Aron” amplifying the destructive force—there’s no way my genius-Mage magic can’t withstand it ❤ I’ll turn you to coal without even ashes left ❤ E-ra-di-cate ❤ It’s a shame I won’t get to see your stupid face going ‘waaah, this wasn’t supposed to happen~’ in regret ❤”

The light gathered in the staff’s Magic Stone reached its peak and crackled with discharge――――it came.

“Just die already ❤【Thunder of Judgment 】❤❤❤”