Antagonist Protection Service

John Pierce was undeniably killed, and yet, he had been reborn anew.

Not giving this uncomfortable truth time to settle, the masked figure blurred.

"Heup-!"

As the enemy advanced forth, turning the razor-sharp edge of the blade towards his face, John Pierce held his breath and swiftly rotated his body, letting sheer death brush inches past him and through where his head was just now positioned.

Taking advantage of that gained time to gain distance, he opened his mouth, strangely enough with a grin.

"Phew! Haha, hey, you're a fast one, aint'cha! ...I don't know what you did that caught me off guard last time, but I can promise it won't happen again."

"..."

Opposite him, the masked figure only stilled, arm and blade outstretched, red eyes coldly meeting his own without so much as uttering a sound.

His words seemed to hold no real weight to them, and it was indisputable that he had indeed already died once to this opponent. Even if he spoke casually, he couldn't afford to be careless. John Pierce knew that himself.

Particularly, that sword... He didn't know what it was, or why or how, but it contained something especially bad.

What would happen if that frankly evil-looking thing caught him... there was no question.

'Don't want to be turned into John Pierced now, do I... again.'

"...Okay buddy. You did well. You can rest now."

Keeping his eyes pinned on the opponent, he leaned his head down and muttered. The subject in his arms, an enervated crimson bird, flickered its fiery eyes to gaze weakly up at him, before having its body catch slowly alight from the ends.

That process before the familiar was laid to rest would inevitably take time.

The person in front of him, would they allow for that―

"...!"

Woosh~!

――His body moving faster than his mind, death again pierced the space just above him.

Naturally, the danger didn't stop there.

Finding himself crouched and half-buried in fog, John Pierce glimpsed the forbidden blade above; before it could chop down and slice him in two, he rolled to the side and jumped back even further, all the whilst keeping his precious familiar wrapped tightly in his embrace.

'Yeesh, he really is damn fast...! And not just that, but strong. I need to buy enough time for Phoenix to safely return to the spiritual space, but it's looking tough...'

The enemy before him wasn't like anything he had faced before, that is, in the way of pushing him to his limit.

Together with Sophie and Anders, the three of them had faced countless foes and monsters until now, but none of them were quite this intense at a first impression.

"Anders! Sophie!"

He called out, trusting that his close teammates would know exactly what to do even without being asked, but with no leisure, he couldn't guarantee that they were even present.

What with Anders' fog also filling up this place to his knees, it was just enough to desensitise him to the point that he couldn't feel their presences anywhere around.

He thought he sensed Anders when he first awoke, but was that just him?

At least, the fact it was still present meant he was alive.

'But, are they not here? Don't tell me, this guy--'

"Woah...!"

Having another close call with the enemy's blade, who resumed attack after attack, he quickly examined it in the short time between each swing.

'There's no blood.'

Confidence regained that the two were safe somewhere, John Pierce suddenly stomped powerfully against the ground, causing a hail of crystal shards to fly into the air, a pitiful attempt at a smokescreen to halt the enemy's advance, who in turn simply cut through like it was nothing, the black blade not retaining so much as a scratch or a nick anywhere along its glossy surface.

Not two minutes had passed since the process initiated, but the Phoenix familiar was already almost fully burned up, leaving only small candlelight flames in John Pierce's arms.

However, before he could celebrate freeing his two limbs up for use of a weapon to defend himself, he suddenly sensed something.

'...Huh?'

The enemy, who was relentlessly pursuing him until now, abruptly paused.

'Why...'

Furrowing his brows, he couldn't help but wonder what happened for them to just sto――

"Ah...!"

―With all his might, John Pierce jumped to the side, landing hard on the side of his body and rolling through the dense fog for a short few moments before jumping back up to his feet.

Just in time to witness―

CRASH-!!

―A tremendous mass of white fur and tough crystal landing like a meteorite where he was just standing, in the middle of the chamber.

"Phew..."

Gathering his breath, he glimpsed at the ceiling just above the mysterious thing, wondering how he had never sensed something like that from the beginning. Fortunately, it landed between himself and the enemy, who seemed to have already known it was there, meaning the last short bit of time he needed was successfully obtained.

As he began to feel just slightly relieved, the mass before him unfurled, four exceptionally long and fur-ridden arms protruding, and following that, a pair of similarly-describable legs.

"GRAAAAAAOOHHH...!!!"

In a matter of seconds, a white goliath stood tall, a revolting amalgamation of soft fur and hard crystal, with those same crystals that formed the interior of the cavern making up a large portion of its body, albeit unnaturally as if diseased, and including its torso, which appeared as though it had been struck and pierced through with a giant crystal now acting as a sort of magical core, and its face, which had been rendered a crude, disgusting mix of pale skin and crystallised flesh.

Overall, the impression it gave was simply of a creature that had been infected by something cruel.

Glowing crimson, only one of the monster's eyes was visible, the other encased by that hard substance; using that singular visual organ, it looked down upon the masked figure before it, a fitting glare recognising the much smaller creature as its prey as it growled.

Was it because they were who was standing in the direction of the chamber's entrance? Regardless, for John Pierce, it was a kind of windfall he would make sure not to squander.

To Pierce, the monster, which he had only ever known under the label of 'Yeti', and was only a creature known to exist in the sequestered mountain peaks of Earth since the appearance of the Tower, was not something to be underestimated by anyone, even himself――Considering it was placed as an Area Boss of a high-level Floor like this, that was all anyone needed to hear to realise it wasn't some small fry.

There was no doubt the enemy would be fully capable of slaying the monster.

However, it would buy time.

"GRAAAOOOHH...!"

The Infected Yeti howled, its gruff voice slightly distorted from a partial crystallisation of its vocal cords, and at the same time, it raised two of four arms into the air, fists clenched tight, swiftly bringing them down in a powerful slam where the masked figure was standing still.

Needless to say, what remained when the monster lifted its arms again was not a fleshy pulp.

Rather, the Infected Yeti――

"GRAA--"

Thud.

"--AAAAOOOOOGGHH...!!"

John Pierce couldn't see what happened clearly from his position, but it seemed as though the masked person had severed one of the Yeti's arms.

Within his own arms, the final fleeting embers of the Phoenix were beginning to fade away.

Once they did, and the exhausted familiar returned to its spiritual place of rest, he breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

'She won't be up again for a while now... Rest well, and recover your strength quickly.'

With that short prayer being the last of his thoughts in that direction, he sharpened his gaze towards the figures of the Infected Yeti and the masked individual, whose fight seemed definitively one-sided.

In fact, the Yeti had already lost another two of its arms, despite the initial shock of its size.

Meanwhile, he muttered.

"Come, Pisces."

Following his command, a thin stream of water appeared in his palm. In a matter of seconds, it surged, expanding in both length and width and forming the shape of an iconic, elegant spear before solidifying.

Now, with his trusted white armour and blue spear, although one of his familiars was temporarily out for the count, at least he would be able to fight back at almost full potential.

Grasping the spear tightly, he carefully observed the match between the others.

'...Hm? Wait, where did he--'

But then, he belatedly realised.

That person, even though he thought he was paying attention the entire time, had suddenly vani--!?

Thunk-!

"Guh...!?"

Before he could figure out what happened, 'something' smacked John Pierce in the face, forcefully turning his head to the other side before he could see what it was.

It felt like a punch, but wasn't that odd?

Thunk-!

"Ngh...! Wh-- Hey!"

Using all his strength and fortitude to hold on and watch exactly what it was, he widened his eyes.

'That's--'

Thunk-!

"Ugh! That's unfair, hey! What did you do?!"

No matter what he did, he couldn't see what was hitting him. Not because he was too slow or the enemy was too fast, nothing like that.

Simply, whatever it was, was invisible.

The fact that each of the punches were not so strong to have any sort of a lasting impact was a silver lining, but even without that, the simple reality that he could not interact with the thing that was harming him was a real problem.

It was as if he was being toyed with.

Thunk-!

"Tch...! Seriously, what's going on...?!"

Unfortunately, there was not the leisure to sit around and figure things out. Not only was the masked figure somewhere unseen, but now that he had magically disappeared, the Yeti was――

"GRAAAAOOOHHH...!"

"Ack...! Not you, big bastard!"

Somehow, he would have to find a way out of this abrupt disaster.