Chapter 2: Saved by Miss Goody-Two-Shoes
Golden light gathered around the sword in Philly’s hand as she prepared to strike Xia.
“Student Philly, stop!”
Outside the ruins, a brown-haired girl in the same academy uniform as Philly ran toward the entrance with two guards.
“Dailina, why are you here?”
Philly was startled by her arrival and halted her attack.
In her previous loops, when she waited here to intercept Xia, nobody had ever come to stop her.
At this point, Dailina should still have been on the road back to town.
There was no way she could have brought guards here this quickly.
Tsk, did I waste too much time?
Why did Xia take so long to come out this time?
She had waited outside for ages.
If she had known this would happen, she should have gone in to find him herself.
If Xia, possessed by the Demon God, wasn’t eliminated now, he would definitely become a huge threat in the future.
In several of her past lives, she had died at the hands of the demonized Xia.
Thinking of that, Philly tightened her grip on the sword.
“Student Philly, how can you attack Student Xia?”
Dailina ran between them and shielded Xia behind her.
“Dailina, don’t get close to him, he…”
Halfway through, Philly stopped, unsure how to explain it.
She wanted to say that she had been reborn and knew Xia had been possessed by the Demon God.
But if she said that, people would definitely think she was insane.
She had tried during her first rebirth.
Nobody believed her.
They treated her like a lunatic.
Even Dailina hadn’t believed her and had asked if she was sick.
“…He might have been infected by monsters.”
After hesitating for a long time, Philly finally came up with that excuse.
“Student Xia is already hurt this badly, so why isn’t Student Philly healing him?”
Dailina turned around and crouched down.
The moment her eyes landed on the wounds covering Xia’s body, her expression tightened sharply.
“How did you get hurt this badly…? I’ll heal you right away.”
She hurriedly pulled the short wand from her waist and held its end with both hands, pressing it against her knees.
The bottom of the wand sank slightly into the soft flesh wrapped in black thigh-high stockings.
【Holy Healing Art】
A golden magic circle bloomed at the tip of her wand.
Her long hair fluttered upward with the flow of mana, and the fullness of her chest formed graceful curves beneath the golden glow.
Xia could feel the wounds on his body gradually healing, and the pain slowly faded away.
The tightly furrowed lines between his brows relaxed.
Looking at Dailina healing him, he suddenly felt a trace of guilt.
Dailina Coleman was the game’s first romanceable heroine.
She specialized in holy magic and would later become the future Saintess.
Among the playerbase, however, she was nicknamed “Saintess Idiot.”
The reason was simple.
Throughout the story, Dailina constantly overflowed with compassion and went around helping every weak person she encountered.
Not only did it earn little reward, it also wasted huge amounts of the protagonist’s development time.
Worst of all, later in the game she even pitied a demon who deliberately pretended to be miserable.
The demon immediately stabbed the protagonist in the back.
If the player chose the wrong dialogue option, it led straight to a bad ending.
Back in his previous life, Xia had criticized her plenty online and even made posts roasting her character.
But criticism aside, he had never missed a single one of Dailina’s illustrations, and he definitely never skipped her CG scenes.
After all, Dailina’s was the biggest.
But now that he was seeing her in person, he really felt like he had gone too far.
“I’m sorry, Dailina…”
Xia unconsciously muttered the apology under his breath.
“Eh? Why is Student Xia apologizing?”
Dailina lowered her head and looked at the scar on his leg that had just healed, her face full of guilt.
Her thumb lightly pressed against the end of the wand again and again.
“If I had managed to save Student Xia sooner, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt so badly.”
“Ah… Student Dailina, you don’t need to apologize.”
“I’m the one who dragged you two down.”
“We were supposed to finish the subjugation mission this morning and head back to the academy…”
The three of them were all elite-class students who had recently enrolled in Thorn Academy.
Only a few days after classes started, they were assigned an entrance mission.
The three of them formed a party and came here to help the local lord clear out the monsters inside the ruins.
The operation had lasted from yesterday until this morning.
Under Philly’s leadership, they had quickly completed the mission.
But then Xia was tempted by the Blood Demon God within the ruins and tried to frame Philly.
In the end, Philly avoided the trap while he himself fell victim to it.
That led to everything afterward.
In the end, it was because he was too weak.
He had been so easily bewitched by the Demon God, while neither Philly nor Dailina had been affected at all.
“That’s not true.”
Dailina shook her head.
“We’re all members of the same team.”
“Of course we should help each other.”
“If Student Xia is in danger, then naturally we’ll save you.”
She put away her wand and stood up before turning toward Philly.
“Student Philly, please don’t treat Student Xia like that next time.”
“But he…”
Philly lowered her sword and tried to explain.
“Student Xia is already pitiful enough.”
Dailina’s voice softened as her gaze drifted toward Xia.
A faint mist seemed to gather in those emerald-green eyes.
“He has no family and no relatives.”
“He came all alone from somewhere so far away just to study in the Imperial Capital.”
“And everyone looks down on him…”
Her gaze returned to Philly.
“I know Student Philly isn’t that kind of person.”
“But just now, I saw Student Philly trying to hurt Student Xia.”
“Could it be that you want to bully him too?”
“I…”
Philly’s lips trembled slightly.
She turned her head away, avoiding Dailina’s gaze.
The hand gripping her sword slowly loosened before falling to her side.
“Dailina.”
Xia’s voice came from behind her.
He braced himself against the ground and slowly stood up.
His movements were sluggish, and when he brushed the dust off his body, it pulled at the wounds that hadn’t fully healed yet.
Pain made his brows twitch faintly.
“Philly’s concern is reasonable.”
“Eh?”
Dailina turned toward Xia.
“Monsters are dangerous.”
“If monsters capable of infecting humans exist, then being wary of every possible threat is the correct choice.”
Philly lifted her head.
A trace of confusion flashed through her amber eyes.
He’s actually speaking up for me?
She stared intently at Xia’s face, trying to find some flaw in his expression.
Was he pretending?
Or had the Demon God temporarily stopped controlling him?
The doubts in Philly’s heart only deepened further.
No matter what the situation was, she needed to be even more cautious.
“Young ladies.”
One of the guards stepped forward and swept his gaze across the three of them.
“Since your classmate is fine, hurry back to town.”
“It’s already late, and outside the town isn’t safe at night.”
“Alright, let’s head back first.”
Dailina nodded.
She glanced back at Xia one more time before the three of them followed the guards away from the ruins.
That night, Xia entered his room and shut the door behind him.
He hung a black cloak beside the entrance.
His academy uniform was practically torn beyond use.
He had borrowed the cloak to wear over himself, and only after returning to town did he find somewhere to temporarily mend the uniform.
Today, he had experienced death twice.
Once in the depths of the ruins.
And once at the entrance.
Philly had actually been reborn, and she harbored such intense hostility toward him.
The moment he realized she was reborn, he genuinely thought he was dead for sure.
Unexpectedly, Dailina had saved him.
Considering how harshly he had criticized her in his previous life, the more he thought about it, the guiltier he felt.
Knock knock knock.
Just after Xia sat down, knocking sounded from outside the door.
“Who is it?”
Xia stood up and walked to the door.
Who would come looking for him this late at night?
“It’s me.”
Philly’s voice came from outside the door, instantly making Xia tense up.
What does she want now?
Could it be that she failed to kill him at the ruins and came here to finish the job?
No matter what, she couldn’t possibly attack him here, right?
This was a town.
Wasn’t she afraid of getting arrested?
He opened the door slightly, only to meet Philly’s icy gaze.
“Listen carefully, Demon God.”
“Don’t think that just because you’re hiding inside Xia’s body right now, I won’t do anything to you.”
Her voice was so low that only the two of them could hear it.
“Philly, what are you talking about?”
“What Demon God hiding inside my body?”
Xia wore an innocent expression.
He genuinely had no idea where the Blood Demon God had gone.
There were absolutely no signs of possession inside his body.
“It was the same thing back at the ruins too.”
“You keep saying all kinds of strange nonsense…”
“Keep pretending.”
“I won’t let you go.”
After saying that, Philly turned and left without another word, not even giving Xia a chance to explain.
What the hell?
He seriously wasn’t possessed by the Demon God!