AN: Okayyy it's a little bit late because people keep freaking suddenly making me do things, but I'm back now, and here's the chapter on monday, as promised! Hope you like it! This one's a teeeensy bit longer than normal.

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Teer looked across the soon to be battlefield. Hordes of monsters had assembled to protect the castle, licking their lips at the measly looking army that had shown up to defeat them.

 

“Look at them all, so disgusting. Don’t you think so, Fill?”

 

“...Do we have the time to just be sitting here like this, Saintess? If we take too long, our target might just come out early to greet us.”

 

“Ugh, lighten up already… And stop calling me Saintess! I liked the you from yesterday that kept saying ‘Teer, Teer!’ all the time so much better.”

 

The thin rabbit-eared young man narrowed his eyes and looked away in embarrassed annoyance.

 

“I told you, we weren’t gonna do those kinds of things in front of others...”

 

“Aw… Well, I guess I'll just have to get you to say it as a reward once we're done here, huh?”

 

The auburn haired beauty beamed, giving Fill one last cheeky mussing of his hair before straightening herself out in a dignified manner, schooling her previously mischievous smile into one of pure confidence and authority. Fill had been correct, the time was drawing close; It was no longer time to take things easily, not with what they were about to face.

 

As she stepped forward to the waiting army and raised her sword, all before her grew quiet, waiting for her words.

 

“Knights, soldiers, paladins, and even mercenaries… Though we all may come from different backgrounds, you know why we’ve gathered here today, what our one and only objective here is.”

 

She lowered her sword, planting it into the ground, one of her hands gripping against the hilt, while the other fisted towards the army with utmost seriousness and importance.

 

“It is the subjugation of the demon lord, the great evil that has begun to plague our lands and paint it with these monster scum. We shall do as our loving Goddess, the mother of us all, has bid us, and eradicate this unholy being once and for all!”

 

The crowd that was watching her roared, pumping their fists, weapons, or banners into the air, making a fearsome noise. Teer smiled confidently and nodded along, pleased with how fired up everyone seemed to be; If they were as riled up as this, then the chances of deserters appearing early on would be lessened.

 

No, with what they were about to do, Teer couldn’t let herself have even a single disadvantage appear.

She’d worked too hard to let that happen now.

 

This power, this strength, this authority, this respect, all these things that she’d finally managed to scrape together in this new life of hers… She wouldn’t let a single one of them fall out of her grasp now that she had them. She’d been blessed with a second chance, blessed with everything she needed to finally live the way that she wanted. Never again would she have to be the powerless girl that had to sit there being used and abused, waiting for the day that she outlived her usefulness and was tossed aside like she’d seen happen to so many others. Never again would that be her life.

 

Now, she was the strongest and proudest of anyone, someone who commanded the respect and loyalty of all who witnessed her.

If she had to kill one measly demon lord to please the Goddess and solidify that fact for the rest of her life, then Teer would do it 100 times over.

 

The battle began in earnest, with Teer leading the charge. Her claymore danced through the enemies, wielded with shocking ease by Teer’s lithe, womanly frame. Wave after wave of monsters were cut down by her blade and her blade alone, not a single skill or spell being used to help subdue the monsters. Even monsters considered as fearful as natural disasters fell easily before her, eliciting only a cheeky smirk from Teer.

 

Flying through her enemies like she was gave such a rush to Teer. When she’d first come to this world she’d been so weak, afraid to even encounter even just a single monster. Still, she’d been reborn as a saintess in a world that was currently being ravaged by the demon lord’s monsters; There’d been no time for her to wallow in her fear, not when everyone was depending on her. Realizing the opportunity she’d been given, and grasping onto it with the determination to never fall back to the cattle-like existence of her memories, Teer worked herself to the bone, risking life and limb again and again, charging into battlezone after battlezone, waging a constant war against the demon lord’s forces.

 

It was because of all this constant fighting that she’d done that she’d grown to such powerful heights, her efforts being clearly rewarded by the Goddess. And now, after a year and a half in this new life of hers, today she would finally reach the goal she’d been striving towards all this time.

 

As Teer cut through the last remnants of the monsters that had been guarding the demon lord’s lair, an excited, eager smile blossomed on her face.

 

~~~

 

Though Teer had been confident in herself, exceedingly strong as she’d grown during her time in this new life, the fight against the demon lord had been multitudes harder than she’d expected it to be. Even with every single buff and attacking skill that she’d managed to accrue on her side, the fight was slow, arduous, with both sides quickly healing back any damage they maintained in the blink of an eye, repeatedly returning the fight back to square one. And though it could easily be observed that Teer had begun to become fatigued from the length of their fight, the demon lord, cloaked in darkness and shadow, was impossible to glean any such knowledge from.

 

Were it not for Fill, the last alive of the comrades who had charged in to fight the demon lord with her, swooping in to rescue her multiple times with his superior speed, then perhaps she would have already succumbed to her fatigue and lost.

 

Knowing that the fight dragging on any further would only mean her defeat, Teer eventually bit the bullet and used the move that she’d been saving only for emergencies. Though it used up every single bit of her divine energy, pushing her to the brink of painful death, she succeeded in finally killing the evil demon lord with the help of a fatal attack from Fill’s daggers, its shadowy body disappearing into an odd puff of smoke, like a fragile bubble being popped. The dark smoke rose and rose, floating through the broken open ceiling, rising to the heavens, dissipating into the clouds.

 

In contrast, Teer’s body fell to the ground with a harsh thud, causing Fill to scream and run towards her in a panic.

 

As her lover screamed and hugged her, Teer’s delirious mind wandered, satisfied that she’d finally accomplished what she’d been fighting all this time for. Her bleary eyes drifted towards the clock that sat on the invisible panel placed to her right, smiling when she noticed that it was almost full of time, noting that killing the demon lord must have refreshed it. Though she’d scared Fill, with her clock this full of time, there was no way that she would truly die from this. For now she would just drift off to the realm of the Goddess, and in two days she would reawaken, fresh and new, to the rest of her amazing life that awaited her.

 

When she saw the Goddess there, she could finally ask her to make her wish come true. Teer had been saving it for over a year now, waiting for the right time to use it, when she’d finally done what the Goddess wished, and had earned a truly great favor.

 

Her eyes squinted at the clock with hope.

Maybe now the Goddess would be willing to remove this horrid clock from her.

 

~~~

 

Teer was annoyed when she opened her eyes to the shadowy pit of darkness.

She knew all too well what it meant.

 

It was truly an inconvenience to wake up there, when all she wanted to do was talk to the Goddess.

 

Just as always, the shadowy figure that had been sculking in the darkness, waiting for her to wake up, taunted her.

 

<You’re here once again, foolish girl.>

 

Teer narrowed her eyes, smirking at the shadow. Though it had tried multiple times to recruit her, she’d never given even an inch to the wicked thing.

 

“You may have been able to drag me here, but at least I’ll be coming back afterwards! Your subordinate, the demon lord, will sadly not be as lucky!”

 

As if shocked by her words, the shadowy figure grew quiet for a moment, giving quite a bit of satisfaction to Teer.

-That is, until murky laughter began to bubble up from the figures depths.

 

<Puh… Puahahaha! A ‘demon lord’? Hah, haha, you… You called that, that thing that you killed, a ‘demon lord’?!>

 

The laughter echoed through the dark pit, filling the space, soaking Teer in bewilderment and confusion.

 

“Wha- Yes? Yes, of course I call it a demon lord! What could possibly be wrong about calling a demon lord a demon lord?! And what’s so damn funny-!”

 

<You foolish, stupid thing! You called your own +=/’;? a demon lord and killed it?! How funny and cruel for a Goddess to make its own child *&^/,[   \}<!   >&$?”_   ~>):{->

 

“W-what? What are you saying?! Wait, repeat yourself right now! I can’t understand it!”

 

Teer stomped her foot in confusion and frustration, her eyes wide as she desperately tried to understand what the shadow was saying, to no avail. In an attempt to understand, she stepped closer and reached out her hand to try and touch the shadowy figure. But just as her hand was about to make contact, a sudden booming voice appeared along with the arrival of the sun.

 

<I see… So this is where you were, daughter.>

 

The Goddess’s glass hand picked her up, raising her high up into the sky, away from the dark depths of the pit, holding her in its grasp.

 

<How terrible to find you there, listening to his ramblings. Tisk... How unfortunate.>

 

Teer tried to open up her mouth, attempting to ask the Goddess for answers and forgiveness for whatever it was that she’d done wrong, but she was unable to; The Goddess’s grip, which had been holding her gently, had slowly begun to squeeze, tightening around her, crushing her.

 

<I’d been quite pleased with how this one turned out, but I suppose I can let it go early, now that it’s served its purpose.>

 

Teer desperately squirmed, using all her strength to try and escape the Goddess’s grasp, but it was completely impossible. She could feel her body crumpling, smooshing under the crushing force, until suddenly something bright and important began leaking away from her, absorbing into the Goddess’s palm.

 

And as the last of that light faded out of her, so too did Teer cease to exist.