Targeted By The Protagonist As A Villain-Chapter 37: Bodyguard (4)

"She’s your bodyguard? Hehe, that’s interesting, I thought you two were enemies?" The man asked curiously as he stared at Eric’s back, who was currently looking out the window as if the fight hadn’t occurred just now.

"Would she really be staying over at my penthouse if that were to be the case then?" Eric replied calmly.

"Good point." The man smirked, "But why should I listen to an insignificant being like you? I can’t even sense any magical energy coming from you."

Although the man had stated this, he was still very wary of Eric to begin with, otherwise, he would have attacked him as well during the fight with Celeste earlier.

After all, he was the exact person that had a distress signal sent to warn everyone else about.

That alone was more than enough to cause concern for him, not to mention that he seemingly forced someone who he has been chasing for a long time now to become his bodyguard.

He didn’t know much about who Eric Porter was since he was never interested in people like him in the first place, but he’d like to avoid fighting him if possible...

At least until the poison in this penthouse starts affecting Eric as well of course.

"You don’t have to listen to me. I was just asking, that’s all." Eric nonchalantly shrugged it off as he answered truthfully.

In a fight between two extremely powerful beings that could easily kill him off just by him simply being nearby if they went all out, he had no intentions of siding with either of them whatsoever.

But since he needed Celeste’s protection in order to survive the ordeal that was still going to happen in the first place, it didn’t hurt for him to ask.

"Heh, I’ll have to decline then, and once I’m done with her, I’ll decide what to do with you..." The man then looked back at Celeste with a sick smile, eager to end her life as soon as possible.

Hearing this, Eric shook his head in disbelief and gazed at the evening scenery out on the window one final time before finally turning towards Celeste and the man.

He knew that he needed to side with Celeste now because he doubted that the man was going to spare his life after killing Celeste.

And while Eric recognized the man, knowing that he was one of the villains Aurora encountered later on when she was starting to become extremely powerful with magical energy in this world, he had no idea how to deal with him in his current situation.

Celeste was too exhausted and in a terrible condition to do much of anything now after all, and, well, he was just some powerless asshole who couldn’t even use a single trace of magical energy whatsoever.

Furthermore, he could also tell that his body was starting to slowly feel the effects from the poison as well and it was going to only be a matter of minutes before he falls in the same condition as Celeste.

This entire situation seemed completely hopeless.

’But what if...’

’I use my knowledge from the novel and help her get rid of the toxins in her body?’

Truthfully, Eric was very hesitant on doing this.

After all, while he had done something similar a couple of days ago with Aria by using his knowledge from the novel to tell her what happened to her when she was five in the hopes of eventually saving his own life from Aurora, this was entirely different.

If anything, this was closer to the situation with Aurora back when he had set traps in his house, where one wrong move on his part could create an even bigger problem for him later down the line.

And sure, while Celeste might be completely on his side for now, there was no telling whether she would still remain that way in the future or not, and if she did not, then helping her now could easily come back to haunt him later.

But with his back against the wall like this, and with no real understanding of how or why his body had fully recovered after Aurora had nearly killed him back then, Eric knew he had no other choice.

If he wanted to make it out of here alive, then he had to tell Celeste how to eliminate one of her weaknesses.

Because it was a matter of his own survival at this point, and that mattered to him more than anything else.

As such...

"Celeste, lower the pressure at your lungs inside your body using the same spell as you casted earlier." Eric commented.

After hearing what Eric had said, both Celeste and the man stared blankly at Eric.

Celeste had the look of confusion on their face, while the man looked at Eric like he was an idiot.

"Just do it, and don’t hold back either. The more magical energy you use and the more pressure you can concentrate and lower in your lungs, the better." Eric ignored their gazes and stated again.

"But... I... don’t... know... how... to... do... that..." Celeste huffed after each word, "Also... wouldn’t... that... damage... my... internal... organs?"

"Yes. Greatly. But it’s better than dying." Eric shrugged, "And it’s easier to lower the pressure internally than you think as long as you’re doing it on yourself and not on someone else. When casting the spell, instead of focusing and aiming it outward near a specific target, envision your body and aim it inward. At yourself."

When Celeste heard this, she was still very confused at what he was trying to do.

In the first place, neither she nor anyone else had ever tried using the spell directly inside their own bodies before, as there was simply no need to, and doing so would not only waste magical energy but also damage the body itself.

Even a normal person that never dabbled in magical energy before and had some basic understanding of how atmospheric pressure worked would know that their body would rupture from the inside once it was lowered past a certain point, especially with how weak and vulnerable a body’s insides are for both normal people and supernatural beings.

Only beings that spent time strengthening their internal bodies could probably withstand such pressure, but even that was debatable since they could not easily protect something as delicate as their lungs.

But seeing as how calm Eric was on the outside, coupled with what Celeste thought she knew about him so far, she decided to listen to this very idiotic advice of his and began quickly casting the spell multiple times while trying her best to envision her lungs.

Surprisingly, it was as easy as Eric said it was, and she could feel her lungs begin to feel some sort of pressure.

Quickly afterwards though... blood began pouring out of her mouth and nose almost like a waterfall, and she rapidly coughed like never before.

Additionally, her body was in so much more pain than she was just in that her eyes even began rolling backwards.

However... she also felt that her body was gradually becoming lighter and lighter again.

And while she didn’t even know how this was possible, she knew that it was working.

So after waiting just a moment longer and feeling confident that she could move somewhat quickly again, she quickly picked her sword up from the ground, casted a few spells to greatly boost her physical abilities, hurled several quick fireballs at the man, and then charged at him while doing her best to ignore the immense pain.

The man, who had been thoroughly enjoying watching Celeste be practically tortured to death the entire time Eric and Celeste were talking, was immediately caught off guard by this and went on the offensive, casting also a few quick enhancement spells as well and sent his swords flying toward the fireballs and Celeste.

Probably because he had been so panicked though, he had missed one of the fireballs flying towards his head, and he had to control one of the swords to block it off instead.

BOOM!

Since the fireball was a very low-tier, simple spell, and the man had reached a stage where such spells couldn’t even scratch his skin anymore, he felt no impact from it whatsoever.

But his vision was blocked due to the bright light and smoke that the explosion left behind.

And before he even realized it...

Thud!

His head suddenly hit the ground, and he saw the last thing he had expected to see in his 127 years of living in this world before dying.

The decapitated body that his head had just came from.

And once Celeste saw that the man was dead, she slowly sheathed her sword, walked over to Eric, and stared at him for a brief moment before suddenly collapsing, leaving him alone to deal with the rest of the aftermath of the entire situation.

"..."

"Well, there goes my entire penthouse I suppose."