by Fuse
Once, during training, he had failed to fine-tune his Berserker unique skill, and the results killed one of the knights. Somehow, it felt like he was just a bit more powerful after that event. Maybe killing more enemies with that skill would continue to boost the effect. He still couldn’t defy the locking curse Razen had put on him, but maybe, if he powered up enough, he could later.
That was Shogo’s thought, but defeating monsters didn’t provide that concrete feeling of strength he craved. It was a disappointment, but now, with carte blanche to kill the Blumundians who would no doubt be flooding this road shortly, he was doing a little dance in his mind.
But the people he had wanted to see so badly showed no sign of appearing, even after three days. For someone as quick-tempered as Shogo, it was sorely trying the limits of his patience.
Kyoya tried his best to keep him calm, even as he struggled to contain his own cravings for murder. The previous attack on the town opened his eyes to just how wonderful slashing up bodies could be. Especially that one elderly ogre. Those sword skills were the real thing; Kyoya could tell that much.
Ooh, I’ll never forget that surprised face! The way it was so confident in its own strength! It’s irresistible!
It made him lick his lips in anticipation. And even though his motivations were different from Shogo’s, he was just as ready for the fleeing crowds to appear.
Then they heard a messenger provide a report.
“Enemies up ahead! They number…four?!”
Tension and nervousness found their way into the western encampment. The knights immediately cast magic to boost their physical strength, preparing to engage this threat and going into a formation that guaranteed at least three troops could tackle each one. They might have slept on the job a little, but these were Western Holy Church monster hunters, each one an expert in the field. There was no panic, no agitation. They simply did what needed to be done before a battle began.
Hakuro, Rigur, Gobta, and Geld were coming their way.
“Let’s give ’em a show!” shouted Gobta as he drew his dagger and held its scabbard in his left hand. The starwolf he was on leaped forward, and then he jumped off his mount’s back, somersaulting once in the air. Steadying his aim with his scabbard, he launched a Case Cannon strike upon the head of the most important-looking knight in the crowd.
Easily surging past the speed of sound, the two-centimeter-wide iron balls landed a direct hit. There was a soft zwing! sound as the knights behind the targeted captain were bathed in blood…then a thud as he collapsed to the ground.
“Nice! Direct hit!”
The knights began to scream and shout as Gobta admired his efforts.
“Enemy of God! What sorcery is this?!”
The company fanned out, which was exactly what Gobta and the others were anticipating.
“Well done, Gobta. Keep diverting their attention, but don’t let them capture you.”
“Roger that, sir!”
“You’re just as nimble as always,” observed Rigur. “You always were good at sniping like that.”
“Heh-heh! Yeah, wasn’t I?”
“Don’t let it get to your head, you fool.”
It was rare for Rigur to compliment Gobta. The subsequent warning quickly silenced him.
“Keep your guard up! We need to work together to shoulder some of Hakuro’s and Geld’s load!”
“Got it!”
Rigur and Gobta climbed onto their starwolves, working to throw the knights’ teamwork out of whack. Geld was waiting for this. Even their breathing was fully aligned as he watched them send their wolves into the air—the signal for him to stomp his right foot against the ground. The impact shook the earth under the knights’ legs like an earth tremor. It was called Earthshatter Kick, one of the Arts Geld had learned, and it sent a shock wave of aura force below him to further extend its power and range.
“Whoa?!”
“Ngh!”
The quake lasted for just a moment, but that was enough. By the time Rigur and Gobta reached ground again, they were right in front of several unbalanced, teetering knights. They were left lethally wide open in the midst of battle, fated with nothing but broken windpipes at the fangs of the starwolves.
“Boy, that sure was something…”
“I can hardly believe it. We didn’t even practice that in training, but your timing was perfect, Geld…”
Rigur and Gobta looked at each other and grinned. Then the three of them sprang into action anew, maintaining their impeccable teamwork as they beat the knights at their own game. Before their overwhelming numbers, the trio couldn’t have looked less concerned.
But now there was a dark-haired young man standing before them.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha! Nice! I like it! But now you gotta take me on!”
“Ah, ahhh! Sir Shogo!”
“Please do something about these monsters!”
The smell of death surrounding Shogo intoxicated him, making his face twist villainously. He could feel force flowing through him like never before. Yes! This is it! Just as I thought—my power grows as people die around me!
His spirits soared as he began running toward the trio.
“Oh, there he is,” Gobta noted, eyes showing an uncommon (for him) anger as he sized Shogo up. “But he ain’t fightin’ me!”
It was Shogo who had kicked Gobzo to death back in town as he tried to cover for Shuna. The memory of the moment he heard the news made Gobta boil with fury at the figure running for him. But he was fully aware of the difference in strength between them both. No, Shogo would have to fight Geld, just as they planned originally.
“Do not worry, Sir Gobta,” the orc king declared. “It’s time to deliver the iron hammer of justice!”
“Hee-hee! Just Gobta is fine, Geld!”
“Understood. Allow me to handle the rest, Gobta!”
“I hope you do, Sir Geld,” Rigur said as he nodded. “Gobzo had his faults, but he was a good man to all of us.”
And in another moment, Geld and Shogo were locked in battle.
Amid this fury, there was another confrontation taking place—between Hakuro and Kyoya.
“Wow, old man, you survived? If you were lucky enough to live, you should’ve tucked your tail and fled when you could. It woulda been easy for someone as strong as you to make it out.”
“Ho-ho-ho! I may not look it, but I happen to be a very sore loser. Besides, something about some youngster getting a swollen head with me when I haven’t even revealed my full strength just doesn’t seem right.”
“Oh? You aren’t talking about me, are you?”
“Does it not seem that way to you? Well, my apologies. I suppose your brain’s just as empty as your morals.”
“Ha-ha! So getting slashed once didn’t bring the message across, huh? Or are you growing feeble in the head?”
Just then, a sharp ting! echoed across the field. It was the sound of Hakuro’s hidden sword deflecting the blow Kyoya unleashed in the blink of an eye. The otherworlder had lunged upon Hakuro in the middle of their chat. Anticipating the strike, he drew his sword against it as if he had all the time in the world.
“Impatient, I see. But I suppose we both are. I can hardly contain my anger any longer.”
Kyoya suddenly felt a chill down his spine. He took a step back. Hakuro’s ghastly visage mentally overwhelmed him, as much as he didn’t want to admit it.
“Don’t make me laugh,” he spat back, eyes squinted and blurred with the desire to kill. “Quit acting like my boss, old man! You couldn’t do a damn thing against my sword!”
“Not your sword. Your power, yes. As Rimuru put it, your force is based on the spatial element. Not even I had an answer for it—but now that I know the trick, I can avoid it.”
“Yeah? Well, great. So let’s have a sword fight, all right? Fair and square.”
Kyoya brought his sword before his eyes—those eyes blazing with a fearsomely evil light—as a distressing grin crossed his face.
&nb
sp; “Very well. Allow me to show you the true essence of swordplay.”
Hakuro held his own blade down low. Kyoya’s grin widened.
“You ready?”
The otherworlder lifted his sword higher and then swung it down. He was far too out of range to hit Hakuro with it, but his aim was elsewhere. The blade itself launched out, away from the sword’s grip, transforming into millions of tiny shards, each one too small to see but packing lethal force as they hurtled toward Hakuro. Kyoya’s sword was a fake, a dummy created by his Severer unique skill. Switching between it and his actual sword allowed him to trick his enemy, stymieing them in battle.
“Ha-ha-ha! That fool got tricked again!”
Kyoya held his stomach as he laughed—but a cold, penetrating voice stopped him.
“Hmm. So such tiresome little deceits are part of your arsenal, eh? It seems I overestimated you.”
“No way?!”
Kyoya looked around, searching for Hakuro’s frigid, lecturing voice. He found the ogre exactly where he had been standing, completely unhurt.
“What… What did you just do, old man?!”
“Hmm. Interesting. You weren’t able to see it? Then I suppose you’re just a second-rate fighter or worse.”
“…What?”
“‘Second-rate or worse’ is what I said. I can fully keep up with your sword style, and frankly, I couldn’t find it more childish.”
“Don’t mess with me, you senile piece of shit!”
Kyoya lost his cool, eyes wide open. That was why he couldn’t notice. His Severer blade, capable of ripping through anything, had been fully deflected by Hakuro—and now, he had to accept that.
He hadn’t even noticed that the third eye on Hakuro’s head was now open. Aura, all-powerful and overwhelming, flowed from him. It was enough energy to easily propel him into the A ranks of monsterdom.
“Right. I said I would show you the true essence of swordplay. Pay close attention to this!”
“Shut up! Shitty little monsters, acting all tough and crap…!”
Kyoya, still enraged, created a new blade and slashed at Hakuro. Hakuro paid it no mind. He just stood there, quietly transforming the intense rage inside him into power. Not even the sight of Kyoya bringing down his sword at point-blank range fazed him. He just kept his third eye open—the extra skill Heavengaze—and dodged his opponent’s unseeable blade by a hairbreadth.
“You talk big,” Kyoya shouted as he laughed loudly, “but you can’t do a thing against me! Can you?! There’s nothing you can do! Just sit there and watch my invisible blade rip you apart!”
“The time has come, I see. Perhaps your ‘eye’ is not so all-seeing after all…”
“Huh? What did you—?”
Kyoya didn’t understand. But he could tell it meant trouble. He took a step back, but it was already too late.
—A flash.
The resulting sword move—Crestwater Slash—was clearly visible to Kyoya’s All-Seeing Eye…and then Kyoya realized something was wrong. He was frozen. Not “frozen,” exactly, but moving at an impossibly slow speed. The sword flowed its way toward him. His All-Seeing Eye picked up on that; it should have been evadable enough. But the sword kept coming. It touched against his neck. And then it went all the way down into his torso.
“…Uh?”
Then the sword came back out, gouging Kyoya’s heart along the way, as Hakuro just barely grabbed his head before his body hit the ground. In less than a second, it was all over.
“…And there we go. I hope you will use the remaining time you’ve extended a thousandfold for yourself to figure out where you went wrong.”
Those words, via Thought Communication, were the last thing Kyoya ever heard.
Hakuro could have killed Kyoya at any time. Even in town, he wouldn’t have fallen behind if he had any intention of killing him then. It was a loss with its cause squarely upon Rimuru and his order to drive away their foes alive.
Now, though, his good name was restored. He had waited for the moment when Kyoya’s All-Seeing Eye was at its maximum level of activation. Then he showed his own skills—and the sheer difference in talent between them.
It would be just a few seconds before Kyoya’s oxygen-starved brain would expire, and even less than that before his consciousness grew cloudy. But thanks to Mind Accelerate, he had extended his perception speed to a thousand times normal. Hakuro’s taunting goaded him into it, although Kyoya had no idea.
Now, all he could do was taste the pain, the bitterness, for a small eternity until the moment he finally, mercifully passed. Such was the end of Kyoya Tachibana, the otherworlder who attempted to con his way through life and met his doom over it.
Shogo was intensely irritated. Geld, the warrior looming in front of him, seemed invincible to his powers. Nothing of the sort had ever happened to him in this world. Everyone always groveled before him, begging for mercy. And now look.
“Goddammit…!”
He poured every ounce of strength he had into Berserker and launched a kick at Geld’s frame. It helplessly clanged against the orc’s Scale Shield, the unique piece of equipment Garm forged out of Charybdis scales for him.
“That’s cheating! If you’re a man, fight me with your bare hands!”
Geld raised a quizzical eyebrow at Shogo’s absurd command.
“I don’t know what you mean. This is war. Cheating or not, it is only polite to bring out everything you have against your foe.”
“Don’t give me that shit! I don’t have any weapons, and you’re fully outfitted! You should be ashamed of yourself!”
This bewildered Geld. His opponent was making less and less sense. The word patience wasn’t in Shogo’s dictionary; it seemed like he expected his selfish, childlike whining to work against grown men. That was why failing to even put a dent in Geld was filling him with a passionate rage. But that wasn’t Geld’s problem. All he could do with Shogo’s nonsensical ramblings was ignore them.
“All right. I’m sorry; I’m sorry,” Shogo backpedaled. “I thought I’d just ask, y’know, if you could put down that annoying shield for me. I’m all warmed up now, so I guess it’s about time I put everything I got into this.”
To Geld, someone whose mind was configured to follow his warrior code, it was impossible for him to follow the thoughts of the oblivious Shogo. But this was a battlefield. Just because his foe threw him for a loop didn’t mean he’d abandon the fight.
“…Everything you’ve got? Very well. I will do the same as—”
“Haaah!!”
Not listening to Geld’s words, Shogo focused his spirit just below his navel and shouted out loud. Then, like a tiger, he planted a foot on the ground and sped off, unleashing a flying kick in Geld’s direction.
“Eeeeeeyaaah!!”
With a scream, the kick unleashed itself. It put a crack in Geld’s shield.
“One more! Hraaah!!”
He landed on the ground, away from the shield, and used his momentum to launch another back kick. That was enough to shatter Geld’s shield for good.
His Berserker unique skill had the special effect of breaking the weapons of his opponents. Of course, a unique piece of equipment was hard to break with one or two strikes—that was why Shogo was acting like he had no strategy but was actually attacking the same spot over and over again. He might have looked like a simpleton, but Shogo had a uniquely honed talent for battle—and that skill was perfectly suited for his martial-arts approach.
“Ha-ha! Lookit that! You ain’t gonna block the next one without that shield!”
Shogo was proud of his victory. But it didn’t move Geld at all.
“I see… So you acted short-tempered and mindless for that reason?”
He was impressed. But ever so casually, he took out a brand-new shield from his Stomach.
“Huh? What the…?! That’s dirty!”
“What is dirty about this? I told you—this is war. It is only common courtesy to use every weapon at my disposal.
No matter what kind of cowardly move you may attempt, I am willing to forgive it.”
Right from the start, Geld had been consistently and doggedly sticking to his own principles as he tackled Shogo. He had only one motivation. Shogo was the man behind Gobzo’s death, and the iron hammer had to fall upon him.
“Cowardly? You callin’ me cowardly? Don’t give me that shit, you pig!”
“I am not a pig…but fine.”
“Shut up!”
Shogo let out a deep breath as Geld readied his shield. Composing himself, he observed his enemy, finally recognizing him as a worthy challenger. With that shield, Geld had no opening to exploit—but Shogo decided to force him to the ground anyway. Taking the sanchin stance (a standard position unique to karate), he breathed in and let out all his tension with a “Kaaahhh!!” Muscles tightened up and down his body, boosting his focus.
It was a basic breathing move, but it was also a harrowing finisher—and, repeating it three times as he took in the air and its magicules, it transformed his flesh and blood, adding the Adamantine Body effect of Berserker to his already well-built frame to make it hard as rock. His body was remade into a living weapon of battle.
“Now I’m ready. This is how I really fight, and I’m ready for you. Try to make this fun for me, all right?”
“That goes without saying. Come at me!”
With a light exhale, Shogo lunged at Geld. With his bodily strength much enhanced, all limiters restricting his powers were gone. The difference was like night and day, and he even moved faster than before.
“Shyahhh!!”
Quickly closing the distance, Shogo launched a frontal punch. The power from his toes upward ran through his navel and focused itself upon a single point in his fist. He called it the Tornado Punch, and it mixed Berserker’s weapon-breaking and Adamantine Body properties to unleash a torrent of force—and as it smashed through Geld’s shield, Shogo felt assured of victory.
Heh! The moment I get serious, this— Wait, what?
The next moment, he realized something felt off. Pain erupted from his limbs, forming together in intense agony in an instant.