My First Battle

“Tch! Of all times!”

Bangagonga’s face twisted into something brutally vicious, teeth bared. Honestly, it was terrifying.

“Fels! Get out of here now! This area will become a battlefield!”

The voice from earlier had said something was coming from the north, right? Which way even was north? And did the sun in this world rise in the east like normal?

Maybe I was thinking about something too pointless, because Bangagonga shouted again, louder.

“Fels! Are you listening!?”

“Yeah, I’m listening. That aside, Bangagonga—I’ll lend a hand.”

“What are you saying?”

“I came here to talk with you. It’d be pointless to leave after only a word or two when I’ve come this far, wouldn’t it?”

“But even so… frenzied monsters are dangerous! People die every time! There’s no guarantee it won’t be you!”

Hm… even in this situation, Bangagonga bothered to explain things instead of snapping at me. He really did seem like a decent guy. And if he died, it’d be a hassle in a bunch of ways… Besides, it sounded like the goblins could repel them even with casualties, so with us involved, it should be fine.

“Arguing here won’t help, right? If you’re going out to intercept, I’ll just follow along without getting in your way.”

“…Do what you want!”

Bangagonga broke into a run, and I chased after him—of course my subordinates followed right behind.

“By the way, Bangagonga—what are we fighting?”

“…A frenzied monster. You don’t know?”

He answered while looking like it was slightly awkward to run and talk at the same time.

“First I’ve heard of it. How do you tell?”

“Anything with clearly unnatural movements and red eyes is a frenzied monster… You’ll know the moment you see one.”

“Got it…”

He’d slowed a bit because I kept talking, but Bangagonga still looked like he was running hard. The difference in physical ability was obvious—I could keep up at what felt like a light jog.

After a few minutes of following the giant ahead of me, something like furious shouting reached us from the direction we were heading.

In the next instant, Bangagonga surged forward, accelerating so hard it looked like the ground might peel up behind him. So he hadn’t been going all out.

“Combat will be handled by me, Lynferia, and Ururu. Kamila, Otonoha, Eisha—hold position in the rear. No magic.”

““Ha!””

After issuing orders quickly, I increased my own speed.

The closer we got, the more a hard-to-describe stench stabbed at my nose… I was starting to not want to go… What if I got splashed with blood…?

Ignoring my feelings entirely, Lynferia overtook me. I couldn’t see Ururu at all—had she already started fighting?

If I didn’t hurry, the battle might end before I even arrived… but that smell was draining my motivation… Still, I’d decided. I needed to steel myself.

I poured strength into my legs… and even more into my wavering heart, and sprinted straight into the battlefield.

What I saw were goblins being attacked—different skin color than the goblins from Legions, but compared to Bangagonga, they didn’t look nearly as hulking.

Actually, their appearance was so different it was practically like another species—

No, this wasn’t the time to observe.

I closed the distance in an instant to a wolf pinning a goblin down… I slashed with my sword, but I couldn’t risk the blade reaching the goblin underneath, so I kicked the wolf away instead.

The wolf that took my kick… flew less like a soccer ball and more like a missile, slammed into a tree, and stopped moving.

Oh… The sheer distance it flew made both me and the goblin who’d been pinned stare at each other with wide eyes.

“…You okay?”

“Y-yeah.”

I nodded once to the goblin on the ground, then dashed off again in search of the next monster. Fortunately… or rather, unfortunately, there were plenty.

A huge bear raised its claws toward me. I swung my sword in a sweeping cut across its torso—

Huh? No impact.

The descending claws looked so slow to me I could’ve dodged while yawning… but I followed up, slicing again in a rising diagonal—

Still no impact at all!?

I cut it several more times, and still felt nothing, yet the bear kept coming at me like it was perfectly fine.

This sword… couldn’t cut a bear? No, maybe it couldn’t cut anything—

I flicked my eyes toward Lynferia. She was carving through monsters, dropping them one after another. Beyond her, Ururu was turning several wolves into something like neat fillets in an instant—

They weren’t fish. And if you cut like that, you were definitely cutting straight through bone—

Anyway… it looked like I was the only one who couldn’t cut anything.

Sensing my “failure” as an opening, two wolves rushed me.

At this point… should I just defeat everything with kicks? Become an ace striker?

One wolf leapt to bite. I timed it and threw a full-power mid-kick.

The hit landed cleanly, blasting the wolf away exactly as planned—straight into the bear.

Yes! Just as—

No. Not “just as planned.”

The moment the wolf struck the bear, the bear exploded into pieces. Even an overlord was shocked by that.

But the wolf I’d kicked was still more or less intact, oddly enough… What was that…?

While kicking the second wolf off in a completely different direction, I thought hard.

No… surely not.

If the sword that had “no impact” was actually cutting so sharply that I felt nothing… then the bear had been moving without realizing it had been cut…?

Could that happen…?

I didn’t want to confirm it up close, because the pieces were… grisly… But there was no way a simple collision with a wolf would do this, right?

Was this my strength… or was the Overlord Sword insane…? It was probably the sword. Nothing like this happened in the training hall…

If I’d had another weapon… I should’ve brought an iron sword or something.

In Legions, the iron-series weapons had the worst stats, only raising attack by 1—basically meaningless in the system—but as weapons, they’d still cut things.

They might even be easier to use than an Overlord Sword whose edge was apparently too extreme.

But with the members I’d brought today, nobody was equipped with an iron sword.

While thinking that, I continued kicking away enemies one after another, the Overlord Sword still in my hand.

Between Lynferia and Ururu’s performance, the outcome of the battle was already decided.

As the monsters were mowed down in waves, the goblins stared at our fighting with stunned expressions.

Still… compared to those two, my fighting style looked dumb. While front-kicking another bear into the distance, I couldn’t help sending an envious look toward Lynferia’s technique.

Maybe she noticed, because Lynferia smiled brightly as she finished a clean swing, then flicked her sword as if shaking off blood before sheathed it.

The instant she did, the upper half of the bear beside her separated from the lower half and fell to the ground.

So cool…

As I stared, Lynferia—her cheeks slightly reddened—jogged over to me.

“…Fels-sama. Is something the matter?”

“…No. Your swordwork was superb. Truly beautiful.”

“Fweh…! Y-yes! I am honored beyond measure!”

Oh—right. Bad.

As Lynferia flushed bright red and started to drop to one knee, I grabbed her arm and pulled her up.

“You don’t need to kneel. The battle… seems to be over, but this is still a battlefield. There are things more important than showing respect to me.”

Also, even in normal situations, please stop kneeling so much.

“Fels-sama… no enemies… in the vicinity… Expand… search range?”

I was about to say more, but Ururu appeared beside me first and delivered her report.

“No, not for now. Regroup with Kamila and the others, then speak with the goblins’ leader… Bangagonga. If it goes well, we may be allowed inside the settlement… Tell Otonoha that if that happens, she should check whether we can place a mana collection device there like we did at the earlier village.”

“Understood…”

Ururu slipped away as usual.

…She could’ve just walked with us to regroup, honestly.

But right—I’d asked her to relay a message to Otonoha, so she went ahead.

Feeling vaguely apologetic, I started walking toward Kamila and the others—only for them to come running at considerable speed, then kneel in front of me.

No. Really. You don’t have to do that. It makes it hard to talk.

“…There’s no need to kneel. I dislike having others see you kneeling. And even without that, your respect reaches me at all times.”

Maybe they actually wanted to do it, but it wrecked the flow of conversation, so I needed to steer them away from it.

“Ha! We have received your command!”

Kamila answered on behalf of the group, and all four rose together in perfect unison.

I’d felt it in the audience hall too, but their timing was absurdly synchronized…

While thinking something that didn’t matter at all, I noticed Bangagonga approaching with a grim expression, so I turned to face him.

…It was probably grim.

Or maybe that was a goblin smile. Who knew.