135

At the end of the concealed thread of magic power I followed—there was only an ordinary tree.

In other words, they had simply attached the end of the thread to some random tree and used it to lead me around.

It might sound like an excuse, but even so, partway through I had noticed something like, “Wait—this isn’t the direction of town, is it?”

But if they fled in a straight line, their route would be easy to predict, so I started suspecting, “Were they trying to avoid the risk of being intercepted by taking a non-straight route?”—and that forced me to confirm the end of the thread.

(I should’ve cut the chase early and headed for town. That was the right answer.)

My physical specs were superhuman, but my intelligence was average.

I was terrible at deception games.

And yet—even from here, a superhuman monster could still turn it around.

Bad weather or not, I would find a four-person group dragging two burdens with them in no time.

…That was what I swaggered, and about twenty minutes passed. But I couldn’t track them by smell, couldn’t pick them up by sound, and a hint of panic started to show.

At this point, a suspicion surfaced: what if that troublesome mage was moving alone?

With two deadweights, even a normal retreat would get caught.

In fact, I had believed I would catch them.

So maybe they used that magic thread earlier to pull me away from the other four?

(If that’s true, then that old man wasn’t far from here.)

The possibility that they might actually escape became real, and at the same time I registered that the troublesome mage might be solo.

Who should I kill here and now—the mage?

Or the spirit-sword wielder?

The answer came immediately.

(Of course it’s the latter. Above all, I want to secure the spirit sword—the one thing that might be able to kill me.)

A powerful weapon stopped being scary if you took it.

There was a risk it could be taken back, but in this forest, finding a hiding place would not be hard.

A skilled mage was troublesome, yes—but still just one person.

Between a replaceable human resource and an irreplaceably overwhelming weapon, the priority was obvious.

My route should be to the town.

I headed straight there while staying alert and searching.

Right now, I had found not a single trace I could call theirs, and there was no denying the odds were against me.

Also, the gas they used during their retreat might still linger—and depending on its effects, the worst case, where I ended up in real danger, still couldn’t be ruled out.

Thinking back, my assumptions had been naive.

As individuals, fine—but as a team, their capability had clearly been thrown together in a hurry.

Yet once the lid was opened, if I excluded the two burdens, the remaining three absolutely had the power to kill me.

If that first ambush had succeeded, my head might have separated from my body.

(And what makes that possible is the spirit sword.)

I would take it no matter what.

There was no way there were multiple such dangerous things; if it was only that one, then taking it away was practically the same as neutralizing an entire nation.

And just in case, if I owned it and could hand it to someone who could use it more effectively, then even after I lost my reason, I could feel safer about what would happen.

I kept my honest thought to myself: “It’ll probably be an elf, and if I’m lucky, I might even get a nice deal out of it.”

Anyway, my attention was drifting into thought, so it was time to focus on searching.

After continuing through the forest toward town, I finally found signs that people had passed through.

Several sets of footprints pressed clearly into the rain-softened mud—probably four people’s.

I didn’t want to think this, too, was fake, but with something like this present, it was certain I was closing in.

Letting out a relieved breath—“So they really were heading for town”—I followed the footprints while watching for other traces.

After a short distance, my nose picked up a slight sense of wrongness.

A faint new scrape on a tree—fresh, with the subtle smell of metal.

(From the position, did it come from the greatsword the captain carried on his back? And if I factor in the number of footprints…)

Certain I could catch them, I smiled.

There was still distance to town.

For me, it wouldn’t take long—but carrying two burdens, it was nowhere near far enough to escape.

I switched from “searching” to “prioritizing caution,” and broke into a run toward the footprints’ end.

Then, right after I saw a wavering shape ahead that looked like a person—my foot sank into the muddy ground as if it were being swallowed.

“Gah!”

I steadied myself with the saber and shield and yanked my foot free.

Feeling something off, I turned—there was definitely a human presence there, even if I couldn’t see it.

I flicked a stone on the ground with my saber; it missed the mark slightly, but an old man revealed himself and said something—unfortunately, there wasn’t a single word I could understand.

It probably wasn’t the Kingdom of Canaan’s language.

(If that troublesome mage shows up here, is this meant to stall me?)

The old me would have assumed that and acted accordingly.

But I had already noticed two oddities.

Because I was keeping near-max caution, I could tell: there were two unnatural points where the sound of rain was clearly gone.

And the soundless ranges differed, with varying intensity—given his previous methods, one of them was probably a fake.

Meaning: a tactic that pretended to be stalling, while setting up a true strike.

(You think it’ll work twice…? No. That’s not it. I should assume they arranged it specifically to make it work the second time.)

If so, I had to consider the risk that both were decoys and the real thing was elsewhere—or that both had some kind of trap.

(This is… no—this is exactly what real combat is.)

There was too much to think about.

Up to now, I had been able to ignore all of it thanks to my physical specs—and now that alone wasn’t enough.

Then this was also a chance for me to grow.

I steeled myself, and a long roar thundered through the forest.

The moment it signaled the start of round three, I leapt at the mage.

A bold offensive, completely unlike my earlier caution.

(I’ll tear you apart—and make you my fuel!)

My first strike wasn’t with the saber, but a mass-based attack with the shield.

Until now, he had hindered my movements, but never “caught” them.

No—if I assumed he simply couldn’t, then this strike was useful for confirming it.

The old mage dodged my body-weighted shield crush with an effortless sideways float, then clapped his bracelet-wearing hands together hard.

A dry sound—then a popping blast rang right by my ear.

He was trying to steal my hearing, but my ears weren’t fragile enough for that.

For a few seconds I truly heard nothing, but I’d prefer he didn’t forget my regenerative ability.

I immediately shifted my focus to the unnaturally presence-less spots, but he had already moved behind me—so obvious it practically announced his aim.

Still, I had nowhere near enough material yet to determine which was the real threat.

Clicking my tongue—“He’s keeping an annoying distance”—I didn’t let up on the pressure.

Forward, forward—I kept pushing.

The fact he wasn’t using offensive magic meant I should assume he had no way to pierce my defenses.

(It could still be an act. But if I fear that, I’m playing right into his hands!)

So I closed in even at the risk of taking a hit.

While guarding my back, I prioritized offense and cornered the old mage.

Which meant I was forcing the others into a binary choice: “Abandon him—or save him.”

The floating old mage narrowly dodged a saber swing.

He kicked off a tree to change direction; I stepped in and smashed with the shield, but struck something like a lump of air—when it detonated, the shock blew him away like a dead leaf.

I pressed forward without pause—no distance for you.

I swung my weapons without pause—no time to chant.

My movements grew more violent, yet despite his frail appearance, he still let not a single hit land, fluttering and dodging like a leaf—and I couldn’t hide my astonishment.

The two presence-less things creeping behind me constantly hunted for an opening.

An unbelievable wielder.

A mage… no, a human could become this strong? I felt something beyond shock—almost admiration.

But defending forever had no future.

As long as I didn’t drop my guard, the real attack from behind couldn’t move.

They had clearly tried to act a few times, but each time, the old mage sent some kind of signal.

And that unnatural movement became openings, steadily accelerating the moment of his end.

As I swung downward, I read the terrain and moved to steal his escape options.

Just a little more… his limit was closing in.

If I continued like this—without ever weakening my rear guard—the end would come soon.

But my opponent wasn’t ignorant of that.

That moment would be targeted without fail.

If they hadn’t moved until now, then their moving at that timing was practically guaranteed.

So I would shift the timing.

That expected “final exchange”—the moment they believed they had lured out—I would not let them hold it in their hands.

Breath ragged, the seasoned mage kept reading my attacks and dodging.

Slash, thrust, bash, kick—he endured all of it.

His room to move shrank, and his motions gradually lost their sharpness.

Even from my perspective, it was obvious his stamina and magic were near their limit.

He used an exploding air burst to launch himself away from a shield bash.

I drew my saber back—then, at the motion that suggested I would add a thrust, the old mage placed his other hand against his extended hand and began a short, quick chant.

I stepped in hard, opened my mouth, and closed on him.

That conical barrier that should appear in front—one that had made my thrusts slide off again and again—

Before the chant could finish, I breathed fire from my open mouth.

Who could instantly judge that it was “something created by magic”?

He made the wrong call.

He reacted to the flame I spat—something that wasn’t even truly a threat.

That tiny opening was enough.

No barrier deployed, a solid feel of flesh on the saber thrust, sound and voice reaching my ears, and the scent of blood beginning to spread.

All of it told one outcome.

“… …”

I didn’t know what he was saying.

But he coughed blood, and the hand that caught it patted—pat, pat—at the blade that pierced his chest.

Then, gathering every last ounce of strength—

I pulled my sword out.

The blood-wet blade left him, and the old man drifted weakly through the air.

Blood gurgled from his mouth, and the tower shield smashed his body.

The presence-less things behind me still did not move.

An ending that deviated wildly from expectation kept them rooted in place.

I turned slowly.

The two invisible mists where rain should not have sounded began to clear.

With the caster gone, there was nothing left to hide the “real threat.”

I raised my saber and shield—

…and let out a stupid, empty sound.

“…Huh?”

When the magical concealment vanished completely, nothing remained.

I stared blankly at that nothingness for a long moment.

No one was there—so what, exactly, had I been guarding against?

“No way…”

I looked at the old mage lying silent on the ground.

“From the start?”

There was no answer.

In this place, there was no one left to answer that question.

“Was it all… a one-man act?”

The wavering I had definitely sensed behind me… the meaningless movements made in sync with it.

All of it had been to make me believe, “They’re there.”

“Why did you let them go?”

It was obvious he wasn’t from the Kingdom of Canaan.

He was probably a mage from the neighboring nation, Seizeria.

So why would he stake his life to let the spirit-sword wielder escape?

A corpse said nothing.

What did this outcome mean?

There was only one thing I could say: this old mage had probably fulfilled his role— and I had failed to achieve my objective.