Chapter 314
314 – Twin Swordsmen, Belmond and Theobold
I activate [Humanisation Technique]. Burning heat runs through my body as I quickly shrink. I’ve more or less gotten used to the pain, so it doesn’t bother me at all. But I just wish I didn’t have to feel so lethargic as half my vitality is taken away.
I put on the clothes I spat out earlier and head into the cave. I can’t take a lot of time here. I need to quickly neutralise those inside and rescue the hostages. With my physical abilities, it should easily be doable.
Running into the cave is fine and all, but… There’s no light here at all. It’s decently long, so the light doesn’t reach the depths. I do have [Presence Perception] though, so if they want to fight in the darkness, then I’m fine with that.
I open my eyes wide and concentrate on the precise positions of the heat sources. By straining my eyes, I can faintly make them out. My eyes are becoming accustomed to the darkness.
My attack, defence, and HP are all halved, and there are a bunch of skills I can’t use, but… That’s not enough to stop me. I kick off the ground and swing my arm towards one of the presences.
“Hih! S-something’s coming!”
Something shoots towards me. I immediately turn my face to the side.
An arrow skims past my cheek, grazing it. If I had my ouroboros scales, this level of attack would never damage me… My reduced defence is a problem, as is my lack of reach.
“Gabuah!?”
I hit the shoulder of the man in front of me. The feeling of his bones crushing is transmitted to me through my fist. He slams into the ground, sending shakes throughout the area. It doesn’t look like this cave is very sturdy. It might be best to be careful…
【150 experience points have been acquired.】
【Due to the Title Skill [Walking Egg: Lv -], an additional 150 experience points have been acquired.】
…My strength is still plenty. One hit is enough to kill. It was a direct hit, but still.
I glance at the crushed man’s face, and notice something strange… His eyes are shut tight? Did he squeeze his eyes closed from the shock of being hit?
“You guys, do it as planned. [Flash]!”
I hear a woman’s voice from the front, then immediately after, a blinding light fills the area. They got me. The bright light pours into my eyes that had acclimatised to the darkness.
“Guh!”
I stop moving and cover my face with my hands.
“There! [Fire Wall]!”
Flames rise from below, wrapping around me. Still struggling to see, I frantically jump back. Three arrows pierce my shoulder.
“Ani,[1] I’ll leave the other side to you.
“On it. Heh, looks like this’ll be unexpectedly easy.”
I hear voices from my left and right. It seems they plan on pressing me while I’m still off-balance. Their cooperation is too good. It seems their plan was to lure me here and kill me from the start.
Which means… There’s someone who could tell that I’d come to save the hostages, and moreover, would use [Humanisation Technique] to enter the cave. They got me. Did one of them have [Status Inspection]? No… Even if they didn’t see my status, they could know my skills from my species. Up to now the humans have had far too little information, so I’d thought to worry about that.
“Got you!”
I hold my hand out towards the sword swinging at my side. It’s the one that was called ani.
“It’s useless! Don’t think you can catch my sword with your bare hand!”
I pinch the tip of his sword between two fingers, then twist to flick it away. Having lost his weapon, he falls to his knees.
“N-no way! Wasn’t its strength meant to have fallen to the level of a human?!”
I shift my focus to the other side. A man there is glaring at me as though annoyed. His face is completely identical to the first man. They seem to be actual brothers.
“Let’s see how you handle this!”
The edge of his sword blurs and splits into three. I take a half step back to regain my balance.
“This is my barrier edge!”
He swings his sword diagonally downwards. The blade triples again, darting towards my head, chest, and legs.
I kick off the ground to launch a spinning kick in the opposite direction to his sword swing. My kick, which was launched after his swing, reaches him first. My toes sink into his abdomen.
“Gofuh!”
Blood bursts from his open mouth as he flies through the air. He crashes into his stunned older brother.
【180 experience points have been acquired.】
【Due to the Title Skill [Walking Egg: Lv -], an additional 180 experience points have been acquired.】
The older brother tumbles across the ground from the impact, then glares at me from the floor, coughing. Traces of of blood are mixed into his coughs. It seems his internal organs got damaged when he slammed into the floor. It doesn’t look like he can move much. It should be fine to leave him for now.
I suddenly hear the sound of arrows whizzing through the air. The flames that was scattered earlier lit some candles that were set up around the cave, so the visibility is good now. That must have been their plan from the start. But I’m just grateful to be able to use my eyes.
I pluck each of the three arrows out of the air and crush them, letting the fragments fall to the ground. All right, even if there’s a lot of them, I should be able to push through with my superior speed.
“H-hiiii!”
Seeing me crush the arrows, the older brother’s body trembles.
“That bastard… Azalea misread it! What’s he mean it’s okay for us to defeat it too?! How could we possibly deal with this monster!”
Okay for them to defeat me too? These guys, was their objective not to kill me?
“[Fire Wall]!”
Before I have a chance to think, a wall of erupts rises around me again. I jump to check the position of the chanter, curling in the air to avoid hitting the my head on the ceiling. I spot a woman with loose wavy pink hair, wearing a robe of the same colour scheme as the military uniforms. It seems she’s in charge of disrupting me with [Flash] and [Fire Wall]. She’s more troublesome than the arrows. It would be best I prioritise taking her out.
It seems the wall of fire was only meant to startle me, as it quickly fades away. For them to use a feint at this time… Someone else is coming with their best attack! I brace myself in the air. [Presence Perception]… There’s someone approaching from my blind spot.
“[Godspeed Flash]!”
The approaching presence suddenly speeds up. They’re pretty fast. They’re fast enough to be a match for the manticore, which was fastest monster I’ve seen so far. I manage to twist to the side, but can’t dodge it completely and I receive a gash along my side. After slashing at me, the shadow rotates in the air to touch the ceiling with its feet and stabs a knife into it to fix itself in place.
They have have a small build… Now that I take a good look at him, I see he’s a young boy. Fifteen years old at most. He seems to be a felis huma, as he has cat-like ears like Nina. I don’t want to fight him…is not the sort of naive thing I can afford to be thinking right now.
“Guh!”
He got me completely. Blue blood flows out of my belly. This guy… He’s at least a decade younger than the rest of them, yet his status is outrageous.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
[Irushia]
Speices: Ourobors
Condition: Humanised Lv8
Lv: 91/124
HP: 1018/2402
MP: 1492/2410
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
…Having my HP and defence halved makes things difficult. To make matters worse, I don’t have the protection of my [Dragon Scales]. I knew I was running into some sort of trap, but I wanted to prioritise rescuing the hostages… If I’d known it’d be like this, I should’ve had my partner who can use magic take over. I didn’t want to use magic here because of the cost of [Humanisation Technique], and because I knew I still have to go stop those that are trying to meddle with the forest children, but… In hindsight, I should have been prepared in case.
There hadn’t been any problems in the battles so far, so I might have been looking down on them a bit. These guys are really strong. I’m glad I didn’t leave them for Aro or the villagers to deal with. I was wondering why they seemed sure that I would come in person, but… It’s clear now they were confident they could deal with anyone else that came.
[1] Ani: elder brother
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