For most of the battle, my buddies and I had been inexplicably moving against our will, taking out monster after monster. Now I found myself equally matched against a petite, yellow-eyed orc who—judging from its appearance—was probably an Orc King. To be honest, I’d already thought I was a goner once one of those lady adventurers watching our backs tried stabbing me all of a sudden, but somehow, I was totally unharmed. Really, just who are you, Karina?! Without you here, I probably would’ve already been dead six times over by now!
“Damn, this orc’s tough! My sword broke when I hit him!”
“My shield too! Though honestly this thing’s weak enough that it falls apart when you crack it anyway.”
“Oh yeah, good point. Look, mine’s still holding up. Ah ha ha!”
Yeah, this is also Karina’s doing, I’m sure of it. I know I asked for her help before the battle began, but I didn’t think she’d go this far... No, I’m glad she did; she’s been a huge help. She’s doing what she promised, and at this rate we’ll probably win as long as the three of us make it through this. But I didn’t want to think about what would happen afterward. After all, everyone was gonna expect this level of heroism from our party in every battle from now on! Normally we’re not this skilled, so we’re gonna get crushed under the weight of their unrealistic expectations! I mean, it’s better than dying, obviously, but still!
Guess it might be time to retire as an adventurer. I planned to keep going for another ten years, at least, but now...
Then Karina’s voice reached my ear. “Hi, Blade. Right now I’m talking directly into your ear because I need to tell you something. I’ve sent you a bomb of concentrated magic, so throw it at the enemy like it’s your ultimate magical item. Thanks!”
Karina had passed me what was apparently a magic bomb. You’ve gotta be kidding me—isn’t she supposed to be up on the town wall? How did she give me this? She could use her wind magic to project her voice, so that much made sense, but... Yeah, maybe I shouldn’t even be surprised at this point.
“K-Karina... Don’t think I won’t remember this!”
“And don’t you forget your promise to treat me at Shunrai.”
A night at Shunrai feels like a small price to pay in comparison...but whatever. I guess we’ll just fight beyond our limits until we can’t physically fight anymore, and then we’ll have to retire.
Then, it finally hit me. I’d been concentrating on the battle and hadn’t had time to think about anything else, but exchanging quips with Karina had made me realize. This magic bomb—a purple crystal brimming with mana—was the answer to all our problems. I signaled to Shildon and Sekko with my eyes, then took a quick glance at the adventurers fighting around me.
“Hey, you two, time to use our ultimate weapon—this magic item!”
“Magic item?” Shildon said. “What do you—oh, now I get it! Yeah, guess we have no choice!”
Sekko seemed to get it too. “Do what you must, Blade! Let’s use the most powerful item we have!”
It looked like they grasped my intent immediately, as they both replied loud enough for everyone in the area to hear. Ha ha, I’m grateful to have comrades so quick on the uptake.
Immediately afterward, our moment came, and I threw the crystal I’d received from Karina into the air. Well, I say I because it was my body, but my speech was all I had full control over right now, so it was more like an assisted throw.
A beat later, I shouted out, “Take this! Taste the power of our ultimate weapon!”
Once high in the air, the crystal’s trajectory suddenly changed to head straight for the Orc King.
“That won’t work!” the Orc King shouted. The crystal bounced off his body and broke in half. A moment later, however, an ominous dark hole opened at his feet.
“Huh?! Aah!”
The surrounding ground had vanished. There was nothing to support him underneath, so he couldn’t even leap away. He fell right into the black void. At first he’d grabbed hold of the edge with lightning-quick reflexes, but the hole immediately opened up wider as if rejecting his efforts, and it swallowed the Orc King up. Once the top of his head had disappeared into the void, the opening snapped shut as quickly as it had opened up, and the ground was visible again as though nothing had happened.
“Huh? What...was all that?”
“He disappeared?”
Just like that, the formidable Orc King had fallen into a void, never to be seen again. There were light abrasions on the ground where the hole had been, but those were the only traces. An astonished-looking orc assassin jumped up and down on that spot, but the ground was now back to normal, so nothing happened. “O King, what happened to you?” he cried.
The other orcs screeched among themselves, clearly bewildered by their king’s disappearance. Meanwhile, as though it had just woken up from a trance, the enormous serpent in their ranks began attacking the nearby orcs. Oh, and it looks like its tail sent Sekko flying. Wait, huh?! Karina, aren’t you supposed to be protecting us?!
“Whoops, my bad. Sorry about that—I let my guard down a little, but I promise he didn’t take any damage, so I hope you can forgive me!”
He’s not hurt... That’s a relief. Then I guess I can let you off the hook?
While the three of us were all inwardly panicking, though, the adventurers on the front lines let out spirited cries. “Blade’s party, Sun Bacchus, has defeated the boss monster! We can take care of the grunts!”
“Yeeeaaah!”
With the Orc King gone, the adventurers moved to dispatch the remaining monsters. At this point, our victory was assured.
“Hey, Karina, we’re all good here, so we three are clear to retreat now, right? Hello? Karina?” I shouted toward the town wall in her direction, but there was no response.
“Hey, answer me! Shit, can she not hear me or something?!”
“Mm...nn... What is it, Blade? I didn’t hear you, so one more time, please.”
Seriously? We were busting our butts over here, and she sounded totally distracted by something else. “A-All right. Me and the others are pretty much spent, and we need to take a rest. Can we go ahead and retreat?”
“Huh? C’mon, just rack up some more achievements and be big damn heroes already. That receptionist lady will be thrilled too, I’m sure— Ahhn!”
“No, I don’t think that’ll work. We just barely managed to fool them with the power of that magic bomb!” I then suggested the thing I’d thought of while fighting the Orc King—pushing all of the responsibility for his defeat onto the crystal itself. “What if we say that the magical item powered us up, and the orc must’ve been using a similar enhancement because the two powers resonated and wiped the Orc King from existence?”
“Oh, not bad,” she replied. “Not bad at all...but are you sure you don’t want the glory for yourselves?”
She clearly hadn’t thought this through enough to consider what would happen afterward. I sighed and shook my head. “And what if they gave us a quest way beyond what we could actually handle? We’d die.”
“Yeah, good point. As expected of a senior adventurer—always careful about managing risks. Mnn... Then I guess I’ll release you guys from my control and protection. Do your best to make it out of there alive without getting hurt!”
I guess Sekko hadn’t gotten hurt by the serpent’s tail earlier, because even without controlling him, Karina’s protection was still active.
Still, she seemed awfully tired herself. Her breath sounded seriously ragged. Her appearance was her only good point, so if she started looking like a mess, she’d lose her one redeeming feature!
Anyway, after finishing our conversation, I was able to move my body again. Whew, what a day—or so I would’ve liked to say, but no sooner than I’d sighed in relief, the orc assassin who’d been inspecting the ground where the Orc King had disappeared glared at me with bloodlust.
“Huh? You’re still here?” I said.
“You... You... How dare you do that to our king?!”
“Whoa!”
Uh, Karina? It looks like there was still an orc assassin left... A little help here? Karina? Karina?!
After that, the three of us barely took down the assassin with our shabby weapons and armor. The struggle ended up making our story that our power earlier had come from the magic item seem more convincing, but I wasn’t happy about it! I’ll remember this, Karina! I’ll make you pay somehow! Oh, I know—I think I’ll go tell Miss Haru what you’ve been up to!
#Side: END