I decided to assassinate that captain on the next pitch-black night. It would be a just punishment for his sins against Father.
The rest of the knights went fleeing after their captain. Now we had to face an even larger horde of monsters racing toward us. But working together, we managed to stop every last monster from reaching the village. Eventually, Melromarc reinforcements arrived, evacuating the rest of the villagers, and finally we finished our work.
“Motoyasu!” Father called. “We’re all finished up over here, so would you mind going to face the boss now?”
“Absolutely. Yuki, Kou, let’s hurry!”
“At once!”
“More food!”
“Don’t let Kou eat too much!” Father added. Kou had his mouth full of insects.
I leapt onto Yuki’s back and rushed off toward Ren and Itsuki, who had been slowly and unskillfully making their way through the enemies and toward the boss.
Yuki, Kou, and I arrived on the scene. Ren and Itsuki were using fairly weak skills, nothing more than Air Strike Bash and Dual Arrows. I supposed they had nothing better to work with at this point. They screamed at the top of their lungs as they put up a decent fight against the chimera boss.
Still, they were doing even less damage than I remembered. Maybe it had been much faster with three heroes rather than two? It wasn’t a particularly powerful boss in the first place.
“Now you’re here! Motoyasu, what the hell were you doing?” Ren demanded, dodging an attack from the chimera and coming up to me.
“Slacking off as always, I’d expect,” Itsuki said.
“We were evacuating the villagers, I say! There was a village right in the path of the wave, so if we didn’t do anything, the whole village would have been destroyed.”
Ren scoffed. “You should’ve just left that to the castle soldiers.”
“Our sole objective is to defeat the wave of destruction,” Itsuki said. “Naofumi should’ve been able to handle it himself. The guy can’t even attack, anyway.”
How could Itsuki not comprehend just how disadvantaged Father had been this entire time? A group of Melromarc knights literally attacked him! I bet Ren and Itsuki didn’t know about that!
“Please don’t say such things about Father,” I told him. “He may not be able to attack, but he can stop opponents in their tracks, which makes it much easier for the rest of us to take them out.”
I wondered how Father might handle fighting this chimera boss. A scene easily came to mind: first, he’d stop the chimera’s movement by grabbing it by the forelegs. Then, with his shield’s counterattack, he’d send the monster’s attacks bouncing right back at it. And finally, he’d ask Big Sis or me to land the finishing blow. Father would enable us to focus all of our energy on one powerful attack that was sure to take out the chimera for good. But Itsuki and Ren would have no understanding of something like teamwork.
“If it had been just you and Itsuki, the village would have gotten completely destroyed,” I declared.
“Not if we defeat the boss fast enough!” Ren responded.
“The boss is the highest priority,” Itsuki said. “Many more will die if we do not defeat it!”
I sighed. “Now I can understand why . . .” They really were the pinnacle of stubbornness.
And I had made a promise to Father and to my beloved Filo-tan. To treat everyone kindly, and to lead the world to a true peace.
That is the reason why I fight! Not for my own selfish reasons!
“What are you talking about?”
“If you’ve got something to say, go ahead and say it already!” Itsuki demanded.
“It’s nothing whatsoever,” I protested. “There’s no point in saying it.”
It was time to take out the chimera, already. The big problem was that if I revealed how much more powerful I was than Ren or Itsuki, it would prevent my knowledge of the future from remaining useful. So I had to fight without using any of my skills.
I gave Yuki and Kou a sign to hold themselves back as well. Yuki nodded and raced ahead in front of the chimera to attract its attention.
The chimera had three heads: a lion’s, a dragon’s, and a goat’s, plus the tail of a snake. It let out a furious roar and its tail lashed out toward Yuki to attack her. The dragon’s head puffed out a breath of flame as the goat’s head wagged back and forth.
There was no need for any of my skills here, I say! I simply stabbed the chimera with my spear a few times. I slashed its fur ragged, broke its bones, and slowly went about defeating the beast.
“Motoyasu! Use your skills!”
“This is no time to be playing around!”
I heard their voices behind me and stopped. Even my normal attacks were far stronger than Ren and Itsuki using their best skills. I supposed they were utterly lost for words at the display of my power.
“Oh, I get it,” said Ren. “Instead of learning how to use skills, you used a different skill to power up your normal attacks.”
“Aha! You got your hands on that sort of skill!”
They must’ve been referring to what I knew from my gaming experience as the skill called Berserk. Unfortunately for them, they were incorrect. Any of my skills would’ve been far too much for them or this chimera to handle, of course. My attack power was simply on a different level. In fact, I had been holding back with all of my might and still dealt tremendous damage.
To mistake my strength with a skill . . . just how stupid could those two be? But they wouldn’t believe me even if I explained the power-up methods I had used. These are my regular attacks, I say!