Chapter 22

“Belle, we’ll handle the baiting—you keep hunting the Boss. Don’t just charge in when you spot him; tell me first.”

“We’ll see.”

She shoved the flask into her uniform pocket and sprinted off.

A moment later.

I picked up the two-handed axe lying on the ground.

“Wielding it is out of the question, but if I only have to throw it once...”

I twisted my torso, bending back as far as I could.

Then snapped forward like a released spring and hurled the axe with everything I had.

The spinning blade split an orc’s forehead.

Every pair of yellow eyes snapped to me.

“Over here!”

I dragged their attention onto myself.

“One, two, three... six.”

Kinjo counted heads.

“Kinjo, is it six total?”

“So far. I’ll watch for more.”

With practiced ease he shinned up a tree.

“Mago, listen up. I have to conserve mana from here on, so we move fast.”

He climbed high and opened his eyes wide, pupils flicking left and right.

“Starting left,” he murmured.

“Briefing begins.”

His gaze was heavier than I’d ever seen it.

“First orc: twin swords, but a dagger’s hidden under his coat—watch for it.”

He rattled off the rest.

All six.

“Sixth orc’s already limping—cracked left femur. Focus that leg.”

I nodded and stepped forward.

“Biggest problem is the armor—can’t find a gap for the blade.”

“Looks that way to me too.”

But there was a way.

I reversed my grip.

“Mago, what are you—”

Not the hilt—the blade.

I’d already wrapped my military-tag chain around both hands.

The thin links kept the edge off my skin.

The pommel at the sword’s end—that counterweight would become my mace.

“That’s swordplay...?”

I nodded.

Never tried it bare-handed before.

“Where’d you pick up that trick—Amon teach you?”

“Someone else.”

“At least it was proper training?”

“If I couldn’t do it right, I wouldn’t risk it.”

“Fair enough. Then let’s go.”

I nodded again.

A technique invented for moments when a mace is needed but only a sword is at hand.

Improvised, yet it suited me.

A style for the man who can’t even see the blade he holds.

“Eight years of running, and I still learned something...”

I muttered, resetting my stance.

First target.

Closest brute, short axe in both hands.

I slipped inside his guard.

Upswing.

The pommel rang against his breastplate.

The armor clattered; the lower section cracked.

“Rushed job on ugly plate always shows.”

I kicked his abdomen, then hammered again.

Each pommel blow shaved away more chest-piece.

A gap appeared through the shattered plate—left breast.

I flipped the sword and drove it home, ripping it out faster than it went in.

Filthy blood gushed.

The orc toppled backward.

“Mago, next is the twin-sword orc—dagger hidden in his coat.”

“I remember.”

Kinjo wrapped flame around the orc’s blades.

From that moment I kept smashing his armor.

Strike, step back, widen the gap.

Repeat.

Close enough to tempt, far enough to frustrate.

Kept him reckless.

As expected, he hurled a sword.

I knocked it aside.

A second blade followed.

I twisted my shoulder back and dodged.

He’d been hiding a dagger all along—no wonder he threw the swords away so casually.

“Just as I thought.”

He whipped out the concealed dagger.

Came charging, aiming for my throat.

I’d been waiting for that.

I caught his wrist with my right hand.

My left was still free.

I tossed my sword, caught it again.

The blade spun once in the air and bared its edge.

I drove it up under his chin.

He collapsed, clutching the pierced throat.

I ground my heel into his face and yanked the sword free.

The green foothills behind them began to redden with their blood.

“Four left.”

They charged all at once.

A roar loud enough to deafen.

The one with the cracked left femur took the lead.

I leapt high, stomped his left leg, and vaulted again.

In one bound I landed behind the last orc.

“Kinjo!”

Before the shout faded, fire blazed along my blade.

I split his eyes.

Next.

I skewered the throat of the one still screaming.

The scream chopped off.

Only a wet whistle remained.

I glanced back.

The orc whose leg I’d already ruined had slumped to the ground.

Killing them was the same in reverse: grip the sword backward, shatter the armor, slip the point through the gap.

I thought I’d finished them all—

then one crawled, dragging himself across the dirt.

I smashed the pommel into the back of his skull.

Bone crumpled; breath stopped.

“Mago. More coming.”

The orcs’ war cry burst from the trees ahead.

They charged, smashing every branch in their path.

“How many?”

“Eleven. Can you handle it?”

“Start on the left again.”

“No time for that—! I’m busy casting enhancement magic!”

“Finish fast and regroup with Belle.”

I closed my eyes.

Today I opened my first lake.

Wind-tossed leaves.

The clatter of branches sounded crystal clear.

My hair whipped across the sweat-soaked nape of my neck.

Every footstep.

Every tremor in the ground.

I could tell who would move next, and when.

Everything felt light, razor-sharp.

I sprinted into a battlefield painted in black and white.

“Enhancement’s done. Call them one by one, like before.”

* * *

“You lot...”

The Chief Instructor stared blankly at the trainees.

“Why are you coming down...?”

He glared at Amon, leader of the Assassination Team.

“We had no weapons, sir. We had to withdraw.”

“Amon.”

“Fighting with wooden swords seemed pointless, sir.”

“Amon Coster...!”

The Instructor barked.

“Who said you could descend on your own initiative! You are soldiers sworn to the Empire! With wooden swords, with bare fists—you fight!”

“We have to live!”

Amon cut him off.

It was an attitude none of them could have imagined the day before.

“Only the living can fight!”

“All you did was abandon the Escort Team! Get back up there and support them!”

“These are the soldiers you trained yourself, Instructor! They’re not that weak!”

Amon’s neck bulged with veins as he confronted the Instructor.

He drew a long breath and shouted,

“We’re going down to fetch real weapons...!”

“What did you say...?”

“We’re out of time!”

Amon’s eyes shook like rattles in a cup.

He bit his lower lip until it whitened.

“Every member of the 66th, up the hill and link with the line!”

The Chief Instructor never flinched.

He didn’t give an inch.

“We’re going down...!”

“Amon Coster!”

A soft, almost gentle voice sliced through both men’s shouts.

“Anything else is just a dog’s death, Instructor. If it won’t work, it won’t work—no amount of pushing makes it work.”

Hair like molten gold, eyes to match.

Louise stepped into Amon’s rebellion.

“We’re not running. We’re fetching real weapons and fighting the way we were taught.”

“Disobeying a direct order is punished by the lash! You’ve already crossed the—”

“Instructor, we’re going down. And we’ll claw our way back up. Standing here arguing burns the clock we don’t have!”

Amon flicked a hand signal at the entire Assassination Team—

Descend.

“Weren’t you aiming for the Special Task Force, Amon Coster? For the honour of your family?”

“Yes.”

“Then what is this?”

“The Task Force doesn’t want trainees who’re handy with wooden sticks. It wants soldiers who’ve stuck blades in demon beasts. One more body, one more kill.”

“And I’m the one who sends men to that force, Amon Coster.”

“I know. But we’re not marching out to duel wooden orcs, Instructor...”

Amon’s gaze dropped to the sword in the Instructor’s fist.

“Why are you holding it backward? Planning to club them with the spine instead of the edge?”

“Wh—”

The Instructor whipped the blade behind his back and, when he thought no one saw, flipped it right-side out.

“When did you last face a real demon beast? Understandable—it's been a century of cease-fire.”

“Shut your mouth!”

“I’ve lost count, and I never kept score. The Coster line was born to hunt monsters. Maybe I’ve already slain more than—”

He backed away and added, voice low,

“—than you ever will.”

“Amon Coster! I have the armory key. Even if you go down—”

“The armory is already open, Instructor.”

“What?”

“See you in a few minutes.”

Moments later the Assassination Team poured through the open doors of the armory, snatched the weapons that felt true in their hands, and burst back onto the drill ground.

Amon raised his sword.

“Fifty of you answered my call. Thank you—for staying alive this long and for trusting me.”

He swept his eyes along their tight ranks; heads nodded one after another.

“We came down breathing, but we don’t get to catch that breath. We go back up—now!”

The murmur became a roar.

* * *

Found it.

Though “found” felt clumsy; we’d known exactly where it was and walked straight to it.

“Spotted,” maybe.

Kinjo spoke under his breath.

I lifted my head.

To meet its eyes you had to crank your neck hard—187 cm of Kinjo had to look up like everyone else.

Around our necks: military tags.

Around its neck: a necklace of fangs and cracked bone, pig-hide cord.

Crude, ugly.

Pearls before swine—Belle’s old joke floated back.

Atop the hill stood the orc boss.

Blue glare, fixed on me.

“Kinjo, if that thing gets close, don’t mention Belle’s name. We found it first; we finish it. No point leading it to her.”

“Simple.”

“Simple.”

He was still running clairvoyance.

“Mago, twenty hostiles.”

“What?”

“Goblins. Twenty.”

A horn-flute blared, the note splintering through dense trunks yet carrying for leagues.

I looked downslope—layered patter of small feet.

Another blast, nearer.

Shapes flickered between the trees, then sharpened: a goblin swarm climbing toward us.

I’d watched this same scene in a previous life.

“The difference is the numbers.”

Twenty goblins were hunting us.

After cutting down nineteen orcs in a row, my body was in no shape to face them.

The goblins scrambled up the hill with their usual speed.

The Orc Boss came down to meet them, axe gripped in both hands.

One orc above.

The strongest of them all.

Twenty goblins below, still climbing.

First priority: the archers.

Four of them moved as a tight knot.

It reminded me of the ridge fight in my past life, except this time I had nothing to throw and no ranged weapon.

Not on me, anyway.

“Kinjo, remember this place?”

“Here?”

“Where we camped. First Exam.”

It’s in the ground.