Chapter 30
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--
There was no time to hesitate, no time to ponder about the morals of killing other sapient beings. There was only time to fight and survive.
The lizardmen had archers, but some well-timed gusts of wind kept their arrows away from Elze. They stabbed at me with their spears, but I could duck and slap away their points – and unlike swords Zanzibar was almost the same length, and unlike spear vs spear where the shafts would slide past each other, my follow-through could chop into their arms.
Elze punched out and caved in a lizardman's breastplate. He died gasping and drowning on dry land, red foam coming out of his mouth and his lungs unable to expand from the dented metal.
Whereas Linze unexpectedly flitted from one position to another with deceptively powerful small kicks off the ground, I slid in and out of position as if my boots were rollerskates.
My Zanzibar chopped at a knee, and as the lizardman blocked it with his spear I pushed closer almost face to face to hook my blade under his guard and then up toward his pale unprotected neck. Blood spurted against my face as I tore open his throat.
Fortunately I was already legally blind so getting blood in the eyes would never prove a distraction in battle.
/"To your left! Block!"/
By instinct I obeyed Monika's shout, pulling Zanzibar out with my left hand and blocked the strike of a lizardman scimitar with its extra-long handle.
"[Fire]."
As that lizardman flinched from the sudden wave of fire that appeared in front of its eyes, I pulled back on my sword, carving open his neck too.
It was like my sword was magnetic, attracted towards exposed necks!
Stab towards my midsection. Step back, turn to the side, dip Zanzibar to block. Every stab could become a cut very quickly – lizardman spears had these smaller perpendicular blades to the main spearhead that gave it a triangular leaf-like appearance. Slap it away in a circle and stab.
Another throat opened.
Simultaneous spear thrusts from left and right. Move forward into their zone, and the spears crossed behind my back. Before they could pull into a cut, stab. Stab.
An arrow clanged off my helmet from the side.
/"[Amplify: IR Emitter!]/
/[Stack!]/
/[Amplify: IR Emitter!]/
/[Stack!]/
/[Amplify: IR Emitter!]/
/[Stack…!]"/ In a command-line window at the corner of my vision I saw these rapidly scroll away. Hundreds of lines.
/"[Compile: Eye Laser!] [MONIKA BEAM!]"/
I turned my head and Monika returned fire with a hot needle-thin beam of light that went into the offending lizardman's eyes, effectively burning out his corneas and then popping his eyeballs. He let out a warbling cry and clutched at his bloody face.
Move and cut. Dodge and stab. Fight and kill. All noise, all concerns faded out into this numb haze of battle. Until Elze and I realized we were now fighting back to back and our hips bumped together.
"There's no end to them!" Elze hissed.
"… where are they coming from?" I gasped out, now that there was a lull in the fighting my exertions were rapidly catching up to me. Unlike Elze's general [Boost], [Amplify] needed to improve my endurance as one part over three, the other two being Nerve Impulse and Strength. "If this gets down to attrition, we can't last for much longer."
"Th-there's a summoner behind them!" one of the guards replied. "We can't break through! Adventurers! If you could just open a path-!"
"Come forth, Fire! Whirling Spiral! [Fire Storm!]"
We shielded our eyes from the sudden glare of a fire tornado erupting in the middle of the pack of lizardmen.
Oh yeah! Now the lizardman formations were shot to hell. Linze and Yae had arrived. Our fire support is better than your fire support!
"Playa-dono! Monika-samaaaa!" Yae shouted, leaping off the wagon and into the fray. She slashed through lizardmen until she reached our side. "Also Elze-san. Are you unhurt?"
Elze made an out-of-place amused snort. "Why am I an afterthought? Why do you get to be called out to first?"
"Team leader. Pays the bills."
"Yeah, I can accept that."
"I am not a mercenary, that I am not. Could I not simply be concerned about my comrades?" Yae responded, faintly insulted. "Oh. This is a joke, yes?"
She faced the enemy, brandishing her sword, and asked without looking back "Playa-dono! I have arrived! What now?! Do we strike?!"
I bumped Elze's hips again. "Elze!"
"Right! Pulling back to guard! Go on then!"
"Yae! Summoner behind all of this! Let's clear us a path!"
"Hai!"
"Come forth, Water! Become a clear blade, [AQUA CUTTER!]" I screamed out and waved my open palm at the lizardman troops before us. A long spinning blade of ice almost ten meters long sliced into them. Lizardmen fell apart in screaming, bloody halves.
Someone shrieked, and as the last few lizardmen in the way collapsed with the Aqua Cutter ice shards still stuck into them, briefly we saw someone far on the opposite side of clearing. He wore black robes and a glowing purple ritual circle in front of him produced more lizardmen. The newcomers didn't even blink at the carnage they found themselves entering.
Were they just that 'cold blooded' inured to losses, did summoning just create simple programmed fighting beings ex nihilo as well, or were they mind-controlled battle slaves?
Regardless, as long as the magician was there, we could think the enemy numbers as essentially unlimited!
"Yae! Break through! Now!"
Yae surged forth. Slashing and stabbing, nimbly evading strikes and making perfect returning blows. While the lizardmen had breastplates, they left their arms and necks exposed, perfect weak points to her swift slashing katana. She was killing them much faster than I could with my longer blade.
"Yae! Dodge left!"
"Penetrate, Flame! Glowing giant spear, [BURNING LANCE!]" Linze shouted from behind us.
And then this massive immolating spear just punched right through the lizardmen group to our right.
"Yae! To the right!"
Yae nimbly skipped back to the other direction, her elevated wooden sandals allowing her step somewhat safely over still scorching ground.
"Come forth, Water! Become a clear blade – Monika, stack these for a [Blade Tornado] please – [AQUA CUTTER…]!" Then I drove my left palm out forward "[BLADE TORNADO!]"
A narrow cone in front of me was filled with nothing but flashing ice blades and bloody chunks, a zone of total death, the perfected murderblender.
The summoner at the far end screamed and dropped to his knees trying to avoid the flying blades that were not even aimed at him anyway.
By the time he dared to look up again, Yae was right at his face.
Her blade flashed, and his neck flew off his body.
"YAE! NO!" I cried out.
No hesitation whatsoever. Clearly Yae had killed before. Elze and Linze may be more accomplished adventurers, but Yae was the more seasoned traveler and fighter.
As the summoner died, the dark magic circle faded away, and so did the summoned lizardmen decompose into dark wisps of smoke dispersed by the ambient wind.
"Yae. Why. Why, Yae?" I groaned out as I approached.
Yae looked puzzled. "Was I not supposed to… kill?"
"NO!"
She looked towards the blood spatters and torn ground that remained after the battle. "I do not understand. Is it because he was human? Mercy is not something that can easily be afforded in-"
"Now who are we going to interrogate to know what the frek this was all about?!"
"… ah. Of course. I had forgotten. My deepest apologies, Playa-dono! I was only thinking about removing the threat as fast as possible before he could cast a spell or more of the enemy could arrive to overwhelm our defense, I was! I had forgotten there was more to victory than just slaying the enemy!"
She looked towards the armored guards standing with exhausted relief behind us, and dropped to one knee. "I have shamed you and Monika-sama!"
I sighed. Yeah, maybe because she was so used to fending for herself, removing threats asap was always the best solution. Knocking someone out with the flat of the blade still had all the risk of breaking their neck and fracturing their skull, you know.
Even fighting against those thugs back in Amanesque, Yae chose not to draw her blade unless she really needed to. Safely immobilizing someone was harder than it looked, and it was not like she could let go of her sword as long as that summoning circle could bring in more enemy reinforcements.
"Well what's done is done. Kokonoe, come on... Get up, there's no need for that! Now all we can do is help the survivors."
"Hai!"
And then I realized that young girl from earlier was still screaming.
-
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--
There was no time to hesitate, no time to ponder about the morals of killing other sapient beings. There was only time to fight and survive.
The lizardmen had archers, but some well-timed gusts of wind kept their arrows away from Elze. They stabbed at me with their spears, but I could duck and slap away their points – and unlike swords Zanzibar was almost the same length, and unlike spear vs spear where the shafts would slide past each other, my follow-through could chop into their arms.
Elze punched out and caved in a lizardman's breastplate. He died gasping and drowning on dry land, red foam coming out of his mouth and his lungs unable to expand from the dented metal.
Whereas Linze unexpectedly flitted from one position to another with deceptively powerful small kicks off the ground, I slid in and out of position as if my boots were rollerskates.
My Zanzibar chopped at a knee, and as the lizardman blocked it with his spear I pushed closer almost face to face to hook my blade under his guard and then up toward his pale unprotected neck. Blood spurted against my face as I tore open his throat.
Fortunately I was already legally blind so getting blood in the eyes would never prove a distraction in battle.
/"To your left! Block!"/
By instinct I obeyed Monika's shout, pulling Zanzibar out with my left hand and blocked the strike of a lizardman scimitar with its extra-long handle.
"[Fire]."
As that lizardman flinched from the sudden wave of fire that appeared in front of its eyes, I pulled back on my sword, carving open his neck too.
It was like my sword was magnetic, attracted towards exposed necks!
Stab towards my midsection. Step back, turn to the side, dip Zanzibar to block. Every stab could become a cut very quickly – lizardman spears had these smaller perpendicular blades to the main spearhead that gave it a triangular leaf-like appearance. Slap it away in a circle and stab.
Another throat opened.
Simultaneous spear thrusts from left and right. Move forward into their zone, and the spears crossed behind my back. Before they could pull into a cut, stab. Stab.
An arrow clanged off my helmet from the side.
/"[Amplify: IR Emitter!]/
/[Stack!]/
/[Amplify: IR Emitter!]/
/[Stack!]/
/[Amplify: IR Emitter!]/
/[Stack…!]"/ In a command-line window at the corner of my vision I saw these rapidly scroll away. Hundreds of lines.
/"[Compile: Eye Laser!] [MONIKA BEAM!]"/
I turned my head and Monika returned fire with a hot needle-thin beam of light that went into the offending lizardman's eyes, effectively burning out his corneas and then popping his eyeballs. He let out a warbling cry and clutched at his bloody face.
Move and cut. Dodge and stab. Fight and kill. All noise, all concerns faded out into this numb haze of battle. Until Elze and I realized we were now fighting back to back and our hips bumped together.
"There's no end to them!" Elze hissed.
"… where are they coming from?" I gasped out, now that there was a lull in the fighting my exertions were rapidly catching up to me. Unlike Elze's general [Boost], [Amplify] needed to improve my endurance as one part over three, the other two being Nerve Impulse and Strength. "If this gets down to attrition, we can't last for much longer."
"Th-there's a summoner behind them!" one of the guards replied. "We can't break through! Adventurers! If you could just open a path-!"
"Come forth, Fire! Whirling Spiral! [Fire Storm!]"
We shielded our eyes from the sudden glare of a fire tornado erupting in the middle of the pack of lizardmen.
Oh yeah! Now the lizardman formations were shot to hell. Linze and Yae had arrived. Our fire support is better than your fire support!
"Playa-dono! Monika-samaaaa!" Yae shouted, leaping off the wagon and into the fray. She slashed through lizardmen until she reached our side. "Also Elze-san. Are you unhurt?"
Elze made an out-of-place amused snort. "Why am I an afterthought? Why do you get to be called out to first?"
"Team leader. Pays the bills."
"Yeah, I can accept that."
"I am not a mercenary, that I am not. Could I not simply be concerned about my comrades?" Yae responded, faintly insulted. "Oh. This is a joke, yes?"
She faced the enemy, brandishing her sword, and asked without looking back "Playa-dono! I have arrived! What now?! Do we strike?!"
I bumped Elze's hips again. "Elze!"
"Right! Pulling back to guard! Go on then!"
"Yae! Summoner behind all of this! Let's clear us a path!"
"Hai!"
"Come forth, Water! Become a clear blade, [AQUA CUTTER!]" I screamed out and waved my open palm at the lizardman troops before us. A long spinning blade of ice almost ten meters long sliced into them. Lizardmen fell apart in screaming, bloody halves.
Someone shrieked, and as the last few lizardmen in the way collapsed with the Aqua Cutter ice shards still stuck into them, briefly we saw someone far on the opposite side of clearing. He wore black robes and a glowing purple ritual circle in front of him produced more lizardmen. The newcomers didn't even blink at the carnage they found themselves entering.
Were they just that 'cold blooded' inured to losses, did summoning just create simple programmed fighting beings ex nihilo as well, or were they mind-controlled battle slaves?
Regardless, as long as the magician was there, we could think the enemy numbers as essentially unlimited!
"Yae! Break through! Now!"
Yae surged forth. Slashing and stabbing, nimbly evading strikes and making perfect returning blows. While the lizardmen had breastplates, they left their arms and necks exposed, perfect weak points to her swift slashing katana. She was killing them much faster than I could with my longer blade.
"Yae! Dodge left!"
"Penetrate, Flame! Glowing giant spear, [BURNING LANCE!]" Linze shouted from behind us.
And then this massive immolating spear just punched right through the lizardmen group to our right.
"Yae! To the right!"
Yae nimbly skipped back to the other direction, her elevated wooden sandals allowing her step somewhat safely over still scorching ground.
"Come forth, Water! Become a clear blade – Monika, stack these for a [Blade Tornado] please – [AQUA CUTTER…]!" Then I drove my left palm out forward "[BLADE TORNADO!]"
A narrow cone in front of me was filled with nothing but flashing ice blades and bloody chunks, a zone of total death, the perfected murderblender.
The summoner at the far end screamed and dropped to his knees trying to avoid the flying blades that were not even aimed at him anyway.
By the time he dared to look up again, Yae was right at his face.
Her blade flashed, and his neck flew off his body.
"YAE! NO!" I cried out.
No hesitation whatsoever. Clearly Yae had killed before. Elze and Linze may be more accomplished adventurers, but Yae was the more seasoned traveler and fighter.
As the summoner died, the dark magic circle faded away, and so did the summoned lizardmen decompose into dark wisps of smoke dispersed by the ambient wind.
"Yae. Why. Why, Yae?" I groaned out as I approached.
Yae looked puzzled. "Was I not supposed to… kill?"
"NO!"
She looked towards the blood spatters and torn ground that remained after the battle. "I do not understand. Is it because he was human? Mercy is not something that can easily be afforded in-"
"Now who are we going to interrogate to know what the frek this was all about?!"
"… ah. Of course. I had forgotten. My deepest apologies, Playa-dono! I was only thinking about removing the threat as fast as possible before he could cast a spell or more of the enemy could arrive to overwhelm our defense, I was! I had forgotten there was more to victory than just slaying the enemy!"
She looked towards the armored guards standing with exhausted relief behind us, and dropped to one knee. "I have shamed you and Monika-sama!"
I sighed. Yeah, maybe because she was so used to fending for herself, removing threats asap was always the best solution. Knocking someone out with the flat of the blade still had all the risk of breaking their neck and fracturing their skull, you know.
Even fighting against those thugs back in Amanesque, Yae chose not to draw her blade unless she really needed to. Safely immobilizing someone was harder than it looked, and it was not like she could let go of her sword as long as that summoning circle could bring in more enemy reinforcements.
"Well what's done is done. Kokonoe, come on... Get up, there's no need for that! Now all we can do is help the survivors."
"Hai!"
And then I realized that young girl from earlier was still screaming.
-
-
--There was no time to hesitate, no time to ponder about the morals of killing other sapient beings. There was only time to fight and survive.The lizardmen had archers, but some well-timed gusts of wind kept their arrows away from Elze. They stabbed at me with their spears, but I could duck and slap away their points and unlike swords Zanzibar was almost the same length, and unlike spear vs spear where the shafts would slide past each other, my follow-through could chop into their arms.Elze punched out and caved in a lizardman's breastplate. He died gasping and drowning on dry land, red foam coming out of his mouth and his lungs unable to expand from the dented metal.Whereas Linze unexpectedly flitted from one position to another with deceptively powerful small kicks off the ground, I slid in and out of position as if my boots were rollerskates.My Zanzibar chopped at a knee, and as the lizardman blocked it with his spear I pushed closer almost face to face to hook my blade under his guard and then up toward his pale unprotected neck. Blood spurted against my face as I tore open his throat.Fortunately I was already legally blind so getting blood in the eyes would never prove a distraction in battle./"To your left! Block!"/By instinct I obeyed Monika's shout, pulling Zanzibar out with my left hand and blocked the strike of a lizardman scimitar with its extra-long handle."Fire."As that lizardman flinched from the sudden wave of fire that appeared in front of its eyes, I pulled back on my sword, carving open his neck too.It was like my sword was magnetic, attracted towards exposed necks!Stab towards my midsection. Step back, turn to the side, dip Zanzibar to block. Every stab could become a cut very quickly lizardman spears had these smaller perpendicular blades to the main spearhead that gave it a triangular leaf-like appearance. Slap it away in a circle and stab.Another throat opened.Simultaneous spear thrusts from left and right. Move forward into their zone, and the spears crossed behind my back. Before they could pull into a cut, stab. Stab.An arrow clanged off my helmet from the side./"Amplify: IR Emitter!//Stack!//Amplify: IR Emitter!//Stack!//Amplify: IR Emitter!//Stack!"/ In a command-line window at the corner of my vision I saw these rapidly scroll away. Hundreds of lines./"Compile: Eye Laser! MONIKA BEAM!"/I turned my head and Monika returned fire with a hot needle-thin beam of light that went into the offending lizardman's eyes, effectively burning out his corneas and then popping his eyeballs. He let out a warbling cry and clutched at his bloody face.Move and cut. Dodge and stab. Fight and kill. All noise, all concerns faded out into this numb haze of battle. Until Elze and I realized we were now fighting back to back and our hips bumped together."There's no end to them!" Elze hissed." where are they coming from?" I gasped out, now that there was a lull in the fighting my exertions were rapidly catching up to me. Unlike Elze's general Boost, Amplify needed to improve my endurance as one part over three, the other two being Nerve Impulse and Strength. "If this gets down to attrition, we can't last for much longer.""Th-there's a summoner behind them!" one of the guards replied. "We can't break through! Adventurers! If you could just open a path-!""Come forth, Fire! Whirling Spiral! Fire Storm!"We shielded our eyes from the sudden glare of a fire tornado erupting in the middle of the pack of lizardmen.Oh yeah! Now the lizardman formations were shot to hell. Linze and Yae had arrived. Our fire support is better than your fire support!"Playa-dono! Monika-samaaaa!" Yae shouted, leaping off the wagon and into the fray. She slashed through lizardmen until she reached our side. "Also Elze-san. Are you unhurt?"Elze made an out-of-place amused snort. "Why am I an afterthought? Why do you get to be called out to first?""Team leader. Pays the bills.""Yeah, I can accept that.""I am not a mercenary, that I am not. Could I not simply be concerned about my comrades?" Yae responded, faintly insulted. "Oh. This is a joke, yes?"She faced the enemy, brandishing her sword, and asked without looking back "Playa-dono! I have arrived! What now?! Do we strike?!"I bumped Elze's hips again. "Elze!""Right! Pulling back to guard! Go on then!""Yae! Summoner behind all of this! Let's clear us a path!""Hai!""Come forth, Water! Become a clear blade, AQUA CUTTER!" I screamed out and waved my open palm at the lizardman troops before us. A long spinning blade of ice almost ten meters long sliced into them. Lizardmen fell apart in screaming, bloody halves.Someone shrieked, and as the last few lizardmen in the way collapsed with the Aqua Cutter ice shards still stuck into them, briefly we saw someone far on the opposite side of clearing. He wore black robes and a glowing purple ritual circle in front of him produced more lizardmen. The newcomers didn't even blink at the carnage they found themselves entering.Were they just that 'cold blooded' inured to losses, did summoning just create simple programmed fighting beings ex nihilo as well, or were they mind-controlled battle slaves?Regardless, as long as the magician was there, we could think the enemy numbers as essentially unlimited!"Yae! Break through! Now!"Yae surged forth. Slashing and stabbing, nimbly evading strikes and making perfect returning blows. While the lizardmen had breastplates, they left their arms and necks exposed, perfect weak points to her swift slashing katana. She was killing them much faster than I could with my longer blade."Yae! Dodge left!""Penetrate, Flame! Glowing giant spear, BURNING LANCE!" Linze shouted from behind us.And then this massive immolating spear just punched right through the lizardmen group to our right."Yae! To the right!"Yae nimbly skipped back to the other direction, her elevated wooden sandals allowing her step somewhat safely over still scorching ground."Come forth, Water! Become a clear blade Monika, stack these for a Blade Tornado please AQUA CUTTER!" Then I drove my left palm out forward "BLADE TORNADO!"A narrow cone in front of me was filled with nothing but flashing ice blades and bloody chunks, a zone of total death, the perfected murderblender.The summoner at the far end screamed and dropped to his knees trying to avoid the flying blades that were not even aimed at him anyway.By the time he dared to look up again, Yae was right at his face.Her blade flashed, and his neck flew off his body."YAE! NO!" I cried out.No hesitation whatsoever. Clearly Yae had killed before. Elze and Linze may be more accomplished adventurers, but Yae was the more seasoned traveler and fighter.As the summoner died, the dark magic circle faded away, and so did the summoned lizardmen decompose into dark wisps of smoke dispersed by the ambient wind."Yae. Why. Why, Yae?" I groaned out as I approached.Yae looked puzzled. "Was I not supposed to kill?""NO!"She looked towards the blood spatters and torn ground that remained after the battle. "I do not understand. Is it because he was human? Mercy is not something that can easily be afforded in-""Now who are we going to interrogate to know what the frek this was all about?!"" ah. Of course. I had forgotten. My deepest apologies, Playa-dono! I was only thinking about removing the threat as fast as possible before he could cast a spell or more of the enemy could arrive to overwhelm our defense, I was! I had forgotten there was more to victory than just slaying the enemy!"She looked towards the armored guards standing with exhausted relief behind us, and dropped to one knee. "I have shamed you and Monika-sama!"I sighed. Yeah, maybe because she was so used to fending for herself, removing threats asap was always the best solution. Knocking someone out with the flat of the blade still had all the risk of breaking their neck and fracturing their skull, you know.Even fighting against those thugs back in Amanesque, Yae chose not to draw her blade unless she really needed to. Safely immobilizing someone was harder than it looked, and it was not like she could let go of her sword as long as that summoning circle could bring in more enemy reinforcements."Well what's done is done. Kokonoe, come on... Get up, there's no need for that! Now all we can do is help the survivors.""Hai!"And then I realized that young girl from earlier was still screaming.--
