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Chapter 5 – The Power of the Elves
“Then-begin!”
At Tarshal’s signal, the mock battle begins.
At that moment, Aegan closed the distance between us.
I sidestepped to the right to avoid a sharp strike from a dagger——
“Whoa.”
I grabbed the arrow that one of the elves shot as it was coming right at me.
Aegan shoots magic at me from behind, making sure my attention is away from him.
“–Air Bomb!”
Instantly, a ball of wind exploded behind me, sending a shock and cloud of dust over me. There was almost no damage, but I guess he was trying to take away my vision.
“I knew it.”
As expected, two daggers came at me. Apparently two of them charged me at once…
I avoided every dagger attack, and in the end they retreated without hitting me.
At that moment, Aegan, who had somehow returned to his original position, and the two elves who had not approached me at all finished their chanting and invoked their magic.
“——Grand Wave!”
“——Air Lance!”
“——Air Arrow!”
The ground wave that Aegan unleashed was magic that makes the ground ripple.
I guess his plan was to use it to restrict my movement and then follow up with an attack.
The other two magic landed on me, sending up a cloud of dust with a violent sound.
“Did we get him?”
One of the elves went ahead and said that, only he doesn’t know that’s usually a flag.
Aegan used wind magic to clear the dust cloud, and instead of my battered figure—— he saw me, wrapped in a translucent barrier, unscathed.
“What the…? What the hell is that?”
Aegan shouted in surprise as he realized that all the attacks he had hurled with all his might had apparently been blocked by magic he had never seen before.
One of them fired an arrow that hit the barrier, but it only caused a small ripple around the surface and fell to the ground.
“It’s just barrier magic.”
“Barrier, magic?”
Aegan was flabbergasted.
“Mr. Haruto, we elves are a long-lived race and well-versed in magic. I’ve been around a long time myself, and I’ve never heard of magic that creates a barrier that can be activated by an individual. What is the concept of this magic exactly?”
Oh, so they know nothing about it as I thought, huh?
But then again, I am under no obligation to reveal anything to him so readily, so I put my index finger to my mouth and smirked.
“It’s a secret.”
“…I understand. I guess what you’re trying to say is, defeat me if you want to know.”
I didn’t answer, but lifted the barrier and walked towards the elves.
This time, three of them, including Aegan, came at me at the same time.
Of the remaining two, one was readying his bow and the other was reciting some kind of chant.
I was able to deal with the arrows and magic that came flying from those two, while dealing with the three who were approaching, which was a surprisingly good combination.
One of them drew my attention, and another one, erased his presence, and attacked me. While dealing with that, another also erased his presence, looking for an opening and then attacked.
The deadliest attacker among them was Aegan, who was unleashing attacks with a spirited voice.
“Haah!”
I deflected Aegan’s attack with my sword and dodged a thrust from behind by bending down. But then two of the rearguards unleashed their magic, and as they were caught by the barrier right up front, I swung my sword from the side.
Normally, it would be difficult to counterattack this combination.
Well, to be honest, I could have gotten out of this situation easily like stealing candy from a baby, but I decided to enjoy this situation a little more because it’s not often that I got to see such great coordination.
The two who had been engaged in melee combat alongside Aegan smiled mockingly at me.
“Where’d that confidence from earlier go? Look at you, completely helpless!”
“You’re still somehow able to evade for now, but I’m pretty sure your body’s about to give out!”
“Huh? What did you just say?”
I got irritated.
Aegan noticed that my mood had changed and yelled at them.
“Fool! Can’t you see?! He’s enjoying the situation!”
“Are you sure he’s not just trying to fool us to think that?”
“Yes, I did. Well, I was going to beat him to a pulp.”
The two rearguards nodded at the words of these two naive vanguards.
“…Are you finished?”
It wasn’t Aegan who answered my question, but them.
“Yeah, we’re gonna get serious now.”
“Your friends are so going to love watching you get thrashed!”
“Hmm. So you’re going to entertain me even better than before?”
“You bet. We’ve just been going easy on you so far, so don’t get carried away!”
I sighed in disgust and listened to the conversation between Finne and the others who were observing the battle from a little distance.
“I—, Iris, doesn’t it look like Haruto is a little irritated?”
“Yes, Finne. Now I can only offer them my deepest sympathy.”
“I guess it’s, uh…it’s so obvious. I’ve never seen Haruto like that before.”
“You think so too, Suzuno? …maybe the elven village will be wiped off the map?”
“Hey, Natsuki! We don’t stand a chance of stopping Haruto by ourselves! Do we, Shinya?”
“That’s right, Koji. But if we attack with all our might… nah I think not, still…”
I can hear you guys, especially Tendo and Mogami.
What would be the point if I did that, anyway?…then again, frankly speaking, if I did go on a rampage, no one would be able to stop me at my level. Not like I planned on going on a random rampage in the first place!
I increased the intimidation I was exerting on Aegan and the others.
“Ugh, damn it…!”
“Wh, what the hell is this, this intimidation…?”
All four of them, except Aegan, turned pale and fell to their knees with both hands on the ground. Aegan himself seemed to be barely able to keep on his feet.
…Whoops? Looks like the intimidation was directed at Tendo and Mogami as well, and were both turning pale. My bad, my bad, sorry.
I excluded them from the intimidation and called out to Aegan and the others.
“Hmm? What are you doing sticking your hands in the ground? Did you all drop a gold coin or something? …You’re not going to tell me that you can’t fight with this level of intimidation, are you? Let’s try to make it a little stronger, shall we?”
I said it in a mocking tone, and sure enough, the two vanguards from earlier took the bait. What simpletons.
“Th, th, th, this level of intimidation is no big deal!”
“Th, that’s right! N, not even close!”
“Is that so? Then, I’ll just tune it up a notch, just a little.”
Just as I was about to increase the intimidation, one of them opened his mouth in a panic.
“No, no, no, please no…”
“Fools! Are you still unable to grasp that the intimidation just now speaks of his strength!
But at that moment, Aegan shouted angrily. At last, the two rearguards couldn’t withstand my intimidation and fainted.
“Isn’t that why we lost to Glicente, boys?”
“That is…”
For some reason it became a scolding session, so I withdrew the intimidation.
Aegan looked relieved, but the posture of the two vanguards who are being scolded remained the same as before. Like dumbasses.
While I was pondering on this, Aegan continued to speak.
“You are among the strongest in the village. That’s why you were selected to be part of this …isn’t that right?”
“Humm, yes…”
“If so, then you should be able to correctly gauge the strength of your opponent. Don’t get worked up from just a little provocation…and, Mr. Haruto…”
Aegan turned to me.
“I understand how strong you are, Mr. Haruto. But if you could just go easy with the provocation…”
“All right, fine. By the way, do you still want to continue?”
Aegan immediately shook his head in refusal.
“I think we’re good. We initially just wanted to see how strong you are Mr. Haruto. The villagers didn’t seem to believe you either, but after showing such a difference in strength against five of the strongest in my village, and winning by an overwhelming margin, I’m sure they’re convinced.”
I see, so while measuring my strength, he wanted to make sure that everyone in the village agreed that I was a force to be reckoned with.
I guess this explains his sudden change.
“So that was your intention all along. In that case, we can just call it a day, right?”
“Yes. The rooms are, umm, right… we have a vacant house, and we were hoping you could stay there…”
“No problem. We appreciate the provision.”
Aegan looked relieved, then glanced at the two vanguards.
“I’ll make sure those idiots get a good scolding.”
At the word “scold” from Aegan, the two elves jerked their shoulders.
“Uh, well, you know, just go easy on them!”
“I understand.”
I excused myself from Aegan, who had a big smile on his face, and walked over to Finne and the others.
～
Then we were led to the house by Tarshal.
It seemed that Ephyr had something to discuss, so the rest of us decided to wait for her return.
While we were chatting and laughing, Tendo asked me as if he just had a recall.
“By the way, Haruto, do you have something against me and Shinya?”
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
When I asked that in return, Mogami turned his gaze on me as well.
“It’s no use trying to play dumb, Yuki. The reason you used intimidation on Kouji and me in the mock battle earlier was because you had something to say, right? Hey, you have something to say, don’t you?”
Tendou and Mogami said all that, but I have nothing against them.
“It’s not like that. It just leaked by mistake. I guess I’ve still got a ways to go myself”
I said this with a slightly apologetic expression, but Tendo looked at me with an even more intense gaze.
“You mean even with your remarkable ability you accidentally singled out me and Shinya, huh?”
“Nobody is perfect, you know.”
“…Okay, that’s it.”
Tendo’s tone suddenly changed.
“Wh, what’s gotten into you all of a sudden?”
But Tendo didn’t answer, he picked up his holy sword that was leaning against the wall and pulled it out.
“Hey, Tendo? W-Why are you pulling out the holy sword…?”
“Just get out in the open! Right now!”
I stepped back as Tendo approached me, one step at a time.
“Hey Haruto… Don’t you dare run away?”
“C-Calm down Tendo. Let’s just talk it out!”
“Like hell I can FUCKIN’ CAAAAALM DOWN!”
Tendo brandished his holy sword——
I sprayed Tendo’s face, which was unguarded, with the spray I had taken out of the dimensional storage.
“Fuck—?! Wha…is…”
Tendo couldn’t finish his words right to the end and collapsed on the spot.
Everyone who had been watching the sequence of events without stopping was dazzled.
“Ha, Haruto, what did you do? Exactly?”
Suzuno asked me with a slightly scary look in her eyes, and I answered her, showing her the little wonder I was holding in my hand.
“I merely sprayed him with the slumber spray I made with my molding skill.”
.
<table>NAME: Slumber spray RARITY: Artifact NOTES: A one-push type slumber spray made by mixing a number of sleeping pills.</tbody></table>
<table>Helps relieve fatigue and enables good sleep. Sleeps instantly and does not wake up for several hours.</tbody></table>
<table>It has no effect on monsters.</tbody></table>
.
When I explained the effects of the item, everyone backed away.
Then someone knocked on the door and Ephyr came in.
“I’m back every, one…um, what’s going on?”
Ephyr, who took one look at the fallen Tendo, asked, looking around.
“Welcome back, Ephyr. It’s nothing. I just put the beast to sleep because it seemed to be going crazy.”
“Oh I see…hmm? The beast?”
“Never mind…so, what was the talk about?”
“Oh, yes. Well——”
Then I finished listening to Ephyr’s story and nodded.
“In other words, you want me to train the elves in the village?”
It seems that they want to raise the level of their strength in order to attack Glicente.
It’s true that if the five from today are the strongest among them, then even with me in their ranks, there would be deaths in places far out of my reach.
“Yes. No matter what…”
Ephyr looked apologetic, but there was no way I was going to leave her people to die.
“I understand the gist of it. I’ll train them if you want me to. How long are we looking at?”
“Thank you very much. I was told a month. And at the same time, they will be making preparations.”
“Hmmm. A month huh, just barely enough to get going, but I’ll figure something out.”
If that’s the case, said Finne.
“I’ll join you in the training”
“Then, I’ll just watch——”
“Princess?”
“C-Count me in too!”
“Then I’ll join you”
In addition, it looked like Iris and Asha would be joining in.
I was thinking of training them both, so it was just perfect.
Then, after some discussion, it was decided that Kusel and the heroes would also participate. Tendo, who was sleeping, was forced to participate.
It was decided that the training would start the next day, and Ephyr left the house again to tell Aegan and the others about it, and we went back to our respective rooms.
～
As I entered the room, I thought about the training program.
“Hmmm, I need to build up their stamina. It would be good if I could properly make use of the Sea of Trees well…”
I checked the topography of the Sea of Trees on the map and thought of a route to take.
I’ve heard that there are monsters in the Sea of Trees, and running while defeating them should give a good combat experience.
It was also a good way to train teamwork when working in a party, and hopefully they would learn some skills that will be of use in battle, like detecting signs of life.
“For now, the distance on this course will be…twenty kilometers should be just about right. A kilometer dash, then a kilometer run——nah, a hundred meters seems perfect”
Thus, I meticulously formulated the training program.