Chapter 23

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n“Don’t you dare look down on me!”

nIf he was losing in terms of strength, there was no need to rely on his arms.

nConjuring as much strength as he could, he planted a kick into the mock-goblin’s stomach. He was feeling a burning sensation in his mind, like someone had shot a burning steel rod into his head.

nThe kick withered the mock-goblin, pushing it off of Loren.

nBut the smile didn’t disappear from its face.

nIt believed that the human that lost to it in terms of strength was putting up a useless struggle, and that it would eventually beat him.

nBut Loren’s next move made its smile stiffen.

nLoren immediately rushed at the goblin with more force and speed than before, completely giving up on defense. Although it was stopped by the mock-goblin’s club yet again, it widened its eyes at the impact that came through it.

nAs the mock-goblin took a step back, Loren took another step forward and attacked it.

nThe blow that Loren delivered, which was even faster than the one before, was again, stopped by the mock-goblin’s club. But the club, which had blocked all three of Loren’s attacks, couldn’t take the sheer power of the last blow and snapped in half.

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nThe mock-goblin panicked and pushed goblins away from itself, as it tried to gain distance from Loren, but Loren continued to increase his speed.

nLoren didn’t let the mock-goblin get out of his range, and the fourth strike that he released crushed all the goblins in his path, directly hitting the mock-goblin’s arm.

nThe sword cut right through the skin, flesh, and bones, splattering blackened blood everywhere.

nThe mock-goblin let out a roar from the pain, but immediately got flung backwards again by a tackle from Loren.

nIt couldn’t regain its balance, and all it could do was look at Loren’s great sword flash from right to left.

nThe next blow struck its right forearm, going straight across its body and out the other side.

nIt had so much force behind it, that the mock-goblin’s arm was still spinning in the air when the body crumbled onto the ground, blood spurting from the cut.

nBut Loren’s charge didn’t stop there.

nLoren’s arms continued to accelerate every step he took, and his great sword was being swung so fast that a rumbling could be heard from the air around him.

nHe didn’t care if he was using the blade or where he was aiming at. As he swung his great sword around him at an unbelievable speed, his attacks became a single whirlwind.

nAnything that the winds touched were cut down, gouged, and crushed into mere pieces and blown away.

nRitz and Jack saw the fierceness of the attack and nervously decided to stop fighting, and took a step back to where Nim and Quartz were.

nThey didn’t want to risk getting caught in windstorm that was raging on.

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n“What in the world is that…”

nJack muttered with a dumbfounded look on his face.

nThat was how fierce and one-sided Loren’s attacks, which looked like a storm, were.

nThe goblins who tried to apporach him were immediately reduced to black and red pieces and blown across the room.

nSome of them tried to run away, but they were pushed back by the goblins who came in from behind them, all of them falling prey to the raging wind.

nA few mock-goblins came as well, but even they were only able to take one or two blows from Loren before they ended up like the other goblins.

n“Isn’t this just like the rumors? His body is as the wind, and after the wind passes through, nothing is left standing in its wake…”

n“You talking about the mercenary << Slaying Wind >>? There’s no way, right? Why would a title-bearing mercenary become a copper rank adventurer?”

n“Come on! Do you think that there can be two or three different people that can pull this off!?”

nNo one could give an answer to Jack.

nRumors said that the mercenary << Slaying Wind >>, who was said to be able to fight toe-to-toe with the strongest mercenary, could turn the tide of battle just by taking part in it.

nAlthough he didn’t use magic like << Swords of Flame >> and << Blade Demon >>, his skill on the sword was said to surpass both. In battle, his existence was considered the same as the god of death, and Ritz nor his party could believe that a renowned swordsman like him could be the lowest ranking adventurer.

nPutting aside whether Loren being << Slaying Wind >> was true or not, they couldn’t deny the fact that he alone was turning the tide of this fight, and started getting hope that they would be able to survive.

n“Don’t you guys think this is going to work out somehow?”

n“Overly optimistic. Not good.”

nNim said coldly to Quartz, whose voice was getting lighter.

n“You saying that we shouldn’t be hopeful!?”

n“No. It’s not good to leave it up to him. We have our pride as silver ranks.”

n“That’s true, but…”

nJack scratched his head at Nim’s assertion.

nNim then pointed to Loren, who was still charging at the goblins coming towards them without even slowing down.

n“That’s not good.”

n“Huh? What do you mean not good?”

nJack and Ritz had no idea what she meant.

nNim was able to realize it thanks to elves’ excellent sense of hearing.

n“That great sword. It’s about to break.”

n“What!?”

nWhat Nim pointed out was something Loren was already aware of.

nAlthough he continued to change goblins into mutilated corpses, the sensation he was getting from the grip as well as the noises from the blade told him that the great sword wasn’t going to last much longer.

nLoren knew that ever since he was a mercenary, getting excited or receiving a serious injury during battle pulled a trigger inside him, and that made him able to display strengths that he normally couldn’t.

nHe couldn’t choose when he wanted to use it so it wasn’t that easy to use, but Loren had been saved by this power more times than he could count.

nOf course, there was a downside to it, and the recoil usually left him powerless and exhausted, but he decided that he was fortunate that it had activated.

nFortunate for Loren, but unfortunate for his great sword.

nLoren knew that it wasn’t going to last as long as his body.

nHe used the strength in his arms and the speed that he was swinging it around with to make up for the weakening blade, but it seemed to be at its limit.

nAs Loren cut off the head of a mock-goblin, not even sure how many he had killed up till now, it happened.

nAs the mock-goblin’s head hit the floor, a loud clang sounded from Loren’s great sword, and the blade broke off.

n“Damn it!”

nLoren cursed without thinking, but his broken sword didn’t mean that he couldn’t fight.

nThe great sword’s blade was originally quite long, so he was still able to fight with the bottom half that was still intact.

nBut a shorter blade meant less damage, and although he could swing it faster, each blow did less.

n“Hey, this is bad! His weapon broke! Are you done yet!?”

nRitz, who watched as the wind flung the broken blade at the wall, asked Lapis, who was still working on the control panel.

nShe glanced up as she heard the blade crash into the wall, but immediately returned her eyes to the control panel in front of her.

n“Hey, how is it?”

n“I can’t finish immediately even if you rush me.”

n“I can see that! But your partner is going to be in trouble soon!”

nAlong with Loren’s damage, his reach got shorter as well.

nIt meant engulfing less goblins in his attacks, and he couldn’t keep it up for long.

nIf there was no chance of the flow of goblins stopping, Lapis was their only hope.

n“I know, I know! I put in the commands for shuting down and stopping the goblins! But the last one…The end code isn’t going through!”

nLapis’ voice got louder and rougher from her irritation.

nRitz, who couldn’t understand half the things she just said, softened his voice slightly and asked.

n“What do you mean?”

n“To put it simply, the controls won’t stop! If this would shut down, the other commands I put in would go into effect, and both the ruins and the goblins would stop and would start falling apart!”

n“If it just needs to stop, can’t we just destroy it?”

n“Please do it if you can! This is something that survived for hundreds of years, and still works like it’s supposed to! It will stop if you destroy it! Please try!”

nRitz told Lapis to back off a bit, and swung his sword down onto the control panel.

nBut he couldn’t even make a scratch on it.

nHis sword got deflected off the control panel.

n“What the!?”

n“There is a magic spell protecting the surface, it won’t break with normal attacks! We need something like a cursed sword to break it!”

nTheir conversation reached Loren’s ears.

nHe didn’t understand the technical parts, but he understood that in order to do something about this situation, they needed Lapis to stop the control panel or something to destroy it.

nHe also knew that Ritz had tried to destroy it, but a magic spell was protecting it and couldn’t do it.

nAfter collecting all the information, he got an idea.

nHe had no idea if it would work, but he didn’t have anything to lose at this point.

n“Lapis! Get away from there!”

nHe swung his sword in a wide arc and forced a bunch of goblins off of him, and shouted at her direction.

nWithout checking to see if Lapis did what he told her to, he plunged his hand into his pocket and found what he was looking for.

nIt was something that activated when the user willed it, but to make sure that it would activate for sure, he had to say he wanted to use it out loud.

nLoren threw the object at the control panel and shouted at the top of his lungs.

n“Activate!”

nThe object flying through the air was a pendant that was emitting gold light.

n“The << Mana Lost >> pendant!?”

nLapis, who was hurrying away from the panel, saw what it was and started moving away even quicker.

nWhen the pendant landed on the panel, it released the charged-up mana it had gathered since the goblin mage had used it, and from Loren’s shout, disabled the magic that was protecting it.

n“Come on, break!”

nLoren raised the remains of his great sword above his head, and heaved it at the panel with all his remaining strength.

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nIt flew across the room and crashed straight into the panel.

nEven without the spell, the panel was quite hard, but it still couldn’t handle Loren’s full strength and force, and the sword sunk deep into it.

n“W-whoa, that was dangerous…”

nAlthough some of the pendant’s mana had recharged, it seemed that there wasn’t too much, as the range of its magic didn’t reach Lapis.

nEven so, Lapis was about to complain that Loren could’ve made her lose control of her limbs once again, when Loren suddenly collapsed right in front of her eyes.

n‘Wha-!? Loren! Loren, are you okay!?”

nRitz and his party watched Lapis panic and run towards Loren.

nAround them, the words on the control panel slowly disappeared, and all the goblins around them dropped down one by one, as if someone cut the strings of a puppet.

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Chapter end