Chapter 23: 21 – Through the Eyes of Another: The Hero’s First Battle

Meanwhile, a little bit to the east from Evalitia's capital…

After three days in the carriage, we finally reach the place that the idiot King has sent us to. Honestly, what the fuck, my ass hurts like hell. They have all this magic and shit but can’t even make a little trip a bit comfortable. And why did it take so long? Shouldn’t his mages be able to just like, teleport us anywhere or something? 

I exit the carriage I was in with Marcia and Paul and look around. It's barely dawn. We are in some kind of a small, wooden village. More like a ghost town I should say. Besides the other carriage which transports Shino and Natalie, and some knights that are escorting us, it doesn’t look like a single person is living here. Some buildings wear marks of a fight that might have taken place in this settlement. Sword cuts, arrows sticking out from the walls, claw marks here and there, and a weird dark substance covering some parts of the buildings.

We gather with the knights in what looks like the town’s main square and the captain of our escort brings up a roll of paper, unwinds it and speaks up.

“Heroes, this is the mining settlement of Reghuar. Another outbreak happened here two months ago. The knights and adventurers have already dealt with the main wave of Abyssals, but we still think it’s too risky to let people return to their homes. There’s a nearby mine which was the source of the assault. As per King’s orders, we humbly ask you to investigate it and make sure that all abominations have been taken down and to confirm that the area is safe again. Previous forces have stopped before reaching the core of this excavation site, so there still might be a few monsters lurking around. Please, be careful.”

He ends reading and makes a courteous bow towards us.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, we just have to kill all the ugly shits in that mine, right?” I ask the captain.

“Erm… generally speaking, yes, Sir Lewandowski.”

I furrow my brows at the man. “I already told you to not address me like that. It’s Sir Kamil or Sir Hero! I finally fucking escaped the shadow of that pathetic nerd who does nothing besides playing those retarded games all day, laughing like an idiot to thousands of even more pathetic people. Fucking Citadelday kids. Worse than simps.”

The soldier hastily bows again. “I apologize, Sir Hero. I definitely won’t repeat that mistake.”

“You better.” I point my finger at him and turn around to the rest of our party. “Let’s smash some undead fantasy monkeys, I’m bored as hell and can’t wait to finally test my skills on real targets!”

“Well, I certainly could use some exercise after all this sitting,” Marcia says while doing some stretches.

The knights start leaving the area. We were told before that they’ll be waiting in the village’s main inn, in case we need any help. Not like it will ever happen. We are all super strong heroes here, and there are 5 of us.

“Oi! Which way to the mine?” I shout before they disappear from our sight and someone points in the direction of a medium-sized mountain to the south. Doesn’t look far. There’s a road leading to it. “Nice. Time to go. Follow me.” I start walking towards the big, black hill.

“Wait.” Shino’s quiet voice catches up to me and I glance back. “When did we decide on you being the leader?” she asks.

“Huh? What’s to discuss here? I have the Hero class, of course I’ll be the one leading our team into the battle,” I say while turning to her. “While I take that burden from your shoulders, you can focus on doing your part properly. Or what, do you think you would do better than me?”

She drops her gaze. “No… I’m not good at stuff like that… But, shouldn’t we at least vote or something?” 

“Fine.” I grab Marcia by the waist and pull her closer to me, looking at her face from up close. “Any issues with me being the leader?”

“Noooope. I know that you are quite good at being the one in control." She chuckles, playfully strokes my chin and with a quick pirouette, escapes my hold, sending me a wink.

I smile at her and move my eyes to Paul. “And you?”

“Well… I’d like to experience a real battle first before I can judge if I can properly split my focus between managing my own abilities and thinking of strate—”

“Great, that’s three including myself, so a majority. Still gonna fuss over it?” I glance at the shortie.

She looks at me with a weird gaze and opens her mouth to say something but Natalie places a hand on Shino’s shoulder and shakes her head after they lock their gazes.

“See? It’s four already, three without me. Let’s not waste any more time,” I say while winking at Natalie. She rolls her eyes and looks away.

“Shouldn’t we at least explore this village a bit? Or look for a map of the excavation site?” Just as I am starting to walk, she speaks up again. I groan at her words.

“For what? This shithole is already abandoned and was cleansed by the iron fucks. A map? Who the fuck needs a map? It’s just some old mine,” I reply and begin moving. On my way, I give Marcia a little slap on the ass when passing her. She makes a teasing moan and hits my shoulder with a smile.

We exit the settlement’s premises and walk alongside the paved path towards the mountain. Fifteen minutes later we arrive at what looks like a miners' camp. A few completely devastated stone huts, some warehouse looking structures and lots of debris from destroyed carts. We take a quick look around but there’s nothing of interest, everything has been utterly broken. This place was most likely the first stop for those monsters. Before we enter through the main shaft, Paul speaks up.

“We should establish a proper party formation. There are three frontliners and two backliners. I’d suggest having two of the first in the front, one in the back and the rest in between.”

“Okay, I’ll go first with Marcia and Shino will be closing.” I glance over everyone, stopping at the black-haired girl for a moment, but no one raises any more concerns.

Everyone who hasn’t already done so summons their weapon from storage rings and we start moving again. Just a hundred meters in, we get surrounded by pitch-black darkness. Only a faint glow of light can be noticed behind us. I check the insides of my ring but there aren’t any torches inside.

“O flame that burns in the darkest nights, shine your light upon us, lost wanderers - Firefly.“ 

Natalie’s soft and melodic voice echoes through the tunnel and a small mote of fire appears above the palm of her hand. It quickly takes the form of a ball and tiny, flaming wings sprout from it, allowing it to rise and start circling above our heads, emitting a low, yellowish glow. We can now see 10-20 meters ahead.

“Nice,” I comment and we resume our descent.

For the next hour, we explore countless corridors leading to various smaller caves where the whole mining happens or something, but we don’t encounter anything important. There are traces of combat here and there, yet no bodies, be it monster or human ones. They must have been taken away by the defensive force.

We enter a slightly wider and higher space. Tools and broken carts are lying everywhere alongside piles of some mined up metals and rocks. Judging by the broken barricades on the other end, this must have been a hold for humans.

Slightly irritated, I kick a rock lying nearby, which flies against a wall and ricochets up, disappearing into the darkness. “Fuck! There’s nothing in this damned cave! What a waste of time!”

“Calm down a little, we haven’t even delved that deep yet. Besides, we have to just check if it’s safe. There’s no guarantee that we will encounter any—”

“Shhhhhh!” Natalie interrupts Marcia, shushing her down.

“What?” the redhead turns to her questioningly.

Moving a finger to her mouth, Natalie signals to be quiet. She looks around for a moment and then lands her gaze at me.

“Where’s the stone?” she asks.

“Stone? What stone?” I ask confusedly.

“The one you kicked up.”

“The fuck? Probably lying somewhere in this goddamn pothole.”

“I didn’t hear it drop.”

Now that she mentions it, I didn’t hear it hit the ceiling either, and I don’t think any of us would start arguing about the most sensitive to sound person in our group missing the noise of falling rock in a silent, stone cavern. We all look up at the sea of darkness above us.

*SQUEAK*

*SQUEAL*

*SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAK!*

Like on command, something begins squeaking and squealing, then another one, and another, and another, and in a few seconds the cave gets filled with weird cries. A moment later, a swarm of small, flying things drops down onto us. There are tens of them.

I pull out my sword from its sheath inside the shield and start hacking around those weird fucks dashing around. They look like small kites made out of bare skin, with their heads ending in long, syringe-like trunks. They are like some mutated flying squirrels out of the post-apocalyptic movies.

“What… hyaaaah! Are those things?” I yell to others while trying to deter the assault of an unknown enemy.

“Those are Stirges! Sensei told me they drink blood like mosquitoes, so watch out!” Shino shouts back while dodging their strikes.

I cover myself with the shield and glance to the sides. Marcia jumps around making countless pirouettes and somersaults while slashing a passing monster with her twin swords from time to time. None seem to even graze her body. An energetic smile paints her face.

Paul rolls towards a wall and kneels with his back to it. He starts shooting arrows into the swarm, hitting some of the Stirges. When they try to attack him, he ducks or rolls to the side, making them hit the wall and then nails them with an arrow he holds in hand.

Natalie pulls out her rapier and mostly tries to deflect the needle-like proboscises aimed at her by the soaring rats. Shino unsheathes her pure white katana and with her back to the blond-haired girl, cuts down most of the monsters trying to attack her friend from the blind spot.

Besides some light scrapes here and there, we aren’t really in danger. They are more annoying than dangerous. I can’t count how many of them are flying around, but definitely, more than 30 are left.

“Take this! Arcane Shot!” 

Paul activates one of his skills and starts pulling back the unloaded string of his bow. A second later, a transparent torrent of mana forms in the shape of an arrow, or rather, a miniature spear of an arrow’s size. He releases the projectile with a heavy groan, sending it towards the biggest cluster of enemies. It flies straight through them with amazing speed, mutilating around ten into small pieces and crashing somewhere far into the ceiling with a loud boom.

“Natalie-san!”

“Go!”

Shortie yells something at Natalie and I move my shield to better see their positions. When they enter my sight, Shino is a bit further from our Bard and is running towards her. The blonde takes off her guitar, flips it so the backside faces upwards and rests it angled on the ground while holding it by the neck. 

Shino leans to the front and breaks into a dash. Reaching Natalie, she steps onto the guitar which gets swung upwards, sending the petite girl high into the air. She raises her katana, now shining with a whitish radiance, above her head and activates a skill. 

“Moon Slashing Arts - Crescent Cleave!”

A quick downwards cut, leaving a glowing-white afterimage in the shape of a half-circle, slices the air in front of her, almost tearing through its very tissue. Numerous Stirges are caught under its path and end up being slashed by the unstoppable force.

She begins falling with increasing speed, heading towards another flock of the weird creatures, her ponytail fluttering beautifully through the air. Shino positions her sword by her waist, acts like she sheathes it into her left hand, and closes her eyes, focusing on something. Just as she is going to slam against the cloud of Stirges, she raises her eyelids and the blade gets enveloped in a black, smoke-like aura.

“Moon Slashing Arts - Dusk of the Night!”

Another skill and another cut. No. It’s not just one. Three wide horizontal slashes of dark energy fly through the monsters, turning them into otherworldly sashimi, and hit the ground, leaving deep marks in it. I have no idea how she managed to move her katana three times in a second, but there’s a bigger issue now. Shino is quickly reaching the ground, falling face first.

Still being surrounded by the leftover creatures, I invoke an area of effect skill in hope of clearing them all out. 

“Valiant Sword Arts - Blade Burst!”

Countless blades of light shot out from my body and pierce through most of the Stirges, forcing others to fly away. I instantly break into a run, locking my gaze on the falling girl. Judging by the distance, I will barely make it. But at a half-point, one of the flying shits pierces its snout right through the weak part of my armour, in the area under my knee.

“Guaaah! Fuck!” I groan as I slam into the ground.

Paul notices my assailant and shoots it down instantly, but I watch as Shino crashes into the floor. Or rather, that’s what should have happened. Instead, she turns around making her back face downwards and as she is going to hit the stone pavement, she disappears in a puff of black, shadowy smoke.

“Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah?” I involuntarily voice out my confusion.

Suddenly, she appears out of thin air just by my side, surrounded by the same effect. She crouches in front of me and extends her hand.

“You okay, Kamil-san?” she asks concernedly.

I angrily swat her hand away and raise myself to a sitting position before sending her a glare. “You idiot! Why the fuck didn’t you tell us about that last skill! I thought you were going to splash your ass all over this cave!”

She furrows her brows and stands up. “Who is the idiot here? Would I decide to jump so high without securing my descent?” she answers with her quiet tone, but a tinge of irritation can be felt from it. As she's walking away, she turns her head back to me. “I told Natalie-san about my skills. If I suggested sharing our info, you’d say it’s a waste of time to remember it anyway.”

“Tsch… whatever…” 

I glance around and see Paul and Marcia finishing last of the monsters. I turn to our healer which is currently high-fiving the Samurai girl.

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“Nat! I need healing!”

She slowly walks up to me and checks out the wound. It’s not the worst. She patches it up with Cure Wounds over the span of a few minutes. My leg is back to its previous state. After that, she shoots a few Firebolts into the ceiling to make sure that we’ve dealt with all the flying shits and it looks like there are no more.

We take a short break to rest a bit. Everyone starts talking about their skills, so I join too at the end. I summon my Status window and explain what I got.

 »Sword & Shield Arts Lv. 4

»One-Handed Sword Arts Lv. 5

»Shield Arts Lv. 3

 »Linguist Lv. 2

»One-Handed Sword Mastery Lv. 5

»Shield Mastery Lv. 5

 »Valiant Sword Arts Lv. 1

»Impenetrable Fortress Lv. 1

»Holy Magic Lv. 1

»Overdrive Lv. 1

 »Holy Affinity

»Curse Immunity

»Steel Skin Lv. 1

We get a better idea of our abilities now. Who would have thought that Shino can literally teleport between any two places that are covered by a shadow? And she supposedly has Darkvision, but it’s still at its first level.

Taking everything into consideration, Paul comes up with a new formation with Shino and me in the front, while Marcia is the one watching our backs this time. Shortie’s sight will work as additional scouting and I’m supposed to be a ‘tank’ or something, due to most of my skills focusing on defence. Natalie can cast magic spells of all elements besides her healing magic and Bard Class features. Paul and Marcia’s skills are quite self-explanatory. One is an expert at dodging and slashing while the other uses various kinds of powerful arrow shots. He says that he can also pinpoint an enemy's weakness if it’s not overwhelmingly stronger than him.

We start moving in our new formation. There are still some areas to check out and we didn’t bring any camping equipment to stay in this cave for long. Gotta keep moving for a few hours more, hopefully completely investigating this excavation.

Three hours of searching later, Shino stops me with her hand while we are walking through a corridor. Natalie quickly lowers the intensity of her Firefly and we wait for the shortie’s reaction.

“There’s something in the cavern ahead. I can’t see it, but I can feel the dark energy seeping from it.”

Nat covers the Firefly with her hands and we start moving quietly in a conga line, with Shino at the front. Reaching the entrance to the cave, we take a quick peek in. Fortunately, it’s not pitch black. Unfortunately, it’s not pitch black. And that’s because there’s a weird pool of dark energy on the floor, sending out purplish hues in every direction, making the room enveloped in dim light. The surface of it seems to be swirling around.

“Look there.” Paul points at one of the corners.

A big, gorilla-like creature is lying at that spot, most likely sleeping or whatever the shit those Abyssals do because it’s certainly one. It slightly glows with lines of similar purplish light, while looking like an undead ghoul gorilla.

“Anything else?” Marcia asks and Shino scans the room, shaking her head after.

“We have the element of surprise, let’s get rid of it,” Paul suggests and fills us on his idea. We agree and prepare to take action.

Slowly, we tiptoe closer to the monster, each of us taking their position. Before we start, Shino picks up a stone and throws it into the pool, but it bounces off the surface like it’s completely solid.

The noise makes the creature flinch and we begin our operation.

“Draconic Sharpshooter Arts - Rain of Fire!” 

Paul notches three arrows onto his bow and fires them up into the air, activating his Class skill. They leave red trails behind and explode above the target. Three flaming circles appear in their place and tens of fiery projectiles fall down onto the Abyssal.

*RRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAARRRRRR*

It raises itself, covers its head with its wide arms and gazes around, stopping his purple, smoking eyes on me, who is standing the closest.

“Come on, bitch! I’ll fuck you up!” I shout while banging my sword against the shield.

A lively melody starts being played on an acoustic guitar and my body gets filled with energy. All the armour loses its weight, no longer restricting my movements. The music sounds familiar like I’ve heard it in one of these popular fantasy movies with epic battles.

The monster charges right at me and slams his fist into the shield, pushing me back a few meters, but I manage to stay on my legs.

「Strong...」

Before it catches up to me again, Marcia crosses its path, making a few quick cuts in its chest. She swiftly dodges any incoming hits, slicing back in response. The angry monkey raises both of its fists to squash her but suddenly stops due to Shino making a wide, horizontal slash right into its back. She disappears before it can even turn around and Marcia doesn’t let go of this chance.

“Sword Dance - Ballet of the Sylphs.”

Both of her blades get covered in a greenish aura and her red hair starts fluttering like on a windy day. She starts running around with a melodic step, like the floor is her stage now, and inducing very deep cuts in the Abyssal’s torso. She spins around countless times and dodges all counters by a hair’s breadth, making awe-inspiring poses. With each slice, a blade of greenish wind follows, deepening the previous cut.

Paul rains normal arrows at the monster from the side, Shino joins into the fun every time she notices a chance of a sneak attack and Natalie observes the battlefield, prepared for any incoming emergency.

The creature gets enraged with the flow of this fight and suddenly makes an enormous roar which shakes the whole place and pushes back everyone with its shockwave. Thanks to my shield and armour, it only nudges me a bit. The now even more smoking gorilla locks its gaze onto me, who is now the closest to it again, and breaks into a rush.

Expecting an even stronger hit this time, I plant my shield into the ground and activate a skill. 

“Come! Impenetrable Fortress!”

Yellow aura covers the steel aegis, creating an additional layer of protection. The monster crashes into it with ridiculous force.

*HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG*

When its fist lands on the shield, a loud, metallic clang fills up the air, as if someone had just hit a huge bell, and a shockwave follows. I’m pushed back by a few centimetres, leaving trails with my boots in the ground.

*HOOOONG* *HOOOOOONG* *HOONG* *HOOOOOONG*

It keeps barraging my guard with its mighty arms, roaring with each strike. With the corner of my eye, I can see others being repelled back by the force of impact. If nothing changes, it will break through when my mana starts running low. Our plan went to shit.

「Okay, fucktard… Time for a ride!」

“Overdrive!”

My body gets increasingly hotter, my heart starts beating faster and I feel like the time itself has slowed down by a notch. Preparing myself for another attack, I angle my shield and it bounces to the side. Using that moment, I swiftly push my shield under the monster’s chest and mustering all my boosted strength, I vault the Abyssal over me into the air, by notching the aegis against his armpits.

“Valiant Sword Arts - Impaling Light!”

I make a powerful thrust into the target flying above my head and a yellow, glowing, three times bigger copy of my sword sinks into its chest, piercing through it and hitting the ceiling. Just in case, I prepare another skill, which will completely empty my mana reserves.

As the monster’s body hits the surface of the weird pool with a loud thud, sending purple fluids in every direction, I rush towards it and raise my sword.

“Valiant Sword Arts - Dawn of Justice!”

I shove my shining weapon into its body, pinning it to the ground. Golden flames soon erupt from the blade in a raging wave, burning everything on their path in the range of 15 meters. When they subside, there’s nothing left of the monster, just my sword stuck halfway into the pool.

I deactivate all skills and fall onto my butt, waving my hand to others. “Haaaaah… Gottem!”

Everyone gathers around and breathes in relief. Sound of a breaking glass reaches our ears. We glance at our feet in panic and see the weird surface break like a mirror. It completely shatters into particles soon after and gets replaced by the natural, stone floor.

“What was that? Was that the source of those monsters?” Marcia asks.

“Maybe they come from a different place too, like us, and it was some kind of a portal?” Shino chimes in.

“Whatever the fuck it was, it’s gone now—”

*CRACK*

*CRACK* *CRACK* *CRACK*

*CRAAAAAAAACK*

As I begin speaking, the ground starts shaking and the stone floor also becomes covered in quickly increasing gaps.

“OH FU—”

Before I even have time to stand up, our footing crumbles into pieces and begins falling into the darkness along with all of us.

“—UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuucckkkkkkkk...”

Saileri

I want to also take this chance to thank all of you for the amazing support you've shown to this story. We breached 1000 favourites and are almost reaching 1000 readers too! This is really amazing! I have lots of fun interacting with you guys!

So, I guess it's time for the reward, yeah? Here you go :)

Our first chibi - Shino, the Demonic Samurai Priestess!!!!

Her face ended up more ara-ara than petite, but that's just part of the artist's style and still is cute as hell. Just remember she's closer to the soft and kind one, like Mitsuha from 40k gold manga.

Credits to the artist - @roosterf2p on Twitter! I'm going to get many more chibis from him in the future. If you'd like to have a say in which character should be next, join our Patreon! 

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Enormous gratitude towards our S-rank Guild Member - Magiwarrior! We couldn't have such epic adventures without your support! This Guild Master is greatly honoured by your presence!

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