Tsuyokute New Saga (LN)

Despite Lieze’s passionate temperament, whenever it came to fighting, she was always calm, almost relaxed. She knew that getting emotional would only cost her of her focus and fighting abilities. Always keep your calm—that is what she learned from the priest warriors at the Cairys Shrine.

“Hmph!”

At the same time, she had learned from experience that taking the first step in battle would give you the advantage. She took a deep breath, put strength in her legs, and stepped forward. The man with the poisoned dagger frantically swung his weapon. With Lieze not wearing full-body armor, and a single hit possibly proving fatal, normally you would hesitate quite a lot, but Lieze immediately closed the distance between her and the man.

Naturally, this was because she had confidence and evidence in her own skill. The dagger naturally aimed for a part of her body that was in the open, but Lieze had no trouble using her gauntlet to deflect the approaching dagger, closing the distance between them even further. Namely, a distance even a dagger user would find unpleasant and disadvantageous. Following that, Lieze fired off a liver jab with her left hand that she had been training lately. Additionally, she added a spin to her waist, which could surely shatter a number of bones. However, after that hit landed, Lieze took her distance.

“I missed the vital part…I guess my skills have gotten numb since I haven’t had a one-on-one in so long.” Lieze sounded a bit bothered by the fact that the man didn’t go down after that one attack.

The man clearly suffered sufficient damage. That being said, she didn’t follow up with an attack immediately. She saw just how much it hit him. He held down his flank, sweating profusely, as he staggered and tried another attack. However, this attack was in shambles, and a last attempt. As for the man, he simply had to graze Lieze’s body anywhere, and he would be victorious. Soon after, the poison would spread, completely sealing off her movement. However, Lieze still stayed calm, deflecting every single attack with absolute composure, waiting for an opening.

Following that, she twisted her body to evade the attack aiming at her solar plexus, and crushed the back of her opponent’s hand between her elbow and knee.

“Guh!” The man couldn’t bear the pain and dropped the dagger.

Seeing that, Lieze bent her knees to lower her body, putting energy in every muscle down in her legs, and rammed an uppercut right into the man’s jaw. The impact hit even harder because of Lieze’s metal gauntlets. Hit with its full force, the man’s teeth were crushed, as he fell backwards. Confirming that he lost consciousness, Lieze undid her stance.

“Alright!”

It was a flawless victory with not a single moment that needed worrying.

As for Urza’s battle, you could say that it was even more one-sided. The Earth Spirit Gnome she had summoned was all it needed to hold back the man. As the Gnome’s body was made out of rock, he possessed strong defensive stats, so the attack of a dagger showed next to no impact on it, and neither did the poison it was imbued with. Furthermore, if one wanted to defeat a spirit of such a caliber, you would need either a specialized weapon, or magic itself. Since the man had merely a dagger at his disposal, he would not be able to achieve anything.

Clearly, the best strategy was to aim for Urza, but Gnome was fully blocking off his path. He had the option of forcefully pushing his way through, but then his back would be open for his back. After the battle continued for a bit, the Earth Spirit realized that he was practically invincible in this battle, and slowly approached the man. The man at the same time frantically swung his dagger, but no progress was made, obviously. And, in the moment where he showed hesitation, considering to run away instead, Gnome captured him in his arms.

“Crush him!”

The man tried his best to break free of Gnome’s grasp with his dagger, but Gnome didn’t move at all, and simply tightened his grasp on the man as Urza ordered him.

“Gaha!?”

He coughed up blood, and passed out with a painful-sounding scream.

“Woah, that looked nasty.” Lieze looked down at the man who could barely even gasp for air, and narrowed her eyes.

“I mean, yours didn’t look much more healthy…Is your guy still alive?”

“Um…should be fine?” Lieze said, definitely not sounding confident.

“You two really are strong…” Gou looked at the invaders who would probably better off dead at this point, and moved a few steps backward.

“…Why are you keeping your distance?”

“…Just on a whim.”

Urza gave Gou a sharp half-glare.

“You done in here as well?”

There, Seran had returned inside the home after taking care of all the enemies outside. In his hand, he had a single man who was evidently injured, but could still talk to some degree.

“Seems like everything worked out, huh.”

He looked at the two collapsed invaders, and sounded oddly relieved.

These guys seemed to at least have some skill, so I was worried, but they overwhelmed them one-on-one, huh…

Leaving aside Urza, Seran was surprised that Lieze had become this strong, but it also made sense. She wanted to become another type of strength for Kyle, who aimed to become a hero, so she was constantly training so that she wouldn’t hold him down.

A maiden in love sure is strong…No, a maiden wouldn’t crush another guy’s jaw like that…

Seran looked at the man collapsed to the ground, and he somehow found himself sympathising with him.

“Are you thinking something rude right now?”

“Just your imagination. Anyway…who are these people? They seem used to fighting, and they clearly received some kind of training. They aren’t your usual hoodlums…But, they don’t know anything about us. They were far too unprepared for my attacks.”

At the very least, if they had known about Urza being a spirit user, they would have surely prepared something else instead of daggers.

“Even if they were paid, they were fairly skilled. Hey, who are you guys? What was your goal? Why attack us?” Seran grabbed the man’s shoulder, shaking him, but he averted his gaze, his mouth shut close.

Seran seemed to have expected that reaction, and changed his approach.

“…Just to let you know, but those two behind me are even much more extreme and aggressive than me. Pretty sadistic folks. They’re always pushing me around. So, if you stay silent, they’ll torture you in a far worse way than anything I did to you.” Now, Seran tried to get some information out of the man by showing sympathy.

Both Lieze and Urza were ready to throw a complaint at Seran, but he forcefully shut them up.

“With that woman over there, she tortures you with her cooking to the point it’ll give you stomach cramps. Cut wounds, stabbing wounds, scraping wounds, even burns…she’ll hurt you with whatever you can imagine, killing you from the inside. I bet she’ll enjoy your screams. Eventually, you’ll get numb to the pain, to which she’ll create new wounds all over…rinse and repeat.” Seran explained in great detail.

Lieze showed a tense smile, but her fist was clearly shaking.

“Of course, you won’t get the easy way out with death either, we have recovery magic medicine. That elf over there is specialized in that. You’ll wish to finally be allowed death, as your consciousness keeps drifting back and forth between this world and that world, forced to drink recovery medicine. Of course, it’s not to simply keep you alive, it merely acts to prolong your suffering…Also, once the torture started, you won’t be freed even if you talk. Even if you spit everything out, they’ll simply continue the torture for their own pleasure and enjoyment…”

Urza’s facial expression tightened up, already thinking about how to punish Seran after this. Not knowing that this was all made-up nonsense, Gou built an even larger distance to the two girls.

“That being said, I’m not that much of a demon.” After uttering words only the devil could come up with, Seran showed a gentle smile. “If you just answer my questions, I’ll let you run away. On top of that, I’ll even give you some compensation fees.” Seran took out a leather bag, and swung it around to which the coins and gemstones created rattling sounds.

Surely, that would be several thousand gadol at least.

“Of course, I have a condition of my own. Don’t ever involve yourself with this shady business. Change your name, and live in a rural village someplace far away from here.” Seran said with a warm smile.

He was doing the typical good cop bad cop play.

“Basically, your choice is either to suffer for all eternity, or run away to start a new life. What will you do? If you say no, I can ask your allies.” Seran looked over at the group of passed out men.

“I-I am a former Galgan Empire soldier! This dirty work is my speciality.” The man seemingly gave up, and started talking.

“Soldier? So you’re a specialist that received training, yeah?”

“That’s right. I’m a so-called deserter. My job this time was to abduct the designated targets.”

“Abduct? You sure emitted some crazy killing intent despite that.”

“We were told to slaughter anybody who got in our way…Or rather, they told us to kill as many as possible. However, we were told to keep a brat called Gou alive no matter what.”

“Me!? I don’t remember doing anything that would warrant such a thing!”

“I don’t know the reason. All I know are the orders we received.”

“This time? So this wasn’t the first time? Yet you’re moving out during noon? What were you thinking?”

“Of course, normally we’d try not to stand out, but this was an urgent job, and we were told it was fine even if we stood out. I don’t know the details, but they mentioned that the guards wouldn’t come no matter how much of a ruckus we caused.”

Hearing that, Seran realized that the guards had yet to show up.

“But, I heard a rumour. Apparently, more and more people have started to suddenly vanish here in Callan, and that a lot of abductions were happening…” Gou commented like he remembered something.

“A rumour…Maybe that’s why Miranda-san has so many guards with her?” Lieze commented.

“Though, it was simply just a rumour…”

“But it actually happened, done by these guys. So, what about the people you abducted?”

“No idea. We just bring them to the drop-off location, and we aren’t involved with anything after that.” The man explained, mentioning the drop-off point to be an empty house near the plaza.

“Hmm…Then, who are you working for? Who’s giving you the orders?”

“We’re not allowed to know. It’s the truth!”

Judging from how desperate he was, that didn’t seem to be a lie.

“But, you could probably guess, am I wrong?” There, Shildonia broke the silence, speaking up. “You definitely didn’t want to be treated like sacrificial pawns, yes? You most likely looked into it at least a tiny bit as a backdoor for possible escape.” Shildonia asked, to which the man reluctantly opened his mouth.

“…The person who gave us the request was probably someone with power here in Callan. Or, possibly even in the center of it all. We’ve already kidnapped quite a few individuals, many of them with influence and status. And yet, there are only rumours, nothing more. That person must be doing damage control, sweeping it under the rug.”

“Some higher-up…Is Miranda-san involved in this!? I highly doubt it, but…” Gou spoke, clearly shocked by this.

“No, this shouldn’t be Zilgus’ doing. The mayor is on our side. Rather, it would make sense if it was him…” Seran spoke that far, only for his body to shiver.

An ominous killing intent he had never felt before assaulted his body. Instinctively, his gaze shot towards the window, spotting a shadow standing on the rooftop of a house across from theirs. Instinctively, his body moved.

“Wha…Guh!?”

Seran grabbed the man he was questioning by the collar, throwing him outside the window towards the main road. At the same time, the shadow on the rooftop raised their hand, gathering a bluish-white sphere of energy.

“Get down!” Seran screamed with a loud voice, pushing down Gou close to him, and crawled on the ground.

Lieze listened to that, and pulled down Urza whose reaction was a bit delayed. The moment the man who was thrown and the sphere of light touched, a great explosion occurred. Together with a flash of light, a roaring sound rang out, as even the inside of the home was filled with a scorching heat and a severe impact. Even the other stone houses around were shaking like during an earthquake. Before the explosive wind settled completely, Seran jolted up, pulling his sword.

The house was practically half-destroyed, the walls broken down completely. After the smoke cleared, the pathway in front of the house was riddled with debris, and the house across from them had its roof broken apart. However, the individual standing on the roof had already disappeared.

“Don’t!” Seran frantically stopped Lieze, who instinctively moved to chase after the individual. “That one’s bad news…Even I don’t see myself winning. Been a while since I felt that.”

So far, whether Seran was fighting a human or a monster, he always saw a chance of coming out victorious. Even if it was an opponent stronger than him. However, even if he saw that individual only from afar, he instinctively felt that he should not try to fight them at this point in time.

“Haven’t felt this since I fought my serious old hag years ago…” Seran wiped the cold sweat off his forehead.

He didn’t quite understand why the other party would run away like they did, but it clearly was in their favor.

“Correct, is what I should say.” Shildonia commented as calmly as always, but her expression couldn’t be more serious. “That was a demon, no doubt.”

A demon—the moment that name popped up, Lieze and Urza, even Gou, all showed terrified expressions.

“So that was a demon…Makes sense.” Seran commented with a dry throat.