Leave a comment

Why is this happening?

Depressed, Sei sighed as he walked down the main street.

I don’t know what kind of coincidence is it to stay at an inn and just happen to have an overlord as a neighbor. Is this a joke?

Moreover, she is currently playing Seven Bridge using playing cards with Gants and Jean. I’m not merely playing the straight man here. Why are there playing cards in this other world? Why is it Seven Bridge? How does she even know the rules?

Well, the possibility of having playing cards in this world wasn’t zero. The world of Midgard was distorted as if it was the remnant of a story involving a fantastical or fictional Earth.

However, when I checked with Cruz, he confirmed that there was no such thing as playing cards in this world. At least, the game didn’t exist back when Cruz was born. In that case, there was only one possibility. It was evident that Ruphas knew about Earth.

Furthermore, it wasn’t a vague understanding that such a world existed. If she knew of the games and vehicles on Earth so well, it would imply that she had actually seen them before. But she had been born and raised in Midgard and should have been sealed away for the last two hundred years.

Could it be that she was on Earth when she was sealed away? …Ridiculous. That’s impossible.

“No way…The more I think about it, the more I don’t understand.”

After scratching his head, Sei ceased thinking about it for now. Then, he saw the building he wanted to go to and headed over there. He walked out of the inn alone to have a change of pace and to familiarize himself with his new katana.

He had heard from Cruz that there was a training center in this city. For a fee, it provided a place to train as well as simulated battles against golems made by alchemists. It was a facility that was appreciated by those who frequently found themselves in battle.

Indeed, in a world where battles were a daily occurence, there would definitely be a demand for such facilities. After all, there were adventurers who had no combat experience at all as well as amateurs who had no other options but to fight. For these people, such a facility was essential.

Furthermore, there were many instruction manuals that were forbidden from being taken out of the facility. People could train themselves using these manuals to learn how to use various weapons. For Sei, this was a very fortunate situation. After all, his weapon was a katana and not a regular sword. In other words, nobody in his party knew how to use it properly and so they couldn’t teach him.

As a mercenary, Gants could use many different weapons, but the weapons he was most proficient with were axes, followed by great swords, and then blunt weapons. In other words, he was good with weapons that utilized brute force. Regarding katanas, he said, “It’s a bit too delicate for me.”

The female knight was more proficient with the great sword. For Jean, it was the long sword, while for the tiger, it was the great sword as well. Kaineko used a rapier, so it was the most similar to Sei’s weapon, but a rapier and a katana were still completely different.

That was why nobody could teach Sei how to use a katana. Since he had not yet learned proper swordsmanship, he could only come here. He wanted to take the opportunity to actively learn what he could.

“……?”

The training center was already nearby, but Sei stopped his feet. He heard the sounds of an argument from within an alley. Although Lægjarn was a reasonably safe city, Cruz still advised him not to enter the back alleys. Places away from the main streets were hangouts for vagrants. One would never know what kinds of dangerous people lurked there.

Therefore, if it were the usual sounds of an argument, Sei would have ignored it and headed towards the training center. If it was just thugs arguing with each other, it would be their own fault if they got hurt.

However, one of the voices was clearly that of a girl and she sounded frightened…After hearing this, he couldn’t just pretend that he had heard nothing.

♊

“Heheh, you can’t escape now.”

“Now then, come with us quietly.”

The words spoken in the back alley could be recognized as classic low-class dialogue no matter which world one might be in. Like what one could see anywhere, the men were dressed in a manner that clearly said, “I’m a thug!”

They had unpleasant grinning faces as well as foul dirty clothes. With knives in their hands, these five men were harassing a girl. If one were to classify them, they would probably belong to the primate order, hominidae family, and thug genus.

Such existences were not uncommon. One could find similar creatures in the back alleys of any large city. Strangely, their lines and actions were always the same. Because of their poor vocabulary, some people had proposed, “Actually, they are magical beasts, right?”

In the words of Ruphas, they were simply monsters using humanoid graphics.

“You don’t have to be afraid. Uncles like us are very kind.”

“Yes, very gentlemanly too.”

“A pervert named Gentleman, that is.”

The men surrounded the girl to block her escape routes, brandishing their knives in a manner that was contrary to their words.

Where exactly would such behavior be considered gentlemanly?

Compared to them, even the orcs would be considered gentlemen. The girl, who was being harrassed, looked nervous, but she still held on to her well-used staff.

The enemies consisted of five people, but each individual’s ability wasn’t that high. It was a considerable disadvantage for her to be cornered at such a close distance, but the girl judged that her level was still higher than theirs.

In fact, the level difference was huge. The thugs were at most around Level 10, while the girl already exceeded Level 50. This difference ensured that she would not lose…unless the girl was a mage who was bad at melee combat.

Actually, it was still possible to use a sword to deal with the situation. Although she was a mage, she had learned swordsmanship from her mercenary father. Of course, she was far from being a professional swordsman, but it was not impossible to defeat these thugs in melee combat.

However, the only weapon she had now was a handy, defensive staff. If she were to go out of the city, she would be fully equipped, but currently, she only had such unreliable weapons.

First, target one person…with Fireball to set him on fire…Then, increase the distance while they’re confused…

If she could increase the distance, there would be no way she could lose. She hadn’t stepped into many battlefields. Instead, she had spent most of her time reading and learning arcane magic in Svalinn. In addition, there had been a recent incident where her self-confidence was completely crushed. Even so, she told herself that she wasn’t so weak as to lose to these guys.

However, when she was about to use magic, the staff suddenly vanished.

“!”

“Oops, that’s dangerous. You mustn’t use such a dangerous thing.”

The staff was in the hands of the man behind the thugs.

What did he do? Super speed? Teleportation? I don’t understand. I don’t understand what just happened.

The person who took the staff was a handsome man in high-quality clothes. He was clearly different from the thugs. He had blue eyes with wavy brown hair. It was evident from his graceful, well-featured face that he was an aristocrat. However, he couldn’t hide the vulgar desire in his eyes. This caused the girl considerable discomfort.

“Don’t make me take action. Do you know how sinful it is for commoners like you to waste my precious time and energy? Tools should behave like tools and work as I desire.”

“How selfish…”

The girl was enraged by his selfishness, but the elegant man didn’t seem to care. He was relaxed in a way that suggested he was confident that he would never lose. His smile was full of scorn. However, his expression became vexed upon hearing the voice of a third party.

“Hey, you people! What are you doing!?”

Everyone turned their attention to Sei, who came after hearing the commotion. However, when they saw his figure, the five thugs laughed at him as if he was a fool.

What? It’s just a self-righteous brat.

They thought so as they let their guard down. They set their prey aside and turned their knives towards Sei as they approached him carelessly.

“What’s up, bro? Are you an ally of justice?”

“Heh—you’re so cool.”

“Don’t misunderstand. We’re gentlemen, not villains.”

“A pervert named Gentleman, that is.”

Seeing Sei’s unreliable figure, the thugs completely underestimated him. However, Sei confronted them directly without any hint of fear.

“I don’t know what the situation is, but don’t you think you’re immature for surrounding a girl like this?”

“Huh? What’s with this guy? Isn’t he getting ahead of himself?”

“This is bothersome. Let’s just finish him off.”

One of the thugs reached out for Sei, but the latter calmly evaded it, caught the thug’s arm, and threw him over.

“You *******!”

“You jerk, how dare you do that to Pila!?”

They weren’t expecting the youth to fight back. Now, the four remaining thugs attacked him simultaneously. But for the current Sei, they were too slow. After overcoming the battle at the demihuman village, he wouldn’t be frightened of something like this.

Without changing his expression, Sei struck them down one after another with either a knife-hand strike or an elbow strike. All five of the thugs collapsed on the ground in an instant. And then, the elegant man, who was hanging back, applauded deliberately.

“Heh, you’re pretty good. I guess you can’t judge a book by its cover.”

The elegant man said this as if he found it interesting, while stomping on the face of a thug.

“Compared to him…You guys are useless. In the end, a piece of crap is just crap.”

Stomp. Stomp. Trample.

“To make me…take action…personally!”

He stomped on the thug’s face again and again, not caring if the latter’s teeth were broken or his face was bleeding.

“You’re really…a useless tool!”

“Hey, what’re you doing!? Aren’t they your comrades!?”

“Comrades? Stop joking. They’re just tools. Don’t you throw away tools that can’t be used? This is the same.”

The elegant man stepped on the thug’s body and wiped the blood off his shoes with the thug’s clothes. Then, he turned to Sei and smiled scornfully.

“Now then, it’s ridiculous that I have to take action personally against a commoner like you. But it can’t be helped since my tools are so useless. Let me show you what pain is like.”

“……!”

It seemed the elegant man was becoming riled up. Sei quickly readied his stance, but he lost sight of the elegant man in the next moment. And then, there was an impact on his abdomen and he staggered.

It hurts!? I was attacked? When did that happen!?

He was taking damage even though he didn’t look like he was being attacked. He was confused by this seemingly impossible event, but only momentarily. He had gained some courage after experiencing actual battles.

Losing track of his thoughts during a battle was synonymous with death. Therefore, Sei cleared away the confusion and doubt in his mind and immediately looked for the elegant man. There was nobody in sight, but there was another shadow next to his own shadow at his feet.

“From behind!”

Sei turned around and kicked. This surprised the elegant man. Despite hurriedly jumping back to dodge, he still couldn’t evade it completely and the kick scraped the tip of his nose. Although he had wanted to land gracefully, his expression changed after seeing red spots on the ground. The kick had caused his nose to bleed.

“……! Damned commoner, you dare do this to my face!”

The elegant man roughly wiped away the blood from his nose and then vanished again. Immediately after, Sei received an impact to his face. And then his shoulder, abdomen, and jaw started to ache.

There was no mistake. He was under attack!

He was being beaten even though he wasn’t! He was being kicked even though he wasn’t!

Is this the telekinesis ability of the esper class? Or is he simply that fast?

He didn’t know which was it. Perhaps, it was something completely different. Fortunately, his level and attack power were not too different from Sei’s.

Sei endured the pain and stopped moving to avoid falling over. He swung his fist at the elegant man who appeared at the edge of his vision, but he disappeared again and evaded the blow.

“Don’t think you can get another lucky hit. You can never beat me because I have the power of an invincible hero!”

The elegant man laughed and folded his arms across his chest.

Is he giving himself a handicap?

Sei thought and quickly put his hand on the katana at his waist.

“That’s enough, Debris-sama.”

The tense atmosphere was broken by a man’s voice resonating from the darkness. A tall man in his thirties with a mustache appeared. After seeing him, Sei became more nervous than ever. He could tell that that man was strong, probably stronger than Jean, or even comparable to Gants.

“This person is the hero recognized by the royal family of Lævateinn. There’s no benefit in fighting here.”

“Hero? Heh, that’s him? As I thought, the royal family is useless. They’re blind in regards to evaluating people.”

“…Be careful with your words. If someone related to the royal family hears of this, you could be charged with treason.”

“………”

The elegant man, Debris, frowned sullenly and then struck him without saying a single word as if he was throwing a tantrum. The other man seemed to have expected this as he neither move nor say anything, even though he stumbled for a moment.

Debris glared at Sei and warned him in a low voice.

“I’ll remember your face. The price of being an ally of justice will be high.”

After saying this, both men left without looking back. After watching them leave, Sei sighed and released his tension. Then, he tried speaking to the girl who had been harassed…and he suddenly realized that her face looked familiar.

“Eh? You’re…Alfie?”

She was the female mage who was once a member of the party aiming to defeat the Demon King and the Overlord. But after seeing the battle between those monsters, she became disheartened and left before they started their journey.

Image from Light Novel Volume 6