Monster no Goshujin-sama - Volume 5 - Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Notice of a Sudden Change

We ran single file down the narrow alleyway. The people we passed looked like they were wondering why we were in such a rush. The alleyway became less and less populated as we went. The desolate atmosphere was likely because the fleeing knight Lily had mentioned was trying to avoid the eyes of the public. Several minutes later, I started to hear the tumult myself.

“Seize him!” someone yelled.

We turned the corner and found what appeared to be a group of a dozen soldiers thrusting their spears at a single man. He wasn’t wearing any armor, but I recognized his face. He was definitely one of the Alliance Knights.

His movements were stiff, perhaps due to an injury. That was why the soldiers here had managed to catch up with him. Several soldiers were groaning and laying on the ground of this slightly wider alleyway. If this knight had defeated a few soldiers despite this vast difference in numbers, his skills were rather impressive. Still, such resistance only served to provoke their wrath.

“You son of a...!”

One of the soldiers lunged at the knight with his spear. Their orders had been to seize the knight, but with such fierce resistance, one of them had lost himself to rage and ran wild. In a sense, it was almost like an accident. The knight desperately twisted his body, but the sharp spearpoint ruthlessly plunged into his muscles. He fell backward, seriously wounded.

Kei gasped. I also felt blood rushing to my head as I watched someone I knew being attacked. At the same time, I knew I had to maintain my composure. We were faced with twelve trained soldiers. The knight was seriously wounded. His injury required immediate attention. He already was too weak to resist anymore, but the momentum of events couldn’t be stopped now that they were in motion.

The soldiers lunged forward with their spears like a surging wave. There was no time to call them to a stop. If I was to intervene, I had to start by forcefully halting their attack while sheltering and treating the knight, protecting Kei to my rear, and rendering all of these soldiers powerless. Coming to that conclusion, I yelled out my orders.

“Covering fire! Then treat and guard him!”

The soldiers noticed us when I shouted. They looked our way—and were immediately assaulted by wind. It was Lily’s grade 2 wind magic. We didn’t know the situation, so I had her hold back from killing them. This was, at most, covering fire. It was merely to distract them.

I was jogging their way, but I kicked it into high gear, leaving Kei behind. I’d already strengthened my body with mana. Despite running as fast as I could, Lily was ahead of me. She ran to the fallen knight, picked him up, and leaped back. I passed by her and took to the fore. Lily could treat the knight’s fatal wound. She was the only one capable of healing and guarding him while also protecting Kei.

Naturally, this meant the job of dealing with the twelve soldiers fell squarely in my lap. I met the knight’s eyes as Lily retreated past me, still carrying him. He looked like he couldn’t believe it. If he could speak, he would probably tell me to stop. I couldn’t deny the implication behind his gaze. I was weak. That was the truth. It would be much more appropriate to leave this role to Lily.

However, I was the only one who could do this. I had to. Besides, that knight was operating under one big misunderstanding. Majima Takahiro was certainly weak. I knew that better than anyone. I trained hard every day so that I wouldn’t be a hindrance to Gerbera, Lily, and Rose. I wanted to at least gain enough strength to be able to protect myself.

I didn’t want to remain a burden. I had always worried about this. Currently, that was all I was to those girls. However, my lack of strength was a relative matter. So how weak was Majima Takahiro exactly? That was what the knight misunderstood.

“Oooooh!”

I threw myself into the middle of the soldiers who’d yet to regain their footing from Lily’s wind magic, then slammed my sheathed sword into the ribs of the soldier in front of me. I felt the unpleasant sensation of his bones cracking through my palm. I shook away that feeling and pulled back my sword, immediately thrusting it into the stomach of the soldier next to him.

Seeing his two colleagues pass out from the pain, another soldier put himself on guard against me. I slipped past his defenses and slammed my sheath into his jaw. I saw one of the soldiers who had fallen over from Lily’s magic trying to get back up and gave him a good kick to the gut. That was four down. With them out of the picture, I lunged forth once more.

I was nothing but a hindrance to my servants. I was greatly inferior to both Lily and Rose, and there was no need to even mention Gerbera. However, those girls were monsters from one of the most dangerous regions in the world, the Depths of the Woodlands. Not only that, they were all superior specimens: a high monster, a unique monster, and a rare monster. With the exceptions of cheaters, and knights like Shiran, pretty much all of humanity were weaker than them.

I’d once defeated a wounded firefang, a monster from the Depths, with the assistance of Asarina and Ayame. Our journey had gone on for a month since then. All the while, I’d continued my harsh training with Gerbera and taken lessons in swordsmanship from Shiran. In contrast, the soldiers of this world—even if the ones here were actually as strong as the ones at Fort Tilia—could only fight the monsters of the Fringes when in formation. Even without Asarina or Ayame’s help, I was stronger than them in a one-on-one fight.

There was something I couldn’t forget here, however. The army’s soldiers were strong when fighting in formation. It would be difficult for me to take on more than ten of them at once in a head-on confrontation. That was why I had ordered Lily to fire her magic first. On the way here, I had observed the way Fort Tilia’s imperial soldiers fought, and I’d learned that coordination was their greatest weapon. So, I started by taking that away from them.

Having said that, I didn’t have time to waste. I had the advantage only because of Lily’s preemptive attack. I had to finish things quickly before they could form back up. I couldn’t hold back.

“Gaargh?!”

I brought one more soldier to the ground and bashed another with my shield. Even though I’d been taking lessons in swordsmanship from Shiran, my practical training with Gerbera had fostered my fighting style. Even though I was armed with a sword in my right hand and a shield in my left, much like the knights, the way we fought was different. Knights focused on firmly planting themselves in a strong defensive position, using a large shield and heavy armor. I focused on mobility, relying heavily on my ability to evade danger, a sense drilled into my flesh and bones through my training. I also had no fixation on using my sword exclusively.

“Haaaah!”

I carried my momentum from the bash and pushed the soldier down. I strengthened my body as much as I could and toppled the soldier behind him. It was wantonly crude, but that didn’t matter so long as it worked. I finished off the soldier with a stomp, breaking his leg, then turned around and charged at another group.

I noticed that two soldiers had regained themselves and were closing in on me. They were unable to shake off their agitation and desperately lunged in with their spears. By that time, however, I was already prepared. I used my enhanced athleticism to leap over the lunging soldiers and land behind them.

I turned around while swinging my sheathed sword horizontally, breaking one soldier’s femur and sending him to the ground screaming. The other soldier turned around, but I was too close. He couldn’t wield his sword or spear properly at this distance. The soldier acted indecisive for an instant, in which time I thrust my elbow into his throat.

Three left. Given all that time, the remaining soldiers naturally reformed and were ready for battle.

“F-Fuck! What’s with this guy?! He’s like a beast!”

“Don’t falter! He’s coming this way! Stay on guard!”

Their plan was to lay in wait and intercept me. It was going to be a little rough, but I didn’t have a choice. I charged in. The three soldiers in front of me lined up and readied their guard—when the one at the end of the line suddenly screamed as he bent over and fell to the ground. Something had flown into his stomach.

The remaining two were agitated now. They had no idea what just happened. Lily had thrown a stone about the size of a fist. She was treating the knight with healing magic while keeping an eye on how she could support me. I was grateful for this as I closed in on the shaken soldiers.

“You bastard!”

The remaining two soldiers cursed me as they thrust their spears. Their attacks were perfectly synchronized, but two people couldn’t form a proper spear wall. I could deal with this easily. I parried one spear and grabbed the other by the grip.

“No way?!” one of them shouted.

He seemed to have a fair amount of confidence in his spearmanship. Unfortunately for him, he was poorly matched in this fight. Facing off against spears was actually my specialty. I mean, my normal sparring partner being who she was...no spear could match a single thrust from any of the Great White Spider’s legs.

I strengthened my grip and pulled on his spear. My body was constantly strengthened by mana. My arm was several times stronger than normal.

“H-Hwah?!” the soldier yelped as he was thrown off balance.

I drove my knee into his stomach. And after I knocked down the last remaining soldier, the area was entirely suppressed.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Kei, you can use sleeping magic, right?” I asked. “I don’t mind if it’s just for a bit, but could you put these soldiers out of commission?”

“O-Of course.”

After directing Kei, I walked up to the knight. He looked like he had no idea what just happened.

“Lily, how’s his injury?”

“He’s okay now. The worst has passed.”

“I see. That’s a relief,” I said with a sigh.

“U-Um, thank you for your assistance, sir... So it’s true you’re quite strong, huh?” the knight said.

“I only managed because of Lily’s support.”

I somehow got through this because I had jumped in while they were all confused. I still had a long way to go. Lily could’ve taken on a measly ten soldiers and rendered them powerless all on her own regardless of their readiness. Furthermore, she could’ve done it without inflicting any serious wounds. In that sense, she was far more suitable for the role I had taken. But because the knight’s injury was too serious, we had no choice but to do what we had done.

I could somewhat fight now, but there was still a large gap between us in terms of combat potential. I wanted to at least get strong enough so that I wouldn’t die on the spot when a cheater attacked, but the path was going to be a long one.

“More importantly, what exactly is going on?” I asked, kneeling down by the still-dazed knight. “Why were these soldiers attacking you?”

“O-Oh, right. I need to inform you of the situation.” He had just barely escaped death. His mind was still stunned. He blinked a few times as if to wake himself up, then desperately began explaining the situation. “Things have gotten rather serious. Armed forces came down from Fort Serrata and are arresting the knights outside the town!”

“What?”

Now it was my turn to be dazed.

“I was just on my way to make a regular report, so I managed to escape,” the knight continued. “Anyway, I needed to inform you of this, so I discarded my armor to avoid detection, but I messed up along the way. I couldn’t just kill imperial soldiers without a good reason to either... Well, maybe I could’ve done something against them one-on-one in a fair fight, but they mercilessly loosed arrows at me, reducing me to this state.”

Things had gotten out of hand. Even with the strength of the Alliance Knights, we couldn’t take on all the military might of such an enormous fortress with just fifty or so people. It was best to assume that all the knights outside of town had already been arrested.

“U-Um, Takahiro,” Kei said, her face pale. Her job was finished, and all the soldiers were fast asleep. “Would it have been better to keep at least one of them awake? We could’ve asked about what’s going on.”

“No, it’s fine. We don’t know how much these grunts even know, and it’s questionable whether they’ll honestly tell us anything. We’re better off using the time to get away from here.”

We didn’t know why Fort Serrata’s armed forces were arresting the knights. For the time being, I wanted to gather information. Moreover, considering that this could grow infinitely worse, it was better for us to reunite with my other servants.

“Actually, are Rose and the others okay...?” I muttered.

“Only a few people outside of the Alliance Knights know about the house. I don’t believe they’ll find it so easily,” Kei said.

“That’s true. You’ve got a point there.”

I nodded back to Kei, but I couldn’t feel at ease until I saw them safe with my own eyes. Thus, we left the sleeping soldiers as they were and headed off.

◆ ◆ ◆

We ran back to the house while keeping an eye out for pursuers. I was relieved to see everything looked the same as when we’d left. I took a step inside and found someone unexpected waiting for me.

“Takahiro! Thank god! You’re here!”

My friend with ruffled hair, who should’ve been at Fort Serrata, greeted me as I came in. Mikihiko was breathing heavily, perhaps only having just gotten here himself. Behind him, Shiran and some other knights wore grave expressions. I had a bad feeling about this.

“Takahiro. Calm down and listen to me,” Mikihiko said with an extremely stern look. “The commander’s been arrested.”