032

Rozalin and Pan cut through the path between the trees.

Rozalin, at the very front, cut down all the small branches and undergrowth with her excellent kinetic vision.

Pan followed behind, clearing up whatever she occasionally missed.

And I.

“You’re, too fast……”

was struggling just to keep up with them.

“Do we have to go this fast……?”

Sordian, who was following beside me, clicked his tongue as if pitying me.

“Orcs are no different from soldiers. In a forest of this size, they would naturally have scouts. If we don't strike at once, we'll be surrounded in this vast forest.”

As Sordian finished speaking, the rough breathing of orcs could be heard from far away.

Perhaps because of the trees in the forest, the sound, whose origin and flow were unknown, echoed like a memory.

As the sound continued to be layered over the forest, the air seemed to grow heavier.

The rough breathing lifted everything that made up the forest.

The smell of damp moss, the vines that entangled our feet, the feel of the old, bark-covered trees.

An illusion appeared, as if the spirits of the forest, like Ents or Dryads, were playing tricks on us.

Kwaang!

However, all those illusions were dispelled by the sound of Hati’s mace before they could even be completed.

Hati, who was running at the very back, cleared a few trees with the mace in his right hand.

“It's a barrier. If we're pursued on our way out, these trees will create a kill zone.”

“A kill zone?”

“We're hunting them down. No matter how good the orcs' bodies are, in the end, this is a forest.”

Hati chuckled as if in anticipation, and threw the trees around.

He picked up tree trunks the size of a human body with one hand and threw them here and there.

Each time, muscles the size of a human head bulged over his clothes.

It was monstrous strength.

“Orc life signs. Encountering them now.”

Yuria, who was running alongside me, pointed straight ahead.

There, Rozalin and Pan were encountering the first orc.

“Human! Intrusion! Die……!”

“One!”

Before the huge orc could even swing its axe, Rozalin’s sword sliced the orc’s face diagonally.

Before the orc’s body could collapse, Rozalin’s body shot upwards.

She stepped on the orc’s knee, then almost immediately jumped off its shoulder and surveyed her surroundings.

There were three orcs in front of her.

“Hyaaaap!”

Her sword swept through the air as she spun around.

In a brief moment, the orcs’ arms, legs, and half their bodies were sent flying.

It was an unbelievable display of skill.

“Four!”

But contrary to her gallant cry, the orcs with severed arms and legs let out screams and tried to press Rozalin with their remaining bodies.

Swish—!

It was Pan who stopped them.

He approached with short, cutting steps, then shot out like an arrow in an instant, cutting down two orcs in a single stroke.

In the meantime, Rozalin, who had landed on the ground, took a basic stance facing forward, and Pan followed beside her.

“You have to subtract two. I took care of two of them.”

“Oh, really. I wore them all out, and you just got the last hit. Let’s look at the contribution.”

“Were they even worn out?”

Fast and precise.

The orcs kept appearing, but most of them fell without even a single proper attack.

Rozalin’s swordsmanship was amazing, but what caught my eye even more was Pan.

‘He’s solid.’

Only a week had passed, but Pan felt like he had grown a lot.

It wasn't as much of a change as Instructor Freutche, but his body's muscles had become a little firmer.

Above all, he knew how to look his enemies straight in the eye.

‘His eyes have improved.’

I knew because I had good eyes.

The moment the orc appeared, Pan quickly scanned it from head to toe.

What posture it was in, how it would swing its sword, where it would move, and where its weaknesses were.

And he thrust his sword towards that spot.

“Ugh!”

“Sloppy! Whether you pull or release, once you've decided to do it, give it your all until the sword stops!”

There were still many clumsy parts in how he used his strength, but he was still steadily dealing with the monsters.

Chweek—!

It was not the time to be staring blankly at their swordsmanship.

The cries of orcs were slowly being heard from all sides.

“Look at this. We're surrounded.”

In a short time, Rozalin and Pan had slaughtered more than twenty orcs, but in other words, it was only twenty.

Before we knew it, as Sordian had said, the orcs began to surround us in a wide circle.

Kwaaaaaang!

As if to block the orcs' movements, huge rocks and tree trunks began to block the path.

It was Hati, who had joined from the rear.

“Heave-ho. Teacher. The fight's going to be a bit long, so if you get tired, stand with your back to this rock. You'll survive.”

“Yes, yes!”

I said, raising my sword.

The sound of my pounding heart filled my ears.

‘But I can't just be protected like this.’

A student was fighting.

But I couldn't be the only one safely protected.

“Great Master. Do not overdo it. I have an important role in healing these personnel. If I fall while trying to save the Great Master’s life, we will have to subjugate the orc tribe without a healer.”

Beside me, Yuria calmly analyzed the situation.

I know.

So.

“I'll just defend.”

I said, widening my view.

She said the orcs moved like an army.

But orcs were not an army.

Monsters.

Beings with weak reason who live according to their instinct to slaughter humans.

That's why, even if they had a system, it was clumsy.

‘There.’

An orc was standing slightly out of formation.

Its build was slightly smaller than the other orcs, and it was less systematic and more instinctive than the orcs in general.

I stepped towards it and raised my sword.

It was Fel’s basic sword form.

Chweek—!

The orc got excited seeing my clumsy sword form.

Its eyes immediately went wild and it rushed towards me.

‘Trajectory.’

In an instant, the flow of the orc rushing towards me was drawn in my vision.

The way it stepped, its muscles, gaze, instinct, habits, environment, surrounding objects, the edge of its weapon, its grip, the placement of other orcs.

Standing at an angle, I raised my sword.

As if by magic, the orc's neck pushed into that space.

Without needing to apply any force, the orc, whose face had come close to mine as it followed the grain, had a look of bewilderment.

Chwi, gurk.

It made a gurgling sound as it choked on blood.

I swung my arm as it was.

With a gruesome sound, the orc’s head fell off.

“Hmph……”

At the end, when I took the sword-swinging posture, my arm throbbed.

I could bear it.

Compared to when I had struggled to defeat three orcs before, it was an incredible result.

‘I can do it.’

I immediately widened my vision again.

There were countless orcs that had strayed.

* * *

Sordian felt as if he were possessed by a ghost.

He could somewhat understand Pan slaughtering the orcs like a madman.

The child who had dared to duel him in the ranking evaluation.

And the child who had landed an unexpected blow on him.

It would have been more strange if such a student couldn't show that level of performance.

‘He’s been training his swordsmanship like crazy at the guardhouse for the past few days.’

Rozalin’s method of swordsmanship training was not just crude, but barbaric.

She extracted the swordsmanship from the manual into theory, and then taught that posture.

And then she relentlessly unleashed hundreds of attacks that could only be blocked with that posture.

If he was even 0.1 seconds late in swinging or defending his sword, he would be hit.

It was training designed solely for real combat.

Pan had endured that training with brute determination.

That was why he could even talk back to Rozalin while swinging his sword.

‘I understand that old man too.’

Hati was a storm personified.

Every time he swung his morning stars mercilessly with both hands, two or three orcs would fly into the air.

There was nothing left of the surrounding terrain, and his strength was so great that there was not even a slight decrease in speed when he swung his arm, breaking trees.

Just how strong was he? It seemed that even his visible muscles could not fully express his strength.

But.

‘People like that are a dime a dozen in the Royal Knights.’

Sordian’s origin was the Royal Knights, where the most outstanding people in the Empire gathered.

Even for himself, it wasn't difficult to slaughter the orcs while observing his surroundings.

The number of orcs he had killed was already over thirty.

‘But there's no monster like that.’

His gaze fell on Cassian.

Cassian's movements were bizarrely static when everyone else was dynamic.

He drew a small circle and did not move out of it.

Even if he moved a lot, it was only one step.

And at that one step, the orcs would get strangely excited and rush in.

And in an instant, they would offer their necks to his sword.

It was to the point where he wondered if he was luring the orcs with some strange curse or spell.

‘That's not a demon?’

It was a swordsmanship that he couldn't comprehend with his common sense.

He was just flicking his sword.

Puk!

Already more than ten orcs were falling to the ground.

Every time an orc fell, goosebumps ran down his spine.

What if that swordsmanship was aimed at him?

After eating that Mandrake or whatever and learning that cheap swordsmanship, the teacher seemed to have become a completely different person.

‘And to say he’s a klutz, what a deception.’

Did he say his life would be in danger if he swung his sword properly?

If that wasn't ‘properly,’ then what in the world was.

‘It would have been even more bizarre if he hadn't looked so tired.’

It was when he was thinking that.

Kwoooooo—!

With a huge howl, the orcs’ movements stopped.

It was just one howl, but it felt as if all the air in the surrounding forest was being absorbed into a single point.

“High orc spotted! 1km ahead! Twenty-five orc warriors!”

“Confirmed!”

Hati, at the very rear, answered Rozalin’s shout from the front line.

‘Excellent.’

It was textbook party play.

Their actions had the raw feel of a mercenary band, but when you delved into the details, it was chilling.

‘She’s not tired at all.’

Rozalin advanced, cutting only what she could.

Nearly a hundred orcs had fallen on the path she had taken, but in reality, Rozalin had only dealt with a third of them.

The other two-thirds, she had simply cut off their arms and legs.

It was Pan who had moved, dealing with them.

Perhaps because of that reduced energy consumption, Rozalin still looked full of vigor.

‘She’s only just regained her senses.’

Her body was still that of a 15-year-old girl.

But Rozalin knew how to handle her body efficiently and perfectly.

‘She must be the strongest 15-year-old in the world.’

It was when he was chuckling to himself.

Kwoong!

With the sound of giant footsteps, the high orc walked, bending the trees left and right.

Hard tusks that shot up to its eye sockets like an elephant's ivory.

A physique that looked to be 2m 50cm tall.

Attire that exposed its muscular body except for leather pants.

And the huge double-bladed axe in both hands.

Kwoooooo—!

A distinct anger could be felt in the endless howling.

The orc warriors beside it spread out to the left and right.

“Dodge!”

At Cassian’s shout, everyone instinctively threw themselves to the left and right.

Shwooooook—!

And an axe flew in, completely crushing the space where they had been standing.

Kwaaang!

With a huge roar, the axe smashed a boulder the size of a house and got stuck in the ground.

It was a force that had torn apart dozens of trees and about ten orcs that hadn't been able to dodge in time.

“Wow, it even reduced the number of orcs. What a great prey.”

Rozalin licked her lips as she looked at it.

“That one's mine. Take care of the orc warriors for me~!”

It was the start of the second round.

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