Companion Chapter 3-2
The tales of adventures of Cloud the B rank adventurer (2/5)
After that, we went to the forest where the vampire showed up just as planned.
We left the carriage at town and walked there.
We can’t ride a carriage inside the forest, and we all agreed that riding it and leaving it outside of the forest is a bad idea too.
We walked about 30 minutes and arrived at the forest where the vampire should be.
Since the monsters in this area aren’t very strong, those 30 minutes were mostly travel time as our combat against them didn’t take much time.
[It is a dense forest.]
As Coco muttered, the trees were grown so dense that the sky was quite dark and not visible enough.
I heard vampires are weak against sunlight, so this dark forest must be a good place for them.
[How scary~]
Sicily said that with a carefree tone.
Sicily becomes a chatterbox when she loses her composure, so she is very composed, contrary to the contents of her words.
[Both of you are too relaxed. We are already in enemy territory after all.]
[[Okay~]]
I have a feeling they’re losing interest, but I guess I should leave that unsaid.
There are no paved roads inside the forest, so we moved along the animal trail.
So I am at the first line as a vanguard, followed by Coco, Sicily and Yuria…
We haven’t encountered any monster since we entered the forest, there were no signs of them around it either.
Perhaps they were hunted or scared off by that vampire.
[Anytime now…]
[You are right.]
[Umm.]
[Yeah~]
According to the information we checked beforehand, the animal trail will disappear soon, and we should come out to an open space.
The vampire turned that place into a battle ground..
[Is this the place…?]
And then we entered the open area just as they said.
It is an unnatural 100m circular area about where not even one tree grows.
I guess it is because there were a lot of fighting here. I can smell a faint trace of blood too.
Although only a few people were killed, a lot of people shed their blood here.
[Hmm, 4 people this time. A few but there might be someone who could give me a good fight…]
Naturally, the vampire is waiting there.
His eyes are red and have fangs too, so he is a vampire without a doubt.
But his image is totally different from what I expected.
My image of vampire is one wearing either black or purple clothes and having a long hair over a mantle
However, the vampire in front of us is wearing white clothes and a blade on a… belt? It is just a black string on the waist.
Although his look isn’t what I expected, I know he is a strong opponent, since there is no opening at all.
[You are a vampire, right? We received the request to subjugate or drive you out by the adventurer guild. My name is Cloud.]
[Same, I’m Coco.]
[Sicily~]
[I’m Yuria.]
[Oh, you voluntarily introduced yourselves to me who is a monster. …My name is Giordo. I’m in the middle of training to reach the perk of martial arts.]
It seems that is his motive for fighting.
[Well then, I know your purpose of coming here now. Who is going to fight me? Of course, I don’t mind if four of you fight me at once either.]
[Then, we will accept your kindly offer and fight you with four of us.]
He seems not to care about fighting many opponents at once, he has been challenged by a lot of people at once many times before, after all.
We didn’t make fun of him. Considering his track record, it shouldn’t be percepted as an offence.
[Good. If you want to surrender, do it quickly. I won’t fight with anyone who doesn’t want to fight.]
[Understood. You too, please tell us you admit defeat when you want to surrender too.]
[Kukuku~, you are the first one who said that to me!]
Giordo said that while moving one of his feet backward and lowering his body a little without having any weapon in hand.
We also took our stance and readied our weapons as we were going to fight.
[Talking with young people is fun but I like to fight more. So, let’s talk with our fists without reserve!]
[Err, but I’m using a sword…]
[…Here it comes!]
Giordo ignored my retort and charged at me.
[Coming!]
[I will stop you!]
This is a basic of our group fight, I will go ahead and block attack with a shield first.
I move my shield to intercept Giordo’s movement. My companions would follow-up with an attack if they had a chance.
[Futile.]
[Eh?]
Giordo’s palm met my shield when he said that.
[Fu!]
[Uwa~!?]
Giordo has just made a small movement and pushed me away.
[Cloud!]
[Cloud-kun!]
[Cloud-kun, are you okay~!?]
[I’m fine, there wasn’t any damage!]
I didn’t suffer any damage but I don’t know what happened.
I know it is because his palm hit my shield but his movement is so precise and it does not match the force that pushed me away.
Was that magic?
Is it a bad move to block Giordo’s attack with a shield…?
…No. This is just the start of the fight, I shouldn’t narrow down our fighting style.
[What is wrong? Are you surrendering already?]
[We won’t just because of this!]
Coco throws dagger as a feint.
[Hmm.]
Her dagger aims for the head, but Giordo just deflects it with his backhand.
It still interrupted his stance and gave us time, though just a little.
[He might be a really powerful enemy. Let’s fight without leaving blind spots as much as possible.]
[Yeah.]
[Yes.]
[Yeah~]
The exchange earlier proved him to be a powerful enemy.
He might be stronger than our individual combat prowess.
If one of us is defeated, we won’t have a chance to win.
[Are you done with strategy? Here I go again!]
This time, Giordo tried to get closer to my companions for an attack.
Even if I failed to block it once, that doesn’t mean it is unnecessary. I tried to block Giordo’s attack once again.
I have to make sure to know what is going to happen this time.
[This time!]
I readied my shield and kept staring at it.
[I won’t use the same trick twice.]
[Eh!? Ugh~!]
Giordo shooted up in the air and jump-kicked as I readied my shield.
He jumped over me and kept that momentum to perform his jump-kick.
His kick is aiming at Yuria-san who stands right behind me.
[Guu!]
Yuria blocked that kick aiming at her stomach with her arm but it made her totally staggering.
Yuria-san who is a magic user could fight at close range, but Giordo might be too much for her to handle.
[[[Yuria-san!]]]
[Please don’t worry! This is a chance!]
Rather than being healed, Yuria-san wants us to attack Giordo.
[Eeei~~!]
[Eat this!]
Sicily and Coco who were closer than me attacked.
[Fuu!]
Giordo breathed in and took hold of Sicily’s spear with his armpit and threw her body toward Coco as it was.
[No way~!]
[Kya!]
Sicily and Coco screamed as they fell over.
[You are more monstrous than we thought.]
[I’m a monster so naturally I am, after all.]
Giordo made a joke back at me.
Well, monsters normally don’t use any techniques.
It might be harder if we don’t keep our focus…
[More importantly, how about you use magic soon?]
[How…]
We couldn’t hide our surprise when Giordo said that.
We certainly can use magic but we haven’t been using it once.
I don’t know why he knows this.
[Your fighting style is easy to adjust for using magic. Although I looked forward to that and decided to charge in and prevent you from using it easily.]
[You know all of this by only that~?]
[I understand it when I fight.]
I give up.
Certainly, our fighting style also accommodates magic, but to notice this with only a few exchanges…
[It is unexpected…]
[Yeah, it is a fighting style we have been using. Cloud-kun, let’s use magic.]
[You are right.]
[What are you going to show me?]
[Just as you want, magic.]
We have been putting the limit on our magic usage until now.
Of course, there is a reason for this, but the biggest reason is “It is too strong”.
Our magic skills were given to us by Jin-sama, our master.
By our master’s ability, our magic grows stronger the more we defeat magic users.
By the time we realized it, our magic power has become tremendous after surviving many battles as B rank adventurers.
If I have to describe how outrageous it is, the only word I have is “S rank”.
Our magic ability is the only thing we have at S rank, besides our real ability.
Honestly, this strays too far from our purpose.
We didn’t want to have great strength that doesn’t match our real ability.
So we put limitations on magic usage.
– If an enemy can be defeated without using magic, don’t use magic to defeat it.
– In case we need to use magic, we will gradually increase the strength of the magic.
Since it was hard to defeat Giordo without magic and he actually wanted it, so we lifted our limit on magic usage.
Of course, there is nothing to worry since we had been training to put magic in our fighting strategy.
[I see, you finally use magic. Oh, I will say this first. I’m weak against <Light Magic>. I’m a vampire after all.]
[Why did you announce your own weakness!?]
[Yep, as for <Light Magic>, please remember to use it when you have a chance. I can’t become “The strongest” if I can’t overcome this.]
I don’t think I would announce my own weakness…
Is he lying? No, it doesn’t seem so, he has no reason to lie either.
He is a vampire in the first place, <Light Magic> is one of his weaknesses after all. Let’s use only that.
[Here it goes! “Light Ball”!]
I casted “Light ball”, the first level spell of <Light Magic>.
Because of my <No chant> skill being level 1, I can cast “Light ball” without chanting.
By the way, I’m only one among 8 of us who have <Light Magic>.
[Hou! <No Chant>!]
As expected, Giordo raises his voice in admiration.
I guess he didn’t expect I had <No Chant>.
[Fu~!]
Giordo dodged “Light Ball”.
Before “Light Ball” flies off, I controlled it to attack Giordo again.
Caster can control “Light Ball”’s shooting direction after casting it.
However, it is slower than other ball-type magic.
[Imprudent!]
-Bashu!-
Giordo jumped away, then kicked a sizable branch, broke it and kicked it out of this way.
This flying branch collided with “Light Ball” and destroyed it.
This could usually be done by weapon but Giordo was fighting unarmed, so he can’t do that.
[You could cast magic with <No Chant>… Kukuku, you are interesting after all. I thank you, I will be able to become stronger after this fight!]
Instead of panicking, he just enjoys this.
This battle maniac has ability, this is troublesome…
After that, the fighting with Giordo continued.
If I had to describe how Giordo fought in a single phrase, it is “he has no openings”.
Even when you think you have a chance to attack Giordo, he immediately backed away and when attack reached him, he would be ready for it and just would counter it with a simple attack.
Although having no weapon is one of the reasons his attack and defence had no unnecessary movements at all. All our attacks were warded off by techniques that haven’t been seen before…
Perhaps, the attack I recieved at the beginning is one of those techniques.
I was surprised that it wasn’t his trump card, but one of his normal attacks.
However, he pays attention to <No Chant> magic, especially with <Light Magic>.
There is a failure chance to cast <Light Magic> with <No Chant>, not to mention casting in the middle of combat.
So I wasted the valuable chance with the first attack.
He stays vigilant about magic now.
Giordo doesn’t follow up his attack more than necessary. I think he hates to leave an opening by following up with an attack, especially when I can use <Light Magic> for that chance.
In addition to that, it seems he tried to measure our ability.
Of course, we still have 1 or 2 trump cards left. But no one is easy to use…
[Hmm, your ability is fairly good. Most adventurers would have either given up or died already.]
[We won’t go easy on you even if you praise us.]
[Say that after giving me a wound first.]
We technically haven’t landed any serious blows on each other yet.
The hit on my shield didn’t have much damage.
Attack at Yuria-san earlier was shallow and didn’t hinder her movements at all.
[Hmm, this fight is in a deadlock. You seem to have a trump card left too. Let me show my trump card now.]
Giordo appeared in front of me immediately and struck.
[Ku~!]
I readied my shield in a hurry.
Giordo attacked my shield with his palm and blew me away like the last time.
Damn it. I have countermeasures for this but I have no time to use it.
[Uwa!]
I was blown off and thrown to the ground.
[[[Cloud(kun)!]]]
[I’m fine!]
I got up and took my stance immediately.
That is certainly <Flash Step>.
I saw Maria’s <Flash Step> and have been using it several times before too, I’m sure of it.
However, I’m certain Giordo’s <Flash Step> level is higher than mine too.
At worst, isn’t this the same as fighting with Maria-senpai?
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