By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 6 - Chapter 19

Chapter 4 Episode 19: The Leader Saw It 3

“Graaaaaaaah!”

Howard trampled the grass and jumped from his starting position. His battle cry invigorated himself and intimidated his enemies. It hardly showed from his appearance, but he had beastkin in his ancestry and had a bad habit of roaring before battles. When he was young, he would even roar during what were supposed to be surprise attacks. Through a lot of hard work, he managed to improve this issue, and now he seldom roared at all. That he roared now showed that he was serious. At the same time, it immediately made clear that he seldom took other fights as seriously. It looked like he was even using energy meditation to enhance himself and his weapon. This was undoubtedly terrifying.

Howard’s ferocity caused a stir in the audience, but Ryoma was the one taking the pressure from him up front, and he looked unfazed. In contrast to Howard, he was as quiet and stoic as the still surface of a lake. But his gaze was piercingly sharp, like he saw his opponent only as a target. Ryoma made no attempt to intimidate. He cared only about hunting his prey. Compared to his usual calm demeanor, he was like a different person. It felt like he pointed his weapon at his target without mercy, and just standing within his range gave me goosebumps.

They were like a wild beast and a calculating hunter. It was strangely tense for a mock battle. I might have stopped it, but didn’t have the time to think about it before an arrow was fired at Howard.

“You ain’t hitting me!” Howard shouted.

The arrow whizzed straight at Howard, but we were in the plains and Ryoma had nothing to hide behind, so the timing of his attacks was clear to see. And this was a planned battle in the first place, so he knew from the start that he would be targeted. If he were faced with a barrage of arrows, that would probably be different, but this was a single arrow from a single person. Howard just turned a bit and avoided it with ease.

But a moment later, Howard had to swipe forward with his spear to knock another arrow away. “He predicted how Howard would dodge the first arrow and fired a second one, eh? Fired them at pretty quick intervals, too,” I whispered as Ryoma kept firing arrows.

He aimed not only for big targets like Howard’s torso, but periodically went after harder targets like his legs, spear, or even his hands. But he didn’t go after vital areas like the head or heart because this wasn’t supposed to be a fight to the death. He was trying to reduce Howard’s mobility before he got close enough to attack or to destroy his weapon entirely. It was like two or three archers were showering Howard with arrows and, while none of them hit him, they did considerably slow his advance.

I was surprised by the speed and precision with which he attacked, but that also meant he must have been quickly burning through his arrows. Much like magic, you could only attack with a bow a limited number of times. And Howard wasn’t going to go down easily. He was facing a tough battle for now, but he ran all about the plains and endured Ryoma’s onslaught as he awaited his chance to strike back.

But Ryoma was more than competent with a bow, at least a Level 4, if not Level 5. Howard had to make use of his experience and sheer willpower to compete, but if he let his guard down for a second, he would be done for. Were this a surprise attack in a forest, the whole party could be wiped out. But here, he had no way to land a winning blow. To make that perfectly clear, the equilibrium between them was soon broken when Ryoma slowed down his rate of attack out of concern for his remaining arrow supply.

“Gotcha!” Howard howled and tried to jump right up to Ryoma. To counter, Ryoma cast Earth Fence and created a row of tons of evenly spaced bars to block his path. He probably planned to use those to avoid close combat and attack through the gaps between the bars. Howard was strong enough to smash through them and tried, but then Ryoma cast Break Rock and Storm to produce a cloud of dirt.

“Whoa!”

“Hey!”

“It reaches all the way over here!”

It sounded like the cloud fell over the audience too. I could sense how much magical energy he used, so it made sense, but the spells he cast were basic ones. Ryoma noticed that Howard was about to bust through the bars, so he just crumbled the bars into dirt himself and summoned a storm. It did no damage, but made it difficult to see.

“Ah! Seriously?!” Howard cried.

A small silhouette ran through the dirt cloud and closed in on Howard himself. He was too close to use his bow, so he grabbed an arrow and thrust at Howard’s eyes and throat. Real arrowheads are small, but they’re still sharp, pointed blades. They could easily harm a human eye. And depending on the distance, arrows could even penetrate armor, so I guess they could be used for stabbing too. I had never seen an arrow used in close combat before, but it didn’t look like Ryoma had just gotten desperate. He swiftly and adeptly switched the arrow from an overhand to an underhand grip and stabbed from various angles. It worked well enough in the event that the enemy got close, from the look of it.

Howard backed away to gain some distance, as did Ryoma at the same time. And right after that, Howard yelped as his cheek was grazed by an arrow. Ryoma fired the arrow he had been using in close combat the moment there was space between him and Howard. And as the wind carried the cloud of dirt away and cleared their vision, Ryoma’s rapid fire began again. On his shoulder was a satchel full of arrows, and at his feet was a different, empty satchel.

Ryoma hid a second satchel in his Item Box to make up for the weakness of using a bow. He didn’t just show all the arrows he had at the start. I didn’t know how many more arrows he had in store, but this wasn’t against the rules or anything. Ryoma now repelled Howard, leaving them evenly matched once again.

“Teleport!” Ryoma shouted.

“Where’d he go?! Uh-oh!”

“Teleport!”

There was no way to guess where he would teleport. He instantly moved from blind spot to blind spot and attacked. Losing sight of him for even an instant slowed Howard’s reactions. This took a lot of magical energy to do, but everyone knew that Ryoma had a lot to spare.

It was clear now that Ryoma had taken full control of the battle, and I could see why the guildmaster worried about him. Ryoma was strong. I didn’t know what school of fighting he trained under, but he learned from them well. He didn’t wield magic as well as a weapon, but he was still quite good. He could cast spells in quick succession and had a ludicrous quantity of energy.

Even when it came to skills for everyday life, he was talented. There was the house he built with earth magic, but he also had plentiful knowledge of medicine. He could procure food effortlessly. He had his own business back in town. He couldn’t have asked for a more stable life. In all ways, he was far beyond the norm. A boy of his age with such skill was nothing short of stunning. If he took the job seriously, he could become a B Rank adventurer or greater within five years. I would bet on it. As of this moment, Ryoma had little to be concerned with in life.

Put another way, though, this meant that he needed no help from anyone. When you can do everything on your own, you don’t need to ask for assistance. And the help of others could even be perceived as a burden if they didn’t reach his level. Ryoma excelled at everything, and because of that, he was isolated.

That was how it seemed to me, and as I watched this match of his as a judge, I realized that he needed to seriously change his perspective. Adventuring inevitably meant danger. The danger increased with each rank, and the number of safe jobs decreased. Most adventurers would trip up at a low rank and learn the limits of their own power and the need for allies, but that probably wouldn’t happen to Ryoma.

If he slacked off and failed at some point, that would be for the better. A saying among adventurers was that the more talented the newbie, the sooner they’d die. They’d take their work seriously, getting better and better at jobs in the lower ranks until they never failed anymore. It happened all the faster if they were talented. But then that adventurer would climb the ranks too fast, and they’d only learned their limits when it was too late.

Every adventurer with a decent amount of experience knew someone like this. You’d hear people talk about them at the guild, about how they never thought this person could die, how they were so strong, and how they could’ve become something great if they weren’t so reckless. The people that get looked down on for their lack of talent, on the other hand, would sometimes stay in the profession longer than anyone.

That was probably why the guildmaster worried about him. I knew as well as him that Ryoma Takebayashi had talent, and that he could easily die young. He was several steps above the level of skill I first expected too, so he could put himself in a very dangerous spot. If he had no allies who could stop him, then maybe it had to be us. The guildmaster probably wanted to do something while there was still time.

Howard was hit by a flurry of arrows about a minute later.