26 Coincidence

Chapter 26: Coincidence

Bryce and his friends returned to the village.

Hunters had spotted them first, narrowed their eyes at Bryce's new coat, then worriedly looked over Sharla's appearance, hoping she was all right. When she appeared unscathed, and so did others, the hunters knew that Bryce's talent blossomed on his hunt, and he must've leveled up significantly.

To cover their identities, Bryce pulled a dead troll's body. But his inventory had a ton of meat prepared for himself and the villagers. He didn't plan to distribute it now, but on his parting, of course.

"Welcome back. Just go inside and rest!" the hunter guarding the village's gates said with a bright smile, his words surprising Sharla as he didn't identify them.

But she wasn't a person to refuse goodwill and belief. Still, life has taught her to not believe others blindly.

After peeking at Bryce's face, Sharla noticed he'd thought the same. Gengo whined quietly beneath them, too, indicating that something smelled off.

"We will turn back, actually."

To those words, the guard reacted blankly and flatly asked, "Sorry?"

Bryce didn't answer him. He was already facing the guard with his back. And as his friends had noticed the same oddity within the guard's words, he knew his intuition wasn't off.

The party of three sped up, and then arrows ran after them.

Sharla spun and spread her arms, her golden light brighter than ever before, and shouted, "Protect us from harm, Lord!"

With those words, she cast utterly defensive protection, her lips widening. It was such a taunting smile that hunters' bodies jerked, and before their first salve hit Sharla's defensive wall, they shot another volley of arrows.

"I've never used my full strength for you, and I have grown up!"

Finally, the arrows hit Sharla's skill. Most of them bounced off, just a few lodged inside her protection, but were still far from wounding her skill, her defenses standing tall and strong!

On the journey with a hero, anyone would improve immensely. And as Bryce didn't shy away from using Excalibur, his epic-grade meat, and guidance, Sharla's ambitions rose, and so did her golden right.

It became beautiful and vivid, and surely no one her level would be able to summon the same color!

Bryce smirked, enjoying the fruits of her progress, glancing behind to look at the fed-up expressions of all hunters. He knew those weren't natural and enticed by someone else, probably a villain, so he didn't take too much joy from it.

Following his best friend, who guided them to the dense part of the forest, Bryce told Sharla to turn off her protection skill, rely on the environment, and save her mana.

She obediently followed his words.

But then, the party of three heard someone's voice.

"Bryce, Sharla! Come here!"

Standing behind a tree and dense bushes were a group of boys in their late teens; those were Bryce's friends from the village. The man who had spoken was known as Kyle, and he looked so scared of what he was doing that someone might think he had committed a crime.

Bryce and others steered in their direction.

And then, out of nowhere, Bryce summoned his Excalibur, the plain-looking silver sword turning into a divine weapon, its might going forward as he aimed for Kyle's head.

BANG!

However, an invisible wall separated him from his 'friends', blocking his thrust. Cracks spread in abundance, and some pieces of the invisible wall fell off mid-air, but Kyle and his friends didn't seem worried about that.

Kyle's expression turned wicked, and so did his friends. They didn't seem like humans, and more like wearing a human skin. But as their forms remained the same, Bryce couldn't tell what they were.

"How did you know?" Kyle asked in a jeering tone.

The ground beneath them shook, the familiar sensation.

Knowing that monsters had already circled them, Bryce looked into Kyle's eyes and replied, "I don't believe in coincidences such as villager friends suddenly appearing before us to help us, particularly in this world."

Kyle's form swayed as though he had been an illusion, then a man with a white carnation appeared in his place. He looked foreign, and Bryce knew why. That man was a summoned human from his world.

And strangely enough, his wicked smile turned even eerier, as though he was born to be evil.

"Yeah, I was tight on time because you happen to be a cautious fuck. So unlucky," the man sighed.

Bryce smirked, his intent was to break the man's confidence, "I don't know what you've found about me. I guess you looked around villagers for foreigners. When you found me, you personally came over to the village, investigated me through some means, then decided to take over the village."

The villain curled his lips up, "You don't look that foreign, though. Anyway, I will give you applause." He clapped his hands, and so did the friends around him, all keeping those annoying smiles. "You made things easier, too. When you beat that muscle-head and his friend, I knew you were a hero. That kind of a hero who wants to run away from responsibilities, right? Father told me about them on the first day, and I wanted to catch one instantly. I will make you understand how happy I was to find you."

He started rattling out how a demon lord who summoned him took good care of him, gave him power and loyal followers, sacrificed lowly monsters to raise his level, and more.

He also wanted to reciprocate those feelings and make the man who accepted him proud.

"So you see, I wondered about a villain and what kind of person one has to be to get summoned by a demon lord," Bryce started a new talk.

Sharla and Gengo were worried because they kept feeling the tremors of incoming monsters. They thought it'd be better to escape now, but as Bryce talked, it seemed he had a different idea.

"Beats me."

Bryce chuckled and continued, "You seem like a submissive little bitch who accepted an unfamiliar man as your daddy on your first day after being forcefully — let me stress it out, forcefully — kidnapped by him. You opened your mouth widely like a cheap slut and ate everything he shat on you, then you thanked him and even wanted to reciprocate!"

A chilling silence ensued.

Bryce carried on, though, because his words indicated that everyone summoned by a demon lord was like he'd described, and that was clearly not the case, "If anything, you seem to have a loose screw. And you have what it takes to kill someone. That's probably the only reason you've been summoned here."

The villain stood with color drained off his face, his eyes shivering, and his hands tightly balled. But as he hadn't made any move on Bryce, he confirmed that he had no means to actually fight Bryce one versus one.

That was what Bryce wanted to know.

The monsters soon encircled him and his friends.

And when Bryce found a familiar race, his eyes gleamed victoriously.