8 Ch 08 - The Skirmish

With that I turn around, find the original direction that's meant to lead to a village, and start trotting my way along.

It's been about 30 minutes since I've been walking and I have got to say that this island is truly beautiful.

Everywhere you look you can find delicate flowers of all kinds, from roses, to daisies, to lilies, and many more. I suspect that this island specializes in flowers.

After a while of taking in the scenery I finally spot the village not far away in the distance, and there seems to be a fire or something because I spot a large plume of smoke above the village.

I quickly remembered what was happening, "Wasn't that long-arm giants' crew supposed to try to kill foxies crew if they tried to escape or something?"

With that thought I quickly speed towards the village in order to see what is happening and if I can help in some way, after all I want to get my bearings here, and having a happy population behind me is much better than not.

I quickly approach the village and to my surprise the village is not actually burning down, however there is plenty of chaos going around.

Every direction I turn I can find people fighting, weaklings of course, but to the current me they are more like strong men and women fighting to the death.

As I see this I am again stunned for a bit because this is the first real-life battle that I've seen, and it's pretty much what you would expect, blood, guts, and body parts all over the place, unlike in anime where all they do is slash the torso and the opponent is defeated.

As I'm overseeing the situation, I see in the corner of my vision something burning, which seems to be producing all of the smoke that I previously saw, which appears to be a pile of burning wood and flower buds that for some reason remain relatively intact, even when engulfed in hot flames.

If you look carefully, it's also clear that the smoke is unnaturally increasing in intensity, size, and density very quickly, and that for some reason those within the smoke are fighting much more brazenly and wildly not caring if they get hurt or killed.

As I'm spectating all of this chaos, and trying to figure out what is happening, I suddenly hear a loud scream from my immediate left and quickly turn around only to suddenly see a large mace the size of my head coming towards me, seeing this I blanch profusely and somehow someway react quick enough to duck and have it pass a few centimeters over my head.

I quickly back away a few feet in order to get a view of my attacker and what greets me is a 3-foot burly man with a large beard, broad shoulders which he uses to hold a mace 5 feet tall and most strangely of all a toddler face.

When I see this, I am a bit stunned by his features, but I am mostly enraged at myself for not remembering that I'm on a fucking battlefield and that this one mistake could have cost me this new life that I just received, so I no longer hesitate and quickly take aim at his center mass and fire my newly dubbed slow-star beam.

The results of the attack are what I expected, he immediately stops in his tracks, and then some of his appendages like his shoulders, hands, and feet are struggling and spasming, everything else seems to be chained down.

After about 40 seconds of watching this guy struggle as well as paying close attention to my surroundings in case of more trouble, I finally see him closing his eyes and passing out, yet he is still held aloft floating there like a zombie.

As I see this phenomenon it's pretty strange and creepy because it's one thing to imagine the effects and another to see them in action, and finally around the 2:30 minute mark I see his face and some of his body parts starting to swell up and redden, which is likely due to many issues, but mostly loss of blood circulation and oxygen.

Just as I was getting a bit worried that I might cause permanent damage or something, I finally see the guy falling face first and laying there unresponsive.

"Huff," I sigh out of relief, not only out of the fact that I didn't UNINTENTIONALLY kill someone, but that this technique actually works as intended(killing techniques come later in story, thanks...).

With this ability in my repertoire, I now feel much safer and much more confident in dealing with whatever problems may crop up in this world, at least against these small fries.

With the confirmation that my newly created technique works as intended, I start going around the battlefield and targeting all the remaining combatants 1 by 1, and after 15 minutes I am the last one standing among a pile of bodies.

Just as I was about to start looting some things that I found interesting from a few bodies on the floor I hear a loud *creak* As the front gate of the village opens and out comes rushing forward a throng of civilians with a few farming tools, machetes, and a few old looking guns here and there.

The next thing that I hear is an old, wizened voice yelling "Stop right their young man! Don't move a muscle!"

And that's how I come face to face with the leader of the village.