Power, Power Goblin.

I held Jean's hand while my legs ran. Not at their peak speed, but fast enough so that the woman could keep up with me.

'I would have never been able to reach this speed in my past life… I know they turned me into a living nuke, but how? How did they turn my body into… This?'

Meanwhile, Jean's panicked screams spread throughout the town. But of course, that was natural, as we were currently being pursued by over… 40? Yeah, I think that's 40 monsters. Most of which are between Rank 7 and 5. 

At least, I think that's what she said.

Manifesting a spear on my free hand, I stopped dead in my tracks. Fully braking, I faced the incoming monster wave, and threw the weapon at the mini tide…

"Wait a sec-"

As soon as it reached the middle, I blew it up.

A sharp pain in my head almost brought me down to my knees, as I grasped the area near my left eye a bit too tightly.

"Ugh…"

Jean struggled to put together even a single word for a few seconds. "W… What-"

"JUST KILL THEM!"

I do not know her exact reaction, but I may have heard a magic circle being created, along with multiple thunderbolts that incinerated any monster that they came in contact with.

A slender, human hand grabbed mine and led me somewhere… By the time we stopped running, the pain had gotten a lot milder. And so, I opened my eyes.

'An… An alleyway-'

A singular slap resounded across the alley. A harmless one, yet strong enough to leave a bright red mark on my cheek.

"The Monarch may have given me the task of taking care of you, but that doesn't mean I'll save you each time you pull a suicidal stunt like that."

I did not utter a single word, for there was no reason to.

She calmed down a bit, and after breathing in and out a few times, she made a singular request. "Once this is over… I expect an explanation."

I nodded, and looked around. Given that there were no monsters nearby, I figured we should go and continue with the plan I had in mind.

"Now, if the crew was unlucky enough, they might-"

A somewhat loud explosion cut me off, and sent some debris behind us, blocking the way.

"Only one of the knights would have that much firepower… Something must have happened. We must go!"

Jean ran ahead of me, and I remained rooted to my spot for two seconds.

'Wait, I can run faster than her… Alright, time to ball or crash.'

I sprinted ahead of the mage, and grabbed one of her hands. "Sorry, but you're too slow."

Then, I dashed towards our current destination. 

While the streets weren't overflowing with unchecked monsters as earlier, the trails of destruction remained, along with many living monsters, and human corpses splattered everywhere indiscriminately, whether it was along the walls, on the soil, within the ruined buildings or even on top of other corpses. 

I could feel someone's trembling hands. But I had to avert my gaze away from everything.

I'm pretty sure I felt my insides turn thrice.

… A-anyway, as we arrived at the intersection, our eyes narrated a scene, and gave us all the context we needed within a second.

The squad had been surrounded by dozens of monsters, with a strangely tall goblin on the front. 

The goblin, dressed with leather armor, held a machete over its shoulder. With a strangely upright position, it looked down on the adventurers. 

"T-That's the Rank 3… I never thought I'd see a Goblin this powerful."

"Say, Jean, what does Rank 3 mean anyway?"

"Do you… Uhm, short version, it's very strong. Even I would have problems facing off against it."

I nodded my head, and let go of her hand. 

'A rapier is horrible for a situation like this, whereas a chainblade is just… Man, why did I pick these weapons?'

Sighing, I told her to get ready, and ran up to the monster horde.

I waved my rapier once, slicing at least nine monsters, and threw the chainblade towards the dangerous goblin, and pulled it out.

"Who-!"

The Goblin screamed out in pain, and five or so monsters surrounded it immediately, moving outside the circle, as if they were retreating. "Get their princess!" yelled the furious yet tall Goblin.

The knights quickly adapted to the situation, and dug their weapons into the ground, releasing a tangible wave of mana that threw off the balance of all the monsters. Meanwhile, the ranged units quickly picked off a bunch of them, either through magic spells or shooting mana-made arrows.

'Can't abuse Time Alter too much. Especially when the side effects are unknown.'

I kicked a dog-faced bipedal beast away, crushing its organs as soon as my feet made contact with its pathetically weak body, and sent it flying.

The corpse hit its companions, impairing their movement even further. The archers took the chance, and did what they did best: Killing monsters.

'... These things are weak.'

Soon enough, the battle had reached its conclusion. While neither side finished the battle in a perfect condition, I'd say we got the larger end of the stick, given the lack of deaths on our side.

But…

One of the elves had accumulated a concerning number of bruises, a human knight obtained a fairly deep stab wound in the heat of the battle, and William ended up with a broken arm. 

Oh, and the Princess' dress got some blood on it.

Needless to say, the greatest tragedy was nor seeing the end of the conflict, but the aftermath of the battle.

"Waaaah! My dress! My beautiful, perfect, shining, fittingly good dress! Why, world?! Why are you taking my darling away from me?!"

The elven princess yelled amidst her tears, while the others lowered their heads with expressions showing concealed rage, frustration or even sadness.

Except for Jean, who clearly had enough of the Princess' shit. She calmly walked up to her, and the sound of a punch made its way into my ears as the body of a royal elf collapsed down to the ground.

The elf coughed, and glared at the one who attacked her with rage in her eyes.

"Bitch, who do you think you-"

Her words were interrupted by a kick to the stomach, and subsequent attacks aimed straight to her body.

After the fifth kick, I walked up to them, and grabbed Jean's shoulder. "Stop it, time is ticking," were the only words I had to vocalize for her to stand down.

As for the elven squadron? They all pretended to be looking away…

"... Alright, we're close to the extraction point. Just a bit more, and we'll part ways."

Before we departed, the Princess had no choice but to heal the critically wounded members, Ryan and the stabbed human, back to fighting shape. As for William, the elven commander merely relocated his arm back into place.

"T-thanks, Miss Ladenia," mumbled Ryan, in spite of the Princess' constant whining. 

Shortly after she finished, we left towards the point where our paths would diverge.

As the humans and elves said their farewells, William and Gregor pulled me aside to talk, with William being the first to speak.

"So, Randall… You tagged alongside us, under the one condition of not disobeying orders. But you did just that, not only by breaking the formation, but also taking a valuable member of the team away."

He stopped for a moment, and Gregor sighed.

"He did get us out of that sticky situation, y'know? Plus, his actions shaved off a lot of time that we would have had to spend sneaking around otherwise."

'This…'

William stopped to think, and nodded. "That's… kind of true, actually."

He let out a deep breath, and stared at me dead in the eyes. "Look, given the results of this operation, it would be unfair for you to be punished, since your contributions were key to our success. But, please don't repeat this again."

'… is but an obvious attempt at an act.'

I nodded, and the air around us relaxed a bit. I bid them farewell, and watched as the elven squadron departed with the horses.

As for us? Our job wasn't done yet.

"Come on people, we got a town to cleanse," stated William, who now stared at the still besieged town.