XXVI

We reach the Western gate of the city center with little additional conversation, passing through it into the main body of the city. As we march down the single wide street that stretches from the gate to the city center to the gate on the western edge of the city, I note that the buildings grow increasingly dilapidated, eventually turning from stone bricks to increasingly poor wood.

The standard in this world, as I learned from my discussions with Jorgenson, is for those with more wealth and power to live at the center of cities with the distance from the center inversely correlating with wealth. This stands a bit apart from the common understanding in my own world, where the innermost parts of cities tend to be the most impoverished, so I find it rather interesting that here the city outskirts mark the poorest part of the city.

The handful of people that we come across at this early hour quickly clear out from the street when they notice us. The nobles watch us pass with relative indifference, whereas the commoners universally give our procession a deep bow.

We are not the only group of swordsmen exiting through the Western gate; another, obviously much larger, group trails a few dozen yards behind us.

We reach the gate without disturbance, and pass through it. I abruptly recall my last time passing under this arch: a slave with unknown prospects, brought in with hopes to be sold. Actually, I'm still a slave with a relatively unknown future, so I guess things haven't changed that much. That said, within the military I have been thus far treated roughly similar to other, nonslave, soldiers, so it is perhaps among the better places to be as a slave; actually, the one who bought me essentially promised such, now that I think of it.

I do find it rather crazy that my time in the military has only been about two and a half days; it feels much longer. In fact, my time in this city has been less than two weeks, and my time in this world is still less than a month by my calculation. It certainly feels like a lifetime, so much has happened.

We make our way through the slums beyond the city wall, the foul stench assaulting my nose. Despite the hour, there are already cries of children playing in the alleys too narrow for a grown man to pass through. The crooked buildings tower above, leaning over the greatly narrowed road. [This seems to be a fire hazard. Honestly, how can this be allowed? I understand that the nobles don't care about the impoverished members of their society, but this is supposedly a military city. A single match could burn down the entirety of the city outside of the wall; this is simply poor war preparation.]

Jorgenson, of course, delivers some harsh criticism over the conditions in this city; I no longer heed his words, having seen through the false charade of his justice. After all, how could one so supposedly 'good' intentionally hinder me, his supposed friend?

After a while, the buildings grow sparse and eventually open up entirely, signifying our leaving of the city. We continue heading due west, while the other group of swordsmen splits off and heads in a much more Northwestern direction.

We walk for about an hour, long enough for the sun to peak over the horizon and light up the expansive, green, and farm filled fields, occasionally dotted with groves of trees.

On the road ahead of us, I finally catch a glimpse of our enemy. I had prepared myself for truly terrifying monsters, and yet I was still not expecting them to be so horrible. About three feet tall with a body about ten feet long (and another twelve feet when the tail is taken into account), with a inky black carapace and pincers alike two swords that crush in towards one another. I quickly count up seven monsters, one of which is at least twice the size of the others, a truly horrible beast.

I kind of expect to be given some sort of assignment - knowing Reinhart, the big one - but he essentially just says 'have at it,' before leaving us to our own devices.

Even with most of our class gone, we still outnumber the beasts two-to-one. Realizing that I need to quickly get to killing to guarantee that I get to take one down, I turn to Jorgenson.

"Stay put," I tell him before springing into battle.

I intend to get the most out of this battle, not only levels and skill development but also practice in combat. So, trying out a new move, I gather up wind mana behind me and propel myself at the scorpion most directly in front of me. While flying forward across the hundred or so feet separating us, I force wind elemental particles into the tip of my sword. Apparently caught off guard with the speed of my approach, the scorpion only has time to bring up its armor-coated pincer in response to my attack.

Upon contact with the pincer, the wind attribute attack detaches itself from my sword and bores deeply into the pincer, sadly not going all the way through and hitting the scorpion in the eye that I had been aiming for.

The scorpion hisses out in pain, and I sense its stinger rapidly approaching. I blindly push against the beast with a broad but forceful air attack, aiming more to push than to cut. Though the scorpion only moves a few centimeters, my primary goal is achieved as I am pushed away from the monster just as its tail and other pincer simultaneously attack the position that I had only just fled.

I quickly assess the situation, coming to the disappointing conclusion that I had dealt no major damage. The claw that I had pierced was likely still usable in this battle; the one inch diameter of my attack wasn't particularly noteworthy when the size of the beast is taken into consideration, like stabbing my own arm with a pencil and only going halfway through. It would hurt, but in a life and death battle it would be a wound that I could ignore.

The scorpion likely won't let me try the attack again. We stand about twenty feet apart, it eyeing me warily with its eight eyes. Its stinger stands ready to strike at a moment's notice, and its pincers are both primed to attack me. Thankfully, I don't need to worry about its friends; the scorpion that I chose was a bit away from the rest of the group, a group which is now being occupied by the other soldiers and so in any case cannot come to help.

So it's just me and this scorpion, with nobody likely to interfere in our fight. We are both aware of each other, both having recognized our enemy, both being on guard, a fair fight is surely about to begin… right? [Ha! It's a good thing that I can use magic at a distance!]

I form a fireball in front of me. Though it is not my strongest element, I have been practicing equally with all four major elements under Sir Lector's tutelage. Of course that wizard, that master of the elemental system, would not believe in putting everything into practicing only a single element!

Ideally, I would use lightning for my attack; however, there is a problem with that: my magic sensory ability is not yet at a sufficient level to sense anything other than the four main elements. Even with all of my training last night, my lesser magic sensory skill only reached level seven. Moderate magic sensory is necessary to sense, and therefore interact with, lightning elemental particles, so I am limited to the less ideal option of fire.

Still, fire should work pretty well for this, especially with my plan. The standard way to use fire to fight these scorpion monsters is apparently to cook them within their shells; however, that will take a while, especially considering my lower affinity for the fire element. So, instead, I had the idea to try something new. I would tightly compress a ball of fire, allowing it to pierce through the scorpion's carapace. I would then, instead of allowing it to be entirely worn away by the process of boring through the scorpion, allow it to explode violently outward, all remaining energy devoted to cooking the scorpion's insides.

Intent on trying out my idea, I compress the fireball as tightly as I am able. I expect the scorpion to try to interrupt me; instead, it holds still, on guard against an attack by me.

[Foolish beast!] I think, unleashing my attack. I maintain careful control over it as it bores into the pincer that is predictably used to block my attack. Once in, I allow it to explode outward. The scorpion's arm is fully blown off in a flaming fireball, leaving a blackened stump.

Determining my attack to be a critical success, I begin to prepare another fireball. Having apparently learned its lesson, the scorpion charges forward, intent on interrupting me. However, before it can reach me I attack again, aiming for its side without a pincer. My attack is successful, and a violent fireball erupts within the core of the monster, immediately charring it to a crisp.

My level immediately increases, reaching level 23. My elemental manipulation skills reach Moderate Elemental Manipulation Lvl 2, while Lesser Melee Magic Conduction reaches level 8. My swordsmanship, however, still refuses to level.

Wanting to test the effect of these skill level increases, I form and compress some earth elemental particles, finding that the increase from lesser elemental manipulation to moderate elemental manipulation has made doing so noticeable easier and more… natural, I suppose.

I then test moving air elemental particles into my sword, and, though I may be imagining it, the process feels marginally more natural than it did before. That said, the upgrade cannot compare with the upgrade between lesser and moderate that my elemental manipulation skill underwent.

Though I would have liked to see magic sensory level up, that skill can only be increased through usage, whether in battle or outside of it, so the most efficient way to level it is to leave it operating 24/7, which I had been doing since its details were explained to me by Sir Lector.

As for my base level increasing, from it I notice no improvements to myself. This, however, does not at all come as a surprise. I had learned from Jorgenson during our discussions that the growth from leveling up builds up and is given out in 25 level increments. Apparently upon reaching level 25, my body should become noticeably more powerful and all of my skills should become more effective to a certain degree.

It is for this reason that a level 24 warrior will usually not be the match for a level 25 warrior, whereas a level 25 warrior is very capable of beating someone of level 26. Apparently someone's power is generally judged by how many increments of 25 levels they have passed, with levels until the next increment used to determine roughly how long until the individual receives a large power-up.

I had also learned that the proportion of people who reach each level is roughly divided by eight every 25 level increment. About 16% reach level 25, 2% reach level 50, .25% reach level 75, and so on. Also, the difficulty of further leveling increases exponentially every 25 levels.

Actually, maybe Jorgenson has provided me with enough information to warrant me protecting him… crap, Jorgenson! I realize then that I have grown so immersed in my thoughts regarding leveling that I completely forgot the soldier that I promised to protect.

I wheel around, looking back to where I had left him. I am immediately overcome with worry when I see that he's not there. [I mean, sure he was taking advantage of my protection, but that doesn't mean that I actually wanted him to die…]

I quickly glance around, eventually finding him dragging a heavily injured soldier away from a scorpion, with a veritable river of blood pouring forth from the soldier's stump where his leg once was.

Another soldier, a commoner, the same one that had provided me with the critical information on the scorpions, is holding the scorpion off the best he can. He waves his sword, which is wreathed in flames, like a torch in front of the scorpion, attempting to ward it away. However, the scorpion refuses to back down, instead looking to lash out with one of its three attacking methods. One pincer mirrors the sword, ready to block it if necessary, while the other pincer searches for an opening in the soldier's defense. The stinger watches over the fight from above, searching for any opportunity to plunge down and end the man's life.

Determining that Jorgenson is unlikely to die at this very moment, and therefore that I have time to more deeply assess the situation, I glance around to the other scorpion fights. Another scorpion has been slain, this one by a group of three nobles that stand proudly over their kill, looking rather uninjured.

Two more nobles are locked in solo fights with a scorpion each. They seem to be holding their own, each demonstrating superb swordsmanship techniques that are only marginally inferior to mine. While they both have lightning elemental particles imbued in their swords, that is not the primary source of magic attacks for either of them. Instead, they each use various straight magic techniques to gain advantages in the battle, filling in any gaps left by their inability to block three methods of attack with only a single sword.

Determining them to be fine, I look around for the remaining two scorpions (one of which is the large one). I find them about a hundred yards away, finishing a massacre of the soldiers who tried to run, bodies marking a path from the main fighting area to their current location.

I look around again, searching for any more soldiers… and finding none. [Wait.. are we all who remain? Jorgenson, the injured soldier, the three victorious soldiers, the three locked in battle, and myself… not counting Reinhart, who is only watching from the backlines, only nine are still alive. That means that over a third of our force has died already!]

My thoughts are interrupted by the sight of the two scorpions scuttling back towards us, rapidly closing the distance. Recognizing that the first people that they will reach are the haughty nobles, I instead prioritize finally rescuing the soldier covering Jorgenson's retreat, who is definitely in the most perilous condition.

Compressing wind particles evenly along my back, I fling myself forward towards the fight, softening my landing with a carefully controlled burst of air in the opposite direction. Sensing me to be a more threatening target, the scorpion directs its attention toward me. The soldier looks conflicted as whether to support me in my impending fight or flee for his life.

Helping him along in his decision, I yell to him "Get out here! You'll only get in the way!" He gives me what can only be described as a bitter smile before running off, leaving me to engage in another one-on-one fight.

Of course, the scorpion doesn't ignore the opportunity that our conversation presents, bringing down its stinger while I am still distracted.

"Like I'm going to be caught off guard by you!" I mutter, mocking the monster while repeating my earlier move of pushing off with wind mana. Unlike the last one, this scorpion is intelligent enough to press its attack, chasing me down after I push myself away, intent on not allowing me to cast my spells.

"Ha! Too late!" I say, my blade wreathed in an aura of flame, flame which is extra bright at the tip, where it has been giving extra compression.

While the idea to press the attack may have worked well if I hadn't been practicing my melee elemental magic conduction abilities, in this case it worked against the scorpion. The scorpion's charge carries it into my waiting blade. Once it is close enough, I propel myself at an upward angle. The stinger, which is swinging down towards me, is unable to change direction to hit me in the air. However, I am more than capable of hitting the stinger with my sword. I compress my flames along the edge that will hit the stinger, resulting in a wave of fire flying through the stinger after my sword contacts it.

My attack completely removes its stinger, greatly weakening the monster's potential. I slow my fall before impacting the ground, and then turn around to again face the now de-tailed scorpion just in time to see it charging towards me in a frenzied rage. Its pincers snap and a strange hissing sound emits from its mouth as it bears down on me; however, without its tail the beast is hardly a threat anymore.

I take a few calm steps to the side, causing the scorpion to charge right past me, so invested in its charge that it is entirely unable to turn. It tries to stop itself, to turn towards me, but before it can I hit it in its now undefended back with a compressed fireball. The attack burrows deep into the monster before exploding in a similar display to the last scorpion.

I feel a few skills level-up, as well as my level itself, but I resolve to look those over later, when I am in a more favorable situation.

I head over to where Jorgenson and the other two soldiers have gathered. The one who was fighting the scorpion earlier is in the process of cauterizing the screaming soldier's leg wound. Jorgenson isn't facing the process; instead, he is glaring daggers at Reinhart, who stands apart from us by about a hundred yards.

Seeing that they are all fine, I turn towards the remaining fights. One soldier appears to be catching his breath atop a scorpion corpse, something that would normally be hard to tell at 200 yards and which makes me happy for my enhanced vision skill. I had had it turned off for a while because I found it pretty disorienting to see such detail at such range, but seeing its use on the battlefield I resolve to keep it active from now on as practice.

Anyway, the other soldier is still locked in a fight, a fight that he appears to be winning, judging from the fact that the scorpion is down to only its stinger for attacking.

As for the other soldiers and two remaining scorpions, well… I look over to see the large scorpion standing atop a small pile of bodies that have recently had another three humans and a scorpion added to it.

I stare down the larger scorpion and find it staring back at me with a surprising amount of intelligence. The soldier with knowledge of scorpions comes up behind me then, apparently done with his cauterization. Seeing where I am looking, he says "As I'm sure you've surmised, that is one of the elder scorpion beasts that I mentioned earlier. A very nasty creature, resistant to magic and nearly impervious to physical attack. Add on to that its monstrous cunning, and we have no chance of beating it. In fact, I doubt that even our instructor could manage."

"In that case, what are we supposed to do?" I ask, after contemplating for a moment.

"There is nothing to do other than to retreat. This opponent is not one that we could ever beat, even all working together. You are shockingly competent in slaying them, but we would either need a master level elementalist proficient in lightning techniques or some sort of legendary weapon to slay this beast."

While he speaks, the remaining fight finishes up and the two soldiers come over to us, both looking thoroughly exhausted.

"Is this all that's left?" one of them asks, realizing that there are only six soldiers still alive.

I nod in response.

"Well, that's rather… unfortunate," he says, after a moment of silence. He then continues, "six of us will most certainly not be able to beat that elder scorpion. Its intellect seems to be above even the average-see how it is carefully assessing the situation even now, being careful not to enter a fight that it can't win. We would be best to get out of here [now], before it realizes that it is more than our match."

Before anybody can reply to him, Jorgenson enters the conversation with an entirely unrelated point. "The kil- er, I mean Commander Reinhart is approaching."

We let out a collective sigh of relief as a group, assuming that he has come to tell us that we are allowed to retreat, thus saving us from the difficult decision of desertion or certain death.

We patiently wait for him to reach us, half of our group watching him while the other half keeps its attention on the elder beast. [It's almost as if they are both equal threatening opponents, both capable of ending our lives on a whim], I remark to myself.

He reaches us after his short walk, before saying to us "So much as I would like to use this as a training opportunity, I recognize that there is nothing you can do to this opponent. However, we are still tasked with killing this monster before we can head back, so I cannot let you off the hook."

At this, I grit my teeth, trying to keep from shouting down this incompetent fool of an 'instructor.' [How dare he act as though it is our fault, that we are on the hook, for him intentionally taking on a challenge that he knew would kill most of us and that he knew had an opponent that we couldn't possibly beat! Not to mention doing so after not teaching us a single thing! If he manages to keep his job after this debacle, I may just as well kill him myself! In fact, if he doesn't come up with a solution real quick, I'll kill him here and now!]

Seething in anger, I almost miss what he says next: "That said, I have a way to kill this beast. Consider that our nameless slave has killed the most scorpions, two singlehandedly, I think it best to give him the opportunity."

Though hearing him volunteer me for a mission that's guaranteed to be dangerous only infuriates me more, I must admit that I am a bit curious as to what method he has to kill this beast.

That curiosity is sated as he unstraps a sheathed sword from his side and hands it to me, saying "This is a legendary blade that I brought out specifically for this mission. It should be more than capable of piercing the scorpion's shell. Be warned, however, that one of this sword's unique properties is that it is immune to magic. While this is intended to be a feature to keep the weapon safe in battle, it also has the downside of being unable to channel elemental enemies. Now, go kill the scorpion, or die trying. Here, failure will not be tolerated."

Seeing me hesitating, he adds "Go, now, or I will kill you myself."

I struggle to resist the urge to snort in response, but I still do as he commands. My belligerent attitude quickly fades away as I cautiously approach the elder scorpion, maintaining my guard all the while. The beast turns its attention fully towards me, and I feel my heart start to beat faster alongside cold sweat breaking out across my body. From this beast I feel something that I did not feel from any of the others, a menacing aura not unlike the one Lord Lion wreaths himself in when he wants to attract attention to himself. Though, thankfully, the aura is not nearly so strong; I would most certainly not be able to approach it if it was.

Of course, the nervousness I feel is far more than just from the aura. I am fully aware that this will be the most dangerous life-and-death battle since my rebirth, a battle against a stronger and well prepared opponent against whom my death is certain. Here, one slip-up will send me back to the darkness that I have thus far devoted the whole of this life to avoiding.

Once I am about a hundred feet away, within charging distance for each of us, I begin to test what it means for this monster to be resistant to magic. I simultaneously throw a large but uncompressed fireball into its face while also willing the earth around it to reach up and grab onto its legs. Both attacks are unsuccessful; the fireball disappears once it gets within ten feet of the monster, while the earth refuses to grip its legs in the way I wanted it to.

There is one effect from my attempts at attack, however: it hisses at me in rage before flinging itself forward, rapidly closing the distance between us. I try to push myself away from its attack; however, my magic has no effect.

[Apparently the magic resistance is so great that it fully cancels out all magic in its vicinity,] I think to myself, diving away from where I was standing before. If I had fought this monster before killing the second scorpion, my dive would certainly not be able to cover enough distance to escape the area of its attack; however, I had leveled up after killing the previous scorpion, giving my body a large boost to its natural abilities.

With my newly-strengthened body, I easily dive out of the way of the attack. From my dive, I roll forward, somersaulting back into a standing position as the scorpion brushes by, passing through the spot I had occupied a moment before. It quickly turns towards me, displaying much more agility than the earlier scorpion had, despite its much larger size.

It looks at me in what I assume to be shock. Though I can't read its mind, its pause indicates to me that it is confused, and I can definitely see why. It had observed my battle with the second scorpion earlier, and, if it is as smart as I've heard, it probably gauged my physical capabilities from watching that match.

However! I reached level 26 after my last kill, my abilities, my strength, agility, speed, and skills, had undergone a significant upgrade! I had not yet tested out my new abilities, primarily because I did not have a need to: I felt naturally accustomed to them, as though I had had them my entire life. Not testing my abilities had another, unintended, consequence, however: the scorpion's understanding of my abilities had been thrown off! Though only technically a theory, it makes sense.

So, with the scorpion's understanding of my abilities ruined by my rank up, I now hold a distinct advantage. Add in the fact that I now have the ability to kill it, and I have a very real chance of winning this fight!

Intending to take advantage of its uneasy confusion, I charge toward it, my sword held aggressively in front of me. Though I cannot make use of wind elemental particles to propel myself forward in this instance, my newly upgraded body is capable at charging into battle with enough speed to be adequate for my needs.

Caught even further off guard by my seeming aggressiveness, it backs up a step and holds its pincer out as a shield. [Heh. Silly scorpion! That may have worked before, but now I have a sword capable of cutting right through!]

I chop down at the scorpion's opened pincer, slicing the outside side of the pincer cleanly off. It takes a few more steps back, confusion morphing into panic as it realizes that I am fully capable of injuring it.

Of course, it does not neglect to counterattack, bringing down its stinger from where it was poised above, intent on skewering me on the massive barb. However, it seems to be forgetting that my sword is far stronger than its stinger. Leaning back from its uninjured pincer, causing it to swipe harmlessly in front of my chest, I simultaneously swing upward at the incoming tale, slicing the head of the stinger cleanly off.

However, it is not just the scorpion that is forgetting things; from where the singer's head has been removed, a torrent of venom - now poison? - now pours down on me from above, coating my entire body in a burning sensation. A feeling more agonizing than any I have felt before covers my body, a feeling like my entire body has been thrown into a flame… but worse. [The poison must be acidic!] I cry out, cursing my foolishness. And the fight had been going so well, too! I want nothing more than to flee and gulp down the potion that sir lector had given me for emergencies; however, I know that if I turn my attention away from this beast for even a second I will be cut in half by its remaining pincer.

My vision going blurry - whether from the pain, the injuries, or the acid in my eyes, I am unsure - I drive my sword forward into the scorpion in one last desperate attempt at victory. It is too embroiled in shock from its own injuries to react to my attack, resulting in my sword plunging deeply into the eye for which I aimed, killing it instantly.

Recognizing that I will die if I pass out from the shock, I quickly activate the pain resistance ability. While true that I would prefer pain to this numbness, in this case I need to think clearly, and my pain will only get in the way.

My vision almost entirely gone, I draw the small potion out of the pocket, fumbling with it a bit due to the near-total lack of sensation in my fingers. I bring it to my mouth and down it in a single gulp, before passing out from my blood loss.