Otome Game no Heroine de Saikyou Survival-Chapter 75

Approaching Threat

“??Cyclone??”

In the training hall of the Adventurer’s Guild, the Combat Skill Cyclone, Level 3 of the Dagger Arts skill, was released, slicing through the surface of the target log.

The Combat Skill itself was a non-attribute magic, but this Cyclone contained the wind attribute and was a ranged attack that sliced a space with a blade of wind within a radius of about 1 meter in the direction in which the attack was released.

To be honest, this Combat Skill was inferior to Level 1 Thrust in terms of power and usability, but it could momentarily disperse fire- and wind-based attack magic, and it was very effective against small swarms of monsters.

I had seen this Combat Skill only once, and at that time it was used by Mercenary of Dawn leader Daggart.

Based on that one time, I had a hard time learning to use it, but even so, once I had seen it with my own eyes and adapted it to my body, it would get surprisingly manageable depending on my training.

As I took a swing to dispel the heat of the magic and tuck the black dagger behind my waist, I heard a crackle of applause and, as before, the woman at the reception desk approached me.

“Well done. You must have grown up with magic power, but Rank 3 at your age, did you study under a well-distinguished Master of the Sword?”

“Something like that…”

I was taught by my master who was a renowned sorcerer in the underworld, but I learned the basics of Dagger Arts from Feld, Combat Skill from Viro, and was corrected by Sera, but most of it was self-styled, trimmed of useless parts after seeking efficiency in actual combat.

When I had looked at Viro and Sera’s Dagger Arts, there were a wide variety of moves, like a specialization.

I was not saying that they were unnecessary, but since I did not have the time or experience to master all of them, I had chosen to train only the basic forms to increase the accuracy and power of each blow.

No matter what the technique, if you got stabbed by the blade, the creature would die. My theory was that if you strike a vital point at a perfect angle with no millimeter error, it would be equivalent to thousands of techniques.

And combining that with illusions and poison, and that’s how I fought most of my battles.

“Well then, this way, please. This will be the tag for the Adventurers’ Guild Rank 3.”

“Thank you.”

The guild tag was a 3 x 6 cm copper plate attached to a thin pendant-shaped chain.

It had been remade, and not only was the indication rank 3, but it was also slightly darker, as it was said to be mixed with magic iron, a metal that would not rust.

I thought about using light magic, if only to get to Rank 3.

There were two Level 3 light magic, one of them was Dispel which required some cursed object to use, and the other was High Heal which healed and recovered with high magic power. Although it consumed a lot of magic power, but just by being able to use it, I would get noticed in various places, so in the end I gave it up.

After paying the three silver coins for the registration renewal fee, I returned to the lobby, which still had a delicate atmosphere, to find that slum siblings, Gill and Shuri, were still waiting for me.

“…”

Not so good…

The adventurers who might be related to the underworld had just walked out, so I was fine now, but I didn’t believe the Thieves’ Guild in this town when they said they wouldn’t be hostile to me.

So just being known as my acquaintance could get them into trouble later on.

I shook my head, signaling them not to follow me with a glance, and walked out of the guild and into a nearby alley while ignoring them, only to be followed a few minutes later by the two.

“Hey, was this the right thing to do?”

Shuri’s brother Gill spoke to me first, acting somewhat suspiciously.

I used to think he saw me as a rival, but once he found out I was a woman, he no longer seemed to be competing with me.

I guessed he couldn’t see women as rivals after all. For some reason, he glanced at me even though he averted his gaze right after our gazes met.

“Yeah. You shouldn’t get involved with me too much. You’ll get into a lot of trouble.”

“What do you mean by that…”

“That’s stupid, bro. Aria is Rank 3, right? I’m sure she’s doing an impressive job, so she can’t party with us newbies.”

Apparently, they wanted to talk to me because they wanted to party with me.

“I know what you mean. I know you’ve been so down about that all the time, Shuri, but are you ready to go?”

“Aria suddenly became big, a girl, and all that. Even as a girl, she is so beautiful and good-looking, I think it’s okay…hmmmmm.”

“No, you can’t!”

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Shuri, who was smiling morbidly, glared at Gill’s words.

He couldn’t even look Aria in the eye because she was so beautiful.

“Hey, you!”

“Can we talk about something else now?”

“Wait a minute!”

I was wondering if she was just excited to see me for the first time in a long time, but when I broke off the conversation, which was starting to take a strange turn, Gill looked as if he was in a desperate situation and shouted, “I want to form a party.”

“I wanted to put together a party, and I actually had a place I wanted to go…”

“Brother!”

“Shuri, don’t you also think this is a good idea?”

I ended the conversation, which made no sense, and let them tell the story from the beginning.

They were not from this town, but from a small town, a little west of here.

Their mother died early, and their father, who took in a second wife a few years later, also died of an epidemic a few years later, and so their second mother left them both in this town to claim the farm for her unborn child.

That was when they met me. Victor, the general store owner, must have been watching over them, by nagging at them.

Then I killed a man who had been abusing these siblings in the slums, after which they chose to become adventurers to get stronger.

“I sold our rabbits to an old man at the general store, and Galbas sold us some weapons.”

“Here you go.”

The two children proudly showed me their steel daggers and knives. It was actually true that these weapons were just right for them, at least for now.

Still, I didn’t think they could afford to buy weapons of this rank with that battered rabbit, so I was sure it was a parting gift from those two eccentric old men… They really were good-natured men, weren’t they?

When Shuri turned 10 years old, she and her 13-year-old brother Gill were not yet adventurers…but since they had no combat skills, they were earning money by carrying luggage when they heard a strange rumor.

“Orcs?”

“Orc…yes.”

The receptionist had told me some information about that, although it had not yet been made public, orcs had formed a settlement a little to the west of the ruins.

Moreover, that place was halfway between the ruins and the town where people lived, and several people had already been killed there.

It would have been better if the baron had sent troops or the town had asked the Adventurers’ Guild for help, but when the baron actually asked the scouts of the Adventurers’ Guild to investigate the size of the settlement, they discovered a horrifying fact.

There were more than fifty normal orcs of Rank 3, added with four Rank 4 Orc Soldiers, and a Rank 5 Orc General, who had united them and was their commander as well, was confirmed by the adventurers who had gone over there.

The baron’s soldiers in the town numbered 150. The majority of them were Rank 1 or 2, and there were only about 10 Rank 3 troop leaders, and at Rank 4, there were only about a dozen or so knights in the royal capital.

If there were only ordinary Orcs and four Orc Soldiers, the soldiers might be able to manage, but just one Orc General would probably be able to claim the lives of more than half of the soldiers.

If we considered the soldiers who were to be left behind for security of the town, the receptionist told us that the limit would be seventy soldiers, and with that number, we would most likely be wiped out.

If that were the case, we could ask the Adventurers’ Guild for help, but it seemed that a five-man Rank 4 party with at least two Rank 4s was needed to defeat the orc general.

However, there were no Rank 4 adventurers in the barony at the moment.

The Baron, fearing the annihilation of his troops, was reluctant to send out a force, and the Adventurers’ Guild, while it might be an emergency such as a monster outbreak, could not force the adventurers out under the current circumstances.

Even if they were to cooperate, it seemed that none of them could make a move all because they were unable to decide on various issues, like who would be paying, the baron, or whether the town, and how far the adventurers would go, and so on.

For now, the town was still protected by a wall, but we didn’t know how long that would last.

“That town… was our hometown.”

Gill bit his lip as he said this, and Shuri’s face had also contorted next to him.

“I don’t care what happens to that town. That town is a place where a woman who had abandoned us lives.”

“But we still have friends there, and our brother, too.”

“I don’t remember any friends, and I never thought of that woman’s child as my brother.”

“Shuri!”

Gill turned to me, at a loss for words, as if he knew what Shuri was feeling, as he even rebuked her.

“Aria…even if it’s just me. Will you take me to that town?”

“Brother, no! You might die!”

Gill wanted to help people he was familiar with, even though he had no good memories of them and had been hurt badly before.

Shuri was afraid that Gill might die, even though she was also not willing to let her brother, who had a different mother, die.

“No, I’m not taking you guys with me.”

“Aria!”

Just as Gill took a step forward, I lightly tapped off my foot and placed the knife against Gill’s neck as he fell backward.

“If you guys follow me to that town, you’ll only die.”

“…guh.”

Gill grunted as he was again reminded of his lack of strength.

“And–“

I threw the blade of the pendulum without looking over there, and one of the men lurking there jumped out.

I quickly manipulated the first throw of the pendulum and twisted it around the man’s ankle as he tried to escape, then wrapped the second throw around his neck, pulling him down to the ground with some force.

“Thief? Assassin?”

“No, no! I’m just here to check on you, I’m not going against the guild’s decision! I’m not against you either!”

“You can make excuses for yourself in the afterlife.”

“Oh, no…”

*Gakin

Using the thread and leverage around the man’s neck, I twisted the man’s neck to the side and broke it easily.

“I’m being targeted. So, I will not walk around with a liability who can’t protect himself.”

“”…””

I dumped the dead bodies of the thieves who had discovered Gill and Shuri’s presence out of sight from the street, and they both scowled at me.

Even though we were in the same place, the world we were living in was too different.

Perhaps this was the best solution.

As far as the two of them were concerned, they were not strong enough to fight and survive.

That’s why…

“I’ll check on the town. I’ll help them escape, so you guys stay here.”

“Aria…”

Gill muttered in dismay, and Shuri rubbed her sleeve on her eyes to hide the redness in those eyes.

I heard a small please and Shuri’s voice at my back as I walked further into the back alley instead of the front street.