However, behind Shion stands a person trembling with fear. Beyond his back, there’s someone who needs help.
Someone who, if he doesn’t save her, will meet a cruel fate and be killed mercilessly.
“(Escaping is — absolutely not an option)”
From the start, he never even considered the choice of abandoning the woman behind him and fleeing.
But, that said, he has no way to defeat the men in front of him.
Even before the question of defeating them or not, Shion has no means to defend against the “Flame Shower” that’s about to be unleashed.
The alley they’re in is flanked by walls about five meters high, making it impossible to escape over them.
The passage is so narrow that there’s barely any space left when three adults stand side by side, making it difficult to escape by slipping past the men from the front.
“(Should I use that…!? No…)”
There might be a way for Shion alone to endure the “Flame Shower” in front of him.
But that would certainly hit the woman behind him, who still can’t even stand up.
He immediately removed that option from consideration.
“(Nothing but the correct answer is allowed…!! Think…!)”
Defensive magic, offensive magic, diversion, physical techniques… In an instant, he considers several strategies using the cards he has in hand, but none come to mind with any chance of success. He keeps coming up with plans one after another, but faced with the powerful “Flame Shower,” there was no way to completely protect the woman behind him.
–But then.
The leader of the men strongly hit the head of the man deploying the magic circle to his left and shouted angrily.
“You idiot!! If you use such a big spell and the woman gets burned to a crisp, what are we going to do?! We haven’t had our fun with her yet!!”
“Oh! That’s right… My bad, my bad.”
The scolded man said as if suddenly realizing, then stopped infusing magic with a grinning smile, and the magic circle in front of the man disappeared.
“(Th-that was close…)”
Shion, who had completely escaped death by a hair’s breadth, inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. However, even in such a situation, he put on a face as if to say, “Well, that magic wouldn’t have worked anyway,” and snorted.
“Alright, you do it,”
the leader ordered the man to his right, who nodded and drew a short sword from his pocket, inching closer to Shion.
“I’ll teach you what happens when you act on such foolish sense of justice.”
One young man against them. On their side, a man skilled with blades, in a three-against-one situation.
The man, believing without doubt that he was the hunter, was about to slash at Shion who had taken a stance — that’s when it happened.
“–Hah…”
“…Huh!?”
Faced with Shion who suddenly let out a deep sigh, the man involuntarily stopped in his tracks.
Shion then scratched his slightly tilted neck, making a gesture as if to say he was utterly exasperated.
“To think you can’t tell the difference in ability even at this distance, what a hopeless bunch…”
“…What?” The man with the short sword frowned, but Shion continued without seeming to care.
“I wasn’t in the mood to cut people today, but I guess it can’t be helped…”
Saying that as if annoyed, Shion casually brought both palms together in front of his chest.
In the line of sight of the man holding the short sword, lightning burst forth from Shion’s joined palms and an intense plasma sound echoed in the quiet night alley.
The lightning was dyed pitch black in the dense central part, while the thinner edges glowed with an eerie purple light.
“…Tch!!”
READ THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATION AT LOCALIZERMEERKAT.PAGES.DEV
Seeing this behavior, one of the men, the mage who had been preparing the “Flame Shower” earlier, hurriedly deployed a magic circle towards Shion.
However, seeing this, the leader, looking a bit flustered, restrained the mage.
“Stop it, don’t move carelessly…!! You guys, back off…!!”
The leader made the other two back off immediately upon seeing that strange lightning.
It was because the leader’s instincts were sending out maximum danger signals.
…Come to think of it, the man standing before them now hadn’t been normal from the start, the man reflected.
Suddenly appearing and blocking their path in this deserted alley, not flinching at all in the face of three men, maintaining a fearless smile even when faced with magic and swords without moving an inch.
Above all, those crimson eyes glowing ominously in this dim light.
“(This guy is… something dangerous…)”
What the man before them was doing could hardly be thought of as the actions of a mere passerby.
The leader stared intently at Shion’s hands while maintaining maximum caution.
In his line of sight, Shion gradually began to open his palms horizontally while still emitting that strange lightning between them.
Looking closely, a magic circle about fifteen centimeters in diameter was deployed between his two hands.
Then, as the gap between his palms widened, something like a thin, silver-shining plate began to appear.
“(This is… bad… I don’t know what it is, but — we must stop it…!!)” The leader of the men thought cautiously, but the intense lightning bursting from Shion’s palms intensified the man’s wariness, making him hesitate to approach that black lightning.
Ignoring the man’s caution, Shion continued to spread both hands wider and wider in front of his chest. That thin, silver-shining plate-like object gradually revealed its form.
After a few seconds, when Shion had fully opened both hands, with a small “pachi…” plasma sound, the lightning disappeared.
And at the same time, in Shion’s right hand was grasped a sword with a single-edged blade and a beautiful wave pattern. Lowering the tip of the sword he held loosely in one hand as if relaxing, Shion quietly turned his red glowing eyes towards the men.
“–Tch!!”
When he saw this figure, the leader’s eyes widened.
–When he saw those crimson eyes, he had a slight bad feeling.
But thinking such a thing was impossible, he had unconsciously dismissed that possibility as something that couldn’t be true.
The man’s instincts didn’t want to consider such a possibility.
However, seeing Shion holding a sword, he had to admit, whether he liked it or not, that his suspicions were correct.
Realizing the true identity of the young man before him, the man uttered his alias.
“Th-The ‘Red Eyes’…!!”
“Do you know about that man?”
Hearing the leader’s terribly shaken voice, the man holding the short sword asked in confusion.
“Haven’t you guys heard? This is my first time seeing him too, but he’s said to be the strongest swordsman in the underworld, the sword user with red eyes…!!”
“The strongest swordsman in the underworld… …!! That’s… surely from those ‘Revenants’…!!”
“Th-The ‘Revenants’? You mean that dark guild where each individual is said to be equivalent to a brigade of the kingdom’s knights, even though their numbers are few…!?”
All the men distorted their faces in fear of the red-eyed man standing before them.
Thinking, “What kind of man have we bared our fangs at?”
…Yes, the black-clad youth standing before them.
The true identity of this boy, who usually plays the role of an ordinary student at a magic academy in the country, is a member of those “Revenants,” where each individual is said to be equivalent to a brigade of the kingdom’s knights, and he is feared as the strongest swordsman in the underworld, known as the “Red Eyes” himself–.
…Of course, no such fact exists.
It was all just a misunderstanding and misconception on the part of the men.
They took information that they “seemed to have heard something like that somewhere” and matched it with Shion in front of them, and incredibly, came to believe “Oh yes, it must have been like this!!”
There might be a sword user with red eyes somewhere.
That person might be called the strongest swordsman in the underworld.
There might be an organization called the “Revenants,” and each member of that organization might have the strength equivalent to a brigade of the kingdom’s knights.
And the sword user with red eyes might be a member of that organization called the “Revenants.”
Some of the vague, very hazy information that each of the three men had might have been correct.
However, the man named Ichinose Shion currently standing before the men was far from such a person, truly just an ordinary C-class magic student.
Visit the request page If there’s a Japanese Light Novel (LN) or Web Novel (WN) you’d like me to translate
When the donation goal progress bar above hit 100% one novel will be chosen for translation
| Table of Contents | Next* |
Support the Author by Buying the Original Books!
