Calculation
Joseph turned his gaze toward his private soldiers.
“Uwaaaak!”
“Shit!”
“Get away!”
The three of them were swinging their axes wildly, tangled up with the monsters, their faces pale with terror.
Even though they had passed the soldier test, their experience was vastly different from that of the conscripts.
Watching a person turn into a piece of meat in an instant right in front of their eyes was enough to send anyone into panic.
But they hadn’t.
“Derik! Auk! Jiren!”
Joseph called out to his soldiers.
They quickly turned their heads at the sound of their name.
“Ah.”
Upon seeing Joseph’s face, they realized belatedly.
They had forgotten their duties as soldiers and were just running around in fear.
“Get over here right now!”
Joseph shouted, and the three moved hurriedly.
Dodging the charging kobolds, kicking away the wild dog demonic beasts that were trying to pounce on them, they ran toward Joseph.
“W-we’re sorry! It’s just that you startled us so much...”
“It’s fine! Pull yourselves together!”
Although the three still looked flustered, that was no longer important.
Joseph pointed at the troll swinging its arms wildly toward Manir.
“We need to take it down. Buy us time.”
“Eh? B-buy time, you mean?”
“Yeah. Protect me like when I’m meditating.”
After all, Manir was the one facing the troll.
It was clear that the word “knight” wasn’t a lie.
He was twisting his body to evade the flying troll’s attacks, and his movements were on a completely different level from the other soldiers.
However, it didn’t seem like he was landing proper counterattacks.
If he fell now, the remaining soldiers would just be massacred.
Still, thanks to him, I know for sure.
Trolls basically have high mana resistance.
So the flames made with magic wouldn’t work.
But except for the huge arms, they are weak to slashing attacks.
The soldiers’ weapons had already grazed its skin a little, let alone Manir’s sword.
No matter how strong the mana resistance, a strong slashing magic would be worth trying.
And right now, even though Joseph’s magic was incomplete, there was one slashing magic he had.
It’s a bit difficult to use...
Joseph swung his staff and summoned two mana orbs.
Then poured as much mana as possible into one to enlarge it.
As mana orbs of different sizes floated above Joseph, the monsters’ eyes turned toward him.
“Manir!”
Manir glanced at Joseph instead of answering.
At least he still had time to listen.
“Break its stance again!”
“What?!”
Manir asked in a puzzled voice.
It wasn’t easy to hold out against the troll’s attacks and buy time.
The previous time he had tripped it by aiming at the knee was because the other soldiers had charged in to draw its attention.
Even then, he couldn’t cut its tendons.
What the hell is he saying!
Above all, the hill was a mess.
The broken formation soldiers were dying to the monsters, and Auger and his soldiers were barely holding them off.
The monsters’ roars and human screams were mixed together.
In the middle of that, he wanted to break the troll’s stance alone again...
“Create an opening! Aim for it! One shot is enough!”
Joseph threw the small mana orb toward the troll’s face and shouted.
“Return!”
Instantly, the mana orb expanded into a white wall.
“----!”
The troll, looking down at Manir, froze for a moment when a white wall appeared in front of it.
But it soon ignored it and swung its arms.
It realized that the wall in front of it wasn’t doing any damage.
When the arm hit the wall, there was a thud, and the wall shattered.
“The mage’s magic isn’t working...!”
Someone shouted as the Return spell shattered instantly.
The other soldiers, as well as Joseph’s own soldiers, looked gloomy.
Because I didn’t put much mana into it.
But he didn’t bother to shout back.
He didn’t have the energy to care about such stupid remarks.
After all, Joseph wasn’t aiming for that.
He just needed the moment when the thing was distracted by the white wall.
And in response, Manir once again leaped toward the troll’s leg.
He jumped between the troll’s legs, gritted his teeth, and stabbed his sword into the Achilles tendon.
“----!”
The troll screamed and lifted the leg with the sword stuck in it.
At the same time, Manir released the sword and ran toward the opposite leg to support his body.
Thud!
Manir slammed his body into the ankle with all his might, and the troll staggered slightly.
Now!
The moment the troll’s stance broke, Joseph immediately threw the remaining mana orb at it.
Siiiiick─!
The mana orb filled to the limit emitted a strange sound as it flew toward the troll.
Thud!
The mana orb hit the troll’s ankle exactly where Manir was.
This time, the troll floated into the air.
Joseph immediately chanted.
“Slicer!”
Siiiiii─!
Then the large mana orb began to condense into the size of a fist in an instant.
Inside the small mana orb, it felt like huge mana was turning into wind and swirling.
“Dodge!”
Manir jumped back at Joseph’s shout.
At the same time, the troll that had risen into the air fell as if hit by the mana orb.
And.
Piiik!!
Instantly, a sound of wind being cut rang out.
Swaaaak─!
A blade of wind burst out from under the troll’s belly and tore one side of its flank in an instant, slicing through the air.
Monster flesh scattered in all directions in an instant.
“----!!”
As the flank was torn away, the troll writhed in pain and started thrashing.
“Ack!”
Several soldiers were swept away by the movement and fell to the ground.
“Shit...!”
Joseph clicked his tongue while watching the writhing troll.
Joseph’s Slicer right now was an incomplete chant.
The Slicer’s blade was indeed powerful, but since he couldn’t control the shape of the wind, it was difficult to control the direction and power of the flying blade.
So, to make sure it hit accurately, he had even flipped it over the mana orb...
The angle was too bad.
It would be too much to say that luck was too bad.
Still, with this, the thing can’t move.
He didn’t kill the troll, but at least he had neutralized it.
What remained was to deal with the miscellaneous monsters while the thing was thrashing around.
That’s what he thought.
“Eh...?”
But the exploded troll suddenly lifted its head.
It was looking around as if searching for something.
And soon, it found the corpses of the soldiers lying on the ground.
“It’s doing something! Stop it!”
Manir, who was watching from nearby, shouted as he sensed the troll’s reaction.
But, because the remaining monsters were still rampaging, there was no one who could stop it now.
“What?!”
It immediately grabbed one of the corpses with its long arm and started putting it into its mouth.
Grruck, crunch.
The sound of flesh and bones being chewed rang out.
Then, the holy smoke rising from the torn side of the troll gradually turned black.
Then, the side started twitching like a slime.
“What the hell is that, shit!”
Joseph, watching it, summoned a mana orb.
He didn’t know what the thing was trying to do, but it was clear that leaving it alone was not good.
“Eh?! Eh eh!”
Just as he was about to shoot the mana orb, suddenly Derik made a panicked sound and blocked in front of Joseph.
At the same time, a sound of something exploding rang out in front of Derik, and he flew back with Joseph.
“Joseph-nim! Derik!”
They rolled on the ground together.
Because of overlapping with Derik, the metal armor and the dirt ground hit Joseph’s body at the same time.
“Ouch...”
After a cloud of dust, Joseph who was lying under Derik pushed him away.
When he looked up at the sky, his vision blurred for a moment. It seemed he had hit his head.
Ambush...
Joseph, with a floating head, somehow figured out the situation.
Something was flying toward Joseph who was distracted by the troll.
And Derik had noticed it and tried to block it.
Where...
Shaking off the throbbing headache, he slowly lifted his head.
With hazy vision, the landscape of the hill came into view.
More than half of the soldiers had died. Auger and his soldiers were fighting off the clinging monsters.
The troll, eating a corpse with one hand and swinging the other wildly.
Manir rolling on the ground hit by the troll’s arm.
Auk and Jiren rushing toward him urgently.
Where!
Joseph rolled his eyes quickly.
Then, the back of a hunched human figure standing leaning against the bushes below the hill came into view.
Old robe, staff.
A person whose outfit was vaguely similar to Joseph’s.
Shaman!
Joseph gritted his teeth upon seeing it.
The shaman had somehow climbed the hill and shot magic at Joseph.
Mistake.
Because the troll was chasing him relentlessly, Joseph had momentarily forgotten about the shaman’s existence.
There was also the confusion from the battle between monsters and soldiers.
There was a bit of complacency that without monsters, the thing would be defenseless.
And because of that, he allowed the attack.
“Hic...”
At Joseph’s feet, Derik let out a rough breath.
Joseph quickly looked down at Derik’s body.
The chest of the metal armor Derik was wearing was crumpled.
It’s not dead yet.
He seemed not to have recovered from the sudden shock yet, but the crumpled armor didn’t seem to be pressing on his internals.
If it hadn’t been the metal armor obtained from Manir’s soldiers, his chest might have been pierced through.
“Watch ahead!”
Joseph shouted to the soldiers and pointed at the shaman.
The soldiers running over turned their heads.
The shaman flinched at the gazes converging on him, then brought his staff down to the ground.
Then, the ground slightly crumbled and turned into a pile of dirt.
When the thing threw something at the dirt pile, dirt exploded like a small bomb.
“That shaman! Don’t let him escape!”
Auk and Jiren, after briefly looking at Derik and the dust, ran toward the dust.
“You bastard!”
“Come here!”
In the meantime, as Joseph stood up, the troll roared again.
“------!!”
He quickly checked the troll’s side.
The wound hadn’t healed.
The flesh on the side was swollen and the flowing blood was blocked.
As if satisfied with that, it stood up again.
“Shit.”
And Manir, facing it, was standing there helplessly.
His sword was still stuck in the troll’s leg.
If he pulled his body out from here, nothing would remain.
Before dealing with the shaman, he had to somehow stop that thing.
“Huu...”
Joseph let out a big sigh.
Thanks to Derik, among the surviving monsters, none were still concerned about Joseph.
Wind magic works.
He had confirmed this earlier through the Slicer.
Let me calculate...
Joseph checked his remaining mana again.
And in an instant, he began to devise a plan to kill the troll.