An Uncomfortable Meal, Part 1
"Graaaah!"
The monster's roar struck my eardrums like a hammer. I had inflicted a deep wound, but its murderous intent remained unbroken. These beasts didn't whimper and run away just because they lost a leg or an arm. The more wounds that piled up on their bodies, the more they frothed at the mouth and thrashed in desperation. In that sense, monsters were less like living creatures and more like killing machines. They desired to kill rather than to live. These things, in particular, lost all reason and charged the moment they laid eyes on a human.
Whoosh. I slipped past its forepaw. It missed me by a hair's breadth. A small crater formed in the dirt just a single step away. The monster I was currently facing, a Grey Bear, was colossally massive. Before my transmigration, the bears I saw in photos were just fluffy exercise balls. Exercise ball, my foot. There was no way to describe the sheer pressure radiating from that massive frame. It felt as if a small hill had come alive and was moving.
"You miserable teddy bear."
The Grey Bear wasn't just huge; it was fast. The arms it swung were devastating the surroundings like battering rams. Looking closely, it was different from any bear I had seen in photos. The bears I knew didn't have abnormally long forelegs or pectoral muscles like mountain peaks. The Grey Bear glared at me, catching its breath for a moment, before charging at me, knocking down trees in its path.
"Roaaaaar!" Rolling to the side would likely get me caught by those forelegs, and retreating backward wasn't even an option. Jumping upward to dodge seemed like an invitation for the bear to swat me out of the air, and since I couldn't dig into the earth like a mole, the only remaining choice was to dive inward. As I made a subtle move to the left, the Grey Bear's right foreleg swung wide, opening up a gap to slip into its torso.
"B-Be careful...!"
Today, as always, Daphne was with me. Over the past few days, Daphne had grown significantly. It was rare for her to panic on the battlefield now. While she still failed whenever she tried to cast magic directly on monsters, the protective magic she cast on me had become quite stable. I felt the barrier of mana wrapping around my body, and it felt reassuringly sturdy. I could probably take a hit from this damn bear and survive. Trusting in her protective magic, I charged straight toward the oncoming beast. I gritted my teeth and threw myself into the gap between its outstretched arm and its torso, slipping past a foreleg thicker than most logs. The pungent stench of a wild beast brushed past me. The momentum of the bear's forward charge prevented it from pulling its arm back in time. The bear, which had only been roaring in fury, let out a bewildered growl and slammed on the brakes.
...Do I really have to go this far?
For someone who had transmigrated into the Hero, this was a pretty miserable plight. Rolling once with the momentum of my dive, I extended my left foot to anchor myself firmly. My foot dug into the ground like a wedge, kicking up gravel and dust right into my face. I didn't even have the luxury to spit out the dirt entering my mouth. Grinding the grains of soil between my molars, I glared at the bear's wide-open torso.
"Huuup."
Raising the tip of the Holy Sword, I gripped it exactly as my body's muscle memory dictated. My left arm balanced the sword's center of gravity, while my right arm prepared to launch the tip forward like an arrow. I felt something other than blood pumping from my frantically beating heart. It was mana. Mana could be drawn out and cultivated through special breathing techniques. The Hero's body possessed a considerable reserve of mana, which was an absolute stroke of luck for me.
Creak. My muscles and bones contracted, gathering strength. Before the Grey Bear could recover its balance and attack again, I unleashed my mana and thrust the Holy Sword with all my might. The unleashed force tore the air to shreds as it flew toward the Grey Bear's flank. Perhaps sensing its end, the bear roared more fiercely than ever, but my Holy Sword pierced through its hide—tougher and more resilient than steel—and delivered the full impact directly to its heart. I didn't stop at merely piercing its body; I dragged the Holy Sword upward, carving deep, repeated gasps into the Grey Bear's flesh.
Groooan... With a final, pitiful cry, the Grey Bear toppled backward and collapsed with a heavy thud. I finally let out the ragged breath I had been holding in, spitting out the dirt and sand in my mouth. Blood pooled beneath the bear's lifeless carcass, forming a small stream. My clothes and face were a complete mess, covered in dust and the Grey Bear's blood.
"Seriously, it's way too strong."
The Grey Bear was on an entirely different level compared to the monsters I had faced so far. I could handle several wild boars or wild dogs charging at me at once, but a Class 1 danger monster was indeed different. If I were to go out to a battlefield where the Seven Calamities lurked, these kinds of beasts would pour out by the dozens or hundreds. At this point, it was a mystery how they had managed to defeat the Third Calamity.
"...Elroy." With the rustle of footsteps, Daphne approached from behind. Her face was filled with worry. I waved my hand to show her I was fine, but still looking anxious, she gently placed her hands on my face and turned my head slightly from side to side to inspect me.
"I'm fine, really. Thanks to your protective magic, I don't have a single scratch."
Daphne didn't lower her hands from my face, instead tilting her head up slightly. Her purple eyes... honestly, every time I looked into them, they caught me off guard.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. Really. I'm perfectly fine."
I let out a chuckle and reassured her several times. Only then did Daphne blush slightly and step back.
"...You are strong, Elroy," Daphne murmured, her gaze shifting past me to the corpse of the Grey Bear. Following her eyes, I looked at the fallen beast and shook my head.
"Strong? I barely managed to take down a single bear."
"But you aren't hurt at all. There are only a handful of people in the entire Royal Capital who could defeat a Grey Bear alone without getting hit once."
Daphne tried her best to comfort me in her clumsy way. Rather than the comfort itself, I was just glad she now had enough composure during battle to offer it. I sheathed the Holy Sword and cracked my neck.
"We were just lucky when we defeated the Third Calamity. There's no guarantee we'll be that lucky next time, so I have to struggle and do whatever I can now."
Indeed, in the original novel, when they defeated the Third Calamity, everyone in the party had been lacking. Aryen was weak, Georg was weak, Isis was weak, and even that mage currently on leave was weak. Needless to say, the original Elroy was the weakest of them all. Because of that, thousands of lives had been sacrificed to bring down that Calamity.
At the mention of the Third Calamity, a shadow fell over Daphne's face.
"...Why are the Calamities called Calamities?"
Calamities that would destroy the world. Seven threats that had existed since the mythical era. Defeating them was the ultimate desire and task of all humanity. The First and Second Calamities had been defeated in the past by kings and heroes at the cost of immense sacrifices. The Third Calamity had been put down by a half-baked Hero, accompanied by an equally devastating toll of lives.
"Tell me about it," I agreed bitterly. Thinking of the terrifying might of the remaining Calamities described in the original novel, it hit me even harder that I couldn't afford to just sit around. I let out a sigh and looked up. The days had grown slightly longer over the past few days. Did that mean we had a bit more time? I walked over and sat down on a fallen tree trunk that the Grey Bear had knocked over. Daphne came over and sat beside me.
"What was the Third Calamity like?" Daphne asked after we had sat in silence for a while.
"...The Kraken. Do you know it? It was a colossal octopus. It made galleons look like toys. Anyone prone to seasickness probably couldn't even get close to it."
I gave her an answer, but since I had never actually fought the Third Calamity myself, I couldn't offer any real firsthand accounts. I filtered through the information I recalled from the original novel and shared a few details, but I kept it vague to avoid getting into specifics. As I kept dodging the details, I caught Daphne staring intently at me and swallowed hard. Shoot, did I act too suspicious?
"...I'm sorry for bringing up painful memories." Uh, that wasn't it. Daphne bit her lip, looking genuinely apologetic. She must have interpreted my reluctance to share details as a sign that I didn't want to recall the trauma of that battle. When I remained silent in my fluster, her expression crumbled even further.
"I... I should have thought before I spoke." Her voice trailed off. I felt bad for Daphne, but I figured it was best to just let her believe that. It would be awkward to explain, and continuing to talk about an event I had never actually experienced would only make things weirder.
"It's fine. I don't let it get to me anymore." Daphne gave a timid nod at my response, and an awkward silence settled between us. Although Daphne was usually quiet, I had never felt awkward around her before. But because of our recent exchange, even I had become painfully conscious of the silence. I looked around, trying to think of anything to say.
"By the way, your magic has gotten really stable. The first time you cast it on me, the barrier was shaking constantly." As the topic changed, Daphne's expression brightened considerably.
"It's all thanks to you, Elroy. Until now, whenever I tried to cast support magic on someone else, I always failed. But when I fight with you, I can focus entirely on you..." Daphne, who had been uncharacteristically babbling with excitement, suddenly shut her mouth and hung her head low. Wondering what was wrong this time, I leaned in closer out of concern, only for her to scurry away from me at lightning speed. Beneath the curtain of her light pink hair, her face was flushed the exact same shade as her locks.
"B-By the way, Elroy, why don't you use Aura?"
"Aura?" Daphne nodded. "Most other experts who can manipulate mana as well as you do use Aura. But even when you were fighting the Grey Bear today, you didn't seem to use any."
"Ah... Aura." I let out a dry laugh and looked down at my waist. Hanging there was the Holy Sword, pure white from the tip of its blade to the end of its hilt. Aura... if I were using any other sword, could I have formed it? I had plenty of mana, and I knew how to manipulate it. Well, it was a pointless assumption anyway.
"It's not that I choose not to form Aura. I can't."
"What...? Is it... because of your health, perhaps...?"
"It's not because there's something wrong with me. It's because of this guy." I tapped the hilt of the Holy Sword. "You can't coat the Holy Sword in Aura. No matter how outstanding of a swordsman you are."
It was a sword that chose its own master. It was only natural that the sword possessed a consciousness of its own, and it was an ancient, incredibly powerful weapon. Just as I couldn't coat another person's arm in my own Aura, there was no way I could coat the Holy Sword, which possessed its own distinct ego, in Aura.
"Then..." Daphne's eyes seemed to ask why I would even use a sword that couldn't be coated in Aura. I drew the Holy Sword with a soft hiss and laid it across my knees. No one knew what material had been used to forge the brilliantly white blade of the Holy Sword. Its appearance was far from extravagant. Aside from the pure white blade, everything else about it looked like an ordinary sword.
"You'll find out why eventually," I murmured, stroking the hilt of the Holy Sword. A cool texture met my palm. The Holy Sword was powerful. That much was certain. Even without being coated in Aura, it could easily pierce the hide of a Grey Bear, and it channeled mana to reinforce its wielder. However, the true power of the Holy Sword was far greater than just that.
When will she finally wake up? Please, let all this reckless danger I'm putting myself through not be in vain. I sighed as I sheathed the Holy Sword once more.
"Yes, you may enter." Today ended safely as well. As Daphne's magic gradually stabilized and I grew more accustomed to combat, the number of monsters we hunted on each outing increased. Of course, Daphne hadn't fully returned to her peak condition yet, and I still had my own unstable elements, so I couldn't afford to be overly optimistic.
...I need to work even harder.
"Good work today."
"You too, Elroy. Good work." Daphne and I exchanged exhausted greetings. I hoped that the expression on her face would soon carry more pride than exhaustion. Just as I was about to take a step forward with that modest hope, I sensed someone approaching Daphne and me.
"That's..." My eyes widened as I identified the presence. A middle-aged man dressed in black priestly robes was waving his hand as he approached from a distance. While Daphne tilted her head in confusion beside me, a low groan escaped my lips.
"My, Hero. Here you are." There were only two clergymen the Hero would know. Since it couldn't be the ruler of the Holy Kingdom or the Pope of the Holy Church, it had to be the other one.
"It has been quite a while, hasn't it?" Bishop Andre. The man who had sent Isis to the Hero's party. Meeting the bishop's narrow eyes, I frowned in distaste.