First Strike Wins
You have won the Lunaria Blessing Lottery. (4) First Strike Wins.
I liked that phrase. So whether it was PvP or PvE, I always tried to open every fight with the first strike. Just like now.
"Hup!"
I stepped forward and swung my wooden sword down at the wrist of the small-built thug who was rushing me with a knife. Even though he carried a blade, he wasn't particularly stylish about it. He tried to react to my movement—tried being the operative word.
His wrist twitched reflexively as he lifted the knife. My wooden sword crashed down without mercy.
Crack!
Crunch—
The sound of bones fracturing echoed through the alley. His wrist bent at an unnatural angle. The knife slipped from his fingers and clattered across the ground.
"Graaah!!!"
The small thug screamed in agony. This was my first real fight since possessing this body, so I might have put a little too much force into it. If I kept this up, every thug in the area would come running.
I swung the wooden sword again.
Thud—
Teeth flew from his mouth along with a spray of saliva. The scream cut off as he collapsed to the ground.
"Y-you crazy bastard!"
"Ughhh—"
One thug was furious that his comrade had been taken down. The other was frozen in terror. Without hesitation, I charged the one holding the club.
My wooden sword, gripped in both hands, spun slightly as I thrust it forward. Just like the knife-wielding thug who had passed out, the club-wielder couldn't react in time. The sword buried itself in his soft, untrained gut.
This time I controlled my strength.
"Gurgh!"
He dropped the club, clutched his stomach, and face-planted into the dirt, unconscious. White foam bubbled from his open mouth. I wasn't sure if he was okay.
I approached the last thug—the one who had been talking about making us piss ourselves. Now it looked like he had done exactly that out of fear. His torn pants were soaked with yellow liquid.
"P-please... spare—"
He couldn't even finish the sentence. I raised my sword and jabbed him lightly in the solar plexus.
"Kuh!"
He toppled backward into his own puddle of urine and stopped moving. He wouldn't die from that. After all, the body I possessed belonged to Leon, a third-year in the Swordsmanship Department. He'd already accumulated quite a bit of real combat experience through regular practical classes—against people and monsters alike. Without that ingrained sense and experience, I might have panicked just like Leisa, who was still retching up the salad she'd eaten at lunch.
"Cough, cough— Urgh— Hrk!"
She was a first-year in the Magic Department. This must have been her first real fight. She probably hadn't done any field training during class yet. If I'd had more time, I would've gone over and offered some gentle words of comfort, but the ominous footsteps echoing from all directions in the alley left no room for that.
Damn it. The scream from the knife guy really had pulled aggro.
"Looks like that academy brat touched our boys."
"What? So this is that 'self-defense' thing or whatever?"
"It's self-defense, you idiot! Hey, you with the wooden sword! Drop it and surrender quietly. We won't kill you. We'll just make you a cripple."
"Right. And we won't kill the girl puking in the back either. She'd fetch a decent price from the slave traders."
"Are you idiots? Can't you tell? Those two are nobles! We should ransom them instead of selling them!"
Were these guys insane? They actually thought that counted as a surrender offer. I ignored the growing crowd of thugs and spoke to Leisa.
"I can handle them all alone, but there are too many. I might not be able to protect you. So pick up your staff, Leisa. Defend yourself with magic."
If we were going to challenge Alhazard's dungeon, we couldn't afford to struggle against small fry like this. What waited inside were bizarre undead created by the great archmage centuries ago and terrifyingly large-scale magical traps. There was a reason it took fifty years to clear in the official scenario.
"Ugh... But... I'm not good at using mana..."
Whether it was from the sour taste of vomit or fear, Leisa muttered through tears.
"Even if you're not good at it, there are times when you have to. So stand up and fight!"
While encouraging her, I walked over to the knife that had fallen earlier and picked it up. When the thugs saw me holding a wooden sword in one hand and a knife in the other, they drew their own weapons with vicious expressions. Knives were the least of it—sharpened longswords, hammers, and morning stars bristling with iron spikes appeared.
"If you want to die that badly, we'll oblige."
"That brat's face pisses me off. I'll smash it in."
"Hey, idiots! The puking bitch in the back is holding a staff! Kill her first!"
One of the thugs knew the danger a mage posed. At his warning, the attention of the thugs who had been focused on killing me shifted to Leisa in an instant.
And I didn't miss that opening.
As I'd said, I liked striking first. I hurled the knife at the face of the one who seemed to have the quickest head on his shoulders—the one who had warned them to kill the mage first.
Thud—!
The knife buried itself in his skull as if sucked in, splitting bone and scrambling brain matter. Whether he had been about to scream or speak, he died with his mouth open.
I wasn't holding back anymore. There were too many of them to worry about controlling my strength. This was King's Crown—kill or be killed. You had to choose one.
Hoo— Inhale—
I charged, alternating between exhaling and inhaling. Along with the musty smell unique to the alley, mana—the essential element of this fantasy world—flowed into my body and circulated through my limbs.
The thugs couldn't keep up with my suddenly accelerated body.
Crunch!!
The unfortunate thug at the front of the pack couldn't even react before my wooden sword struck his neck from upper right to lower left diagonal. He died instantly. The sharpened longsword he'd been holding fell uselessly to the ground with a metallic clatter.
Using the rebound, I swung at the head of the burly thug standing to the right of the dead man, the one holding a hammer. He panicked and raised the hammer to protect his head, so I redirected the sword downward into his exposed chest.
Thud!
The sound of his sternum caving in rang out as he flipped backward and slammed headfirst into the ground.
Without even watching to the end, I used the rebound again and swung at the face of the thug wearing knuckle dusters—but...
Clang!
For the first time, my wooden sword was blocked. A faint trace of mana clung to the knuckles. This guy with the knuckle dusters... he was decent.
"You son of a bitch!"
He spat curses, grabbed my sword with his left hand to pin it, and swung his right fist at my left temple. I reflexively ducked forward to avoid it and kicked his shin with my left foot.
"Kuhak!!"
Unable to endure the pain, he let go of the sword and backed away, limping.
Then, as if in a tag match, the thug with the spiked morning star swung it at me in a full arc. Even I couldn't block that with a wooden sword—
—my ass!
I roughly imitated what Professor Giphotes had taught in the morning class, wrapping mana around my sword in a spiral and slamming it head-on into the morning star.
CLAAAANG!!!
A grating metallic screech echoed through the alley, as if iron had struck iron instead of wood. The thug dropped his weapon.
"Aaaagh!!"
Whether his hands had torn or he'd simply lost his weapon, he screamed in pain—only to be struck in the head by my follow-up swing. He toppled sideways with a dazed expression.
"Shit— Aaaah! It's a monster!!"
"He was a knight, damn it!"
"Run!!"
The surviving thugs fled in panic toward the alley they'd come from, not even looking back. Among them was the knuckle-duster guy I'd kicked earlier, limping but keeping pace with the others.
Hoo— Inhale— Hoo—
Calming my pounding heart with steady breaths, I turned around.
There was Leisa, kneeling and trembling, her face caught somewhere between crying and laughing. Several thugs lay bloodied around her from her magic.
"Ah... I hurt people with magic... Augh!"
Looking closer, I saw a long cut on her left hand. One of the thugs must have attacked with a knife, and she'd counterattacked in self-defense.
I approached her. Sensing my presence, Leisa looked up at me with tear-filled eyes.
"S-Senior... I... I hurt someone... Sob... I hurt a person..."
"It's okay. You're not in the wrong. They were the ones talking about selling you to slave traders or killing you. Besides, whether sooner or later, once you enrolled in the academy, you were bound to experience real combat like this eventually. Think of it as getting it over with early."
Kneeling on one knee before her as she trembled with guilt, I offered the gentle words of comfort I hadn't been able to give earlier.