I'm Not That Kind of Geezer
Lesser Tactics
The battlefield unfolded before me like a single, perfect map.
I could see exactly who would be pushed back and where. I could predict every gap the wolves would exploit. Even the holes the rookies had left uncovered were laid bare.
It feels like I’m looking down at a chessboard from above.
Fifteen years of reading the flow of battle by nothing but gut instinct now appeared before my eyes as crisp lines and colored information. I tightened my grip on the dagger and roared.
“Hey! Shield guy! Two steps left! If that spot gets breached, we’re all fucking dead!”
“Y-yes? Yes!”
The rookie holding the shield scrambled to reposition. A split second later—
“Awooooo!”
“Kgh!”
The wolf’s fangs scraped across the edge of the shield. It had been that close.
“Spear guy! Stop trying to stab them! Just show the tip of your spear! Keep them at bay, don’t let them close in!”
I never stopped shouting orders.
“Archer! Stop aiming for the rider’s head! You’ll never hit it. Focus on the wolves!”
The commands kept coming. The mage began scorching the ground with fireballs while the priest started chanting healing spells.
They’re following along better than I expected.
At first my shouts must have sounded like nothing but noise. But the rookies quickly caught on. They realized these yells were keeping them alive.
“Priestess! Stay behind me!”
“Just keep them at bay…! Don’t step forward!!!”
“It works! It’s way easier to hit them when I only aim at the wolves!”
The beginners’ movements began to change. It wasn’t perfect, but the gears were finally starting to mesh.
Good. Their encirclement is loosening.
The goblin rider leader noticed the tide turning and charged straight at me with a furious snarl.
“Gyurururuk!!!!”
Smart. Must be because it’s a higher-ranking monster.
Rather than clearing out the annoying rookies first, it had decided to eliminate the commander—me.
Come on then, if you’re coming.
I deliberately created an opening, loosening the formation around the rookie shield bearer just a little.
The goblin rider leader’s eyes flashed. It leveled its spear and came barreling toward me.
Just as predicted, you stupid bastard.
The moment its spear tip reached my nose, I twisted my body and slipped into the monster’s shadow.
“Wind Blade!”
Wind Blade
A sharp green aura wrapped around my dagger. Then—
Slice—!
“Garaaak…!!!!”
The leader’s head shot into the air.
“Gya… gyaruk! Gruk!!”
“Karak! Gyararak!”
The moment their commander died, the rider pack fell into chaos. The once-organized cavalry dissolved into nothing more than savage beasts and scattered mobs.
With the leader dead, their attack pattern became a disorganized mess. Honestly, calling it a “tactic” at this point felt generous.
“Thanks to that, the fight was easy. What a bunch of idiots.”
Before me lay the corpses of thirty-six direwolves and twenty-two goblin riders I had killed myself. If you subtracted the few the rookies had managed to take down, I had essentially wiped out the entire pack alone.
This is the first time I’ve pushed this new body so hard, but it’s following my commands surprisingly well.
It might actually be possible. Reaching A-rank. Or even higher.
But there were side effects.
Yeah, using it continuously is still too much.
The aftereffects of Wind Blade. My legs were trembling visibly, and my neck and shoulders felt stiff. It was much better than the first time I’d used it, but the drawback hadn’t disappeared completely.
“Ugh… Well, I’ll get used to the pain eventually.”
I stretched and glanced back at the rookies. They stood there with dazed expressions before hurrying over, bowing repeatedly in gratitude.
“Thank you so much!”
“I can’t believe you can command like that too!”
“Are you really an A-rank or S-rank explorer?!”
“We really would have died without you!”
I stared at them silently.
…These little shits…
Gratitude? They could save that for later. There was something else that needed to be done right now.
“Kneel.”
At my short command, the rookies froze.
“Huh? What did you say…?”
I narrowed my eyes and repeated myself.
“I said kneel. Are you deaf?”
They exchanged confused glances before slowly dropping to their knees one by one.
And then I let them have it.
“You idiots! Are you trying to get yourselves killed that badly?!”
The rookies flinched and lowered their heads.
“I clearly told you to run away! But what did you do? You thought you could handle it if you stayed with her? Handle it my ass! You almost got wiped out as a group just now! Do you understand?!”
The shield bearer muttered in a tiny voice.
“S-sorry…”
I kicked his shield lightly.
“You. Why were you holding your shield so high? Did it look like the direwolf was going to bite the top of your head? Those bastards aim for the knees and thighs first!”
Next I glared at the spearman.
“You. Why did you chase after the one that ran? Wolf-type monsters love pretending to flee so they can break your formation. The second you rush out alone, you get isolated and die!”
The mage already looked like he was about to cry.
“Mages aren’t there to just spam damage! You were chanting spells trying to hit moving balls of fur? It’s a miracle your throat wasn’t ripped out!”
The archer and priest weren’t spared either. I poked the priestess in the head with my finger.
“And you. Why weren’t you casting healing magic? In a party, someone who does nothing is worse than baggage!”
They all fell completely silent.
I took a breath and added coldly, “Listen well. You didn’t survive because of skill. You got lucky, I happened to be passing by, and that goblin leader took my bait. That’s all.”
“……”
“If you mistake that for real ability, you’ll die for real next time. Got it?”
The rookies hung their heads even lower.
“S-sorry… We’ll keep it in mind…”
The one who seemed to be the party leader, the spearman, rummaged through his pocket with trembling hands and held something out.
“Um… please at least take this as thanks.”
“No need. I don’t want anything from you.”
I waved it off. But the moment I saw what he was offering, my hand stopped in midair.
…This is pretty expensive.
Green herb. A medicinal plant with outstanding effects for healing wounds and removing toxins. It was a valuable item worth at least three gold coins.
I snatched the herb without hesitation.
“I’ll take this.”
“Huh?”
“I’m not rich enough to turn down free stuff.”
I glared at them and added one final warning.
“Next time you enter the labyrinth, actually study first. Understand?”
“……”
“Answer me.”
“Yes! We understand!!!”
At my icy tone, they straightened up and answered loudly.
“Good. Now get lost.”
The rookie party trudged off toward the first stratum exit, exhausted.
I checked my now-bulging bag.
“Direwolf pelts, goblin ears, magic stones, and the green herb I just received.”
How much would this all be worth? After doing some quick mental math…
“…Looks like about six gold coins.”
The profit wasn’t bad at all. At this rate, today’s expedition could already be called a success. There was no real need to go to the second stratum, but…
…For some reason, I want to test myself a little more.
A strange pulse throbbed inside my body. Lesser Tactics. Wind Blade. Skill Mimic.
I wanted to test these powers just a bit further. To see how far this body could endure. To see where the limits of Astaroth's Blessing truly lay.
“Also, I should check that place where I turned into a woman one more time.”
I slowly walked toward the gate leading to the second stratum—the Poison Mist Forest.
Poison Mist Forest – Second Stratum.
After smashing the heads of three poison hounds, I caught my breath.
“Hoo… It’s more manageable than I thought.”
In the past, this was a place where I would have been crawling on all fours with a wet towel in my mouth, shaking in fear. But now I could see the flow of the poison mist clearly. Thanks to Lesser Tactics, the monsters’ ambush routes were completely readable.
“Pretty lucrative. At this rate, getting rich is only a matter of time.”
Before long I arrived at the exact spot in the third sector of the second stratum—the site of that strange phenomenon where I had turned into a woman.
“……What the hell.”
But there was nothing there.
“The path itself is gone.”
The black box I had seen that day, the suspicious space—none of it remained. It was just an ordinary forest path.
As if none of it had ever existed in the first place.
I stood there for a long time. A wave of emptiness and chills swept through me.
…What the hell was that thing that day?
There was no answer.
I gave up on the mystery and turned away.
“No need to push it. Today’s harvest is already enough.”
It was then that a sharp, acrid smell rode the wind.
…It doesn’t smell like the poison mist.
It wasn’t the nose-piercing neurotoxin scent. It was a chemical burning smell that monsters hated.
“This is…”
The smell of smoke. Probably a signal flare. The same kind Mina had given me—the one currently sitting in my bag.
“Did someone get stranded? It doesn’t seem too far.”
I headed in the direction of the smell.
Broken staff fragments and scattered medicinal herbs littered the path. Clear drag marks gouged the ground.
A trap? Or a real straggler?
As a fifteen-year veteran, stranded explorers were priority number one on the list of things to avoid. I was barely surviving myself—where would I find the leeway to help others?
…Or so I keep telling myself.
Yet my feet kept moving. They might still be alive. And if they were already dead, checking their explorer card and returning their belongings was the bare minimum courtesy of our profession.
…And if there are any useful items, I’ll take a finder’s fee.
That was only fair. Nothing was free in the labyrinth.
With that thought, I ventured deeper into the mist. Soon, a faint groan reached my ears.
“H-help… please…!”
It was the voice of a girl, roughly sixteen to eighteen years old.
“So it really is a stranded explorer?”
As I drew closer to the sound, I saw a girl in a white robe collapsed on the ground.
“S-save me… please…”
The girl reached out to me with a face pale from poison mist exposure.
I stared at her face. Fear-filled eyes. Thin, trembling shoulders. Her clothes were torn everywhere and her whole body was covered in wounds.
“Who are you? Stranded?”
“Yes… it seems so…”
I approached and roughly pulled open the inside of her robe. A damp explorer card appeared.
A D-rank priestess?
In the Astaroth labyrinth, priestesses received noble treatment. Even at a low rank, they were core assets responsible for the party’s survival—an insurance policy.
Yet such a priestess was left alone in the middle of the second stratum’s Poison Mist Forest.
This was no ordinary situation.
Either her entire party was wiped out, or this priestess is an unimaginable burden.
Either way, it was going to be a pain in the ass.
The girl’s condition was terrible. Her complexion had gone beyond pale to a bluish tint.
Poisoning. She’s taken in way too much toxin.
Her lips were cracked dry, and green mana lines signaling severe poisoning were crawling across the whites of her eyes.
If I leave her like this, her lungs will rot and collapse within ten minutes.
I sighed and rummaged through my bag. My hand closed around the green herb I had “taken” from that rookie party earlier.
“……”
My fingertips were trembling.
This thing is worth a fortune…
If I sold it, I wouldn’t have to worry about inn costs for a while. It was valuable enough to pay back part of the money I’d borrowed from Mina.
But after fifteen years in this hell, I couldn’t just ignore a dying life right in front of me. While death was everyday business in the labyrinth, abandoning a stranded person before my eyes wounded my pride.
“Damn it. Just my luck.”