Chapter R1: The Day I became B rank

(Ride's POV)

 

*Shing!

A nice metallic sound came out from my sword as I slashed the dark green midget monster in front of me. It's body split in half and green blood spurted out of its seams. After taking a step back to avoid the splashing green blood, I quickly looked around me to see if there are any more hostiles around — a quick look to the left and a quick look to the right. SAFE, nothing but dead goblins. I continued to catch my breath as I looked around.

I let out a sigh of relief and wiped my trusty sword from the green ooze of these stinky goblins and sheathed it back to its scabbard. I can't remember how many goblins I have slain today. Probably in the dozens, and it wasn't just your low life easy goblins that newbies can kill easily either. 

There were goblin mages, goblin warriors and even hobgoblins among the dead today. I recalled the quest that I've taken. It was just a standard quest to kill goblins around the surrounding areas. To safeguard the roads from being overwhelmed by monsters. I didn't think it was a big deal as goblins are typically easy to kill and they lack intelligence.

The idea was to kill them and go back for a quick cash infusion, but... the goblins... they just kept coming. Soon, multiple high-rank goblins surrounded me. I tried to escape, but my path was blocked rapidly. I facepalmed as I was faced with such a crisis.

"I should have gone as a team instead of trying to do this alone," I spoke to myself.

It was such a rookie mistake. I could have been dead right now. As a matter of fact, I don't even know how I am still alive...

Regardless, the crisis was over now, and I somehow managed to get out of this alive. I cut off the ears of the goblins and quickly got out of there before any more goblins arrived.  

 

* * * * *

 

With the goblin ears strapped neatly in a package, I made my way to the place I call home, A'bell. A'bell is a great city, located near the far east side of this country and facing the Omega Sea. This place is pretty much a hotspot for the new and experienced alike with a variety of locations for aspiring adventurers, from vast green plains that stretch the eyes to rocky canyons to extensive forest hunting grounds and unending ocean mass for those who like the waters and the monstrosities that live within.

C ranks Adventurers like me, however, don't visit those high-rank areas too often. We usually litter around the roads that lead out of the city and the plains nearby. Easy herbs and monster subjugation quest, sometimes even escort quest, things like that.

I looked at the scenery on one such road on the way back to A'bell and stared at its wonders.

How long has it been since I arrived here? 

I remembered coming here as a child with nothing to my name. Not wanting to turn to a life of crime,  I looked at the second best way to live.  

Killing Monsters.

I remembered killing dire rabbits and slimes with nothing but a rock and the rags of cloth that I used as clothes. That was the day I became the lowest ranking of adventurers. Looking back at how I started and comparing it to me of now, a sense of accomplishment rose within me. I began to remember all those years of training, the struggles and hardships that I went through those past few years. The challenges I faced to be a C rank from the lowly rank of F. It was truly arduous.

Being just past eighteen years old by now, I could be called a fully-fledged adult. Too bad none of it would matter if I continued to make stupid mistakes like what I did today. 

To die after all that, I might as well die that day as a kid. 

*Pak!

I slapped both my cheeks as a wake-up call.

I'm still inexperienced! The road to being an S rank is still far ahead! 

A bolt of motivation came upon me, and I started sprinting towards the gates of A'bell. I flashed my C rank guild card to the guards at the entrance and started running to the guild house. My first step was obviously to trade all these goblin ears to the guild as prove of my subjugation. I reckoned I could get quite the amount of cash considering I killed all those higher rank goblins.

 My companions are sure to be jealous for sure. I can't wait to tell them what happened.

'I slew dozens of high-rank goblins alone and without a scratch guys! Look at all this cash! We can afford to get real equipments now!'

A gleeful smile came up to me as I continue to make my way towards the guild house. But my quickly halted as I heard some sort of cry. A sharp, piercing cry that I couldn't ignore. A cry that called for attention. I stopped and scanned around to see a little girl crying by the roadside, her mother next to her side, looking like she didn't know what to do.

 "*Sniff my apple! My apple! uwahhh." The little girl cried out in distress.

I looked at the area around the kid, and saw a half bitten apple lying on the floor. She must have dropped it by accident. But still, to cry just because of a fallen apple, sheez what a kid. Well, I guess she is. Looking around me, I spotted a fruit stand. I then let out a big sigh as I lamented on how soft I am to children's' crying.

I walked up to the fruit stand and searched for a good apple. It wasn't long before I found a good enough looking apple before extending my hands towards it to pick it up.  

Uwoh! What the hell?!  

I was about to pick up the apple when my arm was suddenly grabbed by a firm grip from my right side. I tried to pull my hand away, but the other hand held my right arm tightly. I couldn't budge at all. 

This is one hell of an iron grip! 

Panicked, I looked over to the owner of the hands only to see a plain-looking woman that looked to be in her late twenties. She had some white cap with tiger stripes and had her slightly long hair tied up in a messy ponytail that extends out from the hole at the back of her hat. She also wore an unbuttoned black coat that covers her hands and stretched all the way to her legs. Underneath the coat was a simple white t-shirt with black cargo pants. Her shoes interestingly enough, were also black.  

A weird choice of clothing.

Her other hand was below her chin as she did some sort of thinking motion when she suddenly turned around and twisted my hand sideways before studying my palm intently.  

"Arghh!" A grunt of pain came out of me as my body twist to the right to support my arm.  

"Hmm," the woman let out a voice.  

I looked at the woman in front of me again, and I noticed a plain-looking sword hilt and a sinister-looking pocket watch hanging from the belt of her pants. Looking at the pocket watch made me feel a little bit dizzy. That feeling didn't last for long as the woman's face soon blocked my eyesight. She stared into my eyes. Nay, the blue azure eyes that the woman had was as if she was staring right into my soul. A sense of discomfort crept up to me.

I felt so bare and exposed like never before. 

"Hmm, interesting." The woman spoke in a deep voice but still soft and fitting of a thirty-year-old woman before backing away from my face, my hands still being held by her iron grip.

I am by no means a weak guy, I've trained my body for years after all, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't break free of her hold. Forget about breaking free. I couldn't even move my hand!

"Take this kid." She said as she puts a bottle on my hand— the same hand that she held an iron grip on, before gently letting it go.

The moment my hand was freed, I immediately made some distance between us. I looked at her again only to see the super serious and threatening attitude she had a while ago replaced with a happy and slightly bubbly looking expression.

"It's an ointment kid, good for when you wanna heal bruises and painful callous, also sorry; I'm going to be taking this." She went and picked up the apple that I was previously trying to grab a moment ago.

She then reached to the back of her pants, the coat making way for it. Her hand reached into her back bag pouch, and she pulled out a coin from it. It was unintentional, but I also caught a glimpse of weird looking equipment hanging on her back, possibly a wand or something. It seemed to be made of metal, and it has a long tube connected to the body of the equipment. Some sort of sheath or holster is holding it, but before I could look further, the coat went back to its original position.

She flipped the coin to the store owner before walking away with the apple. I continued to stare at her as she walked away to when she suddenly turned around to look at me again.

"You are lucky kid, luck like that don't come often ya know. I hope you know what to do with it." She said as she gave me a thumbs-up before finally leaving.

What the hell was that? I am seriously confused as heck by what just happened.

I took a look at the bottle that she gave to me and gave it a good looking. It is as she said, this is just ointment, you could buy this almost anywhere in A'bell, it's a staple of adventuring after all.

I felt the area where she gripped me and gave it a good gentle massage. I could see the marks of another hand on my arm. 

Damn, she is hella strong, what the hell?! 

It wasn't something I expected out of the normal looking woman. Not to say there weren't any strong women in the Adventurer's Guild but to completely prevent me from moving at all was a first. It was then when I suddenly felt a sharp pain coming from the palm of my right hand. Several bruises and callous could be visibly seen on the palm of my hands.

What the?

When did I get these? I hadn't noticed it earlier. Could it be from the goblin hunt this morning? I must have bruised myself with the way I held my sword or something. Well, it was a lot of goblins, after all.  

I then remembered the reason why I am here in the first place. I quickly grabbed the second best looking apple and paid for it. 

I turned around to the direction of the crying kid only to see the same woman just now in front of her. The child was now holding a new apple, and the woman was patting her head, a bright, innocent smile on their faces. The mother then gave her thanks to the woman before the woman went on her separate path deeper into the city. I looked down on the piece of apple that I just bought and let out a big sigh.

 I've been doing a lot of that today.  Can't waste this now can I?

I took a bite of the apple, and the juicy sweet texture of the apple spreads in my mouth. I then made my way to the guild house again.

 

* * * * *

 

"You have been promoted to B rank kid, Congratulations!" The big burly middle-aged man said to me in a happy tone.

"What?" I asked back with a hint of utter confusion.

The big man in front of me is the guild receptionist that has handled my request for as long as I could remember. He is the first guy who trusted me as an adventurer. You could say he was, in a way, my benefactor. Though usually, when you talk about guild receptionist, it's going to have to be about those cute and beautiful women.

A far cry compared to the big burly man in front of me.

As far as I could remember, it has always been this big uninformed guy who handles my request. Not to say I'm not grateful of course, but I would have liked the other receptionist to tend to my requests from time to time — especially the cute ones.

However, today, I heard the most incredible thing from his mouth.

"You are B rank now kid! Your contributions to the guild have finally paid off. The guild master asked me to inform you of your B rank status as soon as possible" The man joyously clapped his hand.

"Seriously?!' I who couldn't believe my ears, asked back.

"You are an adult now kid," He said as he spoke to me in a congratulatory and happy tone.

Finally... After those long hard years of struggle...

"Finally! YEEESSSS!" I screamed at the top of my lungs.

I am one step closer to being an S rank!

..

..

..

"Ahem" I cough to myself.

After seeing the eyes of everyone around the guild and hearing a few rounds of laughter later from the guild employers and adventurers alike, I managed to calm down. It was quite an embarrassing moment for me.

"Here's ya shiny new card kid." the burly receptionist handed me a new card, not disturbed by my recent outburst. 

My face and my name was displayed on the card along with a silver glint of the letter B.

"Once again, congratulations Ride," The receptionist said again with a big smile on his face.

Words will not be enough here, so with all my heart, I gave a bow to the receptionist and gave him the most heartfelt thanks I could muster.

"Thank you, Mister Vrazen sir!"

...

Ah! Before I forget about it.

"Oh right, I would also like to submit the confirmation of monster kills," I said as I dropped all the goblin ears I've collected today from the package.

"Woah!" Mister Vrazen exclaimed in surprise as he saw the number of ears on the table. "Where the heck did you get all of these from?" He sounded even more surprised when he saw the kinds of ears there is. Well, it can't be helped, after all, higher rank goblins are no joke, and with these numbers, it's not a surprise.

"I killed them earlier today, I was ambushed when I did the usual patrol quest along the north road, I killed all of them myself" I bragged to Mister Vrazen.

"Alone?" a familiar voice asked me. It wasn't Mister Vrazen's.

"Yeah, I went into the forest and killed all of them alone," I answered nonchalantly.

"What the hell were you thinking!?"

I was taken aback by the intensity of the voice and turned around, only to see my companions, my brother in arms, behind me. All 3 of them. They were visibly angry at me, though it's not that I couldn't understand their feelings. 

 

* * * * *

 

We collected our reward left the guild and went to a suitable restaurant to celebrate my promotion. On the way there, I got endlessly barraged by my companions about how dumb I was and things like that.

"You could have died Ride," my oldest friend Tyle who sat across from me said with a concerned tone. He was the one who shouted at me in the guild house a moment ago, a good toned and good looking man who wore glasses, and uses the spear as a weapon. Since he was the only guy who could use long-range magic in our team, he is pretty much in the safest position in the team all the time.  He is my friend from childhood.

"Yeah... sorry about that..." I said with a tone full of remorse. He wasn't wrong, of course. I really could have died today.

"Let it go Tyle, he seems to be sorry, besides, this is a great day is it not? Our team now has a B rank and we actually have the money to buy new equipments now!" Scorch, my second companion said excitedly. This slightly large built man and I are our team's vanguard. His weapon of choice is a giant axe that only a guy like him can swing, and unlike me, he wears very thick armour since he can't dodge that well.

"Yeah man, look at all this cash!" My third friend Kranis, our team's backline and rogue extraordinaire said as he pointed to all the coins on the table. All the gold from all those goblins I have slain. It's quite an amount, enough to fit all of us with new equipments and still have enough to last us a few weeks. Now when I look back, it was quite a mystery how I managed to kill all of them.

Tyle let out a sigh.

"You are buying dinner," He said as he gave me a grin.

Well technically I'm buying everyone's everything, but I disregarded that thought.

"Deal," I said back to my companions with a smile.

"Then it's settled then. This is congratulations on achieving B rank! Cheers!" Kranis our party's rogue extraordinaire raised his glass mug. 

Seeing that, the rest of us soon followed.

"CHEERS!"

*clink *clink

We all drank from our mugs. The taste the sweet drink washed down my throat. Unlike the others, mine was not an alcoholic drink, of course. I can never get used to that stuff. 

"But to think that Ride would be the first person among us to reach B rank," Tyle finished his drink.

"Hahaha, don't worry Tyle, I'm sure you will be the next in line to b-"

*Goro! *Goro!

All of a sudden, the ground shook violently, interrupting our conversation. Loud grumbles from the earth could be heard as I lost my footing and fell to the ground.

Is this some sort of earthquake? In A'bell?!

The trembles continued for what felt like forever. The sound of glasses and objects breaking and falling down spread throughout the restaurant, and then just as fast as the tremble came, it stopped.

I let out a groan as I tried to stand up after that violent shake. I rest my body on a wall and look outside the window.

The feeling of shock and confusion came upon me as I saw the horrible sight.

Smoke could be seen everywhere. The great city of A'bell was in flames! I couldn't believe what I was seeing. What happened? How did it happen? 

"Kyaa!" "Arrghh!" 

The next thing I heard was the screams of the masses. I quickly went outside the building to see what the hell is going on. Hundreds of people running away for their dear lives from monsters. Tons of them; All sorts of them.

My eyes caught the view of a particular man running away from what looks like to be a grey wolf. It seemed to be of the mane type, the Grey Mane Wolf is known for its fast speed and ferociousness, but... they don't appear in warm climates like the ones in A'bell! They are tundra wolves! So why the hell are they here?!

This is bad. Ordinary people can't outrun those things! I immediately ran to intercept the wolf from pursuing the man. Just as I was about to pull my sword, I felt a sharp pain from the palms of my hands. I temporarily flinched from the pain.

The bruises I got from this morning!

"Grrrr! Rawr!"

The grey wolf, however, didn't care about that and lunged straight at me who has appeared in between its target. Unable to unsheathed my sword in time, I braced myself and extended my left arm to receive the wolf's fangs.

However, before the wolf could reach me, a large axe head smashed the wolf's body, the sound of broken ribs could be heard as the wolf is sent flying to the sides. It was instant death.

"You alright there, buddy?" A slightly large man with a good build gave me a thumbs up.

"Scorch!" I said happily and gave back a thumbs up.

"Grrrr!"

More wolves have started to come. They surrounded me and Scorch within seconds.

"The beings who dare to walk past the pillars of fire shall burn! Firewall!" Shouted Tyle as balls of fire flew in front of me before combining into each other to make, well, a wall of fire, halting more of the wolves to surround us.

Not willing to waste the chance, I finally drew out my sword, ignoring the pain on the palm of my hands before charging straight at the wolves behind me. Scorch covered my back without me telling him to.

Two wolves noticed my actions and started running towards me, but one of them got hit by an arrow from the back. It flinched in response.

I sped up and with a vertical swing upwards with my sword, I decapitated one of the wolves. Using my momentum, I immediately swung my sword down on the other wolf, the one with the arrow on its back and chopped its head off too.

"Incinerate! The fuel for my embers is my enemy!" Tyle shouted as he cast a ball of flames towards another wolf to my right, immediately burning it to ashes. 

*Chak *Chak

The sound of arrows hitting can be heard beside me as two more wolves go down by an arrow to the head. Looking behind, I could see Scorch finishing up another wolf. 

As the spell firewall was about to run out, I shouted to Kranis:- "Kranis! The wolves behind the fire!"

"Roger!"

Without instructions, I ran and take on the remaining wolves on our side to cover for our Rogue Extraordinaire. He fired a whole lot of arrows, and each one hit the heads of the wolves behind the wall, while I continued to chop off the heads of remaining wolves on our side, Scorch and Tyle backing me up. It was over before flames from the firewall could die out.

"Huff... huff." As I am catching my breath, I looked over to the crowd of citizens running away for their dear lives. 

What the hell is happening? Everyone seemed to be running towards the north gate, but monsters kept surrounding them. It wasn't just tundra wolves either. There are kobolds from the wastelands, toxic slimes from toxic swamps, demonic horses from ancient cemeteries, giant spiders from the deep forest, lava ants from volcanoes and various other monsters that are not supposed to be here.

Looking closer, I can see other adventurers covering their path of retreat, ranging from the low F ranks to the higher A ranks. I'm not sure if it's a plan from higher-ups in the guild or if it's just some collective decision among adventurers. 

"Stream Dragons..." Tyle muttered under his breath.

Following his words, I look above, and I saw them... a pair of dragons laying waste to the city. They were flying magnanimously in the air while occasionally blowing building size fireballs to the city. The monstrosity that takes multiple raids of A ranks to bring down and could easily lay waste to dozens of villages and towns and there were two of those monstrosities flying over A'bell.

*zzzt *Zap * POOW!

Suddenly, a green bolt of lightning that originated from somewhere in the city hit one of the dragons. The deafening roar of a dragon spreads across the city. Shocks of tremors and earth grumbling could be felt as it crashed to the ground below. 

...

Well... there is only one of them now. This is the city of adventurers, after all. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that this city is filled with high-class adventurers and warriors that could take down a dragon.

"We need to get out of the city. Our aim is the north gate." Kranis, our rogue extraordinaire gave out orders, and the rest of us snapped out of our daydreams.

"Ride, you be the forward, the rest of us is going to cover your back. We will protect any civilians on the way, but the priority is our lives. Come on! Let's move!" Kranis started running towards the north gate, the same direction as everyone else.

I didn't argue back and just followed orders. We are past the point of bickering with each other about morals. No matter how much I hate it, Kranis is right. We can't save everyone. Doesn't mean I have to like it though.

 

* * * * *

 

We fought all the way to the gates. It wasn't long before all the adventurers near the north district started to band together against the invasion of monsters. Those that were already in a team like us continued to fight as a team, those that don't, temporarily banded together with other loners as we make our way to the north gate.

Soon after, we arrived near the north gate. It's majestic gates within our sight. I was running forward when I heard a scream nearby.

"Harpies!"

I look above to see a group of harpies. All of them made their signature harpy attacks. With a flap of their wings, razor-sharp feathers started to rain down upon us.

I positioned my sword in such a way that the flat part of the blade covered my heart and my face, I then crouched to minimise exposure to the attack, the rest of my body will have to make do with my leather armour.

*Shuuuu

But before it could hit us, a gust of wind came and blew all the feathers away.

Not wasting any time, I quickly charged my blade with magic, and I unleash one of my only range attacks. It's a staple skill of a sword user, basic but deadly.

"Sword thrust! Extension!"

I thrust my sword, which is now glowing with the colour red, the colour of my mana, towards one of the harpies. A magic blade extended from my sword at speeds fast enough that they couldn't dodge and pierced through one of the harpies. Its body fell to the ground. 

Seeing their dead friend, the harpies got angry and made their signature attack once again. Only this time, all of them were aiming at me.

"Wind Blades! Cut forth!"

Tyle cast his spell. Blades of winds extend forth and cut the rest of the harpies before they could attack. All but one of them was sliced in half by the magic blades, but my other friend was already on it. From above the harpy, you could see his slightly large body as he slammed his axe on the harpy's face and dragged it down to the ground.

*Splat *Boom

A crater is formed at the tip of Scorch's axe with the disfigured harpy lying flat on the floor. How he managed to get that high to hit the harpy? I may never know, and honestly, I didn't really care right now as I continued to sprint to the north gate. 

As I was running, I gave Tyle a thumbs up, and he responded to me with his own thumbs up. We soon arrived at the north gate only to see a whole bunch of people bunched together at the exit. Most of them were cowering in fear.

I jumped above the crowd to see what the commotion was about. At the end of the crowd, were a bunch of monsters blocking the exit, and a group of adventurers who were currently clearing the way to make a path for the civilians. They were trying their best, but it was going to be a while before they could make a path out of the city.

*ROAR!

I looked towards the skies and saw the lone stream dragon flying around, zaps of lightning trying to intercept it but the dragon agilely dodged every zap coming towards it. The dragon retaliated by breathing fire towards the locations of the lightning zaps. 

The people in the middle of the city were probably trying to attract the dragon's attention. Make sense, if one of that building size fireball were to hit the area, all of us would be toast. Literally.

Turning around, I saw other adventurers making a perimeter to defend the gate from monsters creeping up from behind. Steeling my resolve, I quickly sprinted to one of the weaker looking perimeters. My friends saw me and immediately followed my lead. I charged towards a wave of monsters to buy time for the adventurers at the back of the gates to clear a path for us.

 

* * * * *

 

We fought and fought and soon enough exhaustion had started to consume us. 

Adventurers and other fighters were beginning to fall one by one. Starting with the weak ones, then the careless ones, and soon even the strong ones started to fall against the relentless assault. The perimeter got smaller and smaller until it was just only a handful of adventurers left.

The sword I'm holding felt unnecessarily burdensome, Tyle had already run out of whatever mana he has left, and Kranis had long run out of arrows and started to fight using his daggers. We were pretty much on our last legs. 

*Swoosh

I swung my sword to cut down a black boar that was being held down by Scorch, but the sword bounces off its thick hide. My sword was completely blunt at this point, and the handle has now gotten quite loose due to the amount of punishment it has handled since the beginning of the day. 

Saying goodbye to my trusty sword, I grabbed the sword with all my might and stabbed down onto the boar's eyes. It tried to struggle against us, but it soon lost enough blood and fell. 

I made a mental note to remind myself that If we survive this, I'm getting a better sword that's more comfortable to use, one that doesn't cause bruises or calluses on my hands.

"Hey hey hey... No way..." a random adventurer lets out a voice of disbelief.

Just as things couldn't get any worse, a gigantic troll could be seen walking towards the perimeter slowly. The sound of its menacing steps grew louder with every step he takes towards us.

"Oh... no... " "We are all going to die!" "What is this?!" 

The adventurers and civilians alike all screamed in panic.

Trolls are well known for their large size and peerless regenerative abilities. It takes quite the amount of B and A ranks to take down one of these things.

But... This isn't any normal troll... 

It's a 'King Troll'. Basically, a more intelligent troll that knows how to swing a sword. The crown on its head denotes its status.

Not even a whole raid of A ranks can fight this thing and come out unscathed.

Nearby and around the king troll, one can see several monsters standing by. The troll then pointed its sword towards us, the monsters beside him, as if following its orders, started to charge at us.

Not willing to give up and die, I quickly searched around me to find a weapon, any weapon! While it pained me to desecrate the dead, I continued to search through the corpses of fallen adventurers. But before I could find one, a wolf monster came close and attacked me.

As the monster was in the middle of its plunge, time seemingly slowed down. I could hear the voices of my friends, screaming out my name. I could see the wolf's large jaws as it aimed for my exposed head.

I could see everything. But, my body... It couldn't move, or rather, my body was moving too slowly, not fast enough for me to prevent the beast from ending my life.

"Urghh" I struggled to move my arm, but just like the event that happened earlier today, it simply won't move, it seemed like this was the limits of my body.

...

So... this is how I die huh... A shame... I wanted to explore the world at least...

I slowly watched as the wolf's jaws came closer to me, waiting for my life to end.

"Cobalt Izuna!"

At the end of all things, a familiar woman's voice rang out in the surroundings.

*crash!

A black figure suddenly crashed landed in front of me, crushing the wolf that was lunging at me. It was the woman I met earlier today. A plain one edge sword pierces through the wolf's head, the sword embedded in the ground.

Blue coloured light started to shine from beneath me. No, it was coming from the tip of the sword that the woman was holding. The blue light on the ground moved towards the monsters in front of us and started to split and continued to split into new strands, each strand of the light going towards different monsters.

*crash

Blue pillars of ice appear from beneath the ground and pierced through the nearest monster.

*crash *crash *crash

As the blue light spreads, more and more ice pillars appeared and more monsters are pierced by the pillars. The next thing I know, a whole bunch of monsters got impaled by the ice pillars. The pillars forming a defensive wall that prevented more monsters from coming near. 

Even the king troll, which is renowned for its regenerative abilities has two pillars of ice that pierced through its knees from its legs. It screamed in pain, not being able to heal its wounds while a physical object is obstructing it.

It was then, that time started to move normally again. The first thing I heard was the shrieking sound of the king troll in pain proceeded by the sound of my friends calling out my name in worry.

*Shing

The woman took the sword out of the ground and ran towards the king troll.

"Wai-" I tied to shout, but my voice didn't come out fast enough, the king troll had already swung his sword towards the woman.

But what I saw was beyond belief. The woman just stood there and deflected the massive sword from the troll towards the ground with nothing but her bare hands and that plain-looking sword of hers.

The King troll screamed in anger as tries to lift his sword for another swing onto the woman, but the woman grabbed onto the sword and together with it, flew up to the skies. With a spark, she instantly landed, or rather, crashed on the troll's face and smashed its face with her sword.

*Kapow!

A loud, snapping sound could be heard as the troll screamed in pain. Madden with rage, the king troll swatted his hand onto its face, probably planning to crush the woman. The plan backfired as the woman made another jump to avoid the hand and the troll proceeded to slam its own face with its hands.

*Kapow!

Another loud snap could be heard as the woman slammed her sword on the troll's face. She then raised her sword again and then proceeded to smack the troll's face, again, again, and again... 

Relentlessly smashing the troll's face with her sword as if it was some sort of hammer, each strike bought the troll closer and closer to the ground until finally a loud snap could be heard and the troll falls over backwards as if it never had a spine.

A loud thump was heard as the king troll fell to the ground. The woman, still on the troll's face, raised her sword one last time and smashed the troll's face. Blood oozes out of the now unrecognisable face of the troll.

I could only look in awe with my jaw dropped. In just a few seconds, she slew dozens of monsters and instantly killed a disaster level threat.

"fuuuu" The woman let out her breath as she looked over towards my direction. Her azure eyes darted around to analyse the situation before ending towards me.

Her attention quickly shifted upwards towards the skies, as the stream dragon flew above us, a strong gust of wind rustles the north gate.

"Tsk" An annoyed tone could be heard from the woman as she quickly made a jump to the nearest building and climbed it in rapid succession with a series of acrobatic feats. She then started to run on the rooftops, chasing after the dragon which was still roaming in the middle of the city.

"Wa-wait!" I tried shouting at her, but it seemed that she had already left before my voice could reach her.

I just stood there in a daze.

"You okay there Ride? Tyle said as he taps my shoulder.

"Yeah... just a bit overwhelmed," I said back.

Tyle then held out a sword in front of me, probably looted from the dead nearby.

"Come on. It seems the guys on the other side of the gate finally managed to secure a safe path. We still got to escort ourselves and the civilians out of the city."

"uh, yeah," I said as I took the sword out of his hands still in a daze.

I looked in front of me, ice pillars forming a wall of sorts. It won't prevent the monsters from getting through or finding a way around it. The pillars were not even that tall, the monsters could probably jump over... but it did buy us some precious time that we desperately need.

I slapped my cheeks with my hands and pumped myself up for the challenges ahead. I then turned around and started to run towards the gate, outside of the burning city of A'bell.

I touched the area of my hands that felt sore. Damn that woman is hella strong, what the hell!