(Attendances… plz…)
….
There was an unspoken rule in the party, one the trio had come up with mostly for their own pride. It was a simple rule designed to make them feel less like they were taking advantage of Reinhard's insane power.
If the monster was something they knew they couldn't handle, a real threat, Reinhard would deal with it. But if it was something weaker, something they should be able to beat, they would fight it themselves.
Before Reinhard they would just run away from something they couldn't deal with.
Of course, it didn't really matter in the end. Reinhard would let them try, and if they started to struggle, he would step in and end it.
Kaval and Gido were picking themselves up from the ground, brushing dirt and leaves off their armor.
They looked down the path that Reinhard's attack had carved through the forest, their expressions a mixture of awe like always after seeing Reinhard deal with monsters and exhaustion.
Ellen was still clinging to Shizue's waist for dear life, her face pale as if she thought she might still fly away if she let go.
Shizue was the only one who hadn't been knocked over by the blast of wind, but she seemed the most shaken of them all. The trio, after all, had some idea of what Reinhard was capable of. Shizue had not.
She stood frozen, her masked face pointed down the smoking, destroyed path that stretched for tens of meters. She had been a hero's companion. She had decades of battle experience, fighting alongside one of the world's strongest champions. She had seen incredible feats of power, fought terrifying monsters, and witnessed magic that could level cities.
What she had just seen wasn't necessarily stronger than all of those things. But what stunned her, what left her mind reeling, was the fact that he had done it with a dead branch he'd picked up off the ground.
That wasn't a spell, she thought, her mind racing. Not a proper one. There was no chant, no complex magic circle. He just… gathered the magicules into a stick and released it. That's why the only thing that had come out of her mouth was a single, whispered word.
"What?"
The trio was just starting to get their bearings. "Reinhard… just what in the name was that?!" Kaval stammered, staring at the obliterated trees and the vaporized remains of the spider horde.
"You just… poofed them, Reinhard!" Ellen complained, finally letting go of Shizue. "Ever think of using a smaller attack? One where we don't go flying from the aftershock?"
Shizue slowly turned her head, her eyes, hidden behind the mask, fixed on Reinhard. "That wasn't a magic spell," she stated, her voice quiet but firm. "I felt the magicules from the surroundings gathering at the stick… but it wasn't a spell. What was it?"
She was even more surprised by the others. They weren't shocked that he could do it, just annoyed at how he did it. In her mind, that could only mean one thing: they already knew he was capable of this.
Reinhard gave her a small, polite smile. "Haha… I'm glad you guys liked it. But It's just a little something passed down from my family," he said. The answer was both perfectly true and completely unhelpful.
It was a basic technique for a Sword Saint. He had simply gathered the ambient magicules, channeled them through a temporary medium aka the stick and then unleashed the energy in a controlled blast.
The fact that the medium was a branch was an irrelevant detail. For him, performing that attack was as simple as a normal strong knight swinging a sword.
"And this 'little something' was always that strong?!" Kaval asked, his voice still shaky.
"But I didn't use its full power," Reinhard replied calmly. "Only what was necessary to clear the knight spiders." Not wanting to explain every little detail, he just gestured down the newly-created path. "Well, the way is clear now, isn't it? We should probably keep moving."
The trio didn't argue, and Shizue remained quiet. It was clear to her now. The others had seen this before. They weren't surprised by his power, only by the scale of it this time.
An unnecessary thought popped into her head as they began to walk again: were the trio just using this boy for his power? But she dismissed it just as quickly.
Someone with Reinhard's strength wouldn't be foolish enough to be used by three adventurers who were, no offense, a bit stupid.
They walked down the center of the path Reinhard's attack had carved. On either side, the stumps of what used to be massive trees smoked and smoldered. The ground was scorched black.
Shizue walked in silence beside Ellen, Reinhard and the others behind them. She kept thinking about what he had said.
A little something passed down in the family? What kind of family passed down techniques like that?
The idea that he was just some noble's son playing at being an adventurer was completely gone from her mind… not that she had proof of that.
Her thoughts unconsciously drifted to other possibilities. Like was he a secret weapon from the Kingdom of Blumund? A summoned Hero? But alongside the confusion, there was also a small, quiet sense of relief.
With him here, she wouldn't have to use her own power to fight. She was safe, at least for now, from tiring herself out and losing control.
….
…
..
.
As the sun began to dip lower in the sky, a new smell reached them on the wind. It wasn't the smell of burnt wood or damp earth. It was the smell of a campfire.
"Smoke," Gido said, and then pointed out, "Up ahead."
"It could be other adventurers," Shizue stated.
They approached cautiously. The idea of running into other people out here was almost as strange as running into monsters.
As they got closer, they heard the faint, rhythmic sound of hammering and the murmur of voices. They pushed through a final line of bushes and looked out into a large clearing.
What they saw was not what they expected.
It wasn't a simple campsite of someone else. It was a village, being built from the ground up. A crude but functional wooden fence was being raised around the clearing. Inside, small, rough-looking huts were arranged in a neat circle. And the people building it all… were goblins.
Dozens of them. But they weren't the scrawny, disorganized creatures the trio was used to fighting.
These goblins were working together. They looked healthier, stronger. Some were muscular hobgoblins, and there were even bustling female goblins helping with the work.
"What is this?" Kaval whispered, completely bewildered. "A goblin village? Here? Since when do goblins build like this?"
Before anyone could answer, the hammering stopped. The murmur of voices died. In a matter of seconds, the entire clearing was silent.
Then, from the trees on either side of them, more figures emerged.
They were goblins, but these were different. They weren't as muscular as the ones building the huts, but they wore better armor and sat astride massive, gray-furred wolves that snarled, their yellow eyes fixed on the party.
They moved with a disciplined, practiced speed, fanning out and surrounding them in a perfect circle, their spears pointed inward.
The party was trapped.
A goblin with somewhat of a carefree and stupid face on a wolf trotted forward, stopping a few feet in front of them. He looked them up and down, then spoke casually like asking a friend something.
"What are you humans doing in our village, sneaking around like this?"
….
A/N: So, How was it?! First of all send power stones to support this fic lets cross 1000 power stones today. Second, i'm too lazy to say anything or go into details… but rimuru reunion with reinhard is coming.
And i'm also thinking of seperating reinhard from the trio after this, and then write just his solo adventure where he will get most of the screen time. So vote below:-
Q: Should we separate Reinhard from the trio?!
-yes
-no
Next two chapters are already on my discord.
Melatonin, spawn and many more on my discord … thanks for beta reading this fic and not to mention suggestions too.
Hoped you all liked the chapter and all.
And if you want to read ahead you can do it by just joining my discord server.
&
you can join my discord server: https://discord.gg/5Y7uZ2kN2Y
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