NOVEL WEB Chapter 20: Monster Stampede and Everyone in Arms
Author's Apology letter >.<
*Narrators POV*
-TANG TANG TANG TANG-
Bells rang, and tension immediately rose from the expressions of the adventurers guarding the city walls.
The bell just now signifies that the undead would be marching toward the town and we must make sure that no undead would be able to reach the city.
"Everyone in arms!" <Marvin>
Marvin, the leader of the Brave Road party and now the acting leader of the joint unit of the Water Oath Party where Mizusawa Kazue was a member and several of her former classmates came into this world with her.
His reaction was quick and full of confidence, it shows the experience he had of being a leader of a party and a veteran adventurer.
Following his voice, the unit moved according to his instructions without asking questions.
Not long after.
Numerous undead appeared from inside the forest.
Most of them are undead hounds and skeleton soldiers which are considered E-rank monsters.
Kazue looked in the direction of the monsters coming from inside the forest with her sharp eyes.
This was not the first time she saw such monsters but the sheer number of them appearing in front of her made her feel uneasy.
It reminded her of the incident inside the dungeon where she almost died.
Thankfully, since these monsters are only E-ranked means one E-rank adventurer can manage to defeat them by himself.
Kazue did not feel threatened even if she faced 10 of them at once in the dungeon before.
She knew from experience that she could defeat these monsters easily as she was right now.
"Whee~ I still wonder how those skeletons move by themselves" <Shunsho>
Shunsho voiced his thought when he saw a skeleton soldier appear.
His hand shakes as he holds the sword in his hands.
He was quite tense after realizing that he would be fighting this monster from now on.
Kazue also glances at them.
She realized that he said those words to calm himself down.
She wondered if this was the first time they saw a skeleton soldier and undead hounds.
She looked at the faces of her classmates and saw that they had the same expressions on their faces when she fought one for the first time.
Out of her many classmates, only Rio and Shino were unfazed by them while the others are making difficult expressions on their faces.
"Is this your first time fighting an undead?" <Kazue>
"Ane-san asking me if it's my first time sounds lewd" <Shunsho>
Right away Kazue gave Shunsho a deathly gaze after hearing a misplaced joke out of nowhere.
"If you have the time to make dirty jokes then you must be fine, but make that joke in front of me again and I'll cut the thing that makes you say such jokes." <Kazue>
She said as Kazue stared between Shunsho's crotch.
"Uhaha, Ane-san you're too strict... We saw some undead on the way here but we did not have the chance to defeat them since other adventurers defeated them before we even had a chance." <Shunsho>
"hee~ that's why you're afraid huh..." <Kazue>
"Afraid?!!! No, I am not!" <Shunsho>
"Oh, I thought you were afraid since your hands are shaking like crazy. Don't worry those monsters are actually weak." <Kazue>
"Hahahaha! what are you talking about Ane-san? I'm shaking because I am excited." <Shunsho>
She gave Shunsho and her other classmates a smug look and was trying to agitate them.
"Really? hmmm~" good then" <Kazue>
She then shrugged it off and took out her weapon from her waist.
Then Kazue ran toward an approaching undead hound and attacked it.
With one clean swoop of her Katana, she was able to slay the monsters in front of her easily.
She separated the heads of the undead from their body in each of her attacks.
Although undead hounds are weak, just like that a zombie you still have to decapitate or destroy their head to kill them.
She continued to do this without any problem and slew more undead hounds and skeletons on her way.
Shunsho, Eisuke, Hyobe, and Michio standing in a daze as they watch Kazue's back.
They are looking at Kazue with sparkling eyes.
Her other classmates had their eyes wide open while looking at her with an astonishing reaction since it was the first time they saw Kazue fight.
The only time they saw her fight was during the very first training session in the castle.
Her skills back then compared to how she is now are obvious.
Marvin whistled at himself after seeing the raw skills of the girl.
He immediately knew that this girl was very talented.
After all, he knew that she was only an E-ranked adventurer.
And the skills she was showing right now were not.
"Hey! How long are you going to stand there? hurry up and help!" <Kazue>
"Yes, ma'am!" <Shunsho>
Kazue's sharp eyes woke up the other vanguards who were in a daze from watching her fight the undead monsters.
On the other hand, the two other girls Ota Rio and Uesaka Shino are also doing a great job of killing the undead.
Their movements are as quick as that of Kazue.
Rio was using the blade protruding out of her arms to cut the head of the undead.
Shino was using her dagger and odd skills to kill the undead.
The other Francis and Harley two of the members of the Brave Road party started to jump into the fight as well.
They cleaved their sword and spears into the undead.
It seems that these two had no problem dealing with the undead.
Shunsho and his party members looked at each other as they saw that their former female classmates are doing better than them.
"AaaaaRhhh! That's it boys are you letting those girls steal our light on this battlefield? Where's our pride?!" <Shunsho>
"Are you stupid? I need to show Ane-san my improvements. Hyobe! Michio! let's go" <Eisuke>
Hyobe pulled out his bow and arrow and started attacking.
At the same time, Michio also lift his staff and started casting fire magic at the undead.
Meanwhile, Marvin stepped forward in the vanguard and skillfully used his greatsword to defeat the enemy.
Their unit's formation is quite simple at first.
The ones who are capable of fighting heads-on are in charge of the frontline and deal with the undead head-on.
This team consists of Harley <Spearman>, Marvin<Swordsman>, and Francis<Knight> of Brave Road Party, Eisuke<Swordsman> and Shunsho<Knight> of So-Mi-Am-Mi, as well as Keikain<Swordsman>, Naofumi <Swordsman>, and Kazue <Swordsman> are the one's filling this role.
Meanwhile, the ones who are in charge of support and ranged attacks were; Hyobe<Archer>, Vis<Archer>, and Lucas<Ranger> were the Long Range Attackers while Michio <Mage>, Charlotte <Mage>, and Yanase <Mage> are the Magic Attackers while Amy <Cleric> and April<Cleric> are the healers.
The remaining members are in charge of acting as both guards and backups.
They are to back up the vanguards if one of them is having trouble otherwise they are to protect the mages, healers, and archers.
This is role is filled by Grace <Scout>, Rio<Assassin>, Shino<Thief>, and Minato<Tamer>.
Without forgetting their roles everyone in the unit acted as planned.
"Don't let the undead reach the city! Let's go!" <Marvin>
Marvin roared to lift the morale of his party members.
It showed to be effective as the party reacted with a nod or a roar to hype themselves up.
The boys are especially excited and let out louder roars.
Although she was silent, Kazue smiled and was quite hyped as well after seeing the unit putting their hearts into their roles.
She felt as if her sword had become lighter and her heart had begun to pound faster.
[So this is what it's like to fight with high morals huh? It sure is effective.] <Kazue>
In the first hour of the skirmish with the undead, their unit is trying to feel each other out.
Their teamwork was not perfect but fighting while communicating with each other seemed to make it work somehow.
Soon they started to develop synergy with one another as they got a feel of their comrade's abilities.
And with that, they can read and react to each other's movements.
And before they knew it they are moving without yelling at each other unless needed to.
Knowing each other's skills gave them confidence in the person guarding their backs, thus building up trust.
As the battle went on, they can communicate with simple eye contact and gestures.
Not wasting any energy on yelling.
Mysteriously enough they can understand each other.
Despite the difference in personality and fighting styles, the members worked well as one.
It was like their unit had been together for a longer time.
Their unit soon formed a more complicated formation and performed complicated tactics to efficiently defeat monsters such as combining their skills to creatively deal with the monsters with ease.
Marvin, Keikain, and Kazue led the vanguard, followed by the other members of the vanguard unit, it became apparent that these three are strongest among the vanguards.
Marvin is using his greatsword to overwhelm the undead with his large and exaggerated swings of heavy attacks.
Keikain is using his powerful attacks with his shortsword, each of his swings can bring down the undead with one strike.
Last and not least was Kazue who was using her speed and skills to defeat the undead, her movement with her weapon was graceful and eye-catching.
"What the hell is that?!" <Harley>
A yell from the member of the vanguard was heard.
A human-like undead was standing before them, it was giving off a black aura from its body.
A foul stench was coming from that individual undead.
"What is that? A zombie?" <Eisuke>
Kazue wondered after hearing the word zombie.
[Zombie? how come a zombie is here already? There's no way a zombie would appear at this time since they move very slowly. Since other adventurers killed off the zombies in this area a few days ago there should be no zombies around. Did they perhaps miss some of them?] <Kazue>
Kazue shifted her gaze toward it and yelled the name of the monster.
Her eyes opened wide as she saw the black aura enveloping the undead humanoid.
"That's!" <Kazue>
"It's a ghoul, be careful! That monster is quite strong!" <Kazue>
Just when Kazue yelled toward one of the vanguards the Ghoul sensed one of them and attacked Eisuke.
The ghoul moved faster than the skeleton or undead hound and it caught him off guard and began to panic.
Eisuke made a wild swing at the ghoul but his sword bounced off its aura.
He staggered and lost his balance as he was not expecting his sword to bounce off its body.
The ghoul then grabbed onto Eisuke, He was easily overpowered and was pushed back by the undead.
"Gah!! what the hell is this undead?! it's too strong!" <Eisuke>
He was pushed back into one of the trees and pinned to the ghoul.
Eisuke was trying to push off the ghoul with his sword that was in the ghoul's mouth.
"Eisuke!" <Shunsho>
Shunsho ran toward Eisuke to back him up.
Without hesitating he swung his sword toward the head of the ghoul from behind.
Upon hitting the head of the ghoul, his sword made a "thud" sound as his sword came in contact with its black aura.
His sword almost bounced back.
It felt as if he swung his sword into a stone.
"What the?" <Shunsho>
Shunsho was surprised at how sturdy the monster was.
"Move" <Marvin>
Marvin moved toward their direction to back them up.
He kicked the monster away from Eisuke from the side and made Eisuke and the ghoul roll to the ground from the impact of his kick, separating them.
Shunsho immediately ran toward Eisuke and supported him to stand.
Marvin's kick was strong enough to separate the ghoul away.
The ghoul was tumbling to the ground until it hit a tree.
Marvin then lifted his greatsword to face the ghoul.
"Tsk, a ghoul huh... In that case..." <Marvin>
Marvin changed his stance by lowering his center of gravity while carrying his great sword behind his back.
His sword started to give off a faint light.
He kicked the ground to charge toward the ghoul as it was trying to stand up.
Then he swung his sword down into the head of the undead.
His sword is cleaved into the head of the ghoul. The sword was stuck like an ax stuck into a block of wood.
The black aura protecting the ghoul tried to resist his sword but at the same time, the light coming off the sword resisted the black aura.
In the end, the light and the black aura canceled each other but the sword itself found its way into the head of the ghoul.
"That was, aura blade right?" <Kazue>
Kazue muttered to herself.
It was the same technique she learned from Argent in the dungeon.
"As expected from a D-rank huh..." <Kazue>
Kazue was quite disappointed with the fact that she was not the only one who can use that technique.
After all, she thought that the skill that Argent thought her in the dungeon was special to the point that only a few can do it.
After seeing that Marvin was using the same skill, Kazue pouted a little.
"There's another ghoul here!" <Keikain>
Keikain tried to attack it with his sword.
Just like what happened with Shunsho, his attack was not enough to pierce through the black aura protecting its body.
The sheer power of his strike had some effect on the ghoul but not enough to harm it completely.
Keikain did not lose his footing, in turn, was surprised by the fact that the ghoul was tougher than he expected it to be.
"Tsk! This monster is very sturdy..." <Keikain>
The aura was reduced with the force of his attack.
He was expecting his attack to deal a fatal blow to the undead monster, instead, it was repelled.
Because of this, the ghoul found its way to pounce on him, he used his sword to block the ghoul's mouth.
He was not pushed back like Eisuke from a while ago but he was unable to overpower it himself.
"What the heck is this monster? It's way stronger than the ones I face before!" <Keikain>
He kicked the monster to push it back.
At that moment, a shadow appeared from behind the ghoul.
A quick flash of light flickered between the ghoul's neck.
-Swooosh-
"Eh?"<Keikain>
Keikain's eyes opened wide after seeing the head of the undead monster go flying.
Marvin who was running toward them was also having the same look on his face.
The ghoul's body fell lifelessly on the floor, it was like a doll whose strings were suddenly cut off.
Behind the falling body of the monster was the reason for this.
It was Kazue.
Her katana was glowing just like Marvin's great sword when he defeated the ghoul moments ago.
A chill came into Marvin's body from her ally standing behind the fallen undead monster.
Marvin stopped and scratched the back of his head.
"what the heck is that girl? Is she an E-rank? she's as strong as I am or even more. Seriously, this girl who the hell is she." <Marvin>
He looked around.
[Haa~ looking at it closely it's not just her. Did Yanase-chan say that all of her friends were below level 10 and are F-ranked? They are a lot stronger than your typical E-rank.] <Marvin>
"Woooh... That Kazue girl is something else, did she not say she's just E-rank? I think she's as strong as a veteran D-rank adventurer." <April>
One of the healers, April muttered after seeing the girl defeat the ghoul easily.
"Right! Kazue is amazing!" <Amy>
Amy who was beside her replied to her, she looked proud of her friend and party member.
Yanase who was at the rear of the unit's formation witnessed everything from behind.
She gasped at what she just saw and muttered some words in amazement at what she just saw.
"Wow... I knew she was amazing but this... Kazue sure is amazing..." <Yanase>
"I thought that our party was the weird one but it seems that even Kazue's friends find her amazing huh?" <Charlotte>
Charlotte said as she saw the reaction of their new companion on Kazue.
Even those friend who knew her before was shocked to see her in action.
Now she was convinced that Kazue was special.
Author Note:
Hi there.
When I checked to update my work once again after a while. I suddenly realize that more than 2 months had passed?!
I was like, "What the hell? it's been that long since my last update?".
I was shocked myself.
And yes, I would be updating more often but my chapter would be shorter than the first 20 chapters
about 2500-3000 words?
Why? After reading other web novels I found out that shorter chapters are much easier to read than longer ones
I am sorry for the ones reading my novel. I give you shall give you my respect!!!