I Became a Veteran Heroine in a Harem Story

“Wh-what, what is happening!”

Everyone couldn’t help but think that way. First-years, third-years, even the instructors.

From the city side where not all students had returned yet, screams and shouts could be heard, and in the garden in front of the lodgings, the gate was pulsating, fully opening its dark and cold innards under the moonlight.

Moreover, some of the Kobolds that had jumped out of the gate were running toward the lodging building. Bewildered by this unprecedented situation, the instructors opened the armory of the guard, which was used in emergencies, along with a small number of security forces.

“In-instructor. We want to help too.”

“Squad leaders, step forward. We’re short on weapons anyway. You! Tell all the students to lock their doors and stay in their rooms!”

It was the instructors’ job to step up in emergencies, but now was a time when even a cat’s help would be useful. The instructors hurriedly went out to the garden with senior squad leaders who had even a little actual combat experience.

‘Still, if it’s at the level of Kobolds, students can somehow handle them. If we fight well, everyone can be safe. I, I need to lead well.’

The instructor at the front gritted his teeth as he gripped his sword. It was sudden, completely unexpected, but he had to fulfill his duty as an instructor anyway.

“Combat will begin immediately! Everyone prepare… huh?”

But when they arrived at the garden, they were confused by the sight they hadn’t seen before. Someone was preventing the Kobolds from running to the lodging building.

It was none other than four students. The instructor was shocked to realize only after seeing the armbands on their arms that they were the Student Council students he had left at the main gate.

“Q-quickly help! Hurry!”

When he, who had become urgent at the thought that it would be his responsibility if they died, shouted, the guards and students ran toward the Kobolds.

The guard’s shots activated the spell embedded in the magic stones, firing magic bullets, and the Kobolds fell as they were hit. Only then did they turn their heads toward them.

‘Is this right?’

‘What exactly is going on?’

But even until that moment, the students couldn’t hide their bewilderment. It wasn’t because of the sudden battle they faced.

The reason they were so confused was that the urgent attitude of the instructor and the situation unfolding before their eyes were somewhat different.

Even the Kobolds that had attacked didn’t have expressions of heightened anger and momentum upon discovering new enemies. Rather, they had faces that showed they knew their situation was becoming worse with their appearance.

“Kiina.”

The culprit of all this was ultimately due to just one person.

‘No weapons, yet how are we supposed to fight?!’

When the Kobolds targeted them and charged right in front of them, Eric, with a pale face, completely forgot that he had learned martial arts and faltered with trembling legs.

During his first year, he had gone outside for practical training and passed the tests, but in reality, he had only performed light duties, assisting skilled knights and carrying weapons.

This was the first time he had faced a monster trying to kill him without weapons, with bare hands.

He knew it was too late to run away, but his head and heart were operating separately.

The others were the same. Only Karin, a mage, was weakly resisting by using magic.

“—!”

“–, —!”

However, the Kobolds ultimately couldn’t pounce on them with broken morale and brutally kill them.

One person stepped forward and began to beat the Kobolds with just two fists.

The Kobolds naturally rushed at her concentratedly, but with the sound of something breaking and tearing, and blood splashing, Kobolds with crushed faces or broken limbs were rolling on the ground.

“What the hell is this?”

The students, including Eric, watched Kiina’s back with trembling eyes. Her movements, with her hair and skirt fluttering, were disciplined and skillful.

As if familiar with such one-against-many battles, without even her weapon, the spear, she was methodically taking down the Kobolds—which were by no means easy magical beasts—one by one with careful and powerful blows, using only her bare hands and martial arts.

‘I can’t use all my strength here. Fortunately, they’re not particularly strong opponents one by one.’

After deflecting an enemy’s spear aimed at her chest with her arm, she kicked, crushing its jaw and head, and the moment her foot touched the ground, she immediately raised her opposite knee, twisting her waist to shatter the face of an enemy trying to stab her side.

Almost simultaneously, arrows targeting her vital spots flew.

Kiina, who dodged by moving her head with an impossible body reaction time or deflected with her mana-surrounded arm, picked up a Kobold’s sword she had taken and threw it, splitting the head of the one who had been shooting a crossbow into two pieces.

All of this happened in a truly fleeting moment. The overwhelming force of someone who knows that in a one-against-many situation, one would be at a disadvantage if not accurately subduing the enemy.

By this point, both allies and enemies could realize that the being blocking them now was an opponent that would not be easily broken through.

“They’re hesitating… Are they afraid!?”

“They’re not afraid, they’re about to get serious. How long will you just watch? Are you trying to avoid even a fight you can handle?”

When the Kobolds, recognizing Kiina as a formidable opponent, stopped rushing recklessly after losing several of their kind and retreated for a moment, Kiina rebuked Karin, whose voice had risen, mistaking that the monsters were afraid.

Though it was directed at Karin, it was also meant for the seniors. Only then did the cautious seniors pick up the weapons dropped by the Kobolds on the ground and join Kiina’s side.

“That one, it must be a Kobold Warchief. A Kobold Warchief is said to be on par with a regular knight.”

Meanwhile, Eric pointed with a trembling voice at a slightly larger Kobold that had been standing still and watching them without stepping forward until now.

When Kiina glared at it after hearing those words, sure enough, the creature showed interest in Kiina, flickering its tongue, and stepped forward with a sword.

‘The mana infused in the sword… I can’t block it with my current body. If I get slashed, it’s over.’

Kiina frowned as she recognized the power residing in the Warchief’s sword. Though she was rapidly growing through experience and her own training methods, the base was still the body of a lady who had been fearful and frail despite her talent. It was impossible to fight like her past life, where she had fought like a one-person army.

‘Then I just have to not get hit.’

However, Kiina smiled faintly and ran forward to face the Warchief. The Warchief also roared at her appearance, raised its sword at an angle, and narrowed the distance in one breath.

“This is insane! This is madness!”

“Just run, if Kiina falls, we fall! Cast magic! Karin!”

The students had no choice but to fight alongside Kiina. If she fell, they would too.

Their task was to stop the other creatures while Kiina faced the enemy leader.

“You know how to handle a strong sword. But it only has meaning if it hits, right?”

“—!”

The Kobold Warchief was bewildered when its horizontally swung sword merely grazed her collar as she leaped into the air.

Regardless, her heel, after somersaulting in mid-air with leg strength surpassing human limits, was already rushing toward the back of its head.

‘At my current level, this is quite a formidable opponent.’

A strong shockwave erupted from the back of its head. But even with its brain shaking and blood spewing, the Kobold Warchief awakened its beastly instinct and charged at her again with its sword as she landed.

Kiina extended her fist toward the advancing Warchief. Though it had erased the pain with its ferocious wildness, its brain, already damaged, blurred its vision and dulled its sword.

“—!”

The creature, letting out a scream-like howl, literally began to get beaten by Kiina. Now, the Kobold Warchief became a real battle opponent for her, filled with killing intent and hatred, something that had been hard to find until now.

‘Indeed, I’m still more familiar with fighting.’

Her body felt lighter as her senses revived. Though the level was incomparable, at least the killing intent and hostility emanating from the enemy weren’t much different from the enemies she had faced in her past life.

“Kyahak…”

As a result of its sword missing again, swung with a mind close to desperation, the creature staggered, spewing broken teeth and blood after getting its face hit hard by her elbow.

Thanks to this, its chest was clearly exposed. At that spot, where it wore a proper breastplate made of beast leather, Kiina once again inserted the technique she had used to block the Minotaur’s attack.

Condensed mana wrapped around her arm, twisting her bones and muscles with pain so strong that they seemed about to break and tear.

In exchange for that, the explosive power burst forth as if a powerful bullet had been fired, piercing through the Kobold Warchief’s body and brutally crushing whatever was weakest in its path.

“Over there!”

It was at that moment that reinforcements from the lodgings rushed toward them with gunfire.

“Don’t let your guard down until the very end. It’s not over yet.”

“Ah…”

Having finally taken down the Warchief, Kiina helped her comrades and took down the Kobolds one by one until the reinforcements arrived.