When I listened to the conversation between these five bandits from behind a wall that stood alone and was probably part of what used to be a building, I became sure that they were only a group of five. Now that I didn't have to calculate the behavior of other bandits who might suddenly appear, I prepared to start the attack, or rather the rescue operation.
I was perhaps a bit reckless in wanting to attack them directly, after all, they were a group of bandits who weren't afraid to kidnap people. Maybe it was stupid to look at the swords hanging from their waists and think I could easily crush them with magic, but that's just me, that's who I am. I'm confident in fighting, and there's a teleportation skill at stake.
Just in case, I waited until the bandits gathered together and shared the gold from a gold bag. The little girl with pink hair had been left, bound hand and foot, in the corner of a wall in the ruins. When I saw the bandits all gathered in a small area, I knew it was my turn to play.
I was about to use a powerful high-level spell to kill all 5 bandits at once when I remembered that I was only 4 years old and that I had a secret no one knew.
Of course, the secret was that I was a powerful sorcerer at the age of four.
Even though I thought I could kill 5 bandits with one spell, I didn't want the little girl in the corner, who was trying to sneak away by freeing her hands, to see me using magic. So I stood there for a while, waiting for the bandits to notice her behavior and knock her out again, but my expectation bore no fruit.
As time passed, I got tired of waiting and tried to come up with an alternative plan, because there were still things I had to do, however trivial they might be...
In the end, the only alternative I could think of was to use the six-star sword technique I had acquired in the past to defeat the bandits.
A few days after I first acquired this sword technique, I had practiced it a bit, thinking it would give me some exercise, or rather, I had repeated the basic sword swings written on the first few pages.
Attacking the bandits relying only on that much swordsmanship would probably be suicide. So I secretly activated a high-level cursed field spell to weaken them.
The black magic circle, which only a person who could see the energy called mana would be able to notice, was laid out to cover the entire ruins, centered under my feet. Using the only cloth I could find in my storage space, I covered my face, leaving my eyes uncovered, and with slow steps I emerged from behind the wall that, despite having lost all its friends, stood alone as a universal symbol of loneliness.
It wasn't possible for a little girl who had been kidnapped by a group of bandits to remember in detail the eyes of a masked boy while she was terrified. Probably...
[Congratulations, you have a new side mission
Mission content : defeat the human traffickers
Mission reward : 20 types of mid-level holy magic
Mission penalty : falling into the hands of the bandits and being sold as a slave after being tortured for a while (system recommendation, perfect for a fun time)
Note: even if the bandits are strong compared to you, you can easily defeat them in your current state. Probably...]
Heh, fucking system, are you kidding your master?
[Sir, I don't write the missions and I don't write the notes. I'm just someone who wants to help you.]
I'm kidding, kidding.
After taunting the system, I felt my nerves relax, and without further ado I began the operation.
"Yare yare, how unbelievable that a few pieces of garbage dare to kidnap children. Ahh ahh, it wasn't like this in my time, the youth is gone!"
I was thinking about how embarrassing the exaggerated expressions I'd used to hide my identity were, but when I heard the words of the man who seemed to be the leader of the bandits, I realized what real embarrassment was.
"Hey, boy, I know you want to play the hero, but we are royal agents, and this girl is the princess of the enemy country. We had to kidnap her to prevent a war. Now go back and pretend you didn't see anything. And if you ever run into a real band of bandits, you should at least pick up a sword."
Seeing the bandit leader's demeanor as he lied so blatantly reminded me how big the world was. Being the most shameless man in the world was probably a position I would never reach, but he was right about one thing: I really hadn't taken a sword from my storage space, because the only sword in there was a wooden one I had made myself.
Not that it really mattered. I'd already had plenty of street fighting experience in my previous life, and I'd even learned the techniques of stealing an opponent's blade from watching TV. My confidence that I could beat them was based on the speed the bandits had run at through the town.
"You bandits seem to have enough swords already. Why should I bother carrying unnecessary weight with me?"
"Apparently you still think we're a bunch of bandits... Hufff, I never thought that one day I would have to get my hands dirty with the blood of innocents for the honor of this kingdom. There is nothing we can do..."
When I saw the bandit leader, who thought he was Napoleon, standing with the sun at his back and his sword planted on the ground, looking sadly up at the treetops, I started grinding my teeth in annoyance.
Just as I was about to curse him out, the pink-haired little girl luckily got rid of the magic cloth in her mouth and shouted at me.
"My name is Shizune Vi Ironblood! I'm the youngest daughter of the Ironblood family. They're lying to you! My father will reward you if you save me, peasant boy. Go find Alberto and tell him where I am!"
The girl had said so much in just a few seconds that I was momentarily confused and tried to process the information I'd gathered. As I kept watching her in confusion, I felt a bandit sneaking up on me, but I pretended not to notice.
A person reveals their greatest weakness when they think they've succeeded.
When the bandit was close enough, I performed the knife-stealing move I had tried many times on the streets in my previous life.
Suddenly, I turned my body around, leaning on my left foot, and kicked the back of the bandit's feet with the heel of my free foot. The bandit couldn't react to my sudden movement, lost his balance, and fell to the ground.
I quickly climbed on top of him and hit him hard in the face with my fist, and when he fainted, I took the sword from his hand. The full version of the street-style sword-stealing technique was thus complete.
The moment I picked up the sword, a sensation I hadn't felt before spread through my whole body, and I realized in a split second that the basic sword swings written in that book were not basic at all.
The other bandits started taking me more seriously when they saw me take down their friend with one blow.
When the next bandit, on the leader's order, began walking toward me with his sword raised, hundreds of weak points on his body, as if he were an experienced swordsman walking toward me, jumped out at my eyes.
------- a few seconds earlier
A mysterious book, lying forgotten in the grass of Yuto's spatial storage space, rose into the air the moment Yuto picked up the sword. Its first few pages turned into molecules of light, flew to the center of Yuto's storage space, and disappeared into thin air.
As the floating book fell to the ground, the writing on its cover glowed for a brief moment.
THE INVISIBLE SWORDSMANSHIP OF THE SWORD EMPEROR -
Outside the space, Yuto had also undergone a change he wasn't aware of at the time. Without realizing it, he looked at his opponent with a sharper and colder gaze, and had involuntarily shifted his position to put the sun directly behind him.
Thinking he was going to beat up a small child, the bandit attacked without noticing the change in Yuto. Enjoying the calm that filled him, Yuto slowly took a step forward and swung his sword lightly but swiftly.
Yuto's swing met the sunlight at such an angle that, in the bandit's eyes, the sword Yuto held seemed to be only a handle with no blade.
The bandit's plan was to use his physical superiority in the first clash of swords with the boy in front of him to knock the boy back, then quickly recover and cut off the head of the now unarmed boy.
The bandit may have looked like a fool, but he had made a precise and logical plan to make the best possible move, and he hadn't even underestimated his opponent. But alas, fate is a merciless opponent.
As the bandit's field of vision lowered along with the upper half of his own sword, he realized a truth: this was not the story of 12 friends who risked their lives to fulfill their dream of getting rich...
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