“Oh my! When wondering who might be coming this way, it’s an awfully rough elf?”
The male demon raised his voice while casually brandishing the large sword in his right hand.
It seems that for him grasses and soldiers have mostly the same value.
The goblins and orcs as well, although it will be fine if they escape the range of the man brandishing his large sword, they are chased by the elves’ attacks while stepping into the attack range of the man unbeknownst. Committing such foolishness, they fall to the ground and are cut into several lumps of meat in the blink of an eye.
“You don’t make any distinction between elves and humans either? Aside from having a huge body, the intelligence of demons is low, I guess.” (Renya)
Halting before he enters the attack range of the large sword swung by the demon, Renya laughs scornfully at the demon’s words.
While being basked in the sword’s wind which is tinged with the scent of iron rust, Renya closes his eyes partly and looks at the demon’s figure.
The proof for that is him sometimes finishing the goblins’ bodies by a style of beating them to death rather than cutting them since the blade movements aren’t especially precise.
Only its durability appears to be quite something. It’s properly bearing the strain although the demon is swinging it with all his might.
“Huh? Human!? Why is a human fighting together with elves on the elven continent?”
“I guess some idiot picked a fight without sensing the mood when I tried to come here on a pleasure trip.” (Renya)
Once Renya replied that with a sullen expression to the demon, who is surprised as if seeing something strange, the demon stopped to brandish his large sword and raised a loud laughter after shouldering the sword.
“You are an unfortunate fellow! To die at your destination!”
“It’s not like it’s particularly decided that it’s my side that is the unlucky one, now is it?” (Renya)
Renya indifferently returns those words at the laughing demon.
The demon stops laughing as he can’t understand what was said.
“What was that?”
“It’s not like it’s particularly decided that it’s my side that is the unlucky one, is what I said.” (Renya
Putting his hand close to his left waist, Renya continues while drawing his left hand to the katana’s scabbard.
“Having picked a fight at the time when I was here, the stupid demon’s side was unlucky. There is such viewpoint as well, right?” (Renya)
“Haa! When I wondered what you have started to talk about, it’s the utterance of a fool that doesn’t know his own position.”
Did he feel slightly irritated? He draws the large sword, which leaned against his shoulders, and swings it sideways with all his strength in front of Renya.
Though it’s only a half step, there’s no way for Renya to retreat due to simple wind pressure.
Apparently that being mixed into the sword’s wind gives birth to physical pressure.
“Do you believe that something like a human can oppose us demons from the front?”
“Well, I wonder about that?” (Renya)
Due to Renya’s evasive answer, a vein surfaced on the demon’s forehead.
He’s quite the short-tempered demon, just as Renya was thinking that, the demon made a step in Renya’s direction while tearing off the weeds underfoot with snapping sounds.
If it’s a sideways attack, the rate of danger will rise by stepping in.
The demon’s next attack was a vertical attack.
Once he steps in with his body on the right side, the demon’s attack passes on the side of his body.
The demon’s left flank was directly cut by Renya’s attack, but without the time to ascertain the effect of his own slash, Renya gets away from the demon.
Renya, who safely evaded the demon’s attack, roughly slashes the orcs and goblins close-by and makes blood fly with his wielded blade while opening a distance to the demon.
Without looking at the cut orcs and goblins who fell to the ground, Renya stares at the blade of his own katana.
Shifting his gaze from the surface of the blade, Renya cocked his head in puzzlement while facing into the direction of the demon.
“I believe I cut you without a doubt.” (Renya)
While shouldering the recovered large sword once again, the demon, who turned around in the direction of Renya, shows no sign of being cut.
Renya grumbled that he should have been mowed down unmistakably, but while stroking the area where Renya’s blade hit, the demon observes Renya with a look as if he has seen something unbelievable.
“It’s the black iron armour. There’s no way it will come off with the strength of a human, is what I want to say, but…”
Once the demon removes his hand a deep cut in the demon’s armour, around the area where Renya’s blade hit, becomes visible.
It was a fairly deep cut, but once he looks at the spot, he sees that it doesn’t reach the demon’s body, it was apparent that the armour boasted a considerable thickness.
“Just what are you? There ain’t no way for a human to cause such wound!?”
“That only applies to your knowledge about the human race though.” (Renya)
While using a tone as if he was dealing with an idiot, Renya sent a fed-up look at the demon.
In other words, it was an attack he was quite confident in, but it was thwarted by the armour without even reaching the demon’s body.
This fact makes Renya perceive it as tedious.
In the case that I play it by the book, I got to aim for the wrists and the inner parts of the elbow, which are the joints of the armour, the other side of the knee, the root of the thighs and the area around the armpits, however neither of them is a place that is very simple to aim for.
Anyway, I cannot help but feel that he won’t die even if I send his head flying.
Even if he sent Emil’s arms or head flying; as if being unable to resist it, the image of that demon has left a strong impression in Renya’s mind.
“Earnestly defeating you looks to be troublesome. Demons, huh…” (Renya)
“Defeat? Who is going to defeat who? You bastard!?”
Renya avoids the attack, which is swung down at him after the demon charged in once again, by taking a stance with his legs in an L-shape.
In the instant he avoided the vertical cut, the demon stopped his slashing attack with all his strength and changed it into a sideways sweep.
While widening the distance being overwhelmed by the sword wind clad in mana, he incidentally cuts off the torso of an ogre in the middle of leaping back and kills it in one strike.
“This continuous jumping around is annoying…”
“It’s better than being pointlessly hard to the point of it being annoying.” (Renya)
Renya retorts to the demon who is grinding his teeth out of vexation.
“Tsk, try to exchange blows, human.”
“Don’t say absurd things. Do you think that I’m able exchange blows with his fellow?” (Renya)
There’s a large difference in size between the katana, Renya holds, and the large sword, the demon possesses.
The katana will quickly end up chipping or bending.
Renya was astounded by the stupid request the demon was making, but the demon laughed with a broad grin.
“Then I will have you keep me company in an exchange of blows even if it’s unreasonable!”
Brandishing the large sword by holding it above his head, the demon swings it downwards in one go.
Renya stops moving for an instant as he isn’t able to understand what the demon wants to achieve with a strike that won’t breach the distance at all.
What he heard close to his ears is the voice of Kurowaal.
At the moment he noticed it, it was already too late.
Changing the way he holds his katana into grabbing it with both hands reflexively, Renya stops the assaulting mana blow with his katana.
Renya doesn’t know of its indestructible attribute, however the mana blow scatters in an instant.
“The real one comes here!”
Chasing after his own released blow, the demon charged in and struck a single hit after holding the sword aloft while aiming at Renya, who stopped moving to deal with the mana blow.
Renya clicks his tongue lightly as he had lost any other way but receiving the next strike with the katana.
In the worst case the katana itself will break, I guess.
A tool is to the bitter end a tool. I ought to include the possibility of it breaking in my plans.
Usually, if you slash around the head area like this, it will become the technique called 「Return a headstrike with a headstrike*」 in kendo, but Renya is at that point in time thinking that the katana’s blade has already broken. (T/N: 面返し面 for those interested, I’m no kendo nut, so not sure if I got this one fully right.)
The back of the demon, who became defenceless as he was still dealing with the sinking blow in front of his eyes, becomes completely visible.
The attack itself will be obstructed by the defence strength of the black armour, but the impact of being hit will be transmitted to the back as is.
However, that was an attack which Renya had predicted.
Renya, who has landed, looks at the katana’s blade with unpleasant emotions.
On the the other hand, the demon succumbed to an unbelievable experience once he looks down on his large sword.
The blade of the large sword, which can’t be compared to a katana in its weight and thickness, had developed a crack, albeit only slightly, with a chip in the blade at the place they exchanged blows.
“What the fuck is this? You bastard and that weapon!”
“Well, I don’t have any intention to explain though.” (Renya)
Renya, who changed the katana’s direction by turning it around in his hand, returns it to the scabbard temporarily.
The katana returned to the scabbard without showing any kind of resistance.
“It’s not warped either, huh? That’s quite the durable katana… a different world correction?” (Renya)
“What kind of unknown nonsense are you muttering about?”
The demon says in irritation, but based on the immediately following restart of the battle, his body’s movements have become considerably dull.
Renya, who confronted him, concluded that there was zero damage to the katana’s blade due to the exchange just now by drawing the blade several times in and out of the scabbard.
I absolutely don’t know how this works, but as reality is reality, I should simply accept it, Renya judges.
“So, that means…” (Renya)
Smoothly unsheathing the katana which was in its scabbard and preparing it in both hands, Renya mutters that.
“Let’s have an exchange of blows, just as you wished, in the second round, demon?” (Renya)
“I won’t allow the likes of humans to make fun of me!”
While breathing roughly, the demon sent forth a slashing attack without dropping the power of the attack and this time Renya likewise met that by attacking with a full power slash.