by Okina Baba
A cheer rises throughout the lobby.
Most adventurers can only dream of owning a magic sword one day.
“All right! Now, get out there, you lot!”
As soon as the guild master gives the order, the adventurers all head out to find and eliminate the ogre.
It’s a huge crowd, and all of them are adventurers experienced enough to be trying for a magic sword of their own.
No matter how strong this ogre might be, I doubt it can simply fight its way out when up against a mob like this.
“All right, Gotou! Let’s see which of us comes out with a magic sword!”
“Yeah, right. It’ll obviously be me.”
Bantering lightly, Regg and I head out to search for the ogre, too.
The magic sword is the main goal.
But I guess I can avenge the brave folks the ogre killed while I’m at it.
“This isn’t happening.”
How did we arrive at this current situation after that triumphant charge?
Adventurers flee in every direction.
An explosion coming from below blows the lower halves of several unfamiliar adventurers right off.
Some who managed to escape that fate were instead pierced by a flying sword or caught up in the resulting explosion.
Exploding swords? What in the world is happening?
The same scene unfolds all over the battlefield.
“No one said anything about this!”
Does the monster have more than two magic swords?!
I’ve never heard of an exploding magic sword.
And who would ever expect that it would have so many?
The ogre that’s creating this hellscape has taken up camp among the trees, pulling out magic swords that are thrust into the ground around it and throwing them one after another.
With each sword throw, an explosive boom echoes, and the number of adventurers decreases.
A massacre.
This is a massacre.
“Aaaaah!”
Hearing a desperate battle cry, I turn to see Rukusso holding his bow at the ready.
“You damn fool!”
I curse at him without thinking.
It’s obvious at a glance that Rukusso could never defeat this ogre.
I doubt his arrows will even leave a scratch on that beast.
Besides, how daft do you have to be to yell out before you attack someone?!
Rukusso looses an arrow.
But just as I expected, the ogre dodges the shot easily.
Then it pulls a sword from the ground and flings it toward Rukusso in clear retaliation.
“Tch!”
Clicking my tongue, I fling myself between Rukusso and the oncoming magic sword, swinging my own sword up to block it.
“Gah?!”
As soon as my blade deflects the magic sword, it explodes.
Damn, that hurts!
The shock wave sends me flying backward.
Dammit!
So they explode even if you parry them?!
My arms…seem to be intact.
I’m covered in blood, but I survived somehow.
“Urgh…”
But while I’m fine, Rukusso was still close enough to get caught up in the aftermath of the explosion.
His stats are lower than mine, so even though I’m the one who took a direct hit, he seems to worse off.
“You all right?!”
Of course he’s not all right, I snap at myself as soon as the words leave my mouth.
Anyone can see that the boy lying on the ground is anything but all right.
He needs treatment right away, or he’ll die.
“Damn you!”
But as if to prevent that, the ogre raises another sword aloft.
If one more of those exploding swords hits us, even if I survive somehow, Rukusso is as good as dead!
“Aaaaargh!”
But the thrown sword gets blocked before it reaches us.
“Regg!”
“Gotou! Take Rukusso and get out of here!”
Regg deflected the exploding sword just like I did and is now covered in wounds.
“I’ll buy you some time! Go!”
“Regg! Regg, wait!”
Heedless of my cry, Regg charges toward the ogre.
Another sword flies toward him, and Regg disappears in the explosion of flames.
“Reeeeegg!”
Even as I shout, I gather up Rukusso and start to retreat.
As I glance back one last time, I see the ogre’s sword slicing off Regg’s head.
“Dammit! Dammit all to hell!”
That day we tasted utter defeat.
THE OGRE’S MAGIC SWORDS
What have I done? What am I trying to do?
If you asked me to summarize my old life in a word or two, I wouldn’t know how to answer.
It’s probably the same for a lot of people, right?
By most standards, I was still pretty young when my life ended, but I still don’t think it was short enough to be summed up with a single word.
But if you asked me whether it was a good life, I don’t think I’d be able to nod.
“Kyouya, you’re a pretty stubborn guy, aren’t you? Keep that up and you’ll miss out on some of the best parts of life.”
The person who told me that was Shun, one of my high school friends.
One of the only friends I’d made since starting high school, he’d occasionally whip out sharp observations like this that cut right to the heart of the matter.
Our other friend, Kanata, was generally better at reading the room, but Shun had the ability to see right through your expression and catch of glimpse of the deepest parts of your heart without breaking a sweat.
I tried my best to act the part of a quiet, normal kid in high school, but I guess he saw through that…
Up until high school, I led a pretty rough-and-tumble life.
It all started when I was in kindergarten.
A bunch of older kids were trying to hog all the playground equipment, so I tried to chase them off on my own.
We’d been playing on the equipment first until these older kids suddenly showed up.
I put up such a fight that I made one of the older boys cry.
In the end, a teacher stepped in before the fight escalated any further.
But then she got mad at me, as if I was the one to blame.
Why did I get in trouble for doing the right thing?
At the time, I didn’t understand at all.
Looking back, though, I get it: Because I picked a fight, the other kids who were playing with me got caught up in it and got hurt.
Some of the kids my own age ended up crying, too.
The ones to blame for starting everything were definitely the older kids who had shown up and tried to take all the playground equipment for themselves. I have no doubt about that.
But was it right for me to pick a fight with those kids?
I’m still not sure.
But I think that was the moment when I first learned that my sense of right and wrong didn’t necessarily match everyone else’s, although I only vaguely understood that at the time.
After that, I still stuck to my own beliefs about what was right.
Even if that meant using my fists, which it often did.
In elementary school, I stopped bullies.
In middle school, I beat up boys who tried to shake down younger students for money.
I could go on and on listing these examples.
The more I acted on what I felt was right, the more others distanced themselves.
I found myself with fewer and fewer allies and more and more enemies.
By the time I graduated middle school, people in the neighborhood had given me the nickname “little ogre.”
I think it was because I was so short at the time.
All I was doing was what I thought was right, but nobody else seemed to see it that way.
In fact, they all
seemed to think I was in the wrong.
So when I started high school, I picked a place that was a little farther away from my neighborhood and decided to be on my best behavior.
Just like that, my days became almost laughably peaceful.
As long as I turned a blind eye and pretended not to notice certain things, it was easy to live as a normal high schooler.
But once in a while, I found myself wondering: Am I really all right with this?
I played video games with my friends, stressed out about tests, thought about what to do after graduation.
As I lived out this normal high school life, a certain gloominess settled in the back of my mind.
Just like Shun said, I was being inflexible, missing out on life.
What does it really mean to be “right”?
Which course of action should I take if I want to do the “right” thing?
Looking back now, I can see all too clearly that worrying about such things was a luxury.
Once I’ve defeated all the adventurers, I let out a sigh of relief.
At the same time, the strength leaves my body.
I must have built up a considerable amount of fatigue without even realizing it myself.
Unlike the fights in my old life, these life-and-death struggles are incredibly stressful, as you might expect.
No wonder I find myself slumping to my knees as soon as the battle is over.
Still sitting on the ground, I heave a long sigh.
A burned smell surrounds me: not of wood but of flesh.
As well as the metallic stench of blood.
Looking around, I see the corpses of adventurers strewn everywhere.
Holes in the ground, created by the explosions, tell of the ferocity of the battle that just occurred.
I used up all the magic swords I had on hand.
Now I’ll have to make more.
Weapon Creation. That’s my unique skill.
This skill, which I’ve apparently had from birth, allows me to conjure up weapons at the cost of MP.
Depending on the amount of MP used, it can even add special effects to the weapons.
As a result, I can create what’s known as magic swords.
The first time I noticed that this skill existed was during dinner in the goblin village.
There were no forks or knives in the goblin village, so we normally ate with our hands.
It happened when the meat from the day’s hunt was on the dinner table.
It was so tough, I found myself wishing from the bottom of my heart that I had a knife.
Just like that, a flash of light filled the little room, and in the next instant, there was a knife in my hand.
It was a lot shabbier than the kind of knife I’d been picturing, but it was still unmistakably a knife.
Mysteriously, a knife had just appeared from thin air.
We didn’t know how it had happened until we used the village chief’s Appraisal Stone, the only one in the village.
The results showed that I had the Weapon Creation skill.
Once we learned that, my daily life changed ever so slightly.
I produced as many weapons as my MP would permit.
All I wanted was to be of some use to the village.
Unfortunately, since I had so little MP at the time, those shabby knives were about the best I could produce.
And making one of them used up all my MP, so I always had to wait for it to recover.
Even so, everyone in the village was grateful, since it gave them the ability to cut up the food they’d previously had to eat with their hands.
I was so happy that I kept making knives whenever I could.
Continuously making knives meant that my skill level went up, my MP pool increased, and so on, until I was able to make a proper kitchen knife.
I would’ve liked to make forks, too, but as the name implies, Weapon Creation can’t make anything but weapons.
I was probably able to create table and kitchen knives only because they’re technically usable as weapons.
Small knives, kitchen knives, and later, large knives that could be used to butcher meat.
After that, I moved on to short swords.
Then I was finally able to make proper long swords.
Gradually, I became able to make better, stronger weapons.
Until then, the goblins never had the means or resources to craft good weapons, but that changed dramatically thanks to my Weapon Creation skill.
Soon, they were able to defeat monsters they could never best before, greatly expanding the area in which they could hunt and explore.
That meant more supplies of meat and more resources that could be gathered.
My power was helping everyone in the village.
I was so happy and proud that I devoted myself even more intently to Weapon Creation.
Thinking back, that was probably the most fulfilled I’ve ever been.
The more weapons I made, the more my skill level increased, which let me make even better weapons.
And better weapons meant a better life for everyone.
What could be more worthwhile?
I now have far more MP and higher skill levels than I did at the time, so the amount and quality of weapons I can make doesn’t even compare to my abilities back then.
I couldn’t add special effects to weapons in the past, either.
I’m growing more and more.
But that isn’t fulfilling to me at all.
How can I be happy about making weapons used to kill people?
I once made weapons to defeat monsters for the sake of our livelihood, but now I make weapons to kill humans.
Though I’m making weapons in both cases, there’s an enormous difference.
…Then again, I guess a weapon is a weapon.
That much doesn’t change.
However, the way you use it changes its nature profoundly.
I’m using these weapons to kill people now.
I guess that’s the only difference.
That’s not the purpose I honed this skill for, but here I am.
I gaze at my surroundings again.
The broken earth.
The remains of adventurers, blown away or cut down.
Some of them are still in one piece, but many more are unrecognizably mangled.
It was the magic swords I made that did this to them.
Land mine swords.
As the name implies, they’re magic swords with a similar effect to land mines.
Usually, magic swords use the wielder’s MP to produce effects, so they’re used continually until they break.
The same is true of the two swords I use as my personal weapons, the flame katana and the lightning katana.
But land mine swords are different.
I preload them with plenty of my MP when I create them.
Then all their stored energy is unleashed at once when they explode.
Magic swords are supposed to be used over a long period of time, so if you imagine all that power coming out in a single moment, you can guess how intense that would be.
Still, it’s not as if the power they have is actually all that impressive.
Since they don’t have a wielder providing MP like most magic swords, they become one use only in exchange for an extra bit of kick.
Considering the amount of MP it costs to make them, regular magic swords are probably a lot more cost-efficient.
Still, the one-use-only swords are definitely more powerful, and the fact that they can be used without spending MP is a huge point in their favor.
And since I have only two arms and can therefore wield only two magic swords, the land mine swords are a lot more useful.
Once they’ve been set, they explode on their own as soon as someone steps on them.
All I have to do is create the land mine swords and set them in the ground.
There’s only one of me, so obviously I’m at a disadvantage whenever I’m outnu
mbered. That’s why I developed the land mine swords.
I can set them up as traps to help level the playing field.
The best part is, the more magic swords I make with Weapon Creation, the better my skill level gets.
With a higher skill level, I can create even better magic swords.
That means it’s in my best interest to create as many swords as I can, but like I said earlier, I can wield only two swords at a time.
Even if I insist on equipping myself with more, like you might in a game or manga, it’s not like the extras will do me any good.
And since I’d prefer not to let the magic swords I make go to waste, creating one-use swords that can be used from a distance was the perfect solution.
By that same logic, I also developed exploding swords for throwing along with the land mine swords.
These aren’t that different from the land mine swords, but the most attractive feature is that I get to choose who to attack and when.
At first, I thought I’d try making guns or something, but it seems that my Weapon Creation skill can’t make modern weapons.
Blades and bludgeons are no problem, but I can’t make anything that uses gunpowder.
So I developed exploding swords as the next best thing, and they turned out to be incredibly powerful.
Since they’re swords, my Swordsmanship skill boosts their attack power, and my Throw skill increases the accuracy and impact, so being hit by one already does a lot of damage.
And since they explode on top of that, they’ve got more raw power than even the land mine swords.
In fact, they’re even more lethal than guns.
The only difficulty is that, unlike land mine swords, I have to actually throw them myself, so I can’t use them if the target is outside of my throwing range.
But I can make up for that by using them in combination with land mine swords.
I place land mind swords all around me to make it difficult for enemies to get too close, and if they manage to do so, I can just throw an exploding sword at them.
The land mines create an invisible wall of defense, and the exploding swords are my battery.
In a way, I guess that makes me a living fortress.
Still, both land mine swords and exploding swords are consumable resources.
After they’ve been used once, that’s it.
My land mine sword defenses and my exploding sword offenses both have a limit.
