The World Is Mine For The Taking

I looked down at him as he lay crumpled across the floor in front of me.

He was coughing up blood as well, although judging from the way he was breathing and moving, he didn’t seem to be seriously injured. It looked considerably worse than it actually was, so I decided there wasn’t much point in wasting my energy healing him when he could recover perfectly fine on his own.

"You are still alive because I used a wooden sword," I told him while looking down at his state. "You were the one demanding that I use a real sword, so if this had actually been a real blade, you’d be lying there in two pieces right now."

Technically speaking, I hadn’t even used the sword to put him down.

I had used my foot instead.

Still, that small technicality didn’t really change the point I was making, especially since the result would have been considerably uglier if I had actually been holding a real weapon during that exchange.

"Kuh..." he muttered through clenched teeth, clearly struggling to swallow his frustration.

He seemed genuinely frustrated about losing, which I could understand considering how badly the fight had gone for him.

He had probably imagined that being summoned as a hero meant he would remain undefeated, especially after everything he had probably been told about his role and importance in this world. Unfortunately, being called a hero didn’t magically turn someone into an unbeatable warrior, and reality had a pretty nasty habit of reminding people about that whenever they became too confident.

At least he hadn’t reached the point where his pride completely blinded him.

He was still inexperienced in practically every area that mattered during an actual fight. His movements were still rough around the edges, his instincts hadn’t fully developed, and he lacked the experience necessary to understand how different real combat could be compared to ordinary training.

Still, I couldn’t exactly blame him for that.

He was only starting out.

"If you’re frustrated about losing, then keep that frustration with you instead of trying to throw it away," I told him while keeping my gaze fixed on him. "Don’t pretend that losing doesn’t bother you, because that feeling can actually become useful if you know how to handle it properly."

I paused for a moment before continuing with my advice.

"Remember how it feels to lose against someone stronger than you, and use that feeling as motivation to train harder. Keep imagining yourself becoming strong enough to surpass me someday, because if you can turn that frustration into determination, you’ll eventually become much stronger than you are right now."

"I... I understand," he replied quietly, although his voice still carried some of the frustration he was feeling.

Well, at least he seemed to understand what I was trying to tell him.

He didn’t look particularly bitter about being defeated, which was honestly better than I had expected from someone who had been given the title of hero.

He certainly wasn’t arrogant enough yet to let a single defeat completely crush his pride, and I supposed that was something worth appreciating.

If anything, it meant he still had plenty of room to grow.

"Now then, who’s next?" I asked while turning my attention toward the two people who were still waiting for their turn.

Morishita and Kaori were standing nearby, watching everything that had happened without saying much.

Morishita was the first one to step forward.

She seemed quite different from the people who had gone before her, and even the way she approached me felt noticeably different from what I had seen from the others.

She slowly reached for the sword at her side and unsheathed it with a calm movement.

There wasn’t anything particularly flashy about the motion, but somehow, that made it feel more serious.

Morishita had always been rather eccentric back then, so apparently being transported to another world hadn’t managed to get rid of that part of her personality.

Some things apparently followed you across worlds, and eccentricity seemed to be one of them.

Still, I didn’t consider that much of a problem.

If anything, her strange personality probably suited the kind of fighting style she seemed to have developed.

"You specialize in what?" I asked her while studying her stance.

"Close-quarter combat," she answered without hesitation.

Her response was short and straightforward, and she didn’t seem particularly interested in explaining anything beyond that.

Honestly, I couldn’t blame her.

If she intended to surprise me during the fight, revealing everything about her abilities beforehand would have been a pretty terrible strategy.

She probably wanted me to figure things out for myself.

"All right, then," I said while adjusting my stance slightly. "Begin whenever you’re ready."

The moment I finished speaking, Morishita disappeared directly in front of me.

She was fast.

Really fast.

For a brief moment, I actually wondered whether she was even faster than Sakai, because the speed she displayed was considerably higher than what I had expected from her.

After watching her movement for another moment, I decided that she probably was.

Her presence also became strangely difficult to follow whenever she accelerated, almost as though her existence itself became blurred whenever she moved at full speed.

It reminded me of the kind of movement I would expect from an assassin.

Fast movement. Quiet movement.

Movement designed specifically to make it difficult for an opponent to determine where the next attack was coming from.

Still, her speed alone wasn’t enough to catch me completely off guard.

I could follow her general trajectory despite how quickly she was moving, and while her movements were fast enough to overwhelm most ordinary opponents, they weren’t quite enough to make me lose track of her entirely.

Her abilities would probably work extremely well during a war, especially against ordinary soldiers who lacked the speed and awareness necessary to react to someone like her.

The bigger question was how well she could actually fight once the battlefield became chaotic.

Speed was one thing.

Knowing where to move, when to attack, and how to adapt when everything around you started falling apart was something completely different.

A battlefield wasn’t a training ground where both sides politely waited for their turn.

People attacked from every direction, allies could suddenly become obstacles, and enemies could appear from places you weren’t expecting.

Someone could be incredibly skilled in a one-on-one fight and still become completely useless once dozens or hundreds of people started fighting around them.

I wanted to see which kind of fighter Morishita really was.

I didn’t have to wait long to find out.

Morishita suddenly appeared directly in front of me, and her sword immediately came swinging toward me without the slightest hesitation.

She didn’t pause. She didn’t waste time trying to intimidate me.

She simply attacked the moment she reached striking distance.

I couldn’t sense any bloodlust from her, and there wasn’t any obvious intention to kill me either, but the sheer power behind that single attack was enough to send a chill down my spine.

What a frighteningly quiet killer.

She wasn’t trying to make herself look intimidating.

She wasn’t shouting.

She wasn’t making some dramatic declaration before attacking.

She simply moved in, swung her sword, and trusted her ability to finish the job.

That kind of person could become considerably more dangerous than someone who constantly announced how strong they were.