200 Episode 199-Unknown Emotions-.txt






"Hey, brave man! They're coming your way! Don't be a dick!

You don't tell me what to do!


He raises his voice without looking back at the brave man who is breathing hard and kneeling.
The brave man shouts depressingly and stands up.
Was he ever this immobile?
I shook my head, thinking that far.
Come to think of it, this might be the first time I've fought with this guy.
No, not maybe, it's the first time.
In the Kantinen Labyrinth, I was hiding in the back of the pack against this guy fighting in the front line, and in the Minotaur battle, this guy had lost the use of both arms and dropped back into the wards before I arrived.


'Kyousuke! Don't scratch the corners that are material!

I'll be there!


Currently, me, the hero, Kyousuke and Jiel-san's combat unit are collecting materials needed to cross the continent as requested by Noah.
I've heard that Amaryllis, who is a connoisseur, and Amelia, who had some spare time, will take care of the relatively safe materials that are not herbs or demons, so our job as a combat team is solely to procure the materials that are collected from demons.
However, this is not such an easy thing to do.
This is the forest closest to the demon territory.
The demons in this forest are more powerful enemies than the demons in the lowest level of the labyrinth.

For example, the demon that looks like a boar with a big horn on its head that we're being attacked by a herd.
It is literally a wild boar, and when it sees us coming into its territory, it thrusts its horns out, holds them low, and comes towards us in a straight line.
If they skewered us with those big horns, we wouldn't be able to survive.
In fact, the tree with a trunk so big that even my arms can't hug it, which was at the end of the demon's encounter, came loose from the root due to the impact of the horns' sting.
The demon easily pulled out the large tree that was still stuck in the horn with a shake of its head and looked at me again.
Perhaps because of the method of skewering its prey, the force around its neck seems to be strong.
I can see through that quick rush, but what about the brave men?


''Akira-kun! We'll be the bait and create an opening, so please drop your head!


I've been thinking about what to do about it, when Jirr-san called out to me.
When it comes to giving orders to people, Ziel-san, who served as the deputy commander of the Order, is more experienced than me.
I've been training in the castle since I was training there, and I haven't seen this kind of cooperation since the night and Amelia can do whatever I want without me needing to give them my support.
That's probably why Ziel-san asked me to finish it.
I'm the one who's the least used to cooperation among these people and the one who can defeat this demon.


''All right.''


Thinking that much in a split second, I'm going to use 'hiding signs'.
If we don't have to work together, then there's no reason for me to show up.
I guess I'm gone and I can see where I need to move, but the suddenly mobile heroes, Kyousuke, and Jiel-san have driven the demons to a place where the trees are in the way of their maneuvering.
The rest is my job.


''Shadow Magic'' -- Activate. 'Kagekagome'


Our shadows, the shadows of the trees that block out the sun, gather at the demon's feet and draw a basket of shadows.
A demon of this size would be enough food to last for a few days, but now that we have a stronghold and don't need it, I mercilessly shred the demon to pieces.
After the shadows receded, a mere chunk of meat sank to the ground.


'Hey, the horns are ......!


The brave man raises his voice, as if in a panic, but when he sees the horn I'm holding in my appearance, he shuts up.
Of course, I haven't forgotten about the ingredients.
This is what I saved just before I used the shadow magic.

After the battle was over and I made sure there were no other demons around, we relaxed our shoulders.
The smell of blood, along with the smell of death, filled the area, probably because of the shredded pieces.
We'd better get the hell out of here.


'Well, now you know, Akira-kun. It seems you are fatally unsuited for coordination.


I scrape the bark from a nearby tree to remove each of the bloodstains from my sword.
It would actually be best to wipe them with a soft cloth before inspecting them, but it would be awkward to use a clean cloth in a place like this, and I couldn't carry around anything with blood on it.
This inevitably led me to use tree bark or wipe it off with a cloth that looked like the clothing worn by the rare humanoid demons that appeared.
Ziel-san said while catching his rising breath.
I nodded at his words while taking out a reasonably sized magical stone from the shredded demon.
Even if my profession level was the best in this, my experience with coordination is not.


''A tacked-on linkage wouldn't be able to compete with the demon race that you alone struggled with.


Kyousuke calmly adds to that.
Well, Kyousuke was right.
It's not quite on the level of Mahiro, but it didn't stand a chance against Aurum either.
Trying a partnership that isn't aligned with an opponent that can't even win on its own is just suicide.
Don't forget, this place is the closest place to the Demon Race territory.
It's not necessarily true that the Demon Clan's abominable magicians aren't here, and if there's that much magic in the first place, there must be one Demon Clan that can fly.
It's a good idea to reduce as many enemies as possible before entering the demon tribe's territory, but if they don't meet each other, that's fine.
When I was vainly thinking about that, perhaps she misunderstood that I was depressed, Ziel-san followed up with me.


''Well, after hearing about Akira-kun's experience in combat so far, I knew it would be difficult to coordinate. Linking up isn't necessarily an advantage. Simply increasing the number of moves is good, but if the rhythm is broken even a little bit, that alone could be fatal to the entire party.


Even if that was the case, if there was even one soloist, then we would have avoided being wiped out, I felt a cold sensation run down my spine as Ziel-san said with a smile on his face.
I feel that there is a difference in values between the genuine people of this world and us.
I don't want to die either, but I can't make a plan that takes the lives of the brave men and women into account to save me alone.


'But the most important thing is for all of us to survive. You can't be allowed to not be able to coordinate at all, either.


I frowned at the preachy brave man's words.
I know I have to work together, too.
But I have no idea what Kyousuke was thinking when he was in that position, or why Ziel-san attacked at that moment.


'Well, for now, let's keep it like that for now. I'll have to get used to your moves, too, or we won't be able to talk about it.


I said that as I pushed away and turned my back to the three of them.
Would I have been able to make the same move back then if I had stayed in the castle, pleading my innocence to the end?
I never thought that I had made a wrong choice at that time.
But I'm sure I felt something akin to jealousy at the fact that he was able to do what I couldn't do without even exchanging a word.