Just as the guy who lost his arm thought he was going to be torn open and killed, a blue streak flew in front of him and skewered the dog-sized insect that had been about to kill him. A second later and it fell over frozen solid in a block of ice. Before he could breathe a sigh of relief the pain in his arm and a voice calling out to him snapped him back to reality. "Don't ease up yet, retreat first!" It was Rebecca who had barely managed to sneak a shot through the encirclement and save the guy. Of course she would have a trump card or two she'd save up. However internally she cursed herself for wasting it, she had let her emotions get the better of her and had acted without thinking.
"Everyone stay calm!" Lance shouted as he did his best to stand up and stumble his way back. "Close the encirclement quickly while the enemy is distracted with the losses! Ricky go get the others, even if they aren't fully rested!" He gave out orders as he tripped his way closer, however unfortunately there were many enemies slowly closing in on him. Of course they wouldn't give him a chance to slip away after so much effort was put towards killing him.
Owari cut through three more support insects and glanced around to judge the situation. He had actually already taken out most of his enemies and the last few were currently frozen after the attack Lance had used which seemed to have stunned a lot of the main forces. Only a few insects were still fully functional, though more were waking up by the second. Owari was no strategist, and he certainly wasn't a leader. All he could do is make a judgment based on his intuition and what little he knew about the people here. He knew he wasn't charismatic enough to convince these people to listen to him so all he could do was act how he felt he needed to in order to achieve victory.
Without hesitation he turned and rushed toward the train car to his side and jumped, balling himself up and turning himself midair to face towards the frontline as he landed on the top edge of the car. Using all his leg strength and some of his recent improvements to his body control, he launched himself full speed towards Noel. He had done these things so quickly that by the time he had just jumped from the train most people were starting to realize what happened and Lance had only just finished speaking.
Owari's speed was by far his greatest advantage and was the thing he had focused on the most in his life of training. In less then a second Owari went over nine meters and reached his target. A dog-sized insect was charging at Noel who had gotten distracted by the changing events and who had only just been about to counterattack. However Owari shot over her head and transferred all his momentum into his moth wing strike to kill his speed while nearly bisecting the insect horizontally and at the same time sending it flying backward. He could feel his arm go numb and heavy but he couldn't worry about that.
"Hey, you can stop swarm types using that weird droning ability right? Go help Rebecca and Lance, they're being targeted by those smaller bugs. I'll deal with this group, order that servant guy to take over for me on that side." Owari did his best to summarize his thoughts and swung his sword to remove the last traces of numbness in his arm to no avail. His left arm wasn't much better off seeing as how he had heard it snap earlier, so despite having trained to be 80% as effective with his left arm as his right it would be dangerous to use it now or he'd risk breaking it for sure.
"Got it." Noel immediately agreed and got to work carrying out his orders. She trusted Owari quite a lot given that he had saved her life. Plus what he said made sense to her, and so there was no reason to waste time arguing.
She ran over towards the direction of Lance and Rebecca who were thankfully a bit close to one another. Noel crossed her arms together and rubbed her gloves against each other as she pulled them apart. Suddenly a very short high pitched screech rang out that stung everyone's ears. However it also caused all the insects to stumble as they lost their sense of balance. It wasn't as powerful as the droning, but it did buy Noel enough time to send a shockwave out and rush over into range of Lance and Rebecca. As soon as she was close enough she stopped and pressed her gloves together to create the droning. "I can't do this forever, you'll need to hurry and sort things out." Noel directed this statement to Rebecca. "You should hurry to the back and get safe. It'll be too big a blow to morale if you die now." This was directed at Lance. "Erikson, take over that area. Stop holding back or you'll be punished severely when we reach the city. This is the final push." That last one was towards the older gentleman.
Rebecca nodded and pulled her bow up and started to shoot arrows out to help everyone retake control of their areas and to retreat safely. Lance mustered up what little strength he had left and stumbled over to one of the back liners who rushed out to meet him and carry him back. As for the older gentleman Erikson, he gave a very annoyed expression before he swung his glaive above his head in a circle and whipped up several blades that pulled the insects around him away from the train car and slicing them. After that he started to spin his glaive continuously sending out blades that would fire out and cut any insects who entered a certain range of him.
Owari glanced over and saw this, he only shook his head. Erikson didn't seem at all tired by using this technique so he could have easily helped quite a lot more up until now. He had purposefully held back and likely gotten a lot of people hurt just because of his vanity and belief that he was better than everyone here. However Owari could see that if this was the extent of his abilities that Erikson was probably just as dead as the rest of them if they failed to hold the front lines. Some people were just too stupid to live, and Erikson seemed to be one of them. The fact he got to his current age shocked Owari to no end.
Everyone immediately set to work salvaging the situation. Owari stood in front of a group of four cat-sized insects who were clicking at him. They all launched at him at once, but he easily took a stance and cut two in half while knocking two back. He was a bit annoyed that he had failed to kill all four, but his arm was too drained so he could only injure them. Soon enough though everything was back under control as Lance gave orders from behind the back lines and Rebecca managed to cover everyone's retreat. The circle closed in more, but with Owari, Rebecca, Noel, Erikson, and a couple of other decent hunters they were easily able to hold off the remaining insects.
Noel used a sound wave to knock the swarm away and got to work holding back the front line in Lance's place. Meanwhile Rebecca backed up and simply acted as support for anyone who was struggling. Erikson only stood in place and cut up anything that tried to sneak in on his side. The other two people held off the side across from him, one was the woman who had treated Owari, and she played more of a support role for a guy with a longsword who wasn't much older then Owari and Noel. Meanwhile Owari would just kill anything that tried to sneak by him or that thought of trying to circle around to flank Noel. They soon fell into a balance of sorts and time quickly passed as the resistance they felt dropped sharply. Clearly the hive mind was trying to judge if it was worth continuing this. It had already expended a lot in this venture, and it could only choose between calling it off and salvaging what it could or going all in and hoping to either get something or take the humans down with it.
Time ticked by and eventually before the hive mind could come to a decision, everyone heard some sounds coming from the area close to Erikson. Soon some of the rubble piled near the front of the train started to get knocked aside and light shined through. Some voices were heard and a hole was burst open from the rubble. Owari and everyone else felt some relief as they retreated and lowered their range of combat to give room to the stronger fighters coming to rescue them. In a few moments, about half a dozen people entered with various weapons and before Owari could really observe their skills, all of the insects fled in terror as they started to be minced, burned, frozen, and all other ways of being killed one could imagine.
He could only vaguely see the people swing their weapons to send out mana infused strikes that rapidly approached and wiped out a number of insects. One guy in particular held a saber in his hand, and with a single swish of his wrist ice coated the ground freezing everything above it regardless of how far off the ground it was. Everywhere he swung a path of ice would coat the ground, ceiling, and far wall where his blade had been aimed. Owari did his best to observe each of their movements, not letting himself miss a moment even as he continued his own fights. He would likely never get a chance to so safely observe such high-level attacks for a long time if ever.
In the blink of an eye the enemy scattered and all the train crash survivors were finally able to relax and stop fighting. A lot of them simply collapsed on the spot and some even passed out. Owari swung his sword to remove some of the sludge sticking to it and then inspected it. A few moments later he sheathed it with a relieved sigh. The blade was quite dull and was basically no better than a bar of steel, but the material proved to be quite durable and he could easily return it to working condition by restoring the edge. Luckily all of the damage to it was light scratches which were mostly superficial. Although the metal was among the lowest quality of mana infused metals, it was still worlds above ordinary steel and Owari wouldn't be able to afford anything like it with his current savings. This sword was actually his most valuable possession.
After ensuring the safety of his weapon, Owari carefully considered everything that had happened. Those insects might have seemed like a natural disaster, but in truth each one could only be considered a mid-level iron rank magical beast. As for the swarm as a whole it would be considered a high-level copper rank or low-level silver threat. The group he was a part of could be considered a mid-level copper rank together because they could survive for so long with so few losses. However individually most of them were merely high iron rank to low copper rank. Of course all of the back liners were more like low to mid-level iron rank.
Owari was personally closer to the high iron rank than the low copper rank. Only people like Lance, Rebecca, Noel, and Erikson, were on that level, of course Erikson was probably much higher. While Owari might have seemed to be on par with them because he fought alongside them, that wasn't actually the case. If he were to face any of them in a one on one fight he would have zero chance of victory. Mystic arts were simply too powerful. Owari couldn't dodge Lance's electricity, and even if he could try and force his way through the paralyzing effect, it would still injure him a lot not to mention the powerful attack he unleashed that fried all the insects around him at the end. With Rebecca even if he was confident that he could dodge and deflect arrows reliably, her ice could just shatter as it passed by and launch shrapnel into him, or she could launch that flash freeze arrow into the ground near him and freeze his legs before turning him into a pincushion.
As for Noel, not to mention the techniques she had to interrupt balance, her ability to smash a hole in the exoskeleton of those insects with her fist meant he couldn't even risk blocking her fist with his sword. As for dodging, she can release shockwaves in an area around her that seems to be able to damage internals so that wasn't even a guarantee either. As for Erikson, Owari couldn't even see his wind blades and would have to rely on intuition and the feeling of the wind changing direction that would come from his attacks, which he didn't even know what the signs would be for which directions. As he thought all this and did some calculations Owari realized just how disadvantaged he was due to his lack of a mystic art.
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As he sulked a bit Owari made his way towards the train car, but before he got there someone blocked his path. It was the woman who had treated his wounds before. "Where do you think you're going off to kid?" She asked him with a smile. However when she realized he was looking at her wondering what she meant she laughed and shook her. "They set up an emergency first aid tent. They're treating the injuries, go get your wounds checked."
Owari glanced over and saw that a white tent had shown up by the newly dug out exit with a number of people dressed in white doctor apparel rushing between some people who had walked over to be checked on. He shook his head lightly as he watched this. "My wounds will be fine, I'm not dead yet so it should be fine. Medical fees are expensive so I'll pass."
"They probably aren't charging, that's quite the pessimistic view you have." The woman couldn't help but sigh. "Well whatever, I was just letting you know. I'm not your mother so I don't plan to argue with you about getting a checkup."
Owari simply nodded at her once and prepared to walk past her. She didn't bother to stop him and just shook her head as she prepared to go get herself checked. However Owari was stopped only a few steps once again. This time it was Noel who showed up in front of him. "Are you not going to have your wounds treated?" She seemed a bit confused as she asked this. She knew he was injured and she was bewildered as to why he didn't immediately go to have them looked after.
Owari sighed before responding. "I just explained this, why do people seem so much more worried about my wounds than me? Well, I guess it's better than nobody caring. Anyway, I'm not paying some expensive medical fee to be told that I need rest and some bandages." Owari waved off the whole thing, if he hadn't had any problems so far what more could a doctor tell him that he didn't already know?
"I do not believe that is how injuries work. However if you are truly worried about the payment I could help you." While she expressed doubt about his views on medicine, she didn't hesitate to offer her help.
"I'm not interested in handouts." Owari immediately refused.
"It isn't a handout, I do owe you my life after all." She justified.
Owari raised his eyebrow at this and asked with some amusement. "So a few wounds and medical fees are worth the same as your life?"
"That was not what I had meant, I merely meant that you could see this as me paying back even some of that debt." She gave a slightly embarrassed smile as she tried to fix the misunderstanding.
"That isn't the best way to see this. When it comes to a debt like that you could probably spend the rest of your life doing little things here or there and never feel like you did enough." Owari hadn't really thought she meant to repay the entire debt just like that, but he did find her reaction interesting. She was definitely quite a sheltered girl.
"You cannot expect me to simply leave this debt unpaid my entire life though right?" Noel asked with a very dubious expression, she really seemed bothered by this whole debt thing. At least she wasn't ungrateful, but Owari wasn't really all that bothered with it. He hadn't saved her to get something from it after all.
"With stuff like this it's best to just wait until the opportunity arises and pay it back all at once. Who knows, I could find my life in danger one day and you could pay me back then right? I don't really have an interest in using your money or status just because I happened to save someone with those things. I already explained why I saved you and it had nothing to do with that stuff." Owari felt quite drained after talking so much, he never liked explaining things much unless he had to.
"I suppose what you say makes sense. I'll just have to wait until the opportunity arises then." She didn't seem too happy with this, but after she thought about how it gave her an excuse to keep in contact with him she quickly changed her mind and felt it wasn't so bad. "By the way, since you were using this train was your destination perhaps Leviathan City?" Owari was a bit surprised that she suddenly decided to make small talk right this moment, after all she had just mentioned getting wounds checked out and he knew she was definitely injured.
"Yes that was where I intended to go." He didn't say anything about it at the moment though. He was curious to see what she wanted. He may not be the sharpest in terms of social cues, but he could see she wanted to ask him something.
"As an independent hunter I take it that you intended to work from there in the near future?" She asked with a little hesitation, afraid that her question was a bit too personal. However she was relieved as he nodded calmly to confirm. "That's quite the coincidence, I myself will be there for the coming years for my training and to act as the representative for my family. Perhaps we will have more chances to meet in the future." She smiled as she spoke, and even Owari could tell something was off about her sudden interest in him. However he didn't really care enough to think about it, it wasn't bad to have friends.
"It isn't really all that coincidental. Only three types of people in our generation would take that train. Those like me, those like you, and those only stopping by as they go to another city for the reason you are coming here. However I wouldn't mind it if we ran into each other again." Owari was as honest with his thoughts as ever and simply said what was on his mind, however he didn't forget to respond to her properly at the end.
Noel gave a sheepish smile as she realized what he said was true. She coughed into her hand to dispel the feeling before finally getting to the point she seemed to want to. "Since the train had been destroyed it will be some time before the rail is ready to be used. Until then it will probably be quite hard to find a way to the city. If you would like then when my family comes to get me and bring me to the city you may join me. While it will still take a few days to arrive, it won't be much slower then the train." By this point she had finally reigned in her embarrassment and got used to the strange feeling she got while speaking with Owari and had gained some confidence. She wore a fairly calm smile as she asked this.
Owari carefully considered things as he listened to her offer. If he were to wait for the train to be fixed he'd have to wait five days minimum to ride the train again. If he pressed for it he could have his ticket compensated and have the railway operators pay for him to be brought to his destination in some other way. But even the fastest way he could think of would still take about a week to arrive. He had only been three days away from arriving and the sooner he arrived the sooner he could start working. As for her claim that she could arrive in three days, he believed it. Just by flashing her family crest on whatever vehicle they used to transport her the law enforcement wouldn't be all that quick to punish her if they were in a rush. That meant that unlike the busses that travel safely from town to town and have to make numerous stops for passengers, her people could just go straight to their destination without fear of being stopped. As for why they hadn't done that for her in the first place, it was a matter of safety. Not only were trains less likely to crash, but they had more people in case they were attacked so they were generally one of the safest travel options. Unfortunately they had just been unlucky this time. Despite the benefits he could receive by going with her, he still had to confirm some stuff. "Will you be stopping for the night?"
Seeing that he didn't immediately refuse, Noel was overjoyed and responded enthusiastically. "That wasn't the intention. After all the car we will be using is very comfortable so resting inside it is no issue, and Erikson is a capable driver so he will be sitting up front to switch out with the driver when one goes to sleep so we won't have to worry about a tired driver crashing."
"Does that mean we will be riding in the back together?" Owari had a strange look on his face as he asked this.
"That was the intention, is something the matter?" Noel seemed a bit confused by this and wasn't sure what was wrong.
Owari thought of how to explain what he was thinking but he wasn't sure how to do so properly. He wasn't exactly some wordsmith who knew how to say things carefully or dance around sensitive subjects so he knew no matter how he said it his words would be misunderstood or awkward. Since that was the case he just ended up shrugging and biting the bullet. "Doesn't that mean we will be sharing a place to sleep for three days?"
When she heard what he said Noel was a bit stunned, then she thought about a few things and gave a very awkward smile as her face turned bright red. She turned around as she found it quite hard to face him directly. She may be a bit naive and sheltered but even she wasn't that lacking in common sense. Just when she had finally gained some confidence as well, she wondered if she was just bad at this kind of thing. She took a deep breath and calmed herself before turning back around. She would have liked a bit longer to calm down but she was a bit worried Owari would think she was ignoring him. "I don't want you to misunderstand, I was simply offering to help you reach your destination quicker."
"I wasn't really misunderstanding anything. I just thought you didn't realize the implications. Personally it doesn't matter to me to share a space with others, however it probably won't feel comfortable for you to sleep in a small space with a stranger." Owari felt that she had overreacted a bit to what he said, but he wasn't that dense as to say that out loud regardless of his lack of filter.
"If that's the case there is no need to worry. Even if I look this way my family are warriors at heart, I'm not so afraid that I can't defend myself. Not to mention I'll have two well trained guards to defend me." Noel didn't seem at all worried that Owari would try and take advantage of her, though he couldn't tell if that was because she was too naive or just confident.
"If you don't care then it should be fine. I'm curious what you mean by looking like that though?" Owari was a bit confused by her phrasing.
"I meant the fact that I look small and frail. Even if I have a lot of mana because of my condition I don't cut the most intimidating of figures." She chuckled lightheartedly as she said this. Owari couldn't tell that she had come to terms with this, like how he had come to terms with how his own sickly appearance would make others underestimate him.
Hearing her mention her appearance caused Owari to give her another look. He had only briefly observed her, and even though she had left an impression on him he had yet to really clearly commit her appearance to memory. She really was a whole foot smaller than him, and considering his average height that made her rather small. Her hair was pure white, but unlike the greying hair of the elderly it seemed to be quite smooth, though at the moment it was a bit dirty and grimy after everything that happened today. She probably took good care of it, especially considering her family's status. Her eyes were violet which made them look like amethysts, especially with how clear and bright they were. However this was unlikely to be related to her albinism since purple eyes were an entirely different condition that had nothing to do with that, but Owari didn't dwell on this for long since he was only giving her a glance over to commit her appearance to memory. Her skin seemed smooth and without pigment giving her a very pale look. Owari wasn't all that affected by her frail appearance since he was used to his own and had long learned not to judge.
On the other hand he was also unaffected by her charm, although she certainly gave off a frail beauty he wasn't all that interested in that stuff not to mention he had seen said frail beauty shove her arm through a massive insect's head not even twenty minutes ago. As for her attire, there was obviously her gloves, while her actual outfit consisted of a thick black t-shirt with a grey combat vest hugging her chest over top of it. Owari offhandedly noticed the distinct flatness that the vest unceremoniously revealed from her before moving on without lingering. As for her pants it was a pair of thick pants which were tucked into a pair of heavy black combat boots. She was clearly prepared for a fight in this outfit, and despite the dirt and tears on it, and perhaps because of it, Owari felt she fit his previous impression of her which he liked.
"Even if you say you look frail, I saw you tearing apart those insects. I'd be stupid to treat you as such. Besides with that outfit you look like a soldier ready for war." Owari didn't hold back his thoughts and voiced them as usual, thoughts not spoken out will just disappear after all so why not give them some meaning?
"Thanks for the compliments." Noel gave a refreshed smile as she accepted his words. Most girls might not like being compared to soldiers and might not like having their more aggressive sides so openly spoken of, but Noel wasn't an ordinary girl.
As things got to this point a voice came from the side. "Are you truly thinking of allowing this boy to accompany us?" It was of course the servant Erikson who had been there all along. However he had been unceremoniously ignored by both Owari and Noel, and he could no longer hold himself back from announcing his existence. He didn't seem to take kindly to Owari, not even sparing him a glance. Unlike Erikson who looked at others as if they meant nothing, people like Owari who genuinely don't let others enter their eyes if they weren't worth it were the type they had trouble standing the most.
"Since when were you allowed to question my decisions?" Noel looked at him as if he had lost his mind. "Even if you are under orders by my father to keep me safe, I still have some amount of authority over you. You really should check your attitude, Erikson. You haven't been in my family's employ for very long, but just because you were noticed by my father and brought in doesn't mean you are better than anyone else. If you keep acting how you did today you'll be lucky if you don't get thrown off to a branch family member nobody respects in some backwater location. More likely you'd just be fired." Although her words were biting, she was actually holding back to some extent. If she wanted to fully punish him she'd have to wait for her escort to get here since it was impossible to judge how he would respond. If he were to suddenly quit then she would be without protection, and if he reacted violently she would have to request help from the sapphire agency elites nearby which would put a stain on her family's reputation. Personally she was annoyed by her need to hold back, it wasn't her style. She really wanted to grow strong quicker so she wouldn't need to consider such annoying issues.