It was a mess.

Yeah, yeah, I know I’m diving straight for the crux of the matter, but I really can’t say anything else about it.

Ah, right. I’m talking about the heroes’ first dungeon dive as a group. They had gone into lower ranked dungeons before, but as individuals. I tried to get them to work together, but it just didn’t work.

Sure, individually, they are strong. But they seem incapable of supporting each other, for a few reasons. Also, I know very well that some of the heroes are able to work with other people. Like Sarah.

However, we also have people like Harving, who works best alone, Rust, who doesn’t know how to work with others in the first place, and Arthur, who’s just an idiot.

Essentially, the heroes group, while it’s members are theoretically very balanced, and should work really well together, their personalities prevent it, or their lack of experience, as is Rust’s case.

I mean, the heroes have a healer/overpowered mage, a tank, an assassin, an archer, a strategist/swordswoman, another powerful mage, and Gaby, who could really end up filling any role at this point, given how she hasn’t yet committed to one single class like the rest of them have. 

Again, in theory, this group shouldn’t have any problems so early in the dungeon. Especially not in the first ten floors.

Once more, it was a mess.

Selina was restricted to only healing, since I wanted to give the rest of the group a chance to actually fight, and constantly complained about it. Merlin hasn’t figured out how to use his ability effectively in combat, though he constantly has an illusion around him making him look twenty years old, instead of the geezer he really is. Harving doesn’t communicate, often getting in the way of other heroes fighting, just to hit the enemy, and Rust sits off to the side, not wanting to interfere, thinking he’ll mess things up.

Sarah tries to run things, but most of the men feel somewhat insulted by a woman giving orders, especially since most of them come from strictly patriarchal societies, where woman only tend to their families. Gaby doesn’t know what to do yet, especially because she needs some time still—to adjust to this world. After all, she’s come from Earth, which is definably the most peaceful world I’ve ever been to. It has a good society, unlike so many other places where crime, slavery, and wars run rampant.

And then there’s Arthur.

I don’t think he’s redeemable at this point, since he has the most problems, by far.

He interrupts other’s fights right at the end, claiming the kill as he strikes the last, and his only, blow. He runs off on his own, not caring about the consequences it has for everyone else, and he doesn’t contribute with the cleanup. When he makes a mistake, he blames it on everything other than himself, and takes no responsibility. At least he knows how to fight fairly well—better than most, in fact. But only that. He isn’t very special, unless you count his talent of pissing me off in the least amount of time possible. He’s also more misogynistic than the other men, by a long shot. Unfortunately, in this instance, I’m also a woman. So he assumes that he’s better than me, somehow. Actually, no. He is better than me at something. He’s by far more annoying than I am.

How that man became one of the most legendary kings to exist on Earth, is beyond me.

In fact, I asked Merlin about it, and learned quite a bit about the unknown history of earth.

And, learned how Arthur basically became the only person able to become king, even with how unsavory that prospect was. Yes, even Merlin can’t stand Arthur.

While I’m unsure of how to solve the problem with Arthur, I know a very good method of getting everyone to work together as a team. Sarah also knows of it, since it was how we trained, with the other summoned heroes.

Plus, I should have a good enough grasp of my strength now. I shouldn’t hurt them too badly.

The day after the disastrous dungeon run, I brought the heroes outside the city. While I could have used one of the academy training grounds, I’m still afraid of either damaging them, or the large crowd that would be drawn by such a large-scale fight.  

Yeah, I’m going to have the heroes fight me. In a seven against one brawl, they might actually be able to touch me, especially since I’ll be limiting myself to close combat only. No spells.

That would just destroy their confidence, and make Selina even more eager to ‘compare notes’. Which would be a bad idea. I’ve already fought against her once, and was completely destroyed. Though, that had been while she was at the peak of her power, so I would win against her now.

At what cost, is what I wonder. And, I now have a slight trauma against her, due to that single engagement we had. It hadn’t been fun, though we became something like friends afterwards. 

I could hear some people grumbling behind me, as we walked to a large and flat wooded area about ten kilometers from the city. The most notable voices of protest belonged to Arthur and Selina, though she stayed quiet after Arthur agreed with her sentiments about walking so far. Looks like she doesn’t like him either.

Finally, we reached a space devoid of trees in the center of the small woods, and I stopped in the middle of said clearing.  

(Kai) “Alright. Now, all of you, come at me. Wait! Not you Selina. You can only heal.”

Selina slunk back to where she had been, after dashing at me with a wild grin on her face.

That was a close one…

Though, she immediately cast reinforcement magics on the heroes, improving their strength, speed, and vitality. I think she’s a little bitter.

After I had told them what this was all about, combat began.

I want them to see that they won’t be able to prevail against stronger foes without relying on each other. The dungeon hadn’t had given them a good feeling of fear, forcing them to cooperate and plan together. It had been ironically safe, considering how I had nearly died in the labyrinth under said dungeon all those months ago.

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I needed to put the fear of the gods in them, or the fear of me.

I simply stood in the middle of the clearing, while the heroes began their attack.

And, to be honest, I’ve seen sharks and sardines work together more than they did.

Sarah was the first to reach me, mostly because all the men were hanging back for some reason. Merlin hadn’t moved, while Arthur simply looked disinterested. Harving looked contemplative, but didn’t move into a good position to attack.

Rust, in a commendable effort, shot some arrows towards me haphazardly.

They reached me before Sarah did, and I simply swayed to one side, letting them shoot on past me. I could hear the impacts behind me as the arrows hit the ground, or some trees.

Sarah, as an opening move, lunged at my face. She was using a rapier again, this time a sharpened one, since I had told them to bring normal weapons.

In response, I took a step forward while tilting my head to the side, letting the sword slide past my face. Sarah panicked, since people normally back up from such strikes, instead of coming closer. I struck at her abdomen with my bare fist, and she shot off to the side. Thankfully, she has a good grasp on body enhancement magics, so the punch did little damage besides knocking the wind out of her. I could see her looking frustrated and bewildered as she flew back, and I briefly contemplated why.

Ah, she thought she knew how I would react to her strike.

When we had spared together as two heroes, I would always step back and disengage when she struck out like that, looking for an opening to take advantage of later, while hesitating to take the one right in front of me.

Unfortunately for her, I’m not that kind anymore. If I see something, I will strike, instead of deliberating over whether or not I should like I used to.

By stepping inside her strike, I threw her off balance, since it wasn’t what she had been expecting from me, from Kai.

The result was, that she was temporarily out of action, as she tried to recover from my hit.

Rust shot off a few more arrows, and I could see the panic in his eyes as they missed again.

Gaby rushed in next, with this world’s equivalent to a fencing foil, though more lethal than the ones found in those fencing tournaments.

I took it a little easier on her, since she isn’t able to use body enhancement magics as well as Sarah can. I simply disarmed her after a bit of back and forth, and went to engage the men who were still standing around.

I really didn’t know why they hadn’t moved before, but as soon as I moved, Harving dashed behind me, and waited. Nice. Like I don’t know what you’re trying to do now. Idiot.

Arthur lazily propped his longsword up, like he found it a pain to fight against me. Oh trust me, there will be pain.

Merlin still hasn’t moved. What the hell is he thinking, just standing still…No, wait. Oh, that’s actually kinda clever. Props off to you, Merlin. Maybe you aren’t so bad after all.

Selina’s been casting reinforcement magic this whole time, and I noticed she used more power on those she doesn’t find annoying. So, Arthur didn’t get much of anything.

Rust also shot a few more arrows. His quiver looks mostly empty now, and he looks extremely frustrated due to not being able to hit me.

I squared off opposite Arthur.

(Kai) “Come on. You can look more motivated than that, right? Fight me!”

I yelled at him, trying to get him to take this a little more seriously.

He looked at me with a well-hidden trace of distain, and cocked his head to the side a little.

(Arthur) “I thought I would leave the women to fight the girl? It just doesn’t seem too fair if I fought you.”

Oh gods damn it, he pisses me off so much.

I might have made a mistake after he made that comment.

You see, it made me angry, and I might have accidentally released a little bit of my aura, including the new addition, my〖Demon Lord’s Aura (Weak)〗. While the word weak might be in there, that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t frightening. 

To the heroes, the sky seemed to darken instantly, like night had fallen in the middle of the day, and the air became stiflingly quiet, even though a breeze had ruffled the tree branches just a second earlier. Pressure, like that which had been found on Ascension Island, fell, as my mana manifested itself outside my body a little.

I realized my slip in control instantly, and retracted my aura as soon as it hit, leaving the heroes staggering but still standing.

Staring at Arthur, I made a simple move, my eyes filled with astonishment toward the depths of his stupidity and egotistic nature.

I punched out at him, infusing a little mana into the strike. Just the wind pressure sent him to his knees, and his sword and shield were blasted out of his hands.

I walked up to him, paying no note to Harving, who had been halfway to me when I accidently released my aura, and Merlin, who had seemingly materialized off to my side as the illusion of himself he had placed as soon as combat began disappeared like a soap bubble under the instant of high pressure I let off.

I kneeled in front of him, still on my feet as my legs folded, like a baseball catcher.

(Kai) “You, sir, are a human failure. I don’t even know what to say, since you’ll probably ignore it. Ugh. I’m done. Let’s go back to the academy for punishment, no?”

I looked around the clearing, making eye contact with everyone, one at a time.

Yeah, some have potential, real potential.

Just not ability. I guess that takes time.

More time than they’ve had.

Well, after berating them, and telling them exactly what had gone wrong, I blew off steam in the smithy.

I stayed in there until the next lesson, where we went back out into the clearing.

Rinse and repeat, I guess.

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