Drew

Vice Road

Demon King Leon Calendar, Year 478: 5th Month

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I watch the fight between the knights and goblins for a while as I ponder about what I should do. I’m supposed to be a hero, so maybe I should save them. But I’m not charitable enough to risk my life for strangers though. What a dilemma...

Alright, for now I should just observe the fight. If the knights manage to cut down enough of the goblins and reduce the risk, then I don’t mind lending them a hand. I can just act like I just arrived and had immediately come to their rescue. By waiting, not only will I avoid any real danger, but as the situation gets more desperate, the reward I’ll get for saving them will probably increase as well.

And so I waited and continued watching. As the battle continued, I noticed that the biggest issue for the knights was the carriage. It was just too big for them to protect. If the knights were able to coordinate together, they would stand a chance against the goblins with their superior fighting skills. Unfortunately, the goblins had completely surrounded the carriage, and they had to spread their forces thin to protect the entire perimeter. So each knight ended up having to fight multiple enemies individually. They’ll just get worn down at this rate. Soon enough, one of the five knights made a mistake and a goblin managed to slip a knife into the gap of his knee guard. His leg gave out, and the goblins immediately pounced on him. Another knife dug into his neck, and the knight breathed his last.

“Eric! No!”

A head poked out from the window of the carriage and cried in sorrow for the dead knight. It was a young girl about my age. She was a typical aristocratic beauty with blonde hair and fair features.

“Sarah, stay in the carriage!”

Another woman pulled the girl back into the safety of the carriage. She looked like a more mature version of the girl. Her mother perhaps.

Unfortunately for them, even if they stay in the carriage it looks like it’ll be futile. The number of goblins had only been reduced to twenty, and with one less member the knight’s already fragile formation will fall apart.

As predicted, the knights started to accumulate more injuries and although they were still struggling it was only a matter of time before they crumbled. Seeing that the situation was hopeless, I was just about to leave when I noticed something in the distance from the direction of where the carriage came from. I used the Divine Eyes and focused my vision.

There were two people riding on horses heading towards the carriage. One of them was a large muscular man that seemed to be in his twenties. He wore silver armor over his body not unlike the knights, and a huge sword was attached to his waist. There was a sort of valiant air around him.

The other person was smaller in build and wore a green hooded robe. His face hidden inside the robe looked rather young, maybe the same age as my current body. On his back he carried a wooden staff with some sort of red orb attached to the tip.

The two riders eventually got close enough to the carriage to notice the fight happening, and quickly sped up. When they arrived the muscular man yelled out “Let us help!” before jumping off the horse and rushing towards the fight, sword in hand. The other rider also got off, but did not rush into the fray. Instead he held his staff and started muttering something under his breath.

When the muscular man entered the fight, the tide of battle immediately changed. With a sweep of his sword he was able to cut a goblin cleanly in half and was still able to knock several other goblins off their feet. The expressions on the knights brightened up and relief was clearly visible on their faces. This man is even stronger than he looks. I observed the internal structure of his body and saw that his muscle density was several times greater than what should be humanly possible and the mana within his body was more than that of the four knights combined.

However, if physical strength was enough to win this fight, the knights wouldn’t have been struggling in the first place. The goblins quickly adapted and adopted a more defensive strategy, staying outside of the humans’ range and only attacking when they saw an opening. The fight reached a stalemate. That’s when I turned my attention to the muscular man’s companion who was still chanting something under his breath. When I used my x-ray vision I saw that his body was not particularly strong, probably weaker than me, but what surprised me was the enormous amount of mana contained in his body. The mana was red colored and seemed to be flowing from his body through the wooden staff and into the orb at the tip causing it to glow red. As he continued to chant, the red glow intensified and finally when it reached its peak, the boy gave a shout.

“Move out of the way!”

The humans looked at the boy for a moment, and then quickly realized something before jumping out of the way. When he saw that the path was clear, the boy pointed his staff towards the goblins before shouting out “Fireball!”. A flame the size of a watermelon quickly formed in midair and shot towards the middle of the group of goblins. When it made contact with the ground, a large explosion occurred killing several goblins and injuring more. Taking advantage of the opportunity the knights and the unknown man charged at the goblins and chaos ensued. I looked back at the boy and saw exhaustion on his face, and when I checked his condition I was shocked to see that nearly 25% of his total mana was used up. To think that a single spell uses so much mana.

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Hmm? The boy must have been really exhausted because he failed to notice a few goblins sneaking over towards him. I guess it’s finally my time to shine. I started to run down the cliff towards the boy, and just when one of the goblins was about to reach him, I yelled out “Watch out!”. The boy looked around before panicking when he saw a goblin swinging a machete at his face. Right before the boy was about to lose his head, I jumped forward and side kicked the goblin in the face. My timing was impeccable. Of course that was because I intentionally slowed down to time it correctly. I then picked up the machete from the unconscious goblin and stabbed it in the head before turning around to face two other goblins. One of them was carrying a knife while the other one had a club, and they both seemed to be angry at me for killing their companion. The one with the knife charged at me headon while the other went for my left side and attempted to smash my knee. Using my Divine Eyes, I easily parried the knife with a spin before following through by cutting through the neck of the goblin to my left. The remaining goblin seemed to be having second thoughts now that it was alone, and I took advantage of its hesitation with a clean pierce through the forehead. Now that that was over, I turned to the boy and asked if he was okay, but he didn’t reply. Looks like he’s still shellshocked from the near death experience.

“Sam!”

I looked over and saw that the rest of the goblins had been defeated, and that the muscular man was rushing over towards us. He quickly went to his companion to check if he was okay. I had a chance to observe the two more closely this time. The man had black hair and handsome chiseled features, while the boy was blonde and had an innocent baby face. After talking for a bit, the man then turned towards me. “Thank you for your help. I don’t know what would’ve happened otherwise. My name’s Darren, and this is Sam. We’re in the same adventurer party. Let us know if you need any help in the future, we’ll be sure to repay you.”

“Ahaha, it’s no problem.” I put on an innocent face. “I only did what I felt was right.”

Darren smiled. “You’re a good man.” Then he lowered his voice a bit and said “By the way, were you also summoned here?”

“What…” I didn’t know how to respond.

“Ah excuse us sirs, do you have a moment?” The three of us turned towards the voice and saw the knights and the two women that were in the carriage walking towards us.

“Let’s talk later,” Darren said.

The group of people wanted to thank us for our help. After we introduced ourselves and exchanged some pleasantries with the knights, the mature lady introduced herself. “I am Countess Avery Alabaster of Starlin county, and this is my daughter Sarah.” We looked towards the girl by her side. She was even prettier up close and even at a young age had a noble air around her accentuating her beauty. I think Sam may have been smitten by her because he was staring intently at her face.

“Hello…”, she gave a shy greeting and then looked towards the ground.

“Ahem, we would like to formally thank you for your services and we’ll make sure to properly reward you later. For now, would you like to accompany us to our castle?”

I wasn’t sure about what the proper etiquette was and how I should respond, so I let Darren take the lead. “We would love to. Thank you for the offer.”

Countess Alabaster seemed pleased, “Excellent, we will finish our preparations and set off soon.” The two women went back into the carriage and the knights began the preparations. I resumed my conversation with Darren.

“How did you know I was summoned here?” At this point, there was no use concealing the fact that I wasn’t native to this world.

“Look,” Darren responded by taking off his gauntlets and Sam took off his gloves. On the back of their right hands, I saw magic circles that were very similar to mine.

“You guys were also summoned here by the Goddess?”

“That’s right, and there are many more of us as well. I’ve only been in this world for several years, so I don’t know too much, but apparently the demon king was much too powerful for the original hero to defeat, so the Goddess has been periodically summoning more heroes to this world.”

Darren continued talking about heroes and explained a lot of things to me. There are essentially two unique characteristics of heroes. The first one is the magic circle on their hands. This allows a person to absorb the lifeforce of demons and monsters that they slay. That was how I was able to strengthen my body quickly in only a few days. Additionally, the magic circle acts as a way for summoned heroes to recognize and help each other.

“Won’t people find it suspicious if they keep seeing the same magic circle on different people’s hands?”

”The magic circles are only visible to other summoned heroes. Regular people can’t detect it.” This seems rather convenient, but I should probably still find a way to hide it from other heroes as well just in case.

The second characteristic of heroes is the gift that they received from the Goddess. The gift is typically some sort of special power or equipment that will help the receiver. In my case, that would be my Divine Eyes.

“By the way, my gift is this sword, Kraken. It increases the physical ability of its wielder and can change forms to fit its wielder.” I was doubtful at first because other than its abnormally large width, Kraken did not seem too special. However, when I used the Divine Eyes I saw that there was an enormous amount of mana contained within it. Even the scabbard had more mana inside it.

“And my gift is Multi-Attribute,” said Sam. “Most mages can only use one type of magic and being able to use two is already considered rare, but with my gift I can use any type of magic.” He seems to be a little proud of his gift.

“Wow, that’s impressive.” I say some random words of praise.

“Ah, thanks. I’m still inexperienced though, so I can only use basic spells…” Sam looks down shyly. He seems to not be used to taking compliments.

“What’s your gift, Drew?” Darren asks.

“Unfortunately, my gift isn’t as amazing as you guys. I just have enhanced vision. Earlier, I was able to see you guys fighting from far away and rushed over to help.” I put on an embarrassed face acting like I was ashamed of how lame my gift was. There’s no reason to reveal all of my cards to these people, so I decided to downplay the ability of my gift.

“Aha, don’t worry about,” Darren playfully smacks my back. “You may not know it yet, but having a scouting ability like that is very useful in the wild.”

“Thanks,” a smile returns to my face as if Darren’s words had cheered me up.

“Alright, all the preparations are done now.” One of the knights informs us that we’re about to set off.

“Alright, let’s go. We can continue talking along the way. Ah, you don’t have a horse right? You can ride along with me.”

I get on the horse with Darren, and we begin our journey westward towards Starlin county.