Part 1

"Here's the pond, Sir."

It was a short 10 minute walk, following Maria and the small smart kid, Lucious found his way through the trees and into a small blue pond. The waters inside swayed little, signs of some life inside it. Around the pond and in it were large stones, grass was growing around it before being met by bushes and trees.

It seemed like a great bathing area to relax.

"It's a good bathing place..."

Maria, still seemingly irritated informed Lucious, though she was very closed and trim with her words because she was still frightened of Lucious, who was a foreign soldier who was 3 heads bigger than her already huge father.

"Would you mind being a temporary servant for me for a little while?"

Lucious said as he untied the knots to his breastplate, allowing it to thump to the ground.

"Eh?"

Lucious took off his tunic and gave it to Maria, who looked on confused.

"Woah..."

Maria was awed by Lucious's amazing built body, honed from 15 years of service. Because of his extreme diet, his abs were extremely defined. Although the most unprecedented thing was just how large his chest was. But instead of staring, she quickly blushed and turned away.

She even dropped Lucious's tunic.

With only a piece of underwear on for the sake of the child who was also here and Maria, he walked into the pond.

This feels great.

Lucious felt the water envelop his entire body as he stood in the surprisingly deep pond, it reached his belly button at the edges, and soothed into the water.

"Sheeeesh! This is my pond, get outta my territory you Roman!"

The kid, without shedding any of his clothing suddenly did a flip into the same pond as Lucious.

"Hey-!"

Lucious, worried about the child stepped forward, preparing to submerge himself to make sure he wouldn't drown before the kid popped his head out, swimming up.

Not only can he read and write, but he can even stay afloat and swim in water... along with his ferocious arrogant personality.

And that audacity... That's admirable, but he'll need to learn how to tone it down a bit, or he'll be killed by others who aren't patient.

Lucious was impressed by this child.

"Hey, don't do that!"

Maria off on the sidelines, although weirdly staring at Lucious's shoulders, lectured the child.

"Hey kid, what's your name?"

"My name is Chad!"

"Chad, eh? You're very war-like indeed."

Chad meant ferocious and warlike, Lucious nodded at the child's potential to be a great military commander.

But, as Lucious was about to relax, he heard the voice of one of his men barge into the pond area:

"Sir!"

It was Singer, the Signifer of the Century. Singer was accompanied by around eight to ten men of the Century.

Lucious looked at Singer, he was out of breath from the running. He bent his knees and had the Signifer Standard rested on his thigh before gulping up more air to speak.

"Sir! B-Bar- Sir!"

"Calm down, take a deep breath. What's the matter?"

Lucious walked out of the pond and approached Singer.

"Barbarians! Barbarian attack!"

There goes my intended bath relaxation time.

Part 2

"Hold..!. wall...! Don't... break...!"

Lucious could just make out Gaius's voice in the midst of the battle as he finally rushed toward and approached the village. He did this after making sure that Singer and a junior officer brought Maria and Chad to a place safe and also to protect them.

Gaius's voice was really loud, but that was something required when leading men in a battlefield admist the chaos.

The very fact that Lucious could hear Gaius from 30 meters away from him said a lot about Gaius's battlefield leadership experience.

He looked on for a few seconds and assessed the battlefield.

Although he was a dull man, serving 15 years on the battlefield did teach him some sort of muscle memory and drilled into him the instincts for field analysis.

To the left were the villages and their homes, and to the right were the large newly-harvested crops and farmland for the village.

Attacking from the right, the Barbarians, who seemed to wear simple ragged clothing, had a small circular shield and a variety of weapons ranging from swords to spears and daggers were rushing toward the village, they were attacking the village in waves.

Defending from the left was the entire century, having formed up a semi-circular shield wall. The semi-circle was pretty thick, with 3 rows of men.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Gaius was seen in the middle of that semi-circle, shouting orders and screaming from the top of his lungs.

Normally, the Centurion, Lucious, would be the one commanding the men like this. But, if the Centurion were to not be there, the second-in-command Optio would act as the de-facto Centurion with the Century's men automatically looking at the Optio for orders.

"If any of you fools dare to stain the name of the Roman Emperor by falling to these Barbarians, I will find you in the afterlife and hunt you down!"

Gaius shouted some-sort-of motivating words as he pointed his blade toward the Barbarians, tapping the shoulders of the men and micromanaging them to certain positions.

Lucious smiled as he saw how competent his precious Optio was commanding the men.

His smile faded when he noticed the Barbarians encircling the semi-circle, the third row of men were forced to go to the back and close up the semi-circle, turning the Roman shield wall into a pure circle.

"Shit, they're surrounded!"

It was only natural, the Barbarians seemed to boast superior numbers, and the century consisted of a mere 100 men formed up in a simple formation.

Now surrounded, even more, Barbarians came to put pressure on the entire Roman shield wall. He even noticed some just ignored the Roman army and went straight for the villagers.

"Sir, what do we do?"

One of the eight men who accompanied Singer to deliver the message asked Lucious.

Lucious closed his eyes to think for a moment.

My mind is empty.

Lucious forgot, he was an idiot. There was no way he could think in a way that required any sort of willpower, anytime he did, his mind would just go blank.

He decided to just go all-in with just the memory of his muscles and what he thought was right.

"The lot of you, go to the houses and protect the villagers."

Lucious pulled out his blade, shouting at his men.

"What about you, sir?!"

"...I'm going to break the encirclement."

Lucious took a deep breath and steeled himself.

"-Huh? Sir?"

"-Sir, that's-

"-There's no way you can..."

The 10 men looked at Lucious as if he was crazy, there was no way a single man would be able to break that encirclement by himself.

Ignoring the awe of his men, Lucious rushed out with his sword drawn.

Almost immediately, Lucious saw a large hammer swing toward him.

"Fuck off you Roman dog!"

It was a Barbarian, Lucious swiftly dodged it and stabbed his blade into the Barbarian's throat.

The blood squirted on his face.

Not interesting in seeing the bloody coughing show, Lucious rushed toward his men, who were around 30 meters away and surrounded by a force 5 times their own number.

Another Barbarian noticed Lucious as a lonely Roman and with a smirk, rushed toward him.

"You're pretty short for a Barbarian, even Gallic men are taller than you, and they're not that impressive."

"Shut the fuck up!"

The Barbarian that was attacking Lucious was around 120 or 130cm tall, even in comparison to the other barbarians he was a head shorter than them.

Why did this guy even become a warrior?

Only needing to use his forearm protector to shove aside the Barbarian's blade, Lucious grabbed the head of the short Barbarian and held him in the air.

Although the Gallic man was indeed short standing at 140 cm tall, it was still an impressive feat to hold a man in clean air with just the strength of the shoulders and forearm, even if the man was around 120cm tall. The short barbarian must have weighed at most 100kg with all that muscle mass and still Lucious was strong enough to use a fraction of his arm strength to lift him up.

The short Barbarian he was holding up was flailing around like a chicken, kicking his legs and reaching his arm out, trying to grab Lucious, although both his legs and arm spans were too short and stubby to reach him.

"Let me go, I'll kill you, you Roman bitch!"

Lucious crushed his skull with his bare hands.

"Oioi-AaaaAAAAAAH! ..."

The scream from the man quickly subsided as Lucious felt from his hands, the Barbarian's skull crack into pieces, squeezing against his brain.

The Barbarians who saw this made an effort to silently ignore Lucious. They felt a shudder go down their spine, their knees wobbling thinking of themselves as the enemy of that beast.

No way I'm fighting that tall monster. Was the thought of many Barbarians who saw him.

Surviving Barbarians would surely run home to tell tales about a large Roman devil beast, that was Lucious.

But those who didn't notice Lucious's bloodthirsty skull-crushing rushed toward him.

For example, a man with dual blades.

He was stabbed in the stomach by Lucious.

With every Barbarian Lucious came across, he cut them down, bloodying his armor and the entirety of his blade. Fresh pieces of flesh lay on his shoulder, but he didn't have time to flick it off before being impaled by a long spear from his left, his left forearm pierced deeply by the spear.

"Argh! You damned Briton-!"

He turned and grabbed the spear, pulling it out and pulling in the Barbarian.

"...!"

Being only a lick away from the tall Roman that was Lucious, the Barbarian realized how small he was in comparison to the 2-meter tall giant that was Lucious.

The Barbarian's knees went limp before Lucious shoved his blade down his throat with a sharp dead expression.

Part 2

"-Is it true? My village is being attacked by the tribes? Is my father safe?!"

Maria shot Singer with multiple questions as he held her hand tightly, rushing even deeper into the forest. With them was Chad being, who was frightened.

"Your father is safe, the century is going to protect him and your village, okay? It's going to be alright."

"-But are you sure?!"

"The Signifer Standard Bearer Singer is sure, I too am sure. Don't worry, lady."

"-If you say so..."

The other man who spoke was a man walking along with Singer, he was a Beneficliari, meaning Junior officer belonging to Lucious's century. He was the one carrying Chad in his arms.

Lucious had ordered them both to make sure these two were safe.

"Ah shit..."

Singer noticed some movement in the forest.

He knew what it was.

"You're so fucking annoying, eh? Come out."

Singer drew his blade, making sure Maria was behind him as he put his guard up.

Suddenly, a Barbarian jumped from the bushes, lunging toward Singer swinging his blade down. At the same time, two more Barbarians came from the Junior Officer's side.

"I can probably take you all and still win."

Singer commented as he blocked the swing with his blade and kicked the Barbarian to the ground.

From the side, the junior officer was just barely holding it up.

As Singer was the superior fighter between the two, he shouted toward the junior officer.

"Switch places with me, I'll take them both."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure."

Singer ran to take the junior officer's place, he looked at his enemies:

"An axe, aaaaaaaaand a spear. Bro, that's totally not fair. Well, you'll die anyways."

He smirked, shrugging his shoulders.

"-Shut the fuck up the Roman dog!"

Both of them rushed toward Singer at the same time.

I can't dodge their attacks, or the girl and the kid will get hit...

Singer caught the spear with his hand, and pulled it up, using it to block the axe attack, breaking the spear.

"You're trash."

Singer said as he stabbed the axeman barbarian and shoved the spearman barbarian down.

"How's it going on your side?"

Singer held down the man as he turned his head around.

"All good."

The Junior officer had just finished stabbing the Barbarian in the heart.

"Good, give me some rope, this guy will make a good prisoner."

"I don't have any on me."

Singer turned his head back toward the Barbarian, whom he was holding down with his entire body.

"Let me go! I'll fucking kill you!"

"Hush hush, Briton trash. Shhh."

Singer teasingly caressed the Barbarian's lips with a smirk.

"Ow!"

The Barbarian defiantly bit Singer's finger.

Singer punched the Barbarian hard in the face, making his nose bleed and knocking the Barbarian out.

"Well, if we don't have a rope, knocking them out is fine."

Singer stood up, sighing as he eyed the forest, seeing if there were more Briton Barbarians.

"What about we use his belt as rope?"

The Junior officer suggested as he knelt down, unbuckling the Barbarian.

"Great idea."

After tieing up the Barbarian, they both sat down to relax after that short encounter.

"We should probably head back to the village."

Singer muttered as he looked back at Maria and Chad, who were hugging each other.

"-These kids need to go back home."

"Oi, I'm a fully functioning adult."

Maria retorted, growling at Singer.

"Alright, child."