Chapter 23 (1/2)

“Don’t you dare look down on me!”

If he was losing in terms of strength, there was no need to rely on his arms.

Conjuring as much strength as he could, he planted a kick into the mock-goblin’s stomach. He was feeling a burning sensation in his mind, like someone had shot a burning steel rod into his head.

The kick withered the mock-goblin, pushing it off of Loren.

But the smile didn’t disappear from its face.

It believed that the human that lost to it in terms of strength was putting up a useless struggle, and that it would eventually beat him.

But Loren’s next move made its smile stiffen.

Loren immediately rushed at the goblin with more force and speed than before, completely giving up on defense. Although it was stopped by the mock-goblin’s club yet again, it widened its eyes at the impact that came through it.

As the mock-goblin took a step back, Loren took another step forward and attacked it.

The blow that Loren delivered, which was even faster than the one before, was again, stopped by the mock-goblin’s club. But the club, which had blocked all three of Loren’s attacks, couldn’t take the sheer power of the last blow and snapped in half.

The mock-goblin panicked and pushed goblins away from itself, as it tried to gain distance from Loren, but Loren continued to increase his speed.

Loren didn’t let the mock-goblin get out of his range, and the fourth strike that he released crushed all the goblins in his path, directly hitting the mock-goblin’s arm.

The sword cut right through the skin, flesh, and bones, splattering blackened blood everywhere.

The mock-goblin let out a roar from the pain, but immediately got flung backwards again by a tackle from Loren.

It couldn’t regain its balance, and all it could do was look at Loren’s great sword flash from right to left.

The next blow struck its right forearm, going straight across its body and out the other side.

It had so much force behind it, that the mock-goblin’s arm was still spinning in the air when the body crumbled onto the ground, blood spurting from the cut.

But Loren’s charge didn’t stop there.

Loren’s arms continued to accelerate every step he took, and his great sword was being swung so fast that a rumbling could be heard from the air around him.

He didn’t care if he was using the blade or where he was aiming at. As he swung his great sword around him at an unbelievable speed, his attacks became a single whirlwind.

Anything that the winds touched were cut down, gouged, and crushed into mere pieces and blown away.

Ritz and Jack saw the fierceness of the attack and nervously decided to stop fighting, and took a step back to where Nim and Quartz were.

They didn’t want to risk getting caught in windstorm that was raging on.

“What in the world is that…”

Jack muttered with a dumbfounded look on his face.

That was how fierce and one-sided Loren’s attacks, which looked like a storm, were.

The goblins who tried to apporach him were immediately reduced to black and red pieces and blown across the room.

Some of them tried to run away, but they were pushed back by the goblins who came in from behind them, all of them falling prey to the raging wind.

A few mock-goblins came as well, but even they were only able to take one or two blows from Loren before they ended up like the other goblins.

“Isn’t this just like the rumors? His body is as the wind, and after the wind passes through, nothing is left standing in its wake…”

“You talking about the mercenary >? There’s no way, right? Why would a title-bearing mercenary become a copper rank adventurer?”

“Come on! Do you think that there can be two or three different people that can pull this off!?”

No one could give an answer to Jack.

Rumors said that the mercenary >, who was said to be able to fight toe-to-toe with the strongest mercenary, could turn the tide of battle just by taking part in it.

Although he didn’t use magic like > and >, his skill on the sword was said to surpass both. In battle, his existence was considered the same as the god of death, and Ritz nor his party could believe that a renowned swordsman like him could be the lowest ranking adventurer.

Putting aside whether Loren being > was true or not, they couldn’t deny the fact that he alone was turning the tide of this fight, and started getting hope that they would be able to survive.

“Don’t you guys think this is going to work out somehow?”

“Overly optimistic. Not good.”

Nim said coldly to Quartz, whose voice was getting lighter.

“You saying that we shouldn’t be hopeful!?”

“No. It’s not good to leave it up to him. We have our pride as silver ranks.”

“That’s true, but…”

Jack scratched his head at Nim’s assertion.

Nim then pointed to Loren, who was still charging at the goblins coming towards them without even slowing down.

“That’s not good.”

“Huh? What do you mean not good?”

Jack and Ritz had no idea what she meant.

Nim was able to realize it thanks to elves’ excellent sense of hearing.

“That great sword. It’s about to break.”

“What!?”

What Nim pointed out was something Loren was already aware of.

Although he continued to change goblins into mutilated corpses, the sensation he was getting from the grip as well as the noises from the blade told him that the great sword wasn’t going to last much longer.

Loren knew that ever since he was a mercenary, getting excited or receiving a serious injury during battle pulled a trigger inside him, and that made him able to display strengths that he normally couldn’t.

He couldn’t choose when he wanted to use it so it wasn’t that easy to use, but Loren had been saved by this power more times than he could count.

Of course, there was a downside to it, and the recoil usually left him powerless and exhausted, but he decided that he was fortunate that it had activated.

Fortunate for Loren, but unfortunate for his great sword.