4 – Mountain Village

She swings her sword.

[Sword Aura] gains weight.

Swinging the sword with the force of centrifugal force, a delicate strike accurately severs the bandit’s neck.

With the flying head, the bandit drops his sword. She snatches it and holds a sword in each hand.

Amel, wielding a sword in each hand, spins around, cutting down the bandits.

The sword in her right hand cuts down a bandit,

The sword in her left hand follows, cutting down the next.

Slash, slash, slash, slash, slash, slash.

She kicks off the ground and approaches the bandits.

She swings her sword.

Swinging,

Swinging,

Slash.

Without [Magical Power], she can’t use Skills unless she gathers ambient mana, but Skills are like posture correction functions.

Even without the correction function, she can use [Sword Aura], and the bandits aren’t strong enough to require Skills.

The bandits rush out from the forest.

“It’s a woman!!”

“She’s pretty!!”

“That bitch is mine!!”

The bandits, upon discovering Amel, are drawn to her beauty, and the approaching bandits fall to the ground without even swinging their weapons once.

The bandits haven’t received systematic group combat training like soldiers, so they rush in as they please and die as they please.

Perhaps thanks to that, they are so far apart that they don’t even know how their comrades are dying.

“Follow Amel!!!”

“What’s with these bandits!!”

“Die, all of you!!!”

‘No, you’re just stealing the last hits from behind me.’

Even then, when many bandits rushed in at once, she only inflicted injuries severe enough to make combat difficult on as many bandits as possible, so they wouldn’t reach the villagers.

The villagers finish off the injured bandits, getting excited about killing them themselves.

‘Well, it’s good to be energetic, but.’

“Amel! You’re really strong?!”

“They’re just weak.”

“Watching you fight makes me almost believe that! Some of us are even saying we could do it too.”

“Should I hold back?”

“Rest when you’re tired. It’s not like we can’t fight bandits at all. You can’t treat a woman who lives in the forest the same as a city girl. Or else…”

Keila says energetically, but

then asks sheepishly.

“…are all city girls as strong as you?”

“No.”

“Then that’s settled! Alright, everyone! We need to do our best so Amel can rest!! Be careful! We can’t fight like Amel! Three of us stick to one!!”

“Waaaaah!!!”

The villagers.

Mostly women.

The bandits seemed to have discovered the villagers while wandering aimlessly through the forest and attacked.

The villagers clung to the bandits, the people in the front tanking, and some went around to the back to backstab.

With swords blocking swords, their backs are exposed, showing that they’ve fought a few times.

“I’m not really tired.”

Still, it was funny.

It brings a strange smile to her face.

This time, the villagers take the lead, charging ahead of Amel towards the bandit hideout.

In the midst of that.

She raises her sword.

As Amel draws her sword with a flourish, the villagers scream and cheer for Amel.

“Amel-nim is going out!!”

“You’re all dead!!”

“You bitches!! Hek…! With the buff I received from the boss, I’ll fuck all of you!! Heek…! Don’t think you can catch Red Blade’s Iron Wall Hans just because you have numbers!!”

Cough..?

A bandit, whose ankle was grabbed by the villagers.

A blade is embedded in the neck of the bandit, whom the villagers were struggling to catch even with six of them surrounding him.

A nimble movement that the bandit couldn’t even react to took his neck like a snake.

“Iron Wall my ass.”

Amel pulls out her sword.

The Iron Wall bandit falls.

She turns her head.

Before she knew it, she had entered the mountain.

She defeated the bandits guarding the entrance at the entrance of the bandit hideout.

The bandit hideout had a campsite in the middle of the mountain, and there were traces of logging here and there.

Following those traces, a cliff appeared, and she discovered a wooden cage on the cliff, encountering the bandits waiting there.

“You’ve come this far. Are you the one?”

Is it the boss?

A man with a potbelly and a black beard. A giant who looks like he would be suitable as a pirate.

It wasn’t the boss.

He didn’t possess [Magical Power].

The one who possessed [Magical Power] was someone else.

That guy just looked like the boss.

Then…

“The vice-leader?”

“You recognize me?”

As expected, it was the vice-leader.

The bandit vice-leader stood with his subordinates next to the cage where the people were held.

He aimed his spear at the inside of the cage.

The villagers’ eyes darted busily to the people inside the cage, and they screamed with joy and despair.

“Melvin..!”

Keila was also happy that a man named Melvin was alive, but gritted her teeth in despair at being taken hostage.

“Stay still. You bitches seem to fight better than these guys to have come this far, but this is the end.”

The vice-leader takes a spear from a subordinate and stabs a nearby person to death.

Then, someone from the villagers jumped out.

The people next to her tried to stop her.

“What are you doing to my brother!!”

“Oops, were you his sister? If you don’t want others to die like this guy, put down all the weapons you have.”

“….”

The moment they put them down, they’ll be attacked.

That’s what the villagers thought.

They can’t put them down.

However,

The vice-leader’s spear was ruthless.

He aims the spear at another person…

…thud.

“Hmph. Good. I have many hostages. Don’t think nonsense and put down all the weapons you have and surrender.”

Amel throws her sword far away.

Seeing that, the vice-leader nods in satisfaction and glares at the other villagers, aiming his spear at the hostage.

One by one, they drop their weapons, and the bandits surround the villagers.

The hostages trapped in the cage saw that and shouted with their mouths gagged, but it only echoed.

The bandits approach.

The vice-leader approaches.

He looks at Amel.

He looks at her chest.

“Excellent.”

“….”

The bandits all say that.

Amel measured the distance to the bandits,

and checked the bandits standing next to the cage.

If she tried to use mana without [Magical Power], it would be very obvious, so she searched for the optimal route to safely rescue the hostages at the maximum speed she could produce without mana.

It’s almost a gamble, but

‘It’ll be alright.’

She takes out a dagger from her Inventory.

She slashes under the vice-leader’s chin.

After slashing, she creates [Sword Aura].

She forms a faint [Sword Aura] on the thinly formed [Sword Aura].

‘Reach.’

Horizontal Slash.

The thinly flying [Sword Aura] passed over the heads of the hostages and cut off the heads of the bandits who were standing.

“Hic…”

“What.”

The surviving bandits couldn’t keep up with the sudden situation.

Still, some tried to act rather than understand,

and some of the villagers also tried to act.

Rather, the villagers who had only been waiting for the hostages to be safe judged more and faster.

They picked up the weapons they had thrown on the ground and won by knocking down, killing, and injuring the bandits.

“….”

Amel, who was looking back at that.

She approached the bandits who were next to the cage.

As she approached, the bandits screamed and ran away.

When she came to the cage, she ran her hand over the thinly formed [Sword Aura], which had only cut half of the wooden cage’s pillar.

She didn’t even properly cut off the bandits’ necks, but it had enough power to kill people.

‘Well, considering its original power, it’s nothing more than a drop in the bucket.’

Still, she was able to use [Sword Aura] with adjusted power. She could do something similar with [Sword Aura], but it was different from doing it with [Sword Aura].

“Mr. Melvin?”

“….”

Melvin raised his head.

He’s quite handsome.

Keila’s husband.

I heard he was the head of the vigilantes, but he looked 20 years younger than I expected, making Keila look older.

No, is she older?

Anyway,

She examined the man the vice-leader had stabbed with the spear.

Unfortunately, he was dead.

“….”

The villager who was the man’s sister ran over to check on her brother’s condition and burst into tears, but her hands were raised and then stopped.

She tried to look away.

‘Let’s not show [Resurrection].’

She can [Resurrection].

It was her trump card, as she could only use it once outside the village.

“….”

“…Amel-nim?”

“What’s his name?”

After hearing the name,

She put her hands together.

‘God, please watch over this young lamb.’

She prayed to God.

She recited the mistake that this young lamb had died.

[Resurrection]

Confession was the keyword for [Resurrection].

Light permeates the dead man’s body.

His wounds heal,

And light shines in his eyes, which had lost their will.

“…he’s alive.”

Someone mutters.

The people who were watching the men with their gags removed from their mouths and the woman who was hugging her dead brother and crying.

They witnessed the miracle of a dead person being resurrected.

To the players, it was neither a miracle nor anything else. Ordinary NPCs could also be resurrected with the help of priests. So Amel misunderstood the ripple effect that [Resurrection] would show.

Special but rare.

It’s not even something to call a miracle.

That was the extent of her perception.

But this was wrong.

Heroes were summoned from another world, and the world was full of Heroes, blessed by God.

It was an era blessed by God more than any other era, so [Resurrection] could be used indiscriminately, and in remote areas without temples, [Resurrection] was still like a miracle.

No, it was a miracle.

It was a miracle itself.

People put their hands together and pray to Amel.

Like young lambs welcoming God’s apostle.

“It’s a miracle.”

“She came to save us.”

“….”

Amel was just bewildered.

Why are you all like this? She was about to ask, but everyone was looking at Amel with faces full of deep emotion and awe.

Even tears were flowing, so an overwhelming atmosphere assailed Amel, blocking her words.