Chapter 7: The Road to the Academy (6)

Was this how it felt to have a luxurious course meal in front of you?

The guys in front of me were far from high-class in terms of strength or anything else, but to me, they were like the finest banquet.

To be honest, I was enjoying this moment.

Drawing a sword, no, all swordsmanship, was created to kill people.

No matter how much it’s wrapped in terms like self-defense or mental discipline, that fact doesn’t change.

Of course, I knew how despicable it was to say that killing people and committing murder was fun.

But how could I not be happy when the technique I had trained so hard in was finally seeing the light of day in actual combat?

If I could truly use my Baldo, I didn’t care if I was called a reckless and cruel piece of trash.

“Die so I can enjoy my Baldo!”

“What a crazy bastard… Kill him!!”

At the command of the guy who seemed to be the leader, the dogs and bandits rushed towards me.

The first to come into my range were not the bandits, but dogs similar to or slightly bigger than the one from earlier.

They bared their sharp teeth, as if declaring they would tear me apart.

There were four of them, so I had plenty of opportunities to slash them in any way I wanted.

I decapitated one cleanly, slicing its head vertically.

I lunged forward and sliced the next one horizontally through the body.

The third, I simply beheaded.

The last one, which jumped unusually high, had its abdomen slashed open, spilling its guts.

In an instant, the four dogs were turned into unrecognizable messes, spraying blood and entrails on the ground and in the air.

“…What the f*ck?”

As I slaughtered the four dogs in an instant, the bandits, who had been charging at me with murderous intent, stopped dead in their tracks.

They looked between the dead dogs on the ground and me, then yelled at their leader.

“Boss! Is this guy a wizard?!”

“What?”

There’s a saying on Earth that highly advanced Baldo is indistinguishable from magic, but in a world where magic actually existed, what kind of nonsense was this…?

“……”

I hoped the leader would say, ‘That’s the ultimate Baldo!’ but he stood there speechless, as if he had been hit on the back of the head.

The bandits remained frozen, staring silently at me across the bisected corpses of the dogs.

As the uncomfortable silence dragged on, I was about to take the initiative when—

“You idiots! You’re all dead now!!”

I turned to see who was shouting and realized it was the traitor Bandit C, who had led me here.

Thrilled to be on the other side of the dead dogs, Bandit C was shouting half-madly.

“I survived!! I’m alive!! This is how you live, you bastards!!”

Hearing this, the bandits seemed to realize that this was all his fault and started yelling.

“You f*cking traitor!!”

“We’re gonna kill you!! We’ll definitely kill you!!”

“Kill? F*ck that!! Your future is lying on the ground like these dogs――!”

Bandit C’s confident tirade was abruptly cut off.

“You’re no longer needed.”

With my sword, I sliced his head horizontally, turning his face into a grotesque mess with exposed eyes and brain tissue.

“Just so you know, I’m not accepting any surrenders or negotiations. You’re all just going to die.”

The bandits, whose faces had become more rigid than before, lost their will to fight, with some even dropping their swords.

“D-Don’t panic!”

It seemed like this would end with the anti-climactic defeat of panicked punching bags, but the leader’s shout brought back a bit of their fighting spirit.

“Spread out!! Target those behind him!!”

When I looked back, I saw that Hori and Boris showed no signs of fear or anxiety on their faces.

Their eyes just seemed to say, “Nothing much will happen this time either.”

They seemed fearless, which was understandable. With me wielding the ultimate swordsmanship of Baldo in front of them, why would they be scared?

“Take them as hostages! That way, we have room for negotiation!!”

“Yes!!”

The bandits, perhaps seeing a faint glimmer of hope for survival, followed their leader’s command and spread out to the sides.

They were surprisingly well-coordinated.

I stood still, deliberately waiting for them to get closer.

And when they were almost near…

“I apologize in advance.”

“Huh? Kyah!”

“Ohh!”

I threw Hori and Boris high into the air so they could float for a while.

Now, only the eight bandits who had gone after Hori and Boris were left on the ground.

With four on each side and nothing in the way, I drew my sword imbued with energy.

With a swift, sharp slash, a ripple spread out like a water drop hitting the surface.

Even without direct contact, I could feel the sensation.

The feeling of slicing through internal organs and severing spines made me smile involuntarily.

The bodies of the bandits who had charged recklessly were severed at the waist, and their upper halves slid to the ground.

“Gotcha!”

I sheathed my sword again and caught the two as they fell back to the ground.

“How did it feel to fly for a moment?”

“…Refreshing.”

“More importantly, what did you just do…?”

“What do you mean? I performed Baldo.”

Baldo’s Ripple Slash.

It’s a technique where a swordsman infuses energy, or mana, into the sword, which then explodes upon drawing, slicing through surrounding enemies.

Performing it from a sheathed position adds speed and power to the attack.

[Baldo: Ripple Slash] [Grade: B-]

[A technique where energy is infused and condensed in the sheathed sword, spreading out upon drawing to cut down surrounding opponents. It doesn’t necessarily have to be used with a sheathed sword. Drawing it beforehand increases the speed.]

Shut up.

What do you know about Baldo?

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Raei  Translations
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The moment the eight subordinates had their waists sliced simultaneously by his Baldo, the fighting spirit in my chest vanished like melting snow.

No, it wasn’t just me.

Even without looking at their faces, I knew everyone had lost their will to fight.

‘This is dangerous….’

It was now difficult to even think about taking hostages.

Even if we did, seeing his willingness to kill, he might just cut down the hostages too.

Trying to devise any strategy using the subordinates would likely be futile.

Either way, we’d end up dead, whether by him or by me.

In fact, they might think they had a better chance of surviving by disobeying orders and fleeing.

What needed to be done now was to escape.

To do that…

“Hey, everyone, get inside!!”

“Huh?! Boss, what are you saying…?”

“You saw that technique, didn’t you? Fighting him together is useless! I’ll face him alone!!”

“Alone… how could you…?”

The subordinates looked at me as if I were insane.

If I were one of them, I’d look at myself the same way right now.

“Either way, we can’t escape from him. We have to fight! You’ll just be in the way, so get inside!!”

Hesitating at first, the subordinates slowly began to retreat into the cave.

“Listen up. If I don’t come back in three minutes… no, two minutes, run out of the hideout and escape. Got it?!”

“…Yes, sir!!”

Hearing their tearful responses, I barely suppressed a laugh.

Stupid bastards… did they really think I’d sacrifice myself for them?

If that were my intention, I’d have told them to scatter here, not go back to the hideout.

Even if they were too scared to think straight, they were still idiots.

“…You’re going to face me alone?”

“Yes.”

He didn’t seem to like that I dared to face him alone. With a tense expression, he took his stance.

I raised my greatsword and took my stance as well. Gathering energy in my legs as if I was about to charge at him…

“Choose between me or them!!”

I threw my greatsword forward and leaped into the nearby bushes with all my strength.

Now he had two choices.

Chase after me to kill me.

Or let me go and kill the subordinates in the hideout.

If he chose the former, unless he killed me within two minutes, all the subordinates in the hideout would escape, and the two people behind him might also be killed by the subordinates.

If he chose the latter, he would lose me, but capture all the subordinates in the hideout and retrieve the wagons and goods we had stolen.

It would be foolish to even ponder which choice was more advantageous and had fewer variables.

‘Idiot… dragging that heavy load is what got you into this mess!’

Thinking this, I ran with all my might, but my escape didn’t last long.

“Huh?”

As I ran, the ground suddenly rose up to meet me.

No, it wasn’t the ground rising.

Those two legs approaching me… it wasn’t the ground rising but me crashing down to the ground.

“Ah, ahhhhhhh!!!”

The intense pain from my legs made me scream uncontrollably.

My legs were severed; I could tell without even looking.

“Wh-What did you do to me…?!”

“Baldo: Vacuum Slash.”

Was that the name of the technique that cut off my legs from such a distance?

He slowly drew his sword as if to demonstrate, and in the next moment, my head was flying through the air.

Once my head was severed from my body, I felt no more pain.

Just a strange feeling of drowsiness, as if I were falling into a deep sleep, enveloped my mind.

Before my head hit the ground, I saw him heading back toward the hideout.

Ah, those bastards are all going to die….

Let’s not meet in hell, bastards.

[Baldo: Vacuum Slash] [Grade: B-]

[A technique where a slash imbued with energy is sent to a distant enemy at the moment of drawing. The farther the distance, the weaker the power. There’s no particular need to perform this while drawing the sword.]

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