Okano The Unwanted Undead Adventurer: Volume 11

1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-1-7183-2120-5
Verlag: J-Novel Club
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, Band 11, 250 Seiten

Reihe: The Unwanted Undead Adventurer

Following their fortunate encounter with the village girl Ferrici, Rentt's party finishes up the rest of their guild requests much more smoothly than expected. Even so, they know that they can't afford to let their guards down yet-the mysterious third companion of the assassins Goblin and Siren is still out there, waiting to strike! There's more to the situation than meets the eye, however. When a certain surprise has wild consequences, Rentt finds himself embroiled in the criminal underworld, where he's forced to make decisions that will affect himself and Lorraine, the Grand Guildmaster of Yaaran, and even the kingdom's own royal family.

Surrounded by intrigue and cloak-and-dagger conspiracies, can Rentt pull through and continue to strive toward his dream of becoming a Mithril-class adventurer? Or will his un-life come to a quick and nasty end?! Find out in the eleventh volume!

Autoren/Hrsg.

Okano, Yu

Weitere Mitwirkende

Jaian

Li, Jason

Leseproben

“I’ll pass,” I said. “I can’t go around telling people I lost to a senior citizen.”

“I suppose that’s for the best. Now then, has the kid over there recovered yet? I’d like to pick things back up, if you please.”

The old man had seen through me—although I’d kind of expected him to. I was pretty sure he hadn’t played along out of pity. If I had to guess, he’d been taking stock of me as we talked. That made him the kind of person who didn’t underestimate opponents just because he’d beaten them before. One thing was for sure; this wouldn’t be easy.

“Augurey. Can you fight?”

“Yeah, thanks to you slipping some of your divinity my way. I’m injured, but I’ll make do.”

This whole time, I’d been healing Augurey, who’d been hiding behind me, with my divinity. Since my power was nothing impressive, and thanks to my studies in healing magic, I’d been able to keep it subtle.

It didn’t look like the old man had noticed. Now, it was two against one. If Augurey and I steeled ourselves, we could probably manage this...right? Either way, it wasn’t like we had much choice.

“Here I come then, kids. I’m hoping this will be fun. Don’t let me down.”

Then, as if ringing the opening bell to a fight, the old man kicked forward off the ground, sending an earsplitting reverberating through the surroundings.

?????

“Whoa!”

With the of air being split apart, the old man was suddenly on me. Reading that he was going for a horizontal swing, I just barely managed to duck out of the way. I felt the sheer mass of his gigantic arm swipe above my head.

Immediately afterward, I went to put some much-needed distance between us, but the old man was way more physically capable than you’d expect of someone his age. If I didn’t at least get a hit in before I jumped away, he’d just close in on me again.

Therefore, I swung my sword hard. It didn’t matter where it connected as long as it did. The old man’s arm hadn’t shrunk back to normal yet, so that would make matters worse for him if my swing landed.

Or so I thought. Apparently, my crude strategy had been a poor choice. Although my sword scored a direct hit on his body...

It made a sound similar to metal striking metal and bounced right off.

“You’re joking?!” I exclaimed.

“Rentt! Watch out!” Augurey yelled.

Seeing that the recoil from my strike had thrown me off-balance for a moment, the old man came at me with his arm a second time. Augurey, having read the movement, shoved me out of the way, just like I’d done for him earlier.

The giant arm struck the ground, making a deafening impact and kicking up a cloud of dust. Evidently, it had snapped a few trees along the way too, because wood chips were flying everywhere. It was almost silly how much destructive power it had.

“I’m not done yet!” Even with visibility low, thanks to all the dust and wood chips in the air, the old man continued swinging. They were haphazard, but given the size of his arm, that likely didn’t matter. He’d probably figured it was better than waiting for the air to clear.

That would’ve been the correct decision to make against a regular person, but my undead body had a few useful tricks of its own. My eyes could see the body heat and physical presence of living things, so I could see the old man’s arm with no problem at all—which actually kind of scared me, because it meant that what I was seeing was his real arm. It almost made me wonder how a person as strange as him had come to be, but I was in no position to be thinking that of others.

The old man probably had a whole fantastic tale of his own to tell. If we’d met under different circumstances, we might’ve been able to have a good, long chat about it. He seemed friendly, after all—he’d been happy to show off his ability to us when I’d asked. But, well, this wasn’t the time to think about trivialities. I’d hoped it would help me calm down, but it hadn’t worked.

Since I’d figured Augurey couldn’t see in this mess, I’d grabbed him and was running us around, but I wasn’t sure what to do next. I considered my options.

My swing earlier might’ve bounced off, but it wasn’t like it had been the best I could manage—just an on-the-spot attack that I hadn’t been able to put all my power into. I could still pack a lot more spirit or mana into my sword. Mana-spirit fusion or even divinity-mana-spirit fusion were options too. The latter was a double-edged sword, but I thought I could manage the former. Probably. Although, if bounced off the old man too, we were done for. I took a moment to wonder if he was even human.

Nevertheless, it looked like the inhuman old man still had to worry about his stamina, at least, because his attacks were coming less frequently. Seeing that, I dropped Augurey off.

“Rentt! What’s the plan?!”

“Let’s see... How about— Whoa!”

A tree flew by like a spear and embedded itself into the ground nearby. In an unbelievable turn of events, the old man was grabbing them and throwing them at us now. The air had cleared, so both Augurey and I had managed to get out of the way, but we definitely couldn’t let this continue. After dodging the next attack, I’d—

“Found you!”

By the time I realized it, a massive arm was coming straight toward me.

I readied my sword, hoping to at least avoid a direct hit, but quickly realized it was futile. Left with no other choice, I used Division. My body lost its shape and became a mass of darkness.

“Hmmm?!” The old man cocked his head. It seemed as though that massive arm of his still had a pretty keen sense of touch, because he appeared confused that his attack had lost its target and only connected with thin air. It looked like we both knew that I would’ve suffered some serious damage if his swing had landed.

“Where did you—? Ah, never mind!” The old man paused for a moment, as if to search for me, but upon noticing Augurey, switched targets. He swung his arm straight down in a crushing blow, but Augurey was far enough away that he was able to avoid it successfully.

This was my chance. I quickly reformed—a feat I owed to my training—and concentrated mana into my sword. Then, I dashed toward the old man and swung it straight at the back of his neck.

I still had a healthy respect for the elderly, of course, but this was no mere old man—something that he proved right away, before I could even decide whether to feel guilty about my attack. I didn’t know if it was because of his experience or simply sheer instinct, but he noticed me coming for him and whipped his arm around in a backward swing. It went without saying that he’d also gigantified it.

The swing wasn’t very fast—maybe because it’d been off the cuff—but it was more than enough to protect his neck from me. Consequently, my sword slammed straight into his arm. An intense blast of power compressed the air around the spot where it connected and exploded outward with a massive !

“Ngh!” Unsurprisingly, the old man flinched, then flapped his arm several times and backed off from us.

It seemed I’d managed to get a good hit in. The old man shrunk his arm back down to its regular size, and I saw that the spot where my attack had landed had ruptured open from within. Blood was gushing from the wound, so it looked like I’d done some real damage.

“Perhaps I underestimated you...” The old man ripped off a section of his own clothes and wrapped it tightly around the wound. He then chanted some kind of spell that stopped the bleeding.

I didn’t think he was a mage, but apparently he did have some magic in his arsenal. Having a simple spell to stop bleeding was one thing, but it was pretty scary that he hadn’t even batted an eye when using it on such a serious injury.

He didn’t look like he was going to run, so he was probably still raring to fight. I took that to mean that he thought he still had a good chance of winning this.

Which was to say, unfortunately, this fight wouldn’t be wrapping up any time soon.

?????

“Hmm, what should I show you next?” the old man muttered.

“What do you mea—?”

Before I could finish my question, I was interrupted by a shout from behind me.

“Rentt! Augurey!”

I turned around and saw that it had come from Lorraine. She was running toward us across a field of smashed-up trees and massive holes, her face drawn into a scowl.

“Are you two okay?” she asked once she reached us.

“As you can see,” Augurey replied, not turning to look at her. While I’d been turned around, he’d kept a close eye on the old man. It was less that he was quick on the uptake and more that we’d just known each other for so long that we instinctively knew how to work as a team—something that I was grateful for.

“So the mage is here too now,” The old man said, spotting Lorraine. “Are you sure that girl will be okay alone? I have colleagues of my own, you know, and I don’t mean the one you captured.”

He was...