I find myself in an all too familiar clearing in the forest. The sun warms my body while a low breeze keeps the leaves swinging in the trees.
I look around for a while in a wonder-filled daze. The clearing is so nice and relaxing that I fell like it'd be nice to be there forever. Suddenly I am snapped back into full consciousness while still in my dreams. My mind is now crystal clear and gone is the foggy dreamlike state my mind was in previously.
"Wake up!" I hear a yell from behind me and turn to my back, seeing the beautiful fairy standing behind me. Her gorgeous golden eyes looked at me with worry while her rainbow-colored hair blew in the breeze.
Unfortunately, I didn't have the time to be gawking. Her words were clear and this was some kind of warning.
"If you don't wake up now, you'll die! Please-" She said before my consciousness faded my eyes opened wide.
"~Wake Up~" I heard the last of her sentence as I shot up from my bed. I quickly grabbed the sword from the side of my bed and slashed it diagonally at the man in full plate armor standing over my bed.
"Gyaa!!!" He yells as he falls to the floor.
I jump out of bed and rush to my parent's room as I notice two men in similar plate armor enter. It seems they didn't hear their friend's scream or assumed it was mine. I didn't allow their folly to stop what I had to do, however. I quickly condensed my Aura and Magic Energy into my fist and fired forth two |Magic Missiles| which struck the unsuspecting men in the back of their heads and instantly splattered them across the room.
The loud squelch and clattering of two headless armored men falling to the floor didn't seem to awaken my parent, which I thought was suspicious. My father is actually quite a light sleeper. Call it training from his years as a soldier or his natural instincts, but he always woke up at even the slightest bit of noise, so I instantly knew something was wrong.
"Dad!" I yelled as I ran up to him and began to shake him heavily.
He didn't wake, however, I knew he wasn't dead since he was still lightly snoring while in my hands.
My heart was beating a million miles per minute as my worry began to mount. I quickly thought of a solution and reared back my fist before bringing it down on his jaw.
"OWW!!! Motherfu-" My father yelled angrily as he woke up.
For a brief moment, he looked at me with anger before his face suddenly stilled and became serious. Without saying a word, he pushed off my hands and stood up. He grabbed his sword which proudly sat on a mantle above his bed before turning to me.
"I'll get your mother up. Run and alert the village. Get Nolla and Evelyn to help with the defense." He said in a serious, commanding tone of voice.
I nodded and quickly put on my boots before running out of the house and into the village. I noticed that there were many men and a few women who were each entering the villager's homes one by one. I knew I wouldn't be able to save everyone yet, their numbers were too great for that, so I settled for the next best thing.
"{Fireball}!" I yelled as I aimed it toward a large group of soldiers who were facing away from me.
The group of warriors all hear my chanting of the spell and quickly looked toward me. Some even started to dodge as they saw the {Fireball} race towards them, but it was too late. A loud explosion rang through the otherwise quiet village and the screams of eight men and women as they burned to death echoed through the otherwise silent night.
The various soldiers going into the houses of the citizens immediately ran outside to see what the commotion was about and a number of the villagers were rattled from their magic-induced sleep. I smirked fearlessly at the gathering of soldiers who came out to confront me but I knew I was a bit out of my league.
It's one thing to be capable of taking on a large number of enemies like I can. It's another thing to actually do it. I've never had to deal with more than two people coming at me at the same time before and that was with magic, when Evelyn and Nolla would train with me, but these people were using swords and were likely to be using both magic and Arts together.
"Heh! Any more of you who wants to have a go? With only this many it'll be too easy!" I said aloud, bluffing towards them.
"Tch! Cocky bastard!" One of them yelled as they all charged me.
I quickly placed my sword in a horizontal position and changed my stance before activating my Art. "|Level Horizon|" I called as I sent a horizontal slash at them.
As expected, only two of the dozen or so were caught by my attack, however, this was as I expected. I quickly pointed my sword's tip towards the ground at my feet and jumped backward, narrowly avoiding an ax swing from the first of the attackers.
"{Fire Mine}" I mumbled to myself as a small magic circle appeared near where I was previously pointing my blade's tip and exploded, burning another four.
The others were temporarily stunned by the sudden shockwave from my trap magic and the shock from seeing several of, what I could only assume to be their friends, gravely injured. I heard one of them nash their teeth while another woman stood in shock, looking at the pieces of the body that used to be the ax-man who swung at me.
I don't really know why, but I seemed to have entered a sort of hyper-focused mode after dodging the ax, where I was completely calm and the world seemed to be moving about half as fast as usual. I seemed to have entered bullet time and I used it to my advantage to its fullest extent.
"{|Arc Strike|}" I called out as I combined a lightning magic spell with a sword art slash.
A blue razor flew through the air toward the remaining eight combatants. One of them suddenly ran in front of the dazed lady and raise his shield. I noticed it was coated in magic aura, however, my slice was strong enough that it cut through the shield, him, and the woman he tried to protect.
I smirked to myself before I suddenly felt my body tense up and duck by itself, only noticing after I had done so that I dodged a decapitating strike from one of the remaining enemies who had somehow snuck up behind me. As I was preparing to turn around to confront him, my danger senses went haywire and I jumped to the side in an instant.
A bullet of water had shot past where I was previously standing and had grazed my arm, though not enough to cause me any real issues other than the sudden pain. I rolled as I landed, digging my sword into the earth as I did so and released a sloppy slash backward, catching the man who attempted to decapitate me earlier, and who was trying a follow-up attack on my dodge, with another flying sword slash, cutting deeply into his body, killing him.
I breathed hard as I wordlessly chanted an {Earth Spike} spell while my hand was still on the floor. The ground beneath us shifted heavily as spikes of rock emerged. One spike blocked another {Water Bullet} that was headed for my face while simultaneously skewering the mage who cast it.
The last four looked hesitant at me and even took a few steps back. The entire 'fight' had occurred all within about four seconds and most of their squad had been wiped out by a boy who looked only 13 or 14.
"What a monster! Multiple Arts and Magic at that age!?!" The last remaining male yelled astonished.
"Unbelievable! He looks like nothing more than a kid!?!" One of the women yelled.
The other woman began to shake in her armor before turning and beginning to run away without saying a word but I could tell from the droplets of water in the air that she was running away while crying.
"Oy! Saya com-" The other woman turned to yell at her comrade but in that moment I used |Instant Move| to appear in front of her while her guard was down and with a simple slash, I separated her head from her body.
"Such as shame..." I said, trying to intimidate the last one into running away.
"I agree." I heard a voice from behind me and quickly jumped forward while turning, however, I wasn't able to make it all the way as a heavy blow struck my side and I was thrown into a house nearby. I flew through the stone wall and into our neighbor's living area, spitting up quite a bit of blood as I did so. I felt several of my bones crack or break and felt such an excruciating amount of pain that I briefly thought I died.
Whilst barely holding onto my consciousness, I looked up and out of the hole in the wall to where I just was. A large man with Dark Blue hair and Grey Eyes stood there holding a staff with a unique gemstone sitting atop it. The most striking thing about it, however, was the growing construct that surrounded the gemstone, giving the whole thing the shape of a hammer.
"Huh? Did you survive? I guess I was going too easy on you then." He said as he got up from his swinging stance and put his staff over his shoulder, the construct disappearing as he did so.
The last remaining soldier immediately got to one knee and bowed to the man. "Lord Dagon! Thank you for your assistance!"
"Don't thank me yet. When we get back, you are going to be going through retraining. I can't believe you all lost to a brat like this!" Dagon said with an arrogant attitude.
He then turned his gaze towards where Saya had run off earlier and sighed. "I quite liked that one too but abandoning the mission like that..." He said before taking his staff off his shoulder and striking the ground with the but of it.
I heard a scream and then a faint popping sound coming from the distance. The bowing man shuttered a bit and lowered his head even lower but said nothing. My eyes opened wide as I understood what had just happened. I mustered all of my strength and began the arduous process of standing up. It seems my struggle to stand amused Dagon as he didn't attack me while I did so and only looked at me with mildly amused eyes.
Once I stood to my feet, shakey as I may have been, I began to walk out towards him. The soldier who was formerly kneeling turned to get up but Dagon put his hand in front of him to stop him from moving. Dagon's smile widened as he looked at me.
"You've got guts kid. A lot of fight in ya! I like that." He boasted while tapping his staff in his free hand.
"Then your gonna love me!" I heard as my father suddenly ran up from his side and swung his sword at Dagon. "|Flow Acceleration!|" He called out as he used an Art to instantly increase the swing speed of his sword towards the built man.
Dagon simply smirked as a light emitted from the gemstone on his staff and then fired off a magic bullet that pierced my father's chest. His blood splattered all over a woman who stood several feet behind him.
"Heh?" My mother asked in a daze.