'Rolly Polly saves the day,' I thought as I landed, only for the shockwave to hit me squarely in the chest and face, nearly making me stumble a few additional steps.
To the side, powerless to resist the attack on all fours, the magician girl fell back a few paces, carried away by the immense force of the strike.
'What the hell is actually going on?' I cursed in my thoughts, using my inner voice to drain all the shock and anger from my soul, leaving just the calm and calculative side of my mind intact.
From the vague memory of the girl and the not-so-obvious meaning hidden in it, through the split of those cowards and then an actual conflict emerging in one of the two groups they divided into, all the way to some strange adventurer that managed to not only hide his presence but also affect my own damn memory and perception of him?
'Well,' I rose back up to my feet and faced the direction where the attack came from.
Aware of the presence of shenanigans, I didn't even need to look hard to locate the man... Or rather, a monster posing as a man.
Whether this adventurer was a human or a monster in disguise... It was actually hard for me to tell. His physique was certainly that of a monster with his shoulders sitting at a solid two-meter height and then his neck and head going well beyond that range.
Despite his massive build, the man wasn't scrawny like most of those afflicted with gigantism. In fact, he was the opposite of scrawny, with muscles building from below every inch of his skin.
What was the most surprising part, though, was that save for the huge accumulation of mana in his flesh, this monster-like man didn't wield any weapon besides his fists.
"Who the hell are you?" Either shocked or simply amused by someone escaping his attack, the man spoke out.
'So he can speak,' I thought, making a mental note.
If he could speak, he likely could think. And that made it much easier than if he was merely a monster in humanoid form, capable of fighting like a human rather than relying on nothing but his instincts in a battle.
"To think you would be so quick to forget my face," I happily engaged in the conversation given how it gave me more time to learn more about this opponent.
'I shouldn't forget about that girl either. Who knows how quickly will she be able to restore her stock of mana.'
"Have we ever met before?" the massive man raised one of his eyebrows while leisurely crossing his hands over his chest. He even leaned his head over to the side while squinting his eyes hard enough for a wrinkle to appear on his forehead... or rather, all across his head so perfectly bald, it was a wonder why his scalp didn't reflect sunlight.
"Oh, we did more than just meet!" I exclaimed while acting out a burst of laughter. "We traveled together for several days! That is, until the moment when you went against your oath and abandoned everyone at the caravan to be slaughtered by the bandits you were supposed to keep everyone safe from."
The look on the bald man's face changed. It grew slightly more serious as he finally bothered to scan me properly, his eyes lingering for just a second on every weapon he could see strapped to my clothes.
"Oh, now I get it!" the man suddenly laughed while opening his arms and then dropping his hands down to rest them against his hips. "You stole those clothes, didn't you?"
I squinted my eyes a bit.
'How did he...' I shook my head, 'well, it doesn't matter how he figured that out if I'm going to kill him anyway.'
"I don't like the look in your eyes, man," the giant spoke, his voice growing cold as quickly as he was to laugh out just a moment ago.
"Why is that?" I asked, leaning my head over my shoulder while still keeping my hands loose by my sides.
There was no point in trying to reach for a weapon unless I wanted to handicap myself by indicating which one of them I was going to use first.
"It's the look," the man lowered his hands off his hips and allowed them to hang freely by his sides, copying my stance, "only I'm privy to."
He didn't raise his voice. He didn't allow his voice to waver or otherwise indicate his decision to attack. The complete opposite of those fools who made sure to announce their every attack before it came.
He simply... tensed his muscles and raised his arms at his elbows, before striking out against the air. As he did so, the mana in his flesh condensed, only to shoot out into his fist and then explode right as he completed his attack.
Whoosh!
The burst of the air missed.
Or, to be more precise, I leisurely stepped off to the side, allowing it to pass unobstructed a mere inch off my leg.
Sensing no further movement from the man, I simply looked down at where the attack passed... only to then raise my head and turn my eyes back to the man before raising just the left of my eyebrows in a silent mock.
'That's it?' my expression would say if it had a voice on its own.
This muscular man didn't fall for my taunt, though, only squinting his eyes and reinforcing his position instead.
'So that's how it is,' I thought, nearly giving away my state of mind by releasing a long, slightly annoyed sigh.
Then, while keeping my eyes on the man, I reached out to the side of my back where I'd attached my recently obtained spear through the use of some makeshift straps.
I've wasted no time on fancily spinning the spear around to show my skill off or in hopes of intimidating the man. He didn't look like someone who would fall for it anyway.
So, with a straight, almost bored look on my face, I slammed the but of my spear against the ground before stretching my arm out and pointing the tip of the spear right at the man's head.
"Are you going to just stand there and watch, or...?"
The man didn't move even an inch or as much as twitch. In fact, only his eyes revealed any hint of activity, keenly tracking every tiniest of my movements.
"Well, I was going to kill all of you anyway, so if you are going to just stand there and take it, who am I to complain?" I muttered, before actually spinning the spear with my wrist and stepping back with my non-dominant leg while stretching my leading arm out to the back.
"I was thinking I might let you go..." the massive man muttered before slightly shaking his head only to then space his legs a bit further apart before lowering himself down on his knees and raising his fists, one close to his chest while the other pointed straight at my solar plexus.
"But it seems I cannot let it happen anymore."
With this statement out of his mouth, the man froze again, turning into a towering figure of a lifelong martial artist.
Even standing quite some distance away, I could see how hard the skin of his fists was, proving just how hard and long he trained. It was the thickness one could develop only by covering their calluses with calluses on top of calluses... And then repeating the same process tens, hundreds... No, thousands of times.
In other, simpler words, facing this man directly would be an epitome of foolishness. Sending him to his death with a simple throw of a spear, though, seemed almost too easy.
And so, without further ado, I stretched out my arm to the back, ready to throw the spear at the man and get the whole encounter over with...
My vision faltered for but a split of a second.
I didn't black out, but more like... My brain suddenly grew unsure of whether what was before my eyes was real or just some blurry hallucination.
Despite taking on a stance suggesting he was confident in receiving my attack with his bare hands, the man reappeared right by my side the very moment my vision returned to how it should be.
'Got ya.'
Before the man could transform his momentum into the powerful strike of his overly muscular arm... I twisted my wrist and slammed my right hand down, forcing the butt of the spear between the stones of the path we were on. Then, right as the man slammed his fist out... I jumped.
This man alone would be enough to slaughter the bandits I had to take my time to kill off. Or, in more direct words, he was several times more powerful than what I could handle in a direct confrontation.
Then again, I wasn't one of the idiots who would happily jump into a fight they couldn't win.
Still, despite his massive build, I just couldn't imagine him falling for any of the plethora of simple tricks I had in store. So, to bait him into a position that would be favorable for me, I had no other choice but to show him an actual opening.
And what better opening a martial artist could ask for than a relatively feeble man fully lowering his guard by attempting to throw their spear at them?
With my body twisted, my arm and weapon far behind my center of mass, and only my leading hand keeping my position stable, I left my entire side facing the enemy unprotected.
No, unprotected was too small of a world.
I left it outside of the range I could reach even if I instantly dropped the spear and reached out for another, shorter weapon.
And so, I forced the butt of my spear into the ground, jumped... And then received the man's punch directly into my guts, a mere fraction of an inch below my ribs and dangerously close to my spleen.
But as both of my legs were off the ground, my soft guts hardly offered any resistance to the man's hand, turning his punch... into nothing more but a glorified, perfectly executed push.
My body jerked to the back, thrown away by the force of the man's punch... But at no point did my grip on the spear's handle relax. That's why, rather than flying off into the distance... or rather, outside of the protective dome stretching over the road...
I simply swung around on my spear-turned-pole and made use of my momentum to deliver a devastating kick straight into the man's ear!