I Was the Strongest Sword God in My Past Life

part 18

“Maybe about 10 at most?”

“Come on, even with a student, the other one is a third-grade… That’s an exaggeration.”

Gael stretched out his index and middle finger.

“Let’s be generous and say 12.”

The porter and Gael laughed heartily. Then, someone muttered in a devastated voice from the side.

“…Damn it.”

Gael and the porter turned their heads.

The owner of the voice was a man with particularly thick seagull eyebrows.

“First time hearing your voice today… But why the sudden curse, Mr. Brigo?”

Gael stopped mid-sentence.

It was because of the fear in Brigo’s eyes. Brigo muttered, looking behind Gael.

“The broom of extermination… What kind of shoddy work is this…”

“Huh?”

Both the porter and Gael looked back in confusion. Only then did they understand Brigo’s behavior.

“Screech?”

With fierce eyes, he glared at Brigo, a monstrous bird tearing at a snail with its yellow beak. A beast with thick legs developed in place of degenerated wings. It was certainly [something] unguided.

“Damn.”

“Really damn.”

The porter’s last words.

Gale sighed and thought,

‘After all, if a snail is as big as a person, the bird that preys on it would have to be that size.’

The monstrous bird raised its head and roared.

“Screeech!”

The creature was more massive than two adult men stood upright.

“Hey porter! Why is there a boss here?”

Gale asked, stepping back. There was no briefing about a boss in Mount Ebeus.

“I haven’t been informed either…ugh?”

Suddenly feeling a pain in his chest, the porter looked down. The monstrous bird Hapherus had pierced the porter’s torso with its yellow beak, unnoticed.

Squelch, squelch.

“Screeeech!”

The bloodied monster cried out.

Hapherus, once a ruler of mountain ranges in another dimension, was not an enemy for a third-class saber.

“Thought I was lucky today…”

The porter murmured, looking at his gaping chest.

“Damn! We’re all going to die!”

Gale shouted in despair.

He knew too well that even showing his back now, he couldn’t escape from Hapherus. In such an urgent situation, Brigo was muttering softly to himself.

“If we catch this one, the dungeon will be purified right away… The guild didn’t know about the boss? Something’s strange…”

“Bro, we’re about to die. Is that what matters now? Get out the magic tool quickly!”

Gale shouted urgently, wielding his sword. Only then did Brigo nod and light up the stigma.

“Yeah. Gotta fight back.”

* * *

An abnormal surge of mana.

Jien and his party felt something was amiss and rushed over, but the situation had already deteriorated significantly. The lead porter was dead, and Brogo lay collapsed, having lost an arm.

“Haah, why did you come here?”

Covered in blood, Gael said to Jien.

“What is this…ugh.”

Marceline gagged at the vibrating scent of blood.

“Just more fodder… Ms. Marceline, please take the student and run away quickly.”

Saying so, Gael surrounded himself with mana. He glanced briefly at Jien.

“Hey! Take a good look. School is the best. Life is tough outside…”

“Screech!”

Hapherus assumed a stance. He growled again, beak at the forefront.

Gael, reduced to rags, clenched his teeth.

‘At best, once or twice… Ah, this is fierce. Damn…’

As Gael prepared for his end,

“Senior.”

Jien stepped forward.

“Leave the rest to your junior now.”

Even in this situation, he worried about others. Gael’s character might be foul, but the figure he cut was that of a fine Saber.

Bang!

Hapherus stomped the ground. The giant’s attack shook the earth.

Jien also leaped to counterattack, and simultaneously, his stigma shone.

[ Sensory Amplification ]

His senses heightened, thoughts accelerated. Time seemed to slow for a moment.

It wasn’t that Jien had become faster; it was just that his perception of time had changed.

But the effect was dramatic.

Crack!

Jien’s Black Fragrance accurately struck Hapherus’s beak. Hapherus, losing his balance, fell.

Boom!

The giant’s fall kicked up dust.

Jien, having finished retching, said to Marceline,

“Senior, are you ready?”

“…Ready? Are you talking about being ready to die?”

Marceline, who doesn’t lose her humor even in such a situation. Gian chuckled at her words.

“Of course, it’s preparation to kill.”

The monster materialized on Mount Ebeus.

Hapheus, the monstrous bird and ruler of the unnamed mountain range in Sector 4.

“A third-class and a student. Taking on a fourth-class boss… this isn’t a movie…”

As Marceline said, Hapheus, classified as a fourth-class difficulty, was an enemy too much for a third-class Saber and a student to handle.

‘Unless it’s an ordinary student.’

Fortunately, Gian was far from ordinary.

“Yes. Let’s make it a movie.”

Gian, wrapped in mana with the scent of black spice.

Hapheus, having taken his stance, made a strange noise.

“Gurgle, gurk.”

Hapheus, his body undulating. Seeing his upper body abnormally swelling, Gian shouted.

“Dodge!”

At the same time.

“Gwooek!”

Hapheus vomited gastric acid towards Marceline.

The prey Hapheus had eaten in the mountains where he lived were all beasts above second-class. The digestive fluid that dissolved such beasts was a weapon in itself.

“Ah!”

Marceline quickly twisted her body. The tree behind her was hit by the gastric acid and melted into a brown liquid. If she had been hit directly.

‘I would have been left with only bones…’

In that moment, Marceline felt a chill down her spine.

“Senior. Do you have a diet plan?”

“No!”

“Then, please aim for the neck on the next breath.”

Hapheus pecked at Gian with his beak. The yellow beak equally gouged out the earth and rocks, leaving them hollowed.

“Kiyook!”

The standoff between Hapheus, whose entire body was a weapon, and the student in a school uniform. To Gael, watching from a distance, Gian’s sword looked like a toy against the colossal monstrous bird.

“That creature…”

As if reading every attack, Jian dodges by a paper-thin margin.

“Kugh!”

Not only that, but he was steadily inflicting damage on Hapherus. However, Hapherus was not one to fall from such attacks.

A decisive strike was needed.

Jian wore a bitter expression.

‘Is this the second time?’

Jian looked at his stigma.

The first was a virtual gate, so it didn’t matter, but now it was different.

A clear reality. He had to consider the handicap.

‘Moon Blade.’

A skill from the third zone that uses mana, stamina, and even vital energy as fuel to cut down the enemy.

Of course, he was afraid. He had no desire to walk the same path in this second chance at life.

“Gurgle.”

Hapherus’s upper body swayed once again.

A precursor shown before spitting gastric acid.

“Please take care.”

But Jian charged at Hapherus instead. At such close range, there was no way for Jian to dodge the acid, but he was not alone.

“Don’t worry!”

Marceline activated the magic device she had saved. As promised, the spear pierced through Hapherus’s throat.

“Gurgle!”

Unable to spit it out, the gastric acid refluxed, and Hapherus writhed in agony. Finally, an opening in the fourth-grade boss.

“Please just die!”

With the use of the skill, Jian’s stigma shone brightly.

[Moon Blade (月劍)]

Even though night was far off, moonlight settled on Jian’s black sword. The subtle light and the black blade were a rather beautiful combination.

‘Damn.’

The only flaw was that it was not mana, but Jian’s vital energy that was overlaid on the sword.

Swoosh!

The steel-like body of Hapherus was sliced. There was no longer the same dignity in Hapherus, now literally cut in half.

Ssssh.

Hepherus’s corpse scattered like dust.

It wasn’t just Hepherus. The penalty on the gate at Mount Ebeus had been lifted.

No longer would other-dimensional monsters appear on Mount Ebeus. All lower-tier monsters, including the snails, had vanished.

“We did it! No, we’ve done it!”

Zien looked at the spot where Hepherus’s body had lain. Sure enough, two artifacts remained there.

‘Artifacts from the dungeon.’

It was a rare case, even in a past life, for items to be delayed in dropping after clearing a gate.

By the original rules, the guild that owned the dungeon should have them, but that didn’t make financial sense.

‘The Broom of Annihilation…’

The reason why the boss had been hidden was already understood. It wasn’t hard to predict, having experienced something similar in a past life.

‘I’ll be sure to repay the debt.’

* * *

The Broom of Annihilation.

The very top floor of a massive building.