Martial Elf

As Adreel’s legs twisted abnormally with each approaching moment, none of the figures charging forward did so clumsily, merely swallowing their dry saliva.

“Are you going to stay like that all day long?”

“You bastards! What are you scared of from a little girl? Come at me! Kill her! Just kill her!”

As Adreel raved, one of the timid ones finally mustered courage, shouted a battle cry, and swung a club vertically.

With a mere dodge, the club swung down hard, striking the ground violently, causing it to recoil painfully in his grip as he trembled.

Feeling pity, I lightly struck his chin, and his neck twisted in a straight line as he fell, lifeless.

“H-huh!”

“Is… is he dead?”

“Not dead; he just fainted. By the way, are they not coming anymore? Then I’ll take care of this.”

“…! He’s gone!”

“Looks like everyone is unfortunately blind as well. Right over here.”

I spoke while looking up at Gide, the bait man.

“Earlier, I heard your impressive evaluation of yourself. Just so you know, a mouth has historically been the root of all evil, so it’s wise to be cautious.”

“You fucking bitch!”

I did a double twist in the air and stomped on Gide’s mouth as he lay groaning on the ground.

“You must have lacked opportunities for learning. Poor thing. I hope you learn a lesson today by using that mouth as a foot wipe.”

“Ugh! Ugh!”

With a furious expression, he attempted to grab my ankle, but I withdrew the foot crushing his mouth and struck his chin instead.

As I watched Gide fall to the ground just like the other lowlife, the surrounding idiots fell into a panic, screaming some mix of battle cries and shrieks as they charged in.

“What a mess.”

In the already narrow alley, the large number of participants, all in a panic, started swinging their makeshift weapons haphazardly, and one side of the blocked alley turned to chaos.

I let out a sigh as I observed the idiots who, without any regard for their surroundings, hit their fellow fools while entangled in their own clumsiness.

It was laughable to take them seriously, so I kept knocking them out as they charged at me, when I suddenly heard Adreel yelling from behind.

“Fuck! Get that idiot who came with her first!”

The group across from us, previously frozen in fear, snapped back to reality at those words, glancing at Kyle, who was shivering behind Rudolf.

Whenever their comrades charged, nothing seemed to happen to the mysterious beauty who effortlessly knocked them down, making the cowardly man trembling behind the deer look far easier to tackle. Although Rudolf’s personality was troublesome, they began to rush toward Kyle.

“Uh…? Don’t come!”

The sudden shift made Kyle panic, pressing his back against the wall, attempting to pull out the self-defense knife he always used while trading, but the opponent was faster.

Tsk tsk. He should’ve been ready with his weapon long ago.

I picked up a shabby dagger from the lowlife who just fell after getting hit in the chin.

As I put force into the center of its blade, cracks began to form.

I flicked my finger against the cracked blade.

Dozens of gleaming shards flew, embedding themselves into the hands of those charging at Kyle or slicing past their necks and cheeks.

And that wasn’t the end.

Rudolf let out a fierce roar and charged straight at one of them with his horns.

The guy that got rammed flew more than three Elte (3m) into the air, colliding with a comrade on the ground below.

“Ahhh!”

“My hand!”

They dropped the weapons they held, retreating while clutching their hands that had shards of metal embedded in them.

Beginning to succumb to panic from the shallow pain of cuts on their necks and cheeks, they noticed the blood that’s now oozing out.

“A witch…!”

“It’s a witch…!”

“It seems like I hear more about being a witch from humans than about being an elf.”

I sighed after knocking out the last one, excluding the gambler who was crouched, covering his face with his arms.

“Even when I strive to act as a gentleman, the world is filled only with lowlives, and I’m afraid the elves’ reputation will worsen due to the nonsense spoken by these lowly creatures.”

I slowly walked toward Adreel.

She was trying to push herself back with her arms hurting from immovable legs.

The group on the opposite side appeared to have lost their will to fight as they hesitated, tending to their wounds.

“Not a single one is willing to stop me even when their leader is in crisis. Ultimately, these are the lowly creatures in the back alleys, sucking the lifeblood of common folk.”

“You… who are you?”

“Lowly creatures have no right to speak to me.”

I glanced around, seeming to have managed the situation.

One side was filled with those whose heads were buried in the ground, while the other side was a group of beaten, panic-stricken lowlifes trying to cover their wounds, avoiding my gaze.

“…The disparity is so great that it doesn’t even make me want to act. Hey, big lowlife.”

“…What is it?”

“I can’t commit mass slaughter against creatures of such a low caliber. I don’t wish to deal with the cleanup, so I won’t take your lives.”

I pointed with my chin at the gambler who was watching nervously in the corner.

“You will follow me.”

Startled by my sudden call-out, he stiffened and then wore a face of devastation when I told him to follow.

“Oh, and pick up all the daggers around while you’re at it. Not a single one left behind.”

Whether he liked it or not, I sent the gambler on an errand and turned to head back down the alley we came from.

The ones who flinched when I approached watched nervously, then split to the sides, clearing a path.

Rudolf didn’t forget to threaten those splitting to either side as we passed.

“Kyle? What are you doing? Come and finish up quickly.”

“Uh…? Right.”

“Yeah… yes…!”

The alley was filled with a larger number of fainted lowlifes than those who were conscious, and it seemed like it would take quite some time to clean up since no one was physically intact.

“From the looks of the medical abilities here and that leg of yours, it’s likely you’ll live the rest of your life limping. The physiology of lowly creatures like you won’t allow for a good future. The deeds you’ve accumulated until now will be put to the test.”

I left the back alley after throwing one last comment at the despairing Adreel.

—

“…What are you doing?”

Kyle cautiously asked, still shaken from the earlier chaos in the alley.

I was untying the straps wrapped around the daggers that the gambler had collected.

The lowlives’ daggers were all used with straps tied around the hilt rather than having handles.

“Oh, I’m trying to craft a few things. Since the quality of this scrap metal is so poor, mixing it with straps wouldn’t be ideal, would it?”

After tidying up all the straps on the hilts, I began manipulating the daggers together using my energy.

The daggers started to form a lump, resembling metal dough. I tore off a chunk with my hand and began shaping it.

Kyle and the gambler, who were watching from the side, were staring in awe, their jaws dropped.

Soon, the metal dough morphed into four well-shaped blades.

I fashioned the remaining metal into adequately sized marbles.

I decided to keep those for myself and handed two of the crafted blades to the gambler.

“…Uh?”

Startled by the sudden presentation of the blades, the gambler jerked back in surprise.

“Can you use both hands?”

“Ah… yes, I can use both hands.”

“Good. Show me your hands.”

“Yes?”

“Show me your hands. That’s it, like that. Grip it like this.”

I demonstrated how to hold the blade and the grip method.

“Think of the transfer of strength starting from the shoulders, then add rotation with the wrist and fingers at the end.”

The gambler followed my instructions without really understanding, but appeared to have some talent as he did quite well.

After a few repetitions, the blade slipped from his hand, lacking in strength and speed, but it flew gracefully, tracing beautiful curves in the air or dropping straight down as if defying gravity.

“Hmm. You definitely have some talent. What’s your name?”

“Uh…? I’m Duberv.”

“That’s quite a unique name.”

“I hear that quite often.”

“Do you have any parents or family to support?”

“Oh, I’m an orphan.”

“That’s nice since there won’t be any issues there. Now you will clear your previous life and learn under me.”

“Huh? Learn what?”

“Martial arts.”

At that remark, Kyle looked at Duberv’s hand, which I was checking the grip shape of, with envy, then suddenly turned to me in surprise.

Kyle knew that the source of my power was based on martial arts and had just seen it firsthand in action; thus, he was astonished that I would teach it.

I decided to take the underutilized talent that was otherwise wasting away by living a life at the bottom.

Perhaps the first disciple I have had as a human.

“Uh… Can’t you teach me too?”

“Honestly, you lack talent. I doubt I would even enjoy teaching you.”

Kyle’s face fell at my words, so I hastily added an explanation.

“And you have a decent job as a trader, right? Unlike him, this one is just a drifting fool with no proper vocation.”

“……”

“…I’ll teach you a decent self-defense technique later, so don’t look at me like that.”

“…Does this choice reflect my intentions at all?”

Duberv timidly protested from behind, but I dismissed it without a care.

“It’s better for you to live this way with your abilities than to hustle someone, living like a lowlife giving tribute to back-alley thugs.”

“It doesn’t seem like that method of throwing is particularly useful…”

“Hey! Even if I’m personally teaching you martial arts, where did that attitude come from? Besides, you’ve already learned martial arts from me!”

“Uh… is this martial arts?”

“An entry-level form of memorization technique, yes.”

“Honestly, I don’t need it… can’t I just not do it?”

“Martial arts is a vision, each one being an entry. While you can choose to join freely, you can’t just leave it at that.”

“It seems my will wasn’t considered even at this entry…”

“In the laws of the martial world, they say that the disciples must cut their limbs’ meridians and break their dantian.”

“I don’t know what martial world or dantian means, but the word selection is rather gruesome… Isn’t that asking too much for what I’ve learned?”

“If you keep talking back, I’ll make sure it’s not your limbs’ meridians that get cut but your mouth… hmm.”

I paused my chatter with Duberv to gaze at a shadowy area nearby.

“Kyle, take Duberv and Rudolf and go to the accommodation first.”

“Huh…? What’s going on now?”

“Indeed. We’ve just arrived in this city for a day, but it feels like we’re getting tangled up in quite a bit.”

I slowly released my energy toward the Yongcheon-hyeol from my body, pointing at Duberv.

“I’ll be back shortly. Don’t run away; just follow me quietly.”

Then, bursting forth from the concentrated energy in Yongcheon-hyeol, I kicked off the ground and launched into the air.

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