"Haah!!" Nate swung his sword downwards with enough force to crush a mountain. Or so he wished.

"Mm. I think you've gotten more than decent in edge alignment." Miyu nodded as she clapped.

"Yeah?" Nate smiled as he sighed in relief. He gave a short glance at his falchion as it reflected the midmorning sun's light. "You sure?"

"Yes." Miyu nodded in reassurance. She drew out her Katana and did a few practice swings. Every stroke of her sword made a satisfying swish sound. "Your sword makes a similar sound, although the difference might just be because Katanas are better at slashing. In any case, you'll be able to cut things better now."

"I see." Nate smiled, his teeth peeking out. "Thanks, Miyu. You've really been a great help."

"It's nothing." Miyu's ponytail swung from side to side as she shook her head. "It'd be better for everyone if their leader can fight well, right?"

"Haha... Leader, huh?" Nate grinned awkwardly.

Miyu and Nate had been training since the crack of dawn. At first, Miyu tried to fix minor mistakes Nate made, such as his stance and how much of his weight he put into his swings. Nate put too much of his weight into his swings, and this apparently took away some of his ability to react to an opponent's counter. As for his stance, they previously consisted of baseball stances, since he didn't have any swordsmanship experience. Nate was a quick study, and he was very enthusiastic about learning swordsmanship. He managed to fix those problems easily.

Next came his edge alignment. In anime and manga, they made it look easy to cut stuff with a sword, but it was actually a bit more complicated than that. Since a sword is sharp, it would naturally pierce through skin and some flesh if you were to swing it hard enough. But relying on pure strength could only get you so far.

The ideal was, to use minimal force to cause maximum damage. That was where edge alignment came into play. You had to strike straight and true so that your edge cuts properly.

Or so he was told. He wasn't quite sure how it all worked.

Nate spent the last two hours doing practice swings, adjusting his grip as he went along.

And just now, Miyu had finally given her seal of approval.

'This feels good. Improving in something you work hard on...' Nate reveled in the warm and exhilarating feeling welling up within him. After a moment, he turned his gaze towards Miyu, his eyes filled with gratitude. 'This is all thanks to her.'

"..." Miyu squirmed uncomfortably under Nate's gaze. She shyly said, "S-stop looking at me like that..."

"Hahaha." Nate chuckled in amusement. Miyu was already a very attractive woman, but he found her more endearing when she was embarrassed. As he contemplated whether he was actually a sadist or not, he infused his voice with all the sincerity he could muster as he bowed deeply. "Thank you. I know I already said it before, but still. You didn't have to do all this, but you still did. So, thank you."

"No no no." Miyu waved her hands in front of her in panic. "I said it was n-nothing. I also benefit from you fighting well, since I won't have to come forward..."

"I see." Nate nodded noncommittally. He didn't believe her at all.

'It's cute how she keeps trying to deny credit.' Nate mused. For Nate, meeting a genuinely good person like her only happened once in a blue moon. 'I should take special care of her during the expeditions.'

Nate decided to pay more attention to his and Miyu's safety. Her superpower and sword skills aside, Nate liked Miyu as a person. He honestly felt that the world needed a bunch of people like her. So, if anyone was going to die in the expeditions, he would make sure that it wasn't him or her.

"By the way," Miyu interjected, trying to change the topic. "Ming gathered up a group of people to make these... uhm, wall things...? Anyways, we can use them to move forward with some protection from arrows. It's an amazing idea, right?"

"Yeah. He really used his guts for that one." Nate smirked as he remembered his conversation with Ming last night.

"Guts...? Don't you mean head?" Miyu tilted her head in confusion.

"Maybe." Nate sheathed his falchion then he patted his clothes to get the dust off as he asked, "Breakfast?"

"I already ate. You?" Miyu also sheathed her Katana and smoothed out her clothes a little, then made sure that her brand new chest plate was securely fastened.

"I'm good." Nate ran his gaze over his equipment one last time as he gave his chest plate a few tugs here and there, then nodded in satisfaction. "Let's go check out those guys' handiwork."

Nate stepped forward and Miyu followed.

*****

"Alright! Everybody ready?" Nate asked as he hid behind a large plank of wood that four people were holding up, getting voices of affirmation from twenty-five different people. "Right, we're just about to reach where we fought against the little bastards last time, so whether you are ready or not, you're about to see some uglies."

'The walls are better than I thought. Ming even added some improvements.' Nate remarked as he looked through one of the wall's peepholes. He still couldn't see any goblins, but he knew they were watching. He'd felt a strange gaze since a while ago. 'Well, we've got a few more people than before, although most of them are relegated to holding up the walls.'

Nate adjusted his newly acquired helmet. It covered the top of his head with steel, while only partially covering everything below. It had chain mail affixed to it, which protected the neck. The front of the helmet looked quite open, which he liked since it didn't give him tunnel vision. When Nate saw this in the catalog, he remembered thinking that it looked oddly similar to a hockey helmet.

'The chain mail feels really uncomfortable though. In hindsight, I should've put some cloth over my neck before putting the helmet on.' Nate mused. It didn't hurt or anything, but the sensation of the chain making contact with his skin was a bit unpleasant. He'd have to fix that for the next expedition.

"I see them!" A woman called out as she gazed through one of the peepholes.

"They're here too! About ten!" A voice called out from the right flank.

"Same! I count... fifteen here!" A high-pitched voice from the left called out with a hint of panic.

"Calm down! We've handled them before!" Nate called out in a loud voice that reverberated in the valley. "They're like kids, except they look like ass and they're less annoying!"

A few men chuckled a little, and the unease that the newcomers felt eased.

"Let's let them come a little closer! Archers shoot whenever!" Nate commanded.

"Roger!" Ayumi replied as she aimed and fired an arrow through one of the peepholes in the right flank.

"Okay!" Miyu called back from somewhere in the left flank.

"Graaa!"

"Grobll Grogl!!"

"Gobu Gragu!"

The goblins' panicked yells and incomprehensible words made their way into Nate's ears.

"Damn. They're not even taking a shot?" Nate said irritably. He'd hoped that the little demons would waste arrows, but it seemed he underestimated their intelligence. He used his slingshot to fling a pebble at an incoming goblin, then yelled out orders. "I'm going out! Nobody follows! Just hold your ground!"

Without waiting for a reply, Nate ran around the wall and headed straight for the nearest goblin, kicking it in the head like any professional soccer player would, letting a nearby spearman finish it off. He then drew out his falchion and crouched a little as he swept it sideways, severing a different goblin's head.

"Ming! Take charge of the front group!" Nate called out as he ran forwards.

"Got it!" Ming called back loudly from somewhere behind him.

'Right, where are you little fuckers...' Nate did his best to scan the surroundings through the slits of his helmet as he charged forward, cutting down any goblin he met. 'Are there actually no archers this time...?'

Swoosh Swoosh Swoosh

Just as the lack of arrows was beginning to give rise to doubt within his heart, Nate heard the distinct sound of something piercing through the air and he soon felt a sharp pain in his right shoulder and left knee.

Tink!

Then he felt a small shock to the head as a stone arrowhead collided with his helmet.

'This thing is paying for itself already!' Nate thanked his past self as he pulled out the arrow in his shoulder with his left hand, then the one on his leg. The wounds closed shortly after the foreign objects were pulled out. Nate then glanced in the direction where two of the arrows came from. 'I'm gonna get you, you motherfuckers!'

Nate kicked off the ground in a sprint and quickly met with two panicking goblins. They dropped their weapons and began to run away.

'No you don't!' Nate, with his much longer legs, easily caught up to one of them. He delivered a well-placed kick that coincidentally sent the goblin hurtling into the other. 'Holy shit! I didn't mean to do that, but I want a video of that or something.'

They were already much slower than Nate, so how could they still escape in this situation? The goblins never got to stand on their two feet ever again as they were felled by Nate's blade.

'There should be another archer...' Nate knew where the last one was relative to his starting point, but now that he'd moved, he wasn't quite sure where the bugger was at the moment. The thick fog didn't help either.

With no other options, Nate just chose to go back to the group for now.

"UWOOOOOOOOH!!!" Nate wasn't even able to take a step forward before his ears were greeted by a heart-shaking cry.

'Well, that didn't sound like a goblin.' Nate put his guard up as he turned in the direction of the unknown entity. His back towards where the rest of his expedition members were holding out, Nate gulped as he waited. 'Please don't be some eldritch abomination. Please be something I can deal with...'

Heavy steps rhythmically thumped as something quickly made its way towards him while he prayed to every god he knew. Soon, he could make out a tall figure through the fog. Nate couldn't see it clearly, but it was definitely a head taller than him.

And it was definitely not a goblin.

"Come at me!" Nate taunted, partly to make sure the monster came at him, and partly to rouse himself up. He felt surprisingly good after the yell, so he decided to do it again by roaring out. "Raaaah!!"

"RAAAAAAGHHH!!!" As if in response, the newcomer also let out a warcry of his own. As if its howl produced a shockwave of air, the fog that surrounded the being dissipated, giving Nate a clear view of it.

It was a humanoid creature, and just as Nate's previous observation proved, was about a head taller than him. It only wore a crude loincloth over its crotch just like the goblins did. The creature's red skin looked about ready to burst from the muscles underneath, and the Dane ax it held with both hands glinted menacingly. Its chest rose and fell as it inhaled air through its wide nostrils and huffed out misty breaths from its mouth which was framed by tusks jutting out of the sides of its lower jaws.

"What the fuck are you...?" Nate asked without thinking as he stared into the creature's glowing yellow eyes. 'It kind of looks like an orc, but... Don't they have green skin? Are there orcs with red skin?'

"*SNORT*" The orc-like creature snorted then beckoned Nate with its forefinger.

"Are you... challenging me?" Nate asked in bemusement. The gesture the creature used was a universal one. You could use it anywhere and it would mean roughly the same thing. But universally generally meant humans. Did whatever this creature was have the same culture?

"Rah!" As if it understood Nate, it yelled out and nodded. He stomped the ground a few times, daring Nate to step forward.

"Hah." Nate scoffed in exasperation. "This guy. You know how many people bigger than me I've killed? Don't think size means everything... in a fight. I meant that in a fight."

Nate thought his last sentence was a bit strange, so he hastily amended it. He quickly sheathed his falchion and pulled out his slingshot.

"Yeah, you probably should've just kept running at me." Nate mocked as he quickly nocked, aimed, and fired a lead pellet right between the orc's eyes.

"Uwoh!" The orc exclaimed in surprise as it tried to move its head out of the way, but it failed. "Graaaahhh!!!"

'Bingo!' Nate took out another pellet as he observed the creature grasping at its bloody left eye. He aimed his next shot at the creature's crotch this time.

"UWOAAHHH!!" The creature bellowed as it kicked off the ground and sprinted towards Nate with fangs bared and fury in its remaining eye.

"Oh shit." Nate quickly readjusted his aim towards the middle of the creature's chest, then fired. Without checking if his shot connected, he threw aside the slingshot and used his free hand to draw the falchion on his hip.

'Alright, Nate. Just protect your head and heart. And remember all that stuff Miyu taught you.' Nate gave himself an internal pep talk as beheld the orc angrily coming for him. 'This guy sure is big though... and he's fucking ripped.'

The moment that Nate was within its range, the orc took a large swing with its ax, aiming to part Nate's head with his body.

'Duck!' Nate bent over and let the mass of iron pass him by, then he lunged forward to skewer the orc. As he felt the tip of his sword meet the orc's flesh, he used all his weight to push it deeper.

However, he did not expect the amount of resistance the orc's muscles offered.

'Holy shit, it's so thick!' Nate let go of his sword, which was only halfway lodged into the orc's stomach. He pulled out the Greek sword on his back and the knife behind his hip, as he backed off quickly, avoiding the orc's grasp. 'The fuck is wrong with this guy's muscles? Are they made of rubber?'

"Gragh... Growaaaaah!" The orc groaned in pain then yelled in resentment. The intensity of the storm that swirled in its eyes grew, as it gnashed its teeth.

"Hey, man. We're just trying to get out of here, you guys are the ones who messed with us first." Nate sneered as he tried to rile the creature up even more. It's common sense that people make more stupid decisions when they're angry, and since he knew the creature could somehow understand him, Nate would obviously capitalize on that. It was one of the skills he'd learned in his youth. "Fucking tomato bastard. Come at me!"

"GRAAAAH!!!" The orc was about to try to remove Nate's sword from its stomach, but Nate's provocation threw away all thoughts other than ripping him apart in his mind.

'Right. That worked out somehow.' Nate inwardly sighed in relief. The falchion was encumbering the thing's movements, so he wanted it to stay there for a while. His childish taunt somehow worked, and the creature was now determined to separate his limbs from his body using its bare hands. He wasn't quite sure whether it was an entirely good thing, though. 'Let's just hold out until it bleeds out or until I can get some ranged help. Hopefully, all of the shouting alerted those guys of my situation.'

Nate remembered telling them not to follow him, but this time, he wanted them to disobey. He didn't think his short sword could pierce through the orc's thick muscles.

Nate lightly threw his dagger at the incoming orc's face as a distraction, making the orc abruptly stop and cover its face with its left hand.

'Gotcha.' Nate made a break for the creature's left side and jammed his sword into the creature's leg and tried his best to twist it. 'So goddamn thick!'

"GRUUUWOOOOH!!!" The orc yelled in pain as it felt steel plunge into his thigh and be twisted about. It swept its arm out and felt it collide with metal.

"AGH!" Nate was sent rolling across the ground, his metal chest plate dented inwards. Even his helmet flew off to who-knew-where. He didn't have time to groan around in pain though, so he raised his head while enduring the agony and searched for the orc.

"Gruk. Oguu..." Nate was relieved to find that the orc hadn't charged after him, and was now attempting to pull out the sword in its thigh. Nate wanted to capitalize on the opening it was showing, but he was a bit too far from it, and he had more concerning things to worry about.

'Well, this chest plate has to be dropped now.' Nate pulled out his last knife and cut off the chest plate's straps without hesitation. Once he was freed from the steel that constricted him, he heaved a sigh of relief as he felt his ribs begin to reattach. 'Son of a bitch. What an arm... It broke multiple ribs through a steel plate?'

By the time Nate finished liberating himself from his metallic prison, the orc had also pulled out both swords out of its body. As it watched Nate casually pick up the steel plate in the ground as if nothing happened, the rage that filled its eyes was stained with a dash of fear and horror.

Nate noticed this, and he looked back at the mass of muscle in front of him with a displeased expression. "The hell are you looking at me like that for? Huh? You think I'm scary? Bastard, you sent me flying with a swing from your non-dominant hand and broke my ribs even though I had metal armor on. You don't get to look at me like that."

"Grrrrr..." The orc growled as it eyed Nate with caution. Even though he was smaller and only had that small thing for a weapon now, the orc was still wary of the seemingly immortal Nate.

'I have to somehow get to my weapons...' Nate glanced at his swords laying by the orc's feet, and the slingshot much farther away. 'Slingshot's a bust. It's too far. As for the swords... We'll see.'

Just as Nate was thinking of throwing another of his taunts, he heard someone running towards him from somewhere to his left.

"Nate!" Miyu called out, Katana at the ready. Nate and the orc shifted around during the battle, so she came from Nate's left side instead of behind him, forming a triangle formation with him and the orc.

"Miyu! Be careful!" Nate called back in worry. "There's an orc-thing here!"

"Orc...?" Miyu echoed, but when she finally got close enough, her eyes widened at the sight of the creature. "Th-that's not a goblin..."

"My thoughts exactly!" Nate got ready to charge forward in case the orc went after Miyu. "That guy is crazy strong. He did this to my armor and still broke a bunch of ribs in a single shot. If you get hit, you die."

"Wah..." Miyu gaped as she sent a glance at the chest plate that Nate was holding. The armor was unrecognizable. The dent in the middle looked like it could be used as a soup bowl.

"I'm gonna go first, you follow up!" Nate sprung into action, charging toward the orc. Miyu, bewildered for a moment, followed right after.

"UWOH!" The orc roared, hesitating whether to go after the puny female on its right or the scary immortal human coming in its front.

The orc didn't have the luxury of choosing, since Nate suddenly flung the chest plate towards its face as a distraction, making it flinch just like before.

'If it works, don't fix it!' Nate ran towards the orc's blind spot, but he didn't expect that the orc would anticipate this. The orc, even as it flinched, turned its body to face Nate's current location. 'Shit. Guess I underestimated it a little.'

But Nate didn't panic. He stopped running and tried to keep the orc's attention on him by fake charging and then retreating.

"GRAA!" The orc roared in frustration over Nate's cowardice, but then it remembered that it was fighting against two people. The orc tried to turn its head to look for the other person, but it was too late. "GRUWAAH!!

"Haah!" Miyu retreated after painting a long crimson line on the red canvas that was the orc's back. "I-It's so thick! My blade almost got stuck!"

"Yeah, happened to me too! Sorry, I forgot to tell you about that!" Nate called out as he grinned, satisfied that things had worked out. His smirk quickly disappeared as he saw the orc turn its wrathful gaze onto Miyu, though. "Oh, shit!

"UWOOOH!!" The orc, facing Miyu, roared in frenzy. However, even before it stepped forward to cleave Miyu with its ax, Nate had already sprung forward and jumped on its back like a koala. "GROWAAAAH!!"

The orc thrashed around violently as it tried to pry Nate off of it. It bit and tore into the arm that Nate was using to grasp onto it, but Nate just wouldn't let go.

"You fucking knock-off orc!!" Nate cursed loudly as he endured the pain, he took his knife and tried to stab it repeatedly into where the carotid artery should be, but the muscles in the orc's neck were just too hard. He wasn't in a very good position, so he couldn't put much weight into it. Nate's attempts only resulted in shallow wounds, making Nate roar in frustration. "What the fuck is wrong with your muscles!?!?"

Nate gave up on the neck and tried to stab the orc in the eye instead, but before he could do so, he started falling backward off of the orc.

His entire left forearm was bitten off by the orc, so he now had nothing to use to grab hold of it.

'Shit!' Nate cursed as he mustered all of his bodily strength, and curled up before he fell while using his legs to clamp onto the orc's torso. Just before he did, he managed to secure himself to the orc by using his teeth. As he bit down as hard as he could, his incisors creaked in protest as they strained to support the weight of his body. If it weren't for Nate's superpower, his pearly whites may have gotten pulled off by now. Luckily, he was being healed constantly, so he was able to maintain this strange position. 'Holy moly. It hurts like hell, but this is good!'

If he'd fallen off, the orc could've easily stomped his head into goo, splattering brain matter all over the ground.

Nate repeatedly stabbed and twisted his knife wherever he could, as he waited for his left hand to grow back.

But before he could regrow his missing forearm, the orc suddenly stopped moving, and turned sluggish, then fell on its knees as it groaned.

"I-I did it, Nate! I think it's dying!" Miyu called out from somewhere in front of the orc. Nate wasn't quite sure, since his mouth, and naturally, most of his face was attached to the thing's back.

'Good work!' Nate praised inwardly. Miyu coming to help out really saved his bacon this time. 'But don't say it like that. You'll raise a flag. What if it comes back to life?'

"Grrr..." The orc let out a final, low growl as the life leaked out of him. Soon, he fell face forward onto the ground.

"..." Nate stayed still, making sure that the orc wasn't just playing dead. Once his hand finally grew back, he used it and put all of his weight into pushing his knife into the back of the orc's head. Nate sighed in relief when he saw the orc give no reaction to getting a blade plunged into his brain. "Hooooh."

"Nate..." Miyu looked at Nate with concern as he heaved a heavy sigh on top of the orc corpse. She glanced at Nate's arm. Then she looked at Nate's new arm, which he was currently using to pull his knife out of the orc's skull. She gulped in a mouthful of saliva as she muttered in amazement. "Th-they really do grow back..."

"Hm?" The area was eerily silent, so Nate heard Miyu's mutter as if she was yelling into his ear from right beside him. He followed her gaze, and chuckled dryly at what he saw. "Yeah, they do. Although, I've never actually had a limb severed. Didn't know it'd hurt that much, honestly."

"How can you just say that so casually?" Miyu felt exasperated over Nate's nonchalance. She watched him in silence as he wiped his knife off on his clothes, sheathed it on his leg, then walked over to his severed arm. "Wh-what are you doing...?"

"Look, haha." Nate chuckled as he waved around his severed arm.

"Will you stop that...?" Miyu covered her mouth, holding back this morning's breakfast from making a reappearance.

"Oh, sorry." Nate smiled wryly. He'd been trying to clear his companion's mind of worry about his well-being, but he instead made her feel disturbed. He threw his arm far into the distance so that the others wouldn't see it when they went to inspect the orc corpse later. He looked back at Miyu with curiosity. "So, what happened while I was holding on for dear life?"

"Oh. I backed off for a bit because it had a longer reach than me, but then it dropped its weapon. So I went in and... slashed open its stomach..." Miyu turned her eyes away from the corpse with a strange expression as she explained.

"..." Nate knew what that expression meant. He'd seen that same expression in the mirror when he was nineteen years old. "Hey, you don't have to mind it too much. Look at it, this thing isn't even human."

"..."

"Don't think about it like, 'I killed someone'." Nate racked his brain for what he told himself to get over this when he was younger. "Think about the people you saved by killing this thing. Just think about what would've happened if this orc wreaked havoc in the middle of the expedition group."

"Ah..." Miyu gasped in realization. If the orc made it to the other members? The orc that could cause that level of damage on a steel plate with its bare hands? She couldn't bare imagine the tragedy that would've occurred.

"See?" Nate smiled when he saw Miyu's expression ease a little. "Just don't mind these. Besides, we were just acting in self-defense here. They attacked us first."

"...Mm." Miyu nodded slowly, convinced. She looked at the man who was currently picking up and wiping the blood off of his various weapons. "Thank you, Nate."

"Hey, no problem." Nate stowed back his slingshot on his belt. He now looked exactly like the him before he left, albeit for his bloody clothes, messy hair, the mud and grime on his skin, and the missing chest plate that protected his torso. After putting his helmet back on, he happily picked up the orc's weapon and inspected it with a smile on his face.

Unlike the goblin's small, crude weapons of stone, this ax was of excellent quality. There were also no problems with size.

"This is great." He beamed as he gave the ax a few swings.

"You're taking another weapon...?" Miyu rolled her eyes. "Don't you have too much already?"

"Hey, by the end of the battle, I only had the knife left you know? If I didn't have so many weapons on me, I would've been a goner." Nate acted like a cat who'd just had its tail stepped on. He continued to make excuses for his weapon hoarding. "Plus, this weapon is special because we looted it from a powerful foe that we vanquished."

"Yeah, yeah." Miyu replied without a smidgen of emotion. She turned her eyes towards the direction where she could faintly hear celebratory yells. "Looks like they finished up too."

"Oh yeah?" Nate didn't even look away from his new weapon as he asked. "How'd they do? It's just goblins, so they could handle that easily, right?"

"Uhm, no." Miyu's hair swayed side to side, as she replied with an overcast expression. "There were hobgoblins... or that's what some of the others called them."

"Hobgoblins?" Nate's eyes widened as he finally took his gaze away from his ax. He sent an uneasy look towards where the group should be.

"Mm. They were as tall as us. And they had iron weapons, though they looked really old and rusty."

"Oh. Well, judging from the noise, everything seems to be okay." Nate smiled in relief.

"Mm. Good thing..." Miyu said, the middle of her eyebrows wrinkled in worry. "I hope Ayumi's okay."

"She'll be fine." Nate tried to reassure her as he went and picked up his dented chest plate. He would have to fix it up later. "Let's go back."

"Sure." Miyu nodded as she followed after behind Nate. Just before it was fully obscured by the fog, Miyu sent a glance toward the orc's corpse.

'I hope there aren't any more of those...'