My Parasite Skill System - Chapter 101
Within the wide and broad battlefield, I paused.
Looking at the two hands that had just taken care of my enemies, I just paused.
My breathing grew deeper as my sudden desire to scan my surroundings.
Looking around me, in a few words, it was just war.
Cries, shouts, screams, blood, metal, sorrows, joys, losers, winners, lying bodies, standing ones, equipped with their gear, or barely equipped and yet fighting.
The conflict that involved directly both orcs and humans.
I did go in joining that.
And at first, I was just messing about. I’d joined in and assaulted whatever came my way … because it was fun and just how I imagined it.
Now, I am huffing and tired, still about wielding my enchanted shortsword.
What was I facing?
I was facing the river.
And it flew on me.
However, I wasn’t to be drowned.
The water wouldn’t drown the rock, that had just sorely happened to find its way in the flooding water’s path.
“Huff… huff.”
My sword went down and hit the ground at once.
For a second or two I was doubting what had just happened.
But after some time, some idea flashed through my head.
What had just happened made sense.
Of course, they wouldn’t go against me … “Aren’t I ‘human’ … after all,” I managed, still huffing.
Other groups passed by myself without attacking me after the first group’s sudden departure.
Be it the numerous soldiers swarming down here like ants or the adventurers that were scarcer but still answering the call.
They all came and simply passed by me.
“‘Course it makes sense … duh,” I muttered again to myself, playing with my sword and stabbing it into the earth, as I looked down at it.
It made sense. I wouldn’t be attacked by them, and it made sense. And this wasn’t all there was to it. From this simple idea, I could draw another very convenient one.
But before I could even make that idea reality; as sudden as it could’ve been, a change occurred in me.
For some reason, I felt funny and all cheered up.
I didn’t really understand why. Just that this funny feeling I was feeling, as we spoke, hadn’t just come out of nowhere like this.
It’d been lingering for some time.
And I felt funny again.
The sword of my sword was still down to the earth, and I just walked onward as I was facing the rear, from where the human newcomers would be arriving from.
With my march, the shortsword hanging down my hand was being dragged across the earth and grass, leaving a slight mark as it went.
And besides the marked earth, my feet would simply walk again.
At some point, after not even five seconds of walking that way or so, it occurred to me that since I was feeling funny, maybe I should be counting the steps I was taking.
Don’t ask me where this idea came from, I don’t really know myself. Just felt like the right thing to do:
My feet walked one, two, three, four, five, six, seven–and I felt satisfied by counting them the way I did–eight, nine, ten, eleven, then twelve, and then finally thirteen steps.
See?
This sure was satisfying, “Hehehe … but, ahem,” and I cleared my throat at once.
This was a means for me to clear my head and regain my seriousness, “ahem, ahem, ahem,” and I enjoyed the sound of it, too.
–And in a serious way, I peered over my shoulder, trying to get a hold of the frontline behind my back.
The frontline was still behind me. And it was being pushed again.
Then I took my face back to facing the rear again.
For some reason, I closed my eyelids at that moment, very slowly.
I then breathed in and out repeatedly.
My sword was to be brought up, standing by my side as it should during a battle–then turned back at once!
My eyes were to be opened up again.
I started to run.
I was first only caught … but then also driven by the frenzy that seized me.
I just ran towards the frontline again with steady yet hurried footsteps, which I didn’t count up anymore, as I laughed rapturously.
I thought I was funny. Why was I funny? Or rather, why did I think I was funny?
Casting aside everything, I continued my run.
Messing about within the battlefield? It was over.
Shouldn’t I rather play it safely, like the big boss that I am? That was about the other idea I got after I saw the humans wouldn’t attack me.
I mean, it’s dangerous, the battlefield … right?
And it only did strike me at that moment: since I overall looked human, why wouldn’t I just fight alongside humans?
Hehehe. This makes me grin. ‘Cause I mean, I really hadn’t thought that up before. I’m looking human, it’s kinda super convenient.
The frontline’s here. There are twice as many humans as there are orcs, at a first glance.
And, hmm…
Establishing my oh-how-clever devilish plan, muahahaha, I can just … let’s say join in from there, with the two humans and two orcs … and help them fight as they help me fight too.
It pains me to fight alongside humans, but whatever. I can endure that much, can’t I?
For convenience’s sake, let’s gooooo, then~.
And starting up again the hostilities with the good ol’ <Quick Pace> I did join in on the battle again.
This time about, I wasn’t so much being disorganized and messing about at all.
I played methodically, dealing with the foes (that would only include orcs, now) one by one, just seeing it as chores of some sort.
The quest’s indicator showed eleven enemies dealt with.
Orc knelt down, being thrown off balance, and met the tip of my sword with his head first, ❮Quest: 12/30 enemies dealt with.❯
Humans wouldn’t indeed attack me–there was no more doubt about it.
I still was a bit skeptical about it when I started it, but no worries now.
It was a proven fact at this point.
❮Quest: 14/30 enemies dealt with.❯
“Good job, kid!”
I just looked human, they couldn’t tell me from one another.
And so, with sparkling eyes and great enthusiasm, as I had already started that, I could be an adventurer.
I was so happy when that idea came flashing through my mind, ’cause I didn’t really think about it beforehand too, but if I want to be an adventurer, maybe that whole battle thing is right on the spot.
❮Quest: 16/30 enemies dealt with.❯
“Did … did that kid just help us…?”
“He stole away from us, rather, damn it!”
“Hey … she or … he, rather, doesn’t take the head, relax.”
“You better not, kid!”
“Thanks, buddy … and just ignore that dick.”
“What’d you say?”
Adventurers were here. And I was here, too.
Adventurers were humans. And I was … well.
The thing was, I could just mingle with them, and that’d be the end of it.
And so, just like this, I was being an adventurer for real this time.
❮Quest: 18/30 enemies dealt with.❯