The pain that encompassed his body seemed to flow away, along with his five senses.
He tried to stand up, but there was no strength left in his legs.
‘Keita…’
“I’m fine. I can…bear it a little longer.”
He had only taken the bear minimum of the auto-heal blessing. He wanted to use energy for healing, but he had bled too much, and it would not be very effective.
With his left hand, which was still uninjured, he quietly grabbed the shard of mithril attached to his wrist.
“What…is wrong with you?”
Poro appeared to be filled with disgust that Keita was still alive.
“Are you going to try and stay alive until the Demon King’s army arrives?”
“Yes. If I do that, I might survive too.”
He had to hide it until the end. His true purpose.
As his body recovered, the pain returned. His crushed right hand felt like it was on fire. Still, Keita gritted his teeth and continued to provoke the enemy.
“What’s the matter? Aren’t you going to cut me?”
“I think you’re still hiding something. For instance, in that left hand.”
“Yes. But you don’t know what kind of magic it is.”
An exchange on the brink of death. And yet his mind was sharper than he ever thought possible.
The magicians surrounding him kept their next spells charged, casting uneasy glances his way. The fact that Keita had not gone down even after taking their magic was starting to unnerve them.
“Surely…you don’t think that this…is the entire plan?”
“I don’t know. However, if you die here, this so-called plan would be crushed. Hey, all of you. Switch your magic.”
The light of the magicians went from silver to gold.
They were choosing piercing ability over accuracy in order to break through his defenses.
‘Keita.’
While watching all of it from above, Canila’s divine authority rained down.
‘Win! No matter what!’
He nodded and gathered magic energy into his left hand.
“Legis Sutore.”
In answer to his spell, the golden light began to swell up at once.
And then Keita charged his boots with all of the power he could muster.
“Shatter and burst!”
The magic boots that had protected his legs until now exploded and collapsed along with the energy infused within them. The force released in that instant propelled Keita forward at tremendous speed.
Leaving behind Poro’s fury, the clashing flashes of magic, even the pain of his shattered legs, the hero’s encampment spread out to fill his entire field of vision.
“Now…!”
He thrust out his left hand and shouted to the runes around his wrist.
“Legis! Pierce-”
“As I said…”
Like a phantom, a man in heavy armor slid past him.
“We aren’t letting you go through.”
“Ah…”
His remaining left hand went flying after being severed. And then General Ekbert, in his scarlet cape, shrugged his shoulders with an apologetic expression.
“Ahhhhhhhhh!!”
“When was the last time an enemy made it this deep into our camp? And on top of that, even my guard duty has been snatched by a rookie… Well, I guess that is exactly what being a general is for.”
While being thrown to the ground and feeling incredible pain, Keita understood that this was a perfect defeat.
The strategist had blocked the magical trap, and the general reduced the physical charge to dust.
Poro and the others were merely reserves. Right beside the Hero stood the strongest guardian of all, protecting him.