Chapter 17:

Turning Point

The Consequence of Saving the World


Children were amongst nature’s dumbest creatures.

You could outright tell them not to touch the flame of a candle, and the idiots would still touch them anyway.

My battle-hardened sister was no exception. Upon hearing her brother introduce himself in such a foreign-sounding name, her attention was immediately diverted to the name and not the person charging at her.

The proof was in her face. She could only do one thing at a time, and her puzzled face indicated to me that she was trying to decipher the name. This fact proved to me that she wasn’t aware of the soul transmigration yet. She still thought of me as Evan instead of Hanasuke at this point in the past.

Regardless, she should take this as an important lesson for her training:

Never let your guard down.

My sword arm came down at her like a hammer. I wasn’t trying to kill her, I was trying to see if my body remembered how to fight like a Hero. Sadly, it wasn’t that simple.

The muted sound of wood landing on wood confirmed that Eveline didn’t get a bump on her head.

“What—That’s not fair!”

With one knee on the ground, she used both hands to stop my attack, one on the grip and the other on the flat of the wooden blade. She was about half my size, but Eveline was able to gradually get to her feet.

As our weapons locked with one another, the resistance I felt from her was unreal. How could someone so small have so much strength?!

As I thought of that, a gust of wind blew past my ankles. Eveline attempted to sweep me off my feet, but the girl’s legs were a bit too short to reach mine.

“Tch.”

She rolled to the side as she voiced her frustration. On one hand, where did she learn to roll like that? On the other hand, I too would also be pissed off if I couldn’t calculate distance properly. Sucks to be a child.

“Don’t look down on me!”

“I have to. How else can I see you?”

She answered me with a series of slashes, each strike fueled with rage borne of sibling rivalry. They were very telegraphed, blocking them wasn’t too difficult. Still, I could feel the strain on my wrists from absorbing her attacks.

“Just. Die. Already!”

Damn, it wasn’t like you got water splashed onto your head to wake you up! Chill!

Her temper aside, I had to hand this one to her. For someone her age, she is really athletic and strong. Even though she never received any formal training, training herself every day was clearly paying off.

Despite her best efforts, they were just not enough to overcome the size difference. Not only was I bigger and stronger, but I was also pretty in shape myself. Carpentry, farmwork and of course, taking care of animals helped sculpt me into my physique.

Just trading blows would get us nowhere. Time to put my size to good use.

As our swords clashed once more, I released my sword, a technique shamelessly plagiarised from Sereya. Unlike the swordswoman, I had no skill whatsoever, and my weapon flopped out of my hands, knocking me in the head as it flew.

Thank the Goddess it was a wooden sword. If it was real, I would have an extra nostril.

I used the blunt force trauma to my head as an advantage. Eveline was still dazed by my mistake, so I followed through with my initial plan and wrestled for control of her weapon.

“Hey! Let go!”

Sorry, Eveline.

My hands wrapped around hers over the grip of her weapon. I tried to yank the sword out of her grasp, but she didn’t let go. Instead, she was so light, I ended up lifting her up entirely by the hands.

While Sereya was able to throw a fully armoured knight into the ground from several feet in the air with just one hand, the best I could do was to tackle my sister into the grass.

She finally dropped her weapon. It wasn’t too far away, so while she was still stunned from the fall, I stretched out and seized it.

“I win.”

I was still pinning her on the ground with my weight as I pointed her own weapon at her neck. She was absolutely livid.

“NO! I win, you died!”

“No, you can’t fight back anymore. Can’t you see this sword in your face?” I explained as I waved the weapon in front of her.

“No! If these were real swords, you would have died from your own sword stabbing your face when it fell!”

I hate to admit it, but she was right though.

“Well, these aren’t real swords, are they?! I took into account of their wooden-ness, and that’s why I win!”

“NO! That’s cheating! You’re relying on dirty tricks! You lose!”

“Hah! Didn’t you know? The greatest swordswoman in the world always had a trick up her sleeve.”

“Stop making things up! You lost! You lost! You lost!”

She started to squirm underneath me as she threw a tantrum. Sigh, I should have known better than to argue with children. I resisted the urge to knock her head with her own weapon and got u—

Ah.

My body started to curl up into a ball. Pain unlike anything I felt before forced me to kiss the grass. She kneed me right in the family jewels.

“Hmph, loser.”

My tongue couldn’t come up with any words to retort. All that left my mouth were inhuman noises. I held onto whatever’s left of my manhood and hoped to keep it in place. It hurt so bad, I couldn’t even think.

Eventually, the pain of being struck in the nutsack started to go away. I cursed under my breath. All this pain, and I didn’t even remember anything about being the Hero one bit!

“Eveline, you win.”

I didn’t want anything to do with this tiny Demon Lord anymore. Strangely enough, she was quiet ever since she got up, which I found odd, since it was in her blood to berate me.

As I got up from my fetal position, I saw Eveline’s face in utter despair.

I turned to where she was facing and smoke was rising from the village.

“B-Big br—”

“Get down!”

I rushed over to her side and pulled her down to a crouch. This wasn’t an unfamiliar sight—a bandit raid.

Still, the village chief would usually just comply with the raiders’ demands and bandits would typically just leave after plundering our stuff. Upon closer inspection, only one house was burning. Did someone do something stupid?

“Eveline, stay here and hide. Don’t come to the village.”

“O-Okay.”

Bandits would sometimes take the village girls away. That was something that absolutely cannot happen to my sister.

The correct thing to do in situations like this was to hide and let it subside, but something was telling me that this was it. This had to be the moment where I unlocked my abilities as a Hero!

I rushed back to the village, occasionally checking behind to make sure Eveline didn’t follow me.

The villagers were rounded up at the square, which was what usually happened. I hid behind one of the houses to see exactly what the commotion was all about.

“We’re telling the truth! We don’t have any alcohol!”

The village chief was pleading in front of the burning storehouse. In front of him was the bandits’ boss, a clearly intoxicated man in his 30s.

Eh? Didn’t this happen before? I could vaguely recall some idiot burning a storehouse looking for booze, but they were only made in the north where it was colder, not here in the sweltering south!

One of the bandits tapped the leader on his shoulder.

“The old man is right, Remus. We already got what we need. You can drink all you want in town.”

Eh, Remus? Where did I—

That’s right! The bandits who were beaten up by Sereya wanted to join Remus Whiteaxe and his mercenary crew!

Now that I think about it, these bandits were a lot better equipped than the usual kind. My gut feeling was telling me this was the same person!

“Eh, who the hell are you?”

Ah crap.

I was too excited from the prospect of connecting the dots. One of the bandits noticed me.

“Toss him together with the villa—”

“Remus Whiteaxe!” I interrupted the man in question. Immediately, Remus sobered up. I must have got it right.

Uh, screw me. I didn’t know what to say after that. Everyone was looking at me, I couldn’t say anything!

“R-R-Remus Whiteaxe! Y-You’re the l-leader of the Whiteaxe Mercenaries!”

I stated the obvious. What else could I say?

“Pfft—”

“Buahahahahah!”

The bandits immediately erupted into laughter. Wait, did I get something wrong?

“Remus, you heard him? We’re mercenaries now! Hahaha—

N-No way…

The bandit who tapped Remus on his shoulder no longer had his head. Remus swung a massive axe out of nowhere and murdered his own ally!

“Tell me, kid,” Remus pointed his unimaginably large weapon at me.

“Where in the hell did you hear that?