This analysis brilliantly frames combat not as a clash of stats, but as a psychological siege where overthinking is the ultimate tactical failure. It successfully elevates the series' world-building into a sophisticated study of how conviction dictates reality.
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Party of Insanity? - Mushoku Tensei Novel Analysis! (Subjugation 3)Añadido:
Happy Mishka Mondays everybody. Welcome back to yet another trick for Mishik Tensei Jawas from Incarnation novel series. We are on subjugation of the king of the king dragons part three.
Part three of I don't know how many at this point. We don't know at this point.
We don't know at this point. Yeah, we're going to continue chapter 3. I got like partly through it and decided to cut off last week's Mishoka Monday. Um kind of, you know, not get things too long cuz chapter 3 was really really long. But looking forward to diving in further because we were getting a lot into specifically Shina which again I'm very curious about with the fact that she has this title of death god which is very very interesting. But yes before we get into that thank you guys so much for dropping by for the premier hate chat.
Hope you guys are doing well. Hope you guys have a great rest of your week after Mushiko Monday. But yes, I greatly appreciate you guys kind words your support and yes most importantly greatly appreciate it support channel monetarily through Patreon tips links super thanks memberships all that stuff. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. But yeah said let's just dive right into it. But again, going into chapter 3, just to give people a reminder, we had Alex and Sha. They're going to the market and they ran into Barkl. Barl, which was somebody from China's past. And so they made their way back. Once again, silence fell between them. It was already evening. The two waiting at the end were probably getting hungry. Sha, who usually preferred tranquility, now felt uneasy with this silence. Anyone would after sharing their life story and receiving only two or three words in response. [laughter] Come on, I'll give her a little bit more than that. He didn't seem that way. But could it be that she was rejected? No matter how many times it happened, no matter how many days passed, she would never get used to being rejected. And she didn't want to get used to it either. While sinking into such a negative thoughts, suddenly a shout came from up ahead. A fight. The voice was urgent, but with a hint of excitement.
Watching other people fight is fun.
That's common knowledge. Sha wasn't particularly eager to watch grown men with no skill beat each other senseless.
But she wasn't so disinterested that she would ignore a crowd gathered in front of her, either. She leaned forward and peaked through a gap in the crowd. It was one of many taverns in the end district, a very typical place serving meals by the day and alcohol by night.
The tables and chairs had been pushed roughly aside, forming a makeshift arena. The center at the [laughter] is a lot. At the center stood six people, three versus three. Both sides had drawn their swords. This wasn't just a brawl. It had reached the level of a full-blown death batch. I wonder if this is like the leopard dudes and somebody else. No wonder a crowd had formed.
Seems a simple fight can draw so many people around here, huh? Al murmured beside her in amazement. Do they not do this from where you're from? Not really.
I mean, fights break out several times a day. If everyone gathered each time, nobody get nobody to get any work done.
[laughter] Your hometown sure sounds like a dangerous town. Al Shannon turned her eyes back to the scene. If it wasn't just a fight between amateurs, she was interested. Both sides were swordsmen, but their swords were different in shape. One side wielded single-edged blades, curved and thin, meant for cutting people. The other wielded double-edged blades, straight and thick, meant for cutting through armor. Just from that, China judge the side with the double-edged swords, had a disadvantage.
What's more, the attire of the single-edged sword users stood out. Blue leopard print jackets. Yep. The Royal Knights Order versus the Blue Leopard Division. Huh. Who do you think will win, China? He's [laughter] He's already taking bets on this. Oh, how do you know they were from the Royal Knights Order?
I saw them at the tavern the other day.
That's our sword. There's also a crest from the king dragon realm on their peel. Looking more closely, she could see that too. The crest of a crown dragon. She was surprised that he noticed it. So, who do you think has the edge? The mercenaries. Assuming their numbers are even. By the time she had said that, the first clash had already ended. It wasn't even a contest. That was the only way to describe it. The mercenaries dropped two knights into pool of blood with just one swing each.
Of course, there was a skill gap, but also a difference in swords themselves.
Yeah, it's a lot to do with equipment. I guess it also depends on again what this Royal Knight order does. Again, mercenaries, what they're kind of implying here, since there's this issue with all of what's going on in the world right now, mercenaries are kind of being, you know, probably recruited by different nations and whatnot, probably into a lot of uh, you know, invasions, whatnot. These people are used to fighting people. Uh, with the Royal Knights order, they could be doing several different things, dispatching monsters or something like that. So based on the equipment, the assumption here is that the mercenaries are built for fighting somebody, whereas the Knights Order again seemingly are fighting people with armor. The Royal Knights wielded broad great swords designed to be used with heavy armor and provide them with greater defensive capabilities. You could say they were built to slay giant beasts like king dragons or armored humans. Yeah. In contrast, the blue leopard's divisions wielding killing swords meant for efficiently killing humans in war. Yeah.
Ordinary mercenaries usually only had slightly better skills than brutes for hire. But the blue leopard's division belonged to the renowned wild leopard mercenary corpse. Said to be the strongest, they were elite fighters prepared for highlevel tasks of slaying the king of the king dragons. Even with fewer numbers, each one of them was skilled enough to serve as a sword instructor for a kingdom. Yeah. And it also kind of leans more towards that idea of them being involved with killing all these mages. [laughter] Have swords that are really good for cutting people, right? I don't know.
know, there's a side of me that almost feels like it's it's trying too hard to paint it being the leopards that did the killing. Like the fact that they were the ones that brought the crowns back and now they're right here emphasizing the fact that they can kill people very, very well. It kind of gives this impression of like it's trying too hard to make you believe it was them, but it wasn't actually them. And this could be what's caused this right now is that the Royal Knights order is coming after the leopards about the situation and they're getting pissed off about it. But again, the question there is, were they even informed about this? Like I got a sense that with Barkle it seemed that they knew. So I'd assume the Royal Knights Order knows. The Royal Knights Order were no amateurs either, but wielding oversized swords without armor inside a building left them in a clear disadvantage. Yeah, they don't have an armor. Yeah, they're screwed. [laughter] This outcome had been obvious. Damn you.
The fallen knights clutched their arms, but still glared at the mercenaries.
Apparently, they weren't fatally wounded. The Mercs had held back.
Despite their difference in skill, they were smart. killing them would have made a conflict with the Royal Knights Order unavoidable. So instead, they just cut their arms. No need to go for the kill.
But wouldn't they still end up I mean, if if they're doing something wrong here and the Royal Knights Order is coming after them for breaking the law, if this is just a you know, disagreement or something like that, either way, they could easily paint them as being criminals and just lock them up.
Especially right now since it's assault now, it's just that there's a chance that you're probably still going to have a conflict. It was an uncharacteristically cautious decision for mercenaries. But in this case, it was the right one. And with that, the fight ended. So much for the knights of the great kingdom. If only one of the mercenaries hadn't let out such a [laughter] durus of snort. Unfortunately, someone saw that one of the men watching from afar, a knight of the king dragon realm, likely on patrol, and flew into a rage.
How dare you? You mock us. Huh? If a few offduty knights had got drunk and picked a fight with the mercenaries and got hurt, the patrolling knight probably wouldn't have batted an eye. As long as no one died, it would have just been a case of overconfident colleagues getting what they deserve. But the mocking sneer touched a nerve. Well, I guess that implies right there that yeah, they're going to overlook it. Like, they're going to allow this. He couldn't ignore an insult aimed at the entire Knights Order. The mercenaries had knowingly struck knights, which meant the ones lying on the ground were not just civilians. They were royal knights. And if the Knights Order stood by and did nothing, they'd be seen as cowards who let comrades get cut down. That would disgrace the Royal Knights Order of the King Dragon Realm. Yeah, get rid of your ego. [laughter] Toss your ego aside for mere mercenary knights to raise their hand against King Dragon Knights.
Unforgivable royal knights order assemble. [laughter] My gosh.
Oh gosh. Got their ego hurt. Maybe it was just his own victim complex, but some knights responded. Some knights began gathering. Others ran over hearing the shout. Some who were off duty were on break emerged from nearby shops. And in the blink of an eye, the three mercenaries were surrounded. It's like these people jumping out of windows and jumping from top of rifts and coming out of stores and emerging from baskets.
Just jumping out of a a nearby barrel.
Oh, come on. You got to be kidding me.
15, maybe 16. Many wore full suits of armor. Some help patrol daggers. Even sword masters couldn't do much. When surrounded with no escape, the three mercenaries stood back to back, swords drawn, but their faces were pale. You're not going to cry foul now, are you? One of the knights stepped forward. The crowd stirred. Lee Leonardo Pompador.
Why is the knights commander here? The amazing lion. That's amazing Leo. Among the knights encircling the mercenaries was Leonardo Pompador, the commander of the royal knights order. A man famous for making the impossible possible. The one who raised the name of the Royal Knights Order across the neighboring nations. He was not the kind to get involved with a back alley tavern brawl.
But he must have happened to be nearby.
And once present, he had no choice but to set forward as knights commander.
That's what Shina summarized. Although he was the one in the position to be able to stop this. Knights valued pride over honor. Yeah, I was about to ask that. Like this guy's position is this and he's still getting all involved with this crap. Just tell people to get the hell out of there. But pride. Seeing the unfavorable situation, one of the mercenaries forced a smile and offered an apology. Sorry about that, but we didn't cause serious injuries, right?
Can't you let it slide? Cravel. Huh? You didn't hear me? Press your forehead against the ground, lick our boots, and beg for forgiveness.
It's [laughter] so petty.
It's so petty.
[laughter] Leonard Bombador is petty as Dude, this dude's petty. Your men got their asses kicked and you're going to force this guy to gravel by sheer numbers. What a petty prick. Leo said this while crossing his arms arrogantly. You got to be kidding. Voices murmured amongst the onlookers. But none of the knights showed a slightest hint of amusement.
Our kingdom's knights within our territory were shamefully cut down by filthy mercenaries and even mocked at this rate. The people will think the Royal Knights order is nothing but a bunch of spineless weaklings. For being gracious enough to let you off by a simple gravel. That's a bargain, wouldn't you say? Don't screw with us.
Then you can die. Leo drew his sword.
The mercenaries fell silent in shock.
The sword in his hand, its radiance clearly different. It looks similar to one used by the Royal Knights order. But at a glance, it was obvious. The knight's swords were mere replicas of this one. A masterpiece, a fain blade, a type of holy sword. We wouldn't even be outlined to kill you where you stand. No one would bat an eye if we cut down three of you. There's no way the blue leopard division would retaliate. If a mercenary group killed members of the Knights Order, they'd never be able to remain in the town. But the reverse was different. It's true. Again, it's just you're in our territory. It's really what it is. You're in our territory.
Even if three lowrank mercenaries died in the back alley tavern, the blue leopard division still had the king dragon subjugation to carry out. From a manpower standpoint, they couldn't afford to divert forces to deal with the Royal Knights Order. Sweat beated across the forehead of the mercenaries. Sha understood why. Even though they were mercenaries, the blue leopard division was strict about honor. These three were elite, probably high ranking within the division. If they bowed their heads now, their own leader, the blue panther, might kill them later.
So you [laughter] dead if you do, dead if you don't. Rock in a hard place. So you won't bow your head after all. A shame you waste your life. I'll inform the blue panther myself. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Three of my boys got killed. I wouldn't just sit quietly. You know what? No one had noticed the man had appeared. Even though he wore unmistakably flashy blue leopard print coat, he had somehow suddenly appeared right in front of Leo, shielding the mercenaries. Even China had no memory of such a conspicuous man entering the field of view. Boss. The moment the three mercenaries recognized him. Relief visibly flooded their faces.
Sha also knew who he was. The leader of the Blue Leopards division. We have all the leaders right here. [laughter] a random like tavern brawl happening and suddenly every single leader of all these groups were showing up. The blue panther himself, no one knew his real name, only that he was a top officer of an organization, even larger than the Royal Knights Order, and that he even earned that position through his prowess in combat. He was smart and strong and clearly trusted by his subordinates. So yeah, it seemed like they're relieved that he's there even though there's a bunch of knights around. You where the hell did you come from? One of the knights shouted bluffing, "Where you from? I've been in the tavern the whole time. just sip my drink in the corner of the tavern and join the show. But it started heading in a boring direction, so I figured I'd sip in. Personally, I think a fight should be decided by the who's stronger. But gang up on your pals after losing. That's just lame, isn't it? He shrugged dramatically with an exaggerated, carefree tone. Leo glared at him sharply.
I mean, if you ask a mutual scolding both sides of fair, right? But this isn't the kind of situation where the winner forces the loser to gravel. That young guy over there playing the victim should apologize first, then we'll apologize properly, too, for bothering the tabernol. Sound good, right? This guy seems level-headed compared to freaking Leo. This guy seems pretty level-headed. But again, from his position, if this goes any further, he's going to lose people or he's going to make enemies of this entire kingdom's knights. So, I mean, it's the it's the proper choice here. He grinned as he sought approval from those around him, but none of the onlookers agreed.
Leonardo Pompador versus the Blue Panther. To the bloodthirsty crowd, there was no more exciting matchup. Oh, what the hell? H Well, I personally think there's no profit in killing each other here. I mean, we're not going to just let ourselves be killed, right? But if you cut me down, well, my old man's going to be pissed. [laughter] He's He's real soft on family, so it turned out to null out war between the King Dragon Realm and the Wild Leopard Knights. That's not good. On the flip side, if we were kill everyone here, we'd become one admin. Can't very well keep hunting the king of the king dragons if that happened. That's no good either.
Again, logic here. Come on, logic here.
He looked around his usual playful tone.
But his words were surprisingly rational. It was true. There was no benefit from either side. So, how about we just see their swords, pretend it never happened, and go back to a normal day. Sound good? Come on now. Just for me. What do you say, sir Leo? Leo considered it for a moment, then finally spoke. It almost sounds like they know each other. There's like almost a s here like he knows each other. Like like a little familiarity there. Fine. His words caused a stir from the knights.
Why? This is a disgrace to the knights order. But Leo ignored the outcry and ordered his subordinates to stand down.
Appreciate it. Well, then we'll be on our way. The blue panther and the three mercenaries strolled off casually into the street. It was safe to say they'd won. Show's over. Get lost. Leo dispersed the crowd and Sha and the others followed suit. Interesting little introduction to them. I'm glad to see at least they're seemingly including them into the story after like including all these individuals the very beginning of the story. I just hope it's more than just what seems like so far turf war kind of stuff here. Just little disagreements and fights. Oh, took you long enough. The streets were crowded.
Back of the room, Chica agreed to Sha with one eye closed. Not a wink, she was admiring the shine on her well-maintained knives. She's finally got them done. [laughter] The entire time Shiki's been cleaning her knives.
They had only been gone for an hour or two. But that meant that Shiki had been polishing her knives the entire time.
You've been very thorough. Yeah, with conspiracy swirling and tough enemies around. I've got to stay sharp, especially that Blue Panther guy. He's bad news. Noticing the dull spot on one blade, Shiki raised an eyebrow and began sharpening it with a stone. Metal shavings scattered on the bed. Sha hoped that the inkeeper wouldn't get mad later. I see. But why is the blue panther such bad news? The Holy Knight's order were more vicious in terms of behavior. What? You of all people, the death cause knight? Don't get it. Oh, you knew I was the death cause knight?
Why wouldn't I? An assassin knows who's safe to pick fights with and who's not.
That's true.
I mean, they were wrestling in bed all the time. [laughter] She's She's got to know who she's wrestling in the bed. It made sense that Al, who came from the countryside, wouldn't know before this so-called city girl assassin did not know about the infamous death god knight of the central continent. That would be odd. You knew about the rumors, so why team up with me? Oi, one question at a time. Shiki not smart enough to handle two. As she said this, Shiki began wiping down each knife with a bed sheet.
Care, [laughter] the endkeeper is going to be pissed.
She's just like shavings all over it.
And then now she's just using the bed sheets to clean them and everything.
carefully sliding each of them into their sheets one by one. Sha had reflected on whether she had actually asked two things and realized Shiki must be referring to the question about the blue panther earlier. Let's start with the first question. They're mercenaries.
Mercenaries only take jobs when money's involved. You get that right? Yes. Shana had never been a mercenary herself, but she understood that much. In other words, mercenaries would do anything for coin. That mercenary company is taking part in subjugation of King Dragons without any contract or request. But that blacksmith issued a request, didn't he? Chicky shook her head. That's not it. That's not what Chicky meant. The Wild Leopard's mercenary corpse is huge, right? A big mercenary group like that doesn't move unless someone tells them to. You mean unless they received a direct named request, they won't act exactly. I see. Shannon nodded in understanding. Come to think of it, that blacksmith hadn't exactly hired the Wild Leopards to slay the King Dragon. If they had, there was no way they would only send a small part of the Blue Leopard Division. At the very least, they would have mobilized an entire division for the job.
True. Yeah, I guess so. I mean, that makes sense. That makes sense. This seems like this is something specifically for the leader, like he came there. Alternatively, one might think the Blue Eper Division is focusing on intel gathering, except for a few combat veterans. But a mission like slaying the King of the King Dragons isn't the kind of task that requires large-scale information warfare. For a small group like China's maybe, but the Blue Leopard Division had the numbers to comb the mountains directly, which would be far more efficient. So why weren't they doing that? Was the division leader, the blue panther, participating just to kill time? No, he didn't seem like someone that had that much free time. Then perhaps the rest of his forces had been assigned to a different job that was not related to the defeat of the King of the King Dragons. As for what that other job might be, Sha couldn't guess. I think that's like a rabbit hole running down there. Again, I think the assumption here is that the Blue Panther himself is involved with this thing. I mean, they could be implying that the Blue Panthers is doing something else while it seems like they're busy with this as sort of like a distraction, but that would be something that would be specifically for again an attack on the King Dragon realm, which I doubt. If we don't know their goal, we can't predict their actions, right? Stay sharp, Knight. There's plenty of other shady people around. Yeah, I know.
Chicky nodded and began strapping the knives all over her body. In no time, all the knives had vanished into her clothes, and the knife girl returned to being simply a tan-kinned girl. By the way, where did Al go? Shiki's tummy is totally empty now.
She looked around the room, searching for Al. At the same time, a deliciously savory Roma began to drift in. He's downstairs in the kitchen. Said he wanted to try some of the local food from his homeland. He didn't help him night. I got kicked out of the kitchen just because I held a knife in a reverse grip. Good thing the end didn't burn down. Chicky shrugged and walked out of the room. [laughter] Sha scratched her head and went to wake the sleeping girl. Chapter 4. Heroic Legends. There's a note here that says this chapter has noncanon elements. Oh, so now we're finally getting to that.
I've been looking for some of them and pointing out some stuff that feels off, but again, I can always kind of I guess excuse some of this stuff. Um, as again, sort of what they were saying earlier and the idea that it could be stuff that this is what actually happened the time, but people believe this happened at the time. So, we'll see. There are hundreds of legends in this world if we count the age of myths. The first to be named would be the first dragon god. According to myth, the first dragon god was a man who destroyed billions of worlds that once existed and left only the current one destroyed billions of worlds.
Interesting. Again, the myths. It's said that all living beings in the world were originally from those other worlds. He's the only person in history to have unified a world, but he exists only in myth as befitting of a myth. His story is too dark to be told to children. So, it's not often chosen for bedtime stories. Still, as the oldest known tale, it's widely known. There's plenty of versions sung with instruments, and it's usually the first story that Nova's bards learn. Next would be the demon god Lelass. The unified world became chaotic battleground where billions of beings fought and clashed. In that world, Lelass gathered tribes and clans and conquered the continent that would later be called the demon continent. Though it happened long ago, the demon continent is still the land of the demons and is never allowed invasion by other races.
Okay. Yeah, I kind of got that hint.
There's a note here that says, "Yeah, in this version, Kishidika doesn't exist and Lelass is the one that led the demons of war." Yeah, that was my assumption. I was like, "Okay, are they talking about when Lelass came? We're talking about like this non-existing."
And so, it's just, yeah, no Kishidika.
He managed to unify the demons who, just like the humans, are prone to conflict.
Considering that no ruler had ever unified the central continent, this was truly an astonishing feat. If we're talking about unifiers, then St. Milis should be included as well. Long ago, Milis was a cursed land covered in deep forests, sparse plains, and endless deserts. It was St. Milis who defeated the demon king responsible for that curse and turn the desert into lush, fertile land. The Milis church had been found at that time and is now the most powerful religious organization in the world. That said, those three are such massive scale that they don't really fit the image of a hero for many people. For children, a hero is someone who achieves glorious feats in battle, defeats wicked kings, or plays the leading role in exciting adventures. In that sense, the one who comes to mind immediately is the golden knight Hades. [laughter] It's like my brain was wanting to say Aldabarin.
Wasn't it golden knight allarin? There's a note. They probably confirm it. In this tale, Hades defeated Lelas and not Kishika. Now he's Alabarin. Yeah, cuz like my brain went All thearin. All thearin. Hades. Who's Hades? He was the one who defeated the demon god Lelas.
Llaus [laughter] during the human demon war, 1200 years ago. With his companions, he faced hardships, overcome trials, slew hundreds of demon kings, and in the end defeated the demon god in a one-on-one duel. It's a heroic tale. Everyone knows defeating a demon god is not something that can easily be done. Anyone with God in their title possess overwhelming power beyond human comprehension, even if they didn't start out as one, people often get called gods after defeating one. For example, the sword god Al Farion. [laughter] Al Farion was was originally an unknown swordsman.
During the human demon war, despite being the human race, he sided with the demons and defeated the north god Calman, who was hailed as the strongest swordsman at the time. For that, he was granted the title sword god. I wonder if that part is actually true. I don't remember them mentioning anything like this or similar to this, but I would doubt it. I would just think that I don't think they ever really got into the origins of the sword god and I don't know necessarily that would be a way that would signify that. Would you be simply that the style itself they are of this caliber and the origins of that style will be the first individual who is really powerful that had a particular type of style to them that would then pass that on to somebody else and somebody does come across that can match them or defeat them they take that title. His style was passed down through generations after the war. The sword god style is now the most popular swordsmanship school around. I I kind of got that impression that compared to all the other ones, it seemed like the sword god style was very prevalent, though. It did seem like we ran into a lot of north god style people. By the way, speaking of the north god Calman, he's often talked about as a stepping stone to the sword god, but he's actually quite the mighty warrior and deserves more recognition. Again, I don't remember any of that stuff. So, some say he was a hero who defeated a giant rock monster known as the rock king. Some say he defeated an immoral demon king.
Yeah. [laughter] Some say that he toppled a wicked founder of the Saint Mils cult. Some say that he defeated Kajakut, the king of the king dragons. And yet, these stories are rarely told. That's because most of the individuals or monsters he supposedly defeated are still alive. I mean, yeah, [laughter] he got the whole Kajakut one right there. Also, according to the sword god's tale, the north god is described as a coward who ran away before they can even exchange a few blows. Damn. So, the most credible theory is that he was a legendary liar.
My gosh. To make things worse, no one knows what became of the north god in the end. After his battle with the king of the king dragon, Kajjakut, he just completely vanished. Of course, Kajjakut is still alive. And well, I wonder if that's why he believes that in this story, I wonder if that's why he believes that Kajakoot defeated his father because of all that. Some even say the North God was a fictional character. Al knows something different.
About two weeks passed, during which Cheeky and the others went in and out of the mountains repeatedly, swapping places with the larger groups, just as planned, despite entering the mountains several times, they never ran into any king dragons, and their exploration progressed. It seemed that some of the groups were beginning to get an idea of where the king of the king dragons was, and a few patterns in the trail started to emerge. Chica can only tell that there's a pattern, but Sha seemed to understand more of the details and look satisfied on her own. She told Chicky to report everything that happened and now she's keeping secrets. As usual, Chicky led the way through the forest while grumbling in her head. [laughter] Behind her were Al, Sha, and the mage girl who had been tagging along for about 10 days now. Okay, so the clouds girl joined. [laughter] The clouds girl joined somewhere some weirdo with a name like flowing clouds.
I'm guessing this chapter is Cheeki's perspective. When Shiki glanced back, she saw Al flowing clouds and then Sha in that order. The infamous death god's knight was guarding the rear while Al protected the mage. It was a reasonable formation. Though they hadn't been ambushed from behind so far, come to think of it, Chica had never teamed up with others like this before. She belonged to a mid-tier assassin's guild called the New Moon Squad, which received jobs from the higher tier assassin guilds and assigned them to its members. Though it was an assassin's guild, many of the members had thief skills. And because they were powerful fighters, too, they were even referrals to join parties. Chigi was also someone with thief skills, but had never been referred to a party before. She was a type that preferred to do things that she could do alone and avoid jobs that required more than one person. Even in her work as an assassin, group jobs often led to failure. She'd always avoid parties out of sheer prejudice. But now that she was doing it, she found it surprisingly fun. Shiki with her sharp night vision and distant sight could report anything that looked dangerous if it turned out to be a wild beast or something like that. Sha would jump in and slash it down. Yeah. I mean, now that she's with a competent party, I think it's probably what it is. She said it always led to failure. Every single time that she was grouped up with somebody else, it led to failure. So, it's best to just do it alone and just avoid getting with parties. Just do it yourself. You can handle it yourself.
Now, here she's got a competent group.
Again, Sha's coming down and she's slashing things down. She's able to look at things, figure out what's at. Sha handles it. It's It's so much more easier. She usually took care of the fight all by herself, which suited Shiki just fine since she wasn't good at coordinating combat. Anyways, it's interesting though. I kind of missed it earlier, but it seems to be implying that the reason why she's on this job right now is because she's a thief class or that she has thief skills. And again, the assumption here is that what we're talking about when we're talking about thief class or thief job or thief skills is not necessarily that you are a a thief that's standing around the marketplace constantly stealing things.
A thief can do that, but a thief is also somebody that's just very kind of crafty and able to break into things, able to see traps and whatnot. I mean, Geese was a thief. He was of that type. So, when they were going and doing dungeons, he was the one looking for the traps, you know, releasing the traps, picking locks, whatever. It doesn't necessarily have to be just pickpocketing and stealing stuff from a shop. The way that's kind of implying here is that the group that she's with, again, they pass down jobs from above in a lot of cases, the higher, you know, guilds, whatnot.
And specifically with this one, it's implying that she's doing this job as a thief, joining parties here. But it never really indicated that she was assigned to a group. And it's not like she's going to go in there as a thief by herself just to go take out the king of the king dragons. I'm still thinking that she's here to kill somebody. It's probably Sha. That's probably why she knows who Sha is. And again, she's probably was originally sent there by them to take her out. The question is why she's taking so long in order to decide to do that. Who knows? The leader didn't seem to be doing much, but that made things mentally easier for her.
Basically, she preferred to just handle everything herself. She didn't like others getting involved in her work, and she also hated poking around in unfamiliar tasks that others were handling. That's why she felt comfortable. This is her ideal setup.
But aside from that, lately she started feeling something odd about Sha. Her danger sense was just too sharp. Since flowing clouds joined them, she had been using detection magic to search for king dragons as they moved. But Sha always seemed to sense them even faster. She'd sensed a king dragon's presence and guided them away from the danger quicker than the mag's magic could detect.
Toshiki, that felt downright creepy. I was about to say I thought I was implying there that she's like that's my target and her danger senses are too much and that's why she hasn't attacked yet. She keeps looking for an opportunity, but Sha keeps avoiding it like subconsciously. It's like one of those moments where the knife comes out and suddenly Shina kind of just steps to the side and like oh crap she knew it was coming. Another note here is obviously this notes why flowing clouds with them is because I'm guessing they were bringing her along in order to use her detection magic which again seems like China doesn't really need it [laughter] today. Again they finished their exploration without incident and return to their lodging. The four of them sat around the table going over the day's findings. It looks like the king of the king dragons is definitely to the east side of the mountains. That's what the other groups are saying, but who knows?
Um, uh, detect magic reex more strong, so means no mistake. Yes, she rarely joined in these talks. She was there listening, but she wasn't good at exchanging opinions. That's because she never really knew what kind of information others wanted. I that's an a logical issue there. She had her own priorities for what was important, and those were often different from everyone else's. When she spoke up, people would say things like, "We're not talking about that right now." or "That doesn't matter." and brush her off. Cheek is a type who works better with praise. So once again, she was sulking silently to herself. She likes the head pats. She likes the [laughter] See, she's so she's head patun dead.
Cheeky is head patun dead. There you go.
So once again, she was sulking quietly to herself. if speaking up got her ignored, she wouldn't talk unless directly asked for her opinion. That was Shiki's way of thinking. Again, this is like a logical like issue that a lot of people face. And I've I mean, I've had times where I've I've run into this where I'm like, I feel like this is more important and then you bring it up and it gets shot down and then it makes you not want to bring it up again. Like you see like sort of a flow of something and you keep bringing up that, hey, this is kind of broken. Shouldn't we address this? And they're like, that doesn't matter. it's not going to affect the end goal. Like say there's like a a a manufacturing process and there's a leak happening over here and you're trying to point out the leak over here, but they're saying no at the end it gets enough powder in there. It gets enough solution in there. It gets enough liquid in there. It gets enough of this product in there that it meets the the weight standard, but you're still going, but the room is being full of this waste and you have to clean up afterwards and it's costing a lot of money to do that. it getting shot down so many times. Even though you're bringing it up as important, eventually you go, I just don't want to bring it up anymore. I'll let them do whatever they're doing. They obviously don't think it's important.
Because of that, the search for the king of the king dragons was probably a little less efficient. But Shiki didn't care. Al was actually the one who wanted to defeat the king of the king dragons.
So, she was only helping, not willing to take the initiative. Okay, this is making me kind of start to wonder why is Shiki even here? I guess the assumption is that early on, I mean, my assumption early on was that she's there to assassinate somebody and it could possibly be again either Al or China.
Again, I'm more leading to China and that she just kind of went along with this because that's her target. There was another side of me that believed that yes, it was because he saved her life and she's like, "Well, I I I want to repay that." I She said something to that effect of like, "I need to repay you for saving my life." And he's like, "Don't worry about it. No, I got to repay you. It's a payment." And thus, that's why she went along with it. But to go fight a king of the king dragons, that's that's a massive payment for saving life. But again, that's that's the weight of a life. The value of a life is huge. That should be the same for the knight. But h from Shiki's point of view, Sha was working surprisingly hard. Not to the point of overstepping, but she clearly had a mindset of leave all the fighting to me. And her actions showed she wanted to protect the others rather than fight alongside them. Yeah.
Again, she keeps rushing forward. And again, Shiki kind of joked about that before. And that was fine. Shiki didn't mind being protected. She could do whatever she wanted. But there was one thing that bothered her. Earlier, Sha had mentioned the tracks having a direction, but hadn't explained further.
Something about that direction felt slightly off from what Shiki had in mind. It felt suspicious to Chiki. Shina seemed shady.
One of two things here is that yes, Sha is trying to keep the group away from the King of the King Dragons. That seems to be the like that's probably like 89% chance that that's probably what's going on here. There's still like a you know like a 10% chance that it might be that she knows that you know was it Barkle?
Barkle Barkle might be going there and she's trying to avoid Barkle and then 1% is like anything else. I'm thinking it's more that first one. She wants to avoid the King of the King Dragons game because the most promising group is gone. There's a high chance that they're going to actually run into this thing and she doesn't want to. And that would line up with this. Why Shiki would have to be like suspicious and eventually have to figure it out and bring it up.
Let's try to sort this out. First, Sha had agreed to help Al under one condition. If things got dangerous, you should run away. This probably stem from her disgraceful title, the Death God's Knight, and she likely doesn't want to spread that stigma any further. After spending about 2 weeks with her, Shiki had come to think that her abilities were extremely high. The reason her previous comrades were wiped out was probably because they couldn't keep up with her exceptional skills. That was my assumption there as well until they started getting the idea that she has this ability to avoid death. Chiki didn't know much about the north god style, but her swordsmanship was sharp and her combat ability was high. Even so, she likely couldn't defeat the king of the king dragons. Chiki herself was a self-proclaimed top tier assassin. She was confident in handling rough work. As for Al, she wasn't sure, but judging from his behavior and speech, he probably was a small town tough guy at best.
He's just an advanced swordsman.
[laughter] How long are we going to do the advanced sword? We're totally doing the same joke, by the way. We're totally doing the same exact joke. I It's so funny now reading this and going, "Holy crap, Rafujin literally reused the same joke twice in a row." Like all of the whole thing with Rudius thinking that he was some like weak swordsman. Literally, he did the joke back here and he redid it there. I I kind of wonder for everybody that was reading those volumes and where Rudius kept talking about how Sander was like this weak dude.
Everyone's going, "Oh my god, it's just like back there with Cheeky." Flowing Clouds was harder to read by Cheeky standards. She seemed like an ordinary mage, but apparently the more a mage discards their humanity, the stronger they become, huh? So perhaps she was actually weak with this lineup.
Defeating the king of the king dragons seem absolutely impossible. I wonder what it means right there. Um, discarding humanity. I wonder if this is from the mindset of like summoning magic and using magic in ways that are inhumane. Like the idea of shoot a good example using magic to again turn all the bodies into undead. That's makes you really incredibly powerful. You're able to create an army of soldiers essentially that makes you less human.
Let's analyze their combat strengths.
First, Shiki herself wouldn't be of use in a fight against the king of king dragons. knives couldn't do much damage even to a regular king dragon. And lacking physical strength, she probably couldn't pierce its outer hide in the first place. Next, Sha. She also wasn't likely to be useful in terms of attack power. Her sword style wasn't meant for fighting massive creatures. It was intended for battling humans or midsized beasts that lived on the plains. Then there was flowing clouds. As a mage, she was most promising in terms of combat power. But if she had a focus on offense at this point, the only one who might stand a chance was Flowing Clouds. Even if you added Al into the equation, it probably wouldn't make much difference.
I'm surprised up until this point, they still haven't seen him do anything.
Again, they're implying that Sha's handling everything, and that would imply that yes, Al's not really doing much. Again, she said it earlier in this chapter, this guy isn't doing much. He's just kind of coming with us. But it did also say in the previous chapter that he literally like knocked this thing's head off. Like he literally cut the damn thing's head off and it was still standing upright. Like that is a again with this massive massive massive blade.
That's a clean cut. That is a that is an extremely clean cut. Like it didn't snag or anything. It did not snag and knock the thing over. She didn't see it.
Again, she wouldn't note like, "Whoa, that shit's still standing. That's crazy good." Now, back to the main topic. The point was that Sha I forgot about that.
I [laughter] forgot we were talking about that. Sha seemed shady. She should be able to make that kind of analysis, too. Yet, she chose to go searching for the king dragon. The contradiction was that Shiki found it suspicious. Again, my assumption is that she's keeping them from the king of king dragons. She was helping because it was a favor to the one that saved her life. But if things start to look too murky, she might need to consider leaving the group and returning to her original job. Just as Chiki was beginning to think this, the king of the King Dragons has been found.
The voice rang out from outside.
Finally. Holy crap, dude. Took him long enough. We're already five chapters in and we still haven't freaking found this thing. Chapter five, the boy who was cast aside, part one.
Okay, it happened in the dark area.
Cheeky hated the ocean. Part of it was that she was born in a land full of sandy plains, but more than that, she couldn't bring herself to like sea creatures. Take octopuses for example.
An octopus was currently wrapped around her body. [laughter] Are we doing that? Eh, are we are we doing that? I wonder if there's some fan art out there of this whole scene. It was squeezing her with vicelike strength, likely intending to crush her bones and eat her, shivering from overwhelming disgust that nearly made her faint. She flailed, gasping and screwing for help. A man from the Assassin's Guild reception happened to pass by. He was a lollycon.
He was a lollycon who always augled Cheeki's body whenever she came to get work. let his hands wander towards her chest or butt and even tried to pretend to accidentally hug her. [laughter] How do you accidentally hug somebody? He was just as troublesome and unpleasant as the octopus, but at least he could understand words, which made him the lesser evil. Cheeky decided to ask him for help, and it was useless. He looked at the immolized Cheeky tangled in an octopus limbs with bloodshot eyes and ignored her, please, lunging on top of her instead. My gosh, dude.
[sighs and gasps] H sorry, mom and dad whose faces I don't even know. Tonight, Chicky will lose her chity. Just as Chicky braced herself for it. The grip on her loosened. A fight had broken out between the octopus and a man. It was an indescribable life or death struggle. So intense that Chicky forgot to run and simply stared. And all of her life she had never seen such a fierce battle. The one who had won was Al.
So she knows him. Did they travel together? Maybe. Maybe they traveled together to the king dragon realm.
Adria's great sword in a flash and cleaved the king dragon clean and two.
What? This is a dream. This has got to be a dream.
What is this dream? Then he scooped into his arms and [laughter] brought his lips to hers. This is a dream. Oh, she's totally crushing out for him. She [laughter] She's crushing for him bad.
Okay, this answers why she's she's hanging out with the group. She's crushing for him bad. All those head pats. All those head pads. This is This She's turning into She's turning in Roxy. She's turning into Roxy. She was traveling over the King Dragon realm and she nearly dies and Rudius shows up and saves her life, brings her in there, you know, feeds her and everything. She gets all doky doi while sitting in the tavern together. They start going around the dungeon looking for the king dragon together. And then Chicky woke up with sleepy eyes. She looked around. The room was dimly lit. Dawn must be near. She could hear birds chirping outside. The person sleeping in the next bed was flowing clouds. She was a messy sleeper.
The blanket was kicked off. Her belly was exposed and her pillow was soaked with troll.
[laughter] Suddenly, Chicky felt something strange around her stomach and looked down. It wasn't an octopus. It was a woman clinging to her. [laughter] Sha. Damn. Sha is like in love with Shiki, dude.
Sha. [laughter] Shina wants Shiki bad. Strange. She could be sleeping in the other bed.
There was only two beds in the room. So Shina and Flowing Clouds were sharing one. Why was she in Cheeki's bed? Was this a night visit? Shiki has suspected this might happen since the woman was prone to perverted behavior. Looks like she was right. But if that were the case, she was sleeping far too peacefully. Her face twisted like she was having a nightmare, muttering in her sleep, but definitely sound asleep.
Sleep helps you grow, though. This woman had grown way too much. [laughter] Maybe Cheeky could get taller if she slept better, too. Oh, the mindset of a lowly character. Looking closely, Sha had bruises on her forehead and tear stains at the corners of her eyes. She could realize she must been kicked by the wildly sleeping flowing clouds. Poor thing.
So that's why she's in the bed. She got kicked out of the other one. She thought it was amazing that she endured for nearly two weeks. She got up from the bed, pulled a blanket over Shaa, and watered outside on wobbling legs. What?
[laughter] Okay. Still half asleep, she went to the toilet. She knew that when you dreamed of water, it's a sign that you might wet yourself. Then she returned the room, crawling into the only empty bed, and went back to sleep. Suddenly, she felt someone's gaze and slowly opened her eyes. Right in front of her was a familiar face of a man that she'd come to know over the past two weeks.
According to her memory, his name was Al. He saved her life. He was staring at Chicky with a mix of confusion, shock, and anxiety on his face. Then Chicky realized, "A night visit, huh? Fairly manly of you, Al." But wouldn't one of the women sleeping next to me be a better match? Even if you say that, you're the only one sleeping next to me, Shiki. She got the wrong room.
[laughter] She got the wrong room.
Despite just despite just waking up, Al was surprisingly calm and composed.
Normally, if a beautiful girl was sleeping beside you, your curiosity would get the better of you, and you play some kind of prank. And sometimes, it wouldn't just stop at just a prank.
Shiki was even a little moved by his self-restraint. He was nothing like the scumbag in her dream. If possible, she wanted to marry a gentleman like this in the future. But Shiki's body wasn't that of a grown woman yet, so it was just a feature wish. She'd always thought so.
But Al really was a gentleman. An ideal one. Still, even if it wasn't a night visit, isn't it just rude to sneak into a maiden's bed and do nothing? I didn't know that. While we're at it, could you tell me how a man should act when a maiden sneaks into his bed? [laughter] Again, that's what my assumption was cuz it said that she snuck into an empty bed. I'm like, wait, wasn't Sha there?
Wait, wait, wait. What? Wait, what?
There was only I thought there was only two beds and Sha was in one and flowing clouds in the other one. For starters, hold her tight. [laughter] What? He hugged her tight.
What? What is this chapter? [laughter] He hugged her tight. Her cheeks was pressed against his firm chest and Cheeki's lips curved into a smile. Oh my gosh, this girl's crush is so bad. Now then, [laughter] what should I have him do next? Cheeky thought. She thought calmly. Wow. Then finally, her drowsy brain started working again. Chicky clearly remembered where she was [laughter] and what the situation was.
Good morning. Ow. Good morning, Cheeky.
[laughter] He was He was still holding her. Norm Normally, this would be the time to scream, Cheeky thought. She let out a She let out a silk tearing shriek and brand him a leerous fiend. Or so she considered. But was that really the right move? setting her own feelings aside, she was the one who had crawled into the bed with him. He was the one being inconvenienced, and honestly, Chicky was benefiting from it. Plus, she had never even heard the sound of silk tearing before. Now that she thought about it, a prostitute she once knew said something like this. If you wake up in the morning and find a man sleeping beside you, absolutely do not let him get cocky.
Men are creatures who, after sleeping with you once, immediately think they own you. Hey. Ow. Don't get full of yourself. Is it bad if I do? When Shiki said that, Al's face clouded over.
[laughter] Did she upset him? That same prostitute said this. [laughter] This girl's got all This reminds me of like uh who was it? It's sort of like a Roxy situation here. Again, we're playing a lot of parallels for Roxy and this girl.
It's like the whole situation with Roxy and Ellen Lee is like getting any sort of like recommendations from her like, "Oh, Ellen said to do this." Okay, hold on, hold on, [laughter] hold on. That same prostitute also said this. Even if a guy is getting cocky, don't tell him not to. [laughter] Fail that one. [gasps] Fail that one.
Men with too much pride will snap and might start choking you. Holy [ __ ] Yeah, if she's a prostitute, she's probably dealing with people like that.
Chiki panicked internally. She was being held tight right now and couldn't move.
This was bad. She was going to get strangled. What do you think is necessary to defeat the King of the King Dragons? Contrary to her sleepy imagination, Al asked the question in a serious tone. Judging he wasn't angry after all. Cheeky looked up as a nearby face. First, what's absolutely essential is offensive power. Gravity magic. A shell-like outer skin. Bones and flesh clearly heavier and tougher than those of human. You'll need swordsmanship and magic strong enough to cut through it all. It's surprising how much she knows about this. I mean, she's supposed to be the scout for the group. And again, in her field, she's going to be needing to have information about everything that she does. And so, she probably being an assassin, probably looked into anything that she could find about the king of the king dragons. So, a twisted, unnatural smile spread across Al's face, something no normal human could make.
He's like, "Well, I got all that stuff.
Oh, good." And the next thing you need is defense, durability, and stamina.
Those are even more important than offensive power. The sheer menace and that smile made Cheeky shudder.
Generally speaking, most people think that since dragon attacks are easy to dodge, the attacks of the king of the king dragon can be handled with similar maneuvers. That's not true. The king of the king dragons is said to be the strongest in terms of individual combat power. Precisely because he's never been defeated. Among all dragons, he's the only one of his species who took interest in human martial arts. He honed his body, his techniques, and his skills, and developed his own tactics and strategies. That level training spans several thousands of years. So, even if a human spent their entire life training, it would still only amount to dabbling in comparison. That king is truly a master of combat. It's nearly impossible to dodge all of his attacks.
Okay. Yeah, he's he's not coming in here acting stupid. He's not coming in here acting stupid. Um, this checks. Again, this checks. Again, dragons are typically in most lores and seemingly what we get from obviously this entire book and what we got from Old Dragon's Tail is that the dragons of the Mishoka Tensei world, at least the older ones, the very older ones are extremely wise.
with like a lot of the, you know, wandering drakes or stragglers that they had in the mainline series, it really felt like these are just dumb beasts that as long as you blast them and you you trick them, you can take them down.
They're very weak when they were alone and stragglers and they couldn't get themselves back up in flight to get back up to where they were at. With these two books, these are specifically focusing in on a lot of older dragons that are wise, that they understand language and all this kind of stuff. These are what you typically get from like legendary dragon tales of these dragons that are super old. They have their own language.
They can speak and whatnot. They look at humans as being lowly beings and they could just knock them out with a single breath. What Al's talking about here is a dragon that has been around for a long time, has defeated many humans and took interest, specifically took interest in human martial arts, honed his body, his techniques, and his skills. It's very interesting there.
It's going to come down to this idea where this King King Dragons is not going to be a simple dumb monster that all you have to do is piss it off and lure it into a trap and the, you know, you set off the trap and the stuff comes out on top of it. It's going to be smart. It's going to be going, "Okay, he's running that direction for a reason. I'm going to stop." Or, "I'm going to use a technique to stop him."
That kind of stuff. It's just not going to be going on basic instincts. It's going to come down to sheer strength and tactics, techniques this thing has never seen before. But still, he's just a dragon, right? If you can say just a dragon about the species that rules over every mountain in central continent, I've tipped my hat at you, cheeky. Oh gosh. But understand, there's just as much of a gap between a regular dragon and a king of dragons as there is between a newborn baby and a hard mercenary. Otherwise, there's no way heroes like Lanza or the North God count would have been defeated. Hm. Didn't the North God defeat the king of king dragons and then disappear? She was told that story as a child. Al kept that eerie smile as he chuckled bitterly. Is that so? I heard he was killed by the King of King Dragons and that was the end of him. But I suppose since it's the final chapter of Legend of the North God, there are bound to be multiple versions.
I'm guessing what's implying there is that typically um based on what kind of story you're telling, you're going to have the conclusion be different. So if it's going to be a tale for children, they want to have a happy ending. So if it's going to be for children, he defeats the big bad and then he walks off in the sunset. That's the that's a heroic awesome conclusion. whereas it's for like you know somebody else u you know geared towards a different group it might be a more bitter story the idea that he gets defeated by the dragon that's the end of his legendary tales as far as Shiki knew she had never heard of version where the north god lost and died but maybe it really was a regional difference wasn't exactly wellversed in folklore or mythology and according to China al's hometown was unbelievably rule now then offensive power and high defensive skill a true hero has both let's say lano and cowman lost both of them were heroes Their skill level nearly matched the king of the king dragons. So then why do you think they all lost? Shiki thought for just two seconds before answering. Hm. Maybe they underestimated him because he was a dragon. Hero Len Shao supposedly recognized the king of king dragons bravery and shrink during a chaotic battle and challenge him to a duel.
Calman upon hearing that story went imprepared to die. So that's not quite right. Cheeky shivered. Before she realized it, she was afraid of Al's expression. She didn't understand why his face was so terrifying. What was this? She had never seen a human make a face like that before. It wasn't the kind of lust that a guil receptionist guy directed at her. It was something more instinctive. Was there something more primal than desire? Is this a thirst for the battle that she's just getting creeped out by him for? Like he's just getting excited about this whole thing and she's like, "What the hell's wrong with this guy?" What defeated them? Was their hearts? Their hearts. You could also call it competence. Without the firm belief that you'll win no matter what, your sword slows down. Your body relaxes. Even fights you could win become unwinable.
In a battle of equals, hesitation doss your edge and you miss your chance to win. She had heard similar stories, though in her experience, it was more like thoughts like, "I might lose, I might die, I might fail, make people hesitant. So, some assassins use magic or drugs to wipe those feelings away."
Interesting.
I'm trying to recall magic implied stuff like this. I can assume. Yeah, dra drugs makes sense. I mean, there's there's plenty of drugs that we have, you know, in our current time that do similar stuff as this. You want something that's not as far as to make you lose your edge, your ability to something that's too intoxicating, just something to just calm the nerves. Many heroes possess incredibly strong hearts. Liao and Common surely did, too. But they still lost right up to the moment of their one-on-one duels. They were probably constructing the fight in their minds.
If he attacks like this, I'll respond like that. If he does this, I'll do that. If he moves away, I'll block like so. But in doing that, their firm belief in victory wavered. The opponent was a massive dragon with overwhelming magic power, and on top of that, mastery of martial arts and tactics. There's no such thing as a guaranteed way to win.
The more they thought, the more they realized that, the deeper they fell, the more their confidence shook, and without an answer, they stepped onto the battlefield and lost.
So, what do you have different there, Al? It's starting to make me wonder what's different here, man. So, it's a matter of willpower. Combat is always fluid. Two people meet for the first time. Two people of equal skill. If they fought a 100 times, they win 50 each.
But in the very first fight, one of them dies. Will it be you or will be your enemy? What determines that is things like termination, nerve, and guts. You can call it whatever you like. In the end, I think it comes down to the heart.
It's just like literally don't think over don't overthink. It almost feels like the reaction here is just don't overthink it. Don't sit here and think of a bunch of different terms because in the end it comes down to this idea of like you can't overcome these things.
This is a dragon that knows, you know, fighting techniques and gravity magic and crap. You need to come in there with just pure heart. It sounds foolish. It honestly I mean I don't doubt if Chica comes around and goes, "This guy's crazy." Again, she's looking at him and thinking he's crazy. [laughter] This is a guy that just This is what he wants to do. It's all about heart. Get in there. Fight it. Kind of thing. Ah, Cheeky finally put a name to the trembling feeling inside of her. This is probably a gift from her ancestors.
That's why I'm going to stay cocky, overconfident, and keep believing that it's only natural that I'll win until I defeat the King of King dragons. That way, my sword won't dull. So, I'm sorry, Chicky, but I'll be riding high a little while longer. At that moment, Al's twisted grin finally softened. But Chicky's trembling didn't stop. That feeling, it was a warning from her very cells. A frog [laughter] under the gaze of a snake. A bird pinned down by a cat.
A woman standing before a dragon. Now those memories had long faded into the past. That old feeling had been resurrected. Anyone who can defeat a dragon can, without exception, also become a natural enemy of mankind. Ow.
Was dangerous. [laughter] Shiki's instincts were screaming that.
Calm [laughter] down, girl. Calm down, girl. Oh, man. I mean, I understand with the sun.
I I mean, we get it with his son, but let's let's let's calm down there a little bit. Let's calm down there a little bit. Later that day, around noon, they were just like always at the King Dragon Mountains. The sky had been overcast since they left town. The clouds heavy with imminent rain. Cheeky had never been in religions that used weather to predict the future. But somehow, she had a bad feeling. It's a bad omen. She couldn't stop thinking about the conversation with Al that morning. After that talk, the ominous vibe around Al had vanished. He went back to his usual care-free, always smiling self. China and flowing clouds didn't seem to notice anything, but to Cheeky. His attitude now felt blatantly fake. This kind of does sort of put a lot of a picture of a different type of Al. I mean, we got a sense that there is a serious side of Al, don't get me wrong, from the mainline series, but this definitely get a sense of like once that was brought up, he got extremely serious and let her know exactly what's going through his mind. Like this is my internal you can take me serious kind of thing.
Like I'm not I'm not effing around here.
I am taking this serious. But now that we're going back over here, he's acting like his goofy self. This is probably the side of him that is either trying to hide what he's actually thinking about or just just this is his side that's just taking it easy. Take it easy when he can. He could do both things. You could be serious and also goofy at the same time. Even if Al wasn't some overconfident, clueless country bumpkin, the fact remained that he had saved her life. That wasn't going to change. And Chicky didn't intend to stop helping him take on the king of the king dragons.
Still, something fell off in her chest.
She didn't know whether it was because the weather, because of Al's twisted true self, because of her breakfast had disgusting green peppers in it. This is totally Roxy.
This is totally Roxy.
Oh, this is totally Roxy. Or because her shoelaces weren't tied symmetrical when they left the inn. But [laughter] it didn't really matter. What matter was the fact that right now she had a bad feeling. This is seriously bad. Her master, the one who taught her how to be an assassin, had passed down four key rules beyond just technique. Four rules for living a long life while staying active as a professional assassin.
First, keep it broad and shallow. Every organization has darkness. Never get too involved. I can see that. Second, don't get picky about clients. Making specific enemies shortens your life. Smile even for the worst clients and smile while stabbing your favorite ones to death.
Loyalty to the job is a virtue. Okay.
Third, get along with your peers. Always smile. Keep lots of connections. That way, you might get offered better jobs.
[laughter] Keep professional in killing people. When you betray someone, erase the evidence cleanly and pin it on someone else. Uh-huh. 100%. [laughter] 100%.
Fourth, value your instincts. When you feel danger, trust that feeling. So, this is a sign to get the scout.
[laughter] No matter how tasty the bait in front of you looks like, run immediately. Then, afterwards, make sure you check what kind of trap was waiting for you at the place you would have gone, keep those in mind, especially the first and fourth rules. This time it's number four. This time it's number four.
So, sometime before it was keep it broad and shallow. Every organization has darkness. Never get too involved. She got too involved with somebody. Oh, I was just saying those two were the most important and it's the fourth one. She can feel herself being pulled towards something dangerous. Her body loyal to the training kept trying to shift her steps to the side. Pointless little timewasting detours, but every time Shina or Flowing Clouds would call her out and she changed course. Yeah, cuz you got Sha and she's feeling like danger senses going off and flowing clouds using detect magic. She felt like a prisoner being led towards the callous.
Well, maybe it wasn't quite that desperate. Still, according to the rules, it was about time she walked away from this whole situation. But Chicky was bad at talking.
[laughter] They talked about that earlier in her chapters right here was the idea that she just like she doesn't like like voicing her opinions and whatnot because it's always like shot down or something like that. Like she has a problem with communicating to people. And right here, she wants to get the hell out of here, but she can't. She didn't think that she could explain herself in a way they'd accept. I'm surprised she just hasn't just like snuck out in the middle of the night at some point. Again, technically, she started feeling a lot of this unease this morning. It was too much trouble to even try. It would probably turn into an argument and they'd part ways on bad terms. Does that matter?
That would go against rule number three.
Okay. [laughter] They weren't fellow assassins. That was my thought process. That's for fellow assassins. But they were her first real companions. Aw. She didn't want to leave any bitter feelings between them. A Cheeky likes them. Maybe it'd be better just kill them all. That's better. She didn't want a bitter feelings when I can kill them. I mean, goes the other rule.
Don't leave loose ends. She'd lost count how many times she considered it. Stay alone. It's close. A chill ran up her spine. The moment Chicky gripped the knife hidden in her cloak. Sha, who had somehow gotten right next to her without her noticing, spoke up. Yeah, it's close. Whatever it was, Chicky didn't know, but she agreed carefully not to let her in her panic show. She about to kill him. Jeez. Every time she thought about killing them, this female knight would end up right beside her. Shiki might be a self-proclaimed top class assassin, but she had no confidence that she could win against this knight, even if she attacked Sha as she slept. Huh.
Again, this goes to what I was saying before. I figured that Sha was always picking up on anything that Cheeky would do. that was why Chicky hadn't killed her yet and she probably picks up on that danger sense. And here it's confirming it that yes, she senses something with Cheeky and then she's stepping in. There's a side of me that almost believes that Sha is like, "Okay, well, I feel something so I need to step in." But she doesn't know it's Cheeky.
Or there's a side of it where Sha knows it's Cheeky. She's just trying to keep Cheeky from doing it. [laughter] Like there's a side of it like almost like she's trying to make Cheeky like them.
And it could be like the whole thing of like, you know, again, messing with her in the bed and stuff like that. It gives a little bit of to Sha's character. kind of like that. You know, she knows that Shiki's bad and that she's trying to she's conflicted about killing them or whatever, and she's trying to make her like him. This woman had an insanely fast reaction to killing intent directed towards her. Whether through a special training, natural talent, or through some kind of precognition, it was almost supernatural. It is said that a warrior trained to the extreme can sense the moment their opponent attacks. But for Sha to be called such a warrior, she's just too young. There's something really off about this woman. Chiggy had heard some things about how she came to be called the death god's knight, though it was a hearsay and incomplete rumors. One story even claimed that she survived a situation where the only way to escape was to kill your allies. Yeah. Actually, according to what Cheeky had heard, even killing your allies wouldn't have let you escape. In any case, the rumors painted China Mariane as a deranged knight who once on the battlefield slaughtered enemies and allies alike. A mad knight who would betray and kill her comrades if it meant surviving. A mad knight who killed her enemies, too. Odd way for a traitor to act, just kill everybody. A mad knight constantly pursued by the holy knights.
Yeah, it makes you kind of wonder why she's not kill on site cuz I mean even Barkle like walked away from it in a sense. Chicken had only recently gathered these rumors but she found them hard to believe. There couldn't be someone like that. Maybe the part about the Holy Knights chasing her was true.
But in that case, the rest of the rumors were probably slander spread by the Holy Knight's order. If not that, then maybe one or two incidents had just been blown out of proportion. The more time Chiki spent around the infamous China, the less she could believe it. I mean, you're getting a sense that she's at least able to avoid dangers. Like, she has that really creepy sense about herself. She wasn't that kind of person.
A rumor was just a rumor. Yeah. Yeah, I guess the part about her killing people, maybe this was just a smear campaign by the Holy Knights Order. Maybe she'd been in a desperate situation and her comrades had died, but that would have been because she had the strength to survive and they didn't. Yeah, true. At least she's seen through this whole crap. She's seeing at the heart of all this. There's all these crazy rumors which in a sense they're like true in a way that something like this had happened. It's just it wasn't her. And based on what I'm seeing here, she's surviving. It makes sense. Yeah. Even so, Chick had always figured there was something more going on. But I had thought of it as something that didn't really concern her. That was fine until this morning. But now everything has flipped. Ever since Cheeky decided to back out of this mess, her thoughts had turned 180°. She's dangerous cuz she's picking up on this killing intent. Probably. There's no doubt in Chigi's mind. Sha is trying to push her into a deadly situation. Oh, Sha's trying to get them to the King Dragons.
Every time she tried to act, something interrupts her once or twice. Could be coincidence. At the same time, for some reason, like standing up to go to the bathroom, only for someone else to rise at the same moment. That kind of thing could happen two times in a row. No big deal. But when it happened like this, it's no coincidence. She can feel it.
China is deliberately cutting off her options. For example, if Shiki tried to say something like, "I'm feeling uneasy.
Can we head back?" Or, "The deadline for my job is coming up. Mind if I pull out for a bit?" What would Sha do? Shiki could say, "For sure." Sha would drown out her logic and kill her with words.
And Shiki knew that she couldn't win in a verbal fight. She was terrible with words. The word death god rises to her mind again. That's how this woman, this knight, has driven those who traveled with her to their deaths. That sucks.
[laughter] This is literally the curse that Shana is dealing with all the time that everybody around her is ending up dead.
She signed up for this saying, "Run away if something happens. Leave me behind."
And right here, because again, I think that Shine is picking up something in Shiki right here. Shiki thinks that she's deliberately doing this to get her killed. This is this curse of the death god. This is what everybody calls her this for. Shiki could tell this one's got a unique kind of intuition. She's heading towards danger. It doesn't realize how high her own survival ability is. She'll bring you to a place where it's possible to escape even if it becomes dangerous if you're her. Yeah, but that's only because she's China and she can get out of it. People like Cheeky, ordinary people need to flee far earlier or they'll die. [laughter] And yet this woman keeps saying, "It's still fine. It's still fine." And drags others closer to danger. The people around her, knowing how sharp her dangerousness is, feel safe and follow her right into the fire. By the time Shina decides it's actually dangerous, it's already too late. No one but her can make it out.
Again, this is sad because this is exactly what Sha is fearing. Again, I still think that China is avoiding this stuff. I just think that Shiki doesn't really fully see it. I don't know. It's It's weird cuz again, Shana can feel and sense danger and she's she's trying to get them close, but she knows that they can't beat him either. She's in the same mindset as Cheeki. So, it does kind of make you wonder like which of the two of them is getting too close or or avoiding the the situation. I really feel like they're both trying to avoid the situation. They just don't know they're both trying to avoid the situation is where I'm getting at. It's probably unconscious, unintentional, but the sense of reassurance China gives off is overwhelming. Anyone but Chicky would be drowning it by now. That's exactly why she's dangerous. Al too, just like Sha was dangerous in his own way. Shiki hated the feeling of relying on someone else. It's [laughter] like it's like Shiki is the only one that's like, I don't want to be in this situation. It again, Shiki being the thief class in this whole situation. It's like a geese situation. Like I'm helping them scout, but I I if push comes to stop, I'm getting the hell out of here. I I can't survive. Shiki stopped walking and crouched to retie her shoelaces. Another stalling tactic. She wanted to run, but she couldn't come up with a good plan.
The others also stopped walking and crouched. "What are they doing?" Shiki wondered, and they remembered that she was scouting for this team. As she surfaced from the depths of her thoughts, her hearing returned. She could hear the sounds of clashing swords. Just ahead, down 3 m drop, behind some bushes, two groups were locked in a fight to the death. It's the knights and the leopards, isn't it? It was a perfect spot to watch from.
Apparently, without realizing it, she heard the sounds of battle and instinctively circled around to the vantage point. Part of her wanted to praise herself for reacting unconsciously. Part of her wanted to scold herself for not paying attention to her surroundings.
Yep. The Royal Knights and the Blue Leopard Divisions. I wondered if this is a continuation from the other day. A continuation? Oh, from the bar, the inn or whatever. Okay. I was like, do we miss a fight that happened out here before? Shana, who had come up beside her, muttered that she sounded kind of amused, even though she previously said that grown men brawling like this was pathetic. She liked fights. She'd often been seen smirking at barroom scuffles in the end district. Next to her were Al and Flowing Clouds. Al looked intrigued.
Flowing Cloud's expression was unreadable. Her face was always blank.
It was impossible to tell what she was thinking. Is she just like broken or is this like her personality? I wonder. She looked like someone who wasn't thinking at all, but her statements were always accurate. Maybe that dopey face of hers was actually her thinking face. It's my face. It's my face. Uh Cheeky followed her lead and observed the fight below.
It looked like it was after a clash with a king dragon. There was a wide open area, probably where the group of mages had been wiped out. Two groups were fighting violently in a narrow space. It was clearly two distinct sides because their outfits were so unique. One side was made up of heavily armored knights.
clad head to toe in gray steel, shields in their left hands, swords in their right, heavy infantry. The other wore blue leopard print coats, and carried curved single-edged swords, light infantry. There was no exceptions.
Everyone in the clearing belonged to one of those two types. Well, except for the two fighting the center of the clearing, but even they weren't entirely out of place. One wore a special lion-shaped helmet. The other held a slightly shorter sword than the mercenaries around him, gripped in a reverse stance.
The Amazing Lion, Leonardo Pompador, and the Blue Panther. Their stances were completely different, too. The lion stood tall and imposing, sword raised high. The blue panther was hunched, almost like clutching his stomach, gripping his sword like he was clinging to it. At first glance, it looked like the lion was overwhelming the blue panther. But the truth was the opposite.
The lion's armor was stained with blood in multiple places through the gaps of his helmet. His face was twisted in pain. The blue panther, on the other hand, had a cut on his cheek, but no serious injuries, and was grinning fearlessly. Yeah, again they they imply this dude's really really strong.
Looking closely, several royal knights lay scattered on the field. Had the blue panther done that all by himself? If so, even he must be nearing his limit. She had heard plenty of rumors about this amazing lion, Leonardo. A man who could make the impossible possible. An undefeated royal knight, a key figure in the King Dragon Realm rise. He was famous to the public, but in the underworld, his reputation wasn't as good. He only picks fight when he thinks he can win. He runs away when the odds are bad. He's excellent at reading situations, but the only reason that he hadn't failed yet was because he played it safe and never made any notable mistakes so far. Deep down, he was just an overly cautious coward. The fact that he hadn't fled and was still fighting meant that the situation was even or his escape route had been cut off. I mean, somebody playing this, I can see the battlefield being kind of a a trap.
Looking at the overall battlefield, more royal knights were down than those in the Blue Leopard Division. But the Royal Knights had several times their numbers, so the fight was probably even. For a continuation of a quarrel, "Things seem way too intense." "What could have happened?" Al asked curiously. She glanced sideways at Flowing Cloud's face. In her mind, she recalled the wiping out of the mage group. "If one of the factions had intentionally wiped them out, then maybe this blood bath was also part of their scheme." "It's the Holy Knight's order," Sha said flatly.
This is exactly the kind of thing Barkle would do. Take out the most dangerous group first, then pin the ones that he can crush any time against each other at the right moment. Any minute now, the Holy Knight's order is going to show up and sweep away both sides after they've exhausted themselves.
Damn, [laughter] she she knows him through and through.
Didn't imply that's what he did last time. Last time, he just kind of got them to deny the reinforcements and then just went this direction instead. China spoke with a bitter, hateful tone. Her eyes were filled with disgust. Shiki found herself asking, "Do you have any proof?" None. But if it's Sparkle, he'd totally do it. Okay, this kind of confirms for me that she knows what he did. Again, I wasn't really sure if the story that she told was what she found out later on what Barkle did and thus knows the truth based on what she seen as well and she told that to Al if it was a, you know, another party telling the story and she wasn't aware of what actually happened. The man always thinks about eliminating the competition first in order to win. His motto is a lion gives his all when hunting a rabbit. But what he really means by giving his all is undermining every other rival so that he alone leisurely chases after the rabbit. Al gave Sha a troubled look. Why was he making that face? He even touched his fingers to his lips. Was that some kind of gesture to say it's wrong to speak ill of others? But Sha didn't see it and her rant didn't stop. Barco's bold. Sure, if by that you mean that he's not afraid of risks when he fails.
If he wants to get promoted, he doesn't just go for achievements. He'll kill his superiors and peers if that's faster.
He'll trap his own allies to make the mission look harder than it really is.
He's great at covering his tracks and making things add up so no one ever finds out. He's also amazing at sucking up to others and maneuvering behind the scenes, so even if he gets caught, he can usually sweep it under the rug. That man is the epitome of scum. The Holy Knight's order is no different. A bunch of garbage gathered by garbage. Looks nice on the outside, but inside it's pure sludge. Damn, China. [laughter] Like entire page of entire page of her thoughts. No, tell us how you really feel. No, no, no, no. It's okay. You could tell us what you really feel.
Shana kept going, running her mouth. She hadn't noticed yet, but Cheeky Al and flowing clouds had already turned around, fully aware of who was behind them. Well, well, you sure got good at badmouthing people. While I wasn't looking, didn't you, Shina?
A man with a face of a bandit stood there, vain, bulging in anger.
[laughter] Behind him were rows of burly knights clad in white exorcist armor. So, everything she legit just said is happening right now. Of course, if what Sha said was true, the Holy Knights Order had been watching the battle from somewhere, and there was only so many safe places with a good view. They must have been nearby from the start. The moment Sha heard Barkle's voice, she spun around and immediately drew her sword. How did she I mean, she must she must have known he was there and she just played dumb, I guess. Where's her danger senses here? If she could tell any other time better than detect magic, she had to have known Barkle was here.
Did she want to fight him?
Barkle, you're not getting way today.
Shina, holy knights, draw your swords.
Let's finally bring justice down on the mastermind of that nightmarish slaughter. Marco grinned wickedly and drew his blade. Sha looked panic, turned around, and locked eyes with Shiki. She shouted something, but Shiki didn't hear. Again, she's panicking. Why didn't Sha know this? Why does Sha's danger senses work every other time, but not here? Unless it's just not a threat of death. Like, she at even at this moment doesn't fear death. The Spidey senses aren't going off because these guys are weak.
But I'm assuming she's probably telling Shiki to get the hell out of here. Holy Knights, they're back. Two factions slaughtering each other ahead of them.
No way out. Perfect. Perfect. Shiki was thrilled. [laughter] Now was her chance. She's like, "Now I get the out of here." She ran away. God.
[laughter] She She's like, "Yes, I can run away finally."
Well, Sha's not going to disapprove of it. Shina won't disapprove it. She said to run away when there's death there, so I won't I won't have to worry about her.
The flowing clouds, uh, a cloudy girl here, she's not going to say anything.
She barely talks at all. And Al's probably going to be so confused and really react at all. Shiggy was thrilled. This was her chance. She ran away straight towards the cliff where the two groups were clashing and then she left off it towards the other group I guess because they're not going to be a threat or at least run over run over there and tell them you all been faked out. She got to go over there and tell them y'all those dudes up there caused all this. But again, these people are fighting like crazy. I doubt they care.
They hate each other more than anything right now. Guys, I got to stop somewhere. I think that's probably the best point to stop there. There's kind of a a bullet stop point right here. And I so I think this is probably a good transition point. I don't know what's ahead and if we're going to get into something else, but um I'm going to stop it there. We're chat as she leaps off the cliff. We're going to have a cliffhanger. This [laughter] is this is a legit legit physical theoretical literal cliffhanger right here. We're going to we're going to cliffhanger right here with Cheeky off the cliff. Um but yeah, I'm going to I'm going to stop it there. really good set of chapters.
This is kind of similar to the previous Mishoka Monday. Like previous Mishoka Monday, we got all in China. Got into why she got this death god title. Now we're getting into Shiki and again a lot about her her job all these rules that she kind of follows and again a lot of the fears and uncertainty that's going through her mind right now. And it's a lot to do with the fact that she doesn't like she got doky doi about there was a [laughter] lot of a lot of her get crushing over Al, but at some point she snapped out of it like okay he's super cool. He saved my life, but the Prince Charming thing kind of got pushed away the moment she realized that Prince Charming is like this battlecrazed guy that seems to be going off to his death.
Like he could be hot all he wants, but if if you're on the back of that horse and he's riding off off the cliff, you got to eventually jump off that horse, right? That's what's happening right now. She's like, "Oh my prince charming.
Um, Mr. Charming, this is not good.
[laughter] Jump off. Jump off. Not good.
Warning. Warning." Uh, that's sort of the sense that I'm getting with this whole like story bit right here. But I like getting more into Chicky. Again, similar to getting into Sha and figuring out more about these characters. I'm assuming at some point we're going to get into the clouds girl. Clouds girl seems to be important as well. So, I'm assuming that eventually we're going to get a a cloud. I'm thinking we're going to get eventually a perspective of her and it's probably going to tell what happened back there. And again, a lot of that's kind of be locked in her mind.
I'm starting to get more of a sense here that she's very locked up. I don't know if it's because trauma or what. Um, it could just be that she's very like nervous around people. She's very introvert or whatever. She's not good at socializing with people and so she's stuttering a lot and she can't get the words out. But it kind of gives me a sense here where she got she got problems of her own that I'll be interested to get into. But good stuff. Good stuff. I also like seeing a lot more into Al through his reaction to uh Shiki's questions. This sense of him viewing the battlefield a lot different than other people would.
These people sat here and sort of created these scenarios and tactics for how to take on something that is this powerful. Again, getting into why the King of the King Dragon is so different than all the other ones, how longived he is, how he's again has intelligence, has looked into human techniques and whatnot. has of course as always the gravity magic as we've always kind of played out for these these dragons specifically but again seeing that these individuals played out you know all these different scenarios in their head on how to beat them and still lost so I'm going to go in there with just pure heart I'm not going to worry about that other stuff it's just going to be through sheer desire and not having this thought process that you're going to lose having all these scenarios play out in your head is this idea of expecting failure I'm not going to expect failure.
And that confidence seems to scare the hell out of Shiki, [laughter] which again, I'm I'm blown away by the fact that nobody has seen his skill. I'm thinking this is probably going to be the first time they see it. I see two things happening here possibly. One being that all this stuff goes down and Al's going to wipe the floor with everybody, knock them all out and go, "Hey y'all, y'all should stop." And everybody be like, "Holy crap, how strong is this guy? He wiped out all these people. wipe them all out. Or if during this clash eventually the King Dragon's going to come down on everybody, slaughtered a bunch of them, and then Al's going to have to at that point take down the dragon and prove himself. We'll see. We'll see. How many more pages do we have? I guess the question mark. Okay, we're like by page count, I think we're like halfway through it. So, we're we're [laughter] only at the halfway point of this story, so I'm guessing we'll get potentially three more parts at least. So, but anyhow, as always, thank you guys so much for dropping by for the premier.
Hey chat, hope you guys enjoyed this Mishok Monday. As always, if you did, again, make sure to hit that like button before you leave. I greatly appreciate your guys' support, your kind words, all that stuff that gets me through this journey through Mish Tensei. And as always, greatly appreciated by supports channel monetary through Patreon tips, links, super thanks, memberships, all that stuff. Thank you, thank you, thank you. But until the next Mishical Monday, you'll take care.
I'll be riding a little higher. I'll be riding a little high, a little longer.
So, I'm sorry, Cheeky, but I'll be But I'll be riding a little But I'll be riding high. But I'll be riding high a little longer. I'll be rid I'll be But I'll be riding high a little while. I'll be
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