First Kill

A presence drew up right in front of the clinic. I opened the door and stepped out in front of those idiot sons.

“Whoa!”

“What the—!”

“A new kind of goblin!”

“Eek!”

“Ahhh!”

They froze when they saw me.

“Hey, give me back my hobgoblin.”

“It talks!”

The idiots started whispering and jabbering among themselves. Villagers who’d heard the commotion stood back and watched us, murmuring.

“Are you from Kaiji or what?!”

“Eek.”

Startled by my sudden shout, a timid-looking villager blurted out.

“What kind of nonsense are you spouting?”

Finally deciding I was human, one of the idiots addressed me with a bossy tone.

“That doesn’t matter. Give me back the hobgoblin I beat.”

He scowled for a moment, at a loss for words. Then he put on an arrogant look and said,

“I don’t know anything about that, you trying to pick a fight?”

Exactly what I’d expected. There was no way they’d hand it over. Still, his line sounded like something a thug in a cheap drama would say. I couldn’t help but laugh a little.

“What are you laughing at, you—”

“This back-and-forth is a pain. Fine, just get down on your knees, press your forehead to the ground, apologise from the bottom of your heart, hand over the hobgoblin and pay me compensation, and I’ll let you go.”

“What did you say to me!”

He snapped. A country wannabe thug, all right.

“Just kill him and dump the body in the woods, go for it.”

When he shouted that, his cronies lunged at me.

“Come on!”

One of them, all thug and no subtlety, swung at me. It was a telegraphing punch Telegraphing a punch means giving away your intention to strike through exaggerated or unnecessary movement. you could see coming from a mile away. I moved half a step to the side and dodged it.

With his face wide open, I fire a straight punch at it. Hitting the philtrum had no effect on goblins, but maybe it would work on someone from another world.

Thinking that, I drove my fist into the man’s face.

The experiment on an otherworlder failed. With a wet, crushing sound something caved in, my fist sank deep and his face collapsed.

No philtrum left at all, this is an instant kill. Even though it was my first time killing someone, I was less shocked than I expected to be.

If anything, I was surprised at how quickly it happened.

We were still in the middle of a fight, so maybe the emotional fallout would come later. While that thought ran through my head, my body was already moving on to the next action.

I converted the energy from leaning my upper body forward into lateral thrust and kicked off the ground with my right foot. It was one of those karate body moves for sudden acceleration from a stop.

From the stopped position after the punch I lunged forward in a burst, and drove a nukite, a spear-hand thrust, into the throat of one of the cronies who was standing there frozen with a stupid look on his face.

A sick, wet squelch told me my hand had pierced skin and flesh. I stepped half a pace to the side with my right foot and launched a backward roundhouse with my left.

The sole of my foot sank into the temple of the timid-looking crony who had been standing near the man hit by the spear-hand.

The idiot son panicked, fumbling for a knife at his waist, but he was too slow. I stomped down with my heel, crushing his knee from the front.

“Aaarghhh!”

His knee bent backward in a completely unnatural angle. One of the remaining cronies let out a scream and bolted.

“Eeeeeek!!”

I sprinted after him and landed a flying knee into his spine, then grabbed the back of his head and slammed his face into the dirt.

He slid, dragged by my momentum as his face scraped across the ground, painting a red line like someone had drawn with paint.

I approached the idiot son, who was writhing and screaming with his leg bent backward.

“S-stay back!”

Tears and drool streaming down his face, he yelled as I raised my hand in a knife-hand strike.

My hand sank two-thirds of the way into his face before he spasmed. The light faded from his dull eyes.

Strangely, I didn’t feel any guilt for killing, nor any exhilaration for killing someone wicked. What I felt was confusion at how fragile they were.

I had thought of myself as weak by this world’s standards, barely defeating a hobgoblin. But these guys were far weaker than I expected, which felt strange.

They’d been acting so tough toward me.

Since they were confident enough to face me, someone who had defeated a hobgoblin, I figured that with five of them, they could handle one too.

But clearly, they couldn’t. They were too stupid even to assess their opponent’s strength.

After finishing off the idiot son, I realized something. I hadn’t asked where the village chief’s house was.

I should have asked before killing him. I regretted that when suddenly, men arrived armed with swords, spears, hoes, and sickles.

Behind them stood a pudgy man, better dressed than the rest.

“Phillip… how could this happen… my son…”

He must have been the village chief. Tears welled up in his eyes as he stared at his dead son. Even villains care about their own children, it seems.

“You bastard, I won’t forgive you! I’ll torture you to death!”

The village chief shouted at me, his eyes bloodshot with rage.

“It was your son who attacked me. It’s called self-defense.”

“Silence! That doesn’t matter! Don’t think you’ll die an easy death!”

Even as I was talking with the chief, I kept examining their equipment and numbers. There were eight of them. Only three had proper gear; the rest wore regular clothes and carried farm tools.

The most dangerous one seemed to be the guy with a shield and one-handed sword. Next was the spear wielder. And then the guy with the greatsword. The farmers with improvised weapons were all about the same level of threat.

I finished assessing threat levels. They weren’t using any formation. I had to watch the movements of the three armed ones while reducing their numbers and avoiding being surrounded.

In manga, it’s common to see someone take down the strongest opponent first to apply psychological pressure on the others. But that’s not realistic.

If you get surrounded while fighting the strongest, it’s over. Normally, you start with the weaker ones.

But I intentionally aimed for the shield guy who looked like the strongest. Fighting someone with a shield barehanded would be tough, as one could easily imagine.

Blocking with a shield is not just about holding it up. You adjust the angle to deflect the attack, push back, or absorb it with the right balance of force depending on the attack. It requires refined technique.

In this world, where skills exist, that technique might be even more advanced. That’s why I targeted him first.

He likely never practiced defending against barehanded attacks. Naturally, wielding a weapon is stronger than fighting barehanded.

In a world infested with monsters, it’s hard to imagine humans, who lack the tough bodies and sharp claws of monsters, wasting time mastering unarmed combat.

That’s the opening I needed. If he saw through my plan, he could counter it, so I had to attack the shield guy first. I burst forward with a sudden acceleration.

As soon as I entered his striking distance, the shield guy thrust his sword forward. It was slower than I expected. Before the sword reached me, I easily dodged it.

As I avoided the stab aimed at my heart, I sent a middle kick toward him. He tried to block with his shield.

But just before my kick landed, I tucked my leg in, flexed my knee, and shifted the kick upward, changing it into a downward arc and did a high kick.

It was a Brazilian high kick, a variation of a roundhouse kick where the angle shifts from mid to high in a downward motion. Surprised by the sudden change, the shield guy took the kick full to the side of his head.

The moment my kick connected with his temple, a spear thrust came toward my neck. I had sensed the spear guy approaching and dodged it with ease.

Spear guy looked surprised, then followed up with a series of thrusts. Likely thanks to a skill, his moves were clean and precise.

But while precise, the attacks were too predictable in trajectory.

His level wasn’t high either so the speed wasn’t impressive. But the reach was annoying.

While dodging his thrusts, the greatsword guy and the farmers began encircling me.

Still dodging, I edged closer to the greatsword wielder behind me. See my vulnerable back. Now’s your chance. Come on, go ahead and swing.

I pretended to stumble, as if I’d failed to avoid a jab, losing my balance. Someone skilled would know it was an act from my posture, but these country folk wouldn’t notice.

The greatsword guy raised his long sword over his head like a character from Monster Hunter, and brought it down toward my back.

That’s when I suddenly lunged backward, ramming my left elbow into his solar plexus. Caught off guard, he took the hit full force.

A counter isn’t about attacking the body, it’s about striking at the opponent’s mental gap. I never thought I’d get to use my teacher’s lessons in another world.

Thinking that, I grabbed the back of his collar with my right hand and threw him.

He hit the ground hard, the air knocked out of him, and stopped moving. I stomped his neck with a knife-like strike as he lay there.

At that moment, the spear guy attacked again, but it was predictable. I dodged and took distance. He seemed to like exploiting openings, but his timing was easy to read now.

Sure, people are the most off guard just after a finishing move so it’s a great time to strike. But do it twice in a row and it becomes obvious.

Instead of trying to stop me from finishing off his allies, he should’ve focused on keeping their numbers up. While I was thinking that, a brave farmer came at me from behind with a sickle.

I moved my right back foot half a step inward and turned, switching from an orthodox to a reversed southpaw stance instantly.

Karate was originally designed for fighting multiple opponents. It was only after becoming a sport that it shifted to one-on-one, leading to the idea of favoring the dominant hand, like in boxing. Originally, you were meant to use both stances.

Karate has the techniques to deal with attacks from any direction. I spun quickly and dropped a hammer fist on the arm holding the sickle.

As the farmer dropped the weapon in pain, my left straight punch was already crashing into his face. His face caved in, and as I pulled my fist out, a sticky, gurgling sound echoed as blood gushed and he collapsed.

The other farmers recoiled in fear at the sight.

While they hesitated, I turned on the spear guy. I switched to southpaw, standing sideways. Chin down, left hand near my jaw, right hand guarding my liver.

I advanced in a twisted Hitman-style stance. The spear guy didn’t use anything but thrusts. Maybe he couldn’t. From this angle, all he could hit was my eyes, thigh, or knee. What’s your move?

For the first time, he tried something other than a thrust and swept the spear horizontally. I stepped in further, dodging the blade. The shaft smacked into me, but I was well-guarded.

As I suspected from his slow stabs, his level wasn’t very high. It stung, but I could handle it.

I grabbed the spear firmly and applied brute force, yanking it hard. He held on desperately to avoid losing it.

Then I suddenly let go. He stumbled forward. I closed the distance instantly and jabbed with a quick right. He leaned back just in time to dodge.

I followed with a left crescent kick to his liver. My foot sank in, crushing ribs and splitting the organ. He clutched his side, spewing blood, writhing in silent agony.

Brutal, even for me. Let’s end this.

Keeping my senses sharp for arrows or other ranged attacks, I approached the squirming spear guy.

He’d stopped moving by then, just groaning faintly. I stomped his head, feeling the unpleasant crunch under my heel, and scanned the area.

Shield guy was dead or unconscious, lying face down in a pool of blood.

The farmers stood frozen, their spirits shattered. I didn’t hate them, really.

Five of the brat’s pals, three capable men, and one brave farmer, so nine in total. Including the chief, that made ten. Losing that many men would end this village.

Once I finished negotiating compensation with the chief, I’d repay his attempt on my life tenfold. That’s what I was thinking when someone came out of a nearby house.

I’d sensed people hiding inside, but assumed they were cowering in fear. Seems not.

A man in full plate armor stepped out. So that’s why it took him so long. Putting that on takes time, after all. Looks like the final boss has arrived.