Nerd In the North 6-6B

The legs stood for a second longer, as confused as a bloody waistline could look, before slumping down to join the raping bandit’s top half.

The woman screamed, a raw tearing sound that scraped the inside of Greg’s skull. More blood splattered her all over as she scrambled backward on hands and knees, feet digging deep into the flith. Reddened mud splattered her even further, mouth hanging open as she wailed in panic and fear both.

Okay. Greg looked down at his sword, the pale snow-colored blade winking back at him. I haven’t used that in a while. Did it get stronger? He was pretty sure it did and, more than that, the energy slash — the getsuga tensho knockoff — was also a bit bigger than he remembered too. Granted, his memory wasn’t all that good, considering the last time he used a sword beam rather than experimenting with his magic was… 

Greg blinked, the timeline in his head fuzzing out as he was suddenly aware how many months had passed him by in this world. Weird. Time felt like soup here. 

Thick, chunky Campbells left out to curdle.

He shook his head as the bleeding woman screamed again, voice shrill and high enough to crack glass. Greg turned to look at her, free hand raised as he tried to look as nice as he possibly could. 

Harder than it looked, considering he was standing over a corpse. “I’m gonna need some space here, get back.”

“K-kill ‘im!” The torch-bearer’s voice cracked as he dropped his fire into a puddle — hissing steam joining the smell of shit — as he drew a rusted longsword. “Get the bastard!”

Six of them rushed him at once.

Bad idea. 

Terrible idea even, but he wasn’t one to judge.

Greg moved, no thought about footwork or forms dragging him back as he let the adrenaline and the raw power take over. He was already faster than them, stronger too. Even without the magic, it was downright unfair that he was also way more skilled.

He ducked under a wild swing; steel enough to take his head off if he let it. The wind of the blade ruffled his hair, Greg twisting even further back as the man stumbled forward. His fist swung out, the bandit taking a punch right to the gut; no magic necessary, just raw muscle that could lift a mare.

Blood sprayed from the bandit’s mouth, the man folding in half as half-assembled plate crumpled like tin foil and ribs gave way under his fist.

With a grunt, Greg spun and lashed out with his sword, the white edge catching the shaft of a spear aimed his way. Wood split and severed, the fingers holding it flying with the tip of the weapon. 

The man howled, staring at his bleeding stumps as he staggered back and stumbled right into three of his friends. A shadow fell over them, four men looking right up in the air, eyes open a fraction as wide as their mouths as a six-foot slab of iron swung straight down.

They didn’t get a chance to scream before they burst open.

Armor and flesh exploded into a thick red mist, bodies meeting the ground with enough force that they looked more like rotten tomatoes than anything else. Greg knew that sound well enough to pick it out in his sleep — a raw ground-shuddering impact that could only belong to the Dragonslayer. 

Considering the fact that Guts massive mauler of a melee weapon weighed at least three of him, Greg wasn’t surprised at what it could do; the sword was crazy impressive.

Even still…

“Show off.” The mutter slipped out as Greg parried a clumsy sword swipe from a wide-eyed bandit, the man still babbling nonsense until a thrust through the throat shut him up. 

“Heh.”

Greg wasn’t sure if that was a grunt or a laugh, but Guts didn’t bother to elaborate as he stepped over another corpse to cleave a man from shoulder to hip.

Another bandit, a scrawny man with eyes like a trapped rat, decided to run.

Not for freedom or safety, though; he lunged at the woman still screaming in the mud. Filthy fingers grabbed a handful of matted raggedy hair, yanking her up with a snarl. The woman shrieked again, hands clawing uselessly at his arm as he dragged her in front of him. A dagger, jagged and nasty, pressed tight against the soft skin of her throat.

“Back!” Spit flew from his lips, fear and anger clear on his too-tight face. “Back or I open ‘er up! I swear it! I’ll gut ‘er for the Black Goat ‘imself!”

Greg sighed, a long rattling exhale that fogged in the cold air.

“Stay back!” The bandit yelled again, voice pitching up a good bit higher as Guts took a heavy, clanking step forward. The raider queezed the screaming woman tighter, one hand tearing off her tunic a bit as she thrashed. 

He pushed the dagger in, just enough to break the skin as a single, dark drop of blood welled up and tracked down her neck. “Your pet giant be’er not move! I’ll do it!”

Greg stared at him. Then he looked at Guts. Then back at the bandit.

“Why do people do this to me?” The blond shook his head. “Like, seriously. The lords in the North. The guards in the capital. And so many of you bandits.” Greg bit back a scream into a groan. “I mean, look at the spread here. We just turned your friends into paste. Paste! Y’know what? Is it me?” He gestured vaguely at himself. “Do I not look scary enough?”

He looked up at Guts, tilting his head. “Do I not?”

Guts didn’t even look down, eyes still fixed on the bandit. “Never in your life, li’l lord.”

“It’s not my fault my parents were pretty.” Greg threw his free hand up, sighing again. “I can’t help the bone structure. But I killed a lord. I am a lord. People should fear me, you know? There should be an aura. A vibe, y’know?”

The bandit looked wildly between them, Guts and Greg both as they traded words, sweat cutting tracks through the dirt on his face. The dagger rose from the smallfolk woman’s neck for a second, the bandit pointing it Greg’s way with a shaky hand. “Who are you even talking to? Are you mad?”

“I’m talking to you.” Greg pointed two fingers at the bandit; making a little gun shape. “Ventrum.”

Like all his most recent spells; this one was thrown together; a last-minute kludge based off an idea and enough magic thrown in that it had to do something. 

It did something.

Wind shot from his fingers, both of them; a tight, compressed bullet of air that roared out at the speed of a fastball and with so much more force it rippled the air.

So much force that, when it met the skull of the angry bandit, it sent bone rocking back; the sound like a melon being hit with a sledgehammer. A spurt of blood and grey matter arced high into the air as the man dropped to the ground.

The screaming woman scrambled away; crawling through the muck on hands and knees to get away from the twitching body.

Greg looked down at his hand, fingers still extended. “Well, shit.”

I was not this strong last week.

It was over in seconds, the few remaining bandit survivors breaking and running as the spell broke what little suicidal courage they had left; about three of them left scrambling for the treeline. 

Blue eyes narrowed as Greg raised a hand; wind gathering at his fingertips and a spell name on his lips. He was ready to chase them down, maybe even put a Ventrum slug through their backs. 

…fuck it. He lowered his hand, the magic dissipating with a soft sigh from his lips.

Silence descended on the village, heavy and thick, broken only by the crackle of burning roofs and the loud weeping of the woman still in the mud.

Greg turned, flicking the blood free from his sword, and looked at the villagers as they crept their way out from behind barrels and ruined doors. Wide eyes and pale faces stared back at him and the carnage; the men split in half, the red paste left by Guts, and then at Greg.

A big man, arm limp and bleeding, stumbled forward as he stared at Greg’s white sword with a look on his face that Greg was used to; something between fear and awe. “M-milord,” the man’s voice came out a stammer as he dropped to his knees in the reddened muck. One by one; the others started to drop. Kneeling in the blood and the filth, heads bowed to the teenager in the shiny armor.

“The Seven bless you. The Seven bless the…”

“Don’t.” 

Greg growled the word, voice sharp as his sword.

The elder flinched and looked up at him.

“Don’t. Kneel.” With another white flash and even wider eyes, Greg dismissed his sword back to nothingness as the hundred stars burning inside him dimmed again. “I didn’t do this for your prayers.”

He clicked his tongue as Guts sheathed his own beast of a blade. “Seriously, you people kneel too quickly. To, like… the wrong people, honestly. Jesus Christ.” He tossed his head back and sighed, well aware what he was about to do wouldn’t help his problem. “Just tell the hurt people to come quick so I can heal them and go.”

Nobody spoke for all of five seconds, then…

“And somebody calm that lady down before her throat bleeds too!”