After Mordred summoned another sword while still speaking with such confidence, Vulk's expression became dignified.
Mordred walked away several meters from Vulk and turned around. He then took the middle stance of the Sword God Style, the most balanced one, holding Clarent with both hands.
He knew from the novel that all the Superds in the village are weaker than Ruijerd, while Ruijerd is still at the Emperor rank.
Mordred himself considered himself to be invincible under God rank. That's why he had full confidence.
"Is that Sword God Style?" Vulk faintly raised his eyebrows. "Then let's see what you can do. Are you ready?
"Ready."
The moment these words were said, Vulk shot out from the spot.
Mordred's expression hardened as he held his sword firmly in place. Red electricity crackled all over his body.
In the blink of an eye, the distance between them was closed down.
Vulk thrust out.
Mordred's eyes shone. Following his instinct, he smoothly swept aside the spear just at the right moment, then slashed out.
Longsword of Light: Mana Burst!
The sword cut down through the air and sliced off Vulk's left arm at the forearm like a laser.
Blood bursted out and the Superd Chieftain's arm fell to the ground. With this, his grip on his spear loosened and his weapon's tip dropped down.
Vulk stared at his sliced off and profusely bleeding arm in shock.
All the Superd's faces became equally shocked. With their reflexes, they could hardly follow what happened here.
"Let me heal you." Mordred de-summoned his sword as he felt that the fight was essentially over. He squatted down, picked up Vulk's arm and placed it against his bleeding forearm that Vulk now began to hold with his other hand.
Vulk grit his teeth and his expression twisted out of pain as his wound was touched, but with a flash of green light, he no longer felt pain. His arm almost immediately became just as it was before.
The Superd Chieftain blinked his eyes twice, then looked at Mordred.
Advanced Healing Magic was enough to reattach severed limbs. He knew that much, but he remembered that even Laplace could not cast Healing Magic silently.
His shoulders dropped.
He had no confidence in fighting Mordred again. This human boy was simply too absurdly strong. He was unfathomable.
"Chief, are you okay?" The Superds asked.
"I'm fine." Vulk waved his hand to make them relax, his eyes locking onto the little human before him.
Mordred said, "I'm sorry Uncle, it must have hurt. But I hope you can realize now that even if all of you teamed up on me, you might not win."
The Chieftain was silent, before saying, "I understand. Your strength and abilities are frightening, I admit that. But why did you go so far to prove your point and proposed a rematch? You have already won earlier."
"It's because I wanted to win in a fair manner, so you won't have any complaints." Mordred smiled, then added, "The truth is that there's something that I need from your Superd race, so I needed your trust."
Vulk slightly frowned. "You need something from us? What is it?"
"I need to quickly go somewhere, so I'll have to leave Rudeus and my dragon here… And I also need the help of one Superd warrior."
The chief was silent.
Rudeus asked in surprise, "Your Highness? You plan to leave me here?"
[And me too? No way!!!]
Mordred turned to them and in particular to Rudeus. "For a while. I'm in a hurry and need to quickly leave, but having to carry you will slow me down."
"Ah… I see…" Rudeus knew that Mordred could fly, but he would probably find it problematic to carry him as well for a large distance, wherever he planned to go.
Mordred turned to Vulk. "You can view Rudeus as a hostage. As long as he's here, I won't dare to reveal the secret of the Superds, right? But don't worry, I have no reason to cause harm to your people. You can trust me."
Vulk showed a wry smile. "Since we cannot stop you, we have no choice but to trust you. And I personally also think you can be trusted. But what do you need a Superd for?"
"To explore a labyrinth," after saying this much, Mordred turned his head. "Valeria, Rudeus, can we talk?"
…
Mordred, Valeria and Rudeus entered the Village Chief's auditorium room alone. Albion followed them.
Mordred looked at them and said, "The truth is that in my dream I had a vision. I met a person that claimed to be the god of humans and he told me that I need to go to a certain labyrinth. If not, someone close to me will be harmed."
"Oh… You met a god?" Rudeus asked, surprised.
Meanwhile, Valeria silently looked on with curiosity.
[That Trickster God, Hitosomething?]
Mordred continued with a plain smile, "I don't know if that person can be trusted… but I know that if I don't do as he says and someone important to me gets hurt because of it, I will regret it. I have no choice but to go."
This is how it was.
Hitogami probably sent him there because he wanted to buy time to set up his traps in other places, like the Kingdragon Kingdom, but Mordred had no choice but to follow his advice and still go to Begaritt. If something happened to someone like Eris, he could later only blame himself while Hitogami would point out that it was because he didn't follow his advice.
In the meantime, he can exploit Hitogami to gain useful information from him on the lost people and gain clues on his ultimate goal while fishing for a perfect chance to turn the situation around.
He didn't care about the traps.
Openly antagonizing Hitogami by going against his advice would be the most foolish thing he could do at this moment, since he wouldn't gain him anything from it and it'd only be a demerit. He already knows where Benedicte is, unlike the others. He also knows that the Kingdragon Kingdom shouldn't be a threat to him no matter what kind of trap they prepare, so there is no hurry to go save her.
In fact, Benedicte was protected by Hitogami in a way.
"And so I need to leave in a hurry and I'll also need the help of a Superd to explore the Labyrinth. Valeria, will you come with me?" Mordred looked at her.
Valeria looked excited by the thought, before she said, "I want to go, but there are stronger Superd warriors than me…"
"It's fine. I don't need the strongest Superd. I need someone I could trust."
Hearing this, Valeria looked slightly happy. "Then I'll go!"
Mordred slightly smiled. He only said, "You know, it might be dangerous."
"I don't mind. We Superds are no cowards." Her face showed firm determination.
"Good. Then tell your father about it and go prepare yourself quickly. By the way, we will fly through the air."
Valeria blinked her eyes twice, dumfounded. "Fly through the air?"
Modred chuckled. "Yes, I can fly using Magic Power. Go prepare yourself. Keep it light and bring something that you can use to cover your hair and forehead."
"Got it." After speaking Valeria, turned and left.
Once she walked off, Albion immediately began to wail, [Boss, don't leave me here! These Superds are scary! I don't wanna!]
Mordred looked down at him. Still, a child, huh? He said, "Superds are not dangerous, so you'll have to get used to them. Stay here. It's an order."
[...] This looked to have silenced the dragon.
Mordred let out a sigh. The Superd Curse was still a powerful thing, it seems. In canon it even made Eris lose her mind when she first met Ruijerd, didn't it?
He turned to Rudeus. "Rudeus, I will need you to stay here for now."
"I get it. But what do you think happened to the others… like my family and Sylphy?"
"They must have also been teleported to various places. But don't worry. If my suspicion is correct, then people close to us are most likely fine. That's because our Fate is strong."
Rudeus raised his eyebrows. Their Fate is supposed to be strong? Was that guess a good enough reason to be this optimistic?
Mordred also knew that it wasn't, but there was no point in worrying Rudeus. For some reason, he at least felt that Rudeus's family would be mostly safe out of all people. He would be Hitogami's main target instead.
"Rudeus, there are many things that I want to tell you, but there's no time and this isn't the right place. I only hope that you will trust me." Mordred looked at Rudeus intently.
"Hm? I'll trust you!" Rudeus replied without hesitation.
By now, after seeing Mordred's shining sword, shining armor, strength and all of his actions since they got to the Superd Village, he realized that Mordred was not just someone 'like a hero'. He was the Hero!
As a background character that just wanted to stay out of trouble, he had to absolutely make sure to not antagonize the Hero. This was the accumulated knowledge of all the anime, light novels and manga he consumed in his entire life, so it couldn't be wrong.
Mordred faintly nodded and said, "There are some secrets that I'm keeping from you. I will tell you all this later, but before that I want you to tell me, did you meet Hitogami?"
"Hito… gami?" Rudeus showed a confused expression as if he didn't know what Mordred was even asking about.
"I guess not. Hitogami is the person I met in my dream. If he ever visits you in your dreams, let me know."
There was a limit to how many people could be Hitogami's apostles at a time, so it's possible that Hitogami had no choice but to exclude Rudeus at this time.
"Oh, got it."
Mordred formed a small smile. "I hope I can trust you. And if you have nothing else to do, I guess you can try teaching Valk and the other Superd children Magic. Even if they have little Magic Power, they can improve over time."
"Okay."
"And like I told you before, Albion is very smart, so he can understand human speech and won't attack humans. For his food, just raw meat is enough."
"Got it.."
Mordred then took back the Magic Staff he gave Rudeus while taking Ascalon off his body and leaving it in Rudeus's hands since he had no need for his Demon Sword anymore.
As Mordred, Rudeus and Albion came out of the conference room, they were met with the village elders that were still waiting outside.
Mordred bid Rudeus farewell, and Rudeus was led to their temporary residence with Albion by one of the Superds.
Mordred pulled out his map of the Central Continent from his magic bag, studied it and decided on his flying course.
The Superd Village was in the north-eastern part of the continent. To put it simply, he had to fly south to reach Begaritt.
'Crap. I shouldn't have known that. I'll ask Vulk about this…'
After learning their location from the Superd Chieftain, he then sat down at the square and meditated with closed eyes. He thought of Hitogami's plans and how he should handle him.
For now, he could only do as he was told.
He ended up in that village with fairly low Mana, but his regeneration was extremely rapid. What he had and recovered should be enough for them to begin their journey already.
"Warrior Mordred, I'm ready."
Not long later, Mordred opened his eyes and saw that Valeria came back with a small leather back-pack.
Her eyes were shining. It seemed she was very excited about having a chance to see the outside world.
Mordred smiled. "Then let's go!"
Before setting off, Vulk approached them and wished them good luck.
After bidding their farewells, Mordred held the Ashen Sage in his hand while carrying Valeria on his back.
His armor prevented him from feeling Valeria's sizable breasts being pressed against his back, but this fortunately made things less awkward.
He still wore Saber Arthur's armor, but it didn't matter. As he used Gravity Magic, weight lost all meaning.
He then kicked off the ground with force.
As they shot out at a high speed, powerful wind began to hit their faces and flutter their hair and clothes.
Soon, a faintly visible flexible shield of wind surrounded them. The force of the wind suddenly disappeared completely even though they didn't slow down.
Valeria was surprised.
Mordred was positively surprised as well. In truth, it was his experimental use of Invisible Air, Artoria Pendragon's Noble Phantasm that served as the sheath of Excalibur, possessing the ability to control air!
As Invisible Air wrapped around them, it seemed to make them ignore all the wind resistance.
Mordred used Mana Burst, shot out a jet of red lightning, and the two shot upwards at break-neck speed.
With no gravity and no wind resistance, they didn't feel the acceleration at all, even though their distance from the earth was rapidly increasing as if they were a rocket.
After reaching sufficient altitude, Mordred gradually halted their momentum and looked at a compass. He rotated slightly and then shot out another red jet of Magic Power, instantly accelerating.
The two began to blitz through the air at a high speed like a fighter jet.
Mordred shot out a burst of energy again and again, and they quickly reached speeds that were probably several times the speed of sound, ten times faster than an average plane!
From below, one could see a red arrow shooting through the sky.
Mordred continued accelerating, faster and faster.
With nothing stopping them, he felt they might have soon begun to approach the speeds of a space shuttle – more than 20 thousand kilometers per hour!
After that, they continued at this speed.
Once again, with no gravity and no air resistance, there was no force that was slowing them down at all and they continued flying at the same speed without ever slowing down!
'Objects in motion stay in motion. Science, biatch!'
Mordred was awed.
It was something amazing.
The sights below them continued changing at a fast pace as they blitzed through the air perhaps twenty times the average speed of a bullet, but they still didn't feel that speed at all.
This kind of travel was akin to passing 1.000 km using 1 liter of gasoline and doing that in just a few minutes!
Mordred wasn't entirely comfortable with revealing Hitogami his maximum flight speed, but he couldn't delay his journey and felt it would have not changed much anyway - Hitogami already knew that Mordred can reach any place in the world at a short notice, but there was not much he could do about it regardless. Whether he showed that he can do it in three hours or an hour made no difference.
***
***
***
Name: Valeria Superdia
Nicknames: Val
Age: 122
Strength: C
Endurance: C
Agility: C
Mana: ?
…
[Superd Instinct B+]