"Well that's fucking useless then," Allen mumbled to himself, his eyes still fixed on the scene unfolding before him.
He kept his focus on the girl and the two men while his fingers rested lightly on the trigger of his pistol.
"Come on, we've to do this alone. Waiting won't take us anywhere," one of the guys in the front said, a hint of impatient visible in his voice.
He shifted his position a little and then with a flick of his wrist, a long dagger appeared in his hand.
It had multiple strange inscriptions etched along the blade.
"I agree. We don't have all day," the other one said, following his lead and drawing out a similar dagger.
As the both of them held the knives in their hands the inscriptions on them began to give off a faint, eerie glow.
It was a soft, pulsating light, something that was completely strange to Allen. There were no LED lights or power source that he could see to explain the phenomenon logically.
Magic, huh… he thought to himself. I wonder how well guns would fare against it.
He questioned for a moment but then decided to observe them further and made no move.
The two guys looked at each other, no words were exchanged but it was clear that they had come to some sort of understanding.
Then with an explosive burst of energy that sent the bushes around them waving wildly, they kicked off the ground. Hurling themselves toward the lone girl in the pond.
They were hiding quite near her so one long, magic-induced jump was all it took to reach her in an instant.
The girl looked to her side, her serene expression finally breaking as she sensed their presence, but it was already too late.
They were over her with their daggers raised high and ready to strike.
A cruel smile appeared on the faces of the two men as they realized that they had been successful in their task.
But to their surprise, right when they were about to stab her, something they had not accounted for happened.
A sword.
A sword was suddenly blocking the blades of their daggers, and the sharp clang of metal-on-metal echoed through the clearing.
It was a sword being held by the lone naked girl in the pond.
She had her sharp gaze pointed toward them as she continued to monitor their each and every move.
They were the ones who had been caught off guard, and all of it happened so fast that they never realized when the tables had turned.
Right when their blades were about to reach her, a sword, that up until that point had been lying on the corner along with her clothes, had come flying into her hands on its own. As if called upon by an invisible force.
"Tch!" one of them clicked his tongue in frustration. The next second, both of them leaped backward, putting sufficient distance between them and the girl.
"So today is the day you bastards make your move, huh," the girl said. Her voice calm yet filled with a sense confidence and pride.
She flung her sword to the side, shaking off the water and pointed it toward them.
"Did you really think that I wouldn't notice someone monitoring me for the past two weeks to discern a place and time where I was alone and with my guard down? Do you people really underestimate me that much?" she said, a hint of disdain visible in her voice.
"Hah, listen to this naked bitch whining before her death. Just shut the fuck up and accept your death, there's no one who's gonna come save you here," one of the guys cursed out loud.
Now, if only I was a classical fantasy hero this would be the perfect point for myentry... Allen remarked sarcastically.
"Leaving aside the totally obvious fact that I would have already prepared for reinforcements since I knew about you people, what makes you think that I would even have a need for someone to save me from the likes of you?" the girl jeered.
Then without waiting even a second for their reply, she launched herself toward them. Leaving behind a shock wave that cracked the ground beneath her.
The sounds of blades clashing resounded in the forest as the three of them engaged in a battle of sparks and clangs.
All of them were moving at speeds much faster than what a normal human was capable of, yet even someone as uneducated in swordplay as Allen was able to see that there was a clear difference in their speed as well as their skill.
The girl's movements were much more refined and she wasted not a single second to defend or attack against them.
Her footwork was as if she was having no trouble at all and was rather dancing peacefully instead of being engaged in a sword fight.
This continued for a few seconds, before she ultimately took a step back to adjust her posture.
"What, you scared?!" one of the men screamed as he hurled himself toward her, trying to take advantage of the opening.
She paid him no heed and lifted her sword up with both hands, a faint light coming out from the sword in the process.
She had already calculated the trajectory of the attack she was going to perform and was about to slash the man's body into two.
But before she could do that, she heard two loud bangs and both men in front of her stopped moving and fell face-first onto the ground soon afterward.
There was a hole in each of their backs right where the heart was supposed to be, and the flesh around it had burned and turned charred.
"That is quite rude of you, you know? They were my opponents," the girl said out loudly even though there was no one that could be seen near her.
About a second later, Allen stood up and came out from his hiding place.
He was wearing the light Kevlar vest given to him by the system along with the pistol that he held in his hand.
"Well, I can't exactly let you kill them since they were my prey to begin with. It would have been a problem," he replied.
"Oh? And here I thought you were waiting for the moment to ambush me after I'd killed them and had my guard down," the girl said, flinging her sword once to get rid of the blood accumulated on it.
As I thought, she'd noticed my presence as well. Allen commented inwardly.
It only made sense, after all.
If she was someone capable of detecting those two men who had hidden their presence much better than him and she had still snuffed them out, finding out Allen was obviously not a difficult task for her.
As Allen stared at her, keeping a firm grip on the gun and wondering whether she was included in the "hostiles" he had to eliminate according to the quest or not, a ding sound reverberated in his head and a translucent screen appeared before his eyes.
[CONGRATULATIONS!]
[YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED THE QUEST!]
[+200 EXP GAINED!]
[+100 CP ADDED!]