As soon as we heard the woman’s voice coming from the alley, Ethan, Agnes, and I moved without hesitation.

What we found was a brown-haired woman, Lisa, leaning against the alley wall with her head down, while a green-haired woman, Mel, lay on the ground, coughing violently.

"Hrk, cough, gasp! Hrkk..."

"......"

"Wait, stop! Both of you, stop fighting!"

...Damn, are we too late?

Even though I shouted for them to stop, it was clear the situation had already escalated. Lisa stood silently leaning against the wall, while Mel lay on the ground with red bloodstains spreading from her side. The bitter feeling that I could have saved at least one of them sooner lingered in my mind.

‘If I had acted a little faster, I might have been able to save one more…’

But regretting it now wouldn’t bring back the dead. Preparing for the upcoming battle in Bridget Village, I quietly pulled a dagger from under my skirt.

Mel, who was lying on the ground bleeding, recognized us and began to slowly rise.

"Ssshh..."

"Help me! That woman! She... she attacked me!"

"Thud, thud!"

"Don't run! If you move like that with those wounds..."

"She called me out here in the middle of the night and then suddenly pulled a knife on me!"

"Thud, thud!!"

"I'm telling you, you can't run! You need to stop the bleeding and head to the village hall! You need to rest there!"

"No, I can't! That woman... she just tried to—!"

"Slash!!"

"I can't hold back any longer! I’m going to make her pay for stabbing me like this!!!"

Mel, gripping her thigh, suddenly charged toward us, revealing a hidden dagger in her hand. As she thrust it toward me, I had already anticipated this pattern. With a swift movement, I deflected her dagger with my sword and, with my free hand, struck her wrist, causing her hand to fall to the ground.

"Thud!"

"...What?"

Mel hadn’t expected her attack to be countered so easily. Clutching her severed wrist, she staggered backward in shock.

I stared at her coldly, gripping my daggers tightly, fully prepared for the fight.

"I told you not to run, you bitch."

"..."

"If you didn’t want your wrist cut off, you should’ve stayed down. How can someone who was just stabbed be running around so energetically?"

Despite the lack of blood flowing from her severed wrist, Mel kept backing away as Ethan and Agnes also prepared for combat.

Before long, dozens of thin tendrils began sprouting from Mel's severed wrist, gathering and forming into a new hand.

"Impressive, isn’t it, self-defense instructor? I didn’t think you’d have the guts to cut off my wrist without hesitation."

"From the moment you started openly talking like a bandit sympathizer on the first day of class, I didn’t trust you. How could I believe someone who practically offered the village maidens to the bandits?"

"I was only pretending to be weak and disrupting the class on purpose. I didn’t expect you to start disciplining me during class. Do you know how exhausting it was to keep up the act of being helpless, unlike that other woman?"

With that, Lisa, who had been leaning against the wall, collapsed with a thud. A brief wave of regret washed over me, but I pushed it aside. Even if I had tried to save her, there was no guarantee of success, and if it wasn’t Lisa, another village woman would’ve been sacrificed instead.

The important thing now was stopping Mel from causing any more harm.

And, of course, Mel wasn’t the only enemy we had to deal with.

"Rustle."

"What the hell? You said there’d be fun, but there are only two women here?"

"You idiot, the fact that there are only two makes it fun. Imagine how much fun it’ll be when they’re skewered like pigs and begging for mercy."

"First to kill the guy wins. I’m taking the busty one, so hands off her."

"..."

Crack.

Ethan clenched his teeth as the group of bandits appeared, leering at Agnes and me.

Judging by the look on his face, he wasn’t planning on putting his sword down until he’d killed every last one of them. I just hoped his shoulder would hold out until then.

"What? Only two? That redhead’s a woman too?"

Snap.

"Do your eyes seriously think that’s a woman?! I’d rather fuck a goat’s ass than that flat-chested brat! Anyone who’d want to hold her must have some sick fetish..."

Boom!

"Aaagh! Fire! Put it out, damn it!!"

One of the bandits, who dared to comment on Agnes’s figure, was now screaming as his head caught fire.

I could use fire magic too, but from the power of the flames, it was obvious who had cast it.

"Agnes, conserve your magic. We’ll be fighting demons soon, so don’t waste it on these guys."

"Am I supposed to just stand there and listen to that?"

"I’m not saying that. I’m saying you should be more efficient. Men find their groins burning much more painful than their heads, after all."

"...What?"

Flinch.

"......"

Ethan glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, but I ignored him and continued explaining to Agnes the "efficient" way to use fire magic.

"Burning an entire head takes a lot of magic, but setting fire to someone’s groin uses less than 10% of that. The pain men feel is a hundred times worse than a burning head. If your goal is to kill them, sure, go for the head. But if you’re just venting, like you were a moment ago, this should be enough."

"..."

"Hey! Watch out for that crazy redhead! I bet it was that flat-chested bitch who used the fire magic…!!"

Boom!

"Grrr… ugh…!!"

Agnes took my advice to heart and immediately incinerated the groin of another bandit, silencing him instantly.

Fear began spreading through the remaining bandits, and fewer of them dared to focus their attention on me and Agnes.

"See? Much more efficient."

"Yeah, that was a good tip."

"...I don’t mind you using it on scum like this, but you might want to avoid using it on people you’ll have to see again."

"I’m aware of that."

Even Ethan, normally composed, couldn’t help but offer advice after witnessing Agnes’s devastating fire magic.

A few of the bandits tried to flee, but the tentacle-woman blocking our path quickly put a stop to that.

"Damn it! No one told me there’d be a damn mage! How the hell are we supposed to fight a crazy woman like that..."

Stab!

"Guh...! Khhh..."

"Don’t run away. It’s rude to leave the playground I created just for you."

Sharp tendrils shot out from Mel’s hand, impaling one of the bandits trying to escape.

Thud.

His body crumpled to the ground, lifeless. The sight sent a ripple of fear through the remaining bandits, but any thoughts of fleeing were quickly abandoned.

"I made this playground for you. Your job is to rape these women until they cry and beg…!!"

"Screw it! If I’m gonna die, I’m taking that bitch down with me! Kill the guy first!"

"Kill him! We’ve got the numbers, let’s just swarm them!!"

The bandits, driven by desperation, rushed toward us in a frenzy.

None of them seemed particularly skilled, so any one of us could probably handle them alone. Since Ethan had a bad matchup against Mel, it was obvious who should deal with the bandit mob.

"Dan, your attacks won’t work on that woman. You won’t be able to keep up with the regeneration speed of a demon like her if you’re just slashing at her."

"Yeah."

"While Agnes and I deal with her, I need you to keep the rest of them off us. There’s a lot of them, but I don’t think any of them are Sword Experts."

"Don’t worry. I’ll make sure every one of those bastards who insulted you has their tongue cut out."

Excessive anger can lead to recklessness, but for Ethan, it didn’t seem to matter.

After all, the reason Ethan became so strong as a child was closely tied to his… desires. In his case, a certain level of anger would probably serve as a kind of emotional doping.

"Vision, sharpen the blade."

Zzzap.

"Take care, Dan."

"You too, Lis. Don’t get hurt."

With our final words exchanged, Ethan charged into the bandit mob with his sword drawn.

The final battle for the defense of Bridget Village had begun.