The Mob Noble Who Got Reincarnated in a World Where Men Are Naturally Protected—So I Trained Like Crazy to Protect Girls Instead, But Their Love Got Way Too Heavy - Chapter 09: You’re a Girl!

Chapter 09: You’re a Girl!

First, let’s lay out the situation.

The enemy is a goblin army led by an intelligent orc.

That’s way beyond what students should handle—normally, you’d send in an actual army.

And on our side? Just me, basically.

But hey, I’d been drilled in full-scale military combat since childhood.

Which meant—

“After them! After them! Damn it, why are they so fast!?”

“Bwahahaha! Now this is what it’s like fighting an intelligent monster! Come on, one more shot!”

“Gah!? H-How’s he moving like that!? Requesting aid—I’ve taken an arrow to the knee!”

I carried Wiz in one arm while nocking and firing arrows with the other.

Sure, the shots lacked the punch of a full two-handed draw, but if I aimed at the intelligent monster—the commander—the whole enemy formation slowed down.

So the battle looked like this:

An intelligent orc, the kind of opponent an army would normally take on versus me, a one-man army.

Tough opponent? Yeah.

Impossible? Nope.

“Awa-wa-wa… T-Tect, you’re… amazing…!”

“Knew it. Keep going—don’t hold back on the praise.”

I shot her a grin. Wiz turned bright red, hiding her face behind her hands.

No doubt about it.

My grand plan to “be the man who protects girls” was going perfectly.

Fueled by that certainty, I kept running until the sounds of pursuit finally faded.

Looked like we’d shaken them.

I set Wiz down and let out a long breath.

“Alright, that resets the info war’s back on. Whew, what a rush.”

“G-Good work, Tect…! And, um, you ran that far without even losing your breath… that’s amazing.”

“I trained like crazy for endurance runs. Downside is, I don’t have much mana.”

“Ah… well, that can’t be helped, I suppose…”

Yeah—if I hadn’t been born male, the whole family always said the world would’ve been mine. Guess it’s true what they say: heaven never hands you everything.

“Anyway, from here we should probably stay hidden, slip away quietly… then report to a teacher, and get soldiers sent out, um…”

“Hm? What are you talking about, Wiz? We’re obviously gonna beat them.”

“…Eh?”

“…Hm?”

We both tilted our heads at each other in confusion.

Then Wiz’s face slowly drained of color as she whispered,

“…Tect?”

“Intelligent monsters have high-purity, oversized magic stones. Not what I was aiming for, but they’re perfect for the missing piece of my pile bunker.”

Originally, my target was supposed to be a bigger—but non-intelligent—beast.

Because yeah, whether a monster had intelligence or not made a massive difference in how hard it was to kill.

“W-Wait a second? No way. That’s way too dangerous, you can’t!”

“I’ve handled stuff like this back home. Worst case, we just run again.”

“Run again!? Who says we’ll even get away the next time!?”

Wiz’s voice grew louder, stronger with every word.

And that’s when it hit me.

Yeah… maybe I pushed this too far.

“Sorry, Wiz. I wasn’t thinking about how you felt.”

“Y-Yeah. Exactly. So let’s just run away togeth—”

I placed a hand on Wiz’s shoulder, then pointed behind her.

“If you run straight that way, you shouldn’t run into any monsters. You’ll be able to get out safely.”

“…Eh, n-no, wait, that’s not… what I meant. I…”

“Then I’ll head out. Sorry for dragging you into this. See you tomorrow in class.”

I gave Wiz a smile, then turned on my heel.

On my own, I could move with far more stealth. Sure, those monsters had sharp detection—but not sharp enough to catch me once I went full stealth mode.

Yeah, girls had impressive mana-boosted physical strength.

But if they weren’t mentally prepared for real combat—like Wiz—they couldn’t really be counted as fighting power.

I darted forward, light on my feet. In a flash, I scaled a tree and slipped into the branches, gliding silently above.

Wiz couldn’t stop Tect as he suddenly bolted.

“N-No! T-Tect, you…!”

In an instant, he was climbing higher, and within moments he vanished into the canopy.

The fact that tree-climbing was part of his combat style was shocking enough—but even with her limited knowledge, Wiz could tell his technique was refined to an incredible degree.

This wasn’t normal “combat ability” by any noble’s standards.

It was something else entirely—skill forged in a completely different world.

Staring at the trail of ability left behind, Wiz swallowed hard.

“…Tect, you’re… really strong, aren’t you? Even though you’re a boy…”

At the very least, he had been toying with an intelligent orc.

And that orc—the commander—had been completely invisible to Wiz’s eyes the entire time.

It was like watching two invisible men clash.

That brief glimpse she’d caught—that was the true shape of their fight.

And Wiz, even as a girl holding a staff, couldn’t do a single thing.

But still—

“…”

She glanced back.

At the path Tect had pointed out—the safe escape route.

Then she turned forward again.

Toward the direction Tect had charged into.

A dense, tangled forest.

An orc horde crawling under the command of that intelligent monster.

Wiz felt her whole body tremble.

Of course she was afraid.

She was a daughter of the Archmage Scholar bloodline, but she had barely gone through any combat training.

Even if she tried to face the enemy, she didn’t know how much she could actually do.

A regular orc was said to have about the same physical ability as a noble girl like her—but the difference was in numbers. There were far too many.

And yet—

Tect had gone straight at them without a hint of fear.

“…I’m completely useless.”

She gripped her staff tight.

“Carried in a boy’s arms… only to be set down somewhere safe so she could run away…”

Sure, Wiz was an introvert.

She barely knew anything about fighting. Back home she’d been a shut-in—if she ever got into a fight with girls her own age, she’d probably lose every single time.

But still—she had never once heard of girls being protected by boys.

In every story in this world, no matter how weak the heroine might be, in the end it was always the girl who stood up for the sake of the boy.

“…”

Wiz stood frozen, lost in thought.

She was scared.

She had no guts, no real battle experience.

She had skipped most sword practice and combat drills.

Sure, she could use magic—but not at this kind of range.

So what now?

Run away?

Just sneak back home like Tect told her, leaving him to fight alone?

“…No.”

That was no good. Absolutely not.

“I’m scared. Of course I’m scared. Anyone would be scared of this.”

Saying she was on equal footing with an orc might’ve sounded nice.

But the truth? It was still a fight to the death. And when it came to that, there was no comparison between a monster born to kill and a sheltered noble girl.

If she were alone, this would be the kind of situation where you run without looking back.

Standing her ground would only be reckless. It would only get her killed.

But what if she ran?

Then Wiz would become the kind of girl who abandoned a boy and fled.

If that were all, fine. People had been calling her pathetic her whole life.

But what if that choice got Tect hurt?

What if he ended up injured—seriously injured?

What if she showed up to class tomorrow, and Tect never walked in at all?

“――――…!”

Wiz trembled. The thought of running away terrified her more than the thought of fighting.

It had been love at first sight.

He had taken the time to fix up a gloomy, plain-looking girl like her, and smiled as he called her beautiful.

Even though he was a boy, he had been genuinely passionate about the same complex field she specialized in—magic engineering. Nobody had ever connected with her on that level before. Especially not a boy.

There was no one else like him.

A boy better than Tect would never appear in her lifetime—

Not for an introvert like Wiz, ignored by everyone else.

To just sit back and let a boy like that walk into danger… there was no way Wiz could ever allow it.

“Tect… Tect…!”

Wiz bit down hard on her lower lip. Even a moment of hesitation felt like a waste now.

Tect was her first love. If an orc stole him away, her whole life would be thrown off course.

She’d never fall in love again. She’d just spend the rest of her days regretting the loss of Tect—lonely and bitter until the very end.

If that was the future waiting for her—

“Then…”

Wiz clenched her fists as tight as she could and forced herself a step forward.

“Move already, me! Even like this, I’m still a girl!”

Scolding her trembling body, Wiz broke into a run.

Straight into the darkness where Tect had vanished—straight into the orc’s domain.

“Girls protect boys! I’m not letting Tect face this alone!”

Weak, timid Wiz hurled herself headfirst into the jaws of death.