The Villainous Noble Tried His Hardest to Break the Original Storyline, and Now the Heroines Are Acting Weird - 20

Chapter 20

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There were still magic stones left, so I poured all of them into the katana to enhance it. When fully enhanced, this weapon had an attack bonus of around +500.

By the way, the strongest equipment in this world had a bonus of +150. That so-called “strongest equipment” was the Hero’s Sword, which dealt double damage against the Demon Lord, so even if you doubled the +150 and called it 300, the katana still came out stronger.

And yet, this was just an early-game weapon in the world of Final Quest. If I could craft an end-game weapon, I might be able to hand it to some random soldier and have them take down the Demon Lord.

I lightly swung the katana I had taken out from the item box. Just equipping a weapon doesn’t instantly make you stronger like in a game. From here on, I’d need to train with this weapon as well.

There were regular longswords available too, but I went with the katana. Why? Because it looked cool. My excitement was rising, so I immediately headed to a dungeon to try it out.

Lately, the goblins in the Dungeon had been too easy for me, so I’d been going to a different one. It was a dungeon where golems appeared. The difficulty was probably about twice that of the Goblin Dungeon.

Of course, I could still take them out in one hit with magic—or with a sword. However, sword attacks didn’t exactly “cut” them—it was more like smashing them away. Would it feel any different now that I was using a katana?

As I walked through the dungeon, I soon spotted a golem. As I approached, another one appeared, raising its arms as if to threaten me. This golem would be the perfect test subject for a trial slash.

I immediately kicked off the ground and slashed through the body of the golem that hadn’t yet taken a fighting stance.

…Whoa!?

I cut through it easily. It really felt like slicing through paper. It went through smoothly. I was so moved by how well it worked that the other golem managed to land a hit on me.

I let it deal some damage. It didn’t reduce my HP much, but it would give me something to recover later with healing magic. Besides, it was good basic training for raising my defense status.

I brought down the katana on the second golem. It seemed to try to block by crossing its arms, but they were sliced clean off.

…Yeah. No problem at all.

Now that I’d confirmed the sharpness, I headed off to the next fight. I approached another golem I spotted. When it noticed me, it glared threateningly, so I returned the katana to its sheath and placed my hand at my waist.

Iaijutsu… Or rather, a clumsy imitation of it. I had wanted to try this out. That was why I made the katana. As I stared intently at the golem, it slowly started approaching me.

The moment it entered my range, I drew and swung the katana in one powerful motion.

Iai strike—! 

Maybe because my status was high, it was easy to carry out the action exactly as I imagined it in my head. With a clean slash, I severed the golem’s arm and then returned the katana to its sheath.

Yeah, going with the katana was the right call. Combat, which had felt like a monotonous chore for collecting magic stones, had suddenly become a bit more fun.

I was fairly satisfied with it. Maybe because it was a game weapon, wielding the katana didn’t feel all that different from a sword. I had planned to switch weapons if it ended up being hard to use, but with this, I could probably make it my main weapon.

As I repeated battles using the katana, I tried to learn how to move with it in actual combat, but… I couldn’t quite get a good feel for it. Why? Because I was too strong.

No matter how hard I tried to practice techniques or hone my combat instincts, I ended every fight in a single blow, which made it hard to actually train myself.

『Somehow…Just hearing that makes you sound like a jerk.』

『I mean, there’s just too big a gap in status. It can’t be helped, right?』

The Goddess let out a wry smile at that comment. 

But seriously, whose fault do you think this is?

All of my status was likely way higher than the average person. And not just slightly. I was far above even the knights who trained desperately every day. I’d been doing mock battles with the knights at the mansion, but not a single one of them moved better than me.

So I ended up relying too much on my overwhelming status during fights. To be specific, when the knights came at me with a series of attacks, I’d just swing my wooden sword hard and send them flying.

…Yeah, I knew I shouldn’t do that. But still, deliberately holding back my options felt wrong too. Even if I tried to move with self-imposed limits on my status, I’d just end up learning how to fight within those limits. At this rate, I might not get any of that real combat thrill or tension before I face the Demon Lord class enemies.

…Well, it is what it is. I’ll just have to train through trial by fire.

I was vaguely thinking about such things one day when my father came to the training grounds. When I turned to look, I saw that he wasn’t alone. There was a woman with him.

…Huh?

She looked familiar. One eye, one arm, red hair. Her bob-cut hair reached around shoulder length. She was a character I’d seen in the original work. As I paused my training with the knights, my father approached me with a smile.

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