Chapter 3
Chapter 3
When I came to my senses, I was spitting out rough curses as I forcefully kicked August’s side while he was crouched down.
My kicking power, honed in the army and brought to full bloom through early-morning pickup soccer, combined with Leios’s body to unleash explosive destructive force.
Crunch.
The filthy sensation of bones breaking—several ribs along with an arm—was vividly transmitted to the tip of my foot.
I clenched my teeth even harder and kicked his body with all my strength.
August flew even more spectacularly than when Parsi had collapsed, slammed into the wall, and rolled across the floor like a doll with its strings cut.
“Keugh, keuheuu…….”
He soon regained consciousness and tried somehow to get back on his feet, but with his bones broken, it was obvious he couldn’t move properly.
As if to prove it, he kept coughing up blood and gasping in pain-filled breaths.
“Y-you bastard……!”
Even so, perhaps he still had some strength left, because he pointed at me with bloodshot eyes. I didn’t respond and instead held Parsi, who had collapsed on the floor.
“Are you okay?”
“Uuuh…….”
Parsi’s eyes, which had been steeped in pain just moments ago, were now filled with shock.
She then pointed at August with a trembling hand, but I shook my head and said,
“Don’t worry. Direct imperial bloodlines don’t die easily.”
“…Keuheuk.”
The moment I finished speaking, August spat out a froth of blood and passed out.
…Or not?
“What is going on!”
A muscular man wearing a dazzling uniform—likely August’s knight who had been waiting outside—burst into the room.
Compared to the commotion that had happened inside, he wasn’t exactly quick to respond, but when he saw August collapsed and vomiting blood, his face went pale as he hurriedly rushed to him.
“What on earth is this…….”
“If you don’t want that bastard to die, hurry up and make him drink a potion.”
I also took out a potion I had been carrying on me and opened the lid. Without any time to savor the sharp scent that tickled my nose, I poured it into my hand and rubbed it onto Parsi’s cheek.
“Fucking bastard, he really hit you hard.”
Just how much force had he used for the capillaries beneath her white, delicate skin to burst so badly they were on the verge of necrosis? When I opened her mouth and looked inside, it seemed like a few of her teeth had been knocked out as well.
“Ahua…….”
Parsi struggled, insisting she was fine, but I said sternly,
“Stay still.”
I had no medical knowledge, but I roughly straightened her teeth and then made her drink the potion.
Perhaps because it was a top-grade potion said to be exclusive to the imperial family, her wounds healed in an instant, and even her teeth returned to their proper places.
“Phew…….”
Thank goodness this was a fantasy world. Normally, it would have been the kind of injury that would make eating a struggle for months, but with a single potion, almost all of her wounds were healed.
Potions were seriously overpowered.
“Uuugh.”
In other words, August’s injuries could also be easily healed. When the knight fed him a potion, his wounds recovered not long after, and August soon regained consciousness, drawing in ragged breaths.
“You, you bastard!!!”
Harsh curses that didn’t suit a noble imperial were poured from his mouth.
But as if that wasn’t enough to vent his rage, he scanned his surroundings with a murderous expression, and soon his gaze fixed on the sword at the knight’s waist in front of him.
Clang!
“Y-Your Highness!”
The knight screamed as his sword was snatched away in an instant.
Hey, hey you bastard, you call yourself a knight and you get your sword taken?
“How dare a mere insect leave wounds on my body?”
Pushing aside the knight who tried to block him, he approached me with a face brimming with killing intent.
…I was fucked.
I looked around for a place to dodge, but the door was in the opposite direction.
I searched for something I could use as a weapon, but there wasn’t even a decorative sword, and I had no choice but to back away while hiding Parsi behind me.
“N-now, calm down for a moment.”
“As of today, the number of imperial princes of the Empire will return to three.”
August looked completely intent on killing me. I desperately racked my brain, but no clear solution came to mind.
I looked to the knight as my last hope, but having had his sword taken, he was just hopping in place helplessly behind August.
Fuck, he looked like he was about to start playing an orchestra or something.
“…….”
Suddenly, the practical combat techniques I had learned in the army came to mind.
With those disciplined movements to subdue an enemy, combined with Leios’s body, there should have been enough possibility.
What had the instructor said again about facing an opponent with a weapon?
[So unless you guys have the physical specs of someone like Fyodor or Tyson, don’t go picking fights with some bastard holding a weapon. I’ve got ten years in special forces martial arts, and if you handed a kitchen knife to an average adult man and told me to fight him, I’m confident I’d run away within three seconds.]
…Fuck.
I shouldn’t have remembered that.
It was something said by a guy who claimed he was pretty good at fighting.
A guy who said he could KO an average person within ten seconds, yet still told us with a serious face to run away—that was how big the gap was.
And what August was holding wasn’t some kitchen knife, but a well-honed longsword that made my flesh tremble just looking at it.
Ding.
“……?”
A hair-trigger situation.
Just as August was about to tear me apart without a shred of hesitation, an abrupt alarm sound rang in my ears.
Shuuk-
At the same time, everything visible began to slow down.
The sight of August raising his sword appeared slow, as if in slow motion, and every movement of Parsi screaming behind me stabbed into my senses.
“…This is.”
As panic threatened to set in amid the rapidly shifting situation with every breath I took, I stared wide-eyed at the blue letters written on the translucent window floating before my eyes.
[Synchronization Rate 10%]
[Probability has reached the minimum threshold. Status window and system assist functions have been activated.]
A status window?
…That wasn’t in this novel, though?
SSS-Rank Otherworld Absolute.
Shortened to SSSOA, it was a fusion fantasy novel based on a medieval setting.
Well, it was called a medieval setting, but like many other novels, it was really some unidentified mishmash that just copied the surface and mixed various elements together. Still, isn’t that how other works are too? As long as it’s fun, that’s all that matters.
Anyway, SSSOA had the typical mass-produced fantasy novel worldbuilding, but it didn’t employ a status window.
Of course, a status window had the convenience of letting you intuitively grasp the protagonist’s strength or growth. However, both I, as the editor, and Oneulnal-nim held negative views about including a status window, and as a result of our mutual understanding, we ultimately decided to exclude it.
That was why I’d felt a bit of regret over the past week. If this world had a status window, I could have assessed my situation more objectively.
Yet now, right before my two eyes, something that could unmistakably be called a status window was floating clearly in midair.
[ Synchronization Rate 10% ]
[ Probability has reached the minimum threshold. Status window and system assist functions have been activated. ]
Status window and system assist.
If you were a genre novel reader, they were terms you could roughly understand. What caught my attention was the latter—system assist.
It referred to what was usually called ‘correction’, a function in game-fantasy worldviews that supplemented incomplete parts when the protagonist used a skill or performed a specific action.
Whether it was a status window or system assist didn’t matter. I needed a way to break through this crisis.
And at the very moment I thought that, an anomaly occurred in my field of vision.
“……!”
Several semi-transparent trajectories appeared in midair. They followed the path of August’s swinging sword, extending toward me, and eventually drew a long line across my chest.
What that meant was clear.
If I stayed still like this, I would be cut down by August’s sword.
‘Is there really no other way.’
Parsi was behind me. Even if I threw my body with hers and tried to dodge, the situation wouldn’t improve.
In that case.
Step.
I lightly stepped one foot forward. Even grazing that sharp blade would slice something off, but dying like that or dying without doing anything were the same anyway.
August’s sword swung along its trajectory. Fortunately, his movements still came into my eyes one by one, like slow motion. Grit 'ting my teeth at Parsi’s scream coming from behind me, I reached out my hand.
Tap.
What I aimed for was the hand holding the sword. I didn’t even try flashy stunts like grabbing the blade itself like in comics. Unless you were a master-level expert, your hand would be cleanly chopped off.
“……!”
When the hand gripping the sword was seized by me, August’s eyes widened and he twisted his body. He tried desperately to break free, but that distorted the sword’s trajectory, allowing me to find an opening.
Thud!
“…Keuk.”
With my free left hand, I struck August squarely in the face with all my strength. A heavy sensation lingered at the end of my fist, and with a broken nose and spurting blood, August let out a groan and fell backward onto his backside.
At the same time, the sword he let go of rolled across the floor with a loud clatter. August, barely regaining his senses, reached out to grab it, but I kicked the sword away first.
Clang!
The sword struck the wall and fell limply to the floor. August stared at it with a stunned expression.
“…W-wait.”
Realizing the situation, the bastard began inching backward, his face drained of color as he tried to distance himself from me.
I lightly clenched my fist. When I entered high school, my parents had enrolled me in a boxing gym, telling me not to go around getting beaten up, but I never thought that memory would help me like this.
As expected, not a single thing my mother said was wrong.
“I-if you touch me, my mother won’t forgive you……!”
“Then I’ll tell Dad.”
Different mothers, but the same father, right?
Crack.
Twisting my waist with all my strength, I launched a punch driven by my shoulder straight into August’s jaw. His body lifted into the air as he was, seated, and flew backward, where the knight standing behind him blankly caught him.
“Uh, uh, uh?”
“‘Uh’ is casual speech. If you don’t want to empty that useless head of yours for insulting the imperial family, grab your master and get out, now.”
My wrist throbbed as if the forceful punch had strained it.
As I grimaced while holding it, the knight clutching August’s unconscious body hurriedly slung him over his back and dashed out of the room.
“Hey! Take the sword too!”
At my shout, the retreating footsteps came back. With his head deeply bowed, the knight picked up his sword rolling on the floor, then fled outside again as if escaping.
“What a ridiculous bastard.”
A hollow laugh escaped me in disbelief.
Not knowing what to do next, I stood still for a moment, when I heard the sound of many footsteps approaching from outside the door.
‘Did he already bring his gang?’
I’d swung with the intent to shatter his jaw—had he already regained consciousness and gathered his group? Still, with so many eyes watching, he wouldn’t recklessly start swinging a sword like before.
With a slightly resigned mindset, I looked toward the door, and several unfamiliar men entered inside.
“……!”
One, two……. Five?
The five men in neat uniforms halted with startled expressions the moment they stepped into my room.
No wonder—the once pristine white space was splattered with bloodstains here and there. Mostly—no, entirely—August’s.
“Your Highness, what has happened.”
The unfamiliar uninvited guests who came into the room asked me with grave expressions. In response, I pointed at them with an arrogant face.
“And you are?”
“…I am Nartel of the Red Copper Black Cross, assigned to guard the palace of the Third Prince, Your Highness.”
“I am Beuisha.”
“I am Kante.”
When I asked their affiliation, they wore oddly choked expressions. It was only for a very brief moment, but they even clenched their teeth.
If they were the knight order guarding my palace, that meant they were my direct subordinates, and they were probably upset at my attitude of seeing them for the first time.
No, it really was the first time I’d seen them—what was I supposed to do? If not, they should’ve built up some presence and appeared more often in the story.
In any case, there was no need to care.
The Emperor’s authority was absolute, and I, his direct bloodline, was rumored to be a scoundrel prince.
They would likely brush off a certain level of lawless behavior as just that.
As long as I was careful around fellow princes or high-ranking nobles like before, it would’ve been fine—but that ship had already sailed.
At this point, even if I offended the sensibilities of some leftover extra nobodies, what was there to hesitate about?