The Ultimate Sage Who Faked Incompetence and Was Disinherited Just Wants to Enjoy His New Life! - Episode 95: Battle in the Wasteland

Episode 95: Battle in the Wasteland 

Behind the workshop, perhaps for test cutting, there were not only barrels but also several bundles of straw. 

Some of them had already been cut—likely having been used for test cutting before.

A person from the workshop prepared a bundle of straw for us. 

“Please try cutting this. Its toughness is about the same as a real human body.” 

“O-oh.”

Jill was a little bewildered by being spoken to with the assumption that he’d be cutting a person. 

Even so, perhaps curious about the sharpness of the mithril sword, he smoothly drew the blade. 

The blade gleamed with a flash. It was a beautiful sword with a pale blue color. 

It looked like something good to display at home.

Without saying a word, Jill swung the sword. 

With a small slicing sound, the straw was cut. 

Jill swung the sword once more. 

Again, the same kind of sound rang out, and the straw was cut cleanly. 

After that, he examined the sword for a while.

“The sharpness doesn’t seem to be a problem.” 

“Thank you very much.”

He seemed somewhat satisfied. After thanking them, he paid. 

We had brought the material ourselves, so we only paid the manufacturing cost. 

Naturally, it was far cheaper than buying a mithril sword from a store.

After leaving the workshop, we walked the road with fewer words than usual. 

Even Jill, as expected, seemed confused by this type of sword he had never used before.

“Jill, want to go try it out?” 

“Yeah. Is there a good place around here?” 

“If you leave the town and head north along the highway, there’s a wasteland where monsters appear. That might be a good place. If it’s there, we can still get back within the day.”

Ardan said this, perhaps being considerate. 

It’s true that unless you actually use it, you won’t know for sure how it feels. 

At the very least, the sharpness seems real—the rest is just a matter of Jill getting used to it.

“Let’s go try it. We haven’t had many chances to fight lately. We should go to keep our battle instincts sharp.” 

“I think so too. If I don’t use magic once in a while, I feel like I’ll forget how.”

I don’t think one could forget magic. But Lilia agreed too. 

Maybe noticing our concern, Jill gave a small wry smile.

“Well then, let’s go do a bit of test cutting.” 

“If we’re going now, we’ll have to go with magical enhancement. If we’re following the highway, the road should be flat—no problem.”

Elise also agreed. 

As long as the road was decent, Elise could run on her own power. 

She seemed to prefer that over being carried.

Having decided to head for the wasteland, we immediately left the town of Kikyo. 

Running north along the highway, we left the road when we saw the wasteland ahead in the distance. 

Thanks to the enhancement magic, we reached our destination in about two hours.

There, small stones and rocks were scattered all over. And the gray earth was exposed. 

A few dried-up trees were visible. But no grass or flowers grew at our feet.

“Doesn’t look like there’s any plant-type materials around here.” 

“Then maybe there are mineral-type materials instead? Around us… it doesn’t look like there’s anyone else besides us.”

Lilia probably checked the surroundings with Analyze. 

After a brief pause, she said that. 

When I looked around too, it seemed like a fair number of monsters were present. 

For now, they were just watching us from a distance. It was likely because we had entered their territory.

“Just like the rumors, there are monsters here.” 

“Yeah, looks like it.”

Ardan and Jill looked around the area. 

They were hiding behind rocks. But if you looked closely, you could see monsters peeking out from behind. 

It looked like beast-type monsters, walking on all fours, were observing us.

“Wild Panthers. They can move quickly even in bad terrain. So they have the advantage here.”

“Looks like they know that too. They’re trying to surround us before attacking.”

“What do we do? Should we blast them with magic?”

It might be a good idea to use magic to flush them out from behind the rocks. 

If they had nowhere to hide, we could probably shake up the Wild Panthers a bit.

“No, let’s leave this to Jill. He didn’t really get to shine during the Kobold King fight, so it seemed like he was left unsatisfied. It’s probably better to let him get it out of his system here.”

Upon hearing that, Jill drew his sword and stepped forward. 

He looked like he was ready. 

Even though the weapon was unfamiliar, he probably wouldn’t make a fatal mistake—still, just in case, I prepared to support him at any time.

When Jill took another step forward, a Wild Panther leapt out from behind the rock. Jill cut it down with a single slash. Without even a cry, it turned into a magic stone. Immediately, two more Wild Panthers pounced from a different direction.

He effortlessly cut one, and blocked the other’s attack with his sword. 

Huh, that’s strange? If it were Jill, he should’ve already sliced the other one with a return stroke. 

Jill deflected the Wild Panther’s attack and followed up with a strike, turning it into a magic stone.

“The sharpness really is good, but… maybe because I’m not used to it, it’s hard to fight with. The side with the blade is easy to use, but the other side… I just don’t get how to use it.” 

“For now, you’d better just focus on the side with the blade. If you mess up, you could hurt yourself with your own weapon.” 

“True enough.”

It seems he was able to test the sharpness. But in terms of handling, it doesn’t seem to be very good. 

Looks like once we return to the Kingdom of Fortune, we’ll have to get it remade. 

Fortunately, we still have mithril left. We can probably make a few more mithril swords.

After defeating several more monsters, it seemed Jill gradually got used to using the sword. 

His movements lost their hesitation, and he began to defeat monsters smoothly. 

Looks like it won’t be a waste after all.

“Grrraaah!” 

“Whoops, Fire Arrow!”

The monster that attacked from behind was taken down by Lilia using magic. 

As always, she seemed quite skilled at handling magic. She was defeating monsters without wasting any spells.

Still, I felt like there were more monsters than expected. 

Even though we were defeating them at a decent pace, it felt like they just kept coming one after another.

“Ardan, was there talk of this place being packed with monsters?” 

“As far as I heard, there were monsters. But not that many, and no strong ones.” 

“Then doesn’t it seem like there are too many?”

Apparently, Elise had started to notice it too. She voiced her doubt with a slightly tense expression. 

Ardan also seemed to feel something was off and started to think.

“Jill, let’s head back to the highway.” 

“Got it. Thanks to that, I really got the feel of it. The sword’s pretty good too.” 

“Glad the mithril didn’t go to waste.”

Saying that, we started walking back the way we came. 

We hadn’t even gone that deep in, and yet we’d encountered that many monsters. 

If we went deeper, there might be even more monsters.

Once we reached the highway, we took a break. 

There was probably about an hour until sunset. But considering the time needed to return, we figured it was best to head back soon.

“If we leave now, we should reach the town of Kikyo before sunset.” 

“Going back is a done deal. But more importantly—what do we do? I feel like there’s something in that wasteland.” 

“I think so too.”

The two people and one animal who heard my conversation with Lilia also nodded. 

Only Jill had a face that said he didn’t quite get it. 

When I explained to Jill what we’d sensed earlier, he also said he felt like we had defeated quite a lot of monsters.

When we counted the magic stones we had picked up, there were over thirty. 

For that many to be so close to the highway—it definitely seemed abnormal.

“This is suspicious.”

Lilia folded her arms and glared at the magic stones piled in front of her. 

There was a wrinkle forming between her eyebrows.

“What’s beyond that wasteland?” 

“I haven’t heard anything about that. I only asked if there was a place nearby where monsters lived.” 

“Then we need to go back to town and gather information. There’s a chance that monsters are overflowing from somewhere due to a sudden outbreak.”

Apparently, Elise was already assuming the worst-case scenario. 

Another possibility was that there was a dungeon beyond that wasteland. And monsters were coming out of it in large numbers.

The best-case scenario would be that the wasteland just naturally had this many monsters living there from the beginning.

“Alright, let’s hurry back. If we go now, we should still be able to talk to people in town.”

Once our break was over, we hurried back to Kikyo Town the same way we had come.