Hiiro had imagined this moment differently.
Not the dying part. That had never been part of the plan.
He had imagined the Commanders turning away from the wall and the rear formation splitting while the soldiers at the checkpoint realized someone had created an opening for them.
Maybe Captain Reinhardt would notice, maybe Astrid would admit the plan had not been completely stupid.
Misha would still scold him, obviously. Adults seemed to possess a natural gift for ruining perfectly good victories with lectures and list every possible way he could have died. But she would have to admit it worked.
He pressed both hands into the soil. Wet leaves crushed beneath his fingers. His arms trembled, threatening to fold beneath him. When he tried to pull his injured leg under his body, pain tore from his ankle to his hip. Nothing moved the way it should.
A blue window flickered across the corner of his vision.
「 〔WARNING〕
Stamina critically depleted.
Mana circulation unstable.
Muscular output has exceeded the current levels recommended limit.」
Hiiro clenched his jaw. He already knew. His problem had never been the six Commanders’ attack patterns. He had seen the shifts in their shoulders before they swung, he had caught the spear wielder’s rhythm, the shield-bearer’s blind side, and the slight pause the twin-blade Commander made before attacking from concealment.
His black-belt training had taught him how to move before Worldspire Online ever existed.
Years of bruised ribs, split lips, and bare feet sliding across training mats had carved those movements into him. Breathe through the pain, redirect heavier opponents, and never meet force where it was strongest.
Then VR games had sharpened what he already knew.
Inside Worldspire Online, he had climbed floors for hours after college classes ended, moving through simulated battles until the headset left pressure marks along his face. His Grandmaster character had chained attacks fast enough to keep enemies from recovering, turning one opening into ten.
Now he possessed the class for real when he woke up into another person’s body in the middle of the siege. The System had confirmed it the first time he opened his status.
「 〔STATUS〕
Tower Name: Shimura Hiiro
Name: Watanabe Souta
Rank: ☆☆☆☆
Class: Grandmaster 」
His class was built to turn speed, timing, and accumulated momentum into overwhelming pressure. It was why he had remained standing against six Commanders when someone at his level should have fallen in the first exchange.
It was also why the Commanders had stopped treating him as prey and surrounded him like a threat that needed to be erased.
But four stars did not fill an empty stamina reserve. The locked sections of his status window had remained sealed no matter how often he stared at them.
「Skill unavailable.
Level requirement unmet.」
The names beneath the restriction had taunted him ever since his arrival.
He had the class, had the combat sense, and yet his body had simply reached its limit first.
The spear Commander raised its broken weapon.
Hiiro drew in one breath as his old instructor’s voice surfaced from somewhere behind the pain.
"When the stance breaks, rebuild it."
He pressed harder against the soil, his elbow straightened by an inch, and his ankle folded.
The broken spear descended.
Clang!
The sound struck harder than the weapon.
Hiiro’s eyes widened when he saw another figure come in between.
Misha stood between him and the Commander. Her daggers caught the broken spear across both blades. Her boots had carved through the dirt beneath the impact, and the muscles in her forearms shook as the Commander forced its weight down.
She turned her head, her warm brown eyes met his over one shoulder. "This is why you should listen to adults!"
Hiiro’s mouth opened, blood ran over his lower lip.
"The entrance..." A cough caught in his throat. "That entrance was kind of cool..."
Her eye twitched in disbelief. "This kid..."
The Commander shoved harder. Metal scraped against Twinfang.
She twisted one blade aside. The broken spear struck the ground beside Hiiro’s head.
Before the Commander could pull its weapon free, Misha stepped beneath its reach and drove her second dagger into the gap beneath its breastplate.
The creature snarled and dark blood spilled around the blade.
Misha tore Twinfang free and kicked the Commander backward. It stumbled several steps, one hand pressing against the wound, but remained standing.
Hiiro watched her move between him and the monsters.
She spun both daggers once around her fingers before sliding them back into their sheaths.
The motion looked almost insulting. Five Hobgoblin Commanders stood in front of her, and she had put her weapons away.
From the ground, Misha looked much smaller than them. The nearest Commander stood nearly half a body above her. The shield-bearer alone appeared broad enough to bury her beneath its armor.
Hiiro had watched her fight before. She was careful, she measured distance, checked escape routes, and watched enemies until she understood enough to commit. Even when she moved quickly, there had always been a pause somewhere before it, the moment when her eyes finished calculating.
Five Commanders stood before her, and Misha stood with both hands empty.
Hiiro’s lips parted. ’That was–’
He swallowed the blood in his mouth despite the taste.
’That was some ridiculous aura farming.’
Purple light flashed through the trees.
KRRRSH!
Caius who was now behind Astrid, struck his staff-spear to the ground. Mana tore through the surrounding goblins before he turned his weapon and struck the chain wrapped around her arm.
Astrid stumbled forward, clutching the torn sleeve around her bleeding arm.
Misha glanced down at Hiiro. "Stay there."
He tried to push himself upright once again. "I can still–"
Her boot pressed against his wounded shoulder.
Hiiro dropped flat onto his back and pain burst down his arm. He winced and looked up at her. "W-was that necessary?"
The corner of her mouth lifted, then she turned away without answering.
The hooked chain repositioned itself and now six Commanders gathered in front of her. All six had turned their attention to Misha.
She reached into the blue light forming beside her hip. She pulled out a silver-blue metal. First the butt of a long weapon, then the dark grip, then a broad spearhead built to pierce armor. Stormpiercer settled into her hand before she rested the shaft against one shoulder.
"Come, Gerbaut."
A blue system window opened before her.
Hiiro narrowed his eyes, but the words remained blurred and unreadable from where he was.
He still recognized it. A skill activation, or perhaps another system prompt.
The forest went quiet. Although not truly. Arrows were still heard, cannon fire still rolled from the checkpoint, and shrieks were still heard from the monsters. But something around Misha seemed to press those sounds farther away.
Dust rolled outward from her boots, loose strands of black hair lifted from her cheeks. Her shoulders relaxed and the small tremor in her arms disappeared.
Hiiro watched her fingers shift along the spear’s shaft.
Only moments ago, she had needed both daggers and the strength of her entire body to stop the Hobgoblin Commander’s broken spear. Now Stormpiercer rested in one hand without weight.
Misha raised her head. Amber light burned in her eyes.
Hiiro forgot to breathe for a second.
Her face had not changed and the same dark hair framed it. But the person looking through her eyes was no longer the Misha he knew.
Hiiro knew opponents. His martial-arts instructor had spent years teaching him to read intent before movement. In Worldspire Online, he had learned to recognize attack animations from the smallest shift in an avatar’s stance.
Confidence had a shape, fear had one too, so did hesitation. But the presence inside Misha showed none of them.
Its gaze passed across the six Commanders once. Only once without needing a second inspection, no glance toward their weapons and no calculation Hiiro could catch.
The cleaver wielder charged and it swung with both hands.
Misha moved, Stormpiercer rose and caught the inner curve of the weapon. One turn of her wrist tore the weapon from the Commander’s hands and the cleaver spun into the trees.
The creature had not yet looked after it when the butt of the spear struck its knee.
The Commander dropped, then Stormpiercer slid beneath its jaw, the blade emerging from the back of its neck.
Misha pulled it free and the body fell.
Thud.
Hiiro stared at the corpse. He had spent longer breaking that Commander’s balance.
Whoever stood inside Misha had killed it before the dirt from its last step settled.
Seeing the strength of their newly arrived enemy, the five remaining Commanders attacked together.
The spear came from the front, the axe swept from the left, the chain curved through the air while the shield-bearer charged behind it, and the twin-blade Commander vanished behind the larger bodies.
Misha stepped forward, the chain passed her, the axe cut through empty air, and Stormpiercer struck the tower shield.
A crack split down its center. The shield-bearer staggered and the Commander dropped to both knees. She was already moving past it.
The axe rose again but Stormpiercer struck the dent Hiiro had left in its breastplate.
Once. The metal folded deeper.
Twice. The thrust disappeared into its chest.
Misha pulled the dying Commander into the path of the hooked chain, the iron hook buried itself in its ally’s back. The creature froze.
Pulling her spear free, she jumped along the chain before the creature could release it. She moved along the rattling links as though they were solid ground.
The spearhead entered through its ruined eye. It dropped without a sound.
「 〔SYSTEM NOTICE〕
You have assisted in defeating the Hobgoblin Commanders.
Combat achievement progress increased.
Grandmaster’s growth condition partially fulfilled.
Continue increasing Level and Combat Proficiency to unlock additional Grandmaster abilities. 」
He almost laughed. Even the System knew he had helped.
The shield-bearer roared and raised its warhammer. The twin-blade Commander appeared behind her at the same time.
Hiiro saw both. "Misha, look out!"
She did not turn toward his voice.
The hammer descended. She stepped inside its reach and struck both knees. The shield-bearer collapsed once more. Then Stormpiercer punched through the gap above its collarbone.
Behind her, twin blades crossed toward her neck.
She released the spear with one hand and caught it on the other, her body tilted and both swords passed over her shoulder.
Then she caught one wrist, turned beneath it, and pulled the Commander forward. Stormpiercer moved in a short silver arc.
The twin-blade Commander took one more step, its head slipped from its shoulder.
Thud.
The last Commander, the one with the broken spear, stared at the bodies around Misha.
For the first time, some of the smaller monsters stepped back as Misha turned toward it with no expression crossing her face.
Hiiro had seen artificial enemies retreat in Worldspire Online. Their behavior changed when their health reached a threshold or when a phase transition triggered. This was not that.
The Hobgoblin Commander roared and charged anyway. The broken spear thrust toward her chest but she shifted half a step and Stormpiercer disappeared beneath its ribs.
The creature stopped. Misha lifted the spear and the creature’s feet left the ground. For one second, its body hung above her, then she drove it into the earth.
Boom!
The forest floor cracked beneath it. Silence followed.
Six Hobgoblin Commanders lay on the ground and Misha stood in the center of them with green blood sliding down Stormpiercer and gathering at its end.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Hiiro could not look away. Neither could Astrid.
The smaller goblins had stopped moving. One lowered its weapon, another backed into the creature behind it.
Misha–Gerbaut–turned her head toward them. That was all it took.
The goblins broke and fled through the trees, shoving and trampling one another to escape the woman standing among their Commanders.
She did not chase them. Her gaze passed over the battlefield once before it turned toward Hiiro.
The admiration in his chest vanished beneath something colder.
Back in college, Hiiro had once stayed inside Worldspire Online until dawn, trying to defeat a hidden floor boss alone. It had killed his character sixteen times. He had pressed retry after every death.
Looking at the glowing amber eyes approaching him now, Hiiro knew there would be no retry button worth pressing.
Stormpiercer’s butt struck the ground beside his injured leg.
Thunk!
Hiiro raised both hands instinctively. "In my defense–"
Gerbaut looked down at him through Misha’s glowing amber eyes. There was no anger, no amusement, nothing Hiiro could negotiate with.
He slowly lowered his hands.
"A-Actually..." His voice cracked. "I-I’ll save that for when Misha comes back."
Astrid reached him first. She sheathed her sword and slipped one arm beneath his shoulders. "That may be the first intelligent choice you’ve made today."
Hiiro let her pull himself upright but his ankle folded immediately.
Caius caught him from the other side.
Hiiro hissed and pressed one hand against his ribs. "The plan worked."
Caius looked at the blood soaking through his fingers that slid down from his injured shoulder. "You were nearly killed."
"We bought time."
"You were nearly killed."
"We pulled six Commanders and dozens of their underling away from the wall."
"You were nearly killed."
Hiiro’s mouth pushed into a pout.
Astrid tightened her hold beneath his arm. "I believe Caius has encountered a dialogue loop."
Ahead of them, Gerbaut turned toward the checkpoint. The wall remained visible and arrows continued to darken the sky above it.
The timer hovered beside the distant battlement.
[Time Remaining: 00:08:29]
"Return," Gerbaut said through Misha’s voice.
Hiiro looked back at the six bodies. His plan had worked and his four-star class had carried him farther than his current level should have allowed.
「〔SYSTEM NOTICE〕
Combat record updated.
Grandmaster proficiency increased.」
Hiiro stared at it until the window faded. He needed more levels, more abilities, and a body strong enough to keep moving when his instincts told it to.
Next time, he would not need someone else to finish the battle he started.
He released a slow breath. "Yeah..." His grin returned, smaller this time. "Returning sounds good."
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