Sol moved fast covering hundreds of meters in an instant despite wearing a supposedly heavy armor.
While he might be interested in playing around, he would never do so at the expense of someone else's life who wasn't an enemy.
It didn't take long for him to reach the place where the scream came from.
Once there he could finally hear the source of the previous scream.
It was a woman, a beast woman to be exact, wearing a brown robe and a pair of glasses. She had two rather cute raccoon ears and equally brown hair.
Currently, she was sitting on her ass and making herself as small as possible while four adventurers were facing what looked like a group of orcs.
The fight seemed to be going against them as the orcs were to his surprise, wearing something akin to armor and had weapons that, at first glance seemed quite well crafted.
'Hum…Did I see those guys somewhere?'
He tilted his head in confusion at the sensation of deja vu but decided that now it was time to focus on the rescue.
—-
The four adventurers were facing the current horde of enemies with difficulty.
"Fuck. It will be a simple mission you said. We can just relax a little, you said. So why the fuck are facing a group of armored orcs!?"
"Young lass, if you have the time to scream then you have time to kill. Stabs those bastards."
The dwarf shouted as he smashed one of the orcs with his hammer. But he could only frown at the sensation. It felt like all the strength he had gathered was being countered by their shields and armor.
The small amount of damage they received was immediately healed thanks to their natural regeneration.
‘Just from where the fuck do those bastards come from?’
Orcs in general were a pain to deal with exactly because of their superior healing ability and their higher strength. They were one of the few monster races that were deemed to kill on sight because of how destructive they could be.
But this went beyond everything he knew. Those armors even had a few runes etched on them.
The mission should have been a simple one. Escort, a merchant was bringing supplies to knights that were eliminating the bandits and then coming back. Nothing more, nothing less.
Sadly, hazardous situations like this were things that happened sometime.
“Guys, prepare for the retreat.”
He judged that the situation could not be helped anymore. They had no way of winning this without making a sacrifice and he would be damned if he let his companion die like this.
The bunny girl gritted her teeth but immediately nodded. She knew that she couldn’t be stubborn in such a situation.
Now it was important for them to walk away.
But….Just as they were about to retreat.
Whoosh!
The atmosphere changed.
Be it the four adventurers, the screaming woman, or even all the orcs who were clamoring in victory, everyone fell silent.
BOOM!
The wind stirred as the sound of something breaking the sound wall finally reached them and they watched in surprise and disbelief as someone wearing an ominous black armor appeared like a ghost in front of them.
Silence fell.
Even though he was completely alone. Even though he did not even show his mana.
All the people present immediately knew. That this thing was not something they could face.
The orcs, that were well in the dozens, took a step back in unison, realizing that they were facing an apex predator they should have no chance of winning against.
But, they remembered that their home had already been destroyed not long ago. They had no other place to go. This realization gave them the courage they lacked.
Surely, the armor they wore should be able to help them.
It was with such a thought that one of them rushed at the Black-armored man, their rawr echoing both as a way to instill fear in their enemy and courage in themselves.
Sadly for them…No amount of courage could change the reality that they were about to face.
Bang!
The bunny woman grabbed her ears and crouched down at the sharpness of the sound. It was like a cannonball had actually gone off and when she looked at the result, she could see that a huge hole had been formed in the upper body of the orc. The armor protecting it could do nothing to stop the punch.
Blood and gore splashed all around as the orc slowly looked down at its hollowed body before crumbling down.
Orcs had high regeneration capacity. This didn’t mean they were immortal.
“Tch! I didn’t want to kill it.”
She swore she must have misheard the words that came from the armor but she was not given the time to process what was happening.
What followed was not a fight.
It was not even a struggle.
It was nothing more than a pure and absolute massacre in its purest form.
Wherever he punched, something exploded. Sometimes it was their heads or their torsos. Once he even evaporated the entire upper body of the Orc.
Fleeing was impossible. Be it the orcs or even the adventurer, they were all frozen in fear as an aura of absolute domination spread from the Black Knight.
Finally, the last orc's head crushed between the fingers of the figure and its body fell heavily to the ground.
The massacre was finished, and one black knight with shining red eyes covered in blood from head to toe slowly advanced toward them.
The adventurer clenched their weapon. But they trembled so much they were barely able to even form words. They knew very well that if they were to fight, they would be obliterated even faster than the orcs.
They stood still as the man went past them and stopped in front of the raccoon girl, who was their employer.
“Worry no more. For I have taken care of all that may hurt you.”
He brought his hand toward her, seemingly in a gesture of goodwill. But all that happened was that the girl let out a horrible shriek before her eyes rolled back and she fainted.
A faint odor spread as a yellow puddle formed beneath her robe.
A cold wind swept past them as a silence of a very different nature befell in the room.
Looking down at the fainted girl who had pissed herself in fright at his sight, Sol gave a small depreciated chuckle.
He realized what he must have looked like to her now. He had become so used to people not even flinching while looking at thousands of corpses and enough blood to fill a river that he had forgotten that for normal people — This was in no way normal.
‘Let’s forget it.’
Sol closed his eyes and nodded to himself. He had been hoping to live through a simple and normal adventure. But he realized that such a thing was too removed from his existence.
“Well. At least it was fun while it lasted.”
He put his hand on his helmet and took it off before finally facing the four adventurers who were already kneeling on the ground.
“Your Highness.”
“Oh? You know me?”
He tilted his head and looked at them once again. The feeling of deja vu is ever stronger. Then looking more attentively at the bunny girl, something clicked in his mind.
“Ah. I remember now. You were the guys I fought in the arena.”
The dwarf and the other three did not even get mad at the fact that Sol had clearly forgotten their existence.
If they had any doubts in the past, the previous fight had clearly shown them that they were simply unable to even understand how powerful the prince currently was.
“What are the four of you doing here? Are you adventurers?”
“We were tasked with escorting the lady to the campground of the black knights. She is a merchant affiliated with the Traver Family.”
“I see. Very well. Apologize to her later on. I must go.”
Sol turned around. Since he had lost all interest in playing, he had no more interest in them.
“Your Highness please in an instant. May I have a little bit of your time?”
“Hum?”
Sol turned around and gave a curious look at the dwarf that had gathered the courage to stop him.
“No need to tremble. I am not a tyrant that will punish my subject just for speaking up. Now talk. What may be the matter.”
“Your Highness. Forgive my impudence but…I believe those orcs had a problem.”
“Oh?”
“As you may have noticed, their armors were different from normal ones. They were more finely crafted and have the ability to absorb a vast majority of the power from physical attack.”
“Oh? I felt nothing of the sort.”
Sol looked at the corpses curiously as he said so which caused the dwarf to cough a little in embarrassment.
“Forgive me. I believe your might simply highly exceeded the maximum threshold. Which is why it did not impede you. But such armors are rare even for high-ranked knights nowadays.”
Sol's gaze became sharp. He knew very well that such armor was meaningless against people of his power level. But for weaker people, in a war, for example, this kind of armor could change the flow of the battle.
“Now that I am able to think and rest. I can say with assurance that those runes are old dwarf runes from before the creation of Greed Dike. Such runes should have vanished.”
Sol’s eyes twinkled. It seemed like this adventure fiasco would not end in disappointment after all.
