With a single strike, the skeletal mage, hidden beneath its dusty dark robe, shattered into pieces. The powder left from its decayed bones spilled beneath the robe and scattered across the ground.

A gray cloud rose around the destroyed corpse, and the wind dragged part of the ash across the battlefield. Between the cracks in the ground, blackened bone fragments could be seen slowly crumbling apart.

After that, Marco looked at the colossus with palpable fury. He tightened his grip on the sword and executed that same rapid movement again, but when he swung a horizontal slash toward the beast’s neck, his blade bounced off the heavy armor.

The impact produced a metallic sound that echoed through the nearby ruined buildings.

At the same time, the skeletal archers hidden between the alleys drew their arrows and aimed toward the sky. The spearmen and swordsmen prepared to charge at him.

The spectral creatures moved in coordination, like a true squad trained for war. Their white eyes glowed within the darkness of the alleyways, and the sound of their bones creaking was unpleasant to hear.

Mitsuki watched in silence.

’Looks difficult. Without the power of Arcane Magic to kill specters more efficiently, maintaining a battle against so many different creatures of the same type is obviously going to be hard.’

Rather than criticizing Marco’s actions, Mitsuki tried to understand them. Now that his emotions were completely sealed away, it had become difficult for him to read the emotions of others, because those kinds of things no longer felt important to him.

Even so, he could still notice small details. The tension in Marco’s shoulders, the way he breathed between movements, and the desperation hidden behind every attack were obvious even to him.

Marco did everything he could to keep up. He pressured the colossus with repeated sword strikes, but when the skeletal spearmen and swordsmen attacked, he had to retreat before being surrounded.

His boots slid across the dust-covered ground as he stepped back. The endless sound of metal clashing filled the ruined street.

Right at that moment, the arrows flew overhead and rained down.

The whistling projectiles cut through the air like deadly rain.

Marco took a defensive stance. He positioned the sword beside his waist, holding it with both hands while the tip pointed toward the ground. Then, as if gathering all his strength into his muscles, he struck the air and generated a massive gust of wind that forced the arrows to lose momentum.

The current expanded violently, lifting dust, ash, and small chunks of stone. Several broken doors were blown away by the force of the wind.

The arrows fell harmlessly to the ground like twigs, but there was no time to rest.

Marco was surrounded. It was obvious that without Monar, he was nothing more than easy prey for the specters. No buffs, no support magic; it was just him against the world.

The creatures advanced slowly, cutting off every possible escape route. The colossus took heavy steps that made the ground tremble beneath its feet.

Even so, Marco gritted his teeth and glared at all of them with anger. He lunged forward, propelling himself with the sword in hand. The Skeleton Swordsmen launched quick, coordinated strikes from seven different directions. Marco reacted quickly, blocking every attack with his blade.

Sparks burst constantly every time the weapons collided. Marco’s movements were fast and precise, but they were beginning to look more forced than before.

He accelerated between two of the skeletons and used that opening to kill four of them with a single slash, but the Skeleton Spearmen did not fall behind, and one of them managed to drive the tip of its spear into Marco’s leg.

Blood immediately splattered onto the cracked ground.

He groaned in pain, but that only caused his anger to grow stronger. Standing near the skeleton, uncaring of how deeply the spear dug into his thigh, he shouted and buried his sword into its neck. Then he decapitated it with a swift motion.

The specter’s head rolled across the ground before turning into ash.

The colossus stomped heavily onto the ground, shattering it into small fragments. Behind Marco, it raised its axe, prepared to unleash a devastating attack, but the knight clad in dented armor from his battle against Cinderella turned around and blocked the strike with his sword once again.

The impact forced Marco slightly into the ground. Cracks spread beneath his boots as he endured the monster’s overwhelming strength.

The two struggled against each other for a moment, but that struggle was interrupted by two Skeleton Spearmen that mercilessly attacked Marco’s vital points.

He managed to move enough to avoid fatal damage, but the spears pierced both sides of his torso, creating wounds that immediately began to bleed.

"Damn it!" he cursed.

Blood soaked part of his clothing beneath the armor, and the pain caused his movements to slow for a brief instant.

Frustrated, he shouted with all his strength.

The echo of that scream traveled through the empty streets of the city.

Mitsuki frowned.

Something was wrong with everything Blondie was doing. The expression on his face revealed a deep desperation to surpass these bastards. It was as though he were suffering because of his own weakness.

Maybe that was when Mitsuki began to understand what was happening. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

This was not just training. Marco looked like he was trying to prove something to himself.

When Marco released that horrible, sorrowful battle cry, he straightened himself despite his bleeding wounds and continued fighting.

Inevitably, Mitsuki could not help remembering the moment he stood back up after half of his body disappeared from the powerful blow Cinderella gave him.

The memory surfaced suddenly. The sensation of his destroyed body, the unbearable pain, and his blurred vision briefly returned to his mind.

[ The passive skill "Emotional Anesthesia" trembles slightly. ]

’Hm... Curious, to say the least,’ Mitsuki thought as he read the notification.

He sighed and continued watching the battle, because from what Marco had demonstrated during the fight against the Warrior Princess, he could definitely handle the squad of specters.

The knight vanished, leaving behind an afterimage of his previous position. Soon, that distorted blur created by Marco’s rapid movements threatened to break the ground itself, because every time he moved across the battlefield, skeletons fell one after another in succession.

His attacks became far more aggressive. The sword cut through bones, armor, and spectral weapons in rapid metallic flashes.

The colossus, being large and heavy, could not keep up with Marco’s movements, but it could briefly withstand the sword strikes. However, its supporting skeletons had already fallen almost completely, leaving only the archers, who immediately began retreating.

The Skeleton Archers pulled back the strings of their bows, but one of them noticed Mitsuki and, with the creaking of its bones, alerted the others, who saw him and immediately started running away.

’Oh... This isn’t good.’

He had ruined Blondie’s moment. Either way, Marco was going to end up badly injured after this. It would be better to help him before his recovery became even more complicated.

Mitsuki stood up atop the tower, and the ash around his feet floated slightly.

Taking advantage of the archers retreating, he appeared beside Marco and directly in front of the colossus. He loaded his shotgun and fired.

Blue fire erupted alongside the roar of the weapon. The explosion briefly illuminated the entire street.

The colossus looked surprised for an instant; the glowing eyes behind the visor of its helmet seemed to tremble, but then its entire head and the upper half of its torso vanished without a trace.

[ You have defeated an A-Rank Specter. ]

[ You have gained XP. ]

The beast collapsed and turned into a mound of ash.

Part of that ash was carried away by the wind and slowly dispersed around the two young men. A small mana crystal remained on the ground, something Mitsuki had not seen in a long time.

’This is useful,’ he thought, putting away the shotgun and grabbing the crystal to store it inside his Spatial Storage.

The crystal vanished into the ash.

Marco, confused, stared at Mitsuki.

"Am I interrupting something? Because it looked like you were having trouble," said the Ash Boy.

Blondie placed a hand against his forehead.

"Where the hell did you even come from? What are you doing here?"

"The same thing as you, I guess. I was training a little while hunting monsters, but someone kept killing them all and leaving nothing for me. What a surprise that the culprit turned out to be you."

Marco sighed and fell backward onto the ground. He breathed heavily while staring at the sky. Mitsuki looked down at him with that expressionless face.

Marco’s chest rose and fell rapidly. His wounds were still bleeding, and the exhaustion was finally beginning to catch up to him.

"Well, what can I say? I want to stay in shape," he said, but then he noticed Mitsuki was missing an arm. "And are you really sure you can fight like that?"

"Oh, well, yeah? I mean, it’s a little hard to hold the shotgun steady when I fire because the recoil pushes me backward, and I won’t be able to use my sword anymore, but I can fight. Besides, Arcane Magic is the weakness of specters. I have an advantage even if I also have a disadvantage."

"Magic... of course," Marco muttered while looking away.